New Fan Interview at TES Forums

[Balor]

Lol!
It looks like all modders are eventially moving over to Codex! At least I get this impression... not to mention me starting this thrend .

 

[Relien]

A game as big as Oblivion, with so many NPCs, needs systems like topic lists in dialogue or even that persuasion minigame. You can't write specific dialogues for every single NPC in the game (like you would in games like Torment, Arcanum, Vampire, Fallout etc.) yet you still should be able to persuade anyone (or at least try) or to ask anyone a general question.

I can see nothing wrong with it.

But there should be enough (and I mean enough) characters who will actually have rich dialogue trees, where your answer will really matter, where it will affect their disposition and have consequences. In such cases you shouldn't be even able to use persuasion minigame, that should be there only to fill the gap where there is no specific dialogue.

So what I fear is that the system will be ok (like it was in Morrowind), but it won't be put to a good use (like in Morrowind). Let's hope it'll not be the case.

Anyway, complaints about bad dialogue SYSTEM or persuasion minigame are pointless.

 

[Twinfalls]

A game as big as Oblivion, with so many NPCs, needs systems like topic lists in dialogue or even that persuasion minigame.

I can see nothing wrong with it.

You've conflated two things illogically.

The topic lists - fair enough that there's going to be a lot of generic dialogue. But they haven't even bothered to give the NPC written dialogue to speak for all the generic instances, even though it was a feature present in Daggerfall. There were even variations depending on the tone you selected. It is therefore a backward step - instead of improving it, they chuck it out.

The persuasion minigame. Note that you have to play the minigame, every. fucking. time. you. persuade.

This is an RPG. Player skills (tetris) are supposed to be a minimal part of the equation - especially with things like persuasion, where a graphical mini-game is illogical. It shows they are lazy and/or they design for idiots who don't like reading. It'd be fine if you had a timer and you had to choose from different responses within that time, each having a different possible effect.

But there should be enough (and I mean enough) characters who will actually have rich dialogue trees, where your answer will really matter, where it will affect their disposition and have consequences. In such cases you shouldn't be even able to use persuasion minigame, that should be there only to fill the gap where there is no specific dialogue.

Think this through. Won't it feel rather puzzling that you've had to play this minigame every time before, but suddenly you meet this one character and the mini-game hey presto! *vanishes*? This is the problem you set when you have a daft minigame. You're stuck with it for continuity reasons.

 

[dongle]

It looks like all modders are eventially moving over to Codex! At least I get this impression... not to mention me starting this thrend .

It's a breath of fresh air in here. . . .
.

 

[Relien]

But they haven't even bothered to give the NPC written dialogue to speak for all the generic instances, even though it was a feature present in Daggerfall.

Sorry, I don't follow. What did DF have (regarding dialogues) that Morrowind didn't (except choice of tone)? Both of them had topic lists, didn't they?

Won't it feel rather puzzling that you've had to play this minigame every time before, but suddenly you meet this one character and the mini-game hey presto! *vanishes*? This is the problem you set when you have a daft minigame. You're stuck with it for continuity reasons.

I didn't say it would vanish, only the NPC could be unaffected by it. If I remember correctly, such thing was in Morrowind - you had to bribe someone and therefore only 'bribe' affected him (no 'admire' or 'intimidate'), no matter how skilled you were. Maybe not completely realistic, but at least it cost you something

And I agree that if the minigame will be action oriented then it'll suck. I just defended its presence in general.

 

[Relien]

A game as big as Oblivion, with so many NPCs, needs systems like topic lists in dialogue or even that persuasion minigame.

I can see nothing wrong with it.

You've conflated two things illogically.

What I meant was both of these things are there for the lack of NPC-specific written dialogue, caused by a high number of NPCs.

 

[Twinfalls]

Sorry, I don't follow. What did DF have (regarding dialogues) that Morrowind didn't (except choice of tone)? Both of them had topic lists, didn't they?

DF had topics, but the player was given sentences which were 'spoken' to the NPC once a topic was chosen. These varied -they were randomised. It wasn't much, but why jettison it instead of fleshing it out? And why jettison the 'tones'?

I didn't say it would vanish, only the NPC could be unaffected by it.

You still have a problem - the minigame is there but it suddenly doesn't work the time you meet a 'special' NPC. How does the player absorb this without a 'huh?'....?

You'll see in the other thread that people here don't disagree with the idea of a 'minigame' per se, it's just the type they've got here - a graphical time-based puzzle - is so incongruous. And as a substitute for well-written persuasion dialogue, it clearly sucks.

Oh, and if you think persuasion dialogue is a no-no because of repetition, what do you say about the 3229th time you play the same dumb mini-game when persuading someone? If there are enough well-considered persuading dialogue options, then repetition will not be any problem. It's a lot easier to accept than the fucking millionth tetris game....

 

[Relien]

DF had topics, but the player was given sentences which were 'spoken' to the NPC once a topic was chosen. These varied -they were randomised. It wasn't much, but why jettison it instead of fleshing it out? And why jettison the 'tones'?

Oh, I see. Yes, I agree.

You still have a problem - the minigame is there but it suddenly doesn't work the time you meet a 'special' NPC. How does the player absorb this without a 'huh?'....?

This is indeed a problem. I can't think of any way of hiding this obvious difference between generic and special npc other than writing a specific (or pseudospecific) dialogue for everyone, or, ehm, to have procedurally generated dialogue responses But we'll have to wait some years (or decades (or...)) for this I suppose...

Oh, and if you think persuasion dialogue is a no-no because of repetition, what do you say about the 3229th time you play the same dumb mini-game when persuading someone? If there are enough well-considered persuading dialogue options, then repetition will not be any problem. It's a lot easier to accept than the fucking millionth tetris game....

This looks similar to their decision about written sentences for topics. Either way it would be generic persuasion dependent on your persuasion skill, but they decided for the non-text version. Well, I guess we'll have to see it.

In any case, persuasion skill should have two effects - minigame and unlocking of particular (persuasion) responses in dialogue trees, like in other rpgs that are more dialogue-oriented. I wouldn't be very pleased to see a solution to a key event be like

- No, I won't help you banish all the daedra back to oblivion.
- *click*
- Well, you noticed?
- *click*
- Well thank you.
- *click*
- No one has told me that for so long!
- Will you help me now?
- Of course, bring them on!!

 

[Twinfalls]

In any case, persuasion skill should have two effects - minigame and unlocking of particular (persuasion) responses in dialogue trees, like in other rpgs that are more dialogue-oriented.

Yep, totally agree.

I wouldn't be very pleased to see a solution to a key event be like

- No, I won't help you banish all the daedra back to oblivion.
- *click*
- Well, you noticed?
- *click*
- Well thank you.
- *click*
- No one has told me that for so long!
- Will you help me now?
- Of course, bring them on!!

Indeed. Though I'm not expecting anything much different to that in what looks to be "Morrowind 2"...

 

[Data4]

Nothin' beats "Girlfriend in a Coma"

Does knowing that's The Smiths make me... gay? Scuse me... I gotta go wake up my wife.

-D4

 

[Sabregirl]

It looks like all modders are eventially moving over to Codex! At least I get this impression... not to mention me starting this thrend .

It's a breath of fresh air in here. . . .
.

Quite true, there's only so much mindless fanboyism you can stand after a while - not that there aren't intelligent posters on the TES forums but the proportion is quite low and it starts to wear after a while . . . .

I'm really impressed my three questions got in the interview. Of course they were all No, No and well to a very limited extent but mostly no. I didn't really have much hope on the skills one, just figured it was worth asking. Real bummer about the weapons though, I thought the "we're not hard coding nearly as much as in MW" would give hope on that one. The worst was one of the followup question's answers was "We don't get what you're asking".

Sigh . . . .

In Morrowind you can NOT add animations to the PLAYER. If you use "playgroup" on the Player Morrowind crashes. Will modders now be able to ADD new animations to the Player via the construction set?
Yes, though probably only idle animations. That is now an editor section and does not need heavy scripting.

Will it be possible to ADD new weapon types via the CS, defining new fight animations etc?
No

Will it be possible to ADD new skills via the CS?
No

A follow up to the skill question above. Will it be possible to define new actions controlled by skills such as activation of a specific device?
I’m not sure I understand this question. You can check the level of a skill through script if you wish. You can also change the skill.

The 4th question question was asking if you could expand a skill, i.e. make some sort of scripted in action - i.e. crafting - and link it to an existing skill. So sounds like that answer is no. So basically fixing the skills/weapons system is back to the same crap as in MW - with a slightly enhanced scripting system and another system hog engine. Great . . .

