NPC Scripts & Language

[Tratos]

When i was messing around with the wayback machine a few weeks ago i found the old old old (and possibly old) Neocron site from back in NC1 beta (the black/orange one) and it had a page where players and testers could submit their own ideas of NPC idle dialogue and names to become the random name generator, i thought this was a really cool idea and i'd love to see the NPC idle speech submition form come back to the NC site as im getting a bit sick of hearing almost every NPC saying the same over used piece of text which im sure you all know by now.

NPC - Sorry im heavily busy, leave now!
You - But i only....
NPC - I said LEAVE!
Well something like that.

NPCs always used to have witty remarks, quirky personalities or just abuse you when you bothered them in a none mission situation, i miss that :(

Additionaly i also think most abreviations should be removed from NPC speech as it really takes the atmosphere from the game when you hear NPCs saying things like 'chems' 'wep parts' 'gogu' things like "GR" or "GenRep" are fine but others seem a bit rushed in their typing. From this i dont think NPCs should use the double letter abreviations (i.e. FA) we have for the factions and use either their full names (Fallen Angels) or a nickname based on their aligence to the faction ("The Angels" from an ally and "Tech Freaks" from an enemy) as this would boost atmosphere and give the NPC scripts a much more finished feel.

Finally - Would it be possible for the forums to have an area to post the name and locations of NPCs pointing out spelling, grammar and misc problems? (like NPCs telling people to go to the wrong sectors) Then it would be easy for these things to be corrected with little effort from KK as some of the NPC scripts are near unreadable (e.g. Gallaway in TH)

Anyway...ummm....comments? lol

[Mr Kot]

Agreed. They do need updating and the typos and "engrish" just look terrible.

Trouble is, it's a hell of a lot of work, so unless you're planning to volunteer yourself, i can't see it getting done at the same time as all the other bugfixes on the list.

Any NPC that existed in NC1 still does give the variable idle dialogue. The NPCs which exist only for a mission from the start of NC2 onwards are "heavily busy".

[Tratos]

Any NPC that existed in NC1 still does give the variable idle dialogue. The NPCs which exist only for a mission from the start of NC2 onwards are "heavily busy".
That many NPC scripts have been rewritten it seems theres very few viable idle dialogues left lol

I (and im sure others would too) would document spelling mistakes and in some cases rewrite the text for the scripts but to do that i need reassurance that the effort would pay off as like you said its alot to do especially if its not used.

[-FN-]

Yeah - the QA dept needs some serious, and I mean SERIOUS shaping up - the scripts in Patches 145+ need hardcore English proofreading. Even the launcher needs QA attention:



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Is NExT going to loose Hovercabs and Subway to CA?

loose? Try lose :rolleyes:

[Nidhogg]

To be fair there's a large percentage of people on the net who mistake the usage of lose and loose, event native English speakers (it annoys me too tbh). ;)

With upwards of a thousand dialogs in the game in English and German it's a mammoth problem to keep on top of. That's not to say that things can't be improved but we do try to get as much material as we possibly can proof-read by native speakers where humanly possible.

N

[Tratos]

With upwards of a thousand dialogs in the game in English and German it's a mammoth problem to keep on top of.

N
Since it is such a huge task any chance you can organise something to allow the community to help? as im pretty sure we have a fair few native english speakers in the community :p