885 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

Nighteye2 wrote...

There is: full text + intent icons.

I insist that having intent icons limits the player's freedom when choosing the lines, as they force a specific interpretation of that line onto the player.

Perhaps if the intent icons were optional, but that would require that the existence of the intent icons not affect how the lines are written, and of course they would.  Just as the voiced PC and dialogue wheel are affecting how DA2 is written.

[Sigil_Beguiler123]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Nighteye2 wrote...

There is: full text + intent icons.

I insist that having intent icons limits the player's freedom when choosing the lines, as they force a specific interpretation of that line onto the player.

Perhaps if the intent icons were optional, but that would require that the existence of the intent icons not affect how the lines are written, and of course they would.  Just as the voiced PC and dialogue wheel are affecting how DA2 is written.

I don't really see how intent icons limit player's freedom. It to me at least simply more clearly demonstrates the emotion/intent behind the piece of text you are choosing. After all that intent will be showcased none the less after you pick the text whether there is that symbol or not. The symbol simply gives you a head's up. After all it isn't like our personal interpretation of that line is known by the writer who is the one that chooses how the intent of the line is interpreted by the NPCs.

[soteria]

UpsettingShorts wrote...

I'm not sure there's going to be a "correct." It'll end up coming down to something else like expectations and approach, like so many other polarizing topics 'round these parts.

I agree. I approached many lines with more curiosity than trepidation. In many cases I would leave a dialogue wondering, "Hmm, that was door #2. What was behind door #1?" I did have a concept of the character I was trying to RP, but it was loosely defined, such as "this character is ruthless when it comes to getting the job done, but is basically honest and is not xenophobic." Obviously, to come up with a set of standards like that I had to get an feel for the type of choices I would be making.

It's consistent though. You don't often read people say, "Sometimes Shepard acted as expected, other times he didn't." It's either 100% "misleading random paraphrases suck" or 100% "lolwut my Shepard was fine I don't see the problem."

Well, you can add one more person to the list of people who say, "Sometimes Shepard acted as expected, other times she didn't." I remember being surprised a few dozen times over the course of the game, and more times when I just didn't know what to expect and had to click to find out. That was more-or-less ok, though, since ultimately what I was interested in was the story, not strictly RPing a certain character.

[Xewaka]

Sigil_Beguiler123 wrote...

I don't really see how intent icons limit player's freedom. It to me at least simply more clearly demonstrates the emotion/intent behind the piece of text you are choosing. After all that intent will be showcased none the less after you pick the text whether there is that symbol or not. The symbol simply gives you a head's up. After all it isn't like our personal interpretation of that line is known by the writer who is the one that chooses how the intent of the line is interpreted by the NPCs.

Because it denotes an emotion/intent. Raw text allows you to add your own emotion/intent to your word choice.

[maxernst]

Xewaka wrote...

Sigil_Beguiler123 wrote...

I don't really see how intent icons limit player's freedom. It to me at least simply more clearly demonstrates the emotion/intent behind the piece of text you are choosing. After all that intent will be showcased none the less after you pick the text whether there is that symbol or not. The symbol simply gives you a head's up. After all it isn't like our personal interpretation of that line is known by the writer who is the one that chooses how the intent of the line is interpreted by the NPCs.

Because it denotes an emotion/intent. Raw text allows you to add your own emotion/intent to your word choice.

It would be great is if you had a choice of intent options with the same text..but that runs into an awful lot of additional animation and voice acting.

[Xewaka]

maxernst wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

Sigil_Beguiler123 wrote...

I don't really see how intent icons limit player's freedom. It to me at least simply more clearly demonstrates the emotion/intent behind the piece of text you are choosing. After all that intent will be showcased none the less after you pick the text whether there is that symbol or not. The symbol simply gives you a head's up. After all it isn't like our personal interpretation of that line is known by the writer who is the one that chooses how the intent of the line is interpreted by the NPCs.

Because it denotes an emotion/intent. Raw text allows you to add your own emotion/intent to your word choice.

It would be great is if you had a choice of intent options with the same text..but that runs into an awful lot of additional animation and voice acting.

Only if you add voice acting to the main character.

[Sigil_Beguiler123]

Xewaka wrote...

Sigil_Beguiler123 wrote...

I don't really see how intent icons limit player's freedom. It to me at least simply more clearly demonstrates the emotion/intent behind the piece of text you are choosing. After all that intent will be showcased none the less after you pick the text whether there is that symbol or not. The symbol simply gives you a head's up. After all it isn't like our personal interpretation of that line is known by the writer who is the one that chooses how the intent of the line is interpreted by the NPCs.

Because it denotes an emotion/intent. Raw text allows you to add your own emotion/intent to your word choice.

What happens though when the emotion/intent you add conflicts with what is shown to be happening after you pick the option? For instance you pick something viewing it as sincere but the NPC reacts like you said it in a sarcastic tone. 

