22 réponses à ce sujet

[the-expatriate]

This, in the updated impressions from Gamespot at Gamescom recently:

[...] one [thing] that intrigued us the most is the way the tone of conversations will become affected by the style of character you play as. Essentially, if you’re playing as a pure bastion of light and goodness, your character will tend to sound very genuine. But if you’re playing as a real salty scoundrel, for example, choosing the polite dialogue options will often result in your character saying the nice thing with a hint of sarcasm because it’s not really something that fits with the character you’ve built thus far. You can still choose whatever dialogue options you want, but the way you actually sound during those options will be affected by decisions made far earlier in the game.

My questions are two-fold:

1) Is this actually true?? Or another in a long(ish) line of mistakes and misrepresentations by previewers?
2) If the answer to the above is "yes," then I must wonder -- is there separate VO for the same lines of dialogue, depending on previous character choices?? How often does this occur?? How many different "types" are there?? Should I wait for confirmation or just start buying the beer for you dev's now??

(Okay, so number two was more than a single question, and should also have included "How many of you are annoyed by my use of double question mark's??")

Admittedly, I'm getting ahead of myself, but the idea is fantastic, if seemingly somewhat unrealistic to hope for in terms of the development costs it implies. Please tell me whether Gamespot messed up, or whether Bioware is dropping some extra coin on extra VO line-delivery options for Hawke. Or if I've got this all wrong. Take your pick. 

Modifié par the-expatriate, 19 août 2010 - 04:17 .

[David Gaider]

If we're going to move my quotes over from the other thread (which I did hijack, I guess-- probably best for it to have its own thread), may as well get them all:

David Gaider wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...
Just
curious, but since the whole range of available options has to be
recorded anyway, why take the direct control away from the player during
these "action" cases and force them to work through such system? You
have the icon system to indicate the tone of response so it's not like
you can't show "threaten (jokingly) and "threaten (aggressive)" as
available choices rather than just "threaten (and try to guess what
personality your Hawke has at the given moment)"

Because
if you have even two action options, that's already six entries you'd
need to display on the GUI-- which was already our limit, even with DAO.
And that ignores any questions you might want to ask, and God forbid
you might want to add a third action option or more.

I don't
think the differences between the options are as drastically different
as you seem to think. Remember that you still have the paraphrase there
to tell you what the gist of the action will be.

Perhaps
i have difficulty of getting what exactly is benefit here, since i tend
to pick tone of responses on case by case basis and a system which
tries to second-guess me and presume based on (generally very much
unrelated) choices made in the past without taking into account the
targets of these previous choices, the circumstances etc.... feels
pretty much like something that's just going to get in the way and add
an extra layer between the player and the character they're supposed to
control.

And you still have the option to pick the
tone of your responses-- on the personality choices. With the action
choices you're getting your intended action and possibly motivation (if
it makes a difference)-- the dominant tone just determines how it's
expressed. So, yes, sometimes you will say "no" diplomaticaly and other
times be curt... but that's based on the choices you've made so far. The
alternative (as it was in DAO) would be to simply not have those other
choices available at all and have the choices all take one tone.
Possibly this comes with it's own problems? We'll see. But the idea is
to be more reactive to your choices instead of having you assume one
personality, which I assume is the basis of most people's concern with
the system to begin with.

David Gaider wrote...

Brockololly wrote...
As
far as determining the "dominant" personality goes, does it just sort of
keep track of the number of responses you had Hawke give using emotion
X, tally that score and which ever "tone" comes out on top, thats
Hawke's "dominant" personality?

I can tell you how it works right now, with the understanding this is a system that's subject to testing.

The
first time you pick a personality option, that's your dominant
personality. That personality can "switch" the first time you total of
any other personality exceeds that one by 1 (so if you then picked two
different personality options after the first, it would switch). Each
time it switches, the threshold you need to exceed the total by
increases by 1... to avoid a feeling of schizophrenia (though the
personalities aren't so divergent they feel like different people). So
it's not quite as simple as just tracking the highest total.

