the quest

[Athirr]

Well i found the right npc its just that he dosnt answear almost on anything i tried everything e can understand any way  X(

[Licker]

The days of text adventures, like Zork and Hitch Hiker?s Guide, have been long faded into the past.  The technologies we use in our games have changed enormously since the days of the text adventure, so why when it comes to NPCs, am I still playing ?find the right verb??

Let me give you a hypothetical Example:

Bob the Baker, an NPC, is very sad, because he has lost something.  Now I like Bob and the bread that he makes, but when he is sad his bread takes away my HP instead of restoring it.  I want to help him out so that I can buy Bob?s happy bread and restore my HP.

The obvious solution is to find out what is wrong and set it right.  Seems simple enough, however, at this point I am dead in the water until I can figure out exactly what verb the game is waiting for me to type; Ask? Question? Cross-examine? Pry Into? Inquire? Demand? Interrogate? Request?  I sit and type into the wee hours of the morning and my greatest success was getting the NPC to say, ?I do not understand, WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM.?

In reality the puzzle is rather simple, go out back of Bob?s Bakery and find his lost puppy.  A quest that should take no more than 5 minutes, but I never got that far, because I am still trying to find that Mother-%&*#ing verb.

A lot of games today, as well as the games of 20 years ago, have this problem.  An obstacle which can only be overcome in one way; it demands that the player read the designer?s mind.  Which is the most boring and biggest waist of time, and most casual gamers will run for the door screaming, and they will take their money with them.  This ?find the right verb? problem has ruined many games and turned away almost all but the die-hard game fan.

So maybe this PlaneShift game could provide some other interactive way to communicate with NPCs.  I know that developing another way of NPC communication is costly in both man-hours and resources, but if you take the time to do it, you are going to open many more opportunities for the future of PlaneShift.

Just a thought.  Mostly, what I have seen so far I like.

[Skizzik]

The devs could use keywords, but the problem is that players will just ask Bob the baker \'problem?\' or \'lost?\' instead of making a whole sentence...  8o

[Peeeevs]

yeah i know..that danm bob daosant understand anything  :rolleyes:

[Licker]

Game Designers create games to entertain an audience (the player).  Interfaces that are not intuitive slow the game play down.  This removes the player from the fantasy that a game provides, making the game less engaging and enjoyable for the player.

Look at what Skizzik said; ?players will just ask Bob the baker \'problem?\' or \'lost?\' instead of making a whole sentence...?

Look at what Peeeevs said; ?yeah i know..that danm bob daosant understand anything?

This is exactly the problem when using text as an interface for interacting with NPCs; Bob dose not understand $#!%.  This NPC text-talking interface is very un-intuitive for the player.  As humans we rarely speak using complete sentences or proper English.  Most of our conversations consist of phrases, fragments, run-ons, slang, and/or single words.  Therefore, if the player can not type to the NPC using their fragmented bad English and get a reasonable response for which they are looking, then they are going to be drawn out of the fantasy that the game has created, and the game fails to deliver on the fun.  Especially, when all the player is going to receive for all their time spent verb hunting, is an answer (Answer A, Answer B, or Answer C) from a list of responses/options that the NPC can give.  Dose not the current Planeshift NPC communication interface, use to a certain extent, some form of keywords?  Which in turn gives a predefined response?  At this stage it?s basically a list of options.  Instead of providing the list from which to select a question the player has to type it.

Typing text, as an interface with which to speak to NPCs, at its current stage, is a rather unforgiving tool of interaction, which alienates a large portion of the total possible audience, as well as, removes a chunk of fun from the game.  I look forward to the day, when typed fragmented bad English, can be used to interact with NPCs.  On that day I will be more than happy to type away with an NPC.  Until that day however, I do not see why we have to interact with NPCs, in the same fashion as we did 20 years ago.

All I am trying to say is that their must be another way to do an NPC talking interface which can be very intuitive for the average or new player.

[Peeeevs]

geesh Licker  you didnt have to include my typo!!!
\"daosant\"    but yeah good point..it is rather hard to think of what to say...after you get to thinkng about it so much you start thing about why not?? and why wont this work...and takes fun away from the game...but yeah the npc\'s of 20 or so years ago were horrible (not that i was around that long tho   ) but i have played some old games...and one of my favorite quotes..altho not really from a npc...

:evil:ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US   :evil:

[leeta]

> Which is the most boring and biggest waist of time

I thought that was mine. Well, \"boring\" -- dunno about \"biggest\" ;-)

Oh, sorry, does poking fun at speling mistakes constitute flaming on these boards?

Speaking of which, one problem with keywords is when they\'re hard to spell. It\'s even more problematic if the game designer is the one that can\'t spell. EverQuest, anyone?

