Hey, I’ve got a really cool idea: how about adding a talking NPC—kind of like the ‘discobot’ already here—that lets you chat just like you do with other players, but with an NPC instead? Oh, and to make it even better without disrupting the game, maybe you could only interact with them if you already have a connection to the character. I thought of this because seeing that discobot reminded me of my childhood—specifically ‘Robô Ed’ and a Neopets character who spoke in riddles; that was awesome, and I’ve missed that kind of thing in this game. Plus, since the bot relies on text and keywords, it fits perfectly with the Fallen London style—that old-world vibe. And who knows? In the future, if technology evolves to better protect writers, or if the Fallen London universe introduces futuristic elements, this chat mechanic would already be set up to integrate with those new technologies.
there are lots of NPCs with dialogue in FL so I’m not sure what you’re requesting here—a chatbot?
This is a terrible idea described badly. I do not play Fallen London to talk to people, I do it to be immersed in a world - and I genuinely can’t tell what you’re even proposing beyond “Add a chatbot to Fallen London”. I can’t tell if you’re suggesting adding a chatbot-powered, “human” non-player character who we can interact with and speak to, or if you’re suggesting adding a literal robot character we can talk to, but I think both of those are immersion-breaking, almost impossible to implement, and downright awful as ideas.
There’s plenty of NPC dialogue based on what your character says, including NPCs you can regularly talk to outside of set storylines. Slaps Fallen London this thing is chalk full of guys so I’m not entirely sure what you’re getting at.
Failbetters’ works are proudly GenAI-free, so I really don’t think a chat AI would be up their alley.
“Hey everyone, I think there’s a slight misunderstanding! I am NOT suggesting generative AI like ChatGPT. I completely agree that Failbetter’s hand-crafted writing is what makes the game amazing.My idea is a scripted, rule-based chatbot (exactly like our Discobot here on the forums, or classic old-school keyword bots). Every single word and response would still be written 100% by the Failbetter writers.It would basically read a specific keyword the player typed (like “Benthic” or “Masters”) and trigger a hand-written storylet response from that NPC. The mention of future tech was just a side thought! The core idea is purely hand-written text wrapped in a new, immersive layout.”
I’m pretty sure we can do this ingame except there are conditions for most of them.
Yeah, this already exists in some old conversation-based content that I believe was all or mostly written by Emily Short: the conversation with Lilac at the Panopticon, and the conversation you can with the Wry Functionary, and I believe a couple of early Exceptional Stories also featured it. The quality “Recent Topic of Conversation:” unlocked different branches depending on what you had discussed with the NPC just previously. They have not used this feature in many years, which I think is a shame (and Emily Short’s influence on FL is sorely missed!).