On a general note, I swear I remember there being some mention with DA2 that your choices in dialogue/how you treat others reflects in how dialogue is spoken. Like a sarcastic character has more sarcastic tone to a piece of dialogue then another character who is say more sincere.

[maxernst]

Sigil_Beguiler123 wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

Sigil_Beguiler123 wrote...

I don't really see how intent icons limit player's freedom. It to me at least simply more clearly demonstrates the emotion/intent behind the piece of text you are choosing. After all that intent will be showcased none the less after you pick the text whether there is that symbol or not. The symbol simply gives you a head's up. After all it isn't like our personal interpretation of that line is known by the writer who is the one that chooses how the intent of the line is interpreted by the NPCs.

Because it denotes an emotion/intent. Raw text allows you to add your own emotion/intent to your word choice.

What happens though when the emotion/intent you add conflicts with what is shown to be happening after you pick the option? For instance you pick something viewing it as sincere but the NPC reacts like you said it in a sarcastic tone. 

On a general note, I swear I remember there being some mention with DA2 that your choices in dialogue/how you treat others reflects in how dialogue is spoken. Like a sarcastic character has more sarcastic tone to a piece of dialogue then another character who is say more sincere.

Yes, I remember seeing that as well...it sounds good in theory, but it could be awful in practice.  I guess we'll see.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Sigil_Beguiler123 wrote...

What happens though when the emotion/intent you add conflicts with what is shown to be happening after you pick the option? For instance you pick something viewing it as sincere but the NPC reacts like you said it in a sarcastic tone.

Then the NPC is wrong.

Does no one ever misread your tone?  And if they do, do you suddenly wonder if maybe you didn't say what you said the way you heard yourself say it?

Of course not.  When you speak, you select a tone, and you know what that tone is.  When someone responds to you, you interpret that response given your knowledge of what you said and how you said it.  You don't decide after the fact that you said it somehow differently.

The game is no different.  Why would it be?

[Sylvius the Mad]

maxernst wrote...

Sigil_Beguiler123 wrote...

On a general note, I swear I remember there being some mention with DA2 that your choices in dialogue/how you treat others reflects in how dialogue is spoken. Like a sarcastic character has more sarcastic tone to a piece of dialogue then another character who is say more sincere.

Yes, I remember seeing that as well...it sounds good in theory, but it could be awful in practice.  I guess we'll see.

There are two types of dialogue choices in DA2.  Flavour choices, where you're choosing not so much what to do but how to do it (and talk about it) - and these choices featue the intent icon - create a pattern of behaviour for the game to track.  So when you come to Action choices, where you're not asked to choose tone, the delivery of the voiced line is determined by your predominant tone over previous choices.

I see no problem with this, beyond the existence of the tone icon in the first place.

[Maria Caliban]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Does no one ever misread your tone?  And if they do, do you suddenly wonder if maybe you didn't say what you said the way you heard yourself say it?

Yes, I find myself wondering this.

[Sigil_Beguiler123]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Does no one ever misread your tone?  And if they do, do you suddenly wonder if maybe you didn't say what you said the way you heard yourself say it?

Yes, I find myself wondering this.

Yup, I have found myself thinking exactly that before. Especially during a very animated discussion, less time to think about what you are saying (actually one other reason I like paraphrasing, quicker dialogue).

I think part of the differences is how one views the game. For myself it is a narrative, things like intent symbols give me extra hints/control of this narrative. It is a story I am playing through. For you Sylvius I am assuming you view it more as you in that world proper.

[maxernst]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

maxernst wrote...

Sigil_Beguiler123 wrote...

On a general note, I swear I remember there being some mention with DA2 that your choices in dialogue/how you treat others reflects in how dialogue is spoken. Like a sarcastic character has more sarcastic tone to a piece of dialogue then another character who is say more sincere.

Yes, I remember seeing that as well...it sounds good in theory, but it could be awful in practice.  I guess we'll see.

There are two types of dialogue choices in DA2.  Flavour choices, where you're choosing not so much what to do but how to do it (and talk about it) - and these choices featue the intent icon - create a pattern of behaviour for the game to track.  So when you come to Action choices, where you're not asked to choose tone, the delivery of the voiced line is determined by your predominant tone over previous choices.

I see no problem with this, beyond the existence of the tone icon in the first place.

It's the behavior pattern tracking I'm uncomfortable with.  I really dislike the binary paragon/renegade system in the Mass Effect games.  I don't like the way it conflates the nice and the good.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

As I understand acting, I don't think Mass Effect allowed it.

To act, you need to have intimate knowledge of your character, and ME didn't offer any.

Here is where we are going to have to disagree. The amount of knowledge required to be able to act as a particular character depends on the actor.

