New 1UP Preview and Beyond3D Tech Interview for Oblivion

[Master Thief]

Each character in Oblivion has a voice and lip-syncing, the idea being to enhance the immersiveness of each encounter; but conversation trees progress, unlike in games like Knights of the Old Republic, without your answer. In each conversation you have a list of topics from which to choose, but your replies and questions aren't written out. This is a design choice held over from Morrowind.

-1UP.com

-1UP.com preview

-beyond3d Technology Interview

 

[Drain]

Enhanced wikipedia?

 

[franc kaos]

The Basics: Hardcore roleplayers love Oblivion predecessor Morrowind for its open-ended world and deeply customizable gameplay. Now they'll get to return to the world of Tamriel, where they'll match wits, swords, and wands

Finally, someone calling a stave a spade...

Yeah, so the awesome graphics have something -- if not everything -- to do with why Oblivion could be the best RPG this year.

Says it all really.

 

[Reconcilliation]

We then visited a town, which seemed a little quiet -- not the bustling center of trade we were hoping to see, but the citizens we managed to talk to were quite animated. Each character in Oblivion has a voice and lip-syncing, the idea being to enhance the immersiveness of each encounter; but conversation trees progress, unlike in games like Knights of the Old Republic, without your answer. In each conversation you have a list of topics from which to choose, but your replies and questions aren't written out. This is a design choice held over from Morrowind.

So, I guess it's confirmed, dialogue in Oblivion is going to suck ass.

 

[Balor]

Dialogue in Oblivion will not present AT ALL. Nothingness cannot suck ass.
There would be monologues, like in MW.

 

[Micmu]

We then visited a town, which seemed a little quiet -- not the bustling center of trade we were hoping to see

Like on IGN video.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

NPC: "Hello, would you like to come up to my room?"
PC: Room
PC: Exit

That's not dialogue. THAT'S JUST SHITTY. There go my hopes for any real dialogue fun. If PC responses are reducded to topics as per Morrowind, I'm willing to bet there's also no dialogue choice too. I'd be surprised if there was.

 

[Balor]

Well, it was noted multiple times that it's POSSIBLE to have dialogue choices in MW, too.
But it had to be done in perverted way, and it was used VERY 'sparingly'.
It seems same will happen with Obliivion.

 

[Section8]

NPC: "Hello, would you like to come up to my room?"
PC: Room
PC: Exit

You missed a couple.

PC: Whore
NPC: "I can't believe you'd say that."
PC: Kidding

--

And on an unrelated note, the next person I hear use the word "immersion" is getting immersed. In a bathtub full of semen and maggots.

--

Oh dear.

For example, during the demo, we learned that the character had accidentally set a villager on fire earlier; after that, when he tried to go join a guild that he had joined in every previous demo, the guildmaster told him he was not welcome. There's a way to fix this, of course -- you can pay a fine, or do something to rehabilitate your reputation so that other villagers will think more kindly of you. This little sequence underlines the importance of your behavior and choices throughout the game, but in a more subtle and less obvious way than having a morality bar, like Fable, or the dark side/light side dichotomy of KOTOR.

IT'S SPREADING! WHO IS A BAD ENOUGH DUDE TO ISOLATE THIS OUTBREAK OF IDIOCY?

A serious question though - is it actually possible to " fix this, of course -- you can pay a fine, or do something to rehabilitate your reputation so that other villagers will think more kindly of you?" From memory, if you resisted arrest in Morrowind, the guards used lethal force, and wouldn't forget you, but I'll be glad if someone can prove me wrong.

 

[Fresh]

NPC: "Hello, would you like to come up to my room?"
PC: Room
PC: Exit

You missed a couple.

PC: Whore
NPC: "I can't believe you'd say that."
PC: Kidding

PC: Eitar
NPC: "You stay away from her or you'll catch something! She is the village slut, you hear! Now listen up, I need you to bring me ingredients for my chicken soup. I need one garlic, 4 carr..."
PC: Exit

 

[Section8]

Heh, the delicious irony of this all, is that long before the game is released, Eitar already has more personality than he/she will presumably have in game. :D

 

[Master Thief]

So does this mean Oblivion's dialogue trees are less complex than Morrowinds or about the same?