IF
thats how its keeping track or determining the "dominant" personality,
maybe if it simply utilized the percentages of past response emotions to
generate a given "dominant" personality that could be more in keeping
with the player's past actions rather than simply picking one purely on
numerical supremacy?

So for example, if the player's past
choices had him at 50% angry, 20% sarcastic and 30% friendly, then for a
given moment when the "dominant" personality needs to be chosen, it
generates the personality by kind of a weighted dice roll of sorts with
the percentages affecting the outcome?
Yeah, that probably didn't make any sense...[smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/wizard.png[/smilie]

It makes sense, but I think it would be a little random.

The
idea, as I said, was not to have the tones be wildly divergent in their
outcomes-- so it's not as if you're unexpectedly punching Bethany in
the face with one action option and sweetly patting her on the head in
the other. This is just the tone of the option as it's written in the
paraphrase. We use the tones here when we think it adds something extra.
If we're in doubt, we default to the same "neutral" tone that DAO used.

An example: Paraphrase = "Explain yourself. Now."

This
could result in "Start talking" with an aggressive step towards the
target, "I think it's in your best interest to tell me what you did" or
maybe even "If I were you I'd be talking as fast as I could-- but maybe
that's just me?"

That's just off the top of my head... at the
same time we could just opt for the neutral "Tell me everything you
know" if we felt the tones used didn't really add anything.

On
the other hand (and this is more likely, with my example) if having the
target start talking wasn't really an action option and we wanted the
guy to explain himself anyway we could just present all three tone
options complete with their tone icons. It's a bit more elegant than the
DAO solution, from a writing standpoint (which did, actually, force you
into a set personality for the most part), with the context icons
hopefully alleviating a bit of the trepidation some people might feel
about their sense of agency.

Is that clearer? It might be
something you'd have to see for yourself, I suppose, as we've nothing to
really compare it to at this point.

David Gaider wrote...

In case you missed it in the GamePro preview (or are avoiding it due to spoilers):

"Moral choices have been refined in that visual icons of your character's
dialog choices (like showing an olive branch for peaceful replies) will
create less confusion for the context of a reply, while consistency in
your character's tone will be reflected in battle cries and non-option
speech. I don't believe I've ever heard a sarcastic battle cry before,
but if you're glib enough during normal conversation, it'll start to
come out elsewhere."

This
is another effect of your dominant personality: it will change elements
of your soundset. So if you're picking the humorous options, as the
previewer did, you're going to start cracking wise in combat (and other
places).

I'm rather excited to see how this will work out for everyone. It's something I mentioned earlier on (as in "we'll explain that later") and we'll probably go into it in more detail-- but since previewers are already commenting on it, I thought it would be worthwhile to let you guys know what we're doing. Allowing you guys the ability to establish some personality for your character, even in the context of a voiced PC, is something that we thought befitted Dragon Age.

[David Gaider]

the-expatriate wrote...
But I was wondering: is this idea your own creation? It's just that with all you've talked about it in so short of time, you just seem proud of it, understandably so; I hear that every major feature generally gets contributed to by more than one person during a typical development cycle, but I suppose I'm just curious as to how the idea arose in the first place.

Yes, it's my idea-- or, at least, it's what we're going with after my initial idea underwent some testing and revisions to make it implementable. You already have a number of things about your character set (such as origin and race) so I thought this might be something to try. If we have player VO we may as well use it in a way that befits Dragon Age.

In Exile wrote...
I do have a question now that I think about it. When you speak about action dialogue, do you mean there is a separate wheel that will pop-up from time to time to indicate what action you take?

No, it's the same thing (from your perspective). You're still selecting options off the dialogue wheel.

Think of it like this: in Origins you would occasionally have the "flavor responses" come up. They allowed you to determine how you responded, but they didn't really affect anything. They probably had a different line from the NPC to react to what you just said, and then would move the dialogue forward. That's the "personality choices" I'm referring to, as now those responses come with tone icons and do affect things.

In Origins you would also get dialogue options which permitted you to take a particular action-- meaning a choice that actually affected something, such as taking/refusing a quest or taking a certain path. These are just the options I'm referring to, and when I refer to "action choices" or "personality choices" it simply means that when you're asked for input you'll be getting one set or the other. We don't mix the two.

