I'm quite delighted to hear they'll be using a clickable keywords system (or any type of dialogue tree system, really).
Personally, I'm tired of the 'modern' approach of making every interaction with NPC's a straight line one can just click through and ignore everything just because it pushes the plot/quest along or what have you. Same with many games needing to have voice-overs for everything, thus making every line of dialogue way more expensive, which leads to keeping everything as short and to the point as possible in order to cut costs. Dialogue trees aren't archaic, they just give the developers a great deal more freedom to bring the world to life and offer players not only more flavor text and background information, but potentially also more meaningful choices and varying outcomes. And that in my mind makes it a superior method to handle dialogue for an RPG.
BamBam said: So in the Newsletter we got more info on the normal Quests, that are not a part of the perception system. Here the devs talked about tekst with info and keywords that is clickabel in the tekst to continue the dialog. I personally feel it's a very old way of doing quests, ofc non of us want a questionmark above npc head and the initial way to see if a npc got a quest actually sounded cool, they will wave or do an other emote as the player runs by.*snip*
Well, it makes sense, really. This game is about interacting and being social, so extending that to NPCs isn't really a stretch. Taking the time to get to know people, including NPCs, is a logical way to find out if there's anything they might want or need and a means to reward us for that help.
Edit: It might even be interesting if there was the possiblity of different outcomes, depending on which word or phrase you clicked, faction, etc.
BamBam said: I agree the options are great with a system like this. I personally just hoped for a more modern take on it, it sounds like a lot of reading and that tires me down, to the point where I just click to continue anyway :)
If you click to continue then there is no real other way to do it anyway. You will benefit from a simpler system and bypass a complex one so....
I can get into lore if I know it. Game like EQ where i had no knowledge of it until i came out i hate to admit i did the same, just skipped a lot of the dialogue.
Clicking words in the dialogue with the NPC is not an issue for me. I could see this where VR could really tweak the perception, to where someone with a higher perception could almost get a deeper quest. Not only are the goblins destroying his crops and you have to go kill them, you could get to the source of the goblins in a local cave.
I do not know if it was a bug, but in EQ I recall some dialogue did not have the brackets to tell you what to say, or the conversation did not even start until you said something.
But everyday quest that a group can take care of in a few hours can be deeper then what most of us just see on the surface.
I think it can be a good way to differentiate Pantheon from the other games that are out there. People are too much in the habit of just clicking "Accept... Accept... Accept" without even reading the boxes. This forces people to slow down and appreciate the world a little bit more. But at the same time, I find it slightly more convenient than always having to manually type out each word, so I think it's a good compromise.
BamBam said: @Baz i agree from an Eq PoV it's a good compromise and qol function. But looking from a player that never played Eq and only other mmos then The system might be to different from the norm I want pantheon to be a great success. But I personally have issues about reading to much. I play mmos for the monster killing, the awesome loot and the social engagement and coop playstyle.. Reading is somthing i do on a dull vacation ;) I'm just afraid a lot of players will be scared away, if it's to important to catch every line in order to make the correct answer and so on. Also translation gna be an issue if VR wants to go to the Asian marked even lots of Eu don't speak English that well Translation is also a money sink imagine Russian, German, Spanish, and 1-3 Asian languages also. Just my personal PoV ofc
I could see that maybe being an issue if Pantheon was planned to be quest heavy or driven like modern MMOs/World of Warcraft, but from all we have heard this game is going to be far from grinding tons of meaningless quests and jumping from quest hub to quest hub. Those that STILL can't be bothered to read the few quests they find can go look things up on the internet for the inevitable quick and easy guides that skip all the lore and just tell you "kill gnoll A over on hill Y for the item NPC X needs."
Normal quests suck. Playing the game is the quest. Getting from place to place is a great quest. Discovering a rare mob is a great quest. Hearing about a piece of loot and finding your way to it is a great quest. Navigating the social dynamics of an MMO within a persistant world is a great quest. Clicking some NPC to go rescue her son from a cave or fight the orcs away from the watermill are boring lazy quests we've all done hundreds of times. Being told where to go and what to do and for how long to do it is exactly what has ruined MMOs. Quests by and large are single player mechanics that don't belong in a game where just getting by the level 40 griffin in your level 10 zone is a thing, where getting completely and utterly lost and then finding your way is a thing. THOSE are quests that come from completely organic gameplay. The kill 10 rats quests are needed in Skryim, for example, because otherwise the world is dead, there's no reason to be there by yourself. That's not true for a legit virtual world MMO.
