Question about quest language

[Tuxide]

I like to think of it as PS's little way of helping you improve your typing skills. 

Neko:  I only half agree here, and only because although I would expect a noob to know how to spell English words correctly, I wouldn't on named entities.  I wonder how many times typing "miss abelia sent me" annoyed some noob because the person couldn't spell her damn name right.  To answer this question, turn on advisormode.  I remember when I started playing this game in 2002, I never spelled "Yliakum" correctly.  I always misspelled it as "Ylaikum", and I did so for about a year or two.  Heck, there are still devs and GMs who can't spell "Akkaio" right either.

*edit*

(don't mean to double post but this is too off-tangent from my last one)

OK so I got curious and started asking some NPC a bunch of stuff.  Now, I've been talking to NPCs ever since Darkmoon wrote a lot of the original crap three years ago and asked us to try talking to them.  Anyways, these are the responses I got.  I'm not posting the "tell me about you" response (which does state her job), you can find her and ask her yourself.

Tuxide says: tell me about work
Nyshyn Klannarr says: My job is okay.  It pays me money, I buy beer.

Good, that's exactly what I wanted to hear.

Tuxide says: tell me about your occupation
Nyshyn Klannarr says: I don't know too much about that, I'm afraid.
Tuxide says: tell me about occupation
Nyshyn Klannarr says: I don't know too much about that, I'm afraid.
Tuxide says: tell me about your job
Nyshyn Klannarr says: I don't know too much about that, I'm afraid.
Tuxide says: tell me about job
Nyshyn Klannarr says: I don't know too much about that, I'm afraid.

Like you even know what you do, you so-called freelance archaeologist.  Your supervisor is an ulbernaut.

Tuxide says: tell me about quest
Nyshyn Klannarr says: I don't know anything about any quests.  Ask someone else.

I have to admit, that one is new to me.


Now, apparently starting a sentence with "do you have" does not necessarily mean "do you have something in your inventory" but "can you give or sell this to me".  Here are some examples, enjoy.

Tuxide says: do you have a job
Nyshyn Klannarr says: Looks like you are in search of fame and honor. Unfortunately, I have no tasks to help you in that.
Tuxide says: do you have work
Nyshyn Klannarr says: Looks like you are in search of fame and honor. Unfortunately, I have no tasks to help you in that.

The "give me a quest" line.  The second one sounds more right than the first one though.

Tuxide says: do you have an occupation
Nyshyn Klannarr says: Give you what? You'll have to be more specific.

That's all right, I didn't really expect you to know what one was.

Tuxide says: do you have a weapon
Nyshyn Klannarr says: I am not in the business of giving away anything. You might have more luck in or around the arena.

No, I could've been asking if you were armed.

Tuxide says: do you have a book
Nyshyn Klannarr says: I don't have any.  You should visit a library or something.

Probably correct.

Tuxide says: do you have clothes on
Nyshyn Klannarr says: Give you what? Can you be more specific?

No comment.

[MustangMR]

That is somewhere where I was going with this, Tux.  I have been trying quests and I get kind of frustrated trying to get the exact words in.  I am trying to go slow though.  This is a fundamental part of the game and I know there has to be some sensitivities here.  This is not going to be an easy thing to work out, but it has to be good if you're going to attract and keep players, or else you risk driveing the game towards a mostly skills grinding situation where quests are rarely done, and I would hate to see that happen.  I love the old school feel of the command line, but that is just not the state of the game genre now, and pulling people back to it is going to be a tough sell.  I would love to see some kind of solution that takes this one step further and mixes the best of both worlds.

Someone mentioned in another thread that someone didn't speak Planeshift yet.  Don't think they meant it this way, but I think that nails it.  What we have to do is learn to speak PS for the game engine, and there are no clear rules for that.  I have a disabled son who uses a communication device.  One of the features of it is a word prediction system that allows him to form sentences against English grammar with minimal typing.  That would be a lot of work to implement, but maybe if the language rules were spelled out somewhere how to speak PS, people would at least know how they were expected to speak to an NPC.  I don't know enough about the quest dialogs to really know how that would work though.  There probably are no rules at this point, but maybe that is something to think about.  Set some standard rules for how to communicate with NPC's that all quest writers have to follow.  Then, if at some point in the future, someone did try a word prediction system, they would know how to implement it.

[Rizin]

@Tuxide: Think NPCs are dumb? Click here!

[MustangMR]

@Tuxide: Think NPCs are dumb? Click here!

@me too.  I saw that thread but hadn't really read it yet.  I'll help out with that.

[Rizin]

Please do! We've learned and added a lot based on the feedback there.