Pope Viper said:
Vanilla Ice.
Eurogamer interviews Pete Hines
- Thread starter Per
- Start date
Vanilla Ice.
UncannyGarlic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
I saw it coming and I don't really care, some people are bugged by this stuff, some people are fine reading unedited text, and most people are somewhere in the middle. I just hate poor editing in small amounts of text written by paid professionals and it bothers me even more when those mistakes end up in pieces I quote (feels like citing a bad source).
I'm not seeing the complete void of humor in videogames, it's not as common as it was in the heyday of adventure games but there are definitely games that focus on it and plenty of others that have bits here and there. Am I alone here or does this question not seem right?
This is troubling, it's alright if the game's unbalanced if the designers feel that it's fun and they don't think that people will have less fun because one method of combat is strictly better than the other? That's just plain stupid, if a game is unbalanced then there will be resulting fun-factor problems for many players, especially the really competitive ones. Still, at least he later came back and said that it's balanced but it seemed like an afterthought/correction rather than the main point... That or he was trying to appeal to multiple bases but it seems odd that anyone would want an intentionally unbalanced game.
bonustime
First time out of the vault
All comments regarding how the "old school" system is far superior over the stuff we currently see aside, shouldn't dialogue be the MOST important part of this kind of game?
winterraptor
First time out of the vault
Yeah, who cares about irrelevant talking and the viewpoint when you have KILLandSHOOTandVATSandFATMENandTEDDYBEARSand...FUN! to work on.
Also...monkeys and typewriters? That's so old school.
doomestic said:
But do we really believe Bethesda's brand of dialog is going to be anything but this:
-(A)NPC: Help! My farm is overun with raiders, save me!
A1: What?! Lead me to them forthwith! Fuck! {Response B}
A2: Eh, get lost, farm boy. I couldn't fuckin' care less. {Response C}
A3: What do I fuckin' get out of it? {Response D}
A4: You annoy me. Fuckin' die! {end,start combat}
A5: Fuck, I must go. {Response C}
-(B) NPC: Oh, thank you so much! Right this way! {teleport to raider-laden farmstead, get exp & phat loots off bodies}
-(C) NPC: What? I can't believe this! Fine...I'll wait here should you change your mind. {end,state-still-0}
-(D) NPC: I am but a simple farm boy. I have nothing to reward you with but my thanks.
D1: Ah, fuck, I'll do it anyway, but I'm quite sour about it in what is surely a fallout quasi-anti-hero style. Fuck. Anyway, lead on. {Response B}
D2: Forget it, then, fuck-chump. {Response C}
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UncannyGarlic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
I think that mechanics is the most important, followed by level design, after that would be quest structure, and then probably dialogue. It's definitely in the top five or ten and one of the most important things to concentrate on but I wouldn't say that it's the most important thing. Still, dialogue certainly isn't less important than VATS (arguably the tier below or above it) and should definitely be one of their main battles but I'd say that there really aren't many (more skill based options) changes to be made from the first two game's system. Still, make changes they have and none of them are encouraging, like having percent success displayed by certain answers since hand holding is damaging to RPGs (I've also mentioned my fondness of a strict requirement [success if skill >= N] system for CRPGs in general elsewhere).bonustime said:
Woops
My comment is missing:
Anyhow my comment on the subject was this:
I also hate this whole "old school" myth. Wtf is with Eurogamer pushing this agenda? I don't know if they are actually trying to deliberately make the game look good, or if they are truly oblivious to the fact that Mass Effect's dialogue was dumb as hell.
My comment is missing:
Anyhow my comment on the subject was this:
I also hate this whole "old school" myth. Wtf is with Eurogamer pushing this agenda? I don't know if they are actually trying to deliberately make the game look good, or if they are truly oblivious to the fact that Mass Effect's dialogue was dumb as hell.
TheGM
The voice of reason
shorrtybearr said:
I too like that. The fact I won't be a Champion of the wastes while also being a Contracted Killer, King of Mole People, and The New Canadian Prime Minister at the same time is plus in my book.
Gives a better reason to come back to it.
Phancypants
First time out of the vault
winterraptor said:
Did I miss something where they said every second word was going to be a swear? All the dialog that I've seen has been written well (albeit, taken out of context from the rest of the conversation because they're from screenshots). My impression from interviews is that there is swearing where it's appropriate based on the person saying it, and the situation at hand.
They've admitted that Oblivion had not enough dialog, and that it was spread too thin over too many generic NPC's. They've cut down on the NPC count, and increased the amount of dialog, and all the leaked shots seem to show a consistent (not stunning, but definately not bad) level of writing.
EnglishMuffin
Still Mildly Glowing
Phancypants said:
By well written, I assume you mean, "without spelling errors". So far all the dialogue we have seen has been quite bland. Good for a TES game, bad for a Fallout game.
Phancypants
First time out of the vault
EnglishMuffin said:
I did clarify that the writing wasn't award-winning. I wouldn't say it's bad for a Fallout game either. Both Fallout's included some amazing dialog discussions (I love the conversation with the Master), but the majority of their dialog was middle of the road, and some of it was downright awful or broken.
My point was that some people seem to be assuming the dialog will be an abomination unto God. All the shots we've seen show a compentent writing style. Personally, the tidbits that I've seen make me really curious to see an entire conversation flow in action, and I'm cautiously optomistic about it.
Phancypants said:
Pretty much agree. We can't really tell, but from what I've seen at the Fallout 3 demo showing and these screenshots, the quality of writing is what I would call "all right". Nothing special, nothing horrible.
What's more important is the dialogue structure: how many quest requests come down to "yes, no, more money" with a possible "I'll kill you now" tagged on? How many dialogues are just "nice guy or combat" like the Simms dialogue? How many dialogue choices actually matter for the path you take in dialogue.
Can't really tell there.
And it's already clear that Fallout 3 will contain significantly more swearing than - say - Fallout did. And that's too bad.
Phancypants
First time out of the vault
I agree. Mass Effect's system (good or evil, always in the same location) lead me to not even read half the choices. I just held the stick in the right location and kept clicking 'x'. Many modern dialog trees aren't really trees at all. There's just the evil path, and the good path.Brother None said:
Done correctly, the occasional swear can add context or character to a situation. The scariest line that Todd's ever said is along the lines of 'swearing can be funny'.Brother None said:
I guess we'd have to wait and see, I'll be buying it anyway.
There's a small chance it'll be jaw-droppingly awesome. The best bet is that it'll be OK, and fuzzy on the details. I'll take that over nothing any day.
UncannyGarlic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Most of the dialogue we've seen so far has been average quality (5 out of 10) but I've certainly seen some lines that I thought were bad (childhood in the vault looks painful) and I've seen the ye olde Fallout merchant.Phancypants said:
EnglishMuffin
Still Mildly Glowing
Phancypants said:
Anyone else think that Lucky Harith looks like the generic black guy from Oblivion? If you lighten the skin, add a beard and a hat, I swear it is him.
Phancypants
First time out of the vault
UncannyGarlic said:
With a decent voice actor, caravan guy might be kind of funny. I read that and imagine him like the crazy guys who say shit like this outside my apartment. Ahh, the joys of downtown living...
winterraptor
First time out of the vault
Phancypants said:
Merely being satirical, friend, particularly in regards to the swearing. Whereas in your estimation of the nuts and bolts logic of their dialog-tree producing skills they do well, my estimation of the overall principles and effort of their design is that they are sorely lacking. I see in my crystal ball of intuition (that is my opinion, in so many words) a future of many shallow conversations devoid of the gray areas of morality or options that actually affect the game world. If you want to leave the door open, to fallout 3 or other soul-sucking vampires, its your prerogative, but I'm fine leaving the door shut, and maybe phoning it later on from afar after doing a thorough background check.
So far the circumstantial evidence of every other aspect I've seen of the game leads me to believe Bethesda is incapable of doing much of anything right, design-wise.
'Not bad'. 'Average'. I can concede that. Unfortunately those words are completely irrelevant and synonymous with 'horrible' as far as I'm concerned. I'm not interested in spending my time playing 'not bad' games, with 'not bad' dialog. Either you are doing better than what came before, or worse. So you focused on other areas? Okay. Too bad that looks like shit too. But to each his own.
Oh shit, I didn't notice that guy.
Yes it'd be funny to have one guy like that who thinks he's a merchant with a caravan. But I'd imagined him as an old, crazy drunk with just one tooth. This one looks like he's serious about it though.
"The path of the wasteland"? "my humble caravan"? WTF dude? How did survive around here? You offered your virginity to the raiders, or worse...
...are you from Oblivion?
UncannyGarlic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
That's exactly the thing, I can see there being someone in a Fallout game that would talk about that but certainly not a regular merchant and definitely not one part of a regular trade caravan. It sounds like they just yanked a line from one of their TES games and changed one word from something that made sense to "wasteland" and called it good.Public said:
