IMPORTANT: How you talk to NPCs has changed!

[Cha0s]

Here's the system I'd advocate. People have mentioned similar things and bits and pieces of it... but I don't think this exact system has been described.

Player approaches NPC (way, within 2 or 3 meters). Players makes "eye contact" (this means that the player is completely within the NPC's line of sight AND the player is looking at the NPC). After 3 seconds of eye contact, that NPC considers itself to be talking to the player and remains that way as long as eye contact and distance are maintained. Optionally, if the player is within distance and has acquired eye contact, he/she may say the NPC's name at the beginning of the conversation to skip the delay.

That system seems realistic to me. The only thing it doesn't account for is conversations over long distances. However, I think that's more of the exception than the rule. Just a random note on conversation in general: /say and /shout "radiuses" should not be spheres/hemispheres (as I think they are at present), but more like a set of mathematically shaped fields, mostly going forward, but some back and to the sides as well. In real life you hear speech from in front of a person better than from behind that person; this helps to keep things sane (you hear a lot more of just what's directed towards you, instead of just hearing everything from people around you). I found a link that seems to have equations for the forward parts... I don't know about how you'd deal with the back and sides. Linky!

[cedermoon]

Are you saying that to talk to a NPC you have to be standing in front of them whithin 2-3 meters. How would that work with harnquist where there is a group of people clambering for his attention. Should they form a queue.
What was wrong with clicking on the NPC, ie to get their attention and then you can talk to them for as long or short a time as you like. No panicing because you have not spoken them for 15 seconds;  screwing your eyes up trying to read the NPC's name or retyping their name because you misspelt it.

As an aside. How many quests are workable. I have only found one that can be completed. And only three NPC's that will reply.
 

[RayvenD]

Anybody know if/when the npc's will be fixed? i'm gettin sick of no quests

[neko kyouran]

To be blunt, they get fixed when they get fixed.  Welcome to a game in developement.  Heaven forbid you talk to other real people instead of the npcs.  You never know, some might offer quests of their own.

[Datruth]

To be blunt, they get fixed when they get fixed.  Welcome to a game in developement.  Heaven forbid you talk to other real people instead of the npcs.  You never know, some might offer quests of their own.

Heaven forbid people use 1/4 of thier brain and ask for a time frame of when projects will be finished.

I mean it's the obvious question and it's the pressing question, some of us don't like talking to people all day long.

We like going on adventures.

If i wanted to babble i could easily go on Aim and Yahoo.

I love the human element, but the quests are why i love this game, along with the graphical interface.

Try not to chop people's heads off when asking for an E.T.A, it's the natural question to ask.


I also, think this thread has been beaten to death, seems we have all the loose ends fixed, the old system is back, it's getting ready to be re implemented.

I'm moving on, and i hope this thread will too.

~~Datruth

[neko kyouran]

1) it was blunt and to the point, nothing else.
2) Form a group, go kill an ulber with 20 of your friends.  Interacting with the human players doesn't mean turning the game into a 3d IRC channel.
3) This is a game in developement by those that do it as a hobby in their spare time.  There is no definate, "we'll have this done by such and such date".  That's for commercial projects that have deadlines to meet becuase they get paid for thier work, amoung many other reasons.
4) The day I "chop someone's head off" around here is the day I'll be banned for breaking just about every harrassment rule in existance.  I can be blunt at times, put I never try to "flame" or "chop ones head off".  I give short, structured, blunt, rebutles.  Nothing more.  I don't take personal chop shots.  It's hard to believe but some people do try to be civil even on an uncivil place like the dreaded internet.  (again, to clarify, that isn't to mean you aren't civil yourself.  I'm simply trying to give explanation to my actions, no personal shots are meant by my typing)

To save some sort of ontopicness, the NPCs will be migrated back to the old when the Devs get the chance to roll back the changes.  Until then, try asking your fellow players if they would like to go out on an adventure with you, slay some trepors, hunt for new mines, see they sights, explore the lands, search for piles of discarded items scattered in the vast wilderness, take a dip in the river or go se the waterfall.  There is plenty to do other than just stand around an talk to other players.  You aren't going to get most of that stuff I mentioned from an NPC anyway.

[Xordan]

ETA is the same as it's always been and always will be: "Soon"

[RayvenD]

hmm? go talk to other people? tell me you're joking! my character 'frak' is so talkative i get told to shut up by people! i was simply asking because there's only so much kill the gladiator, go and train, kill the gladiator go and trian, mine some gold, go and train that you cajn do before tedium sets in and you start rping suicides just to keep your time occupied. sorry for wanting to know when the dev's would turn the system back to the way it was, it isn't like they have to 'develop' anything new to fix this problem, so yeah [ic] Wind yer' bloody neck in feller-me-lad, ye jus' makin yasel' seem even more of a wee cock that it wuz that i thought ye wuz alreedy reet?

[Ambiguous-Existence]

Im just wondering what the purpose is of telling the NPC hello and talking to thzem as if they were a real person. if there is no purpose to it apart from getting training or obtaining a quest then can you just simply make it one click and whatever information you wanted comes up in a dialogue box which you click and the NPC simply greets you and tells you who he is when you approach and click in him. It would be a bit of a pain in the ass having to know which commands work and which dont if that is how it is, though i havnt played the recent PS yet but always had problems adjusting to how you had to speak with NPC.