To me, all that is relevant in acting is the personality. Insofar as I can get a good account of the personality of the character, that is sufficient to act as that character.

To act, you need to have some idea what your character is trying to schieve (for internal or external reasons), and ME wouldn't tell you that.

I assume you mean achieve.

I disagree. To act, all you would need to know is how this particular person would act in a particular situation. 

Let us take the situation with Fisk. All I would need to predict Shepard's response is knowledge of what his atittude is toward criminals and what his disposition toward aggressive behaviour is. 

Sylvius the Mad wrote.
When in conversation, what are you
worried about?  What specific aspect of expression and interpretation
concerns you?

To me, it is always what broad effect I
want to have happen in the world.

So long as I get the outcome I want, how I get that outcome is irrelevant. So it does not matter how I say things; it only matters that the things I say do what I want.

In the real world, this requires that I pay some attention to what I say because to some degree, how I word things will lead to different effects.

In a game, this requires I appreciate what consequences would follow from each dialogue option.

If your answer to those questions differs from mine (or if you think
those are silly questions), then we'll probably read the paraphrased
options very differently.  The paraphrases need to reduce the relevant
content of the full line down to a short phrase, but that guarantees a
problem when the players honestly disagree about what the relevant
content of the line was.

The question, to me, is does the paraphrase let you know what, broadly speaking, the PC will do. If yes, then the paraphrase is effective.

The silent VO is much harder to figure out sometimes, because it is not always clear when a choice involves an action or not.

The dialogue wheel is much better at this, because you know the right hand choices may always lead to outcomes that will change the current state of affairs, but the invesitigate options will not. This degree of situational control is very important.

In ME, though, there was no way to know whether any option on the wheel
would avoid making assertions, and if making assertions was the
specific thing you wanted to avoid doing, that's a big problem.

I think part of the issue is your very guarded approach to conversations. Most people do not consider conversation to be as, for lack of a better word, combatative as you do.

vallore wrote...
This puzzles me somewhat as I genuinely
fail to understand how you achieve greater
closeness to Sheppard.

in
my case, to achieve psychological closeness, I find necessary to
have an a
priori understanding of the thoughts and emotions of said
character, before
being able to translate it in the actions and words
the character is going to
take, (within the limitations imposed by
the game).

To begin with, the precise words a character says something are, to me, only marginally relevant to the character. Style of speaking is largely a joint product of background and (potentially) personality, and one is always determined for you (the background) and the other you are free (within limits) to manipulate.

What Shepard says is no more or less likely to be representative of what my character would have ideally said than what the silent Warden would say. 

For me, to achieve psychological closeness, I require three conditions both of which broadly satisfy a sense of ownership. The first is apperance; I need the character to have an apperance I can identify with. This almost always means I need customizability. In JE and KoTOR it hurt my connection to the PC greatly that there was no possible apperance I found aesthetically acceptable available. The second is control over outcomes: I need to be able to decide how the character affects the world around them and have the world recognize this.

This is where silent VO fails for me, and PC VO succeeds. A voiced character allows for much more dynamic scripting. I reject that freedom as fans of silent VO believe (i.e. control over delivery) is ever possible. What PC VO adds is the ability to see the PC interact with the world and to have the NPCs react to these precise actions, as if the PC was a real person. I want the game to react to my tone of voice or my emotions; but this requires that they be present in the game, and this requires PC VO.

The final condition is, and this is absolutely a case of preference, the ability to lead and to stand out as a leader. In games with silent VO, you are not allowed to do this for the sake of the dramatic narrative. Here is a good example:

If you are a human noble, when you reach Ostagar Cailan will ask about your father. All of your options essentially lead to Cailan saying "WTF?" and then asking Duncan what happened. This sort of thing absolutely destroys my connections to my characters, becuase they are always the sort of people that speak up and take charge. Silent VO, by matter of design, never allows this. Thus silent VO fails to give me a connection to the PC.

Now, in ME, due to the paraphrase system, I have the
necessary knowledge only a posteriori,
after Sheppard actually gives
his speech. Prior to it I can’t know what he will
actually say or do,
I merely guess and decide based in an imperfect knowledge
what may
or may not be revealed accurate about Sheppard’s motivations and
actions.
This creates a barrier between the character and me.

Whereas for me, it is sufficient that I know Shepard gives his speech and the broad outcome he wants to achieve with it.

Let's take the ME1 Normandy speech. It is trivially obvious it will be inspirational, and via the location on the dialogue wheel jointly with the paraphrase, we can infer broadly that the speech in the consistent top-right corner will praise cooperation and team effort, the middle will praise duty and sacrifice, and the bottom right will praise ruthless dedication.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Except the interrupt system was a
condensed version of everything that was wrong with Mass Effect's
dialogue wheel.
You didn't know what you were choosing, and you had
no idea what the alternatives were.

