Prototype Dialog with NPC suggestions.

Discussion in 'Server Suggestions' started by Zombie_Striker, Feb 18, 2016.

  1. Zombie_Striker

    Zombie_Striker Citizen

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    As a new player, I am having some difficulty working with the chat system with NPCs, which seems to be coming from three main problems:
    1. Lack of verity when it comes to "key words" for NPC to pick out. ("Hello" causes a reaction, but not "Hey","Hi" or even "Hello?")
    2. Lack of knowledge of choices for conversations with NPC.
    3. Lack of acknowledgement when chatting when key words are not added. (When saying "Hello?" which is not a word that the NPC picks out, it will not respond with anything.)
    Because of these issues, I have thought of the following solutions for them:
    1. Creating a sort of "thesaurus file" that stores all words, where the player could link some "unknown" words with words that the NPC recognizes. This will allow beta testers the ability to expand upon the type of words NPC will recognize. If you wish, this may only be a feature for the beta version of the server.
    2. Creating a sort of dialog box that may appear in chat if the player gets lost as what to ask the NPC or having suggestions that the NPC will give the player if they type "Help" or "?"
    3. Simply having something as "What did you say" or some other phrase used when the NPC cannot take out any key phrases from the message.
     
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  2. Alir99

    Alir99 The Guy Who Does Stuff Moderator Community Team

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    Some good suggestions.
    This problem has been mentioned before, by @Saphiria if I'm not mistaken.
    1) Regarding the greetings, apart from hello, hi and hey and other greetings will be added, I think along with goodbyes.
    2) The chat is not complete yet, Tom and MisterErwin are still working on it. That's why for now you just have to be a bit more specific.

    I really like the option of having the NPC reply with what did you say rather than not replying. It will make it more realistic.

    Hopefully by the time access is given to testers again, the chat feature will have had a major revamp and it will be easier and better to use.
     
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  3. Tomas

    Tomas Owner Owner Administrator

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    @Zombie_Striker
    Thanks a lot for the suggestions. The thesaurus is an interesting one. We actually have something like that implemented, it just hasn't been polished enough. The system allows us to define synonyms, for example greetings, and then tell the dialogue to look for all the synonyms instead. It hasn't been used much - but based on your feedback, it might be a good idea to use this more,

    I also greatly underestimated the number of keywords/responses needed to make a fluent conversation. The most extensive dialogue is on one of the bartenders - around 30 responses. Still, it feels like he knows nothing at all. We will just have to work a little harder. I hope that once we get dialogues into the 200+ response range, we might be getting some interesting conversations.

    We are also planning on adding NPC memory and NPC specific knowledge. At the moment, we have to write dialogs specifically for each NPC if we want unique responses. Some dialog lines are shared across NPCs, but that is not particularly immersive. If we want them to respond to "what is your job", then we need to write that dialogue line in for that specific NPC. It is my hope of adding memory to NPCs, so that their possible responses change based on what they experienced.

    Bottom line is we are working on it. It is definitely on the list. We haven't had the manpower to write up tons of responses just yet. We are currently recruiting for a lore writer, with the aim of doing just that!
     
  4. FloThePony

    FloThePony Citizen

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    You should have an easter egg that if you ask for the legend of how the world came to be, the NPC replies with "Some say a god named Tomas was bored one day..."
     
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  5. Alir99

    Alir99 The Guy Who Does Stuff Moderator Community Team

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    Lol. It would be good as a joke, but not for something to be taken seriously.

    Edit: just saw the "Easter egg". My bad :D
     
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  6. tcvs

    tcvs Administrator Administrator Developer

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    @FloThePony
    You would be surprised. Some NPCs already carry some Easter eggs. You just have to find them. :)
     
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