Will or should question marks above heads of NPCs make it into the game?

forward video to about 548 very early quest idea from Richard


Hi There Morgnes. Oh it's not my idea of how it will go. It is Richard Garriotts. I'm not trying to be argumentative, you have very valid points. Here is a little early Demo, I know there's a better one talking about how the quests will go in Shrouds, but so far I haven't found it. Our journals will be our tracking system and perhaps someone else can link where Richard talks about Quests in Shrouds more. ***cheers to you***

 

Ah, the good, old bandwgon argument.

Yeah, Why not just have everyone login and then immediately win, cause that is surely equal to the question being asked.

Or you could actually come up with an answer or counter argument to the three times I have asked the question:

Without the non-starter of "I have no willpower", why are options for somethings ok, and not others?

Or you can even read two of the suggested ideas for penalties associated with using said options, to entice people to play the game the way they want, rather than be directly forced into it, exactly in line with the DEVS own thinking when it comes to things like deck combat and locked slots.

But of course, we can always just continue to use hyperbole and false logic to drive the point of limiting options into the design of SoTA as well I suppose.

Cheers.

 

No, its not the bandwagon argument. Its a reductio ad absurdum to the argument that options are always good if they effect nobody but the player.

I prefer as few options as necessary, personally, and in general don't think they're good things at all. People have plenty of choices of games to play.. they don't have to play this one. The question should be.. "does this make the game better?" Options are always compromises.

The argument should always, imo, be why an option has to be there, rather than why it shouldn't be there. I don't think the burden of the argument is on people who don't support options, personally.

 

I think that is where we deviate.

I see options as opening platforms to wider audiences, not limiting the actual software or item itself.

Smart options, not just everything you can do. Do we need an option for changing the color of the window title bar? Not really, since it adds no value (IMO), alike you queried, what value do I get for the resources we input to make it?

This is an option (? and/or !) that has relatively little impact given that information is already present in the game systems at the time of use. You are still going to be walking along, looking for NPCs, NPCs who have "quests" in their databag. It is simply a matter of saying: Is there a quest on this NPC? Draw something.

There is not much more logic there. The additional design/balance of resource question becomes:

1. How many more people will this get me?
2. Is it worth it to "penalize" those who use this system?
3. How?
4. By How much?

Does all of that cost more resources than I would gain by offering this option?

All those questions neither you NOR I can answer. That is something they would need to "research" like any good developer (be it software or any product really).

Personally, having done this a long time, I tend to see upticks in use and interactive feedback when people are presented GOOD options. But I also make software that people use to make things more efficient and give them back production time i.e. for their work life.

My biggest group of staunch users would be the 600+ artists who always hate anything changing, hence, options -- use it or not, makes YOUR time better, or not.

 

I come to this as outsider, having never played any of the Ultima games. That either makes me ignorant or open minded, depending on your point of view. The closest that I have played is Morrowind, which has a similar conversation and diary system. If SotA were to play like Morrowind, I would be very happy. The fact that it already has vastly better combat and graphics than Morrowind makes me ecstatic.

EDIT: There were no question marks in Morrowind.

 

What about if question marks only became visible on characters if you had a clue that they had a quest to be done. That way when you walked into town you actually had to talk to people. This way the characters aren't just a bunch of message boards waiting for you to click.

For instance....johny lost a ring but without talking to johny or sally who says she heard johny lost a ring no question mark would appear. Simple example but you get the point.

 

Something like this would not be too bad I guess. Though personally I would like to see no sort of ! or ? at all. However as compromises go this one isn't too bad.

 

Quest indicators will not happen. That is a hard, fast, absolute NO from the lead designer (aka Lord British). Much the same as you will not see conversation trees for the same reason. I know as some have pointed out "no" often changes to "maybe" to "ok, you guys were right" (see: jumping) in this case.. well the quickest way to set off Richard is to threaten to put exclamation points over NPC heads. I'm pretty confident in saying it will never happen.

NPC conversation quality in general is something I struggle with frequently. Honestly we have not gotten a lot of good feedback from the "derplogs" (aka what NPCs don't respond to) the past few releases. There's a number of reasons for that - we haven't added any new content in a while (Kingsport was the last meaty NPC release), we've added a lot of interesting systems (like, uh, combat) that people want to try, and we added clickable keyword support so most people use that almost exclusively and generate no feedback for unknown topics. I also haven't had a chance to go back and hammer on the parser logic itself in quite a few releases (most of my time in that area has been taken up with making NPC barks ride the fine line between useable/informative and spammy/broken) and it dearly needs some.

However it will never be a true English language conversation parser, simply because we have to support other languages. So it will always be "derpy" in terms of trying to talk to NPCs. (I'm also thinking the canned "bot responses" that most NPCs use, while funny at times, probably cause more frustration and immersion breaking and am considering toggling them off for Ardoris NPCs as a test.) You'll also be meeting some storyline NPCs in Ardoris - while for obvious reasons the main story line is blocked off at this point, this is still going to be an important milestone in seeing how well we can deliver Richard and Tracy's story (none of which has been seen so far). So hopefully we'll see more good testing from that and some feedback on where we should go from there.

Also: the game's not done. And I think Starr already mentioned that release dates are goals, not laws, and as long as we can we will continue to work. Believe me, I know EXACTLY how much work we have to go - I've been watching Stephen Daniele work on the hex map of Novia. It's.... quite intimidating. We have miles to go before we sleep.

 

Great post, thanks for stepping in and clarifying.

 

I think part of the question, to me, is whether SoTA is just a platform, or its a work of art. Obviously, its not bad if an operating system or word processor has options, but I don't know that's how we want to look at the game. If we're talking about purely utilitarian parts of the interface, like whether you want it windowed, or full screen, sure. But when you get into things like quest markers, you're talking not about the UI but already about gameplay.

