The Ancient Profession 2024-06-24

[killer905]

3 hours ago, ruddycray said:

 

I've got it on my list. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Hmm, you'll probably need to do some analysis first to see if these functions from this MCMHelper don't use specific functions that may not work on LE.

[ruddycray]

10 hours ago, killer905 said:

Hmm, you'll probably need to do some analysis first to see if these functions from this MCMHelper don't use specific functions that may not work on LE.

 

It would be straightforward enough to add a built-in import/export without an external tool. It could even be automatic. There are already things that TAP loads from JSON files anyway. I don't know whether migrating to MCMHelper would be feasible or worth it at this point, but when I do get around to implementing this I'll look into it.

Edited March 3, 2024 by ruddycray

[killer905]

2 hours ago, ruddycray said:

 

It would be straightforward enough to add a built-in import/export without an external tool. It could even be automatic. There are already things that TAP loads from JSON files anyway. I don't know whether migrating to MCMHelper would be feasible or worth it at this point, but when I do get around to implementing this I'll look into it.

Okay

[kamithemoon]

On 2/28/2024 at 1:27 PM, ruddycray said:

 

Thanks! I don't know if that's the exact right word for what I'm going for either but one of several reasons I started making TAP was that I did feel like there are a lot of mods that come across a bit hateful and not enough that don't. Which is fine for people who want that. I just don't.

I managed to get all the prostitution licenses and I appreciate the fun quests.  Respectful isn't quire the right word, I know, but I can't quite put my finger on what I want to say.  But its odd, I actually feel proud to have my character join Dibella's Garden (while I low key despise Benjen).  Never felt like this with other prostitution mods before, where I normally just whore as a game mechanic for easy gold.

 

I was quite surprised on the Markarth quest and the dialogue between the characters.  It was quite touching.  Huh, never thought a Skyrim mod would alter my perception of prostitution.  Dude, all I can say is good job and this is a great mod!

 

Also, I was one of those folks who saw that v0 beta tag and thought I should stay clear until you reached a v1.0.  I'm glad you changed your naming scheme to release numbers or I would never have tried it and would have been worse off because of it.

[kamithemoon]

I just realized my worldview of prostitution comes mostly from exaggeration through musical theater.  Lovely Ladies from Les Misérables and The Girls of the Night from the Jekel and Hyde musical playing the largest roles.  Beautiful music but tragically exploitative and sorrowful.  I just never considered that there could be a different point of view.

 

I'm looking forward to completing more of these TAP quests.

[ruddycray]

58 minutes ago, kamithemoon said:

I just realized my worldview of prostitution comes mostly from exaggeration through musical theater.  Lovely Ladies from Les Misérables and The Girls of the Night from the Jekel and Hyde musical playing the largest roles.  Beautiful music but tragically exploitative and sorrowful.  I just never considered that there could be a different point of view.

 

I'm looking forward to completing more of these TAP quests.

 

Of course, some of what's in TAP is there just because this is a fantasy world where I want to have fun playing it. As much as everyone loves to hate Benjen, and he is the face of that extremely exploitative side, I have no intention of portraying even any of his girls as just full of despair and devoid of joy. Given just how bad he really is, many of them probably would be in real life, because it is very strongly implied that he's pressing girls into a life of what is effectively sexual slavery that is nearly impossible to escape. The evil of that will even play into his downfall. But I'm still going to balance just how hard I'm depicting any of that. Making players a little uncomfortable can make for compelling stories. Making players extremely uncomfortable makes it not fun anymore.

 

The depictions in those songs are of women who are prostitutes because they are at rock bottom, doing what they do because it's literally the only way they can avoid starvation. And they probably wouldn't turn to it before that because there's such a stigma on being a whore. I don't know whether that's an exaggeration, but it is showing a specific set of circumstances that probably isn't true for all prostitutes all the time, in its own way exploiting it to establish how far down one of the characters has fallen.

 

I'm not going to show that alone in TAP, not only because it's joyless but also because it's monotonous. And sometimes it can be fun and interesting to explore what might be in a world where that stigma isn't altogether gone but isn't quite so venomous, and where other consequences don't really exist.

