PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: MustangMR on May 07, 2008, 10:40:28 pm
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Sorry if this is addressed somewhere, but I would like to know how the community feels about the language used in the quests. I admit it, I'm American. We speak English different from other parts of the world, even within our own country, and I don't want to come across as saying it all has to be American English. Let me use a quick example that is a fundamental part of the game right now that is quite awkward for me.
There is something we all type to get a quest... "Do you have a job?". That question would not be correct to get a quest for us. What that is asking is if the person I'm talking to has a job, as in "employed", so if I ask Harnquist that question, he should answer "Yes, I'm a blacksmith", not "Oh, sure, go do this for me". See the difference? I would never think to ask it that way except the guide told me to do it that way. It needs something else to qualify "job". I would ask "Do you have a job for me?" or "Do you have any work?". Either of those would indicate I'm looking to do something for him, but anything other than "do you have a job?" seems to put puzzled looks of confusion on the NPC's face right now.
I know it's a bit of a strange question, but it's kind of important because doing the quests requires a certain perspective, and if I am having troubles doing one, I don't want to post a bug report on something that is really a language issue. I'm no English major, but these kinds of issues can get pretty frustrating when trying to work inside a text parser like PS has. I do want to help make it as good as possible.
Thoughts? Don't worry about it? Learn to speak other dialects?
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"Do you have a job?"
This is an ambiguous phrase, it can mean either one. This is why English sucks as a language.
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No argument there. It's all I got though. To me, the question is not ambiguous though. It is a correct question, just not what we should be asking for work.
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"can I help you " has always worked for me. I have never asked for a job.
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Well, perhaps the NPCs are hoping you mean the other way. If so, then that's the NPC's fault for misinterpreting people.
"can I help you "
...which I don't consider correct grammar, I prefer "may I help you" (which last time I checked doesn't work). I should probably say that I'm also from the United States.
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I believe that I use "May I help you" and it works. I try to use proper grammar. I am also from the US.
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Well I am from Canada and for us May is a month! :D
Seriously, though, can is commonly used in place of may in conversation.
Also can indicates ability while may indicates permission so even if they want your help they may be uncertain of your ability. Asking Can I leads them to stating their problem for you to judge your ability.
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Cool. Apparently there are more choices than I was able to discover. I like "may I help you", but even that seems awkward for the situation. I really am just looking for work, unless they first come to me in distress or I see them in trouble. Then I would ask it that way. NPC's dont' really show themselves in distress unless they initiate the dialog.
Think we're too hung up on the one question, though. That was just an example. One thing I've discovered playing PS is that it's a very international game. I've run into people from all over the world, and I'm just curious what the overall feeling is on this subject.
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It is a syntax issue that eliminates unneeded words and searches only the first four un-ignored words for a phrase. It you typed "Do you have a job for me?" The server parses that down to "Do you have job."
So ya, if you think it is hard guessing the right phrase, try writing triggers trying to account for everything any player might think of saying to an NPC and reducing it down to four words or less. :)
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There usually is an option that works both grammatically and with the game's syntax, like "give me a quest" or "do you need help?".
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So ya, if you think it is hard guessing the right phrase, try writing triggers trying to account for everything any player might think of saying to an NPC and reducing it down to four words or less. :)
A daunting task indeed. So yeah, think I missed the mark. It's not about language, it's about parsing the fewest meaningful words. Okay, think that may actually help a lot. Thanks!
So would "Do you have a job for me" missing the trigger really be a bug?
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There's about two dozen different ways to initiate a quest.
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There is one thing that it doesn't account for, and that is typos. Oh wait yeah it does, the NPCs respond by making fun of you.
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I like to think of it as PS's little way of helping you improve your typing skills. :)
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"Can i help you?" is perfect grammar... the correct answer, if the NPC does have a quest for you, would be "Yes, here is the thing i need done." Then, you can either accept the quest or decline it. The initiating question is just another way of asking if there is a job that needs to be done. It is up to you to decide whether you "may" do the job. Besides, it has always worked for me (i find "give me a quest" too blunt and demanding).
btw, i love how the NPCs make fun of you, kudos to the devs :thumbup:
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I like to think of it as PS's little way of helping you improve your typing skills. :)
Neko: I only half agree here, and only because although I would expect a noob to know how to spell English words correctly, I wouldn't on named entities. I wonder how many times typing "miss abelia sent me" annoyed some noob because the person couldn't spell her damn name right. To answer this question, turn on advisormode. I remember when I started playing this game in 2002, I never spelled "Yliakum" correctly. I always misspelled it as "Ylaikum", and I did so for about a year or two. Heck, there are still devs and GMs who can't spell "Akkaio" right either.
