Indicators above NPCs who have quest information

[MirceaKitsune]

You could still look up in the chat logs what the NPCs told you to do for the quests...no need for a good memory there. And for finding NPCs....how about asking other players?

Chat logs can work, for people who still have them and can look through lots of texts. As for asking other players... what if there are no players around at that moment, or the ones who are don't know or don't want to be bothered about it? Imho, if questing is based on using chat history that could be months old and asking players you come across for help, I don't see a good direction personally. I mean... that really doesn't sound like something to constantly rely on in order to be able to quest, in my opinion.

[Minks]

That's why there are quest notes and at least in Hydlaa an NPC who can tell you the location of any other NPC in this city. 

[MirceaKitsune]

That's why there are quest notes and at least in Hydlaa an NPC who can tell you the location of any other NPC in this city.  

I've only recently started using quest notes. They are indeed great, but if you forget to use them once you may get blocked (I'm prolly not the only one who has more than once ). An idea could be automatically logging quest dialogues inside quest notes, though I think that's a separate matter from marked NPCs. I didn't know about the location NPC however, although I remember coming across something like that once. That was a nice idea

But really. The only thing I believe these icons would do, is showing info on a NPC when standing near them without having to click them to see it. Pretty much an alternative to going to each town and double-clicking all NPC's one by one (which would prolly take half a day with how many there). Only to go back and do it all over again, because a NPC might have been intermediary in the quest Of course if you have several forgotten quests, that you can only do at random.

[Aiwendil]

The problem with this approach is that it might take the fun from some quests by solving them already for you. If you have to look for a thief and instead of gathering infos about him just go to the NPC with the "!" above the head there is not really any riddling involved anymore. Or if you look for a person who introduced to someone else with an anagram of her name and you have to figure this out a "!" will tell you who to speak to without any thinking. Or you get told about someone a NPC knew a long time ago...and now have to figure out that looking for a dead person might be not as good as looking for the heir. So I think a better solution would be to improve a NPC chat system that allows you to locate NPCs by asking other NPCs.

But in a way you are right...quests are OOC anyway so adding markers for where to go won't hurt the atmosphere that much...at least don't put any markers on NPCs that offer quests, only on those that are needed for a quest you already took. This way it's easier for people to finish quests and doesn't bother others who ignore quests at all.

[MirceaKitsune]

The problem with this approach is that it might take the fun from some quests by solving them already for you. If you have to look for a thief and instead of gathering infos about him just go to the NPC with the "!" above the head there is not really any riddling involved anymore. Or if you look for a person who introduced to someone else with an anagram of her name and you have to figure this out a "!" will tell you who to speak to without any thinking. Or you get told about someone a NPC knew a long time ago...and now have to figure out that looking for a dead person might be not as good as looking for the heir. So I think a better solution would be to improve a NPC chat system that allows you to locate NPCs by asking other NPCs.

Then markers could be used only on NPCs you don't need to guess. That sounds like a great idea really If a quest requires you to identify someone by traits, no marker. But if a NPC tells you who to go to, the target NPC can be marked (since it means you already know who you're looking for, so it's also logical). Markers for NPCs who have quests to offer aren't so needed imo, although I personally support these too to help questing go even smoother. But they are more optional and not urgent I think.

[potare]

That will ruin the point of finding a quest

[khoridor]

I agree that it wouldn't break immersion more than the name tags, but also that it would make quests somewhat too easy.
A balance has to be found.
Personally, I'd rather use divination spells.

I remember a NPC I had a very hard time to find, while I was actually turning around her. There were a few players being amused around me, but dwarves don't see that high... 

[MirceaKitsune]

Been thinking about this yesterday. Not sure if I'm going a bit off topic here... but to be honest, I think this feature falls in the conflict between "realistic and clean RP" and "wanting to skill and do quests like a game". I'm not so much the RP person, and mostly like skilling and completing quests performantly. With pointers to indicate who to visit, numbers to indicate exact monster skills, etc. I'm not sure if PS only plans to be on the side of those who play it for RP, and if additional features for those who like skilling and seeing everything will have an equal side on the balance. I think my NPC indicators idea isn't (or won't be) the only thing that falls in this conflict to some people. Just to be clear, I like RP as a general thing... just that I'm rather on the side of playing and skilling and such.

I'm mostly thinking about something that many people said: "Put it on the non-RP server but not the RP one". The server side of PlaneShift could contain such options in a config file. Either a simple 'RP mode' variable that disables all such features (that brake immersion and make PS more of a scoring game like other RPs), or each setting as an individual variable. Or, this choice could be entirely client side, so the person chooses if to play in a clean RP-ish way or with all the indicators and such. Not sure if that will ever be done, but I think it would be nice to find a better balance between the two styles. So if the idea of RP servers and non-RP servers containing different features will ever be implemented, I think this is a great first feature to do it with