I've been reviewing the dialogue changes in Fallout FIXT against vanilla Fallout and compiling my own updates to the msg files. FIXT includes TeamX as well as Nimrod's dialogue fixes and many I agree with. I have still found a few places to improve because of misplaced words or when a sentence is inconsistent with that characters' dialogue.
One thing that I keep seeing is inconsistent noun capitalization. This was also noted in Nimrod's readme. I haven't been able to come up with a clear plan, so I'm asking for your opinions. Do you think it was a thematic decision to capitalize most items, some critters and locations? Or do you think it was used to emphasize certain words that could be entered into the "Tell me about" function of NPC dialogue? I'm trying to come up with a rule I can go by as I continue to review the text files.
Here are some examples to consider:
In Aradesh's vanilla dialogue, he mentions you should talk to Seth by the "Guard House". Looking through the dialogue file I didn't see any triggers if you asked him about the "Guard House". There were triggers for station and tower, I think. My preference would be to change that noun to "guardhouse" since it's not a name or title, nor is it a trigger for further dialogue.
Other nouns include "Power Armor", which was a change Nimrod made from the vanilla "power armor", to try to introduce consistent naming of items, as "Flare" and other examples can be found within the vanilla dialogue. However, many mundane items that the character can interact with are not capitalized, like computers and monitors. Should there be a distinction between items you can carry and items you cannot? What about the random trash items that have no purpose, but can be picked up? Would capitalized naming for every inventory item that has a viable use be something of a giveaway? My preference would be that all items have a lower case name unless at the start of a sentence or when it's a proper noun, like "PIP-Boy 2000".
Finally, "Rad Scorpions" can be found in vanilla dialogue, which Nimrod changed to "radscorpions". I would agree with this since it's a common noun for a species of creature. However, the vanilla "Rad Scorpions" was a trigger for dialogue with the "Tell me about" function. It's possible the developers used capitalization to give weight to certain words that can be asked about for further dialogue, but it's use seemed inconsistent. Maybe there's another way to highlight words?
Thoughts? Obviously I could go with my preferences, but I would like to share these updates, so I wanted to gather some feedback from other players. Maybe someone could provide some insight on the decisions to capitalize so many common nouns. Or provide your own preferences for dialogue and naming rules.
One thing that I keep seeing is inconsistent noun capitalization. This was also noted in Nimrod's readme. I haven't been able to come up with a clear plan, so I'm asking for your opinions. Do you think it was a thematic decision to capitalize most items, some critters and locations? Or do you think it was used to emphasize certain words that could be entered into the "Tell me about" function of NPC dialogue? I'm trying to come up with a rule I can go by as I continue to review the text files.
Here are some examples to consider:
In Aradesh's vanilla dialogue, he mentions you should talk to Seth by the "Guard House". Looking through the dialogue file I didn't see any triggers if you asked him about the "Guard House". There were triggers for station and tower, I think. My preference would be to change that noun to "guardhouse" since it's not a name or title, nor is it a trigger for further dialogue.
Other nouns include "Power Armor", which was a change Nimrod made from the vanilla "power armor", to try to introduce consistent naming of items, as "Flare" and other examples can be found within the vanilla dialogue. However, many mundane items that the character can interact with are not capitalized, like computers and monitors. Should there be a distinction between items you can carry and items you cannot? What about the random trash items that have no purpose, but can be picked up? Would capitalized naming for every inventory item that has a viable use be something of a giveaway? My preference would be that all items have a lower case name unless at the start of a sentence or when it's a proper noun, like "PIP-Boy 2000".
Finally, "Rad Scorpions" can be found in vanilla dialogue, which Nimrod changed to "radscorpions". I would agree with this since it's a common noun for a species of creature. However, the vanilla "Rad Scorpions" was a trigger for dialogue with the "Tell me about" function. It's possible the developers used capitalization to give weight to certain words that can be asked about for further dialogue, but it's use seemed inconsistent. Maybe there's another way to highlight words?
Thoughts? Obviously I could go with my preferences, but I would like to share these updates, so I wanted to gather some feedback from other players. Maybe someone could provide some insight on the decisions to capitalize so many common nouns. Or provide your own preferences for dialogue and naming rules.
