Interview Oblivion Q&A at GamesFirst!

[Vault Dweller]

Thank God Volourn showed up and cleared everything up. Ok, nothing to see here, people, go home, you've heard the man, the dialogues will suck.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

hehe I'll have to pass that on to the designers, so they can be sure to make it suck

 

[NeutralMilkHotel]

This is ES4. The dialogue is gonna suck. Next.

This is a post by Volourn. It is shit. Next.

 

[Elwro]

I have similar sentiments as VD. We know 2 things: there'll be no hyperlinks and there will be dialogue choices. If you take the dialogue system from Morrowind and erase the links from the dialogue lines, you just get a slightly worse system than it was before, because it would be less convenient. So the "no hyperlinks" comment in itself is no sign of any progress.
And Morrowind dialogue engine had support for dialogue choices, but designers didn't really use them. We still don't know if in Oblivion the system will be truly different or the designers will just be forced to use some previously unemployed functions of the Morrowind dialogue engine.
And is it just my bad English, or the statement "You're now presented with topics and dialog choices in between NPC dialogs" does not say anything about the PC having his own lines? I mean, sentences someone could actually say? "Dialog choice" can be a fancy way of saying "keyword". You can say that in Morrowind you too have dialogue choices. If a NPC asks "What can I tell you about?", you have many dialogue choices and they are all just keywords.

I'm starting to have bad feelings about the dialogue system. If it was any good and included normal conversation, the devs would be bragging about it on every site. The fact that the comments are somewhat obscure makes me think that I won't see any well-written PC lines similar to which Bloodlines had.

 

[NeutralMilkHotel]

And is it just my bad English, or the statement "You're now presented with topics and dialog choices in between NPC dialogs" does not say anything about the PC having his own lines?

"dialog choices in between npc dialogs" to me, sounds like fallout/arcanum/bloodlines where you would pick a line to say. They said they've taken out the topic/wiki system, so it wouldn't be topics to pick.

 

[Elwro]

They said they've taken out the topic/wiki system, so it wouldn't be topics to pick.

You’re now presented with topics and dialog choices in between NPC dialogs.

So there certainly will be topics to pick.

 

[Vault Dweller]

@NeutralMilkHotel

It depends on the line, doesn't it? MW had different lines that basically had yes/no functionality. That's a long way to Fallout/Arcanum complexity of the responses.

 

[NeutralMilkHotel]

hmm, I see.

Well Smileyface, what's going on here man? You can tell us.

 

[RGE]

Sounds to me as if it might very well turn out similar to the Dungeon Lords dialogue system, which would be fine with me. I'm not really interested in having words put into the mouth of my character. I'd rather have as concise and clear options as possible, and let the NPCs speak in coherent sentences. About the only time I'd miss the ability to say something specific would be when cracking some kind of joke, or when pulling a famous one-liner. But if they include stuff like that I suppose they might include the actual words rather than "make joke".

 

[LlamaGod]

Gogogo Exitium asskissing power!

The more and more said about Oblivion the more and more it sounds like a fantasy Bloodlines with a few features ripped from games that kicked Morrowind's ass.

The new dialog system sounds exactly like bloodlines, but now with fun cheeseball fantasy. Yey.

 

[Sol Invictus]

The dialogue system sounds like every other dialogue system we've come to see. Why is it that when Bethesda decides to use it someone has to accuse them of plagiarising a Troika game?

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Yeah, it's not like talking heads haven't been done before.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Fallout wasn't the first game to use them, either.

 

[Volourn]

The Simley VD face may laugh; but what I say is truth. All will know the wisdom of my words when it comes to Oblivion. Not that I'll experience it myself until the game is less than $20.

R00fles!

 

[corvax]

less than $20 you say, i can't wait to hear more of your biased opinions in 2008

 

[Volourn]

"less than $20 you say, i can't wait to hear more of your biased opinions in 2008"

Yes. i am bias against Bethesda and Oblivion. And, with very good reason. if you expect an apology for me being bias; you are more likely to see an apology by the Codex for their hatred of BIo even though they actually like BIO games. I don't like NOTHING about Bethesda games. Nothing. At. All.

