Already Frustrated w/ CONVO!

This is to much effort already. I avoid people like the plague ALREADY! I understand some may have the patience for long conversations with NPCs leaning more toward the dummy side of things but I DO NOT :/ AT ALL! The system seemed cool in thought & seeing LB use it was nice. But in game it is waaaay off and feels like it should be canned for the basic way of doing things.

I told a guard, " Nice weather today." he replied, " I do not understand what you mean."

I said, " It is warm out today." he replied, " I do not know what you mean."

And I actually had to type all that out for nothing :/ I do not want to type responses. It is not fun or cool.
IT SUCKS!

3 minutes wasted I could have been LEVELING or KILLING! This is 2013 A.D.D society. This system needs to work pretty much flawless or we are wasting time in DEV on it and us in game are wasting time. I did not ask ROCKET SCIENCE I ask a simple question about WEATHER :/ People are to sophisticated and the system will always just look stupid. There are to many responses needed to be programmed in and that takes up valuable time. And typing response sucks now that i have experienced it. Now if you can get it to where I can TALK THEM OUT, I am in.

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I'll be back with more critique soon! Great job to this point ALL of you! I appreciate being able to experience this game at this point and will deliver the best information i can to help it grow

 

I disagree. I think once they work on the NPC interaction some more, it will be one of the coolest things about the game. Go play a first person shooter if you haven't the attention span of a role playing game. An RPG is about playing a role as a character, which involves talking to people and living in that world. This isn't a button-smashing fighting game. I'm excited about the potential of realism and I understand that the NPC interaction is still a work in progress. Lastly, this is a bug report section of the forum. Complaints should go in another area.

 

Remember: This is a pre-Alpha release. An imaginary letter before the letter A. Everything is not yet implemented, and all will be better in the Release 2

 

i jumped on for a little and got pretty frusty talking to the people. it reminds me of conversations in ultima iv and v back in the day... name, job, health, say the highlighted (that's nice at least) words for more conversation. maybe have some npc's with actually conversations, but trying to do it for all of them is, like mr hempy said up there, canned like a coors. my opinions, but hey, they are what they are.

also, i HATE having to toggle the conversation mode on and off. not sure if others are like me, but i absolutely HATE that

 

It may be bit pre-mature to criticize at this stage, but I have to admit I too saw similar red flags. I had to type the most simple things several times to several different NPCs, and after their terse, dismissive, and repetitive replies, I grew tired of the system and just stopped talking to NPCs in favor of waiting for a later alpha. I could get journal entries, it was more that this kind of interaction and their responses reminded me this was a game, rather than immerse me in this world. This dialog format isn't' a new design by the way, it's actually a very, very old one, the original EverQuest worked this way, as well as text based MUDs and text based games of the late '70's and early 80's. And then, as now, it was equally as frustrating. EverQuest later migrated to something more useful.

I'm not saying this can't be a good system though, It can be an amazing system. However, they are going to have to at least make the NPCs as "smart" as Siri on my iPhone, and hopefully a lot more witty. In fact, they pretty much need to make it a "Turing test" for anyone not to be frustrated in this day and age, that that's just going to be hard for anyone to implement. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess, but I remain hopeful.

 

Man, you're not the only one. Conversation is more frustrating than anything else! It is not user friendly, there is no easy way to converse with a single person without shouting and the NPC's are dumb as a rock. There is a LONG way to go on the convo....

Also, is it just me or is the chat window a bit "ugly"? It's obtrusive, clunky, not very pleasing to the eye and appears almost notepad or wordpad like

 

Very frustrating, I don't think I'll be doing many quests without a wiki. I can't figure out who to talk to for a quest

 

I agree, it's very frustrating trying to talk to someone who tries to give you info but because other npcs are right next to them, they all start in on the "don't bump into me" spiel. Took 30 minutes to find out about Wycliffe and get a journal entry in the cave and then gave up because of the return glitch.

 

Have to agree with OP. I really have no desire to talk with NPC's. Its so boring and time consuming, that I just run past them anymore looking for other interesting things.

Maybe UO had it right, just vendor buy or vendor train.

At first I liked the idea, but having returned to GW2, I prefer some simple streamlined NPC conversation/involvement so I can get on with the game and doing events with "LIVE" people.

Hanging out with NPC's was cool in the 80's before online games, but now, I see it as a step back.

 

THIS is actually what is wrong with the world today. IMO.

And uh... it's 2014.

 

I have to agree. I was a big supporter of the conversation system, but seeing it in action really changed my mind. These things work well in single player games, not when there are 12 other people talking in the same area.

 

I am thoroughly annoyed with seeing everyone around me having one-sided conversations with NPCs. I'm out in the woods punching a deer to death and all I can see are people asking guards or NPCs questions.

My character shouldn't have really exceptional selective hearing.

 

Making the conversation system meaningfully work is a must. There should be a way for your party to have one chat opened with an npc so that what the npc has to say can be meaningful for all in the group i stead of everyone redundantly standing there asking about a quest/general info.

 

The issue is it is no better than in games in the late 80s and sorry, with todays possibilities that just does not cut it.
The NPCs do not react to the simplest of things and it seems to all be based on a simple list of keywords rather than actual conversation.

How is this 80s bs sold as a feature?
Even when I manage to trigger a conversation I feel more tempted to ridicule it by saying things that the NPCs will answer with odd and unsuitable statements.

 

It gets really old, really fast, to constantly hear NPCs tell me to watch where I'm going, even when I don't walk over them. Then again, I kept walking over one so he'd keep saying it, to annoy everyone around me. And then I crashed, as usual.

 

I don't mind it. Granted yes you shouldn't be able to hear people in town talking to vendors but this is a pre-alpha I am sure its not there intention. I enjoyed setting macros with vendors in order to buy, etc. I think it makes the npcs feel more like they are real rather than just a placeholder for items.

I am sure the system will be more responsive and focused in later releases. Also keep in mind you are supposed to target the npc you're talking to.

 

The NPCs respond if you're close to them and not even talking to them.

 

I played UO for 10 years, and while this was acceptable in the 1990s and a little beyond, it's past its prime (way past) to set macros to TALK. Macros should be reserved for combat or other tasks. I do not want to go back to the good ol' days. If I did, I'd just rejoin UO since I still have my account there.

 

VENDOR BUY THE BANK GUARDS SOME RECSU RECDU.

ugh.

 

I guess nothing quite illustrates the stupidity of a simple keyword based conversation system like this