Interview Chris Avellone talks to The Star

[Balor]

Ok, we can have a better system:
Take keywords system like from Morrowind (Hey! Don't throw poo at me... at least for now) and Wizardry.
Well, latter is a special case:

You could 'manipulate' the keywords by 'tell me about' and 'where is...' switches (perhaps more, cannot remember it for now).
Now, you can try and extend/improve such a system, where you'll set your mood and intent before asking about a something, plus extra flag like using intimidation or bribery attempt, etc...
And have a full set of actions available from already mentioned gestures (for silent types, or those who prefer speak with actions), from simple ‘nod’, ‘shrug’ and ‘middle finger’ , to complex, skill-based moves, like abovementioned break neck maneuver.

Like:
Target: Quest NPC.
Keyword: SomeGuy.
Intent: Ask about it’s identity (other options: whereabouts, history, etc)
A few examples of other intents: distract (followed by some action, of course), agree/confirm, disagree/decline, tell about (usually in response... but you can try and tell about yourself to start a conversation, I guess.)... something else, cannot think of right now.
Mood: Cheerful.
Extra: Bribe.
Moves:None.

Will generate a phrase like: “Hey dude, can you please tell me about SomeGuy? I will make it worth your while!”

Or, similar target and intent, but menacing mood and extra - intimidate and add gesture/emote like shaking a fist:
“Hey you! Tell all about SomeGuy that you know, or I’ll punch your face in!” *You shake your fist at NPC*.

So, first will depend on your bribery and general spacecraft skills, and second will depend on your intimidation ability (and outlook - being ham-fisted will help).
How the phrases will be constructed should also depend on your stats and skills. (Higher int and speechcraft - more elaborate... unlike what I’ve presented as example, heh.).

Or you can set intent to ‘distract’, then pick random keyword and try to lull your opponent while you execute ‘break neck’ (or ‘knock out’ or whatever) action.
Btw, that action should be also any spell you can cast (like ‘Charm’ will work like... well, fine ), or attack you can perform otherwise... well, ANY action you can do.

...

Of course, it does not help ‘paralyzation’ issue in the slightest, but I think it will:
1. Will give players much greater opportunity to roleplay your character.
2. Will save designers time to write all stuff like above, only have to make a comprehensive speech gen (which can be a challenge in itself, I suspect, though)

Of course (or, better said, most likely), replies will have to be made by hand (especially if they are voiced), yet...
Anyway, pardon my ramblings (hmm, it’s kinda late here already), but it’s indeed a dialogue system I’d like to see in a RPG.
And besides, it will not be way too cumbersome with clever interface arrangements - like ability to save presents that fit your archetype (like if you like to bribe or browbeat people for info left and right, etc).

Btw, that way you can play a real weirdo - like pushing death threats with a smile, etc.
If all this will be implemented somehow - that would be a blast...

Especially if all this would really matter in game.

 

[Atrokkus]

Okay, but what if you just want to chat with the NPC? You know, small-talk?
Because if the only things you can do in dialog-mode is threats, skill-usage, intimidation, then it smells kinda munchy and non-RPish, don't you think? Just like in simple adventure games you are allowed only to be teased with illusion of a dialog, without much of an option in it, other than practical choices (get info, intimidate, and what have you).

 

[gromit]

That sounds like it'd be a pretty neat system... the only place where I could see it having trouble applying is in the case of any response that is a reaction to something the other party has said... I'm not sure if that's too clear, given I've gotten pretty tossed at a Halloween party (I was Zoidberg, thank you, thank you,) but I mean that in a sense beyond asking about a new topic that emerges, but instead saying something based on stuff like if you detect the NPC as being slightly nervous, or picking up on a particular turn of phrase, and so on. Without crowding out the ever-present, already complicated systematic dialogue options by adding new, extraneous topics on the fly it may be difficult to keep any color, or deviations in the flow. Very, very interesting stream of thought, though.

 

[Claw]

It reminds me of how objects are manipulated in a point&click adventure, and I dread the same flaws, such as sandard "What the heck?" responses to a multitude of actions.
Also, I am wary of the quality of dialogue put together like this.

I wholeheartedly agree on the mood setting. That's the first thing I thought when I saw Oblivion's speechcraft interface: It should set a mood for the conversation rather than have a one-shot effect like Morrowind. More like Fallout's system with speech skill affecting dialogue automatically, but giving the player some control, maybe allowing for more interesting outcomes than (not) getting the happy response. That would truly have been a reinvention.
I also like this idea because it could mean that a low speechcraft skill would have a negative effect on dialogues which I feel would give the character - more character.

I also like the bribing as an extra. I've been trying to think of how bribes could be implemented better, and this looks like a very good way.