[Peeeevs]

yeah..spelling and ....do you have to use proper grammer?.. well ne way that is a big problem cause people barley EVER talk in proper english as Licker said..

Licker:

Most of our conversations consist of phrases, fragments, run-ons, slang, and/or single words.

 

and most of all... Dialect (is that how you spell it??    
like from different parts of the country or evin the world..

ex.

South western pennsylvania: \"yuns\"
Texas and virgina and a bunch of other places: \"Yall\"


and a whollleeee bunch of other stuff..but that is anouther problem..

[Vengeance]

Licker, your points are well taken, but as the guy who designed and implemented the NPC dialog system we have now, I can tell you the problem right now is a lack of vocabulary data in the NPC dialog engine--not a fundamental design flaw.

We recognized from the beginning, that in the beginning, the NPCs would not recognize very much.  This is because it is impossible to predict HOW people will actually try to use it.  Instead, the dialog manager tracks and stores EVERY single non-understood statement in the database.  Periodically we go through that table and improve our responses.

I think people who were here from the beginning of MB will testify that the NPCs (however bad they are now) are much better than they used to be.  This improvement will continue to grow and add-on to itself as we go.

This is a DEMO remember?  :-)  It is a real-world science lab for us to test our frankenstein outside the petri-dish we call the dev team.

Thanks,
Venge

[Licker]

Vengeance,

I am well aware that MB is a technology demo, and not a completed masterwork.     I tell new players that almost every time I log on to the server.  

I was not trying to attack your position on the dev team, as the immortal programming god of all knowledge and technology concerning the NPC dialog system.  I apologize, if you took any of my comments as such.  Nor did I mean you to think, that I was saying, YOUR npc talking interface has a ?fundamental design flaw.?  For that is also not the point I am making.  If this was something you thought, I apologize again.

This goes well with my point:

?We recognized from the beginning, that in the beginning, the NPCs would not recognize very much. This is because it is impossible to predict HOW people will actually try to use it. Instead, the dialog manager tracks and stores EVERY single non-understood statement in the database. Periodically we go through that table and improve our responses.?

I am glad to see that you are taking steps to making a better NPC text typing interface.  Your efforts should vastly improve this type of NPC dialog interface.  As for myself, I shall continue to wait patiently, for the day when this sort of NPC interface switches from S.I. to A.I.


FYI:  I was curious so I jumped the wall of the city, ran off the edge of the world, and now my character is sunk up to his waist, and stuck, in the vast desert of Jell-O that lies beyond.  I guess I need to create a new character.


Sincerely,
Licker

[Talad]

Hi,
the major problem of speaking with NPCs now is that multiple discussions are not supported.

I will make an example to make this clearer.

P1= player 1
P2= player 2
NPC = the NPC both players are talking to

This is a discussion with one player only:
P1 = \"Hi\"
NPC = \"Hi P1\"
P1 = \"tell me about you\"
NPC = \"I am Gorratoleds, I love eating meat\"
P1 = \"which kind of meat?\"
NPC = \"red meat mainly\"


This is a discussion with two players:
P1 = \"Hi\"
NPC = \"Hi P1\"
P1 = \"tell me about you\"
NPC = \"I am Gorratoleds, I love eating meat\"
P2 = \"Hi\"
NPC = \"Hi P2\"
P1 = \"which kind of meat?\"
NPC = \"what? I can\'t understand.\"

In the second case the NPC discussion what reset by player 2, so the NPC was no more able to follow the discussion with player 1 and any further questions about meat will fail. Player 1 has to restart the discussion from the beginning.

This is a bug we have now in MB release and is lowering a lot the chances of players to talk to NPCs. I\'ve seen 10 people talking to the same npc at once, so in this case there are very few chances he can follow a proper discussion. We plan to fix this bug allowing multiple discussions at the same time. I will let your know when this bug is fixed.

About having a text interface or a mouse driven one, I have no doubts. The text interface gives endless possibilities for a decent NPC interaction, while the mouse driven one just give to the players the option to click on all that is available till they find the good one.

When the bug is fixed and as soon as we add more knowledge to the NPCs the text interface will be playable and rich.

[Vengeance]

Licker, I didn\'t take your post as an attack.  No apology required.

Type /spawn to reset your character position.

- Venge

[Peeeevs]

yeah Vengeance i have ben having that problem!! lol i cant talk to the npc and get my questions answered..lol

[Peeeevs]

thats also a problem in *the*gamE*that*shall*not*be*name*
only 1 person at a time can talk a npc at a time
which can be a problem  soon as a quest comes out
because tons of people will be talking ot the same npc at a time and nobody will accomplish anything!!

[hook]

talad,

multiple discussions are a very nice idea ...i haven\'t seen it before in an MMORPG ...and it would improve the game quite a bit