All Networks Sentinel Chatbot

[TeamTMS]

Hey!
I’ve been thinking alot recently on how we could make the chat funner for players. Sentinel. I think we should bring Sentinel to a whole new stage and let it talk to the community. With Sentinel, you can ask it how to play a game, the ban statistics, facts about CubeCraft, and so on. This would be very good for new players that are trying to find their way and get familiar with CubeCraft, and there don’t have to be helpers on every server. A volunteer chatbot response developer position could even be opened as Sentinel expands. Sentinel would be designed to respond to text that is even grammatically incorrect.
Examples:

Spoiler: General Questions

Sentinel’s main chat focus is general questions. Any general questions about CubeCraft’s games or lobbies or anything support-related, Sentinel responds with the appropriate answer. It could even give a mini-tutorial on a specific area of a game mode that a player is stuck on. These messages would only appear to you, not the entire server. Example:

Spoiler: Fun Facts

Sentinel also gives players some fun facts about CubeCraft, Minecraft, and even a few general things. These messages would only appear to you, not the entire server. Example:

Spoiler: Statistics

A cool feature that could be added is live statistics. Statistics would be very useful to players, because they can ask in a game, in the waiting lobby, anywhere. Statistics would be the hardest to program, as it has to actively be tracking the statistics throughout CubeCraft. These messages would appear throughout the entire server, not privately. Example:

Spoiler: Java/Bedrock Different messages

Of course some of the messages will have to be different, because Java and Bedrock have many different features. Though most of it will be the same (e.g. How to play a game, fun facts, etc.), so the developers won’t have to worry about making two different responses for every question. These messages would only appear to you, not the entire server. Example:

Spoiler: General Conversation/games

Of course, Sentinel isn’t all about banning people. He also likes to joke around! Sentinel would have many different conversational responses, so it won’t all be the same loop (for example, if someone says “Hello Sentinel” Sentinel will say “Greetings,” “Heyo!” Etc, not just “Hello” every time). Sentinel also knows a few jokes and games to play with the community! These are messages the entire server can see, not a private conversation. Example:

Spoiler: Welcome message

The last thing I wanted to mention is the welcome message. I think the welcome message should be changed so that Sentinel is saying it. And it also mentions that you can talk back to Sentinel, so that people actually know that Sentinel IS a chatbot. This would replace the previous welcome message. Obviously this would still only appear to you.

If you guys have any other Sentinel chat focus ideas, please comment them down below.
Thanks! :)

 

[TeamTMS]

Couldn’t add a poll. Any thoughts?

 

[Skoedel]

There is a parcour in the java (main) lobby. Idk if you just write that as example or if you dont know it :D

Spoiler: Lobby parcour

?

 

[TeamTMS]

There is a parcour in the java (main) lobby. Idk if you just write that as example or if you dont know it :D

Spoiler: Lobby parcour

View attachment 159526?

Oh! Sorry, my bad. I’ll take that on board. Thanks for telling me that ;)

 

[Skoedel]

Oh! Sorry, my bad. I’ll take that on board. Thanks for telling me that ;)

No problem :D

 

[Deleted member 469419]

Hi :)

From my view point, this is a good thing to add, I think players that not have idea of something, can do /bot help, without doubt this is a improve help command.

Good idea, I hope this would be "escalated".

 

[TeamTMS]

Hi :)

From my view point, this is a good thing to add, I think players that not have idea of something, can do /bot help, without doubt this is a improve help command.

Good idea, I hope this would be "escalated".

Yeah, I guess having a command could work too, you just wouldn’t be able to chat with it as much. But on the other hand it wouldn’t clog up the chat so much for other players. Thanks :)

 

[Zathelas]

Hi :)

From my view point, this is a good thing to add, I think players that not have idea of something, can do /bot help, without doubt this is a improve help command.

Good idea, I hope this would be "escalated".

