Introductions for NPCS

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

This change would be incredibly time consuming for Settings team. Let us know what you think.

[Lanarel]

Maybe you could tell engine people they should only implement this for NPCs if they also implement a temporary hardcoded response from an NPC, so they would introduce themselves if you ask the "who are you?"
I voted yes because I like to see this work with NPCs, but can understand that it is not practical if settings would have to add a IntroduceOp for each NPC by hand 

[Zan]

Personally I'd say "Yes." but since you say it's very time consuming for you guys maybe we should see if the larger community likes it first by testing it on players. I definitely don't consider it a priority. Introductions is something that can easily be RPed by the players.

[Duraza]

I definately say try it with players first. Like Zan said it doesn't sound like something that should be a priority, especially if its going to take up lots of time on the team's part. See how it works out with the players first, then if all goes well decide from there.

[SerqFeht]

Wait and see. I'd much rather found out how the character labels work out. Although it isn't a bad idea. I like it

[Jawn]

If i didn't know better, i'd say there is a concerted effort to try to discourage new players from getting anywhere..... but i do know better. It's just that  things have gotten harder all over lately.... let's just shelf this idea, for NPCs. Players, ok. But NPCs? Just leave it as it is, for the newcomers' sake..... please.

And don't give me the "Ask players around" canned answer. It's stale. I had a very hard time getting answers that way when i started, and just today, there was 2 people that asked questions.... i waited, to see the response. There were ~several~ experienced players around that could answer... but it seems it was disturbing their roleplay, i guess, i don't know. Finally, i answered, after a bit. No-one else offered a reply. That's sad. Shame on those other people that just were too busy talking to help. New people don't need yet ~another~ thing to not get answers to...... bad enough with the names on the NPCs.... nevermind without.

(Yes, it struck a chord with me. I'm sorry if i sound harsh. But i do feel new people are getting left more and more in the dust for the sake of more experienced players, and i feel this is just yet-another-thing that'll make things tougher on them. (Thank goodness a tutorial now exists...) Don't forget: we were all new, at one time.... it seems easy now, but when you are new, it isn't most of the time, unless someone takes you under their wing, which is not always the case.)

And that's all i have to say about that.

.

[Erisnas]

"Take under their wing..."  No wonder as a Klyros new players follow me.  Anyway, perhaps a small way to help would be to slacken the rules of the help channel to allow more in-game questions.  I do cringe as a new-players asks something about the game that I cannot answer do to the rules.  It is a pile-up of things that effect new-players the most though.  Personally, there are so many problems with it now we just need to sort it out slowly.  We will probably need to eventually make it a gradual introduction to the game, but that is in works so, we will have to see what happens.

[Rongar Elani]

There won't be any difference between experienced players and newbies. All of us will have to ask NPCs about their name, in case this feature will apply, that is. Yes, they might know some of the NPCs, if not most of them, but is that really an advantage? What would be the problem for a newbie to ask any NPC he sees about their name? I personally don't see any problem. Plus, new players are that way encouraged to get into chat with NPCs, so they will probably learn about the conversation with NPCs faster. Probably.

And, if you are looking for a certain NPC, which happens to be located in BD, what's the advantage for an experienced player - who knows about his location - before and after the change? It all comes down to traveling. Experienced players have traveled to the BD, hence they know most of the NPCs around there, and as soon as a newbie has traveled to the BD, he will aswell.

However, with your complaint about the experienced players you were going a little off topic, but I see where you were coming from. Nevertheless, and although I often help new players getting along, there is a player guide available, and the server MOTD suggests everyone to read it. If only 30% of the new players would take the time and heed the advice, there would be much less frustration on both sides. Don't you think it is a little selfish from a newb to enter a game, not to say a MMORPG, and expect other players to help with every little booboo they have, just because they didn't want to spend 5 minutes reading the guide?

I help in most cases, but not everyone is as patient as I am, understandably.

[Tontow]

[sarcasm] OH, YES, Let us please make the learning curve just that much steeper for new players! [/sarcasm]

[Rongar Elani]

How exactly would it negatively affect the 'learning curve'?

Before the change:

Newbie runs around, searching for a certain NPC.


After the change:

Newbie runs around, searching for a certain NPC.


The only difference is that they have to ask the NPCs about their name, before continuing. That takes less than 10 seconds.

[bilbous]

There is  a very big difference between finding the Dark Wanderer and finding Nkaw A new player might wander the Bronze Door region for hours without finding either if they even knew to look there while an experienced player could likely find either directly. Shame on you for saying there is no difference. Aside from that I very much doubt the dark wanderer is ever going to say Hi, I am the dark wanderer! He is an exception however.

[LigH]

My vote: "No".

Seems that people already find it annoying that NPCs introduce themselves too frequently.

And quests are already time consuming when they address not very "famous" NPCs with similar names but distant locations. Now imagine you had to introduce to every NPC in several locations until you found the one you need.

There are daytimes when you hardly find players who can help you finding not-so-famous NPCs.

[Vornne]

I voted wait and see, but I think npcs needing to be introduced is a good idea... sure, quests might be harder, but it just seems more interesting that way to me, you only have to make a little more effort and talk to them, for the ones that should be well known. It seems in the spirit of the quest system in planeshift, some other games have big yellow exclamation points over the next person's head, and spell out every step. That for me gets boring very fast, no matter how easy they are.

If you have never stopped to say hello to the ylian at the forge, I think it's fair enough that you can't find harnquist for the quest, you can still ask other players that have asked around where he is... if you say that other players aren't helpful, or there aren't enough, I think the multiplayer aspect of the game should be focused on personally, if you want to play by yourself why play an online game at all? I don't think the quests need to be easy - they might be boring to power through, but is the only reason you do them to tick them off the list, or collect all the glyphs? (well, winch access) As I said, I find the multiplayer aspect of the game the main reason to play.

It would also add a little mystery and realism to the game, if people like Zak would only tell you their name after a big quest with them, or asking another npc a certain question reveals it, though that sort of thing would need a good overhaul of the quests and responses probably. Note that I am only suggesting it for a very few npcs, I wouldn't want everything to rely on 'guess the phrase'.

I did not bother to add it to the other thread, but I would be in favor of being able to add your own custom text to players and npcs name labels, but to save database space, they could be in a file on your computer like the quest notes, with the character's id in the file... just an idea.

[miadon]

yes

[Rongar Elani]

There is  a very big difference between finding the Dark Wanderer and finding Nkaw A new player might wander the Bronze Door region for hours without finding either if they even knew to look there while an experienced player could likely find either directly. Shame on you for saying there is no difference. Aside from that I very much doubt the dark wanderer is ever going to say Hi, I am the dark wanderer! He is an exception however.

There is indeed a difference between finding different NPCs. Some are not easy to find, agreed, but how would that be different before and after the change?

Experienced players do have an advantage, but not because of any labels. We all started at some point and were looking for some NPC that wasn't easy to find. Labels didn't really help us finding him, they only saved us a bit of time, since we could just keep running, while looking at NPCs and saying "Ah, that's not him, Oh, that's not him either."

Just for the records, I voted for #3 aswell, but in general there is nothing wrong with not-knowing an NPC until introduced. Sure, Harnquist might talk about Trasok in some quest, but he would not only mention the name, but also his location. Likewise with any other NPC. Wouldn't this add a certain depth to NPCs and quests? A stronger interaction with the environment.

Oh, and the dark wanderer might introduce himself, eventually, my main concern is the petrified Kran though.


PS: I also agree with Vornne in every single word.