IMPORTANT: How you talk to NPCs has changed!

[Szyx]

hmmm....i agree with zanzibar. The fact that they hear their name and assume they are being talked to is kinda unreal'ish. Cause I hear my name all the time and I can tell when its not directed to me, but maybe its to some other Nate, or its my friends talking about me. So it would be quite annoying to say their name and they automatically respond. Plus i am quite upset how most NPC's wont even talk currently. I am against an all-out change and for the option to choose.

[Tarel]

The reason why most of the NPC's are not responding, is that the developers have implemented a new system for speaking with  the NPC's.
The new system for talking requires, that all NPC's have to be edited all over again and have to be linked to the new system.

It will take some time before all NPC's will be able to repond back on you.
The developers are working as hard as possible to get the NPC's back to work and speaking again.
So from time to time, they will reboot the server for updates.

[Vengeance]

If we are speaking of realism here, in the old system how does the npc "know" that you are targeting him?  He is unaware of your mouse and your clicking habits.  Saying his/her name is a much better and smoother way to get his attention.  I agree that giving an npc something should also attract his attention.  I'll add that this weekend perhaps.

As far as everyone knowing everyone else's name without being introduced, this topic has been discussed since 2001.  It is simply too much overhead for too little reward to track each and every introduction made by every player to every player or npc.  It isn't going to happen.  Just RP that every citizen of Yliakum is wearing a mandatory nametag that says "Hi, my name is _____!" if it helps you feel better.

- Vengeance

[Wired_Crawler]

Proposition of improvement (?):

Server knows the angle of character/NPC rotation. Could You implement checking, if player and NPC are looking at each other ? They would have "angle of view" and interaction would occur only within it. The picture below explains it better:



This would be substitute of targeting NPC. This also would prevent situation, where 20 players are talking to NPC standing around it. You want to talk - wait in order .

Edit: At least - character should look in direction of NPC (more or less).

[Siteri Kidachi]

Well, the old system might "represent" some sort of focus/eye contact. Just because you do it with the mouse in real life doesn't mean it can't have an IC equivalent. It's like using the item screen to equip weapons, obviously they don't really get dragged out of a box and into your character's hands, they just pull them out. Game controls aren't necessarily representative of OOC things.

Also, sorry to say I think the idea that everyone is wearing nametags is pretty stupid.

[Ralleyon]

I know the ideas I'm about to say have been said already (I read all the thread), but I would like to add my input as well, to stress the idea even better.

In short, with regard to the new change 

The idea is nice in itself and I'm sure Venge put a lot of work into it, but:

- it isn't realistic (Actually I find it even less realistic than the old targetting system)
- it isn't working with all NPC's
- it breaks quests... badly
- it breaks talking... badly

I understand that it is still under work, but it's been almost a week now. If the idea still needs work, then implement it when it doesn't break the game so much, when it has had some maturity both in code&concept and in additional features required to make it work. Someone said it very well, this isn't something that falls into "game mechanics" category, this is something that cuts deep right into usability. I think in that regard we do have a word to say and we should have been consulted. It's not so buggy after all.... it's just very.... undeveloped as a concept.

I understand the reasons which led to this and I fully support the ideas that stand behind the change... as in make the talking to NPC's more seamless, but *this* isn't doing it, because it makes a lot of assumptions (starting with those 15 seconds).

Sorry, but my vote for it, whether it gets to stay this way or not after all... is NO. Perhaps with improvements I will change my mind... but until I can have a conversation (be it as silly as it was before) with NPC's, I'm not going to. And this reason does not rely on the sole fact that I was used to the old system... I am not that old in PS to say that it had got in my blood.

Good luck in dealing with this, but my best suggestion (as it's been said a thousand times before) is to have both systems available and allow players to choose.

[sesmi]

No, just no. This will make it much harder for newbies. I knooow you're not trying to make it easy for them, but don't make it harder when it's not necessary!

