AI chat system. Hmmmm, I'm unsure...

Ok, so ill be the first to stick my hand up and say that I was a big fan of SotA's proposed retro-innovation type-chat system.

... that is until I began to use it.

Now, I understand we are in pre-alpha and everything is still in its protozoic stages of development. But I have a Concern-Itch (tm) that will not go away and I really need to scratch it!

This is my concern -

It might be fair to say that the proposed SotA chat system appeals to many fans because it has the implied promise of increased immersion. It also proposes a novel system that may very well circumnavigate the pitfalls of the mindless dialogue-tree clicking that we are all so tired of in other games.

After using this system relatively briefly and noting the keywords that trigger the various NPC responses, I fear that the end result may be far from immersive. I suspect it might be just downright frustrating.


This is what I expect the degree of immersion will eventually be for most players after playing SotA for more then a few hours -

Player - "Hi"

NPC - "Greeting fair traveller, etc etc"

Player - "Kingsport"

NPC - "Kingsport is a great town, is it not? Have you heard the recent gossip?"

Player - "Gossip"

NPC - "People have been dying, the Cave of Crystal has been breached, etc etc etc"

Player - "Crystal"

NPC - "Ah yes, the Cave of Crystal blah blah, you should speak to John Wilkins for more information."

Player - " Wlikns"

NPC - "If you say so."

Player - "Wilens"

NPC - "I don't understand you"

Player - "Wilkins"

NPC - " Mr Wilkins, he is a great fellow. His wife is a great girl too, blah blah blah."

Player - "Wife"

NPC - " Yes, she is a good sort *wink* wink*

Player - "Do you have a wife too good sir, what be her name?"

NPC - "I don't understand"

Player - "Job"

NPC - "I am a baker, my goods are crusty. I run this fine bakery with my wife, Julianna. Would you like to buy some bread?."

Real Player - *Sigh*

Player - "Trade"

etc etc etc etc, you get the picture.

News, Job, Name, Time, Trade, etc etc. Anything more complicated results in a blank stare. Nostalgia is great, but seriously, nostalgia is usually only awesome in ones head. I recently played King Quest again after many years, I lasted like 30 minutes after getting tired of the old school parsing system. I am an epic fan of the old school typo adventure games. I still am a huge fan of them... in my head.

I don't know about you guys, but to me this system (as it currently stands) does not feel immersive. If anything, it is WORSE then the traditional clickly clicky WoW speech-tree system. Not only is it much the same if you look under the hood, but you have to go to the added effort of typing AND you only are required to type one (or two words) to trigger the canned response from the NPC. Not only that, you have to type that one (or two words) a few times because you probably misspelled it the first or second time! Potentially a whole bunch of added effort without much added pay-off. Namely, immersion.

I understand that there is still a lot more work to be done and that they are constantly adding more "keywords". But keywords are keywords.

I dunno about you guys, buy typing "News" or "Trade" or "Throne" to interact with an NPC does not increase immersion.

We all heroically start out wanting to say "Hail good man, may I bother you for a moment and ask you about the current situation with the Throne of Bones". But the reality is that after a few hours (and after working out the basic conversation triggers) we will just ending up typing the keywords like "Throne" or "Invasion" or "Lych King" to get the desired response.

If the game doesn't force one to use pronouns and correct sentence structures then most of us will naturally employ the easiest tactic to achieve the desired result (i.e. Throne, Glass Sword, Owls Head). If this ends up being the case then I would contend that this is not immersive, this is just tedious.

I am starting to get the feeling that this might be a system that will eventually come up against a brick wall at some stage during the development cycle. It's not the first time I have seen a great idea on paper fail miserably when implemented within the game.

I understand this is early days, and there may very well be more complexity to the system then what I am giving it credit for. I am more then prepared to be pleasantly surprised.

However, if it ends up being not much more then its current iteration then I feel it would be better spent putting ones time and effort into making a more innovative and immersive click clicky dialogue-tree system.

What's your thoughts on this retro-innovation?

 

Salutations,

I basically agree with you. The current system isn't very immersive. I'm sure they will continue to improve it but I doubt it will be all they want and expect it to be. Keywords will always be required. All they can really do is add more keywords that the AI can respond to.

I wonder if "voice recognition software" could be considered. Now that "would" provide some immersion. Of course that would require the player to have a microphone wouldn't it?

 

Agreed OP. The idea behind the system is great, but its too complex to make work on a level that benefits immersion. I went through the situation you described with multiple NPCs, and as you claimed, by the end, I was just using keywords.

 

Pretty much. There's still a decent amount of flavor to be had, but like you said you end up just spamming keywords to get what you need.

I guess in future releases when NPCs are more fleshed out it'll feel more "right" but yeah, for right now it is a little... King's Questy.

 

Sadly, I kind of agree. I love the chat box. I love the nostalgia, but in the end, it is exactly the same as a clicking tree, except I type in the keywords, scroll up the chat box to find the keywords I haven't asked about, type in more key words, etc. I never had a problem clicking through dialogue in dialogue trees.

I know they're hoping this will get people to really read the npc dialogue, but I always did that anyway. If you care you read. if not, you skim it for keywords in much the same way as a dialogue tree.

I also find it awkward to take my hand off the mouse to type, then put it back to move around, etc etc.

As for the typo problem. I'm sure that's mostly a pre-alpa problem. As time goes on, they'll make sure the npcs recognize most common mispellings and inversions. i wouldn't worry overmuch about that.

After saying all of that.... I still like the chat box. Nostalgia is a strong motivating factor I guess, allowing me to put up with a great deal of inconvenience.