*edit*
(don't mean to double post but this is too off-tangent from my last one)
OK so I got curious and started asking some NPC a bunch of stuff. Now, I've been talking to NPCs ever since Darkmoon wrote a lot of the original crap three years ago and asked us to try talking to them. Anyways, these are the responses I got. I'm not posting the "tell me about you" response (which does state her job), you can find her and ask her yourself.
Tuxide says: tell me about work
Nyshyn Klannarr says: My job is okay. It pays me money, I buy beer.
Good, that's exactly what I wanted to hear.
Tuxide says: tell me about your occupation
Nyshyn Klannarr says: I don't know too much about that, I'm afraid.
Tuxide says: tell me about occupation
Nyshyn Klannarr says: I don't know too much about that, I'm afraid.
Tuxide says: tell me about your job
Nyshyn Klannarr says: I don't know too much about that, I'm afraid.
Tuxide says: tell me about job
Nyshyn Klannarr says: I don't know too much about that, I'm afraid.
Like you even know what you do, you so-called freelance archaeologist. Your supervisor is an ulbernaut.
Tuxide says: tell me about quest
Nyshyn Klannarr says: I don't know anything about any quests. Ask someone else.
I have to admit, that one is new to me.
Now, apparently starting a sentence with "do you have" does not necessarily mean "do you have something in your inventory" but "can you give or sell this to me". Here are some examples, enjoy.
Tuxide says: do you have a job
Nyshyn Klannarr says: Looks like you are in search of fame and honor. Unfortunately, I have no tasks to help you in that.
Tuxide says: do you have work
Nyshyn Klannarr says: Looks like you are in search of fame and honor. Unfortunately, I have no tasks to help you in that.
The "give me a quest" line. The second one sounds more right than the first one though.
Tuxide says: do you have an occupation
Nyshyn Klannarr says: Give you what? You'll have to be more specific.
That's all right, I didn't really expect you to know what one was.
Tuxide says: do you have a weapon
Nyshyn Klannarr says: I am not in the business of giving away anything. You might have more luck in or around the arena.
No, I could've been asking if you were armed.
Tuxide says: do you have a book
Nyshyn Klannarr says: I don't have any. You should visit a library or something.
Probably correct.
Tuxide says: do you have clothes on
Nyshyn Klannarr says: Give you what? Can you be more specific?
No comment.
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That is somewhere where I was going with this, Tux. I have been trying quests and I get kind of frustrated trying to get the exact words in. I am trying to go slow though. This is a fundamental part of the game and I know there has to be some sensitivities here. This is not going to be an easy thing to work out, but it has to be good if you're going to attract and keep players, or else you risk driveing the game towards a mostly skills grinding situation where quests are rarely done, and I would hate to see that happen. I love the old school feel of the command line, but that is just not the state of the game genre now, and pulling people back to it is going to be a tough sell. I would love to see some kind of solution that takes this one step further and mixes the best of both worlds.
Someone mentioned in another thread that someone didn't speak Planeshift yet. Don't think they meant it this way, but I think that nails it. What we have to do is learn to speak PS for the game engine, and there are no clear rules for that. I have a disabled son who uses a communication device. One of the features of it is a word prediction system that allows him to form sentences against English grammar with minimal typing. That would be a lot of work to implement, but maybe if the language rules were spelled out somewhere how to speak PS, people would at least know how they were expected to speak to an NPC. I don't know enough about the quest dialogs to really know how that would work though. There probably are no rules at this point, but maybe that is something to think about. Set some standard rules for how to communicate with NPC's that all quest writers have to follow. Then, if at some point in the future, someone did try a word prediction system, they would know how to implement it.
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@Tuxide: Think NPCs are dumb? Click here! (http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=29353.0)
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@Tuxide: Think NPCs are dumb? Click here! (http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=29353.0)
@me too. I saw that thread but hadn't really read it yet. I'll help out with that.
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Please do! We've learned and added a lot based on the feedback there.