[Sisilam]

1. Never change a running system .. is one of the earliest things you learn if you work with a system .. but it seems to be in human mankind to break this rule over and over again

2. Yes I agree with a lot of Vengeance arguments but at least: I work in a Medical Computer Science Department .. If someone would change the system and drops all the old stuff before the new stuff is working that one would be kicked directly to the moon in fact because some operations or billings couldn't be processed meanwhile .. this is a bad bad style to go! This seems to be sometimes an overall problem of Planeshift and should worked on because it will break believe an reputation in the great job from all done in PS!

3. Yes I know this is a Tech Demo/beta and the Devs are working on it .. but bad coding/worflow style shouldn't happen!

4. I guess Vengeance and his staff is doing a great job and thought about all the needings before they started to implement that .. but I guess a lot of bugs and missleadings mighte have been overcome if it would be talked over in public before because a Dev always has a different focus an view an a problem as an user will have.

And don't catch me wrong, nor will I start a flame but it makes me sad to see some GREAT IDEAD break a working system which leads to massive work which might be as well had been implemented fluently both together and switch as soon as finished. Anyway to late for those topics to change but I hope that some of those will be prevented in the future.

Anyhow I don't want to only kick on the new system. I guess it is a nice Idea and would lead in a more realistic and/or more easy way but we should as well take note about all the mentions given as there are eye contact, other keywords except the name like 'harnquist' will listen as well to 'smith' ..
About the argument posted once before that the eye contact won't work well if 20 people stand around harnquist ... mhh .. did you ever noticed what happens in real life if 20 people stands around a single person talking to? This person drives nuts or will ran away or cry for silent ... because you can't understand well if 20 people talks mixed up together .. so a real person will indeed focus on the persons in sight and especialy in view to watch the lisps to get what was talking about .. so yes .. I guess the eye contact thing might be a good idea even if people might have to wait a second till there is enough space which you need as well today to be able to target harnquist

NICE WORK Vengeance and I'm interested seeing it in full action soon on all players .. till then I hope we might possibly use again the old system even as a backup system if something fails (breaking chains in questmode, etc.)

kind regards,
Sisilam

[FyreBrand]

Hello.  Being fairly new I'm not familiar with the previous NPC system as it was implemented here, although I've been playing games a really long time and I'm pretty familiar with point and click NPC dialogue interaction.

I just wanted to feedback that I don't mind the personal address system as it is now.  It has worked okay for me for the most part.  I occasionally lose focus from the NPC due to me taking to long to formulate a response or in a few rare instances latency.

The eye contact idea isn't bad, but under heavy server load I think it might not work as intended.  When I play Guild Wars and interact with an NPC they turn to face me until another person clicks on them and interacts, then they spin about to face that player.  A very popular NPC will be spinning around a lot.  It just looks silly.

I think someone mentioned using /tell to interact with the NPC.  I think this might be a good idea when the server population is higher.  Having four or five, even ten or so people all addressing an NPC publically might seem odd or annoying.

I do like the conversational system much more than the point and click system.  It really seems like I'm talking to someone and not just activating a computer generated script.  Sometimes in Guild Wars or Lineage (or other single player games) I would click on an NPC and they would have a page long text blathering on about something.  Sometimes I would read it and click on the link to the next really long boring page and then sometimes I would just ignore it and move on.  This way it seems much more conversational and interesting.  I actually read their responses.  It does help that they aren't 400 words long.

[Janner]

 Vengeance fixed new system this morning, it now works try it.

[Nikodemus]

Its as i have been predicting.
You get timeouts all the time.
1) when you are reading the answer (it takes some time for me when i dont want to miss somethink) and then want to answer question
2) its very troublesome when to ask a question, you have to activate some answer by previous question. By the time you read it, you would have to ask the same question again (adding name of NPC), to be allowed asking next. Of curse you will be very lucky if you find such trigger questions, coz you are used you just ask question, not ask the same question all over again so that to have the trigger on for the next question. Not to mention you never know how does look like questions yu can ask.
3) when you wonder about question you want to answer

But there is one situation when it work perfectly fine, (no timeouts)
1) when you ask questions like crazy, trying to gues it, trying every possible variation.
If you are lucky you wil have 20 lines of "huh?, Wha?" and betwean these single answers which make some sense.

Am i missing somethink?

[Janner]

Yes i see your point, take this text for a quest, deleted name so hope not a spoiler.

  tells you: I may have something for you. I'm investigating the magical properties of the [*randum four word grins*], and it seems that when we throw in certain items, Laanx listens to us. In some old books I found that the usage of recent items is not very appreciated by Laanx, so I'm searching for some ancient items, in particular old coins. Those are not very easy to find for a man like me who spends all day at the temple. Travellers, archaeologists and explorers are more able to find old coins in lower levels or in the labyrinth. Will you search for an old coin and return it to me?

 By the time you read that 15 seconds gone and you have possibly lost the quest as you need to reply.

[Sisilam]

maybe the timeout could be a function depending on the length of the spoken text? .. the longer the text to read .. the longer the timeout will be ..

Example:

> Yes, that is true
= 10 sec

> you should take item XXX and give it to YYY in City ZZZ
= 20 sec

> the above long example "I may have something for you. ... Will you search for an old coin and return it to me?"
= 100 sec

remind about that you have to read it AND should have enough time to write an answer .. also think about people having a slow connection (e.g. because they live 1000 miles away from the server)