313 réponses à ce sujet

[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.

[the-expatriate]

David Gaider wrote...

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...

[A buttload of quotes from the other thread.]

Wow, thanks Dave! (Mind if I call you Dave? Habit of asking I suppose, us Halifax-suburb raised types are pretty traditional I guess, heh.)

I didn't see all those earlier; all this great information about so cool a new feature is really fantastic. Bioware's great connection with community is something everybody in the game development industry -- hell, any industry --could learn a lot from.

Specifically, I liked the part about how your dominant tone changes your soundset! So I imagine that will replace the selection of one during the character creation process? Or do you pick one to start with as well?

Rather than fighting the urge to keep asking questions until we've wrung all the information out of you like a sponge, let me just switch gears to something different, about the development process of this feature; (and actually, first of all, does it have a name? The "Dominant Tone" system?)

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.

Modifié par the-expatriate, 19 août 2010 - 04:13 .

[In Exile]

David Gaider wrote...
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.

I just have to point out that this sounds absolutely brilliant. I can't say how it will work out as a concept, but this probably the most I've been excited about a Bioware game since Mass Effect promised to create a dynamic and reactive Shepard and only got half of the way there.

ETA:

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?

Modifié par In Exile, 19 août 2010 - 04:25 .

[jonluke93]

WOW That sounds freakin awesome!

[Ulicus]

[quote]the-expatriate wrote...

Amazing! Allow me to summarize here:

[quote]David Gaider wrote...

[quote]Brockololly wrote...
The whole tracking of dialogue choices sounds interesting- I just hope that just because maybe you choose a sarcastic choice a bunch early on that doesn't mean that maybe an angry choice or something gets locked off later on.[/quote]

Nope. You can "switch" your dominant personality if you pick different responses enough. Tracking personality affects those times when a line is forced (so the line used might use your dominant tone) or when you're selecting a choice that isn't reflective of tone ("I'll help you" isn't reflective of tone-- so in that case you're not adding to your personality tracking but the response you see could vary according to your dominant personality. In that case a roguish player might see "Sure, why not? It's not like I had anything else to do.")

I say "might" and "could" because we don't use dominant personality in every situation-- sometimes a neutral tone will do just fine, but this is our way of allowing the player to choose the tone they favor and inject some personality into the PC without having a whole list of options every time you need to make a choice.

Having a dominant tone also comes up in other situations, but we'll get to that.[/quote]

And:

[quote]David Gaider wrote...

[quote]Brockololly wrote...
Sounds interesting- is there some metric to tell what your "dominant tone" is? Or would that be too much like paragon/renegade points?
[/quote]

A metric? You mean like an on-screen "personality meter"? No-- tracking personality choices occurs under the hood, so to speak.[/quote]

Also:

[quote]David Gaider wrote...

[quote]Oblivious wrote...
Not that worried about the tone since I'm sure I won't be the only smartass their first 5 playthroughs but I am curious as to how the tone translates into other responses. For example, if a good character takes a response that has them threaten someone and cut off a limb would the character do it all in a nice, soothing manner? Or would he shout it like a bad character would usually do? Or, and this is the most important one, if a smartass were to select that option would he make a joke and "laugh out loud"?[/quote]

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.

So you may be talking to someone where your personality choices are threaten/negotiate/joke... but as soon as you're offered an action choice it isn't with a tone. The action choice might, I suppose, be to threaten them if that leads to an action-- and thus you could indeed threaten them in a joking manner, yes.

Clear as mud, I'm sure. The icons are present on lines to offer some context to the player, as otherwise paraphrases could lead to some surprises, but as I said before the idea is to allow the player to craft her own personality.
[/quote]

Continuing with:

[quote]David Gaider wrote...

[quote]Brockololly wrote...
The personality tracking thing sounds interesting, but I'm somewhat worried it may railroad you into playing as a certain type of character. Like if my guy is sarcastic most of the time but say there is a certain instance he doesn't want to jokingly threaten somebody, but actually slam some heads, that angry action wouldn't be available? I guess it comes down to the devs determining the significance of the scene as to when its ok for the personality to dictate things versus when the full range of options should be open.[/quote]

Right. Whenever you're presented personality options, you're always going to get them all. It's when you get the action options that you will see the personality pop up-- but even then, we're going to take the situation into account. If something sad just happened we're not going to have you cracking wise (as a for instance). If there's a question in our heads of motivation (as in it's not clear from the paraphrase why the player is taking an action, in situations where the motivation could be really different even if the action is the same) then we'll list those action options separately.

Ultimately, though, it's down to the writing. Trust us? [/quote]

Then:

[quote]David Gaider wrote...

[quote]Wolverfrog wrote...
Dominant personality? You mean I can't role-play as a schizophrenic this time around?

Damn you Bioware! [/quote]
I assume you're joking, but I'll just add that you can be as much a schizophrenic as you like-- when the personality choices come up you can veer from one to the other as much as you like. 

