How to tell if a player learned something from NPC

[sethmachine]

Hi,

What do people do these days to figure out when a player has learned an important piece of information for a quest/plot?

For example, I know in Skyrim if the player talks to an NPC character and selects the right dialogue option, the game decides that the player learned something, whether they actually just skipped the dialogue entirely.

Or, if the player needs to find out some information (but say it's hidden in a book), if they even just open the book for a second and then close it, the game instantly assumes they read the book entirely and acquired the information to advance the quest.

So I guess if I am doing conversation through dialog, is it safe to assume once a player clicks the dialog button that leads to the NPC saying the plot information, that I assume they acquired that plot information and therefore advance the quest?

I know I can't force people to read...

 

[Solu9]

If you are really steadfast on making the player read. You could start a timer when a dialog button is clicked.
If another dialog button is clicked while the timer is running, then set the action to nothing.
You cannot force people to read, but you can force them to wait.

However, I think it is a really bad idea to force this on the player. It might annoy you that some people will not read the text/plot (I know I am ), but In my opinion you must just accept that not everybody is interested in lore or plot.

 

[Maker]

Also note that on subsequent playthroughs, it can get annoying having to wait since the player already "knows" the information.

 

[sethmachine]

Well this makes things easy on the mapmaker's part too I suppose.

Though I can just set very vague quest instructions like "Find where the statue is," and only provide that information in some item a player has to find. I suppose that will force people to read something, at least on the first playthroughs.

 

[Licheus]

Let's take your book example for instance. Ask yourself this: is the information given to the player through the book

1) just a piece of lore that has nothing to do with gameplay or progression?
or
2) necessary for him to know to advance in the game?

If the first is true, then let the player skip everything if he wants. Even if your map's greatest strength is the plot, it is up to the player to come to that conclusion himself. If his conclusion is that he's only interested in the gameplay, then who are you to say otherwise?

If the second is true, you should probably reconsider your game design. Why are you presenting the player with an important piece for his progress in a way that isn't directly interconnected with the gameplay? Could this be done in any other way? Why is this part of the map so arbitrary designed that the player has to be explicitly told something in text to understand what actions to take?