Decline [Poll] Cinematic dialogue in RPGs: Yay or nay?

[luj1]

I just watched the new BG III gameplay and realized how much I fucking hate cinematic dialogue (for the record I think the game is fine mechanically). It felt like watching a movie. I read very fast and I just can't be arsed to wait for NPCs to get words out of their mouths. Let me read at my own pace ffs. Personally I believe games becoming movies is one of the worst declines in gaming.

I could stomach it in KotOR and Bloodlines when it started (at the end of the Renaissance era) because they weren't 100% voice acted and the number of dialogue options wasn't affected much, but when this exploded during the Dark ages (ME, DA, Witcher, etc.) dialogue started to become more and more basic, with practically binary or ternary choices. This wasn't a coincidence.

 

[Nano]

Yay with a silent protagonist and menu-based dialogue options, nay with a voiced protagonist and the dialogue wheel. Unfortunately the majority of gamers prefer the latter, hence why the former died out.

 

[Drowed]

Poll is broken because there's no 'Gay' option.

That said, one thing is for sure: games are really bad movies. That's obvious, since games and movies are completely different ways of telling a story. But the problem lies in the fact that both most companies dream of making their games more "cinematic" and the general public tends to demand that games must be like that.

A punctual example of this is Larian itself. When they released the first D:OS, not all dialogues had voice acting. But as they had a success far above what they have expected (and had money to burn), they decided to make the new version with 100% of the dialogues using voice, including narration. Go figure that one. So, when Larian announced that D:OS2 would not have voice in all dialogues, what was the reaction of the internet? The biggest butthurt of the last decade, people started having crazy hysterical outbursts, all the forums were flooded with people crying about this, to such an extent that soon Larian "corrected" their statement and confirmed that yeah, the game would have full voice acting.

The problem of cinematic dialogues is divided into two parts. The first is the obvious one, that most people read the text much faster than some actor can say it, which makes you have to wait for the character to finish speaking or skip half the dialogues. But that might not be such a big problem if it wasn't for the second point, which is that in most games, the characters' performances are sufferable. I mean, if you're going to stop and watch a character perform, at the very least it has to be a fun or interesting performance. This performance needs to bring something beyond what the text itself will or can offer. And 99% of the time it isn't.

And being realistic here, that's an impossible scenario to happen. In most cases, a movie is about 2 hours long. Well, many games are over 60 hours long. Obviously only a fraction of that time is stuck in the dialogues, but even small RPGs usually have hours and hours of recorded dialogues. As a reference, Witcher 3 has 35 effing hours. Now think: will you be able to hire great dubbers to make all this recording? How much will that cost? And you're gonna individually animate all these scenes with the characters? And if not, which is obvious for several reasons, it means that the player will spend hours listening - and watching - mediocre performances.

But again, that's a stupid and inescapable reality, because the fans demand from the companies that the dialogues should all be voiced, and the companies themselves see that as a point of pride and as part of the "artistic production" of their games, which they won't want to abandon. And so, we remain in this current deplorable scenario.

 

[Wunderbar]

I finished Fallout Nevada recently (Fallout 2 total conversion), and there was a sidequest where you must help a chemist to escape from New Reno with his family. He wants to leave the city because he got sick of making drugs for the local criminals.

Night came on, we've came to the city's outskirts. Mob enforcers are catching up with us. I said "we won't be able to fight. Take your family and go, i'll hold them off". So i'm alone, hiding in some shitty wooden shack in the middle of a cornfield. Mobsters armed with sawed off shotguns are emerging from behind of corn stalks, yelling "come on chemist, we don't have all day, come with us peacefully or there will be trouble". I'm reloading my rifle and initiating combat.

That was fucking cinematic, despite being based on Fallout 2 engine and not featuring talking heads or voiceacting.

 

[Tigranes]

It was never good in any RPG.

Arguably, KCD and TW3 are the only games where I thought they make sense, and they were also choreographed with sufficient skill to make them worth watching for more than two seconds.

I always wonder, who do they think they're kidding? Do they think their writing and cinematography is so good that people will enjoy sitting there watching that shit? But then, apparently, quite a lot of people do...

 

[Mexi]

It's not bad how Dragon Age: Origins or KoTOR does it. Silent protagonist with cinematic dialogue. I wish more games did this. I don't like games where it's all silent dialogue. I'd rather hear voices. Feels lazy and cheap nowadays to have to read dialogue unless it's dialogue options or what the protagonist is saying, which should always be silent.

 

[RNGsus]

But then, apparently, quite a lot of people do...

I'm not sure this is true. What's more likely is the majority of players skip dialogue and cutscenes wherever they can rather than break the action. This isn't one of those times a feature stuck because people loved it but because its expected.

 

[AArmanFV]

Is the same thing with dubbed movies, they exist because people is too lazy to read. I could tolerate cinematic dialogue if it's good and for specific things (like an opening/ending sequence). I prefer to have all the dialogue written, sometimes a voice can give too much information about a character and even make it annoying.

 

[Tigranes]

But then, apparently, quite a lot of people do...

I'm not sure this is true. What's more likely is the majority of players skip dialogue and cutscenes wherever they can rather than break the action. This isn't one of those times a feature stuck because people loved it but because its expected.