I seem to remeber being able to choose between multiple questions and direct answers in addition to the "topics" in Morrowind.

Maybe like all game journalists this one is a bonefide idiot and doesn't know what hes talking about.

or

Maybe after a whole day of playing the beta he didn't get an opportunity to have a dialogue CHOICE!

Thats fucking retarded. Myst with swords.

 

[Fresh]

Heh, the delicious irony of this all, is that long before the game is released, Eitar already has more personality than he/she will presumably have in game. :D

hahaa, teh irony!

 

[Vault Dweller]

Thats fucking retarded. Myst with swords.

What did you expect and, most importantly, why? Haven't you played the previous games?

 

[Bluebottle]

Wasn't Ultima VIIs dialgue done in a similar Topic title method?

●Name ●Job ●Gargoyles

I'm not convinced that the method of presentation is necessarily an indication of the quality of interaction. Certainly in Morrowind the NPCs were lifeless and cardboard, but I think that was mainly down to the fact that there wasn't any decent dialogue rather than how it was presented.

Conversational style is preferable for decent NPC interaction, but I don't necessarily think it's required

 

[Master Thief]

Thats fucking retarded. Myst with swords.

What did you expect and, most importantly, why? Haven't you played the previous games?

I have played Morrowind but I was hoping for something better.
One would think logic dictates that a sequel to a game improves upon its predecessor.
I was expecting a step up in terms of NPC interaction and non-linearity.
It seems as if Bethesda has taken a step back in these areas and put all their effort into eye-candy(hence the previous Myst analogy).

Hopefully at least they will tell a good story and the bloom and HDR lighting will blind us...er... I mean keep us "immersed" long enough so we don't notice the shortcomings.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Thats fucking retarded. Myst with swords.

What did you expect and, most importantly, why? Haven't you played the previous games?

I have played Morrowind but I was hoping for something better.

Hope is good when it's actually based on something other than blind faith.

One would think logic dictates that a sequel to a game improves upon its predecessor.

Compare DF to MW, MW to what's known about OB. There is a different logic there: less gameplay, more graphics - that's what sells the game.

It seems as if Bethesda has taken a step back in these areas and put all their effort into eye-candy(hence the previous Myst analogy).

That's been known for a long time. I'm surprised you noticed it only now.

 

[Section8]

I'm not convinced that the method of presentation is necessarily an indication of the quality of interaction. Certainly in Morrowind the NPCs were lifeless and cardboard, but I think that was mainly down to the fact that there wasn't any decent dialogue rather than how it was presented.

Conversational style is preferable for decent NPC interaction, but I don't necessarily think it's required.

Well ideally, I like to see something that's fully conversational, where I can actually form a response that's more than just a keyword, but I agree that other methods can still evoke a decent character. The biggest problem with Morrowind, and the reason for it's constant comparison to a wiki system, was the fact that even NPC responses were hardly conversational, and completely genericised across the world.

A typical "question" from the player usually ellicited a completely overdone, encyclopaedic response. For instance:

PC: my trade

NPC: "I'm a commoner. I do whatever needs doing -- cooking, cleaning, building, baking, making, breaking. And I can tell from your accent that YOU are an outlander. Since you're new to these parts, perhaps you'd like me to share a little local lore."

PC: Fucking hell, woman. You need to add "not running your fucking mouth" to that list of chores. I didn't ask for your life story, and for the record, I've been here for nearly a year, and I've probably seen more of the province than you have, given that you haven't moved from this very spot, where I first met you.

(Of course, in game terms, that response is evoked through Persuasion->Taunt and the devilish details are purely imaginary.)

NPC: "You would lose."

So, I proved the bitch wrong.

--

Anyway. It seems for Oblivion that the method used to "rectify" this oft cited shortcoming in Morrowind, was to voice all NPC speech. So, while this will no doubt make NPCs seem more like actual living beings rather than mostly stationary wiki machines, it also requires a huge amount of development resources, and even with 50 hours, it's going to be limiting. Personally, I don't think that's worth the gain compared with hiring a few writer/scripters to create conversational text.

