UESPWiki:Skyrim Quest Redesign Project

The Skyrim Quest Redesign Project is an effort to get the numerous Skyrim quest articles up to UESP standards and provide complete and consistent information on all pages.

Project Overview

The pages describing Skyrim's multitude of quests, miscellaneous objectives, and favors are currently less than complete. The goal of the SRQRP is to provide as detailed information as possible, regardless of quest type. Due to the complex design of quests in Skyrim, this project is divided into two sections, an in-game section and a Creation Kit section. Each of these two sections contains subsections that should be written and checked by two different editors, to ensure correct information on all pages. As part of the project, a cleanup template has been added to all articles, and special Categories have been created to keep track of this huge task. If you want to help out, add your name to the Project Members list, and please make sure to observe the project guidelines below.

Project Guidelines

To achieve consistent quality in terms of information and layout, the SRQRP guidelines should be followed as closely as possible. We realize that the complexity of some of the quests can require unique choices, (e.g. tables, different headers), and that is perfectly all right – just make sure to leave a message explaining your choice on the article's talk page. Also, when in doubt, please ask your questions on the project talk page.

When you have made an addition to an article, make sure to add your username to the tag (example). This will update the tag and add the page to the appropriate category. When all stages are complete, the tag will disappear and the page will be added to the final review category.

Please choose your area of expertise:

IN-GAME WORK

Involves writing and checking quest walkthroughs, as well as general maintenance of Notes and Bugs sections.

CREATION KIT WORK

Involves cross-checking of information initially extracted from the game data, as well as figuring out the occasional bug that can only be investigated using this tool.

In-Game Work

The in-game section of the SRQRP consists of writing and checking quest walkthroughs. To ensure the best possible result, there are two stages a walkthrough must undergo before being marked as complete. First, an editor must write the walkthrough from the game, then another editor must check the written walkthrough and add additional information, or remove unneeded information. Both these stages requires in-game observations, in particular the writing stage - but even the checking stage requires the editor to play through the quest at least once, checking the written information. In short, it is not acceptable to write and check the same article, nor is it acceptable to add someone else as a writer, then check the article. We aim to achieve a consistent quality of all articles, and have created several guidelines to reach that goal – and to lessen the amount of questions asked by project members:

All quest articles should consist of these sections, in this order, with Level 2 headers (e.g. ==Section==):

• Quick Walkthrough
• Detailed Walkthrough
• Notes (if needed)
• Bugs (if needed)

Quick Walkthrough

The quick walkthrough should be a sequential list (each line should start with '#' to create an auto-generated number) summarizing the steps that must be done to complete the quest. It should provide an overview of what needs to be done during the quest, without revealing how to solve puzzles or other similar spoilers. Please make the list as brief and to-the-point as possible and avoid unnecessary information. (example)

Detailed Walkthrough

This is the main section of the quest page, and should explain exactly how to complete the quest. Try not to be too formal, but aim to provide a good and interesting read, both informative and entertaining. Tell the story about the quest and provide a bit of Lore – but be careful not to turn it into a piece of fanfiction. Please avoid cheats, glitch exploits and descriptions about how to complete the quest in the fastest way possible. Describe the quest as it was intended to be played by the developers and aim to provide a fun ride for the player.

Most walkthroughs will contain multiple sub-sections (each created with a level-three header, e.g. ===Subsection===) to make things easier on the eyes and divide the walkthrough into appropriate chapters. Additional images are more welcome (in the 4:3 format), as they always make for a more attractive page. Spoilers should be included in the detailed walkthrough as necessary (and do not need to be hidden in any way).

The quest walkthrough should focus on quest-specific information: what the quest objectives are and how to complete those objectives. It should not try to provide comprehensive information on all locations visited during the quest. Each of those places should have pages that provide separate place-specific walkthroughs (see Place Layout). In short, if a quest requires you to crawl through a dungeon, describe the trip briefly – without mentioning unimportant treasure and minor loot scattered around on tables.

