Dialogue & Intelligence

Bodybag said:
Lingwei said:
I know you guys haven't seen a lot of dialogue, but I really don't think you'll be wanting for options in that regard.
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Anyone else reminded of:

"Dialogue in Oblivion will be great. Trust us."
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To be fair, they weren't specifically targeting Fallout fans with that claim. I think most of you here would agree there's a subtle difference.

And the dialogue itself wasn't bad, at least based on my roughly 30% playthrough, there just wasn't much in the way of choice and consequence. Probably because thet was never the point.

Maybe after the game is released people will start calling Fallout 3 Oblivion with choice and consequence. And guns.
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Oblivion's dialog was indeed by no means bad, it's just that Bethesda had promised good/detailed dialog, instead we got simple fantasy fair that while decently written was dull and boring.

There's a difference between something being generic and good and it being interesting and full of personality.
It's like the dialog from the later Ultima games, decent enough, but without the Thou's and Ye's it just felt watered down.
 
Bodybag said:
To be fair, they weren't specifically targeting Fallout fans with that claim. I think most of you here would agree there's a subtle difference.
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Not really.

Unless you're saying the average Morrowind fan enjoyed Oblivion dialogue. And that seems rather unlikely.

Bodybag said:
Maybe after the game is released people will start calling Fallout 3 Oblivion with choice and consequence. And guns.
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And maybe BioShock 2 will be an actual true successor to System Shock 2.

AND MAYBE TOMORROW WE'LL HAVE WORLD PEACE.
 
Wooz said:
And the dialogue itself wasn't bad
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What dialogue? You usually had this:


- Blatantly Obvious Quest Line
- Yes
- No
- Rumours
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Sorry if I caused confusion, I meant the text itself. Yeah the dialog trees were abysmal.

I just meant that the writing itself was suitable for a generic fantasy novel and were good in the sense that they served their point.

But the defining thing is that it was dull and boring.
You can write a technical paper and have it be good yet boring, know what I mean?

Also, the fact that their NPCs repeated everything and they structured all their dialog trees and AI so badly just threw any merit their writing had out the window.
Also their voice actors sucked.
 
Bodybag said:
And the dialogue itself wasn't bad...
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- I saw a mudcrab the other day.
- Filthy little creatures. I avoid them whenever I can.

Brilliant stuff, I have to agree.

...there just wasn't much in the way of choice and consequence. Probably because that was never the point.
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I'm not sure whether or not that was the point, but a) the game was painfully dull, and b) Bethesda lied about different options, choices, and even consequences, but shipped the game without them.
 
Brother None said:
And maybe BioShock 2 will be an actual true successor to System Shock 2.

AND MAYBE TOMORROW WE'LL HAVE WORLD PEACE.
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It's kind of telling that the only optimism you're comfortable showing is over-the-top sarcastic hyperbole.

It's ok to /OOC sometimes, BN.

And Bioshock was WAY better than System SHLOCK 2 :P
 
Hey, those screenshots we distributed to pump you up about our game--those aren't really examples of our best work. It's better than that. Promzies, k?!
 
The problem with Oblivion's dialogue in my opinion was that it served no purpose. It was get quest, get rumors, that's it. Games like Fallout 1 and 2, and hopefully AoD, allow you to use dialogue as a tool.

That's not possible or practical on the current generation of consoles, or more specifically, with the attention spans of the current generation of console jockeys. I fully believe that Fallout 3 will have rudimentary dialogue. However, having skills/perks/whatever affect your dialogue options is at least a huge step forward from any console games I can think of.
 
Bodybag said:
VDweller said:
He was doing well until he used the Yes/No dialogue screen as a frame of reference.

"Emil: The majority of NPCs have several more."

Several more? You mean in addition to those two totally awesome options we'll have several more? No way!
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Check out VD here, handing out burns like a blowtorch. That quote never EVEN knew what hit it!

Real RPGs have at least 3 options, with the third one being cleverly reworded to pass off as a fourth option.
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I was thinking the exact same thing when I saw this news. Well, first thought was "I wonder how many people are going to complain about this somehow". Second thought was if anyone was going to notice that even AoD, the supposed goddamn holy grail, had 2 or 3 options for most sections of dialog.
 
I noticed.

And I don't mean to make it sound like they shouldn't release dialogue screenshots or anything, but is it really that common of a practice to do so? Even for RPGs? Serious question.

From what I understand all the pics released so far have been 360 screens and have been intended for magazines, where text screenshots look assy. My guess would be that PC version screens with dialogue will start popping up after E3.
 
Bodybag said:
And I don't mean to make it sound like they shouldn't release dialogue screenshots or anything, but is it really that common of a practice to do so? Even for RPGs? Serious question.
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Not particularly. There are occasional rare examples (Bioware showing off dialog wheel, CD Projekt showing off choices and consequences) but they're definitely not standard.

Hell, check out this old Fallout 2 trailer. http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=2013542508

And I definitely agree some dialog screenshots or movies would be nice, I just don't expect them.
 
Second thought was if anyone was going to notice that even AoD
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And now of course we'll be enlightened on topic what has FO3 have to do with AoD...
Or maybe not.
What's this? "Yeah, FO3 has crappy dialogue but so did Baldur's Gate so it's okay!"

Too bad it's FO3 that is a sequel to FO1 and 2, not AoD, eh?
Reminds me of dumbasses saying that V:Bloodlines was made by Troika and was real-time so it's okay for FO3 to be real-time. Good times.
 
The connection is that people here and the Codex are typically glorifying AoD as being the holy grail of PC RPGs, and even that game doesn't have massive reams of dialog for every little thing. I don't doubt it'll have more dialog than FO3, and most likely more choices more often, but when retards say "Consoles sappin mah dialog!" it makes me twitch.

As a further rant, whoever was complaining about generic mudcrab dialog earlier (I think it was Vault Dweller), it's flavor text for god's sake. You're not supposed to stare in fascination at NPCs as they chatter, it's A: Flavor dialog (Go to a random NPC in a town in Fallout and talk to them. They say one thing and you get no chance to reply) and B: Background noise. They could go the Bioware route of having a generic people talking sound while all the NPCs sit and stare one another silently, but talking about mudcrabs for the 10th time doesn't seem any worse to me.

And yes, because someone's going to say "But it's not just the generic NPCs, even important ones don't give you many options!" that's certainly true in Oblivion, but it's a different style of RPG. Oblivion's almost entirely sandbox. Fallout is sort of a happy middle ground of sandbox and focus, and Jade Empire is linear focus land. They can all be fun, but typically NPCs behave differently in different styles of RPG.

Then to finish my rant since I'm feeling cantankerous, Bloodlines is a pretty good example of how FPS and RPG can work in harmony. Bethesda hasn't shown enough of FO3 combat to really be sure how close it is to Bloodlines, but Bloodlines at least shows you can still circle strafe while collecting the magical doodad to save the day.
 
but when retards say "Consoles sappin mah dialog!" it makes me twitch.
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Oh, really Piggly Wiggly and would kindly tell me what is the reason behind dumbing down dialogs and text in general?
Call it catering to the lowest common denominator if you wish - but that's still consoles and console users.
 
Jiggly McNerdington said:
Then to finish my rant since I'm feeling cantankerous, Bloodlines is a pretty good example of how FPS and RPG can work in harmony. Bethesda hasn't shown enough of FO3 combat to really be sure how close it is to Bloodlines, but Bloodlines at least shows you can still circle strafe while collecting the magical doodad to save the day.
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Bloodlines had the most awful combat I've ever seen. Melee was fun, gunfights were a nightmare. It was also the most unfinished (or is it "least finished"?) game ever released. You had to apply several fan-made patches to actually make the game playable. Nevertheless, I had great fun playing it, the twisted atmosphere was great and the malkavian dialogue options were hilarious. It just managed to keep me going long enough to finish the game in spite of all the flaws.
Where was I... ah, yeah, I hope combat in FO3 will be NOTHING like combat in Bloodlines.
 
Fallout 3 is a game, specifically created fro special kids. Thus the name of the char-creation book - "you are SPECIAL". Whatever they say, they will not include the same depth of dialogue, even if they have the manpower to write it. Beth thinks kids are stupid and adults don't play games, so it isn't worth doing. So, as someone said, the game is targetting the common denominator. Funny, it used to be the other way around - every new gamed raised the bar for the player. Some even required you to think . . . the good old days . . .
 
Booty-bag OF Revelations

Booty-bag OF Revelations



Body-bag, page 1:
... And the dialogue itself wasn't bad, at least based on my roughly 30% playthrough, there just wasn't much in the way of choice and consequence. Probably because that was never the point. ...
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BN and SUaside witnessed a press presentation of FO3 months ago.

Bodybag please clarify / qualify your above mentioned,

... my ... 30% playthrough ...
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Thanks for caring / sharing.



4too
 
Don't double post, Bodybag.

Bodybag said:
It's kind of telling that the only optimism you're comfortable showing is over-the-top sarcastic hyperbole.

It's ok to /OOC sometimes, BN.
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I'm pretty sure we, and BN in particular, have been positive about quite a few things - such as the vault environments.

Jiggly said:
And yes, because someone's going to say "But it's not just the generic NPCs, even important ones don't give you many options!" that's certainly true in Oblivion, but it's a different style of RPG. Oblivion's almost entirely sandbox. Fallout is sort of a happy middle ground of sandbox and focus, and Jade Empire is linear focus land. They can all be fun, but typically NPCs behave differently in different styles of RPG.
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Yes. Fallout is an entirely different game. I'm not so sure that Fallout 3 will be, but assuming that it will be, all we have to go by now when it concerns dialogue is basically the exact seem promises we got with Oblivion. The ones that turned out to be completely false.
Jiggly said:
Then to finish my rant since I'm feeling cantankerous, Bloodlines is a pretty good example of how FPS and RPG can work in harmony. Bethesda hasn't shown enough of FO3 combat to really be sure how close it is to Bloodlines, but Bloodlines at least shows you can still circle strafe while collecting the magical doodad to save the day.
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Bloodlines' combat was absolutely horrendous, actually.
That said, it was probably the greatest (and only?) FPS/RPG ever made, but mostly by virtue of the RPG bit, not the FPS bit.
 
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