Followers Get Paid [need dialogue writer(s)]

[Roggvir]

A simple and lightweight, dialogue driven mod that makes you pay your followers.
Main focus is on my favourite vanilla followers, but any followers using vanilla voice types will be supported too (followers using custom voice types will need a patch).
It will also support followers handled by EFF, NFF, or AFT (EFF is first, because that's what i am using).
The goal is to have some lightweight, universal, and standalone system for this, because i don't think there is one yet.

 

The mod is really simple to make, i can do all the work, except writing the dialogues - i need somebody to write the dialogues.

I want a reasonable variety of voice lines, that will be chosen at random, so it doesn't feel too repetitive too quickly.
(of course, all lines will be voiced using the xVASynth, i have plenty experience with how to make it sound good)

How it works...

You set minimum and maximum wage in MCM (the actual wage for individual followers will be calculated on demand, using this range, and follower's level and skill values).

Then you set payday interval in days, and time of day.
When the time comes, your followers will force greet you one by one, asking for their wages.

You get the option to pay the full amount, or only half, or not pay at all (maybe you don't have the money, or you don't want to pay this follower right now, needing the money to pay a more important follower, or maybe you need the money to buy equipment first, whatever...).

• If you pay in full, follower will be happy and the dialogue ends.
• If you pay only part of the amount, follower will get a bit annoyed, but accepts and dialogue ends.
• If you pay only part, and follower is already annoyed, dialogue continues with the follower being angry (see next line below).
• If you can't pay, or choose not to pay, dialogue continues with the follower being angry
  Angry follower will demand the payment and warn you about the consequences of not paying.
  You get a chance to reconsider, or confirm your original decision.
  If you do not reconsider, and the follower is angry enough, it will leave you, or may even attack you to take the money from you (depending on follower's personality, some randomized chance, and an MCM toggle allowing it).

The mod sends out events when followers get paid, or not, etc., for other mods to use.

 

 

I made some spreadsheets describing the dialogue structure, a dialogue example, and blueprints for specific vanilla follower dialogues.
You can find those on my google drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/145e0Qp__y8SgWCnYtDmOnvc99bzJIm33?usp=sharing

(see the dialogue blueprint for Jenassa, in the "Follower Dialogues" folder, for a better dialogue example)

If anybody would be willing to help write the dialogues (even if only for one of their favourite voices/followers), please let me know.

 

A quick demonstration video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ySqRLh-eqo

 

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by Roggvir

[rhino_4]

How is this differentiated from devious followers?

[Roggvir]

2 minutes ago, rhino_4 said:

How is this differentiated from devious followers?

Isn't it already clear from the description?
Maybe the most glaring difference is that it is dialogue driven, with voiced dialogues specific to individual vanilla followers, with player dialogue choices.
It doesn't just remove N gold from your inventory to pay all followers, you instead hand them the money (or not) while talking to them.
It is a standalone mod with no dependencies, so it doesn't need any DLCs, or SL, or SL Aroused, or DD, or PapyrusUtil like Devious Followers do.

It can be used as a framework. It is simple and lightweight, doing just the one thing - adding the need to pay followers, using immersive dialogues.
...i am already repeating what i wrote above in other words. I don't know what more to write without repeating myself.

 

[rhino_4]

Understood. Thanks for the clarification.

I'm a native english speaker, and I could write dialogue for you if you're interested. Send me a dm and maybe we can get together in the LL discord to collaborate on what exactly you want. Although, judging from your posts you already seem to be good at english so maybe you're just looking for line ideas?

Edited January 12, 2022 by rhino_4

[Roggvir]

26 minutes ago, rhino_4 said:

Understood. Thanks for the clarification.

I'm a native english speaker, and I could write dialogue for you if you're interested. Send me a dm and maybe we can get together in the LL discord to collaborate on what exactly you want.

Thank you, message sent.

[Roggvir]

In case anybody would get confused by the recent "influx" of writers into thinking that the search is over, it isn't over.