But it is an excellent example of the difference in predictive style. The renegade interrupts were always clear and apparent in terms of their effect: they focused on an object in the world, and based on the broad understanding of what it meant to be a renegade, jointly with the combatative context, it meant that we could predict Shepard would take some physically aggressive action as an assault on his enemies.

The paragon interrupt, in contrast, where much harder to gauge. They generally meant some positive or otherwise supportive action, but since the set of this behaviour is so much wider to possibly interpret compared to what is essentially physical assault, they're impossible to predict.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Then the NPC is wrong.

Does no one ever misread your tone?  And if they do, do you suddenly wonder if maybe you didn't say what you said the way you heard yourself say it?

And then the very next thing you do is point out that they are wrong. There is no metaphysical force that prevents you from attempting to correct a misunderstanding in our world, but in a game this is most certainly the case.

[Sylvius the Mad]

[quote]Sigil_Beguiler123 wrote...

I think part of the differences is how one views the game. For myself it is a narrative, things like intent symbols give me extra hints/control of this narrative. It is a story I am playing through. For you Sylvius I am assuming you view it more as you in that world proper.[/quote]
My character is unaware he is in a story. My gameplay choices pay no heed at all to the fact that I'm playing a game.  I find that to take full control of my character I'm required not to be aware that I'm playing a game.

Of course I know I'm playing a game, but the decision-making process that makes choices on behalf of the character is entirely unaware that that character and the world in which he lives isn't real.

I can't imagine how someone could play the game differently and still think he was roleplaying.
[quote]In Exile wrote...
[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Then the NPC is wrong.

Does no one ever misread your tone?  And if they do, do you suddenly wonder if maybe you didn't say what you said the way you heard yourself say it?[/quote]
And then the very next thing you do is point out that they are wrong.[/quote]
No, the very next thing you would do is point out that they are wrong.  I almost never do that, partly because I can't actually tell that they're wrong (I don't want them to read my tone, so I don't read theirs - I'm polite that way), and partly because their interpretation isn't usually important to me.

What matters is what I said and how defensible my position is.
[quote]In Exile wrote...

Here is where we are going to have to disagree. The amount of knowledge required to be able to act as a particular character depends on the actor.

To me, all that is relevant in acting is the personality. Insofar as I can get a good account of the personality of the character, that is sufficient to act as that character.[/quote]
But you can't know whether you have a "good account" of the personality unless you have perfect knowledge of it.  Otherwise there might be some relevant aspect of which you're unaware.
[quote]I disagree. To act, all you would need to know is how this particular person would act in a particular situation.[/quote]
And how do you know that with a character you didn't create and haven't had a chance to meet yet?
[quote]Let us take the situation with Fisk. All I would need to predict Shepard's response is knowledge of what his atittude is toward criminals and what his disposition toward aggressive behaviour is.[/quote]
Only very generally do you know these things, and only very generally can those things direct his action.

And, because the resulting actions from Shepard are very specific (and beyond your control), you're limited to a character who would do one of that exact list of things.
[quote]To me, it is always what broad effect I want to have happen in the world. [/quote]
The broad effect I want is for me to be right.

How do I choose dialogue options if I don't know their literal content?  Without that I can't judge their accuracy.
[quote]In the real world, this requires that I pay some attention to what I say because to some degree, how I word things will lead to different effects.

In a game, this requires I appreciate what consequences would follow from each dialogue option. [/quote]
Why are those different?
[quote]The question, to me, is does the paraphrase let you know what, broadly speaking, the PC will do. If yes, then the paraphrase is effective. [/quote]
I object to your use of the phrase "broadly speaking", for it suggests that there's some universal standard of relevance we can apply to the paraphrase to see if it accurately represents the relevant content of the uttered line or resultant action.

But there isn't.  You and I might consider different details from the resultant action relevant.  If the paraphrase only makes one of those details clear, one of us is guaranteed to be disappointed.

And BioWare can't know what details we think are relevant.  The only way to ensure that we get the relevant details is to provide us with all of the details.

I suggest that the dialogue works for you only if you happen to share a standard of relevance with the writers.
[quote]The silent VO is much harder to figure out sometimes, because it is not always clear when a choice involves an action or not.[/quote]
That's as much a failing with a silent PC as it is with a voiced PC.  If the option doesn't contain relevant details, then the player is going to be surprised.

This is my point.

DAO's use of cinematic conversations where the PC would take actions based on unclear dialogue options was a problem, and one I'd like to see fixed.  But the dialogue wheel and voiced PC (as implemented in ME) only serve to make the problem worse.

The game would have been better if the PC never took actions in conversations.
[quote]The dialogue wheel is much better at this, because you know the right hand choices may always lead to outcomes that will change the current state of affairs, but the invesitigate options will not. This degree of situational control is very important.[/quote]
This degree of situation control is very important to you.
[quote]I think part of the issue is your very guarded approach to conversations. Most people do not consider conversation to be as, for lack of a better word, combatative as you do. [/quote]
The word I used in another thread was "adversarial".