 

[Atrokkus]

Games like Geneforge, Fallout, Torment have OUTSTANDING dialog systems. The dialogs there are stat-sensitive, have a lot of nonlinear scenarios in them, and, most importantly, they are *real* conversations, not some fucking robotic talk with keyphrases and all that shit.

Unless there will be a *VERY* potent AI that really does the talking on NPC's side, aforementioned systems are UNCONTESTED, so why bother refining the Morrowind scrap?

 

[Claw]

What a stupid thing to say, mEtaLL1x. Maybe you should ask my good friend, context.

I never said that any game other than Oblivion should refine the Morrowind scrap.

 

[Atrokkus]

Er... I should have actually quoted... Anyways, Claw, I wasn't commenting you here, I was commenting Balor's idea.

 

[Balor]

Well, my idea is that you can actually have nearly unlimited ability to roleplay in dialogue this way.
The 'prettiness' of professionally written dialogue is nice, really - but it has more to do with 'adventure' type games, not RPGs.
Like, remember, popular question about 'freedom of speech in RPGs' - 'Can I just tell this NPC to fuck off? No? What kind of role-play and freedom it this, then?". (Half-sarcastic, yet it’s true, in a way).

And besides, I never told that such a system should be the only dialogue system you can have.
Consider it a much more complicated version of 'type in your topic' in Fallout - it means you'll resort to it when presented dialogue options do not suit you.
Also, great stuff for banter with 'general' NPCs.

Of course, replies (unless, they'll be automatically generated too, somehow, but I agree here - for now, it'll lead to lameness) will be same for most options (like persuasion success/failure, intimidate success/failure, etc), yet you'll be given opportunity to ask them the way YOU want, not choose a few 'premade' options that were handed to you.
Well, you’ll be a limited in wording those statements, but hey - you have to take skills and stats in account (you cannot play a role of genius when your char has int of 2 - it’s simply meta-gaming).
Again, it does not touch the ‘paralyze’ problem, yet it’s something I was thinking about a long time ago, so I wanted to share.

 

[Claw]

Ah, my bad then.

I don't think it was fair to call his idea "refining Morrowind scrap" though. While using keywords, I think the similarity is rather superficial.
What he proposes is more like an elaborate dialogue-minigame.

 

[Balor]

Not minigame, but an interface to construct replies the way YOU like, not how they are given to you.
Cannot say that it can be counted as 'minigame'.

 

[Drakron]

Very bad idea, sometimes I play AIFA games and that just leads to "guess the verb" ... I not overall interrested dialogue being deconstructed in a way to we have to guess what are the correct phrase to move on.

 

[DarkPhantom]

I think the word "mini-game" is a keyword here. That multitude of options would really be a challenge for the writers/developers, since it has to be at least half-intelligent, if we don't want to start seeing the same output over and over. So, no pre-script for dialogue...

As for me, I really don't mind the usual dialogue we encounter, paralyzing or not. But that probably is because I usually don't fall asleep with long dialogues... <grin>

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

But that probably is because I usually don't fall asleep with long dialogues... <grin>

Same here. Otherwise, games like Siege Of Avalon and Planescape:Torment would have been serious naptime games.

 

[Balor]

Siedge of Avalon?
Oh, I remember that, it was indeed a great 'put me to sleep' game, but not because of it's dialogues, but running around in caves and so on, bashing stuff.
Dialogues and D2-like combat don't mix well.

It had really good armor and weapon system, though - I really liked the idea of weapon doing multiple types of damage with each strike - like a sword would do both 'blunt' and 'cutting' damage... if such a system is still simplified.

 

[kris]

Well, my idea is that you can actually have nearly unlimited ability to roleplay in dialogue this way.
The 'prettiness' of professionally written dialogue is nice, really - but it has more to do with 'adventure' type games, not RPGs.
Like, remember, popular question about 'freedom of speech in RPGs' - 'Can I just tell this NPC to fuck off? No? What kind of role-play and freedom it this, then?". (Half-sarcastic, yet it’s true, in a way).

But the problem with this is how NPC lose personality. It could be done to make them really interesting, but then it would be to much work putting in more than 5 NPCs... For any developer that would put dialogue into the game in the ways you descibed would want to copy/paste quite a bit to counter all the extrawork and then they will just feel wrong.

I directly came thinking about the "Facade" AI-game that someone posted links to before. They had worked 5 years with that and it still was fairly stupid only containing two characters. Otherwise those characters was at least close to what we could imagine to want with this.

 

[Balor]

But the problem with this is how NPC lose personality. It could be done to make them really interesting, but then it would be to much work putting in more than 5 NPCs... For any developer that would put dialogue into the game in the ways you descibed would want to copy/paste quite a bit to counter all the extrawork and then they will just feel wrong.