[zanzibar]

If we are speaking of realism here, in the old system how does the npc "know" that you are targeting him?

Eye contact.

[Datruth]

If we are speaking of realism here, in the old system how does the npc "know" that you are targeting him?

Eye contact.

.... Zanzibar, think a bit, before your back could be turned and you could target and talk.

Eye contact isn't implemented in EITHER system.

Don't RP for a second here, and think of how we target.

CLICK, then TALK.

The CLICK doesn't exhist, And eye contact ISN'T necessary to Click on them.

So i can CLICK just as easily, WITHOUT looking at him.

BY FAR the new system is better RP than the old one, WE all can agree on that.

What i don't like is the wait time to be able to talk to the NPC's.

Hopefully you guys can fix the bugs soo, cause i wanna be able to talk to levrus again and the other NPC'S.

But REALISTICALLY, the new system is more Real.


Eye contact...... ya.... rethink that....

[Kayden]

Our goal should be a system that is easy to understand, consistent, and functional. "Realism" should not be a goal at this point.

Why not? In a realistic system everyone around you would overhear your conversations with NPCs—both what you say, and they say.

However, this would be terrible:
1. It would give away unwanted spoilers for quests.
2. Lots of annoying chatter—imagine hearing someone repeatedly saying, "give me a quest" until they get one. Or the responses? "Huh? I don't get it. Huh? I don't get it. Huh? I don't get it. Huh? *whacks NPC over the head with a blunt claymore*"
3. I often have to type and reword maybe dozens of times to get the right wording for a quest. Especially when I have to re-ask previous questions to trigger phrases. I can easily type 50 lines and get nowhere, and I'm thankful noone else has to hear.
4. It's impossible to have anything remotely close to an in-character conversation with NPCs.  Nilaya's lingo, words she uses, may not make sense.  She says "thank you" at times, or "oh?" to express interest. She nods. Little things.  In PS you cram everything into rigid dialog, like "tell me about ____". Like for a certain quest, you absolutely cannot ask "have you seen any guantlets?" No! You have to say "tell me about gauntlets," which is something I'd never actually say—it inquires about a generic concept or object, rather than a missing item.

2–4 could be fixed by smarter NPCs, but doing so is a ton of work.  1 is still a problem.

On the pro side, when people ask about culture, others would overhear. However, we can still encourage people to talk to NPCs about such things, and reinterate their stories ourselves, which also brings culture to the masses.

Frankly, I don't find the old system to be terribly bad.  When you're out shopping or around town, you usually don't know people's names.  You get people's attention and say "Hello sir", or just "Excuse me, could you help me with..."  You have to focus on someone, make sure they see you, go up and get their attention somehow.  In doing so, your attention is focused on them.  Targetting may not be ideal, but it does approximate your locus of attention.

It would take a huge amount of work to get "realistic" NPCs.

Right now we have a lot of NPCs who each have very little to say...and a lot of them have generic triggers which don't fit at all.  Some "mean looking guy lurking in the shadows" says "Hello friend! What can I do for you?"  Merrinez responds with a generic "I'm very happy with my job! Everyone should be if they can" after griping about how bad it is only moments earlier.  Brado says he likes his job if you ask him about being a weaver, but hasn't a clue about being a bartender.  Not to mention, they only have a few things they actually do know about.  I've also noticed that most of them seem to have rather similar personalities.

My idea to fix that was to start an "adopt an NPC" program for good roleplayers...have our actual players fully work out an NPC's personality, writing his or her opinion on a wide variety of topics.  Imagine possible conversations and flesh out the details.  Share a bit at first, then respond to prompting ("oh?" "really?" "why?" "tell me more") for more details.  Forget having contributors apply to and join the team first, just have people pick or dream up an NPC and write it up.  If it's good, use it.  If people write total junk, disregard their contributions.  If people write decent quantities of good and interesting characters, maybe they can be asked to join Settings.  Maybe someone just wants to write one NPC and be done, leaving their mark on the world.