We still need writers. There is a good amount of vanilla followers and voice types, and we all are otherwise busy people, so help is still very much needed.

[Roggvir]

So, i made a proof of concept, implemented dialogue for Jenassa and did the voices in xVASynth (and let me tell you, i made a magnificent job - in game, i can't even tell the difference between lines voiced using xVASynth and original VA - no wonder, as it took me full 3 days to make only 47 lines!).

But i have some small issues i could use some help with.
Its about the game's dialogue system.

When the payday comes, every follower goes to player and forcegreets them, asking for their money, and each follower is paid a different amount, calculated based on level and skills (configurable in MCM).
So, when showing the dialogue with player choices, i need to use text replacement to show the correct amount depending on which follower the player is talking to, like so:

• "Of course, here is your gold (pay 375 gold)"
• "I can only pay half (pay 187 gold)"
• "I am sorry, i can't pay you right now."

I use OnBegin fragment attached to the starting topic, to run some code to initialize the text replacement.
First i used global variables, relying on <Global=GlobalName> in the choice text, but it turned out to be too slow - the dialogue was very often displayed before the global var instance in the dialogue updated, showing either wrong number (meant for the follower who spoke before) or zero (if this was the first time the dialogue was brought up, with the global var still at its default value).
So, i was told to try using text replacement based on Alias names, and that seems to be working faster, but not always - it still happens from time to time.

To solve this, i set the starting topic to a dummy, empty topic, which runs the code required for the text replacement, and links to the real topic with real choices.
As a result, player first see a "..." prompt that needs to be clicked to get to the real topic, which gives the system enough time to prep the text replacement.
BUT ITS ANNOYING!
I need to find a way to get rid of this "..." prompt.

Also, since i started using the dummy starting topic, i am often getting stuck at the very start of the dialogue when the "..." prompt shows (or is supposed to show - sometimes it doesn't even show when the dialogue gets stuck), and it takes minute or more until it somehow gets unstuck (trying to exit the dialogue while it is stuck doesn't work).
I am not sure if it happens because too many followers are "competing" over who's gonna forcegreet the player first - maybe there lies the problem?
Or maybe this dummy topic is not the right way to do things?

I read all i could regarding dialogues, but it wasn't any help. I could really use help from some dialogue gurus.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Roggvir

[sfdrake]

I know that Nether's follower framework has a section in it that allows the followers to be paid and how  much along with an off and on switch.

[Roggvir]

2 hours ago, sfdrake said:

I know that Nether's follower framework has a section in it that allows the followers to be paid and how  much along with an off and on switch.

You mean it does have something like this?

...i don't know what you are telling me - i don't see NFF doing anything like i am doing, so NFF can't help me solve any problems.
Or do you mean i shouldn't bother because NFF has an option that you can pay followers? ...but that is completely different from the dialogue driven mod i am making.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Roggvir

[Roggvir]

Good news!
Two problems solved with one simple change.
Big thanks to @HexBolt8 who told me how - by changing the starting topic's response into a single space, and setting it as "Invisible Continue" linking to the real topic.

The three dots, player had to click on before, are gone, and as a bonus it even solved that "dialogue getting stuck" issue (or at least i didin't see it happen since, so i am hoping).

 

So its back to business - still needing some writers for the dialogues

Edited January 25, 2022 by Roggvir

[Roggvir]

Just in case anybody cares...
The mod is not dead. I just set it aside so i could finish some other thing i promissed, and it looks like i will be done with it soon (hopefully in a matter of days), and then i will pick this up again.

(so, i could still use some ppl willing to write some dialogues for this)

[Roggvir]

Few months later, and i still have no dialogues

But i am still hoping that somewhere out there... coud it be... Yes! YOU!

Yes, i mean YOU! You can write me the dialogues! I know you can!

(come on, surely it isn't that hard? *says the guy who himself is totally unable to do it*)

[Anunya]

Heya Roggvir - I'll happily write some dialogue for this mod - it sounds exactly like something I'd want. I've sent you a DM.