Conversation is adversarial.
[quote]To begin with, the precise words a character says something are, to me, only marginally relevant to the character. Style of speaking is largely a joint product of background and (potentially) personality, and one is always determined for you (the background) and the other you are free (within limits) to manipulate. [/quote]
Generally true, yes.  Style of speaking is generally a product of background and personality, but there's a conscious filter between that background and the actual utterance of lines.

Background need not have direct control of expression.  Insisting that it must reduces the speaker to a creature incapable of reasoned thought.  And I don't want to play a character seemingly lacking a frontal lobe.
[quote]What Shepard says is no more or less likely to be representative of what my character would have ideally said than what the silent Warden would say. [/quote]
I agree.  The difference is that the DAO interface allows you to choose lines to avoid saying entirely the wrong thing.
[quote]This is where silent VO fails for me, and PC VO succeeds. A voiced character allows for much more dynamic scripting. I reject that freedom as fans of silent VO believe (i.e. control over delivery) is ever possible. What PC VO adds is the ability to see the PC interact with the world and to have the NPCs react to these precise actions, as if the PC was a real person. I want the game to react to my tone of voice or my emotions; but this requires that they be present in the game, and this requires PC VO.[/quote]
And this happening in the game actually breaks the game's setting for me, since I don't think people can predictably react to tone, nor can they ever know my emotions without special mind-reading powers.

I insist that two dialogue options:

Yes, I will help.
[LIE] Yes, I will help.

should produce exactly the same reaction from the game, because the content of the line uttered is the same.  I honestly don't understand why those two options would ever have appeared together, since they should have exactly the same effect.
[quote]the ability to lead and to stand out as a leader.[/quote]
This is particular to your social preferences.  You're socially dominant (I still call that "being a bully"), so you want your characters to behave similarly.

But I don't always want that; I play a wider variety of characters than you do, it would appear.  So I only want my character to act like a bully when I'm actually playing a bully.
[quote]If you are a human noble, when you reach Ostagar Cailan will ask about your father. All of your options essentially lead to Cailan saying "WTF?" and then asking Duncan what happened. This sort of thing absolutely destroys my connections to my characters, becuase they are always the sort of people that speak up and take charge. Silent VO, by matter of design, never allows this. Thus silent VO fails to give me a connection to the PC.[/quote]
Given this, is it clear that one style of game allows one type of PC, while the other style allows the other type of character?

The ideal game would permit either type of character.
[quote]But it is an excellent example of the difference in predictive style. The renegade interrupts were always clear and apparent in terms of their effect: they focused on an object in the world, and based on the broad understanding of what it meant to be a renegade, jointly with the combatative context, it meant that we could predict Shepard would take some physically aggressive action as an assault on his enemies.[/quote]
Really?  Even the first time?

And was that good enough?  There are specific aggressive acts which might be appropriate, and otthers that would not.  Which is Shepard going to perform?

And you didn't address this, but the time-limit on the interrupts entirely prevented any deliberation of whether Shepard would do this thing (and that deliberation was even more necessary there, because the cues were so ambiguous).
[quote]The paragon interrupt, in contrast, where much harder to gauge. They generally meant some positive or otherwise supportive action, but since the set of this behaviour is so much wider to possibly interpret compared to what is essentially physical assault, they're impossible to predict.[/quote]
At least you agree with me there.

[errant_knight]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
"I insist that two dialogue options:

Yes, I will help.
[LIE] Yes, I will help.

should produce exactly the same reaction from the game, because the content of the line uttered is the same. I honestly don't understand why those two options would ever have appeared together, since they should have exactly the same effect."

------------------------------------

I have to disagree with you here. Whether it has the same effect should depend on both your cunning/coercion and the cunning of the character you're speaking to. Any time you lie, there should be a possibility that the character you're lying to will figure that out.

Modifié par errant_knight, 26 novembre 2010 - 05:40 .

[Maria Caliban]

In Exile wrote...


But it is an excellent example of the difference in predictive style. The renegade interrupts were always clear and apparent in terms of their effect: they focused on an object in the world, and based on the broad understanding of what it meant to be a renegade, jointly with the combatative context, it meant that we could predict Shepard would take some physically aggressive action as an assault on his enemies.

The paragon interrupt, in contrast, where much harder to gauge. They generally meant some positive or otherwise supportive action, but since the set of this behaviour is so much wider to possibly interpret compared to what is essentially physical assault, they're impossible to predict.

Personally, I found that the paragon interrupts were always easy to predict but was nervous about the renegade ones. Yes, I know Shep will be aggressive action if I pick one, but this can range from shouting at someone to punching them to shooting them in the head.

[bsbcaer]

Yellow Words wrote...