[kamithemoon]

1 hour ago, ruddycray said:

 

Of course, some of what's in TAP is there just because this is a fantasy world where I want to have fun playing it. As much as everyone loves to hate Benjen, and he is the face of that extremely exploitative side, I have no intention of portraying even any of his girls as just full of despair and devoid of joy. Given just how bad he really is, many of them probably would be in real life, because it is very strongly implied that he's pressing girls into a life of what is effectively sexual slavery that is nearly impossible to escape. The evil of that will even play into his downfall. But I'm still going to balance just how hard I'm depicting any of that. Making players a little uncomfortable can make for compelling stories. Making players extremely uncomfortable makes it not fun anymore.

 

The depictions in those songs are of women who are prostitutes because they are at rock bottom, doing what they do because it's literally the only way they can avoid starvation. And they probably wouldn't turn to it before that because there's such a stigma on being a whore. I don't know whether that's an exaggeration, but it is showing a specific set of circumstances that probably isn't true for all prostitutes all the time, in its own way exploiting it to establish how far down one of the characters has fallen.

 

I'm not going to show that alone in TAP, not only because it's joyless but also because it's monotonous. And sometimes it can be fun and interesting to explore what might be in a world where that stigma isn't altogether gone but isn't quite so venomous, and where other consequences don't really exist.

I forgot to throw in a little Miss Siagon in there as well.  But yeah, I prefer your narrative in this and the stories you're crafting.  I find it much more entertaining and fun (except for Benjen, of course) to imagine.  I'm glad I found this mod.

[nothing2lose]

how to start one bad apple quest? i read that u need to convince jarl to reopne dibela garden but doesnt brother already open at the start and also which jarl?

Edited March 7, 2024 by nothing2lose

[killer905]

12 minutes ago, nothing2lose said:

how to start one bad apple quest? i read that u need to convince jarl to reopne dibela garden but doesnt brother already open at the start and also which jarl?

Jarl of Whiterun

 

How start:
One Bad Apple

• Convince the Jarl to let Dibella's Garden reopen and to release Audhild from jail
• Earn 3000 gold as a whore after joining to unlock
• The quest can start in several ways:
  • Use magic travel to go to the Dibella's Garden brothel in Whiterun
  • Speak to the guards outside the door of the Whiterun Dibella's Garden
  • Speak to Catia in The Bannered Mare
  • Speak to Audhild in the Dragonsreach Dungeon

[nothing2lose]

36 minutes ago, killer905 said:

Jarl of Whiterun

 

How start:
One Bad Apple

• Convince the Jarl to let Dibella's Garden reopen and to release Audhild from jail
• Earn 3000 gold as a whore after joining to unlock
• The quest can start in several ways:
  • Use magic travel to go to the Dibella's Garden brothel in Whiterun
  • Speak to the guards outside the door of the Whiterun Dibella's Garden
  • Speak to Catia in The Bannered Mare
  • Speak to Audhild in the Dragonsreach Dungeon

there is no dialog option on jarl balgruf

[ruddycray]

9 hours ago, nothing2lose said:

there is no dialog option on jarl balgruf

 

Have you earned 3000 gold as a prostitute after joining Dibella's Garden? Have you seen the guards standing outside the Whiterun brothel?

[nothing2lose]

4 hours ago, ruddycray said:

 

Have you earned 3000 gold as a prostitute after joining Dibella's Garden? Have you seen the guards standing outside the Whiterun brothel?

oh i thought need to ask the jarl first then earned 3000 gold after the quest started. might want to swap the order on the guide to not make people confused.

[ruddycray]

3 hours ago, nothing2lose said:

oh i thought need to ask the jarl first then earned 3000 gold after the quest started. might want to swap the order on the guide to not make people confused.

 

The format of the guide is that the bit in italics is describing the main idea of what the quest is.

[unnamed2111]

How to change brothel guests gender or race? I was looking through the source but couldn't find anything related to allocating guests.

[ruddycray]

4 hours ago, unnamed2111 said:

How to change brothel guests gender or race? I was looking through the source but couldn't find anything related to allocating guests.

 

There are no such options right now.

[Clea Strange]

any possibility for forsworn quests or even bandits?

[ruddycray]

2 hours ago, Clea Strange said:

any possibility for forsworn quests or even bandits?

 

I'm not altogether opposed to the idea. Not much chance of any kind of waltz into a bandit camp and work as a prostitute stuff, but I could definitely see Benjen hiring you out to bandits. I also have some thoughts of doing a little mini-story with the partially blind girl in Whiterun. I don't know for sure how I'd work Forsworn in outside of where I've started to pull them into the Temple of Dibella story, but I'd entertain ideas.

