Think NPCs are dumb? Click here!

[Durwyn]

here is something I took out of my log it could be me asking the questions wrong or it is the NPC you be the Judge

(19:26:55) Soylentshadow says: do you need help
(19:27:16) Nyshyn Klannarr says:  You want something from me, do you?

you had to say "yes"

[Shadowmeph]

oh well that makes sense 

[Eila]

here is something I took out of my log it could be me asking the questions wrong or it is the NPC you be the Judge

(19:27:16) Nyshyn Klannarr says:  You want something from me, do you?
(19:28:09) Soylentshadow says: what do you have?

Put yourself in the shoes of Nyshyn for a moment. She's busy examining artifacts and ruins with a specific purpose in mind. [ Once you dig into the Yliakum settings a little, you'll realize that what she does is crucial to her existance, even her sister follows the exact same path. ]

You walk up, disrupt her tedious work and proceed to demand she tell you what she has available. I doubt she'll start giving you a breakdown of the contents in her inventory or give you the choice of what you shall do in order to satisfy *your* desires. Would it make sense that she should respond to the last question above if you were to respond with "maybe"?

Perhaps you might consider that in fact its your character that might serve her, assuming you provide a clear intention that you are interested. Imagine the nightmare, given the dialog above, if she *did* only respond to the key phrase "what do you have?".

If i ask you "do you understand what i'm trying to say with this comment?" and you respond something else than yes or no, you can expect me to follow your response, i'm sentient (although thats debateable). If you need an NPC to carry out a conversation about subject X or Y, you have to do it programmatically. Just collecting a primitive boolean response is task enough, now consider writing an AI that would use fuzzy logic to determine what you are attempting to say. Each NPC would then require its own fuzzy logic. [ Its been suggested that a super-computer -may- reach a state close to human intelligence around 2020. You would need 100's of super-computers to provide 100's of sentient NPC's ]

If an NPC asks you a specific question where a boolean value yes or no is expected, the best bet is to respond with a boolean value. Why? because they aren't there to serve you. You may think they are but thats an illusion.

[Kaerli]

Harnquist doesn't understand "about iron mines", he just parrots back the same thing he says when you tell him "about iron"

[Ichaas]

The woman standing opposite the leather armour merchant in Hydlaa starts fights but can't understand any sort of retort or threat made to her...
It was rather funny threatening to "tear your head from your scrawny worthless neck" only to be answered with "I do not understand what you're saying"..
Well hell... how do I make a threat any easier to comprehend? 

I like the gladiator response to the word "die" haha, it's quite amusing.

[Nikodemus]

NPCs are capable of expresing meactions as a separate line of text, one of different color.
But they also express their behaviour in the casual line of text with use of ** or brackets.
Could all this be changed to a separate line of meaction by a NPC, the one which is collored differently too - it looks better and more consistent if it is done i one way and i think it is the best method.
Could someone search the databse for all brackets, especially [ and all * ?

It is especially disturbing when a NPC use [] when players commonly use it to describe occ.

I like the gladiator response to the word "die" haha, it's quite amusing.

I assume it is the same as a year before. Implies the fact how easly one can get out from the DR, like death was a common happening. I will await this to be fixed.

[Jeraphon]

There's a very good reason that the NPCs within regular chats use bracketed comments for actions in the way you're describing, but I can't get into details. However, whereas NPCs are capable of expressing actions as a separate line of text within quests, they currently cannot within regular chats. They use different systems. Hopefully one day this will be rectified.

I'll look into the "die" message. Likely that was written a long time ago, before the DR concepts were as fleshy and settings-y as they are now. ...Okay, I've looked into it and changed the message to which you were referring. Thanks!

[Nikodemus]

thx for reply.

However, whereas NPCs are capable of expressing actions as a separate line of text within quests, they currently cannot within regular chats. They use different systems. Hopefully one day this will be rectified.

It is not true (not correct).

Code: [Select]

(15:11:33) Nikodemus says: where are we
(15:11:35) Mulgik looks around as if kra is looking at the village for the first time.
(15:11:43) Mulgik says:  Gugrontid is a village that was founded by krans. It has ... bla-bla-bla[censored];P.
I hope so too it will be rectified.

[Jeraphon]

He does? That's new!

If that's the case I know exactly what to do, but it'll take time. How fast do you think the players can help me out by whipping up a list of instances where they use brackets? I'll fix them as soon as I can.

[Prolix]

Code: [Select]

select dialog from npc where data =' /[.*/]' if you have read access to the appropriate database, interpolating first the correct db, column and field names for 'npc', 'dialog' and 'data'.
or is my sql faulty too?
guess you do not have that access though.

[LigH]

I would not swear that SQL is able to apply "regular expressions"... So far I only know '_' as "1 char" and '%' as "any chars", regarding wildcards.

[Jeraphon]

guess you do not have that access though.

You're right, I don't at that.

[Prolix]

Well according to my O'Reilly "MYSQL Pocket Reference", a little dated now, MYSQL does. Possibly others do too if you are not using MYSQL, I think you are though. looks like I missed a keyword though

value1 REGXP/RLIKE value2 e.g.
(SELECT name FROM people WHERE name RLIKE '^B.8')

It is kind of too bad READ access is not more widely available within the database, it would make things easier. I suppose there are security concerns.

[Jeraphon]

So what does this have to do with how dumb NPCs are? What you guys are talking about are bugs in what they do say...not what they don't understand at all.

I have no idea about database things. I've asked for your help in locating them. Help me or don't.

[LigH]

I've asked for your help in locating them.

Exactly that we are trying to do.

Isn't it more efficient and reliable to have a computer search for text patterns than a human trying all the possible questions in game?

If anyone had SELECT access to the database, he could use the SQL server as tool to detect all blatantly malformed entries in seconds. If not ... well, it is your spare time.

The logical issues, of course, will need questions in game. They can't be found with a computer request.