 

[Fez]

I don't like NOTHING about Bethesda games. Nothing. At. All.

You mean you think their games are great as you have no problems with their games?

 

[Volourn]

Don't be funny, stupid. It just makes you as pathetic as Bethesda games are.

 

[crpgnut]

Hmmm this Volourn character didn't used to go by Lord Mucus Dragon on Usenet, did it? It's funny, yet tragic, to watch someone go mental over a game/game company. I can't wait until they interview Steve about the magic system. I'm dying to know if my Atronach/Breton/Alchemist character will still be a valid build.

BTW I'm the opposite of Volourn and Vault Dweller. I'm a Bethesda rpg fanboy. Always have been. I also love Fallout though. Two completely different games, but then again I don't really expect every game to fit my personal crpging criteria. I'm not the sole gamer in the cosmos.

Oh MSFD can you make sure that all future crpgs created by Bethesda have tons of monsters, lots of riddles, a few puzzles, a crpg tree that you collect nuts off of as an alchemical ingredient, and lots of naked female Bretons? I know it's not too much to ask

 

[Volourn]

"Hmmm this Volourn character didn't used to go by Lord Mucus Dragon on Usenet, did it?"

Who is this impersonator? I must reveal him for the pawn that he is.

 

[Vault Dweller]

BTW I'm the opposite of Volourn and Vault Dweller. I'm a Bethesda rpg fanboy. Always have been.

Just for the record, I really liked Arena and Daggerfall, wasn't very impressed with Morrowind which was significantly dumbed down, comparing to DF. I don't expect much from Oblivion for the same reasons, but I will keep an open mind just in case.

Btw, am I the only one who thinks that this pseudo-realism thing sucks? The characters don't look real, they look weird and freaky, especially this fine lady

 

[Greatatlantic]

Btw, am I the only one who thinks that this pseudo-realism thing sucks? The characters don't look real, they look weird and freaky, especially this fine lady

Yeah, I think Oblivion has gone overboard with the Bloom effect judging from the screenshots. Though, I think thats suppose to be a dark elf, maybe. It would explain why she looks so...like she does.

 

[Greatatlantic]

Gogogo Exitium asskissing power!

The more and more said about Oblivion the more and more it sounds like a fantasy Bloodlines with a few features ripped from games that kicked Morrowind's ass.

The new dialog system sounds exactly like bloodlines, but now with fun cheeseball fantasy. Yey.

Is it a bad thing to be like Bloodlines, in some respects? The zoom to the face worked and looked great when combined with realistic facial animations. The dialogue was extremely well done, and if Beth thinks they can do as well, good luck to them. However, I don't think Oblivion is going to be much like Bloodlines. If for no other reason than I'm expecting Oblivion to be a lot more open-ended. Bloodlines was fairly linear, even if they gave a lot of character choice to allow fairly different ways to play. I expect this and non-linearity from Oblivion.

Another thing, it seems they haven't actually confirmed dialogue trees, just that they've denied the pure wiki system used in Morrowind. I'm awaiting more details.

 

[Volourn]

"The dialogue was extremely well done, and if Beth thinks they can do as well, good luck to them."

Oblivion will not even get close to the quality of Bl's dialogue. It won't be able to match up with the ultra lame 'This shit is WHACK!" line.

R00fles!

 

[asa]

This is ES4. The dialogue is gonna suck. Next.

I think this assumption is a bit hasty. It's been a couple years since morrowind was developed; for all we know they could have a completely different staff, not to mention a different producer.

I'm happy to see that they are interested in what the fans have to say about the problems of morrowind and correcting the problems. But it'll come down to man hours and priorities -- does bethsoft consider engaging dialog to be high on the list, or do they feel their audience is more impressed by graphics and combat.