[xtrange988]

2 hours ago, ruddycray said:

 

I'm not altogether opposed to the idea. Not much chance of any kind of waltz into a bandit camp and work as a prostitute stuff, but I could definitely see Benjen hiring you out to bandits. I also have some thoughts of doing a little mini-story with the partially blind girl in Whiterun. I don't know for sure how I'd work Forsworn in outside of where I've started to pull them into the Temple of Dibella story, but I'd entertain ideas.

 

Maybe a peaceful route to get the Sybil? That place is just one Briarheart and 11 girls, no other males, no hagravens. there's no other forsworn camp with a similar composition, I assume they are his wives. Dibella's quest can be hard for a low level player starting in Markarth. Perhaps if the player is a breton she can meet someone on the bridge next to the fort (his 12th future wife), take her place, get him drunk and tired and then steal the sybil. That way it would play nice with the other quest in that place. Just an idea.

Edited March 12, 2024 by xtrange988

[Dread and Awful Presences]

Apologies if this has already been asked, but any news on the next update? I've played through this mod many times and I'm always eagerly waiting for more content. I'm also interested in the continuation of the Dawnstar questline with the kidnappings, and would love to know if we can expect more there in the foreseeable future! 

[ruddycray]

10 hours ago, Dread and Awful Presences said:

Apologies if this has already been asked, but any news on the next update? I've played through this mod many times and I'm always eagerly waiting for more content. I'm also interested in the continuation of the Dawnstar questline with the kidnappings, and would love to know if we can expect more there in the foreseeable future! 

 

I don't have much news to share right now. I've had unfortunately little time to work on this lately. I have other things going on that have had to take priority, and that stuff isn't quite over yet.

 

I have made some updates on the Dawnstar line, but the nature of that is going to be that I can't release any of it until I'm done with all of it. I was actually hoping to make that the focus of the next release but I don't know if that will be realistic.

[vjnmrf]

A small note
Vanixet often gets stuck along the path from the tavern to his workshop. And if it’s already up, then you have to reboot. It would be nice to add the option “wait for me there” to the dialogue, or even eliminate this unnecessary trip altogether - “come to my workshop, I’ll mark it on the map”

[ruddycray]

22 hours ago, vjnmrf said:

A small note
Vanixet often gets stuck along the path from the tavern to his workshop. And if it’s already up, then you have to reboot. It would be nice to add the option “wait for me there” to the dialogue, or even eliminate this unnecessary trip altogether - “come to my workshop, I’ll mark it on the map”

 

I have something in my list to deal with this. Normally the game does jump him past the points where he gets stuck, but there is some problem with the vanilla navmesh in that area.

[AnonAngelion]

I play the LE port version, so posted this over there as well, not sure if that is the right place to report bugs however so I'll post it here as well.

 

Couple of issues with the benjen questline.

 

Political favor quest is not progressing, after reaching the part where it tells me to "Meet gisli in her room at around 10pm", not only does gisli not return to her room from her usual vanilla routine until about 12am, neither she nor anyone else involved in the quest have anything further to say, and I cannot progress the quest any farther.

 

The "tasting" special job is broken, after going to the tasting room to carry out the instructed job, no one has any dialogue that progresses the job.

I tried leaving the brothel which fails the quest, I thought I could do that to reset everything and start afresh but no... benjen just chastises me for leaving, then tells me to carry on with the same job.

Upon going back to the tasting room, the girls now are headless and T-posing and benjen who tells me to meet him down there, just stands in his usual spot, refusing to "meet me down there" like he asked lol...

There is no way to cancel this once started, meaning I can no longer do anything with benjens questline, it's just broken now. 😑

 

Regarding the "Extra special jobs", visiting the vampires den... I don't know if this is intended or not, but there doesn't seem to be a way to complete the job successfully without resulting in the Player Character dying, resulting in a reload, or if one has a defeat mod active like "Naked Defeat", waking up outside the den in a defeat scene, which gets confused and locks the controls, disallowing me from moving or turning the camera until I reload a previous save.

The "Cleaning the cage" job seems to work fine however.

 

There appears to be a few brothels around added by the mod, and I haven't had the chance to try them all yet, but benjen won't even allow me any way to stop working for him... a thematic choice I understand, but as a failsafe, there really should be a way to stop working for him, in the event that stuff like the above happens, as now I'm literally gonna have to start a new game or uninstall the mod/reinstall it in order to carry on with other things.

 

Sorry if I sound a little irritated, I spent quite a bit of time testing things and trying to get it to work, or find a workaround to no avail, so I'm just a little disappointed is all.