For me it's hard to form a solid opinion about the wheel. So far I've seen very little of it and I would like to see more examples of the paraphrases before I completely trash it, love it or feel nothing special about it. I look forward to seeing the paraphrases and hearing to voices they have chosen for the Hawkes.

The wheel in ME did cause me to reload a few times but I think the DA team has learned from ME and improved it even more.

Who writes the paraphrases? Is it the writers?

I believe it is the writers that write the paraphrases...I agree with your belief that the DA team has learned from the mistakes (perceived and actual) of the ME team and should be an improvement over the ME system

[Sylvius the Mad]

errant_knight wrote...

I have to disagree with you here. Whether it has the same effect should depend on both your cunning/coercion and the cunning of the character you're speaking to. Any time you lie, there should be a possibility that the character you're lying to will figure that out.

Based on what?  I said exactly the same thing.

And even if I accepted what you say, shouldn't I need to pass a cunning check both times?  Shouldn't there also be the chance that someone thinks I'm lying when I'm not?

[the_one_54321]

I would hope that there isn't really a need to explain that when someone lies there is a chance that person being lied to perceives the lie. As for someone thinking you're lying when you're not, there's no need for a check, it would just be written into the dialog. There could be subsequent that that results from you trying to convince the person you are telling the truth.

[Ryzaki]

Oh god that annoyed me in Mass Effect. Why would Shepard lie and tell the truth in the same exact tone and use the same exact words. (I'm talking about Subject Zero's recruitment). That just...baffled me to be perfectly honest.

[finc.loki]

I find it great that they are 'voicing' your character now.

I hate the silent main protagonist among chatty NPC's it removes immersion.



Sorry but I do not "hear voices" in my head and I need and prefer a voiced character.



I also like that they are going more action orientated, it was stupid with auto attack and the really slow animations.



I never used the top down view, I prefer to fight in real-time too.

Much more fun, but to each his own, right.



I just hope the game will be about as long as the first DAO.

[In Exile]

[quote]In Exile wrote...
No, the very next thing you would do is point out that they are wrong.  I almost never do that, partly because I can't actually tell that they're wrong (I don't want them to read my tone, so I don't read theirs - I'm polite that way), and partly because their interpretation isn't usually important to me. [/quote]

What you're doing is actually very rude; you're intentionally misleading the other person. I wouldn't be surprised if the people are often upset with you in these situations.

That being said, yes, the standard is idiosyncratic, sure. But it makes my characters impossible. How can I roleplay, and how can I feel psychologically close to my character, if the character I want to create cannot exist within the game world, and has behaviour directly contradicted by on-screen content?

The effect of this implementation on my is identical to your concern over PC VO.

Moreover, your practice is incredibly confusing. If you don't want people to read your tone, you need to explicitly tell them so, since you have decided to behave by rules of conversation which simply are not widely accept, and are broadly speaking against not only social convention, but biological reality.

[quote]What matters is what I said and how defensible my position is.[/quote]

To you. It's important for you to add that it matters how defensible the position is to you, because you use a very unique standard of evidence, and you wouldn't care if you can convince others if your position so long as you can be convinced in your position.

[quote]In Exile wrote...

But you can't know whether you have a "good account" of the personality unless you have perfect knowledge of it.  Otherwise there might be some relevant aspect of which you're unaware. [/quote]

Sure you can. You're begging the question against me. It is just like you can have a "good account" of the physical world without perfect knowledge of it, or a "good account" of another person by having only imperfect knowledge of them.

Like we discussed in the other forum: it always come back to preponderance of evidence. So long as I can believe X about Shepard, accurately predict the broad effect of actions in the term (i.e. Shepard will be angry here, violent there, heroic here), then that is sufficient to have a good understanding of the person.

Very rarely is the specific detail of what a person does relevant.

[quote]And how do you know that with a character you didn't create and haven't had a chance to meet yet? [/quote]

You obviously wouldn't. Once you met them, preponderance of evidence.

[quote]Only very generally do you know these things, and only very generally can those things direct his action. [/quote]

Right. I am not seeing a problem with this. Again, I don't have your standard of certainty.

Only very generally do I know the subatomic structure of the world (unobservable physical entities are incredibly complicated concepts) but I have very good reasons to believe that an electron behaves as described by the current laws of physics, even if those laws may be altered (even unrecognizably) in the future.

[quote]And, because the resulting actions from Shepard are very specific (and beyond your control), you're limited to a character who would do one of that exact list of things. [/quote]

You're begging the question against me. Once again: I outright reject that the detail of actions beyond a certain point matters.

Let us take this situation: suppose I can smoke a cigar in my room, or at my desk, or with my friends, or after my class. Each is part of a causal chain that will lead to my dying of lung cancer in Vancounver, or liver failure in Montreal, or a heart attack in Edmonton.