-S

 

[Solik]

The 4th question question was asking if you could expand a skill, i.e. make some sort of scripted in action - i.e. crafting - and link it to an existing skill. So sounds like that answer is no.

Really? That's not how I read it. If you can use script to check the level of a skill, then you should be able to use that information in whatever new system you create.

 

[Sabregirl]

The 4th question question was asking if you could expand a skill, i.e. make some sort of scripted in action - i.e. crafting - and link it to an existing skill. So sounds like that answer is no.

Really? That's not how I read it. If you can use script to check the level of a skill, then you should be able to use that information in whatever new system you create.

Well maybe I'm misinformed but I'm pretty sure you chould check skill levels in Morrowind, you could change the rate of increase with different uses and difficulty of actions I think. So the answer basically says nothing's been changed from morrowind - except you have fewer skills to work with.

My thought was the question was asking if the scripting system could be used in conjunction with the skills system to put new actions under the control of existing skills (hence it being a followup to the "can you add new skills" question). Basically, If you can't add new skills, could you link the scripting sytem with skills system on a more basic level, enable your local script for say . . . using the new skill of herbalism to increase the alchemy skill. While not as good as a truly new skill, this would avoid having to have a complex global script to keep track of your skill or the player having to practice potion making when all they want to do is gather ingredients.

-S

 

[dongle]

But I get this sneaking suspicion that now that they plan on making their own mods for profit, they aren't going to be too happy about a whole bunch of modders putting out stuff which will most likely be better than there's and for free.

Hey Qarl!

Yeah, gotta be it. At the very least delay modders so the first wave of official mods don't have any competition. Sucks for us.
.

 

[dongle]

Quite true, there's only so much mindless fanboyism you can stand after a while - not that there aren't intelligent posters on the TES forums but the proportion is quite low and it starts to wear after a while . . . .

Even the mods forum suffers from that. Mod fanboyism, not towards Bethesda so much. Almost impossible to give or receive any sort of constructive criticism there. Maybe the Codex can be a little too negative at times :D but at least folks aren't afraid to speak their minds.
.

 

[Sabregirl]

Quite true, there's only so much mindless fanboyism you can stand after a while - not that there aren't intelligent posters on the TES forums but the proportion is quite low and it starts to wear after a while . . . .

Even the mods forum suffers from that. Mod fanboyism, not towards Bethesda so much. Almost impossible to give or receive any sort of constructive criticism there. Maybe the Codex can be a little too negative at times :D but at least folks aren't afraid to speak their minds.
.

Yeah that's 100% true. As a modder I'd rather HAVE constructive criticism than mindless praise. Praise is fun and all but it doesn't give me new ideas or help me improve. Along those lines . . . I posted some frank quest mod reviews around here somewhere . . .

-S

 

[galsiah]

...My thought was the question was asking if the scripting system could be used in conjunction with the skills system to put new actions under the control of existing skills...

Yes - that's probably what the question meant, but it's not worded as clearly as it might be. Something like:
"Is it possible to define a new action which when carried out by the player will increase the percentage progress towards the next level of a skill?"
Or even just:
"Is the percentage progress of a skill accessible via script?"
Might have been better.

I don't take the lack of answer as a definite no, but it's not too promising. It can be worked around to a degree though - it just won't be so smooth.


What is the thinking on this:

A key limitation in Morrowind’s scripting implementation was the difficulty to assign functions to random objects in the game world. E.g. there was no way to obtain an object reference for something in the players crosshairs or of an opponent in combat with the player and then manipulate that object from e.g. a global script. Has this been changed, and will more functions take objects as arguments?

Yes, objects (references) can now be used as variables and much more.

To me it seems like a non-answer, or a lack of understanding. Do we actually know who answered these questions? Were programmers let near them?

What does using a reference "as a variable" mean? To me this sounds like the reference (a reference known when writing the script) will be passable as an argument to script functions. This is hardly cause for partying in the streets - though it's something I suppose [global scripts can be written to affect non-unique items placed in the CS].

I don't think the answer means that we're going to see a system of variables with type "reference" (i.e. reference pointers). This was what the question was asking, but whoever answered it seems not to understand, or to enjoy giving vague answers which don't make much sense.

Any thoughts? Any optimism? Or do I seem to be right?

 

[LlamaGod]

That's really lame that you cant edit skills or the character system.

One thing I hated about Morrowind modding was that you couldn't do that, it would only be a major modding improvement to have that in Oblivion

Modding in Oblivion sounds exactly the same as Morrowind just with stupid shit like Soil Erosion generators.

