Dialog System

Introduction

The dialog system for Legnds of Aria comes in various shapes. We have dialogs for npc conversations, progress bars and all things in between. In this section you will learn the structure and basics to creating your very own npc conversations for your players to enjoy. The general npc dialog system is a series of function calls where inside each of these functions is the information for the given dialog screen currently showing. Every page of the npc conversation has a npc dialog text area, and the player response area. The magic of the npc dialog system starts off with the NPCInteractionLongButton function lets look at the parts below.

--- opens up the npc dialog menu
--@param text - (string) a string containing the current message the npc is talking about
--@param npc - (gameobject) the npc currently interacting with the player
--@param player - (gameobject) the player currently interacting with this npc
--@param eventId - (string)a string identifying the event response of the dialog
--@param response - (table)a table containing response array table 
function NPCInteractionLongButton(text,npc,player,eventId,response)
end

When you first interact with a npc or use the talk context menu, the npc ai script will fire up the Dialog.OpenGreetingsDialog function. This function lives inside the base_ai_npc.lua script file. Notice how the function is camel case OpenGreetingsDialog. The way dialogs are setup is by player response and response handles. All dialog functions must be named Open + Handle Name + Dialog, you will see why looking below at a basic greetings override.

--- opens up the npc greetings dialog menu
--@param user - (gameobject) the user interacting with this dialog
function Dialog.OpenGreetingsDialog(user)
    text = "Welcome traveler to Eldier Village, how can I be of assistance?"

    response = {}

    response[1] = {}
    response[1].text = "Can you tell me about chickens?"
    response[1].handle = "AboutChickens"

    NPCInteraction(text,this,user,"Responses",response)
end

The above example will load up and work, but we do not have a AboutChickens function made. As discussed earlier the function name is Open + AboutChickens + Dialog so lets make this function and populate it with a response. Also lets loop back to the greetings message after the player gets to this dialog response page.

--- opens up the npc aboutchickens dialog menu
--@param user - (gameobject) the user interacting with this dialog
function Dialog.OpenAboutChickensDialog(user)
    text = "I like the taste of them hmm? They lay eggs, make clucking noises... saw one fly for darn near 13 seconds."

    response = {}

    response[1] = {}
    response[1].text = "Golly Gee Mister"
    response[1].handle = "Greetings"

    NPCInteraction(text,this,user,"Responses",response)
end

Basic Mobile Dialog

Here is an example of a simple Greetings Dialog override.

function Dialog.OpenGreetingDialog(user)
    -- this is the npcs dialog text for this conversation 
    text = "Hello Stranger, What brings you to my part of town?"
    
    -- a table containing player response information
    response = {}
    response[1] = {}
    response[1].text = "Do you know the muffin Man?"
    response[1].handle = "MuffinMan"

    -- this displays the dialog information to the user
    NPCInteractionLongButton(text,this,user,"Responses",response)
end

Now we need to create the next part of the dailog which is another function. These functions for each new dialog are in the following format. Lets see what it looks like and then we will make the function for when the player clicks the MuffinMan response.

Here is the function Format for dialog responses below

function Dialog.Open[RESPONSE_HANDLE]Dialog(user) 

Here is an example function for the MuffinMan response.

function OpenMuffinManDialog(user)
    -- this is the npcs dialog text for this conversation 
    text = "Oh the muffin man, he is a strange person I tell ya, but thats all I know"
    
    -- a table containing player response information
    response = {}
    response[1] = {}
    response[1].text = "Very Interesting?"
    response[1].handle = "Greetings"

    -- this displays the dialog information to the user
    NPCInteractionLongButton(text,this,user,"Responses",response) 
end

This open muffinman dialog function will send the player back to the "Greetings" dialog. The response[?].handle is the name of the dialog, so in this second function we are sending the player back to the greeting.