Mass Effect Dialogue the WAVE OF THE FUTURE?!

[aries202]

Mass Effect's marketing seemsd to be aimed at the FPS crowd, hitting on the shooter elements in the game, e.g. you can duck&cover, you can give orders to your squad (a la Geras of War). And then adding on to that, saying - for every choice there is a consequence, which leads to different endings etc. (gamespots interview with casey+the good doctors July 19th 2007).´

The romance options is in, I believe, mostly for the girls (and for some of the men). What's interesting to me, at least, is that Bioware is one of the only (rpg) video game developers out there which consciously seems to make, and market rpg games towrads girls and women. And that without falling into clichees about weak women and strong men. From what I've seen in the preview for ME, it looks like Ashley easily can hold her own when fighting monsters (as could Jaheira ). For that, Bioware deserves praise

The dialogue system seems also to be targeted, or aimed directly at shooter players. At least in the extended version of the trailer (can be found on gamespot.com, too). Most shooters seem to have a story line in which there is - story - dialogue - story - and a a dialogue where there isn't choices in what you're going to say as well. In Mass Effect, you can affect the game by choosing one line of dialogue over the other. (just like the scene from XO6 in the bar with the bartender).

This is, of course, a selling point, aimed at the FPS crowd. However, I'm not that sure that the FPS crowd (or fans) quite understand what this means. RPG fans (such as us and others) know how this plays out but the FPS crowd doesn't. My qualified guess would then be that the FPS crowd won't (at first) understand why they just can't shoot everyone in sight, why the just don't get missions to solve, and then come back to the council and get another mission. Or how come when they hit a guy, or a monster, he or it, doesn't die. Or how come if they hit say a monster it seems like they haven't it at all?? (because of low skill in say plasma guns).

I'm sure there's a decent, and OK (action) RPG under the hood in Mass Effect, that Ii'm going to enjoy, while on the surface it just looks like a shooter, or more precisely like Gears of War. And I'm pretty sure that the FPS fans would rather play Gears of War anyway than Mass Effect...

But that's just me, I guess

 

[tardtastic]

A month or two after KOTOR2 came out, I went to the official boards for the game, where all the die-hard fans were jizming over this-or-that insipid little detail of what I think was an ultimately disappointing game (due in large part to the fact that it's all black-and-white; despite Kreia offering a clear alternative, every choice in the game excludes you from agreeing with her.)
And I wrote on their forum, hey, you know what would have made this game a little better? And what would make RPGs in general better? If, instead of fully-written dialogue choices that put words into your character's mouth (that might not square with your intentions in roleplaying the character), what if, instead, the dialogue choices were abstractions of what your point was, so that it wouldn't "step on your character's toes"?, because I know I hate it when I'm trying to roleplay an evil bastard and some dumb game-dialogue-writer (who's only writing for games because his lame paperback sci-fi novel isn't moving enough units at 7 cents profit for him apiece) makes my character sound more like Snidely Whiplash or Skeletor than, say, Moriarty. Whenever that happens, it just takes me out of the game - I'm not playing a character anymore at that point, it's just a multiple choice test.

And they either had no fucking clue what I was saying, or, of course, they hated it. And now they're in rapturous hyperventilation over a system that, apart from incorporating that element, also happens to be ridiculously stupid.

i hate star wars it's the lamest thing ever

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

No, hear me out.

So, we all have different opinions on Mass Effect. (Personally, I'm cautiously looking forward to it as an somewhat inferior version of Bloodlines, one of my favorite games and the canonical example of Action RPG/FPS done right.)

clearly the man has not played SS2

Eh. Bloodlines achieved a far more even split between the two, only veering too far towards FPS in the last third of the game or so, and to be honest I enjoyed it more overall.

 

[Wesp5]

No, hear me out.

So, we all have different opinions on Mass Effect. (Personally, I'm cautiously looking forward to it as an somewhat inferior version of Bloodlines, one of my favorite games and the canonical example of Action RPG/FPS done right.)

clearly the man has not played SS2

Eh. Bloodlines achieved a far more even split between the two, only veering too far towards FPS in the last third of the game or so, and to be honest I enjoyed it more overall.

I agree. And besides all other shortages of SS2 compared to Bloodlines (e.g. breakable weapons, ammo dispensers, respawning enemies, illogical level layout, endless back trailing, endless log listening) it has no dialogue at all (which is what this topic is about) because everyone you hope to meet is always already dead when you get to them. Which get's really boring after a while and kills any kind of tension...

 

[fastpunk]

If they use better writing and voice acting than this:

http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/13287


Then it could work out.

The voice acting is a bit stiff. If they really want this dialog system to work out then they'll have to do better than that.

 

[dagorkan]

I like this system of your, cardtrick.

I am beginning to really hate the Fallout/Troika dialog tree system. I want to clearly know what I'm trying to do, and the written-out dialog options gets in the way. I sometimes spend too much time/energy trying to guess what a certain choice means which should never happen. I shouldn't have to think about how the game is programmed and worry about missing out on some vital info/reward/side plot through no fault of my own.

And honestly sometimes I think dialog is too long. Sometimes I don't care how the other guy talks, what words he uses or witticisms, I just want to get the info and move on.

Abstraction in dialog is the way forward.