The idea behind the entire thing is that while it's okay for Sheperd to have a single personality (Sheperd is, after all, a soldier as much as anything else) we figured giving players more options for Dragon Age was appropriate.[/quote]

And finally:

[quote]David Gaider wrote...

[quote]term8 wrote...
All of Mr.Gaider's posts on this thread have me really really excited about the new dialog system. the pc voice actors must have had to record a record number of lines for this game.[/quote]
Sweet Jesus, you have no idea.[/quote]
All in all, I am extremely excited about this, and can't wait to learn more. I wonder how many dominant tones there are, and line deliveries and/or dialog changes for the same instance depending on character choices?[/quote]
Oh. My. Goodness.

This sounds amazing. If they pull this off... wow.

[SuchADeadlySin]

 This dialogue system is everything i ever wanted in a game. i think i love you, bioware [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/love.png[/smilie]

[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 .

[Dave of Canada]

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. >.>

[Special_Agent_Goodwrench]

This could be the best thing since internet! But yeah, I have the same question as Dave up there.

[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.

[Dave of Canada]

David Gaider wrote...

Well, we don't split into different tones on every action choice-- but a good chunk of them.

Suspected this, due to rewriting the entire game multiple times would be a long process.

David Gaider wrote...

Between those and the changes to soundsets I'm saying, what? Double the normal amount of PC dialogue? From a recording perspective, anyhow.

Oh snap. I wish you the best of luck at pulling it off. I'm really hyped at this feature. Now I'm just wishing your mystery voice actor can pull off all tones perfectly! 

[Blessed Silence]

Sadly, my evil/smartarse playthrough is always second to my first one of being a holier than thou smartarse.

[the-expatriate]

Dave of Canada wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

Well, we don't split into different tones on every action choice-- but a good chunk of them.

Suspected this, due to rewriting the entire game multiple times would be a long process.

David Gaider wrote...

Between those and the changes to soundsets I'm saying, what? Double the normal amount of PC dialogue? From a recording perspective, anyhow.

Oh snap. I wish you the best of luck at pulling it off. I'm really hyped at this feature. Now I'm just wishing your mystery voice actor can pull off all tones perfectly! 

My thoughts exactly. Whoever it is will have to be veeery multi-talented, and the pressure would be very high. Rather than being worried that that person is such, however, my thoughts more run along the lines of "I wonder who Bioware casted, perfectly, as typically do, for the role. Whomever that person is, I have utter faith in them; solely because it was Bioware who selected them." And that's not just the fanboy in me speaking, one can easily look back to previous indications from earlier works to come to that level of trust. Because let's face it, Bioware's track record for such things is pristine. 

[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.

[Dave of Canada]

David Gaider wrote...

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.

Oh god.

Oghren?!

[SteveGarbage]

People can change and I hope the system will allow that to reflect such changes. Perfect example: When I played my City Elf origin, at the beginning of it she HATED humans, especially after what happened on her wedding day. I mean she insulted King Cailan straight to his face. But as the quest went on and she spent more time getting to know Alistair, getting to know Leliana, getting to know Wynne, characters who were trapped in a life like her, her views changed.

Her trust in the Chantry helped her relate to those three and by the time she came with them to the Urn of Sacred Ashes, all that old prejudice had basically melted away. Sure, that's not actually part of the "real" plot of Origins, but it was a huge part of that playthrough and that character for me.

If Hawke's dialogue styles could reflect his attitudes as well as change over time (if I chose too), that would be fantastic. This feature, if it works like I think it's being advertised, will be a phenomenal addition to the game.

Modifié par SteveGarbage, 19 août 2010 - 06:42 .

[Bugzehat]

David Gaider wrote...

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.

Tim Curry?

[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.

[Maugrim]

David Gaider wrote...

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.

I'll put Jowan's VA down as my wild mass guess.

[darkiddd]

David Gaider wrote...

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.

I remember someone who wrote here after coming from the ComicCon that Hawke's male voice resembled that of the king Cailan, is that Hawke's voice?

[Servant of Nature]

darkiddd wrote...

I remember someone who wrote here after coming from the ComicCon that Hawke's male voice resembled that of the king Cailan, is that Hawke's voice?

If it is Peter Bramhill I will squee of happiness and delight.

[Merllle]

Wow, David Gaider's freshly baked information got me really, really excited!!
And, extra curious to know who the mystery voice actor we knew all along after all is Not mentioning my curiosity for Lady Hawke's voice. In Mass Effect, I immensely prefer female Shepard in terms of voice acting.

darkiddd wrote...

I remember someone who wrote here after coming
from the ComicCon that Hawke's male voice resembled that of the king
Cailan, is that Hawke's voice?[smilie]../../../../images/forum/emoticons/w00t.png[/smilie]

OH MY GODS! Can this be?! I really like Cailan!!

Modifié par Merllle, 19 août 2010 - 06:55 .