communication with future NPCs

[Jawface]

In the current pz build the npcs have been taken out for "upgrading". However i still remember the old npcs, you could only communicate with them in a few ways. I think i found a way for players to feel more connected eith npcs and that you are actually talking to them.

Here is the suggestion. When you talk to a friendly npc you dont just get 3 bubbles of sentances from which you must choose one sentance. You talk to them in chat, literally. For example you come to a friendly male npc and type in chat "whats up, Bob?" The programming will recognise the person you are talking too it will also recognise the question and reply "just checking our barricades". If you type something which an npc wont understand or you make a major spelling mistake eg "hillo!" The program will only reply something like "what?" Also there will be diffrent ways to say the same questions and the program will still recongnise them. Eg to say "wats up, Bob" you wont have to say that all the time Eg "what are you doing bob?" The program will recognise that as the same question as "whats up bob?" And reply in the same way. That will encourage players to actually say what they want instead of choosing preset sentances.

Is it a good idea?

Jawface

[Rathlord]

It's a good idea but probably not a plausible one. Just the sheer size of the project would be massive, and people would likely spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to type things so the computer would understand. There have been games that have tried this before and on the whole it's a failure. It either feels "game-y" because you just have to remember an awkward list of commands, or it plain doesn't work.

[Jawface]

It's a good idea but probably not a plausible one. Just the sheer size of the project would be massive, and people would likely spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to type things so the computer would understand. There have been games that have tried this before and on the whole it's a failure. It either feels "game-y" because you just have to remember an awkward list of commands, or it plain doesn't work.

people wont have to remember what commands they have to type in. its everyday questions EG how are you? im sure people wont have to look in their notebook to find that.

[EnigmaGrey]

Everyone says EG but they never mean EnigmaGrey. *Sulks*

You're forgetting the sad simplicity of parsers.

[Rathlord]

Yes, but you've got to think about the many variations:

 

How are you?

how are you?

How are you

how are you

How're you?

how're you?

How're you

how're you

How r u?

et cetera, et cetera, and each one of these either has to be added in manually by someone, or you only have a few that work and people have to remember how to type it.

 

I could probably come up with 50 ways to say "How are you?" in about 5 minutes.

 

WTS periods for e.g. (and lowercase!)

[Kajin]

Reason we don't see more of this kind of thing in games is because it is EXCEEDINGLY difficult to get this kind of thing to work.

[magnum2016]

Agreed that kind of stuff will just be a waste of time,

 

However there will be commands such as patrol, scavenge, sleep, etc.

[Pwnguin]

I would love to see an AI system like that in Quest for Glory II.

[Tweek]

I could probably come up with 50 ways to say "How are you?" in about 5 minutes.

so youl be done in about 10 min for 1 command... doesnt sound like much does it

 

WTS periods for e.g. (and lowercase!) <- these can be ignored....

 

Best would be just a list of available commands

[Rathlord]

Not necessarily, because there's then another 1,000 ways of saying it that I missed. But even if yes, 10 minutes for one command. Ten million variations for a more complicated command like "go looting" next.

 

And if you're just going to want a list of "available commands" then you might as well just have the planned contextual list that you can click on. Which is what I said in the first place XD

 

Also makes bringing the game to other languages impossible.