MisterStone said:
Glad to hear that two years after that combat demo was released you guys now have a TOTALLY AWESOME dialog interface. That old dialogue interface was just not cutting it. I swore to myself I would never buy the game unless the dialog interface was completely re-vamped, and damn if you guys didn't come through!
This game, and especially it's dialog interface are going to rock the gaming world like no other game before it.
From an older post:
- Second, the game's gotten a lot more text-heavy since the very first gui was done. Originally, we wanted to avoid meaningless running around and "teleported" your character a lot (i.e. you finish talking to NPC A, get a line "Go see NPC B", and when you click on it, we instantly teleport your character to NPC B, unless he's a hard guy to find or get a meeting with). So as a result, you could finish the demo never leaving the dialogue window and seeing the gameworld only through that small window - basically, the text adventure mode.
We've reduced the teleporting, but the issue remained and it did call for a different, less bulky gui.
- Third, again, when the gui was designed, most actions weren't text-based. So, if you wanted to sneak inside a fort, you clicked on sneak and tried to make it inside being invisible in plain sight. This approach required heavier gui and the ever present text box.
Now you get something like:
Sitting in the shadow of the mountain, the Aurelian outpost is protected from prying eyes by a tall, wooden palisade circling it. A guard watches you approach from atop a wooden guard tower, his high vantage point offering him an unobstructed view of the road leading to the camp. Another guard is posted at the entrance to the outpost, in front of a small barricade.
1. Approach.
a. [lore] "I'm not here to cause trouble. I'm a loremaster…”
b. [disguise] “My name is Sohrab. I’ve come to see the machines.”
c. Attack.
d. Leave.
2. [sneaking] Wait until dark and get close to the palisade without being spotted.
[dexterity] ...
[sneaking] ...
[lore] ...
[lockpicking] ...
3. Leave.
So, this approach calls for "less", makes the textbox obsolete (outside of combat), puts less emphasis on the buttons, and doesn't require a big ass "combat gui".
...
I can assure you that playing most of the game in a dialogue window fucking sucked. We had to open it up. The new gui is very simple and open, but the difference - when you're playing the game - is indeed huge.