Modifié par David Gaider, 19 août 2010 - 06:03 .

[David Gaider]

Dave of Canada wrote...
Now I'm curious. How much dialogue is expected from Hawke due to this change? It's like redoing a lot of scenes with a different tone each time. >.>

Well, we don't split into different tones on every action choice-- but a good chunk of them. Between those and the changes to soundsets I'm saying, what? Double the normal amount of PC dialogue? From a recording perspective, anyhow.

[David Gaider]

the-expatriate wrote...
Whoever it is will have to be veeery multi-talented, and the pressure would be very high.

They are indeed. It wasn't easy to cast, as we required someone who could do all three tones convincingly without sounding like a completely different person each time. When people find out who the male PC is, I'm going to laugh-- he was in Origins, but his character wasn't very popular. Regardless, he has a wonderful voice and is quite capable.

[David Gaider]

filaminstrel wrote...
So you track the previously unimportant flavor dialog (like talking to Sarel the storyteller) to assess the character's dominant tone (sarcastic etc) which affects his tone when he's making action choices (I'll explore the tower for you etc)? Will the assessed tone actually affect the action choices available, or merely their delivery?

Normally it's just their delivery, but on occasion you'll get access to an extra action choice based on your dominant personality.

Why can't we just choose the tone on the action choices like we can with the flavor choices?

I explained this in the other thread:

David Gaider wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...
Just curious, but since the whole range of available options has to be recorded anyway, why take the direct control away from the player during these "action" cases and force them to work through such system? You have the icon system to indicate the tone of response so it's not like you can't show "threaten (jokingly) and "threaten (aggressive)" as available choices rather than just "threaten (and try to guess what personality your Hawke has at the given moment)"

Because if you have even two action options, that's already six entries you'd need to display on the GUI-- which was already our limit, even with DAO. And that ignores any questions you might want to ask, and God forbid you might want to add a third action option or more.

I don't think the differences between the options are as drastically different as you seem to think. Remember that you still have the paraphrase there to tell you what the gist of the action will be.

Perhaps i have difficulty of getting what exactly is benefit here, since i tend to pick tone of responses on case by case basis and a system which tries to second-guess me and presume based on (generally very much unrelated) choices made in the past without taking into account the targets of these previous choices, the circumstances etc.... feels pretty much like something that's just going to get in the way and add an extra layer between the player and the character they're supposed to control.

And you still have the option to pick the tone of your responses-- on the personality choices. With the action choices you're getting your intended action and possibly motivation (if it makes a difference)-- the dominant tone just determines how it's expressed. So, yes, sometimes you will say "no" diplomaticaly and other times be curt... but that's based on the choices you've made so far. The alternative (as it was in DAO) would be to simply not have those other choices available at all and have the choices all take one tone. Possibly this comes with it's own problems? We'll see. But the idea is to be more reactive to your choices instead of having you assume one personality, which I assume is the basis of most people's concern with the system to begin with.

[David Gaider]

filaminstrel wrote...
I see-- I think I understand. You're trying to combat the sort of "Zen Warden Syndrome" in DAO, where your options were basically, "Yeah, I'll help," or, "No, I won't," with little ability to affect tone and motivation, because to do so would require too many permutations to fit into the dialog box. So now you can affect it based on your previous choices.

Bingo.

[David Gaider]

wanderingboxer wrote...
In the conversation with Goldana there are a number of flavour choices that lead to the ultimate decision whether to help her or just leave(as a "for instance") I decide this is not situation suited for levity and choose the "nice" dialog options, if my personality affects the tone of this choice, would it be based on all my previous flavour options up to that point in the game?  or just the options I made in in the dialog tree in Goldana's house?

The flavour choices would be personality options-- with tone icons-- where you could use the tone that you desired. Once you got to action choices (like the point at which you decide to, say, give Goldanna some coin) that's where your tones to date would come into play. You would give her the coin, but might do so with a sarcastic quip-- it really depends on whether we thought the tones added anything to that line. If not, it might be the same neutral tone that would have appeared in Origins.