Edited September 18, 2022 by Anunya

[Roggvir]

Here is a short video demonstrating roughly how it works.
The core mod is done, it just needs more dialogue lines, and lines for other followers.
Of course, it will also need some final polishing touches, but this is basically it.
 

 

[pinkfluf]

sounds good, I guess peeps with a ton of followers will go bankrupt unless....

 

you can assign a follower to be like a foreman (i.e he/she distributes the coin, they can also air their grievances to them as well)

 

Would be funny is sven didn't get paid and instead of getting violent he sings non-stop to annoy the player

 

[wuman1239]

I was waiting follower pay mod like this.

 

If there would be option that excludes some followers from other mod like Slave Cave Mod it would be more fun.

 

Because it is nonsense that slave also gets pay like mercenary hired.

[Roggvir]

1 hour ago, wuman1239 said:

I was waiting follower pay mod like this.

 

If there would be option that excludes some followers from other mod like Slave Cave Mod it would be more fun.

 

Because it is nonsense that slave also gets pay like mercenary hired.

This mod gives you the option to exclude any follower from getting paid, by setting their wages to 0:

 

Normally, the wages of every follower are calculated based on all those MCM settings you probably saw on the screenshots or in the video, and the calculated amount for each active follower is displayed next to their name on a slider which value you can still change.

If you set the slider to 0, the follower will be ignored by the system, and won't be getting any pay.
If you set the slider to anything greater than zero, the system will use the set value instead of the calculated amount.

If you set the slider to -1, the system will revert back to using the calculated amount (and immediately display the calculated amount as the slider value).

 

[wuman1239]

8 minutes ago, Roggvir said:

This mod gives you the option to exclude any follower from getting paid, by setting their wages to 0:

 

Normally, the wages of every follower are calculated based on all those MCM settings you probably saw on the screenshots or in the video, and the calculated amount for each active follower is displayed next to their name on a slider which value you can still change.

If you set the slider to 0, the follower will be ignored by the system, and won't be getting any pay.
If you set the slider to anything greater than zero, the system will use the set value instead of the calculated amount.

If you set the slider to -1, the system will revert back to using the calculated amount (and immediately display the calculated amount as the slider value).

 

 

Thank you That is What I want

[LynErso666]

I would totally write dialogue for ya, but iz 2024 now and so yeah. Probably not happening now. Apparently the pay your followers with sex mod is just removed from the LL too. There used to be a really good one. Now there's just.... bunch of goddamn boring ones, so hope u get back into this someday

[Roggvir]

On 7/23/2024 at 1:31 PM, LynErso666 said:

I would totally write dialogue for ya, but iz 2024 now and so yeah. Probably not happening now. Apparently the pay your followers with sex mod is just removed from the LL too. There used to be a really good one. Now there's just.... bunch of goddamn boring ones, so hope u get back into this someday

If you would write some dialogue, i would seriously consider finishing the mod, or at least update it with the new dialogue and releasing it (then we can see what happens, maybe if more people try it, it may attract more ideas and more people willing to help to make it better and bigger).

[Roggvir]

btw. i intend to also add the option to "pay with sex", and even allow an angry unpaid follower to sexually assault the player - all optional of course, toggleable in the MCM.

So, i will also need dialogues/lines for these situations, but all that comes later.

First i want to finish the basic mod to get the ball rolling.

[johnhamm]

What kind of dialogue do you need?

[Roggvir]

12 minutes ago, johnhamm said:

What kind of dialogue do you need?

A dialogue about follower getting paid, or not getting paid.
Follower approches and ask for their wages, and player pays or makes some excuse, or outright lies that they have no money, or admits they have no money, or not enough.

If not paying, or not enough, the follower may accept it, or may demand the payment, or if angry enough they may attack the player.
All in varying levels of happiness and angryness, and with as many variants so it isn't too repetitive.

The first post has a link to a video, which shows a minimal dialogue.
So, more of that, but with more variants of every line.
And every vanilla Skyrim follower should have their own lines, their own dialogue, fitting their personality.