There are, quite frankly, millions if not billions of possible combinations of smoking and death that can occur. But that is only relevant if you posit that such details matter; we can simpyl say all smoking is poor, because it leads to death through some failure of health.

And that is the sort of general description I use when I play an RPG. So long as this general sort of causal effect is met, and I can predict it, I am happy.

Were I to use your standard, a silent VO game would be as frustrating and impossible as a PC VO game. My PC would never carrry a knife and cut throats - were I to care about this level of specificity, beyond Dragon Age being broken for me because of the inability to correct misunderstandings, it would be broken because of the spontaenous and incoherent instances of knife murder.

[quote]The broad effect I want is for me to be right.[/quote]

Er, what?

[quote]How do I choose dialogue options if I don't know their literal content?  Without that I can't judge their accuracy.[/quote]

Their literal content is only tangentially related to their accuracy.

We come right back to pragmatics.

I will come over right now.

I will come over right now.

I will come over right now.

Three distinct ideas. Three distinct statements, appreheneding three different potential styles of emphasis, which three non-equivalent meanings.

Unless you are going to argue that at some level, minor differences (like differences in pragmatics) are not relevant to the accuracy of a statement, in which case

[quote]
Why are those different?[/quote]

Because in the game only a limited number of predetermined outcomes are possible, each scripted to a particular dialogue choice. I need to know which outcome is scripted to which choice to have control over the outcome.

In reality, I have a much finer level of control over situations.

[quote]I object to your use of the phrase "broadly speaking", for it suggests that there's some universal standard of relevance we can apply to the paraphrase to see if it accurately represents the relevant content of the uttered line or resultant action.[/quote]

There is a universally acceptable standard. It is freely available. You just reject it because it doesn't meet your threshold of evidence.

[quite]But there isn't.  You and I might consider different details from the resultant action relevant.  If the paraphrase only makes one of those details clear, one of us is guaranteed to be disappointed.[/quote]

Suppose a piece of software is designed for use in english speaking countries only. As a result of that, the interface is in english. A french native, who cannot speak or understand english, purchases the software. She then complains the software is poorly designed because she cannot understand it.

Is this a fair criticism? This is what you do. There is an available system to comprehend how the paraphrase works; it is actually quite similar to comprehending how social behaviour workin general but highly simplified because the number of possible outcomes and cues are greatly reduced.

Choosing to use a different standard does not mean the system has failed; it means you are being stubborn.

[quote]And BioWare can't know what details we think are relevant.  The only way to ensure that we get the relevant details is to provide us with all of the details. [/quote]

Not in the least. Logically exhaustive lists are automatic failure. There would be so much information to process infomration processing itself would be impossible. This is the problem of combinatorial explosion in machine learning, and precisely why information is left out. To make it possible to process and convey it in the first place.

The consequence of that is that we all need to decide on a system of interpretation. If one of us insists on using an idiosyncratic standard without making it freely known that standard is in use, it is not a failure of either communicaton as a whole or other people, but the person who insists on using the other standard.

Put another, if you drive on the wrong side of the street, it is not the legal system or the other drivers that are at fault for your accident.

[quote]I suggest that the dialogue works for you only if you happen to share a standard of relevance with the writers. [/quote]

Of course. And so does communication as a whole. Sharing a standard of relevance is the key to all comprehension. This is trivially true.

[quote]That's as much a failing with a silent PC as it is with a voiced PC.  If the option doesn't contain relevant details, then the player is going to be surprised.

This is my point.

DAO's use of cinematic conversations where the PC would take actions based on unclear dialogue options was a problem, and one I'd like to see fixed.  But the dialogue wheel and voiced PC (as implemented in ME) only serve to make the problem worse. [/quote]

The problem is not the cinematic style. The problem is that action is tied to dialogue. It does not work this way in the real world. I do no act a certain way because I say something. I say something and act a certain way. These are independent events. A game must treat the the same.

[quote]This degree of situation control is very important to you. [/quote]

Well, certainly. To me, and apparently a few others (like shorts). But the literal content of the phrase is only important to you, and other like-minded individuals.

This is par to of the source of our conflict.

[quote]The word I used in another thread was "adversarial".

Conversation is adversarial.[/quote]

It can be, but adversarial conversation is no longer about conveying information. If you are going to approach conversation in this way, it is always going to be the case you will not suceed in having the other person understand you fully; this is, if anything, a basic requirement of what you set out to do.

Complaining next that conversation and communicaton is impossible based on this is incoherent.

[quote]Generally true, yes.  Style of speaking is generally a product of background and personality, but there's a conscious filter between that background and the actual utterance of lines.[/quote]

Which requires a tremendous amount of conscious control that not everyone can exercise, and would be impossible to properly model in a game because altering how something was said would alter the effect it had in the world.

But then I object to your belief that the mere fact a game allows you to do someting is not equivalent with the claim that such a thing is possible.