Yeah, I was thinking about that while reading the thread! :)

 

[Ma7mouD]

This is very good, it seems like discord xD, we need something like that, since every server of Minecraft have their own Bot in discord, like it show you the statics and the last log in, it would me amazing to have this but in game, I agree :)

 

[TeamTMS]

This is very good, it seems like discord xD, we need something like that, since every server of CubeCraft have their own Bot in discord, like it show you the statics and the last log in, it would me amazing to have this but in game, I agree :)

Haha, it could be on Discord too. The only thing is it might clog up the chat (e.g. someone says Hello to someone else but then Sentinel says Hello), so it might have to only respond to people saying Sentinel’s game at the start or end (e.g. Hello, Sentinel). That is, on Discord.
Thanks :)

 

[Deleted member 481668]

Nice explained suggestion. I am not 100% sure about "fun fact", because I think you will get a lot of messages in the chat. Yea it seems fun but it's not necessary. Like some of your suggestion are really handy for the new players, general messages that would be necessary! And a Welcome Message, it's nice but also not necessary in my opinion. Because the person know that he is new. But overall I like some of your suggestion!

 

[RPoule]

Quick answer: No, seems very unnecessary, spammy (even if it'd be private messages only) and too complicated for it to be actually functional.
Let me explain per categorie you came up with:

General Questions:
The thing with general questions is that, almost everyone knows the answer to them. Asking something general like: "how does minerware work" will result in plenty of other players responding with answers and guides etc. Also, barely anyone ever asks those questions because every minigame on cube is really intuitive, as in, play it twice and you'll understand the basics. Most new players also join because they've seen youtube videos or friends of them playing, meaning that they'll understand the games before they've ever joined the server in the first place.

Fun Facts:
Barely anyone cares about these while playing, I've never seen anyone spreading fun facts in the chat before and honestly, I couldn't care less if they did, and that's coming from someone who has played for years on end. I don't see how your average casual player could care more. They'd also become old really quick, as in, you ask for a fun fact once, get a weird answer, okay cool, and move on. However, I do think there might be some target group who'd actually like to see a new fun fact every day or something. So maybe a flying text-bubble (like the Sentinel one) portraying a "Fun fact of the day" ?

Statistics:
This ones short: Players who play enough to care about their statistics, already know where to find them. Adding a "General Statistics" tab in your hotbar or something might be cool, but again, having a chatbot telling them to you is just really unnecessary.

Java/Bedrock:
This one isn't really much of a seperate categorie, because many answers the bot would give would be varieng upon the platform players use it on.

General Conversations/Games:
Although this could be somewhat fun, the amount of time and pre-coding needed before it becomes actually functional is insane. For example, take a look at one of the most popular chatbots of all time: Siri, it took yeaars before she finally became somewhat functional, siri has a seperate team dedicated to it, whereas this Sentinel chatbot shouldn't take more than a couple of days to implement because of the eventual effect it will have (virtually nothing), anymore time spent on it would be pretty much wasted.

Welcome message:
I believe there is already something of this kind in place but if not, don't see why it shouldn't be there.

To conclude:
I shot this down because, even though chatbots are fun and interactive, they take too much time to create before becoming somewhat useful. The amount of troubleshooting needed is just crazy and even though I'd be fine with management spending a lot of time on something that then becomes a big part of the server. I'm fairly sure that wouldn't be the case with this bot.

 

[TeamTMS]

Nice explained suggestion. I am not 100% sure about "fun fact", because I think you will get a lot of messages in the chat. Yea it seems fun but it's not necessary. Like some of your suggestion are really handy for the new players, general messages that would be necessary! And a Welcome Message, it's nice but also not necessary in my opinion. Because the person know that he is new. But overall I like some of your suggestion!

Hello,
Yeah I totally get that. It could possibly just be mini-tutorials for the game-modes. They would only appear for the player that sent the message, so it wouldn’t clog up the chat for other players.
I think the general questions is the most important one anyway because at the end of the day, there’s not going to be a helper on every server, and new players don’t know how CubeCraft works.
I just thought general conversation would be funner for players. I don’t think it’s really necessary for some players that just like to get into CubeCraft to play games, but definitely for those that like to chat, or new players that need support.
Anyway, thanks for the opinion :)

 

[TeamTMS]

Quick answer: No, seems very unnecessary, spammy (even if it'd be private messages only) and too complicated for it to be actually functional.
Let me explain per categorie you came up with:

General Questions:
The thing with general questions is that, almost everyone knows the answer to them. Asking something general like: "how does minerware work" will result in plenty of other players responding with answers and guides etc. Also, barely anyone ever asks those questions because every minigame on cube is really intuitive, as in, play it twice and you'll understand the basics. Most new players also join because they've seen youtube videos or friends of them playing, meaning that they'll understand the games before they've ever joined the server in the first place.

