string parsing idea for quests

[Malfini]

I have on many occasions had trouble with quests for reasons like putting "the" in front of the 'key phrase' or similar. I was just wondering if there is any plans to just parse (grep) strings in quests for a key phrase and possibly ignoring possible added words like "the" when a player is trying to use proper english instead of just coughing a weird word or two to an NPC. Also i was wondering if there is a possible renovation in process to possibly parse strings in quests for a less exclusive phrase like instead of "The magical axe from Griffon that Titan held on his fourth birthday" to maybe "The magic axe" or "The magical axe" or  "The magical axe from Griffon" (I know that isnt in the game but its an example). I just know from experience with talking to other players that extremely exclusive speech with NPC's can be very frustrating to the point where people will spread rumours that a quest is broken when it really is not. Also i vaguely recall having trouble in quests with using uppercase where lower case is wanted if this is the case perhaps functions for example like "isupper(int)" and "tolower(int)" could be used? If any developer does read this I wish to thank you for making this great game. I realize its in Alpha stage and is a hobby project. I still think its really fun and interesting even at this point though and i enjoy playing it :-D.

[Karyuu]

We've been saying over and over on the forums that the NPC system is going to get a major reworking. Just recently Xordan fixed over a hundred typos/grammar/structure errors and added some more trigger phrases in quests, and also made the NPC's a bit smarter by ignoring more general words. So quests should be less frustrating now, but more work is planned and will be done ASAP.

[Josellis]

I am quite of a n00b, and I am not the type of person to read the whole "readme" or the help files. So I took quite some time to found out that you need to "talk" to the NPCs. I was trying to open a quest window so would it be possible to make it one of those noobie article (the little thing with the guy with an exclamation point on top of him)

[Karyuu]

The in-game tutorial is just the beginning of the system, done just to make sure that we can do it :} It will definitely be made into a full tutorial "program" with time, since right now it's not worth much. You'll just have to look around for out-of-game guides at the moment, unfortunately.

[Malfini]

Hello Karyuu thank you for responding to my question. I noticed that you edited my post and said part of it was a spoiler. I am curious as to what you mean  . Here is an example say that I got a quest from (this is all imaginary) Ned and he says he loves pies made in the city of Filanderin and that he has ordered a tasty apple pie from that city and that he told me to go ask Janglic for it.  If I said i went to Janglic (like Ned told me to go to and ask for the pie which is obvious and no surprise) and he wouldn't respond correctly to "give me tasty apple pie" or "give me a tasty apple pie" or "give me a tasty apple pie made in Filanderin" or "give me a pie made in the city of filanderin".... But that he would answer to "give me a tasty apple pie made in the city of filaderin". How is that a spoiler if the definition of spoiler is such...
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(From Wikipedia.com)
Noun

spoiler

1. a document, review or comment that discloses the ending or some key surprise, or twist in a story. Good netiquette dictates that one warn of spoilers before discussing them, so that readers who wish to do so may experience the surprises for themselves.
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It does not end the quest, it is no surprise that I was suppose to ask Janglic for the pie because Ned told me to when i first received the quest, and it doesn't reveal a twist in the story because nothing at all has changed.
The only thing at all that it may do is tell people that NPC is very exclusive in text recognition and that the many questions that people will ask won't work because they may be lacking one or two extra words that many may not see as being logically needed. Clearly this does not ruin any fun and it is no solution to a puzzle. The only way that it could possibly ruin the fun is if someone likes taking on the role of a human "dictionary forcing program" and likes to scrabble words for countless hours until an NPC understands a simple thing such as asking them for a pie.
I just don't understand I guess.... I have seen far too many people do things like "/me kicks Janglic to death with my boot" to only find out that we were all asking the NPC the right question in a slightly misunderstood syntax. You would logically think that syntax driving a person to the point where they may start pulling out their hair could possibly be "spoiling" it for them. I can easily see how someone who posts the answer to a quest question such as what is the name of Janglics uncle could be a spoiler because that is an answer that the player is clearly suppose to find out on their own through normal means and it doesnt appear to be a problem with syntax. Also i have seen people post about the quests certain NPC's give so that couldn't be a problem. Thank you in advance for reading my reply.

[Karyuu]

We generally dislike posting any quest-related NPC triggers on the forums - I also think that this was one of the quests that was fixed recently, so maybe try to go back and redo it, to see if there are differences. I found it easier, but that could just be my getting used to the system. Still, specific syntax problems should be reported either on the BugTracker, or to GMs through the in-game petitions. However, when it comes to something like this when everyone knows what the problem is and are already taking steps to fix it, further information isn't really needed unless it is to provide status updates.

Also i have seen people post about the quests certain NPC's give so that couldn't be a problem.

It's a little iffy - sometimes you have to give new players a little nudge so they can start in the first place, and then continue on their own. Certainly we wouldn't answer anything akin to "Who gives the Energy glyph quest?" on the forums, but if quests are really well known, a little discussion about them is inevitable.

[Malfini]

I'm just letting you know I did the quest within the last 10 hours. Thank you