Well, we know people want voice acting. They whine and cry and stomp their feet every time they don't get it, in large numbers. Perhaps that doesn't extend to "cinematic" dialogue?

 

[Ol' Willy]

Personally I believe games becoming movies is one of the worst declines in gaming.

Indeed, my man, indeed. A triumph of form over substance.

 

[AArmanFV]

But the problem lies in the fact that both most companies dream of making their games more "cinematic" and the general public tends to demand that games must be like that.

Well, that's a trend that started with the CD-ROMs, when developers (mostly the producers/directors) wrongfully thought that finally the limitations were over and was time to bringing the consumer "what they wanted". I recall an interview with Tim Cain where he said that Interplay started to make the games in a more "cinematographic style", even Cleve adressed some of that in the 90s. The industry became lazy and stopped using the art of the videogame language.

 

[luj1]

I prefer to have all the dialogue written, sometimes a voice can give too much information about a character and even make it annoying.

Yeah, I prefer to have my own idea of how a character could sound like, let me use my imagination instead of spoon feeding me. There is a reason why nearly all recent companions in games like PoE and PKM come off as loud and annoying brats.

I think NwN had the right balance of voice acting, it was limited to important NPCs such as Aribeth, Aarin Gend and MQ-related dialogue only. These characters also had a sort of a personalized music loop which played when you talked to them, did wonders for the atmosphere with so little.

 

[ValeVelKal]

It was never good in any RPG.

Arguably, KCD and TW3 are the only games where I thought they make sense, and they were also choreographed with sufficient skill to make them worth watching for more than two seconds.

I always wonder, who do they think they're kidding? Do they think their writing and cinematography is so good that people will enjoy sitting there watching that shit? But then, apparently, quite a lot of people do...

Yeah I agree. Can't say for TW3 (I haven't played it yet. Yes I know), but it worked well for KCD, I would add that it worked well for Alpha Protocol and I think Mass Effect as well, and badly for everything else.

 

[TemplarGR]

I love cinematic dialogue. It is incline.

 

[Lord_Potato]

If directed well (which needs big budget and lots of talent, think Witcher 3) it adds to the atmosphere, makes characters and situations more memorable, simply looks great.

If you don't have the budget and the ability, don't bother. Half-assed attempts are rarely satisfying.

 

[EldarEldrad]

Cinematic dialogues can be real pain in the ass if they are unskippable. Otherwise they are minor distraction from the game itself.

 

[xuerebx]

Agreed with the comments that if done well it could add to the game, but it rarely is done well and even if done well I still end up skipping most of the spoken dialogue since I read faster. Voiced dialogue for certain important NPCs or banter between party members is a good balance IMO. With that said, I'm playing Wizardry 8 and technically everything is voiced and it's really, really good. I tried a demo for a WIP game yesterday (The Fellowship Saga) and the demo immediately starts with non-voiced dialogue and it contrasted harshly to W8 - but this has more to do with the user interface and the small text in first person view. Non-voiced dialogue in isometric view is fine.

 

[Thac0]

Its usually not a huge problem if escape skips the dialogue animation to the next text immediatly. Makes the animation look a little retarded with the camera bobbing around so much on skips but then its fine.
Still inferior to text boxes tho. Text boxes allow for much more and much more complicated dialogue, especially when the game doesnt have an autistic urge to voiceact every piece of dialogue. And they keep the budget low and as a consequence of that Sawyerism at bay.

I always like that custom dialogue entry system that Grimoire and old blobbers have. If done well aquiring new information is rewarding in itself.

 

[Mexi]

By the way, a lot of you guys sound fucking autistic. Of course, you can speed read faster than an actor can read out every inflection of a textbox. May as well go play with the trannies in Games Done Quick.

I like to enjoy a fucking story, and having a great voice actor encompass a character really adds to it (unless the voice actor is fucking garbage).



I'd throw my remote at the TV if I had to read this. You can't do something like this with a textbox.

 

[deuxhero]

I've seen some NWN2 modules do cinematic view dialog without voice acting at an acceptable level (half the problem is NWN2's limited animations and the other NWN2's editor making it a pain in the ass to use that type of dialog without VA). All you need is some Banjo speak or the little beeps that indicating timing and tone.

 

[Ranarama]

It's not an RPG if you don't hit a sensible seeming dialogue option only for your so-called player character to spout unmitigated retardation and make decisions you didn't sign off on.

 

[Van-d-all]

Utter waste of resources. Cinematic dialogue imposes dumb cost-efficiency restrictions of voice acting time, and forces additional work for zoomed in models and animations.

 

[luj1]

Van-d-all yup, I talked about that a lot here

 

[Ol' Willy]

I'd throw my remote at the TV if I had to read this. You can't do something like this with a textbox.

Cheap shot, mate. Bloodlines has one of the best voice acting in the history of games coupled with great facial animations. How many games were able to achieve that afterwards and how many failed?

 

[Lord of Riva]

I kinda feel old regarding this, but why have something like cinematic dialogue when Text can convey so much more. I read pretty fast and it bores me to no end when the damn dialogue is spoken. And in the end, in the decent games where you can skip it, conversation always sound like this: "I a, th, no, gi, bu, ah, urg" very immersive and well done VA, clearly. How can this preferable, also leads to glitching animation through skipping them.