HUD? AI? Quests?
When Xertor looked around earlier, he noticed that he was standing in the middle of the village. He also noticed that he was surrounded by three buildings and at each of these three building, stood a different person; two of the three had yellow exclamation marks above their heads.
"They must be the quest givers," Xertor thought after he saw the exclamation marks.
One quest giver was an old man with short white hair and shaved facial hair while the other was a middle-aged man with short black hair and a full beard of the same colour; they both were dressed in commoner Chinese clothes from the Han dynasty.
"There is no point to just stand around and do nothing, let's do some quests," Xertor thought with a smile on his face. He walked up to the old man, but before he could say even a single word, the old man initiated the conversation instead. "Hello adventurer, do you think you could spare me a moment of your time?"
A surprised flashed across Xertor's face, he was surprised for three reasons.
First, the old man started a conversation with him and not the other way around. This situation would almost never happen in any MMORPG.
Second, the NPC had voiced lines, which also was very rare amongst the MMORPGs currently in the market.
Third, after the old man spoke, no dialogue options appeared for Xertor to choose from. This situation would never happen in any MMORPG.
"Should I just answer? – Well here goes nothing," Xertor thought. "What can I help you with?" he said.
Thank you for hearing me out, young man," he smiled, "There have been more wolves appearing around the village, I would like to ask you to go and exterminate as many as you can."
"How do I accept the quest? There is no window or any buttons? Do I have to accept it by saying that I accept out loud? – Alright!" he thought.
"I accept your quest!"
The old man tilted his head in confusion and said, "I don't know what this 'quest' is young man, but I am assuming you want to help me?"
Xertor nodded, "Yes, I will help you."
"I will wait for the good news, young man!"
Xertor nodded his head and thought, "Are these predefined responses? Or is this NPC installed with an AI? I wonder."
"Mhm?" Xertor raised his eyebrow up in surprise. "That is interesting, I should also look at this website as well because when I browsed it before the games release there was no information at all, they must have updated it once the game was released," he thought.
Xertor frowned. "What is that?" he thought as he saw the two letters – 'Sl' at the right-middle corner of his eyes. He first moved his head towards the letters but even as he did, he still saw the same two – 'Sl'.
"What is going on here?" Xertor thought. After thinking for a while he got an idea and moved his eyes instead of his head or his body, and once he did, he saw the full sentence appear.
"A quest tracker?... So there is a HUD (Heads-up-display) after all? That's good, let's see what else is there on the HUD," he thought and moved his eyes around and saw the HUD in its entirety. On the top-right corner – he saw a minimap, in top-left – health, mana and level and in the bottom-left – the chat log.
Xertor looked at the other quest giver and thought, "There is one more quest giver," he smirked, "I should try and test whether he will answer to my questions that will let me know if it's a working AI or not." He frowned, "But wait, that's stupid. If it wasn't a working AI then how would it have been able to hold a conversation with me? I should just assume its an AI and not mess around too much."
He walked up to the quest giver, "Is there anything I can help you with?"
"I saw you staring at me earlier, you realise that's rude don't you?"
"Huh?" Xertor tilted his head in confusion. "If it wasn't clear before but it's official now, the NPCs all have AI installed," he thought.
The middle-aged man sighed, "Even though you stared at me, I will overlook it this time since I am in need of help."
Xertor slowly nodded, "What you want me to do?"
"I need you to go to the forest south-east of the village, in this forest, there is a flower called – Jurid, I want you to bring me this flower."
"Alright."
"I will wait for you then, don't take too long."
After Xertor accepted the quest, it appeared in his quest tracker and now there were two quests displayed in it.
"Which one should I do first? Should I go for the closer quest?" He glanced at the minimap and saw two arrows pointing in two different directions. "So both quests are too far away to be displayed on the minimap?" he thought.
Xertor extended his hand and swiped up with his palm facing up, the menu opened and he selected the
"Might as well go for the closer quest first even though it's a
Xertor sighed and thought, "Even though the wolves are closer, I should do the flower quest first, I can do the wolf quest later and I doubt that I would be able to kill
With the plan in hand Xertor walked out of the village, but as he walked towards the forest, he spotted a lone roaming wolf.
The wolf had a grey fur coat and was a real looking wolf without any extra features – it was just a simple grey wolf. As Xertor looked at the wolf a sudden damage value floated above the wolf's head, <-2>. The wolf howled and rushed off, Xertor followed the beast with his eyes and saw one player with a small buckler charge at the beast, behind this player there were three more palyers.
"Are they trying to complete the wolf slaying quest as a party? Xertor thought but as his thought concluded, two more damage values floated above the wolf's head, <-5>, <-6> and the wolf bit down at the youth with a shield.
<-353>
When Mniu died the other three players that were together with him, ran away from the wolf.
Xertor shook his head, "It's good that I decided against doing the wolf quest first, I would have died instantly and it wouldn't have been very pleasant with the 80% pain option that I chose," a shiver went down Xertor's spine and he walked off towards the forest.