Quest, NPC's...and foreign langages

[Jefka]

Well I\'ve just finished the quest of MB and I was somehow a bit disapointed by the interaction system with the npc ; I know you will edit it, and that\'s why I\'m telling my feeling about the next interaction system that may come out...

Well the quest is mainly \"easy\", in terms of logic ; a classic quest indeed ; the problem is that is becomes veeeery hard because of the syntax problem ; and I myself am french, so looking for a correct syntax wasn\'t easy...

I suggest you make a menu with hyperlinks instead, later on, because a good quest cannot be hard beacause of the interaction system. Just like morrowind : if the person speeks about books, and there is something related to books, then you should be able to click on \"books\" in the texta nswer of the person...this will lead to another point and so on ; so yes, making a menu instead of a chat is the best thing

Imagine it took me 10 minutes at the end of the quest just to tell the proof I was looking for :

i said :
(\"Mr xxxx does not do this and that\")

And i was surprised that the quest didn\'t finish.....in fact the answer was , which is very weird for french people, or at least non english speaking people ;

So really in terms of interst you can do good quests but please don\'t keep this system!!

[antisocx]

I agree that there should be a menu instead of chat for the npc interaction. I have tried talking to them but I don\'t know what they will understand or how to word what I\'m saying so they will understand. The only thing so far that I have found the npcs to understand is \"hello\".

[ParaSite]

Or, you could learn proper English

[tygerwilde]

I hate to say it para, but I use proper english and I haven\'t been able to talk to but one or two of them at all. I quit after trying to talk to about ten of them.
Personally. I don\'t care, I doubt that I\'ll do much interaction with npc\'s myself, but honestly, there are better chatbots out there. I\'ve talked with a few of them, some of them even outtalked me. There was even one that convinced everyone in a chatroom on yahoo that it was a human being.

[hook]

what about if the NPCs would understand other languages also? ...just a suggestion ...i mean, alongside the arts, coding, etc. dev-groups there could always be a translation group

[ParaSite]

It could be possible now, but imagine a game the size of baldurs gate or something, but then in 6 different languages. Thats a LOT of work. Also, it\'s very boring to do. So I doubt that will happen. Would be cool though  :rolleyes:

[Jefka]

well english is fairly enough

but I believe the system will be fine with menus and choices...let the time play in their favour

[Xalthar]

I agree with Jefka... I also believe menu systems would be the best way to converse with npc\'s...

[Tajin]

Wouldnt it be better only to check for a few keywords and not for some kind of phrase, and to add alternatives as far as possible ?

Wonder if anyone tried Tibia... interaction with NPCs works pretty much the same way as in PS and it works well.
If its done like they did it, it should be fine.

[Khutin]

Hmmm... I\'m almost quitting from trying to get and solve the quest due to the poor quality interaction dialogue with NPCs. Of course it will be optimized in future releases, but now it isn\'t ok.

I imagine that the quest is something easy to do, because we still are very limited in the game (you can\'t even give an object to an NPC and don\'t have combat engine working yet), but it becomes harder due to this lack of quality in the interaction with NPC mechanism.

In my opinion, developping NPCs that can recognize and speak more than one language will turn PS into a much more realistic game. One NPC can speak, for example, Common and another language. Another one can also speak Common, but ohter two languages different from that first one. It sounds very... very cool. :-)

[Skizzik]

A simple link system would make a quest like the current one too easy (just a matter of keep clicking other options). A keyword system is the way to go IMO, but the objection that people might have is that people become too lazy to make sentences (and the goal is that people can talk to NPC\'s like they would talk to a real person). With keywords, just saying a single word could be enough. Like when a quest would be to find out what somebody has done wrong and you just say \'rape\', \'stole\', \'kill\', \'insult\', etc. you\'ll eventually finish the quest. Ofcourse that is not what the devs are aiming/hoping for.

[Khutin]

Yep...

Maybe they are trying to identify these keywords when they appear in a common sentence. This kind of interaction transforms the contact with an NPC in something more real, but they must give optional words to the algorithm (synonyms) detect, otherwise the players will have to \'guess\' the correct word.

Sometimes, it is necessary that the player guess a certain word (in a particular situation), but not in a generic conversation.

[Caldazar]

This has been discussed before, in the wish section. The problem with using key words, is that people will just say \"help\", \"find\" or \"quest\". And I believe that would ruin the gaming experience.
just my two cents.

[Khutin]

I agree with you, Caldazar. This is not good.

In my opinion, players should construct their sentences in a conversation with NPCs, but I think the system should recognize synonyms for some words, not only one word.

[lostprophet]

I prefer this method of talking to npc\'s, because in games where there\'s a list it becomes far too easy, and can get annoying when you get through the conversation and find what you want to say, then pick the wrong answer and have to start the interrogation again. The npc\'s are kinda stoopid tho, especially because some of them respond to a phrase like \"who are you\" and some don\'t. If the game had a database of all the possible ways of starting a question and all the keywords and connected words it would work well. By the way, I\'ve found that during a conversation with an npc, if something they say starts with a capital letter it\'s often a key word that you need to say to them.