Another place that chat box convos absolutely kill verisimilitude, is in replay. If I know all the right keywords, even though my character should be blissfully unaware, I can easily skip important parts of the game, plot and story by typing the right words to the right people. I do it all the time when I play U6 and I found the branching dialogue in U6P refreshing. It made me play the game. I noticed things I never did before, because I SKIPPED them: either through remembering the keywords, or stumbling on them with leap of intuition or logic.

These are things to think about, but I'm sure the dev team already has.

 

I suggested this several times before, but Portalarium really, REALLY needs to look at Wasteland 2.
It has keyword entry, but it also has a list of global keywords and NPC-specific keywords you can just click to help with interfacing issues.

...Please, guys?

 

I was actually going to write up a similar thread today - I'm glad to see I'm not alone.

I believe that the chat system has proven itself to be a poor design choice. I'm sure with a lot of work it could be much better, but I'm not sure that it could ever be something that is appreciated for what it was intended to do (with any amount of work).

I think it's time to cut the losses and ditch this system in favor of something more efficient and less frustrating.

 

I found if you could actually get a answer to what you were asking, it seemed to get lost i the next step, with the other NPC or wrong key word.Frustrating to say the least. have to agree with all you were saying.

 

Honestly, you are a wizard of conversations compared to what I got out of it. I shutter to think at where this leaves an average person who things in 140 characters and l33tsp33k.

 

I wonder why they got rid of the old ways?
I wonder if it had anything to do with newer and better methods evolving?

 

The topic of voice recognition has come up on these forums but, if my memory serves me well, Lum stated that it was way beyond their investment capabilities.

One other point I wanted to make is that the dev team have talked alot about designing the game so that the player focuses on interacting with the game rather then being bogged down by the UI (i.e. minimising heavy UI dependance).

One thing I have noticed with the current iteration of the chat system is that I am totally focused on the the text box (i.e. the UI at the bottom of the game screen). So focused that I don't pay much attention to the text bubbles above the head of the NPCs or whats going on around me. I suspect this is a result of having to type to engage with NPCs, but I also suspect it is also a result of adjacent NPC conversation spamming. I have to really concentrate to get it all into my head. Now I have no doubt that they will clean up alot of the NPC spamming but this is something the dev team need to really think about particualry when factoring other player spamming in the local area. I guess you could have several text boxes, one for players and one for NPCs but then we may get into the issue of either displaying all those text boxes (and clogging up the game with UI) or being forced to tab between text boxes which kind of detracts from immersion once again.

I don't know of a better and more immersive solution, but it is certainly something that has got me thinking.

The one thing I like about traditional clicky clicky dialogue tree's is that you atleast are usually looking in the centre of the screen and are thus not "pulled away" from what is going on around you. It also does not require the same degree of concentration as typing and so you are free to watch other NPCs and players walking around and doing their thing whilst also chatting with a NPC.

 

And this is what I've been saying. As I chat I hear the lyrics "Bang your head" over and over. It's very frustrating and annoying. Hears hoping they can pick it up some.

 

If we get the text over our head, maybe the game could detect the keywords and redact a sentence that finally will be displayed over our head

Player wrote- "Hi"

Text displayed overhead - "Hi"

NPC - "Greeting fair traveller, etc etc"



Player wrote- "Kingsport"

Text displayed overhead - "What do you know about Kingsport"

NPC - "Kingsport is a great town, is it not? Have you heard the recent gossip?"



Player wrote - "Gossip"

Text displayed overhead - "What have you heard about that Gossip"

NPC - "People have been dying, the Cave of Crystal has been breached, etc etc etc"



Player wrote - "Crystal"

Text displayed overhead - "What can you tell me about the cave of crystall"

NPC - "Ah yes, the Cave of Crystal blah blah, you should speak to John Wilkins for more information."



Well you got the idea, if anyone is near you at least will see you speaking with that npc.

 

You could also simply type the entire sentence out rather than letting the game fill it out for you.

Just saying, it is an option.

 

Read my OP and you will see that most players won't do that for various reasons. Of course a player has the option to type full sentences, but I guarantee that as a result of the inherent design of the chat system (in its current iteration) most people will simply just gravitate to using basic keywords thus making the chat system somewhat archaic and tedious.

 

It's a "story-killer" for me, which is a shame because I backed SotA mostly for the promise of an "epic story". I was hoping I could tolerate the old-school approach to NPC interaction, but no.

 

The diference is that i will write the sentence, but when i enter a bar and see people talk to to an NPC i will see a lot of people talking with npcs only with keywords. I would like to se the sentences.

 

Well, considering the "Selective Multiplayer" nature of the game, perhaps it would be a consideration to simply include only users with a similar "role-playing" conversation level in your own game.

That way everyone you see will speak in full sentences, and all the short-hand users can continue on their own merry way.

I did read a couple of threads regarding filters (both inclusive and exclusive) for the multiplayer component. Unfortunately, I do not know whether the devs have taken any of the concepts to heart.

We shall see in R3 I guess.

 

In the multi-player version, what happens when multiple people are talking near the NPCs, if "key words" are spoken the NPCs will just start going on their pre-programed jabber.

In UO this wasn't really a problem because of the top-down view...3rd/1st person views may make picking out you and your friends chat hard in areas that contain NPCs.
Don't forget it's not just going to be you, but everyonelse in the area.

It just may be awesome.

 

I am thinking only the speaker will see the text. Maybe the whole group depending how partying works. Just some head bouncing animations to everyone else. In NWN it worked that way. You might see the greeting but the rest of the conversation was not seen to anyone else. Certain quest NPCs would speak to parties, but even that was rare.