Company News Bioware redefines dialogue system

[Ausir]

Refined? I hope Bethesda will sue.

Maybe CD Projekt will allow them to use "redefined" in exchange for the engine?

 

[sheek]

There is something very wrong when a Hentai game ends up with more character exposition and development that a RPG.

Hentai-RPGs may well be the last hope...

 

[aboyd]

You'll no longer read the lines and select which one you want to say; now you use a dialogue wheel to choose the approach you want to take (bully, bribe, or be nice, for example), and your character takes it from there.

One of the things that drives me !^&^%!@ insane is when I feel a response choice is entirely good, and yet the developers intended it to be completely evil. For example, when you start KotOR 2, some creepy old lady (Kreia) who is faking her own death pops up in a morgue and starts trying to convince you to take her off the ship. I evaluated it: I don't know her but she's real eager to be chummy with me, and she's being deceitful in faking her death, and it just so happens that she's the only living person in a ship full of bodies. OK, she's a nasty piece of work. I'll take the dialogue option for "Get away from me!"

And then the game awarded me dark side points. WTF?

The developers clearly felt that blind trust in a stranger standing on a pile of corpses was the "good" reaction to the situation. That doesn't strike me as a "good" dialogue choice so much as an incredibly stupid choice. But there it is.

All of this is to say that if new games clearly flag the developer's intended goal for each bit of dialogue (bully, bribe, and so on), then I will be much much less frustrated. So I have cautious optimism for this new feature.

(As an aside, I'm finding KotOR2 is annoyingly linear -- at a couple of places, I'd get a single dialogue choice that completely ran against my character. The worst was a spot where the only option was to lie. And the level design -- single paths that funnel you to the only destination option... ugh.)

-Tony

 

[TotS]

Ok, let's see if I got that concept right:

Dialog is essentially an interactive movie and your able to interrupt a NPC at any point. So, this means, there are no subtitles as well, since that would collide the the concept (unless there is only one word at a time, which would look awkward).
Like interrupting "The pellet with the poison's in the flagon..." (with the dragon, the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true.) and still knowing, what the NPC just wanted to say.

Sounds interesting, but that's nothing I'd like to see in more than a handful of games.

 

[Jinxed]

I'm kinda seeing Fahrenheit here.

 

[Thrawn05]

There is something very wrong when a Hentai game ends up with more character exposition and development that a RPG.

Hentai-RPGs may well be the last hope...

Well, it does run in MS-DOS 3.3, so it must be good.

 

[Twinfalls]

this is just a different way to select dialogue responses -- and one perhaps better suited to a console control pad.

Instead of having the possible responses in a vertical list that you must scroll through and select, Mass Effect's system shows the possible responses (which are short and paraphrased, not pre-set) selectable off the direction pad.

Well that's all nice and glib, David, but you're omitting the salient point - namely that the responses are placed on the axes according to their 'category', thereby obviating the need to actually read them, evaluate them, think about their consequence, and make a decision accordingly.

Or are you saying the preview is incorrect when it states:

You'll no longer read the lines and select which one you want to say; now you use a dialogue wheel to choose the approach you want to take (bully, bribe, or be nice, for example), and your character takes it from there.

?

 

[themadhatter114]

this is just a different way to select dialogue responses -- and one perhaps better suited to a console control pad.

Instead of having the possible responses in a vertical list that you must scroll through and select, Mass Effect's system shows the possible responses (which are short and paraphrased, not pre-set) selectable off the direction pad.

Well that's all nice and glib, David, but you're omitting the salient point - namely that the responses are placed on the axes according to their 'category', thereby obviating the need to actually read them, evaluate them, think about their consequence, and make a decision accordingly.

Or are you saying the preview is incorrect when it states:

You'll no longer read the lines and select which one you want to say; now you use a dialogue wheel to choose the approach you want to take (bully, bribe, or be nice, for example), and your character takes it from there.

?

Of course, it also takes away the likelihood of someone picking the wrong thing because the dialogue choices are vague, and because they're not voiced, you have no clue regarding the tone. With this, you could have the same dialogue choice on several of the radials, but said in a different manner. That could, of course, also be done with showing what skill check needs to be done for that dialogue, but depending on the skills in Mass Effect, that might not be possible. Of course, no one here likes 'moron indicators' anyhow. I personally think it's a good thing if players can have some freedom over the attitude of their character.