I totally get there will be bugs with large mods like this, it just sucks when the bugs stop progress altogether, I really like what this mod is trying to do, and I don't want to give up on it.

Will probs just have to reinstall it for now and start over.

[killer905]

2 hours ago, AnonAngelion said:

The "tasting" special job is broken, after going to the tasting room to carry out the instructed job, no one has any dialogue that progresses the job.

I tried leaving the brothel which fails the quest, I thought I could do that to reset everything and start afresh but no... benjen just chastises me for leaving, then tells me to carry on with the same job.

Upon going back to the tasting room, the girls now are headless and T-posing and benjen who tells me to meet him down there, just stands in his usual spot, refusing to "meet me down there" like he asked lol...

Hmm, you are the next person to have a problem with T-pose and no head NPCs. I myself have not experienced such a problem on my current setup. 

 

But the way around this problem is to save/fast save and load it. As for the rest of the problems they were and had their patch, but for example the problem with Gisli in Political favor I didn't have (Some mod changing her routine?).

[ruddycray]

8 hours ago, AnonAngelion said:

I play the LE port version, so posted this over there as well, not sure if that is the right place to report bugs however so I'll post it here as well.

 

Couple of issues with the benjen questline.

 

Political favor quest is not progressing, after reaching the part where it tells me to "Meet gisli in her room at around 10pm", not only does gisli not return to her room from her usual vanilla routine until about 12am, neither she nor anyone else involved in the quest have anything further to say, and I cannot progress the quest any farther.

 

The "tasting" special job is broken, after going to the tasting room to carry out the instructed job, no one has any dialogue that progresses the job.

I tried leaving the brothel which fails the quest, I thought I could do that to reset everything and start afresh but no... benjen just chastises me for leaving, then tells me to carry on with the same job.

Upon going back to the tasting room, the girls now are headless and T-posing and benjen who tells me to meet him down there, just stands in his usual spot, refusing to "meet me down there" like he asked lol...

There is no way to cancel this once started, meaning I can no longer do anything with benjens questline, it's just broken now. 😑

 

Regarding the "Extra special jobs", visiting the vampires den... I don't know if this is intended or not, but there doesn't seem to be a way to complete the job successfully without resulting in the Player Character dying, resulting in a reload, or if one has a defeat mod active like "Naked Defeat", waking up outside the den in a defeat scene, which gets confused and locks the controls, disallowing me from moving or turning the camera until I reload a previous save.

The "Cleaning the cage" job seems to work fine however.

 

There appears to be a few brothels around added by the mod, and I haven't had the chance to try them all yet, but benjen won't even allow me any way to stop working for him... a thematic choice I understand, but as a failsafe, there really should be a way to stop working for him, in the event that stuff like the above happens, as now I'm literally gonna have to start a new game or uninstall the mod/reinstall it in order to carry on with other things.

 

Sorry if I sound a little irritated, I spent quite a bit of time testing things and trying to get it to work, or find a workaround to no avail, so I'm just a little disappointed is all.

I totally get there will be bugs with large mods like this, it just sucks when the bugs stop progress altogether, I really like what this mod is trying to do, and I don't want to give up on it.

Will probs just have to reinstall it for now and start over.

 

I'm sorry for the frustrating experience. Just to confirm, you are running Release 15 and not an earlier release?

 

Gisli should start returning home around 9:00 PM. I do see that the quest is low priority, so it's possible something else would be preventing her from doing that, but her vanilla routine should not be the problem. Have you tried waiting in 1 hour increments? If this doesn't work, I will need some more information, especially what stage the quest is on, which you can see with getstage TAPQBenjen02 on the console.

 

I do have a bug where Benjen won't go downstairs if Audacity Killed the Cat is running. The workaround is to complete the Rudhiir quest. The quest IDs for these are TAPQBenjenJobs01 and TAPQRudhiirEscape if you want to run the getstage console command on them, as well.

 

I have never seen the headless t-posing behavior, so I can't even guess right now what might be happening. If you're not able to get around these problems, I can always give you a few console commands that should at least get you unstuck.

 

For the vampire den, your character should not be dying. It is intentional that you have a very large amount of health damage. Do you have other negative health effects at the time? This could also be mod interactions. It is normal for your character to wake up in a curled up position on the ground and then wake up after a few moments.

 

The more information you can give me, the more likely it will be that I can find what's causing your problems.

Edited March 18, 2024 by ruddycray