Don't dictate to the players how to play, let the adventurers adventure, let the crafters craft, let the auction house players play, and they'll all do it their way and make their way through the world without the patronization that quests have become. If you aren't willing to go into that cave because cave, then you don't get the reward. And if you go into the cave and you get nothing, so be it. The game is the reward itself, and if the game isn't good enough to inspire and reward players for just BEING in the world, then the game is a failure. Quests as we know them in modern mmos are hand holding hand outs. And yes, there are exceptions, and yes, I cannot possibly fathom all the ways they could be improved, but the point remains. But let me tell you how I really feel.
Not surprisingly I couldn't possibly disagree more with Keno Monster. I *like* quests - they give me a reason to do things - a cause even if it is just helping a farmer eliminate the wolfpack that is eating her sheep.
I would love to see hundreds or thousands of quests scattered all around Terminus.
Where I *agree* with the quest haters among us is that quests shouldn't give a "golden path" that guides us from start to end. Quests shouldn't give such good experience that one can get to maximum level in a month without needing anything else. Quests shouldn't treat our characters as the great heroes or villains compelled to save or doom the world.
But I dislike my characters being left totally on their own with no reason to do anything in the game other than selfish accumulation of wealth and experience points just as much as Keno Monster dislikes even the most minor of organized activity.
I can't even imagine the feeling that reading a few lines of quest dialog is a burden. But if I felt that way I would simply follow Keno Monster's guidance and ignore all quests - they won't exactly be required content in a game like Pantheon they will be extra value helpfully provided by VR.
Clicking on words in text is a lot better than having to type words in to advance the quest - which I remember all too well from the old days. Apart from any typo requiring us to start over, and issues for non-native English speakers, there are a *lot* of ways to say the same thing and 15 minutes typing sentances saying the same thing in many different ways is not what most of us want in a MMO.
The number one issue I see with this system is whether selecting a conversation option (and an option can also give or cost faction points, perhaps, not just provide a quest) is permanent. Meaning that if I click on "wolves" I will never get the quest to murder the farmer's husband even if I abandon the wolf quest, and if I click on "husband" I will never get the quest to kill the wolves even if I abandon the quest to murder the husband. Personally I hope it is permanent at least for minor quests like this where a bad choice won't have severe consequences. Actions should have meaning, not be reversable at will. Whereas the final dialogue of a weeks long epic quest giving an important reward should be more ...forgiving .... if that final dialogue gives a choice such as whether to select a bow or crossbow as a reward.
You will find basic quests scattered throughout every part of Terminus, especially around residential areas such as outposts, villages, cities, etc. Any time you encounter an NPC who will speak with you, there is a chance that NPC could have a quest available. And the only way you will know is if you speak with them. The only exception to that being certain NPCs who will /wave or a similar emote as players walk by to announce they have something they want you to hear or do.
Most conversations with NPCs will include a bit of personal insight about the individual you are speaking with and some context about local or regional happenings. But if the NPC has a quest available, they will also include making a small request of you on the NPC’s behalf. These basic quests will not be cryptic in nature and will use a keyword system to progress the dialogue. The keywords will be highlighted, and instead of typing the keywords into chat, you will be able to click the keyword to progress the dialogue.
Might as well just have question marks over their head. This isn't questing, it is reading and clicking. There is a reason adventure gaming died out when they moved from text based input (ie you type in what you are looking for) to that of the graphical clicking. It turned the games into click fest "hunt and peck" play rather than expecting the player to think about what they wanted to do and query it. Yes, there were some limitations to the old text base input systems which caused major headaches (spelling, syntax, specific keyword issues), but... today it is much easier to link a dictionary/thesaurus/spellchecking/predictive algorithms etc.. to your text engine to create a more dynamic and functional system of interaction while still retaining the need for the player to actually query for information over simply being led around.
The one thing I was looking forward to with a game like this (what I missed about EQ text quest interaction) was going back to intelligent inquiry into the quest systems, but this system isn't really that different than that of modern quest systems. In fact, at least in games like LoTRO (originally), the information wasn't "highlighted" or "underlined" as what is important, you had to read, think about it and then apply the knowledge. The text was just in a “next page” dialog of format which presented a story of the problem and the player had to resolve. I am not a fan of that either, but it did require the player to read and carefully pull out information to find their next objective.
I would prefer a text input system, no highlights, underlines, or brackets and various keyword or phrases a player must type in to advance the interaction. With such, you can hide information behind NPC dialog in many ways. You can have trigger words and phrases that the NPC does not present and must be offered to begin that hidden stage of dialog. (ie you hear a conversation between two NPCs in another area that mentions something, or involves a specific NPC. You write down that information, go to that NPC and then ask them concerning that information which then advances a quest line, or opens up new information to further the inquiry. This can also be achieved with picking up items in the game (a letter that mentions a name of an NPC or hints to some individual by basic description in a town somewhere).