Fun Facts:
Barely anyone cares about these while playing, I've never seen anyone spreading fun facts in the chat before and honestly, I couldn't care less if they did, and that's coming from someone who has played for years on end. I don't see how your average casual player could care more. They'd also become old really quick, as in, you ask for a fun fact once, get a weird answer, okay cool, and move on. However, I do think there might be some target group who'd actually like to see a new fun fact every day or something. So maybe a flying text-bubble (like the Sentinel one) portraying a "Fun fact of the day" ?

Statistics:
This ones short: Players who play enough to care about their statistics, already know where to find them. Adding a "General Statistics" tab in your hotbar or something might be cool, but again, having a chatbot telling them to you is just really unnecessary.

Java/Bedrock:
This one isn't really much of a seperate categorie, because many answers the bot would give would be varieng upon the platform players use it on.

General Conversations/Games:
Although this could be somewhat fun, the amount of time and pre-coding needed before it becomes actually functional is insane. For example, take a look at one of the most popular chatbots of all time: Siri, it took yeaars before she finally became somewhat functional, siri has a seperate team dedicated to it, whereas this Sentinel chatbot shouldn't take more than a couple of days to implement because of the eventual effect it will have (virtually nothing), anymore time spent on it would be pretty much wasted.

Welcome message:
I believe there is already something of this kind in place but if not, don't see why it shouldn't be there.

To conclude:
I shot this down because, even though chatbots are fun and interactive, they take too much time to create before becoming somewhat useful. The amount of troubleshooting needed is just crazy and even though I'd be fine with management spending a lot of time on something that then becomes a big part of the server. I'm fairly sure that wouldn't be the case with this bot.

Hey, thanks for sharing that.
I definitely agree that it will take a long time to develop (Lifeboat’s “Kim” took around a year).
I’m don’t really care too much about the general conversation sections, but I generally think the general questions section should be added. In Bedrock, most players just join because they see the MOTD “Eggwars, Skywars, More!” But for example a little kid sees Minerware and have no idea what they’re doing. There are no tutorials anywhere, so they ask the chat. Sure, someone might respond, but chances are they won’t (the chat in Bedrock isn’t very communicative; which is why I thought general conversation would be nice), but even if so, CubeCraft could make it so that if Sentinel detects a message it has an answer for, it could make that message invisible for the rest of the players.
And about the development, I agree for the most-part of that. It doesn’t have to be an amazing chatbot like Siri, that has an answer for everything. It wouldn’t take that long to develop the program itself, but all of the responses would take a long time to develop, but there could even be some sort of special volunteer team to develop responses. Lifeboat’s “Kim” took around a year until it was fully released (I helped develop some of the responses by the way), and even to this day, Kim isn’t perfect, but I don’t think think any chatbot will be perfect. Kim is more of a general conversation type chatbot, but I think CubeCraft should start off light and start Sentinel as a general question chatbot.
Anyways, thanks for the opinion, some pretty good points were made :)

 

[RPoule]

a little kid sees Minerware and have no idea what they’re doing.

Minerware is super intuitive, they basically explain the rules of each microgame, at the start of the microgame. And an explanation on the whole game can be found when hoovering over the "Join Game" (gold block in Java) thingy in the NPC.

the chat in Bedrock isn’t very communicative

Fair enough, but a simple google/youtube search would do the trick too, I'm not saying it's a bad idea in any way, It'd be pretty cool in fact. But I don't think there's much of a need for it either.

It wouldn’t take that long to develop the program itself, but all of the responses would take a long time to develop, but there could even be some sort of special volunteer team to develop responses.

Quite like this :)

 

[TeamTMS]

Minerware is super intuitive, they basically explain the rules of each microgame, at the start of the microgame. And an explanation on the whole game can be found when hoovering over the "Join Game" (gold block in Java) thingy in the NPC.

Fair enough, but a simple google/youtube search would do the trick too, I'm not saying it's a bad idea in any way, It'd be pretty cool in fact. But I don't think there's much of a need for it either.

Quite like this :)

Hello,
Oh, I didn’t even realize there were tutorials on Java. On Bedrock, there are no tutorials at all. I’ll keep that on board ;)
I think we’ve come to a conclusion that Sentinel should be a tutorial-only chatbot, exclusive on the Bedrock network (there’s not much point in having it one Java if there already is tutorials).
Thanks! :)