Reading and interpreting your player's dialogue was never much of a chore, anyhow, the real issue was surmising the reaction of the NPC, which you still must do with this system.

 

[bryce777]

Well, to be honest, I think that the way things work now kind of sucks.

If you ARE going to have things like intimidate checks, etc. you should not magically know beforehand if you succeed.

You should have some hilariously botched ones that come up if you suck, and some good ones, and maybe a 'great' one in some cases if you 'critically succeed'.

I don't know. I mean, this is not satisfying either, if they had dialog trees and then this part made special just for attempts to bully and bribe and such then that might be better.

The problem is both approachs aren't interactive enough and don't take real skill on the part of the user. Skill in the sense of wisdomcunning, nt playing some fucking minigame.

 

[Azarkon]

There is something very wrong when a Hentai game ends up with more character exposition and development that a RPG.

Actually, that's not at all surprising. There are two types of hentai games: porn designed to get you off, and visual novels with sex. The latter sort, as the name implies, is like a choose-your-own-story novel, and sells strictly by virtue of its plot and characters. No surprise that they would have better character exposition and development than RPGs, which have always depended on combat, roleplaying, loot gathering, and exploration as gameplay.

Thing is though, as good as they are in producing attractive, at times three-dimensional characters, roleplaying in a visual novel, even a non-linear one, is rather limited. Novels are expository in nature, after all, and not especially interactive.

 

[Thrawn05]

Novels are expository in nature, after all, and not especially interactive.

I recall those Nintendo novels where you get to choose what Mario or whoever does and have different endings.

 

[Twinfalls]

Of course, it also takes away the likelihood of someone picking the wrong thing because the dialogue choices are vague, and because they're not voiced, you have no clue regarding the tone.

Gah.

It's obvious. 'Real-time dialogue', directional input for speech type, blah blah. Face it.

They're turning dialogue into action.

Here's conversing with NPCs in the Bio/Bethesda games of the future:

[walk to npc]
[engage]
HUAAH!<pushes up>(polite)
HAAH!<pushes down>(rude)
HyeeAAH!<pushes left>(flatter)

HHAAAAAADDOOOOOUUUUUUKEN!

<left><right<left><up><up><down>(flatter yet goad so that NPC unwittingly spills beans on quest location)

You have WON this conversation! You get 4000 exp points. NPC drops a LAZER-FLAIL. (conversation victory animation plays)

Real innovation would be in actually fucking writing something creative and original, and putting the kind of resources that we see blown on graphics, into volume of unique dialogue instead (or at least matching it).

Any other talk of innovation in 'dialogue systems' is most likely a euphemism for bringing on teh dumbness.

 

[Slylandro]

What struck me as a fairly innovative real time dialogue system was Facade's-- you could really (no, really) interrupt characters who were talking, you could reference objects in the room, command the people directly (not that they would necessarily listen), etc-- *all using fully typed in text*. No dialogue menu, no "minigame," nothing felt like it was constrained. It was an interesting and refreshing experience. See http://www.interactivestory.net/ . It's an extremely long download, but anyone who wants to see an example of a truly next-gen way of doing dialogue should see it.

 

[aries202]

Hello

I fail to understand whu so many of you worry about this issue. Just because there is no written dialogue in a game e.g. Mass Effect does not mean that there will not be any spoken dialogue.

In Baldur's Gate i.e. you would have a dialogue tree where you could choose 3-6 options - and the conversation would take it from there.

As I understand this system, NPC (and PCs) will still have (lots of dialogue) - it is just not written down in a dialogue tree. You would choose, which response, emotional or otherwise, you would like, in a talk, with an an NPC. And your PC would react accordingly. The dialogue, as I see it, is still there.
It is just not being written down.

And I think this would work fine for an action RPG as Mass Effect is being stated as being. However, I do not think, it would workj quite as well in a PC RPG (action or not). [If you look at Titan Quest, which I hjust finished - there is plenty of text and dialoque - you just click the NPCs until they start reapeating themselves - and the dialogues are also being spoken...]

The point is that there will still be dialogue options - it is just not being organized in tree dialogue options anymore. At least not in Mass Effect.
Another point is that there will still be loads of dialogue in e.g. Mass Effect - just not written down, but spoken. And isn't that that the way people usually interact with each other when they talk to one another ? By means of the spoken word ?

I fail to see what so horrible about that e.g. Bioware would want a game environment emulating (or illusioning) real life itself ?!?

bye for now
aries 202

 

[Vault Dweller]

I fail to understand whu so many of you worry about this issue. Just because there is no written dialogue in a game e.g. Mass Effect does not mean that there will not be any spoken dialogue.

This is hardly surprising, as judging by your posts, you fail to understand a lot of things, which explains why you are so excited about the innovative features in Mass Effect.

However, if you are fond of learning and eager to learn new things, there is a difference between written dialogues and spoken dialogues in games. You can affect the former, but you can't affect the latter, because by the time you hear it, it had already happened. Meditate on that.

As I understand this system, NPC (and PCs) will still have (lots of dialogue) - it is just not written down in a dialogue tree. You would choose, which response, emotional or otherwise, you would like, in a talk, with an an NPC. And your PC would react accordingly. The dialogue, as I see it, is still there. It is just not being written down.

You are very perceptive.

The point is that there will still be dialogue options - it is just not being organized in tree dialogue options anymore.

Do you think it's possible that Quake is actually an RPG where skills are just not being organized in a character system anymore? Just curious.

Another point is that there will still be loads of dialogue in e.g. Mass Effect - just not written down, but spoken.

Jesus Fucking Christ! Didn't you say exactly the same fucking thing 3 times already? That's your only point, and we got it, so no need to repeat it over and over again, presenting it as a new point every time.

And isn't that that the way people usually interact with each other when they talk to one another ? By means of the spoken word ?

Finally. The retarded "it's realistic" argument.

I fail to see what so horrible about that e.g. Bioware would want a game environment emulating (or illusioning) real life itself ?!?

This model has absolutely nothing to do with the way people communicate in "real life". Should I explain further or would you pretend that you suddenly understand it?

 

[Surlent]

Watch out Dave ! Your job as writer might be in danger with all this Bethadization for the masse going on.
And what about Bio's poor linguistics ? Who will look after them ?

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

While this is certainly an unecessary abstraction from a real dialogue tree, which allows much more subtle choices than bully, bribe or nice, it is still a lot more choice than the average Oblivion conversation has (Except for the wheel idea this really has little to do with Beth's speechcraft game). For an action adventure RPG type thing this might actually be better than what you usually get. For a RPG it lacks subtlety - no figuring out how the phrase will affect that particular NPC. On the other hand in most RPG's this is usually so blatantly obvious anyway that it's not a big loss... I wish someone would try to make an advanced version of what Daggerfall did: You select the phrase or topic, but also have an option to select the tone of voice.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

As I understand this system, NPC (and PCs) will still have (lots of dialogue) - it is just not written down in a dialogue tree. You would choose, which response, emotional or otherwise, you would like, in a talk, with an an NPC. And your PC would react accordingly. The dialogue, as I see it, is still there.
It is just not being written down.

The nice thing about writing it down is that it allows for nearly every possibility you could ever need in dialogue because you're chosing not only the emotions but the words as well. A decent dialogue tree with a major player should allow for not only a decent amount of emotional/character morality options but also on a variety of topics as well. If you're just given A for Happy, B for Pissy, C for Sad, etc. you can't stop the NPC from talking about what he's focused on and redirect the conversation towards what you feel you need to know about things.

 

[elander_]

What struck me as a fairly innovative real time dialogue system was Facade's-- you could really (no, really) interrupt characters who were talking, you could reference objects in the room, command the people directly (not that they would necessarily listen), etc-- *all using fully typed in text*. No dialogue menu, no "minigame," nothing felt like it was constrained. It was an interesting and refreshing experience. See http://www.interactivestory.net/ . It's an extremely long download, but anyone who wants to see an example of a truly next-gen way of doing dialogue should see it.

What a great link Slylandro. Unfortunately i doubt this kind of sofistication will be ported to games dialog any time soon at the rate studios like Bioware innovate. Writing and dialog is not something that drives big budgets like visuals and sound effects.