[David Gaider]

Bobbyj0 wrote...
Tim Curry (Arl Howe)? if we geuss right will u tell us:happy:??

No.

[David Gaider]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Their predictive system could stil be used to guess what we'd want and show us those options first, but they could make all of the options available by holding down a button (much like NWN's alternate hotbars).

I realize the level of control you want over your characters borders on the pedantic, Sylvius, but we're not likely to put in something that is essentially micromanagement of dialogue options. Realistically speaking, nobody wants to pick their dialogue options twice. It's not going to happen.

[David Gaider]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
The PC shouldn't ever do anything without checking back with the player.  Ever.  Under any circumstances.

You can say that sort of thing as often as you like, Sylvius, but we're never going to make that kind of game.

[David Gaider]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
You have before.

You've certainly made games previously that were closer to my ideal of player agency.

As far as I can tell, you're referring to BG1... a game that was made over 11 years ago and even then only accidentally meets your ideal, since you seem to think that allowing the player to control a party member to initiate dialogue in that game somehow allowed a greater degree of roleplaying even if everyone spoke to that character as if it was your PC.

I get that you prefer roleplaying that is mostly in your head, and dislike anything in the computer game that infringes on your mental "territory". I get that you don't mind micromanagement, and in fact prefer it.

But that's not what we're going to make, and it's not where we're going. You can keep asking for it, Don Quixote-style, if you like, but all I'm saying is it's not going to happen.

Modifié par David Gaider, 21 août 2010 - 12:23 .

[David Gaider]

tmp7704 wrote...
This is actually what they are doing for DA2 -- some lines which are rendered neutral in DAO are given multiple tone versions, and which version gets used depends on which tone you've used the most up to this point in the game. I was just supplying example how the player could be allowed to choose freely between these options rather than rely on such automated system to try and make these choices for them.

And this is what I would call micromanagement. I don't doubt some people might think it's nifty in theory, but in practice I think it would be poor design to ask players to essentially choose dialogue options twice.

The tones are there to add personality to your player character, and react to your previous choices. The alternative would be to simply not have them at all, and have one neutral tone for all player lines. While having them doesn't allow the player control over their tone in every single action, I don't think that level of control is really necessary-- and I'm sure some people will be able to conjure worst case scenarios until their blue in the face but in the end I think you'll just need to see it in practice.

[David Gaider]

tmp7704 wrote...
Leaving aside not everyone functions in this manner, even you only "default to sarcasm" most of the time. That means in some instances you choose not to use it when talking to some people.

And I'll interject on that point and remind you that, most of the time, you WILL be able to select the tone you use when talking to people. We do not default to your dominant tone on every line. The only time it comes up is on the action choices-- where you are seeing the intended action and possibly the motivation spelled out for you in the paraphrase already. The dominant tone affects how you say those lines only, and even then only when we think it's appropriate.

If you're picturing us assigning a tone to your character all the time, that's simply not the way it is. You get choices all the time, and in this case we're not sticking to the "neutral" tone as we did in Origins, where such action choices would have resulted in a single tone simply due to the sheer number of options adding more would have required. This is intended to react to your choices, not dictate your personality-- and as I said only applies to lines where you've already indicated your action. No, you can't choose your tone on those, but then you never could even in Origins.

[David Gaider]

tmp7704 wrote...
Certainly, having no options whatsoever is one of possible alternatives. But having these options and giving the player control over them is also an alternative, just not one you think would be a good design, isn't that correct?

Correct. You're already picking your tone the majority of the time, and your actions the rest of the time. I don't think it needs to get any more complicated than that.

The way you put it right here was a bit as if Henry Ford one day declared "OK people, from now on you can get the Ford T in not only black but also red and blue. I'll select exactly which colour you get based on what colour clothes you've been wearing in the past five days. And the alternative is me going back to doing them all in just black like before"

No, that's not what it's like-- but if you're really worried about not having control over something you never had control over previously either, I suppose there's nothing I can do to reassure you.

[David Gaider]

Bryy_Miller wrote...
Maybe my mind is not working at 100%, but what exactly are action choices. I know you've explained it before, but I can't seem to differentiate them from regular choices.

