How about free talk with NPC??

pennyliu123

pennyliu123

Where'd That 6th Toe Come From?
I have an idea, may be odd, but I think it will be interesting if you can have a free talk with NPC while playing fallout, you can type anything to talk with them, instead of only select the topic listed by the game. Of course, the NPC would say "Know nothing about that" or "What are you talking about", but I still think that will make me smile, maybe you. Do you think so? :D
 
That existed as an option in Fallout dialogs and was called "Tell me about". It didn't exactly work out because the word matching wasn't very generous.

Having that system INSTEAD of dialog options is about as fun as switching perspective to first person. It doesn't fit.

... sadly I somehow can imagine Peter Molyneux getting a hard-on about it ...
 
Ashmo said:
Having that system INSTEAD of dialog options is about as fun as switching perspective to first person. It doesn't fit.
Click to expand...

I don't mean "instead of", just add a option like " free talk" is good enough, I think.

I think it's funny to talk with different NPCs about the same topic, ie, woman.

Sulik may say:" Grandpa says, you can see woman everywhere, but they will not help you anything."

Myron may say:" I'm thinking about woman all the time, let's go find some really woman in New Reno, OK?"

Skynet may say:" Woman is the female type of mankind, can give birth to children."

Just for joke. :D
 
That would be the "Tell me about" feature. Dig up Fallout 1 and find out.
 
I have fo1, and I think it is a pity that fallout2 discard this feature. So I want to see some "improvement" of this in Fallout3, if it could come out...

I've tried one flash game, that's about talk to a robot, so I think is not too hard to add some "chat" funtion to NPC.
 
Speech response algorithms are still a tad too young to work decently, however the keyword speech method has been used in many games, such as Wizardry, with good effect.

Frankly, to pick someone's brains about a subject without having to go through a lot of dialog, would be quite a relief at times. Otherwise it just feels like you're railroaded through a set of speech options without being able to take the conversation into the direction you want and there is support for in the keyword engine. But that should be for specifics and advanced or complex subjects, adding a bit more into the gameplay and requiring skills to affect how successful it is and whether the NPC would want to talk about said subject or not.

Used in conjunct with the dialog tree, it goes back to the complexity and logical design Fallout used, and not BioWare's lame ass copying attempt. :twisted:
 
Every once in a while I'll remember those old Infocom games, and I have to wonder how good the interaction would be if that style of dialogue in video games hadn't been abandoned. With the huge leap in graphics over the years, I have to think that something as comparatively simple as a text parser could be pretty incredible level by now. I'd really love to see a game with it but I doubt any publisher would go within a mile of the concept.
 
When I saw this thread posted, I knew SOMEONE would mention the Zork games. A lot of people are actually working on human levels of interaction with mechanical systems (c'mon, has no one heard of Turing tests?), and even though it's relatively cheap in the way of CPU cycles and memory, it's a programming nightmare. It would take many years to make such a system with today's technology, EVEN IF you already had the AI script and just had to "teach" it. Not to mention taking up terabytes of space for all of the scripted responses. It's a cool idea, yes, but how many people are going to buy a game just to converse with AI bots, over a game with OMFG TEH REEALISTIC MUZZEL FALSH!!!11
 
eh, I don't mean to play a RPG which ONLY have free talk , I just think about some improvement, like that you can chat with NPCs for a relax or ask them some questions to get some information when you are temporally tired or confused to resume the main theme of the game.

If you can play a RPG, in which most speeches can be "taken into the direction you want", that will be a revolution to RPG and really magnificent, I think. Though it will not come into reality in a long time.
 
I think a logical combination of a speech tree in with a keyword system would be much like how Fallout had it. Except for one major thing, that the topics you can ask them about can lead to, or maybe unforseen consequences. That's something missing in a lot of modern CRPGs. An element of surprise that is believable. Usually "surprises" are scripted into the story, but when you take the "surprises" and make them dependent upon player actions, then it would be a good addition.

They would also have to be well-crafted, because otherwise a dead end would be a reload, unless it gets to an obvious case where the PC would die, resulting in an ending sequence much like the player getting dipped in Fo1 through speech options.

That is a return to the Pick-Your-Path Aadventure books that I feel the style of Fallout's [resentation was based upon in part. Those were early starts of RPGs, too, although more in Adventure. What happened depended upon which page you turned to, but logically through your actions. I feel that speech should be no different than other aspects of the game that could use improvements that fit logically within the design. I believe that this is perhaps the next step for Speech skill systems to take, or at least return to since Fallout did it well. It could be improved on, definitely.

One or the other, at this point, does feel a bit flat. Choosing from a list is a bit corny, as if the actors are remembered in the player's mind, there should be no need to use a list. I liked that in Fo1 where if you thought of something to say to the right person, it might result in something special; now only if that could be expanded upon versus the speech trees that are often constructed poorly or in a cliché manner.

At a tabletop game, a good GDM would hardly railroad the player forcefully without reason into strict speech routines. They can nudge the players, but if the players want to do something, let them feel the consequences, as the old GM rule goes. The players often have to think of what their character would say or want to know about. As Fallout is based in spirit in design from P&P RPGs, I really don't see why this shouldn't be too much to ask. I only state that it be done well, for those who might be reading this. ;)
 
Roshambo said:
Speech response algorithms are still a tad too young to work decently, however the keyword speech method has been used in many games, such as Wizardry, with good effect.
Click to expand...

And to bad effect too, just look at mormonwind...

Anyway, i may be biased againt this kind of thing, but the tell me about button in FO1 was just a big waste of screen space...
 
I think the "Tell me about" feature would have been a lot more useful if your character developed a list of keywords of major people, items or events that they have encountered thus far into the game/story that you could choose from. That way you wouldn't have to nitpick of spellings and you wouldn't be able to "cheat" by saying certain words that you wouldn't know at that stage.
 
Ozrat said:
I think the "Tell me about" feature would have been a lot more useful if your character developed a list of keywords of major people, items or events that they have encountered thus far into the game/story that you could choose from. That way you wouldn't have to nitpick of spellings and you wouldn't be able to "cheat" by saying certain words that you wouldn't know at that stage.
Click to expand...

Some adventure games used to have dialog options for such topics. That was actually a very handy way to solve info gathering puzzles. I suppose turning it into a list of keywords in a Tell Me About way would be even nicer.
 
I have to disagree.

I think "tell me about" features are often fiction-breaking because who, honestly, goes up to random people and says "Tell me about..."

Personally, I think the answer lies in more complicated dialog scripting. The railroading issue can be taken care of by a wider decision tree, and more conditions for dialog replies.

For example, if you *happen* to be carrying a rope, certain NPCs will allow you the dialog option "Do you know any good places to go climbing?" and maybe that will lead to something you haven't seen before.

You can currently do this with scripts in F2, but I'm sure time and budget constraints kept that sort of thing out of the game.

In any event, that's what it comes down to. Somebody would have to be tasked with writing all the Tell me mores, when that person could be doing some else.

Just something to consider.
 
lust said:
I have to disagree.

I think "tell me about" features are often fiction-breaking because who, honestly, goes up to random people and says "Tell me about..."

Personally, I think the answer lies in more complicated dialog scripting. The railroading issue can be taken care of by a wider decision tree, and more conditions for dialog replies.
Click to expand...

Tell me about... has more usefulness when you consider that it would be pretty irritating to have to restart dialog every time or to have a lot of extra speech options that have little to do with the current discussion topic.

For example, if you *happen* to be carrying a rope, certain NPCs will allow you the dialog option "Do you know any good places to go climbing?" and maybe that will lead to something you haven't seen before.

You can currently do this with scripts in F2, but I'm sure time and budget constraints kept that sort of thing out of the game.
Click to expand...

Mostly time, as they would have to try and seamlessly put that into the speech tree of each corresponding NPC that could have any use with the rope. Then it becomes a waste of time when it becomes a chore to add onto enough NPCs to make the use not as obvious as a neon sign of "Use Rope Here." Maybe you should try writing up said speech trees and actually try to work with such like in Arcanum's editor or similar. Then you might get the idea that maybe it isn't such a good idea to include the speech option with numerous NPCs and have it only on one or two, and a simple topic mention could get the speech tree moving in that direction rather than making the speech tree hopelessly complicated and in a fairly neutered manner.

It also assumes the player is an idiot. It's like those stupid "context menus" that will basically tell you what skill to use where, leaving experimentation and exploration to the side of the road as the RPG genre is dumbed down even further than BioWare has managed.

In any event, that's what it comes down to. Somebody would have to be tasked with writing all the Tell me mores, when that person could be doing some else.

Just something to consider.
Click to expand...

Well, consider that they just have to write about a topic and then provide possibly a smaller speech tree after that with a "Nevermind..." or similar answer to return to the main of the topic, versus making an absolute clusterfuck of speech options for every eventuality, which implies that the player really can't wipe their own ass if everything is spoon-fed to them.
 
Explain to me how Tell me mores are less prone to spoonfeeding than typical dalog trees.

With Tell me mores you can pretty much walk up to any NPC and say "Tell me about X" which basically means the player can't figure out the clues and is basically just fishing for a solution.

How is that any better than hints being dropped in the dialog tree?
 
lust said:
(I can't believe you just quoted the entire reply.)
Click to expand...

Explain to me how Tell me mores are less prone to spoonfeeding than typical dalog trees.
Click to expand...

Because you have to first know what you want to learn about or possibly suggest, then you have the apropos skill checks depending upon the topic and NPC's willingness to discuss the topic with the PC.

If you couldn't tell what speech trees were before, they are three or four dialog options that are much like a conversation. Hence you shouldn't have to wander through a number of options every dialog in order to wander through the maze to get he piece of cheese. If you want to know about a certain topic, then you should logically be able to say "Hey, tell me about this subject" and it would go into the suitable speech tree branch relevant to that topic. Remember, the point of a CRPG is that you play it, it doesn't play itself.

Unless you're only going to have an NPC used for a token item like "Rope NPC", it makes the speech trees pretty damn convoluted. Again, I'd suggest you actually try to tinker with this to come up with some idea how much more of a pain in the ass it is to make convoluted speech trees, or how the NPC's purpose being intrinsically tied to by the rope dialog appearing straight out from someone's ass is corny as hell.

With Tell me mores you can pretty much walk up to any NPC and say "Tell me about X" which basically means the player can't figure out the clues and is basically just fishing for a solution.
Click to expand...

I thought I had made it clear that they would first have to know what to ask, and then there would be subsequent speech trees based upon the change in subject, rather than the "click the speech to make the annoying garbage go away" that is typical of BioWare's work. THAT is spoon-feeding. Having some brains and figuring out what you need to ask in order to steer the topic into the direction you desire is well within the ability of anyone who isn't a complete social reject. Of course, your entire argument breaks down when you read what I wrote, making it obvious that a simple "Tell me about..." and they tell you everything isn't going to work. Try reading next time.

How is that any better than hints being dropped in the dialog tree?
Click to expand...

We've already pointed these things out, multiple times in some cases. Don't blame us if you're not going to read replies and instead keep going on with your rhetoric. You've done nothing to substantiate your argument, instead you've just posted empty postulation that I and anyone with a sense of design would laugh at.

I really wonder why you bothered to quote my entire reply when you appear to have read none of it.
 
pennyliu123 said:
Long reply is always ignored by those who only want to say a little words about the topic...
Click to expand...

Now that's true chinese wisdom. People should try to keep this in mind...
 
Macaco said:
Now that's true chinese wisdom. People should try to keep this in mind...
Click to expand...

Hehe, thanks, but I think I just spoke out the truth. I'm not so wise, especially when I use English...

In fact, I really turned to some online dictionary for help to understand Roshambo's reply :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top