 

[Slylandro]

Yes and it's a pity. I personally would pay regular money for a game with Exile-old graphics if it had other excellent redeeming qualities like a deep character creation system or excellent dialogue or a genuinely large and free to roam world (which the actual Exile did have) or better yet a combination. The emphasis on graphics today is just mind bogglingly myopic given all the other things our technology can support for actual gameplay. Anyway, if anyone else hasn't seen Facade yet, I recommend they give it a whirl. It's a good example of fairly recent stuff in AI.

 

[WouldBeCreator]

More like, better suited for a typical consoler's brain, incapable of processing large text sequences.

I confess I've been out of the console RPG scene for like seven years now, so I may be totally off-base, but back in the day, consoles had many more large text sequences and they tended to be much longer. Most of the game (outside of the random combat) consisted of sitting there and reading page after page (or, window after window) of not very good writing. I'm thinking FFT, Xenogears, and Vagrant Story especially here, but the Final Fantasy games were like this, too, albeit to a lesser degree.

Did something change in the past few years, or is this just another "console gamers are stupid, and being stupid means not liking to do boring things" kind of argument? Because I was always struck by console RPGers' seemingly infinite patience for Japanese melodrama and considered part of what made PC RPGs generally significantly better was the major reduction in sit-there-and-read "storytelling." To the extent that console RPGers are "less intelligent" (which, as I've noted elsewhere, is just a silly argument), this seems to manifest itself in their willingness to have fairly passive experiences. I don't know what to make of this new "wheel" system, but it doesn't seem more passive to me, it seems more active.

Functionally, I don't know how much it differs, given that Bioware's dialogue is often written to be fairly telegraphed (option 1 is nice, option 2 is greedy, option 3 is evil, option 4 asks for more information, option 5 ends the conversation, etc.). It's not like the dialogue used to require you to read it *very carefully* and then choose accordingly.

If anything, this sounds like it could be an improvement simply because removing the windowdressing flavor text attached to the four interaction methods will probably force the writers to make the methods somewhat less predictable in their effects.

Probably the biggest downside, to my taste, is that it firmly entrenches the player's avatar as a seperate being; that is, he's not you, he's him, and you watch him be him. Giving him a voice and having him choose his way of saying things just puts up that much more of a barrier between the player and the character. It does allow for somewhat better storytelling in a conventional sense (i.e., if the game were a movie, it would make for a better movie), but I think it hurts storytelling in a game sense.

Still, the whole system is somewhat hard to picture in action; I'll wait till I see a video before rendering judgment.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Functionally, I don't know how much it differs, given that Bioware's dialogue is often written to be fairly telegraphed (option 1 is nice, option 2 is greedy, option 3 is evil, option 4 asks for more information, option 5 ends the conversation, etc.). It's not like the dialogue used to require you to read it *very carefully* and then choose accordingly.

You are absolutely right. That's why dialogues in Bioware's games suck. Haven't you noticed? It's been disputed here to death.
It's not the amount of text, but quality of it that's significant. The fact that in BG or NWN dialogue trees are pointless and boring does not make this system dull. It's the writing and design of them that makes them bad.

 

[FaranBrygo]

I confess I've been out of the console RPG scene for like seven years now, so I may be totally off-base, but back in the day, consoles had many more large text sequences and they tended to be much longer. Most of the game (outside of the random combat) consisted of sitting there and reading page after page (or, window after window) of not very good writing.

I think that large font size requirements (due to low TV resolution and distance) gave the illusion of a long story.



Will the dialogue options change or will they remain static on "nice, mean, bribe, goodbye"? Under a Killing Moon, Pandora Directive, and Overseer used a system somewhat similar to the dialogue wheel and it worked rather well.

 

[Slylandro]

I think that WBC made a good point, a lot of console RPG players are intelligent adults. It's just that they turn to passive and simple games because there's often not much time outside of work to be spending on complicated interfaces and long sequences which force your active participation.

 

[FaranBrygo]

. It's just that they turn to passive and simple games because there's often not much time outside of work to be spending on complicated interfaces and long sequences which force your active participation.

Like how people turn to Soap Operas.