I explained it before, yes. You can find these quotes earlier in this very thread.

What you'd need to understand is there are two types of player responses that you're being asked for: one is the "personality choice" -- picture those times in Origins where you're not really making a story decision (take/refuse a quest, decide which path in a quest to follow, etc.) but simply selecting how you say something. In Origins we called that flavor and they didn't affect anything. Here we track it and have it affect the other responses-- the "action choice". If you're taking/refusing a quest or deciding on a path, we're not generally assigning a tone to
that response. We offer you options (and possibly different motivations for those options) but how you say them will depend on the personality choices you've been picking. Not all the time, of course, but often enough that you'll notice.

The idea, as I said, was not to have the tones be wildly divergent in their outcomes-- so it's not as if you're unexpectedly punching Bethany in the face with one action option and sweetly patting her on the head in the other. This is just the tone of the option as it's written in the paraphrase. We use the tones here when we think it adds something extra. If we're in doubt, we default to the same "neutral" tone that DAO used.

An example: Paraphrase = "Explain yourself. Now."

This could result in "Start talking" with an aggressive step towards the target, "I think it's in your best interest to tell me what you did" or maybe even "If I were you I'd be talking as fast as I could-- but maybe that's just me?"

That's just off the top of my head... at the same time we could just opt for the neutral "Tell me everything you know" if we felt the tones used didn't really add anything.

On the other hand (and this is more likely, with my example) if having the target start talking wasn't really an action option and we wanted the guy to explain himself anyway we could just present all three tone options complete with their tone icons. It's a bit more elegant than the DAO solution, from a writing standpoint (which did, actually, force you into a set personality for the most part), with the context icons hopefully alleviating a bit of the trepidation some people might feel about their sense of agency.

Modifié par David Gaider, 21 août 2010 - 06:06 .

[David Gaider]

JoePinasi1989 wrote...
Have you considered adding a toggle (a lock) for Hawke's tone in options. Let's say I developed Hawke into a sarcastic tone, but if I use a ANY number of different tone "trigger" responses from that point on, my tone would change eventually, I, however, would not want that, I'd want my Hawke to remain sarcastic, EVEN if he'd choose the aggressive trigger. Maybe I'm imagining this wrongly. I suspect when such choices (triggers) are presented, there would be a distinct and clear reason not to muddle them.

You could mix and match your tone selections as much as you liked, so long as you choke the humorous responses more than the rest. If you were really selecting aggressive responses throughout the game, why would the game suddenly have you using humorous lines on the occasional action choice? No, we wouldn't do that. Like I've said before, this sort of dominant tone determination is happening under the hood. Turning it into something that you actively select belies its purpose completely.

To this end, I have another question: will you add a starting tone at the character creator? I think you'd have to.

No. The very first time a personality choice comes up (which is right away) that determines your initial "dominant tone". As I've said before, that dominant tone can "switch" as soon as your selections for another tone exceed that one's by one (so if your next two selections are a different tone, you'll switch). Each time you switch, the threshold for switching increases by one (so if your next three tone selections were different, you would switch again). This is to prevent a feeling of schizophrenia, but still allow you to change your personality if your selections are consistent enough.

[David Gaider]

Collider wrote...
This restricts roleplaying.

How, exactly?

You are choosing tones in the personality options, which is functionally no different than the flavor options you got throughout Origins where you were selecting how you said something.

When you are selecting an action (such as "I'll take the quest") instead of getting a neutral-toned respone (which is the only way it would have played out in Origins) you may get some personality in the line based on your dominant tone-- which is based on your choices to date. The action you chose, however, is still what you selected-- as is the motivation supplied in that choice.

Unless you balk at the idea of a voiced character completely, as in that isn't roleplaying in your estimation, I just don't see how this system-- which lets you develop a personality for your character in those situations where one wouldn't normally be useable-- doesn't allow you to roleplay better. Yet the idea that your character will occasionally be using a tone, something you've already consistently selected throughout the game, when taking actions that you've also selected, is somehow not roleplaying unless you also get to choose the tone for those lines... which you never got to do before anyway?

I really don't know how to better explain it. I think I'll just leave it at that.