Suggestions and guidelines for what specific information should be covered in the detailed walkthrough are:

• Quest Choices. Any time you are given alternatives for how to proceed with the quest, the walkthrough should specify what the alternatives are, any conditions that need to be met to get the alternative (e.g., required disposition), and the consequences of each choice.

• Dialogue. Key quest-related dialogue can be quoted as part of the walkthrough. In particular, if there is information from an in-game dialogue that would otherwise need to be paraphrased as part of the walkthrough, it is generally preferable to quote the dialogue instead of paraphrasing it. However, the walkthrough should not attempt to include every piece of dialogue that you hear during the quest, so try to tell the story through important snippets of dialogue.

• Treasure. The quest walkthrough should not provide information on every piece of loot that you may collect while going through a dungeon— the place page is where that type of comprehensive information should be provided. Instead, the quest walkthrough should only describe any "notable" treasure. That typically includes:
  • Quest-specific items (required to complete the quest, or rewards for the quest)
  • Unique items that cannot be obtained anywhere else in the game
  • Skill books
  • Extremely rare items (e.g., Daedra Hearts, Flawless Rubies, Pearls)
  • Boss chests

• Reward. Is there a reward? If so, who gives it and at what point in the quest? Also, if specifics of what you get are already mentioned on the page, check whether the reward you got in-game matches the reward listed. Often, rewards are leveled, conditional, or are otherwise not easy to determine from Creation Kit data. If you notice a discrepancy, let someone with CK experience know what you expected and what you actually got, along with pertinent info like your level and any quest-related choices you made, so that they can investigate and update the reward information if necessary.

Notes

The Notes section is used for additional quest information, e.g. if completing the quest affects other quests, NPCs, or surroundings. It can also be used for tips that didn't fit into the flow of the detailed walkthrough, but could be of interest to players. Since you either wrote or checked the walkthrough, please read through the Notes section and see if there are any incorrect entries, then move them to the article talk page with an explanation.

Bugs

The Bugs section of the page should always be titled "Bugs" (for consistency, so other articles can reliably link to the Bugs section). It should include information on all quest-specific bugs, in particular bugs that may prevent you from starting or completing the quest. When adding a bug, or going through the section, please make sure all bugs have the Bug Template attached. The template categorizes all bugs for later investigation. Since you either wrote or checked the walkthrough, please read through the Bugs section and see if there are any incorrect entries, then move them to the article talk page with an explanation.

Problematic Quests

Radiant Quests

One of the unique features in Skyrim is the introduction of a radiant quest system. The radiant quests can consist of random quest givers, a number of random locations where you have to fetch an item/kill a boss, or something similar. The random nature of these quests needs to be taken into consideration when writing the page. At this point, all random factors have been added from the game files, but if you experience any inaccuracies, please post your observations on the project talk page. Other than that, a few special rules apply:

• Do not attempt to write numerous walkthroughs for radiant quests with multiple locations/quest givers.
  • Instead, write a good and fulfilling section with some background info (if the quest allows it), then make sure the random locations are listed in a special section. (example)
  • Write an 'end' to the quest, if the quest-giver is fixed and has some unique dialogue/rewards.

For more information on Radiant Quests, see the Radiant article and, for a full listing of radiant quests, see this Category. If you are in doubt, please ask your questions here.

Creation Kit Work

Quest Objectives

In most cases, quest objectives are assigned at a specific stage of the quest, and are documented as such. Many quests, however, assign objectives in response to other things, such as specific lines of dialogue or the player reaching a certain area. Once you've researched a specific "Unknown" objective to determine when and how it's actually assigned, you should take one of the following actions:

• If the objective is, for all intents, assigned at a specific stage (e.g., it's assigned via a sub-quest which is triggered at that stage), simply move it to the appropriate stage.
• If the objective is assigned in response to some other event, move it to a new line in the table, above the "Unknown" section, and document the conditions under which the objective will be assigned. For consistency, leave the Stage cell blank, even if the description is very short and would fit there—the Stage cell should be for stage numbers and "Unknown" only.
• If the objective is unused, a judgement call is warranted. In most cases, it can simply be removed. If the unused objective could be considered interesting, however, a description of what would have happened can be included in the "Notes" section of the page. Please be reasonably certain that the objective is unused before deleting it. If you'd like a second opinion, add {{VN|Why you'd like it double-checked}} to the objective.

