Fix rude NPC's

[kram]

Planeshift is a great game, but I have had bad experiences with NPC\'s. There are two things that happened to me in only a few hours of gameplay.

The first thing that happened was an npc that got mad at me for saying hello. His name is Harquist. I said hi and tried to do a quest from him because the player\'s guide told me to. It didn\'t work, so I thought I did it wrong and came back later. When I said hi the second time, Harquist said that he already responded to that and wouldn\'t do it again. It made me feel bad.

The next experience that I had with rude npc\'s was with a short guy. He has a long beard. I asked him for a quest, and he have me one. Then, I said thank you, and he said that the more jibberish I speak the more he dislikes me. That made me really mad, and I told him that I was mad at him. He said the same thing, so I felt like I had to get the last word. After some making fun of him, I realized that if I put \"/me is giving the_guys_name the middle finger\", then he wouldn\'t respond. I did that and some more bad things to him like making him cry.

If it wasn\'t for rude npc\'s, none of this would have happened. The problem of rude NPC\'s, imo, is a crucial one that needs to be fixed in order for users to have a nice experience in the Planeshift world.

[dragonfire999]

the npcs are new, dont complain about how they respond
\"If you dont like it tough, its fair enough\"
Get over it or get out... damn
and its kind of sad that your worried about being told off by an automatic response GENERATED BY A COMPUTER

[zabeal]

I must say, that was a creative way to blow off steam Yes, the NPCs are in pretty bad shape- no one really knows why they got so bad. Their conversation DB got corrupted apaprentyl, and some hae be restored, but not all. And of course, quests are not working currently, but thats because they are being upgraded. So just hold on tight and everything will get better with time

[Pestilence]

Originally posted by dragonfire999
\"If you dont like it tough, its fair enough\"
Get over it or get out... damn

This is a wishlist and people tell what they feel needs changing. I think as Zabeal said this is a creative and kinda funny way of saying whats wrong so please take your advice and take it yourself.

[Ecolem]

Originally posted by kram
...When I said hi the second time, Harquist said that he already responded to that and wouldn\'t do it again.
It made me feel bad.

LOL are you serrious?

Listen if any more NPC\'S are hurting your feelings come to me and let me take care of them... :rolleyes:

[Platyna]

That\'s not so bad, I know a MMORPG where NPCs are calling you \"little piece of sh*t\".

Regards.

[Nilrem]

Oh come on!!
So often NPCs are far more polite to the new citizens of Yliakum than the \"old\" inhabitants.
At least they answer when you say \"hello\" , \"how are you\" and stuff.
And often they\'re large and descriptive ones.

PS: And they\'re so humble that most of the times don\'t recognize a \"thanks\", they just help without even needing a word back!

PSII: By the way kram all sentences that the NPCs can\'t answer or don\'t understand are stored so the devs can improve the AI of the speech.
So expect some answers to your \"fingers\" in a short period of time lol

[Seytra]

As for the answer to the /me-ing: there won\'t be one, simply because /me-ing bypasses targeted conversation (i.e., the NPCs don\'t get notified of it at all), therefore no log entry will be generated.


Anyway, I understand Kram. In fact, I had similar troubles in the beginning, and that was with the NPCs working...

The thing is that if you\'re going for full immersion, you kinda expect the NPCs to react properly, and take them serious. Therefore, if you assume that they are working properly (which reasonable answers by them will make you do), you will assume that the response you\'re getting is intended (not just a catch-all default for whatever isn\'t understood by the AI). Therefore, it is shocking to be getting a un-nice reply to a perfectly fine question.

You see, players are expected to be unpredictable (so an un-nice reply by some player I don\'t know isn\'t likely to bother me at all), but NPCs are consistent (and their descriptions usually hint at their character), so any harshness in NPC conversation usually has a very clear and intended reasoning behind it, and is supposed to be IC.

Originally posted by Nilrem
Oh come on!!
So often NPCs are far more polite to the new citizens of Yliakum than the \"old\" inhabitants.

This is precisely why (unexpectable) NPC rudeness is so shocking / surprising.


Since I knew about PS\'s state of development, I obviously concluded rather quickly that the NPCs are by far too limited to have a meaningful conversation with yet so I essentially stopped bothering with them, except for things that I OOC-ly assumed they were likely to have an answer in stock for, in order to be able to stay fully IC when communicating with them.

As for \"it\'s just a machine, so why would you care what it says\": usually, we\'re talking about full immersion, no?
How can you RP decently without being your char, and thus assuming at least a bit of your char\'s feelings?

Edit: therefore, for the time being, I treat the NPCs as being OOC services,  not IC yliaki.

[kram]

Thanks for all the quick responses. I know I was overreacting a bit, but I just wanted to see if anyone else experienced what I was experiencing. I\'m sure that when the development of this game is further along, the problem will be solved.

[Pestilence]

well solved probably not very fast but it will become less and less of a problem as it improves ofcourse

[hook]

Don\'t really see what the big deal is.

I like the idea how NPCs are treated in PlaneShift - the idea is that the NPCs should react to you like a normal person/player would (that\'s why you type to talk to them, btw). And I like that! I don\'t know why there should only be goody-goody-two-shoes\' around here. Some people are grumpy at some point, some people are always grumpy, some people are even rude most of the time - so why shouldn\'t the NPCs have their own personalities as well? ...and btw, I\'m pretty sure (and you mentioned too, btw) you get bad-tempered as well when someone has been talking jibberish to you for the past few minutes - it just happens that the NPCs are not smart enough yet, so for them most of the things you can say are \"jibberish\".

But, yea ...NPC AI needs to improve and it will ...it just happens that writing a good AI for NPCs you interact with like with a normal player take a huuuuuuuuuuuge effort to write. Be patient, my child :]