[David Gaider]

Collider wrote...
So maybe it would be better to say that I do not feel it employs the full potential for roleplaying that the game has by virtue of having those differently voiced lines on the disc, and not letting the player choose which one to have Hawke say in some instances.

But you are choosing... you're choosing throughout the game. Allowing you to select your tone on those action lines simply isn't an option in the interface. There just isn't enough room since every single choice would require three different entries... a simple binary choice would have filled up the Origins interface, and that's ignoring the possibility of any questions.

The fact that there are those extra lines is designed to prevent you from reverting to a neutral tone every time you take an action of some kind. It's meant to be reactive to what you've been doing in the game so far, and considering you get personality choices throughout the entire game it's not really a restriction on how you act and doesn't lock you into anything. The idea that having this extra flavor is somehow restricting because you don't get to select that instance-- even when you are selecting your choice and motivation-- when the only realistic alternative would be to not have the choice at all boggles my mind a little.

I'm not sure what you're picturing. It could be that you'll simply have to see this in action, but in my mind this is the only way we can have a voiced protaganist and still allow you to roleplay your character by establishing a personality throughout the game.

[David Gaider]

Collider wrote...
I think, perhaps, a better use of the game keep tracking of Hawke's "personality" would be in regards to how NPCs react to you. Maybe Bob will get upset that Hawke is sarcastic all the time, but get worried when Hawke starts being serious. Or maybe Sarah is annoyed by Hawke at first by how serious he is, but then tells him that she likes his newfound sense of humor when Hawke starts becoming a bit of a jokester. That would be glorious.

Characters do react to your tones... when you select it. When you select an action, they react to the action your taking but rarely the tone itself. That said, on occasion people will reference your personality based on your dominant tone. If your dominant tone is, for instance, a humorous or charming one it could easily be inferred that you're someone who likes to joke around a lot.

Modifié par David Gaider, 21 août 2010 - 06:38 .

[David Gaider]

Saibh wrote...
Yes! That's what I was hoping to hear...hmm...do they recognize personality changes, though? It seems pretty abstract, and I wouldn't expect it to be there, but it'd be pretty damn awesome.

No, that is indeed a little abstract, like you said-- at best they comment on your dominant personality at the time that the reference is needed for their dialogue. Beyond that their approval changes based on your choices at the time you made them, just as in Origins.

[David Gaider]

Collider wrote...
@Sable: I have to agree that that was one of my major criticisms with ME's dialog system. Knowing the tone beforehand that Hawke takes will stop a lot of those problems from happening. An event like Jacob, for instance, may not happen at all in DA2 because the devs pretty much said they made an effort to make the romance triggers more obvious - probably by designating them with some sort of icon or other label. 

Actually, speaking from a writing perspective the one thing I like most about the icons is that they don't require us to impart both intent and tone in a single paraphrase. This means that the tone doesn't have to be blatantly obvious... which when it comes to romantic lines can be a little awkward.

So we can have a paraphrase like "Stay here and talk" and attach the romance icon to it-- letting you know that selecting that line means your intentions are romantic and that they will continue the path down that line, as opposed to us writing something more blatant like "Stay here and let's do it. On the floor."

Not that this wouldn't work for some people, I guess, but you know...

[David Gaider]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

This is intended to react to your choices, not dictate your personality-- and as I said only applies to lines where you've already indicated your action. No, you can't choose your tone on those, but then you never could even in Origins.

Oh, but we could.  Because the character wasn't voiced we could impart literally any tone we could imagine.  We could even fiddle with the wording.

The voice robs us of this.

You know, I already said that the system adds to your ability to roleplay... unless you're of the opinion that the root problem is that the character is voiced and all and that isn't what you consider roleplaying.

If that's your issue, however, it's also beside the point. I don't care what you like to do in your head. This isn't about whether or not this dialogue system allows you to roleplay better than a game that doesn't have a voiced protaganist, Sylvius, because that's not up for debate. The game does have a voiced protaganist. This is about whether the dialogue system allows you to roleplay better within the parameters of a voiced protaganist, which I think it does.

Modifié par David Gaider, 22 août 2010 - 08:21 .