talking to NPC and the old "You're not sitting at a tab

[Cuttlefish]

What's up with the errors you get when trying to talk to NPCs that aren't coded to talk?

An eyeless dwarf grovels for coins here.
A skinny elf stands here, eyeing the beggar's coin dish.

> talk dwarf rumors
A one-eyed dwarf says, in sirihish,
   "Ask me the one about the drunken scrab."

> talk elf rumors
You're not sitting at a table!


This is just utterly silly.  I like to really test out the various things the NPCs have to chat about and I get this message a lot.  I know WHY you get this message, it just seems like it could be handled a lot better.  If it's at all possible for the talk command to know if an NPC doesn't have a talk command, it should say something like:  "You get no response from the skinny elf." or "It appears the skinny elf has nothing to say to you."

[CindyLou]

I like the idea, but I think I understand why it doesn't work that way, or why it can't.

I think - and again it's just my guess, since I don't know Diku...

that only NPCs that are flagged to allow rumors can give any echo other than "You're not sitting at a table." Sorta for the same reason why if you try to "talk" to a friend while you're standing up you get the same message.

It's not that your friend has nothing to say to you, it's that the code doesn't allow talk to work unless you're sitting - OR unless you're talking to an NPC that is designed specifically to work as a rumor-dood.

They'd have to re-code every NPC if they wanted to allow all of them to "Not have anything to say to you" or whatever..while still allowing the "You're not at a table" to work for PCs.

I do agree that it would be more interesting to have something other than the current echo, but if my guess is right, it makes sense that it's as it is.

[Tlaloc]

It could also be that you're asking about the wrong subject. Try asking about thier 'name' or 'topics'. You might get alittle farther, since not all NPC's have 'rumors' per-se...but other interesting information.

[Cuttlefish]

No, it's not a subject thing (at least, not always).  Even if it WAS a subject problem, it's silly to get that as the error, as it has nothing to do with anything, from a player's point of view.

[Lazloth]

I concur.  I don't believe it's a subject thing (fairly certain you get a I don't know anything about that-type response there) .. more than likely, the rumorcode scripts were bootstrapped to an existent command (namely talk) and then blossomed to include the talkative NPCs.  

A quick & dirty hack to the talk function would involve pulling the first argument from your string, matching it to the room's occupants, (checking whether or not speaker is seated first), and altering the string to something like They remain tight-lipped, rather than touch all the NPCs.   Alternately, introduce a different command and phase the current talkers to it.