For people having issues with missing dialogue options when there are multiple dialogue options that bypasses the 80 character limit, I wrote an article explaining the visual bug and how to workaround it.
I just wanted to suggest a clarification because it did confuse me initially. Your warning about missing dialogue topics seems to imply topic LOSS, as in a topic is not even available to the player when you use more than 1 extended character player prompt. Maybe a clarification that this fix doesn't CAUSE the bug but rather accentuates an already existing vanilla bug and it's simply requiring the player to scroll down more to additional options. I had my team avoiding using the extension settings for fear that topics would be accidentally hidden because of a bug in expanding the character limit, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Thanks for the useful info though.
In Creation Kit \ Quest I am having an issue with Player Dialogue box having no Subtypes to choose from (Subtype box is blank when I expand it), also the Topic Text box is not accessible, so I can't enter the Topic Text.
That's not related to the mod. I haven't checked it yet. But I will as soon as I figure out how to fix the problem! Hoping to get some help!
After trying this myself I've found that exceeding 1,011 characters cumulatively (regardless of how many characters you set in the .ini file) between all the responses in a single dialogue topic will crash the CK (64bit SSE version). Gonna try to use multiple topics linked together to mitigate this issue.
Ok I feel like an idiot. I'm using creation kit fixes and I have unzipped this file into my skyrim directory. I don't see any changes to the dialogue in the kit for the player or NPCs. i am using MO2 but I don't think that will cause a problem.
I cannot stand the player dialogue being so limited--and the best thing of all is that even if you don't have the tweaks in your ini file, mods that use the extended dialogue work just fine--at least that's what my testing shows.
I'm thinking that the reason I never came across the issue myself is because I still use the EZ2C Dialogue Menu, which as you know can no longer be found on the Nexus. My own mods are very much dialogue-focused, so I'm probably going to be recommending that my users try out the Minimal Oblivion Dialogue Menu mod instead.
Thank you again for the notification. I really appreciate it.
Will other people that download a mod where lines have 120 or so characters have them cut down to the vanilla limit (80)? Or will only be cut down if they attempt to edit lines in the Creation Kit itself?
Thanks for reading!
Edit 12/30/2017 - This is to confirm after my own testing that it does not cut them down unless a creation kit without the custom ini setting attempts to directly override the topics in question. This is safe to use for authors to make quest mods with longer than normal dialog, and not necessarily require their users have to have this.
This is a critical point. If we use this .ini tweak on the modder's end to extend quest dialog, will players using my mods be required to tweak their own .ini files for the dialog to work?
The website linked in the description (http://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=Extending_Dialogue_Length) had this to say "Changing this entry is only required for the Construction Set; the game doesn't require any tweaks to load an ESP with extended dialogue." I'm taking this to mean that only the modder needs the .ini edit, not the player. Hope I'm right.
Wow... nobody has been here for a while... I made this change and recently began working on a small mod that is heavy on dialogue.
I was having an issue where :
if a Topic linked to 3 other topics (to provide 3 choices when you clicked on that first topic) and if those 3 topics had extended lines (using like... 120 characters... maybe 140) when in-game, only 2 of the 3 topics were displayed as choices.
When I shortened the lines of characters to something closer to the stock length for all 3 topics... they all showed up in-game.
It seems like, while the game can display the extra characters for a single topic... when you have to display THREE of these extended topics at the same time, it doesn't get handled well.
I *think* that's what is going on.
The easy workaround is to make sure that if you're going to have several choices available, that THOSE topics have something closer to standard-length lines. At least that's what I seem to be discovering here.
So then I have a question: What happens if you change the setting BACK to the stock number? Would it simply truncate the lines and you'd have to fix the dialogues and use shorter lines? Or will the mod then be corrupt because it HAS overlength lines?
I don't want to go back to short lines. I'm just asking.
Wish I had known about this solution sooner. Now, I can actually create debates and start to define the Player's character a bit more, rather than just the default "hero or villain" personality.
I wanted to let you know that I am using this method in the Serana Dialogue Edit for the Version 1.0 rebuild. Next update I make on the mod page, I will give proper credit for this.
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Thank you for bringing awareness to this.
That's not related to the mod. I haven't checked it yet. But I will as soon as I figure out how to fix the problem! Hoping to get some help!
I cannot stand the player dialogue being so limited--and the best thing of all is that even if you don't have the tweaks in your ini file, mods that use the extended dialogue work just fine--at least that's what my testing shows.
I'm thinking that the reason I never came across the issue myself is because I still use the EZ2C Dialogue Menu, which as you know can no longer be found on the Nexus. My own mods are very much dialogue-focused, so I'm probably going to be recommending that my users try out the Minimal Oblivion Dialogue Menu mod instead.
Thank you again for the notification. I really appreciate it.
Will other people that download a mod where lines have 120 or so characters have them cut down to the vanilla limit (80)?
Or will only be cut down if they attempt to edit lines in the Creation Kit itself?
Thanks for reading!
Edit 12/30/2017 - This is to confirm after my own testing that it does not cut them down unless a creation kit without the custom ini setting attempts to directly override the topics in question. This is safe to use for authors to make quest mods with longer than normal dialog, and not necessarily require their users have to have this.
The website linked in the description (http://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=Extending_Dialogue_Length) had this to say "Changing this entry is only required for the Construction Set; the game doesn't require any tweaks to load an ESP with extended dialogue." I'm taking this to mean that only the modder needs the .ini edit, not the player. Hope I'm right.
If used conservatively by extending fewer dialogue options, it might be okay. Otherwise, the default interface may cut off some lines completely.
Thank you for testing.
I made this change and recently began working on a small mod that is heavy on dialogue.
I was having an issue where :
if a Topic linked to 3 other topics (to provide 3 choices when you clicked on that first topic)
and if those 3 topics had extended lines (using like... 120 characters... maybe 140)
when in-game, only 2 of the 3 topics were displayed as choices.
When I shortened the lines of characters to something closer to the stock length for all 3 topics...
they all showed up in-game.
It seems like, while the game can display the extra characters for a single topic... when you have to display THREE of these extended topics at the same time, it doesn't get handled well.
I *think* that's what is going on.
The easy workaround is to make sure that if you're going to have several choices available, that THOSE topics have something closer to standard-length lines. At least that's what I seem to be discovering here.
So then I have a question:
What happens if you change the setting BACK to the stock number? Would it simply truncate the lines and you'd have to fix the dialogues and use shorter lines? Or will the mod then be corrupt because it HAS overlength lines?
I don't want to go back to short lines. I'm just asking.
Thanks!
Thank you for testing.
Thank you!
Feelin' warm & fuzzy.