Once all of the "Unknown" objectives have been dealt with, the entire row can be deleted, including the [[Category:Skyrim-SRQRP-Unknown Objectives]] category.

Reward

Levels	Reward
1–9	250
10–19	400
20–29	500
30–39	600
40+	750

Writing a reward is best done through a mixture of Creation Kit and in-game checking, due to some rewards having complications when compared to others.

If you are writing a reward and it is a gold reward which is leveled, it will generally come from a list labeled as small, medium, large, or wow. To get an easy standardized reward table you may use {{SRLeveledReward}} with any of those size options listed before.

Per example {{SRLeveledReward|easy|float=right}} comes out as the table on the right.

Checking the reward for many quests will be very difficult to do by either the Creation Kit or in-game checking alone. If it's not easily found, use the existing reward descriptions on the page or in-game verification to determine when you get the reward and from whom. Then, use the Creation Kit to determine how the reward is given and whether it's leveled, or if there are conditions attached to certain rewards (for example, Muiri's Ring in Mourning Never Comes, which is only given if you've killed Nilsine).

Two good places to look for reward information are the quest scripts associated with the quest and the script attached to the specific line of dialogue spoken just before the reward is received. The latter script is usually titled TIF__xxxxxxxx, where xxxxxxxx is the RefID.

Categories

These categories have been created specifically for this project and contain lists of pages that need improvement.

Please note that these numbers may be out of date due to caching. You may need to click to refresh the page.

Adding Information

Rewards not Written (25 left)

Walkthroughs not Written (26 left)

Checking Information

Unknown Objectives (56 left)

Rewards not Checked (139 left)

Walkthroughs not Checked (203 left)

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Requires Final Review (284 need reviewing)

Project Members

• Krusty (Project Leader, In-Game Work)
• RobinHood70 (Project Leader, Creation Kit Work)
• AlphaAbsol Creation Kit work (objectives and rewards), in-game/creation kit checking
• AmbivalentRogue in-game checking, editing
• Beezer1029 writing and checking
• Br3admax In-game checking, writing.
• Chezburgar Making and editing walkthroughs and rewards, as well as checking.
• Dreamshadow Making walkthroughs, in-game checking, notes and minor improvements.
• Echo In-game checking, writing, minor editing.
• Ferdar in-game checking, writing, editing
• GodRaine Adding and fixing any and all quest-related dialogue; grammar, spelling, arrangements, minor tweaks
• Jak Atackka CS checking
• jwcway Proof reading objectives,walkthroughs and revising work,that needs minor edits.Also in-game walkthrough creation,and other walkthrough info.
• Kitkat Formatting and in-game checking
• Likelolwhat checking and writing for in-game; grammar, spelling and phrasing
• Malikzio quest walkthrough editing, add tips and helpful hints. Also adding loot locations to unfinished quest walkthroughs and other minor tweaks.
• OriwaK In-game writing and checking.
• Quantheory In-game checking and editing walkthroughs.
• Riliane In-game checking, editing walkthroughs, fixing spelling and grammar; miscellaneous tasks.
• Sheeprin Content filling, spelling/grammar.
• Skyrimplayer In-game checking, writing.
• Socratides In-game/creation kit checking, minor editing, proof-reading.
• The Silencer Limited to in-game section and CS
• Thornskyfiona in-game checking and writing
• Velyanthe Checking objectives
• Vulpa in-game checking, CS, writing, proof-reading
• Secunda in-game checking, proof-reading, minor edits

Project Ribbon

Anyone taking an active part in the project may use the project {{Ribbon}}: