The most lines of dialogs

[naossano]

I am a bit sorry to start a thread for a so specific issue, but i was quite surprised when i read this on the Fallout New Vegas wiki article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas

The game established the new record for the most lines of dialogue in a single-player action role-playing game. The game contains around 65,000 lines of dialogue, beating its predecessor and previous record holder Fallout 3 which contained 40,000 lines of dialogue.

The article claims to quote Guinness World Records 2011 - Gamer's Edition.

While i a not much surprised by the record for New Vegas, as it has huge non-linearity, i find quite unbelievable that Fallout 3 could have been the previous record holder. I finished the main game and most of DLCs recently, and one of my main complain with that game is that there not much NPC and most of them have quite nothing to say, with worse offenders being Raiders, super-mutants and Talon Company.

So, i was wondering. Is that Guiness World Records really reliable ? Does he aknowledge every games that has recorded lines ? Or only the most selled ? Was Fallout 3 record only for the year it released or also for the games realesed before ? Or maybe Fallout 3 managed some tricks to record more lines of dialogues, like doubled it to reflect the player gender (male/female) ?

Hopefully, it was beaten by New Vegas, but it seems quite weird that the record was held by a game that have quite none dialog to offer...

Also, the number of lines of dialogs is clearly not what makes the best game, but it makes me uncomfortable, if it was true that every other games had less lines than Fallout 3...

They probably talk about voiced lines. I bet Fo2 would beat Fo3 for written lines, but i recall that even some old games that qualified as rpg got all their lines voiced... Real RPG like Baldur Gates had voiced lines and seemed much much more talkative.

 

[Sduibek]

I don't know about number of lines, but Planescape: Torment had about 800 thousand words of dialog.

Knowing the number of words is more important for knowing how much dialog a game has, but number of lines is interesting too because it shows sizeiof the game - number of NPCs etc.

My gut reaction is to say it's bull and no way a Fallout game tops Torment, but I don't know. Without the number of words we can't really know. This does seem like Fo3/NV fanboyism to me though.

 

[Yamu]

The certification process on a lot of those can be a bit dodgy. It's not like there's a U.N. Council on Record Verification that holds Guiness to any rigorous standard. It's entirely likely they only counted among modern games that seem like contenders, or console games, or those they could get official data on. Granted, Google isn't the end-all of research and I CBA to be the most fastidious researcher, but a quick search makes it look as if it's remarkably hard to find an accurate line count for almost any game.

If the record was for voiced dialog, specifically, I could feasibly see FO3 holding the record in its day. I'd still be skeptical, though (just as, honestly, I'm a tad skeptical that the current crown rightfully belongs to New Vegas).

 

[Sduibek]

I know with Fallout (1 and 2) you could run a search pretty easily to find the # of lines of dialog, I might do that actually just 'cause. I'm not sure about Torment and Fo3/NV though, I'd have to have those files in front of me, so to speak, and I don't feel like installing a game just to check number of lines of dialog. Unless someone really wants me to Although I would demand payment of Cheese Nips and milkshakes.

 

[Oppen]

My guess is the "action RPG" means "FPS with RPG elements", for which most of the real RPGs don't apply.

 

[naossano]

The certification process on a lot of those can be a bit dodgy. It's not like there's a U.N. Council on Record Verification that holds Guiness to any rigorous standard. It's entirely likely they only counted among modern games that seem like contenders, or console games, or those they could get official data on. Granted, Google isn't the end-all of research and I CBA to be the most fastidious researcher, but a quick search makes it look as if it's remarkably hard to find an accurate line count for almost any game.

It makes sense.
I haven't considered the practical aspect of those verifications.

Seems easier to consider their work innacurate, than wonder how a record holder could possibly the worst offender of that category...

At least we could consider the difference between Fo3 and FoNV as a little more accurate than their comparison with the whole game industry...

 

[Yamu]

Actually, I think this:

My guess is the "action RPG" means "FPS with RPG elements", for which most of the real RPGs don't apply.

... is likely the correct answer. Who's to say what "action RPG" means? In this case, it's Guiness, obviously. All we can say for sure is that it's specifically set apart from regular RPGs, probably by the inclusion of real-time and/or first-person combat. So who else would be in the running? The other Bethsoft titles, naturally. STALKER? Kingdom Hearts? Diablo? All the modern Final Fantasies have had realtime combat, did they count? According to the sloppy definition on Wikipedia, we're looking at everything from Paper Mario to Parasite Eve.

Depending on how Guiness set the goalposts it becomes simultaneously more likely and less impressive that F3 (and later NV) actually earn the title. It'd be kind of like me qualifying as the "best dancer of all the 30-year-old white guys on the second floor of my apartment complex."

 

[Kilus]

It'd be kind of like me qualifying as the "best dancer of all the 30-year-old white guys on the second floor of my apartment complex."

You're that guy!?!?!

 

[Sduibek]

I just did a quick-&-dirty search and looks like Fallout 1 has roughly 20,000 lines of dialog. Getting an accurate figure is difficult though, as mentioned above. Getting an accurate figure would take quite a few hours, if not a couple days, to compute.

You're that guy!?!?!

"I'm trying to find my dad... guy in his thirties, dances a lot. Have you seen him?"

 

[mobucks]

I'm almost positive the record is for recorded lines of dialogue.

 

[Walpknut]

Maybe it is for SPOKEN lines of dialogue, we all know old school RPGs had loads of dialogue on them, but they weren't held back by the monetary limitations of making every character voiced, so a modern game having that much dialogue is more of an accomplishment. At least that is my guess.

 

[Sduibek]

I'm almost positive the record is for recorded lines of dialogue.

Maybe it is for SPOKEN lines of dialogue, we all know old school RPGs had loads of dialogue on them, but they weren't held back by the monetary limitations of making every character voiced, so a modern game having that much dialogue is more of an accomplishment. At least that is my guess.

That's why all old games suck. Not enough voice acting, it's totally unimmersive and boring. Plus seriously who wants to read? Blech.