 

[dongle]

Yeah that's 100% true. As a modder I'd rather HAVE constructive criticism than mindless praise. Praise is fun and all but it doesn't give me new ideas or help me improve

Once I posted a new model release thread. Only I forgot to upload the .zip to my site, only the html description. I got like a page or so of effusive praise for the model before someone piped up and said "um, links broken". That's when I realized all the praise I'd been getting all along wasn't necessarily heartfelt.
.

 

[Astarsis]

If you are not going to believe the interview any way, then there is really little point to you reading it, and to bitching about it.

Believe what? That everything's going to be awesome? What about the questions with magic? No real information given. With that quest example you quoted, that looks like it was just copied from a previous Morrowind interview, so I have a right to be skeptical seeing as how they already lied once and they're not doing anything with the new game that leads me to believe they've grown as a development team.

Perhaps because they answered ALL my in depth questions about magic from the 5th thread in the team diary on magic ? A damn big chunk of it was that. There wasn't much left to say.

They even went in the tiny details such as the scripted spells effects, customazible summons, etc.

In case you didn't grasp it yet, scripted effects are an efficient way to add unlimited spell effects. There was some really impressive attempts in Morrowind, but it required to screw up with global scripts which is the best way to kill your cpu lightning fast. Usually it involved dropping in temporary meshes that you remove latter. You can also do simpler tricks, such as adding a temporary spell effect to a npc (purely for the visual effect) then remove it once you're done with the effect.

There is a lot that can be done with the scripted effects bessides that, including messing with the target's radiant AI.

And... they said they messed a lot with that feature in the real game. so you can expect really weird spells.

@chefe

well uh apperently some of the questions had been labeld "yes/no" questions by the interviewers, they only wanted a yes/no answer on those cause they thought there would be to many questions otherwise.. um, or something like that

exact. I was pretty surprised they accepted to answer all of those 60 questions AND the 55 I sent recently.

IMO getting a no is not a bad thing. Modders wanted clear answers on some things. Players wanted clear answers on other things. And they stopped dancing with the levitation feature. We never got them to say *no* before the interview got sent. I guess since they were going to answer it anyway they decided to drop the bomb.

Of course, only an idiot would show himself. So the guy doesn't take cover, but just calmly waits for death. How radiant!
quote]

mmm you're really radiant yourself ! Ever noticed that when you shoot at someone you have to get out of cover ? perhaps you never played paintball ?


oh yes, and for a vampire, waiting mean turn invisible and start looking for you. but I guess you missed that story

Pete? Pete? What the fuck with you? You speaking fucking generalistic PR noncense that has nothing to do with question asked! Pete? Oh, damn, take him away, he's hopeless..

LOL you need glasses. The exact answer is in the last 3 sentences at the end. He was just nice enought to go in depth about radiant AI as a bonus. In fact he gave a lot of extra info through the interview.

On top of that they answered a lot of our questions in the team diary on magic and on the beyond 3D interview. Otherwise it would have been way too long.

Just the magic thing is like 2-3 pages + screenshots

If you want to see Pete dodging questions, see the Neowind interview :D He dodged nearly half of those. He was a lot more open with Gaming Steve.

He said 'you can watch them grow'. It can be interpreted in MANY ways.
I even suspect it may be 'simply scripted' NPCs and evens, not 'Radiant' ones.
Anyway, the drivel he spouts in reply is simply nauseating. It sounds like he's from Mars or something.

lets clarify what non-scripted mean. it mean using C++, data structures and some AI algorithms, rather than being limited to a script language, golbal/local variable, and eating up your cpu all the time. that radient AI stuff start at least at 10x thye speed of scripts (not counting the level of details optimisation) and can use fancy algorithms for solving complex problems that can get another crazy speedup... logn

clear enought ? This isn't about making the npcs think like haal, take over your computer or buying rolling stones concert tickets with your credit card.

Next they'll be charging for patches, I bet. So, if you don't like your character being unable to complete a quest to do RAI bug - buy a patch. If you don't - don't buy it!

doubt that. Pete said the prices would be small and the content of reasonable size. Just think. Oblivion has 700 armor pices. with the new thing of pauldrons and gautlets being each a single item rather than left/right, this mean the equivalent of 100 full suits of armor. if they do (I doubt it) 100 suits of horse armors, it will definitively be worth it. especially since Pete said he wouldn't pay 5$ for it. and I don't think he meant he would pay 4$ or 3$. they're not crazy. they do want to sell them. not just to waste server space. they'll charge something peoples want to pay.

IMO I wouldn't complain on content, it got more models and textures than morrowind on every categrory. arhitecture, plants, armors, you name it.

My only big complaint about TES4 is perhaps the downgraded gameplay for some aspect (spears, thrown. mounted combat, levitation) that were in mw or promised. They had also talked about *medieval simulation* and *living another life* which pretty much hinted at crafting yet none of that made it into the game.

Planescape would wipe the floor with Oblivion. Come on, Persuation minigame? What the flaming fuck?

I don't see what the big deal is with the persuasion minigame, and there's no need to flame me in your response. I really am curious what your objection is (besides that the fact that Oblivion is not Planescape, no matter how much you'd like it to be)

My objection is that Oblivion is hugely superficial and mainstreamed, as evidenced by the addition of minigames to replace the deep and beautiful dialog system of a game such as Planescape (1 million words ingame!). Because of the focus on wiki-style dialog and the lack of meaningful dialog trees, Oblivion is inherently disadvantaged in the complex quest department. Without a dialog system similar to Planescape's, you simply can't create a complex and interesting quest that doesn't revolve around combat. The lack of visualization of your character's speech (because of the persuasion minigame) means there is a disconnect between you as a player and the game's NPCs, thus rendering any interaction shallow and one-dimensional. The minigame is just meaningless twitch action where there should be words. I'm not saying Planescape's system is flawless, but it's far deeper and emulates interaction far better than either the wiki system or minigame Oblivion has.

bah ! IMO all game fail in dialogue because they don't keep a context of the interaction. when was the last time a character said *thank you for saving me from the wolf* if it wasn't scripted in advance. they have a far way to go before it ever get close to a book or a movie or even better to acting or live role playing.

it always make me feel the same as when MMORPG player start talking about laudry or pizza... mmm what an immersion hey ?


in any case, yes the persuasion minigame is one big blunder. because it makes no sense. but neither did it make sense in morrowind to click or bribe or persuade. much better were Emma's companions. with their special likes and dislikes. I mean how does it goes in the real world, hey ? if you bring me my favorite cookies you sure get a mark on my list. If you hit me with a baseball bat, I don't think I'll forgive that one. If you make ammends, I may not kill you In most RPG they solve that by making npcs cardboards you can't interact with. so they just say their stuff and nothing ever happen, you follow a straight line.

Actually, I am beyond incredulity, and am almost to the point I want to buy it just to see what utter shit it is.

I'm impressed. you can write. can you actually develop a game too ? I'd like to see that.

So the lockpicking/diplomacy systems are targetted towards people that want to rock at those skills with no in game commitment and uber minigame skills as a player. Man, it just keeps getting better with these fucktards.

autopick ??? then it work exactly as Morrowind.

If not mainstreaming, then what can explain this?

badly allocated ressources ? bad design ? I agree the persuasion minigame don't sounds to hot, and they didn't provide alternatives. a big design flaw. + if it's past midnight and you don't want to wakec peoples that are asleep and play with the sound off, you'll never be fast enought (at reading) so, yes, that part of the design is totally flawed.

dumb down ? not really. just dumb. it's the worst feature of the game.

I really get the feeling Bethesda is actively discouraging modders.

It started this summer when Mr Epic Howard stated there would be even -less- official mod support for OB then for MW.

I'm not sure about that. They added support for the audio stuff. I doubt they will fail in adding the imprter / exporters. I think there is one thing that piss them off thought. it's the attitude of some peoples that, after they release to us the files we need, go boast that Bethesda stuff is crap and their stuff is better. I mean, there is like a basic level of respect, and not biting the hand that feed you.

Not saying all moders did that. On the contrary, most peoples did their stuff and said nothing. Like Neuman had one of the best attitude, saying he did BB for the clothing (which is the truth, and that goes back to his witch oufit). But some, and not just modders, a lot of were just mod users in facts went like Bethesda suck , that new head/ body/whatever rock .... I think that attitude got to their nerve after a while. We should have done a better job at policing the community. So to speak.

Anyhow, pretty sure import/export will still be in. even think a dev said something about it recently.

The 4th question question was asking if you could expand a skill, i.e. make some sort of scripted in action - i.e. crafting - and link it to an existing skill. So sounds like that answer is no.