Put another way, in mass effect it seems to be the case that a neutron and electron have magic powers. This actually contradicts

This is the same sort of thing as claiming that a thought experiment is not neccesarily proof of anything merely beacuse it can be constructed, because there can always be some logical contradiction the fallible person who constructed it missed.

[quote]Background need not have direct control of expression.  Insisting that it must reduces the speaker to a creature incapable of reasoned thought.  And I don't want to play a character seemingly lacking a frontal lobe. [/quote]

You very often want to violate biological reality. Your beliefs about cognition and self-determination are often at-odds with basic facts about the human brain, or human information processing.

[quote]I agree.  The difference is that the DAO interface allows you to choose lines to avoid saying entirely the wrong thing.[/quote]

No, it does not. 



What my character would have said, in this case, was that he had repelled a small darkspawn invasion in the kitchen or something similar, because sarcasm is often (if not always) the default of my characters. But such lines are impossible.

So were I to care about how a line was said, I would have to meta-game. Just as I have to do when there is a misunderstanding.

[quote]And this happening in the game actually breaks the game's setting for me, since I don't think people can predictably react to tone, nor can they ever know my emotions without special mind-reading powers.

I insist that two dialogue options:

Yes, I will help.
[LIE] Yes, I will help.

should produce exactly the same reaction from the game, because the content of the line uttered is the same.  I honestly don't understand why those two options would ever have appeared together, since they should have exactly the same effect. [/quote]

They are not the same. For the sake of convenience I link to an entirely non-scientific website, but it does a fair job of outlining the behavioural and tone differences of lying and truth-telling: http://members.tripo...ation/id25.htm.

That you insist people cannot reliably read tone (and how do you define this? always fail to read tone? succeed at a rate greater than chance? succeed 75% of the time?) is not proof that they cannot. It is only proof that you are using an improper description of reality.

We can demonstrate statistically that telling the truth and lying are not the same thing.

[quote]This is particular to your social preferences.  You're socially dominant (I still call that "being a bully"), so you want your characters to behave similarly.

But I don't always want that; I play a wider variety of characters than you do, it would appear.  So I only want my character to act like a bully when I'm actually playing a bully. [/quote]

A person who wants to stand out is not the same thing as a bully. A bully is someone who would verbally berate another person; I wouldn't dare to do such a thing. Someone who speaks their mind more often, and who is inclined to be the centre of attention, is most certainly not a bully.

Not to mention that it does not matter - I was asked why I felt much closer to Shepard. The answer is because Shepard is much closer to the character that I want.

[quote]Given this, is it clear that one style of game allows one type of PC, while the other style allows the other type of character?

The ideal game would permit either type of character. [/quote]

The sort of features that allow for one style make it difficult for the other. At least, as Bioware chooses to design their games.

[quote]Really?  Even the first time?[/quote]

Yeah.

[quote]And was that good enough?  There are specific aggressive acts which might be appropriate, and otthers that would not.  Which is Shepard going to perform?[/quote]

What do you mean? Let me take three scenarios that I recall:

Samara recruiment, Thane Recruitment, and Mordin Loyalty.

In the Samara recruitment mission you meet the Eclipse recruit who appears to be reaching for her weapon - a renegade interrupt appears. It seems obvious to me that the reacton there is to shoot her.

In the Thane mission, you are speaking to the guard near the window and the height. Shepard looks behind the guard to the window, and then the camera focuses on his chest. Rather clear that the person will enjoy some flying.

Finally, with he Loyalty mission, you have the Krogan speaking angrily at you and threatening you, and you see a pipe underneath him and the renegade interrupt. Rather apparent you will be shooting the pipe.

[quote]And you didn't address this, but the time-limit on the interrupts entirely prevented any deliberation of whether Shepard would do this thing (and that deliberation was even more necessary there, because the cues were so ambiguous).[/quote]

You had several seconds. That's more than enough time to consider different outcomes. But this may be idiosyncratic, because I am a fast thinker.

[quote]At least you agree with me there.[/quote]

The hug interrupt wasn't even the worst of them. That thing with the quarian on on the Citadel? Yelling angrily at the security guard and the volus? It look to me like Shepard just lost his mind.

[In Exile]

Maria Caliban wrote...
Personally, I found that the paragon interrupts were always easy to predict but was nervous about the renegade ones. Yes, I know Shep will be aggressive action if I pick one, but this can range from shouting at someone to punching them to shooting them in the head.

But you can't even know what the paragon interrupts do. We have the citadel case I mentioned, where Shepard just flips out at the volus and CSEC officer. We have hug interrupt, which is honestly the best of the lot (because the context makes it clear you're going to console someone).

The only good paragon choices are "action" paragon choices like disarming a target, because the context will narrow your behaviour enough so you're not frothing at the mouth.