Hmm, I have a feeling someone is not understanding something here .
In fact, the system I proposed has nothing to do with NPCs have to say - it's to generate player's questions and replies.
And I think I've already mentioned that NPC's don't have to have an unique reply to each and every variation:

Of course, replies (unless, they'll be automatically generated too, somehow, but I agree here - for now, it'll lead to lameness) will be same for most options (like persuasion success/failure, intimidate success/failure, etc), yet you'll be given opportunity to ask them the way YOU want, not choose a few 'premade' options that were handed to you.

 

[Johannes Teugen]

Re: Clarification/Confusion

2. And I do wonder if there is some way to have a dialogue or communicate information to the player that allows you to do something more interactive than just reading or listening while the PCs are communicating information to you and still allow you to make meaningful choices.

If I understand you correctly, the above stands as one of the most aggressively wrongheaded things I've read on these forums, and that says a lot.

Reading, even in the case of dialog trees, is NOT a passive activity. Good dialog engages the reader, allows the player further connection with his character by sharing in meaningful choices, furthers the joy of character creation and development by allowing various skills and attributes, and does a host of other things besides. It is, in short, an imaginative exercise. The passive bits of Torment are, in point of fact, the bits of repetitive real-time combat. Those are the bits (oh, look, another hiver ganger attacks!) that deserve excisement and rethinking.

But good dialog (and good writing in general) takes a lot more time, and a lot more talent, than 'L33t moving leaves with physics!!!' and 'Make It Yourself Lightsabers You can Dual Wield!', and the audience for the latter is probably much larger. Please don't frame it as a matter of advanced game theory, however. It's a matter of pandering to the lowest common denominator, and a matter of simple resource management.

 

[DarkSign]

Im surprised that no one has referenced the Natural Language Processing game "Facade" yet. NLP doesnt even have to be that processor-intensive, just a big backend library built up and contextual classes of meaning.

In our game, we'll be mixing NLP with emotion-driven (think Bloodlines with intimidate, seduce, befriend) text choices, and also keywords.

Gestures made during conversation, if we put the question of how do do them quickly, could be meaningful if done correctly. Think about it. If your response is the word "Whatever," then you shrug...that's a lot different than "Whatever!" with a smile or a scowl.

All that said, I enjoy cutscenes a lot. They are a highly useful storytelling device because there are things that you can only explain outside of the player's perspective! That is to say that when you step out of first person and into true 3rd person where the narrator or God (not the religious one, the narrative creator) can explain things...situationally that the character might not have known on his own....this is much deeper storytelling. And cinematics are the only way to do this sometimes.

Interactivity is definitely key going forward. I really think this means games need to hire 5x the writers they currently have and work situationally.

 

[kris]

Im surprised that no one has referenced the Natural Language Processing game "Facade" yet. NLP doesnt even have to be that processor-intensive, just a big backend library built up and contextual classes of meaning.

Actually I did and in the context it shows how difficult this is and how much work is needed. that year was a 5 year project that featured a short game within on single apartment. It still ended up reaction on keywords and not understanding complex meanings. Of course have a full long and big RPG with character of the deep the game DID have would be nice, just not very likely or even possible at this present moment... or ever due to all the work needed for it.

 

[DarkSign]

But fuzzy logic has come so far so fast. We're not just locked into binary decision-making. If we can put a man on the moon we can make an RPG with NLP.

 

[Balor]

LOL!
I just thought that you meant Neuro-Linguistic Programming .

 

[DarkSign]

NLP...

Natural Language Processing
Neuro-Linguistic Programming
New Lopsided Pangea
Nagging Life Problems
(g)Narled Length Penis

...its all in how you look at it.

Did I just kill this thread? Oops.

Woot. This is post# 999.

 

[DarkSign]

Here are some good places to start that I found on my laptop.

http://research.microsoft.com/nlp/#pubs
http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/natlang.html

Prolly the best to start out with is "Sorry Dave, I cant do that"
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/llee/papers/cstb.home.html

A neat, but short page from Georgetown about NLP that used to have a demo with CGI script:
http://www.georgetown.edu/compling/module.html

No one would say that it would pass the Turing test, but it definitely would surprise you when it knew what you meant. Unfortunately its down.

Another great resource is the NLP dictionary:
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~billw/nlpdict.html
which I thumb through to learn stuff that strikes my fancy.

I found this in my bookmarks and although its not about hoiw to program NLP, any work in the field is interesting to me:
http://www.semantic-knowledge.com/tropes.htm


Those are good places to start. When I go home Ill find some other stuff

 

[Volourn]

WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

There actually is one chatbot that (sort of) passed a Turing test. It was supposed to simulate a paranoid mental patient, and psychologists (or psychiatrists, I forget) could not reliably distinguish it from the real McCoy.