The reason Richard stated he doesn't want quest markers is because it makes for a better game if people are encouraged to do these things on their own. Its not just about the players that don't want to use the option lacking the willpower, its also about the people who want the option. And its not because people should be forced to enjoy tedium, because "eat your vegetables". Its about the fact that it actually a better, more enjoyable game experience, and people should be encouraged into it. Personally, I agree. Obviously, some don't.

But, I think most debates about gameplay options go like this. One side says its tedious, the other side says it makes for a better game. Well, we should discuss this: is it actually tedious, or does it make it a better game? If it really is tedious, it shouldn't be there. If it makes a better game, it should be. The fact that there's an option means people disagree. That's really where the devs are with the PvP system. People really couldn't agree what the rules for PvP should be, it was divisive, so that's why the compromise of an option is in. That's life.

But there's an argument that keeping a certain integrity to a game, and limiting options, will attract a stronger, more committed player base. That's my view of what happened with the Ultima series. Ultima was never as hardcore as some of the other games out there, but didn't compromise its vision. So that's why I say its just as much a responsibility of the players who want an option to form an argument for it, and answer questions like these... Why is it hard to find the NPCs? Why do you need quest markers? These questions are never answered, because people don't think they need to be answered, because they say: Its my playstyle. More options are always better. Shut up.

If its seriously a problem for some people, there should be a discussion on the board on why its a problem.

Personally, I see things to talk about. I don't think quest markers are needed... but I think maybe an easy way to distinguish NPCs from PCs (even without floating names) may be needed, just because in so many of the MMOs I've played, whether a character is a PC or an NPC becomes confusing. Also, hopefully the NPC models become better later on in the game so we can easily tell them all apart and not rely on finding out their names to identify them.

 

I admit I breathed a huge sigh of relief upon hearing that the answer is an absolute no on ! and ?

I also think it might be a good idea to disable the clicking the highlighted words option. At least for now for testing purposes. Because NPC conversations do clearly still need a ton of work. Next release I will probably be talking to npcs some more to help with this. I admit I haven't done that much lately.

 

All Hail Lord British !! *Deep Bow*

 

See, I view content as its own reward. Discovering the story and its characters is of the HIGHEST value. And yes I think it cheapens it when it's given away for free. Wanting to play a different game is not a "play style". How is SotA to distinguish itself from games like WoW if it copies their structure to coddle their players? There will most definitely be negative repercussions to an action such as this (not that I'm particularly worried it will occur).

The emphasis in most MMOs, and often in single player games, is quick advancement for combat advantage. Personally, I'd rather they gave away all the awesome swords, armor, homes and whatnot before they give away the story. I know an advanced player can take me down no matter what I'm wearing - you can't sell skill, and the slower curve Richard and the team have described for character levels will help to protect this aspect of the game, which I see as an integral if not paramount system. I also think it would be a terrible idea to just reduce the story to the number play described by Joviex above. Or to reduce the players to cold hard cash. The primary goal is not to keep everyone grinding away as furiously as possible, it is to create a rewarding and meaningful experience for those who enter the lunar rift. Nothing meaningful comes without hard work.

So if you want the reward of the story, you need to meet its people, discover its mysteries, and solve its puzzles. Simple as that.
@Joviex - Yes I'm sure it's plausible to develop a system to fix the problem, but imho it's better to just not create the problem.

Richard's games taught me a lot, not least of which were some critical thinking skills and the ability to focus on a task, and I have found his games and their themes to be central to my life and viewpoint. After YEARS of not playing Ultima, I still applied those lessons daily and held the ethics presented therein in high regard. It was really my first introduction to philosophy. That's the major reason I'm here now. The environment of those games also held an organic appeal (as opposed to a manufactured one), pulling me as fully as possible into another dimension and REQUIRING me to leave my old ways of thinking behind. Tabula rasa, ahem. He's one of the best teachers I've had in my life, so in answer to your question I'd say 4EVA

Frankly, I'm astonished by your responses and they do not make sense to me.

PS I also think people are more intelligent than often given credit for, and I have faith in most players' ability to adapt to a new way of doing things ... if there is impetus to do so.

 

You have the option of disabling clickable keywords, but it also disables highlighting and honestly I think that's required enough that I'm tempted to not include that as an option. There are some long NPC talks that Richard requested be broken up into overhead-digestible chunks that use keywords to advance the talk that aren't at all intuitive.

 

If they are continuations of a response, then I would think they would continue with just about any input (other than 'I don't care, shut up, I'm leaving'). You already have NPCs who respond correctly to a question if you say Yes/No in the right place, so that shouldn't be much harder than that.

Required non-intuitive keywords shouldn't be required unless all keywords for an NPC have to be unique. We've seen that isn't true, at least in part.

 

Please know that at least from my perspective, as I write bard songs at work between assignments, and I stay up after my bed time making forum posts; your lack of sleep is what makes my lack of sleep worthwhile. Thanks for all of your hard work, it's greatly appreciated by my imagination and hope for more fun days than work days.

 

Speaking for myself, I'd like the option to split the two from each other. Letting users chose highlighting but not clicking I believe would be an improvement and a step forward. There are some people that have expressed an interest in doing just this.

 

I don't understand why we can't have the checkbox remove the hyperlink and NOT the formatting (ie: leave the word bolded). That's what I wanted to see! Clickable just stinks! I already accidentally clicked the words twice before I disabled them and since this update I haven't run one quest in SotA... not one.

 

Thank you.

 

So glad to hear that there will not be quest indicators in the game

But what does "conversation tree" mean?