The key to all of this is the responsibility is placed on the player to explore not only the world, but the interaction with the NPCs. This type of system would promote numerous questions and queries to the NPC based on their dialog, while the current explained system will simply result in players running from NPC to NPC hailing, mindlessly clicking the bouncing ball text until the key information is provided. Basically, it is yet another iteration of "speed questing" that is the standard with “?” questing.
Not a fan of this implementation VR, I think it is counter to the core ideal of the game you are making.
What if there are hidden quests not linked to highlighted or underline text.
What if you had enough wits to remember what one NPC told you about "Bob" NPC (who killed a rabbit). Then you run into Bob NPC and and target him and say "Bob why did you kill that robbit?" it would be awesome to then open a secrete quest, that highlighted text would have not revealed.
oh yeah, the good old days. When people stood there typing in any random word trying to find the trigger. Or those of us building text files full of nouns and verbs and copying and pasting them into the command line. Of course then they went with easy mode where the NPC would talk to you and then you just had to figure out which word was the keyword.
Caine said:What if there are hidden quests not linked to highlighted or underline text.
What if you had enough wits to remember what one NPC told you about "Bob" NPC (who killed a rabbit). Then you run into Bob NPC and and target him and say "Bob why did you kill that robbit?" it would be awesome to then open a secrete quest, that highlighted text would have not revealed.
That would be ideal and that is exactly EQ's old system. The problem with a text input system is it has a lot of catches and draw backs (syntax, spelling, like word meaning, etc...) that can create some complex issues in play, as well as in distribution (it complicated you selling your game in different languages because not only do you need to translate, but you need the other tools as well implemented to moderize the text engines. You want to avoid some of the issues with EQ where the player would type something and because they didn't have the EXACT thing typed, it was rejected. That is why I said modern tools can help with that these days.
I think they chose the click system because it is easier to implement and manage, not to mention a lot of people would throw tantrums on it (you should have saw people complain about not having everything pointed out to them in LoTRO).
Might as well just have question marks over their head. This isn't questing, it is reading and clicking. There is a reason adventure gaming died out when they moved from text based input (ie you type in what you are looking for) to that of the graphical clicking.
This argument is flawed. Adventure gaming died out for the same reasons RTS games and old school EQ questing died out; the mainstream audience lacks the patience to read and plan ahead and doesn't want to do that stuff for leisure. Adventure games reached their peak well after text-based input was replaced with point & click by the way. Some of the later Sierra P&C adventures and practically all of the LucasArts catalog with the SCUMM engine was very successful.
P&C adventures have already seen a resurgence in the indie scene, keeping costs manageable for its smaller audience. There's even some really great higher budget ones out there, such as Book of Unwritten Tales. And the early Telltale games were very well done as well. In much the same vein, we're banking on VR here to bring a resurgence of old school MMO's.
As for your desire to have text input for keywords instead of clicks; for most use cases you would only type words that are referred to in the NPC's previous reply. And in that case, having those keywords clickable does not really come at the cost of immersion if you simply choose to pay attention and be immersed. Still, the two systems are not mutually exclusive. In an RPG from 1996 called Albion, a system was used where talking to NPC's would let you 'collect' keywords - much the same way it was done later in TES3: Morrowind - which you could click on an interface to bring up the subject indicated by the keyword with any NPC that subject might be relevant to (not just the NPC you're currently talking to). On top of that, Albion ALSO had a text input field for keywords you had not (yet) collected. I fondly remember one plot twist in that game where you could warn a councillor about an assassination attempt, and it could only be done using that custom input box and writing 'assassination' because the keyword couldn't be unlocked outside of it. If you did not issue the warning before a certain event in the main plot came to pass, the councillor would die and a corrupt one would take his place.
So in my opinion there's no real reason to pout about having clickable keywords when you can instead advocate for an expansion to the current implementation that allows you to bring up hidden subjects, similar to what was done in Albion.
DracoKalen said:oh yeah, the good old days. When people stood there typing in any random word trying to find the trigger. Or those of us building text files full of nouns and verbs and copying and pasting them into the command line. Of course then they went with easy mode where the NPC would talk to you and then you just had to figure out which word was the keyword.
The main issues with this are remedied by linking dictionaries, spell checkers, thesauruses, to the system. It would reduce the bulk of the issues and your text engine can focus on conceptual discussion to respond over "key words".
That said, I would take the headaches of key word systems any day over the mindless click festing of the systems today. There is no thought, just clicking.
Also, most of those people weren't questing. They were "hunt pecking" with words. As an example, lets say there was a trigger phrase to start dialog that was based on a conversation you hear from other NPCs. All these people were doing were running to each NPC and dumping tons of text on the NPC to find a dialog (dumb questing, similar to WoW click fest questing, yes.. they existed even back in EQ).
Easy way to stop that is to implement a typical security feature (ie account locking). For instance, if someone comes over and starts blindly dumping text on an NPC, they get annoyed and then refuse to talk to the player for a while.