Other issues with the new system:
– If you mention an NPC's name in their proximity, they eat the conversation. Things like "/me nods to Jayose" or "Jayose loves his books very much" are not broadcast to the players around me, and earn me a lovely "You sound like a blithering mud dobber! Leave me be!" And I'm all like, "leave me be, I wasn't even talking to you!"
– Timeouts are weird. "Is it up yet? Can I talk normally yet?"  "Gah, I meant for that to go to the NPC, sorry."
– Updating all NPC scripts manually is gonna be a pain.  Frankly it seems like unnecessary work.

I do appreciate the idea and the effort, but I feel it would be best to restore the old system until it's possible to have reasonable conversations with NPCs, and work on that instead.  As I understand it, one of the reasons for the new system was that targetting is counter-intuitive...but I haven't really seen any new players have trouble grasping it.  It's simple and consistent.

Anyway, those are my two cents. And you know how seldom I throw those in on these boards. :)
--Nilaya

[Nikodemus]

If we are speaking of realism here, in the old system how does the npc "know" that you are targeting him?

Eye contact.

...blablabla...
Eye contact...... ya.... rethink that....

Actually, you better rethink.
You speak of realism, like the current communication with NPCa was realistic. So he tried to give you realistic interpretation, like you are. Maybe if you opened your eyes, you would see..
Better read what Nilaya wrote, especially the first line.

P.S. Am I iritated? Yeah.

[Datruth]

Well i'm sorry but you better re read the First post.

The whole point of this is to make the game Realistic.

And the first sentance was not worrying about Realism.... i'm sorry, but that's what this whole system is about.

The first was not realistic, but was easy, user friendly.

The second is user friendly for some and not for others, and Is 10 times more realistic.

I'm sure those who arn't used to it will be, Stop crying about your targeting, targeting is gone, it was fake, we don't walk around with big pointers everywhere.

[Karyuu]

Stop crying about your targeting, targeting is gone, it was fake, we don't walk around with big pointers everywhere.

Try to be less aggressive when you post, Datruth. You have a way of saying exactly what you mean, but there are milder, kinder ways of doing that sometimes :}

Personally I prefer the targeting system - it's a very easy and yes, "realistic" method of communicating with an NPC. By targeting, you roleplay "directing" your speech at that particular person. You don't need eye contact to do that in real life - body language and tone of voice suffice enough sometimes.

Still, the new system would be just fine if you could talk about an NPC without that NPC immediately cornering you into a conversation with it.

[neko kyouran]

Personally I prefer the targeting system - it's a very easy and yes, "realistic" method of communicating with an NPC. By targeting, you roleplay "directing" your speech at that particular person. You don't need eye contact to do that in real life - body language and tone of voice suffice enough sometimes.

Still, the new system would be just fine if you could talk about an NPC without that NPC immediately cornering you into a conversation with it.

I like the idea behind the new way of talking to npcs, but as with everything, there is always roomfor improvement.  Reading over everyone's comments, I propose this simple yet efficient system.

1) keep the old way of talking as an option.  It's is user friendly, simple to use and learn, and as it has been pointed out, it can be thought of as "realistic"

2) Tweak the new system by the following:  You want to start a conversation with an npc?  Then use the starting phrase, some thing like "Hello, [insert npc name]"  That gets their attention and you have your conversation.  Ending the conversation is just as simple, no need for time out.  "Good bye, [insert npc name]"

This way you can still use the new way of talking to an npc, yet still have all the functionality of talking about the npc to other players around you, without having to reword your sentance so that the npc doesn't interfer when you don't want it to.

[Siteri Kidachi]

But then there's still the infamous "you have to know the character's name before you meet them" problem! I hate to be repetitive, but we do have a perfectly functional /greet command, which could do the same thing to begin a conversation, not require censorship of chat around NPCs, and not be OOC.