Really? That's not how I read it. If you can use script to check the level of a skill, then you should be able to use that information in whatever new system you create.

Sabregirl got it right. No idea why Pete didn't get it. Should have asked MSFD. He plays / mod the game more. Probably know the most about modding. At least the magic question were answered right (in the team diary)

to Sabregirl: did you ever doubted me ? I pushed in nearly all modders questions. Thanks to Dalin for giving me control on the 4th interview, for a grand total of 115 questions. Well, I really walked a fine line, hope Pete don't hold a grudge. That was a lot of questions.


Despite the bad interpretation, the answer he gave is sufficient. in that we can do it indirectly: set up a counter variable for usage and do the level up of the skill manually. of course we cant create new skills but armorer can direct smithing and so on...

this would avoid having to have a complex global script to keep track of your skill or the player having to practice potion making when all they want to do is gather ingredients.

msfd hinted we had more control over some level up features when talking with Galsiah. We still have to see what it will be.

Yes - that's probably what the question meant, but it's not worded as clearly as it might be. Something like:
"Is it possible to define a new action which when carried out by the player will increase the percentage progress towards the next level of a skill?"
Or even just:
"Is the percentage progress of a skill accessible via script?"
Might have been better.

I really meant to say if an activator can be tagged to do an experience check on a skill and fire a script, much like the script effect, rather than running all the time.

in fact I could have written very detailled questions but the fans would have killed me.

pretty hard to ask questions like that when each part of the question depend how the previous part get answered. would need a face to face interview or something. with someone like msfd.

the biggest deffect of MW is how all those scripts would run way too much andslow down the cpu. Ald Daedroth was unplayable on a low end machine. ever tried one of those sounds mods on a low end machine ?

To me it seems like a non-answer, or a lack of understanding. Do we actually know who answered these questions? Were programmers let near them?

officially it was Pete, Todd and Gavin. Pretty sure Todd can answer as well as msfd but not 100% sure he's a programmer. Quite often team lead are ex-programmers. Julian Lefay was.
the big question is just if he answered the full question or not. but already it indicate objects don't need to have unique ids to be accessed.

to my knowledge there is no way to get an object reference (of an instance) other than selecting it in the game world. so I think he understood corectly.

I think the script system might have evolved a bit and serve much much as a glue than as a language this time arround. much more like an agent. in other words it would be leaner and stop executing all the time. MW scripting was awfull.

Yeah that's 100% true. As a modder I'd rather HAVE constructive criticism than mindless praise. Praise is fun and all but it doesn't give me new ideas or help me improve

Once I posted a new model release thread. Only I forgot to upload the .zip to my site, only the html description. I got like a page or so of effusive praise for the model before someone piped up and said "um, links broken". That's when I realized all the praise I'd been getting all along wasn't necessarily heartfelt.
.

Now imagine if they had been both honest AND fanboy

*Oh, Dongle, that broken link is sooo ... artistic... please give us more, it has special meaning for us *

LOL !

The only feedback I pay attention to is email, because you have to go throught the trouble of fetching the email address ! So they got somehow motivated.

 

[kris]

A game as big as Oblivion, with so many NPCs, needs systems like topic lists in dialogue or even that persuasion minigame. You can't write specific dialogues for every single NPC in the game (like you would in games like Torment, Arcanum, Vampire, Fallout etc.) yet you still should be able to persuade anyone (or at least try) or to ask anyone a general question.

Anyway, complaints about bad dialogue SYSTEM or persuasion minigame are pointless.

The dialouge is the number one reason I will NOT buy the game. What you said is nonsense, the real number of NPC between Fallout 2 and Morrowind is negligent. I find the way Fallout solves that much better with having many just saying some little default text being much more realistic and immersive than having most NPCs being walking bulletin boards. Whether those are bulletin boards or just say some sentence is not excuse though for not having real dialouge for the more important NPCs troughout the game. There is no excuse for not making them feel like real characters. The persuasion mini-game is one of the most retarded "innovations" I seen in a game and brings up horror memories of me testing the last Larry game. That mini-game is not realistic and it does not promote roleplaying your character.

Pointless? Only if you don't care about it. I do, I find it the most important aspect in a RPG.

 

[LlamaGod]

Whatever happened to giving generic NPCs a basic dialog thats the same for all of them? With special characters having their own dialogs.

Also, paying for mods is the dumbest idea ever.