slicker NPC communication

[Icefalcon]

Well the post was dying down until you ressurected it again... We can both have our wishes, but the system isn\'t changing now...Acraigs post showed that they are working very hard on making the NPCs more intelligent...

[Abemore]

Originally posted by Xanaroth
looks like we are not getting out of this... so how about a poll??

A poll would be useless as nobody cares about the majorities opinion.  The devs want to make a roleplay focused game, so the devs are going to make a roleplay focused game.  Complaints be damned.

[Asraniel]

look. its easy. Planeshift is open source. Sooner or later someone will make a hack n slay version, why not? Like that you have the choice. Thats the thing i love about open source

[hook]

Originally posted by Asraniel
look. its easy. Planeshift is open source. Sooner or later someone will make a hack n slay version, why not? Like that you have the choice. Thats the thing i love about open source

word.

not sure if someone will actually do that step, but if someone will, i wouldn\'t mind - on the contrary, i think it would improve the 3D open-source MMORPG situation even further ...choice is always good

[dfryer]

An interesting approach to the typing-vs-fixed-menu problem that I\'ve seen (at least once) is that all NPCs respond to standard questions (look, name, job).  From there, additional words that they respond to are *mentioned* by them in conversation.
The downside is that this really constrains the dialogue writers.  Also, under the surface it *is* a menu-driven situation - you just have to guess what the relevant words are.  
NPCs could also respond to other words - say if NPC A said to \"ask NPC B about cheese\", asking NPC A about cheese would produce some meaningful answer.  Perhaps some compromise could be worked out between the menu and keyword systems - a menu of fairly \"regular\" choices (e.g. talking to a guard about local crime) and then keyword questions for more elaborate conversation.

[hook]

in any case i believe the devs will make an excelent NPC AI ...i mean, you can download free irc bots that have AI that good that in most cases you can\'t even tell it\'s a bot when talking to it. ...i guess we\'ll just have to wait and see how far it\'ll be in the CB

[Cirque]

I think a compromise is needed. Im to tired and hung over to suggest one right now though.

If you want to play MUD\'s then im sure you can go find some dos based lan cafe, where they\'ll serve your drinks in a goblet and you pay for the services in gold pieces then go home via horse and cart. Hint..hint.

[hook]

Originally posted by Cirque
I think a compromise is needed. Im to tired and hung over to suggest one right now though.

If you want to play MUD\'s then im sure you can go find some dos based lan cafe, where they\'ll serve your drinks in a goblet and you pay for the services in gold pieces then go home via horse and cart. Hint..hint.

and i\'m sure hack\'n\'slash-ers can go to some penny-arcade and play some whack-a-mole ...it\'s no use insulting anyone.

[Cirque]

[Yalzin]

I think a poll is a great idea. Although yes it\'s ultimately the devs who will have the last say, they should try and respect the views of the Planeshift community. Surely you want PS to be popular, because then it has a more lively and productive community, which ultimately makes it a better game in the long-run (it bein open-source n all). So doesn\'t it make sense to find out what the majority want and go with that. It seems a bit stupid to customise this part of the game for die-hard typing fans (who just cant get enough of those little pale keys), when it pisses everyone else off

[Taurenthefirst]

im not a roleplayer and i like this system. i like it because it makes you have to think about what you want to say. the other way,you dont have to know what you need to get it.  you just choose one of the options. if its the wrong one to get anything, then you just choose the next one after you are  done talking to him and started talking to him again. with this typeing way, you actually have to know what you want, so that you dont just randomly go asking npc\'s stuff not knowing what they are talking about.

[edit] note my name... tauren=warcraft=not roleplay:)[/edit]

[Fextina]

Unless you can have a smart AI that can recognize the semantics of sentences well enough to match the quest, menus are the better option.

Nothing can be more frustrating that trying to get an NPC to talk to you when you get a word or two wrong. In EQ they use brackets to highlight words you can use to ask about the quest, but it\'s not conveiniet.

A better method to do is to use smart and dynamic menus.

For example, you might go to an NPC, and he\'ll only talk about a quest when you meet some criteria (level, race, skill, alignment, item you have in your inventory..etc).

Imagine the following:

Fextina: Hello!
Boortak: Oh Thor son of Odin, what have I done to deserve this?
(NPC then performs some crying animation, then looks at Fextina)
Boortak: What do you want stranger? You better leave me alone!

[1] What\'s wrong, Boortak?
[2] Okay, I\'ll leave you along, bye!

Then the quest/story goes on. I don\'t think menus will take out any of the role playing experience. If they\'re done in a smart and dynamic manner, they can in fact enhance the experience.

My two cents.

[hook]

i dislike menu-conversations a lot, because of a simple reason: people fast-click their way through the conversation without reading the full story and in some cases even their own sentences.

and, fextina, as you said yourself: *unless* we have a smart AI to recognise the right sentences ...what makes you think it\'s impossible for the devs to make one?!?

[Cirque]

Obviously they fast click through the menus because they choose to.

You say what you dislike, then use other peoples situations and or circumstances as an example. If you have to conform with what other people do then I can understand why you would say that.

Im more than willing to give an example of the above applied to another situation.

[Fextina]

Because developing a _good_ AI system that accept different sentences that ultimately mean the same thing is very hard to do.

Human language is a very complex beast. What you almost have (like EQ) is simple if-then conditions, and users will use \"Who/What/Why/How + keyword\" to get the NPC talking.

Some people think menu sysetms take away from the roleplaying part of the game. The truth is, unless you\'ll have NPCs that can talk like humans, it\'s going to be that way. The discussion here is on form. You can use text and guess, or you can choose an item from a menu.

I favor the latter.