But what do I know? I only learned that "reading" was messy the other day, so I've got a long way to go. All those wasted, literate years...

 

[Lumpy]

PC responses WILL be written. Like we've seen in the E3 videos, like they sometimes were in Morrowind. The the number of times the PC has to give a response seems to be small, though, like it was in Morrowind.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

The dialogue issue is such an up and down, I don't know what to think anymore. sometimes it sounds terrible, sometimes hopeful, and we still have little info on the persuasion system which may be instrumental to make or break the system.

Some comments from Desslock:

Originally Posted by DarkUnderlord
Desslock: You've said quite a bit about the features but something I feel you're avoiding (twice you've been asked it now and haven't responded directly) is the actual quality of the written word present in Oblivion. One of the movies floating about (the "sets her dog on fire" one) shows some pretty piss poor dialogue and a few rare screenshots show a font size which I'm sure is visible from space (which in my opinion, doesn't bode well for good writing). Having played a bit of the game, what are your thoughts on the actual quality of the writing? The conversations you listen in to all had to be written by someone. Are they actually any good or are they all "OMG Daedra attacking is the sheznits. Wanna come up to my room? Watch me do some archery, yo"?

Uh, not avoiding anything. That's probably one of the hardest things to tell, in the limited time I had with the game, because I generally skimmed through conversations so that I could see as much as I could. But I thought they were fine - all the conversations are full speech, so you're not going to get the elaborate passages of Planescape Torment, but I thought the conversations certainly seemed fine -- no out of context or goofy stuff like you describe, and the conversations between NPCs were particularly well done.

I don't really get the complaints - that font looks clear and readable to me. It's large enough to be conveniently read, but not so large that it actually obscures (or deliberately blocks out) what's happening on screen (unlike console adventure games like FF7).

One thing I can certainly confirm, is that the font (like it or not) is NOT indicative of limited dialogue in Oblivion.

On a side note, even though console adventures use big goofy fonts, it's not as if there's a lack of text in some of those games either, although it's often non-interactive, click-through, inane "mother earth save us from the tentacles" crap.

 

[Mefi]

I'm more optimistic about it after reading what MSFD has said over on the News section (in the thread on the 1up preview).

If nothing else, it would seem that the game does have the ability to provide some complex dialogue which will provide consequences. Interesting even if I doubt that there will be enough to satisfy me, if those aspects receive enough praise I wonder whether Bethesda would be willing to add more for the next game.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Honestly, I'd say I'm a little disappointed. Sure, given that we hadn't seen any dialogue screens I had a feeling that all was not well (it certainly isn't something they've plugged - prefering to stick to good ol' Patrick Stewart) but I did have some hope they'd try something different. I suppose in the end they have or at least have made more steps towards a "proper" dialogue system. But Oblivion is shaping up in my mind to be a whole lot more Morrowind. IE: A big giant world to explore but just don't try to do anything interesting in it or you'll run into a lack of real consequence (OMG u haev to pay dem a fien before tehy let u join teh gild cos ur suhc a badass!). I reckon the only real improvement is that instead of hitting level 13 and becoming uber because you found a Daedric Axe, you'll instead become uber a little bit later. Maybe even as high as level 15 if you're lucky.

 

[Fresh]

PC: my trade

NPC: "I'm a commoner. I do whatever needs doing -- cooking, cleaning, building, baking, making, breaking. And I can tell from your accent that YOU are an outlander. Since you're new to these parts, perhaps you'd like me to share a little local lore."

PC: Fucking hell, woman. You need to add "not running your fucking mouth" to that list of chores. I didn't ask for your life story, and for the record, I've been here for nearly a year, and I've probably seen more of the province than you have, given that you haven't moved from this very spot, where I first met you.

(Of course, in game terms, that response is evoked through Persuasion->Taunt and the devilish details are purely imaginary.)

NPC: "You would lose."

So, I proved the bitch wrong.

--

Hahaha, that is so spot on.