885 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

[quote]In Exile wrote...

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.[/quote]
I'm treating others as I would like to be treated.  Are we not taught that this is polite behaviour?

And anyway, I can't correct misunderstandings because the information I have suggesting that a misunderstanding has occured doesn't satisfy my standard of evidence.  I can't tell if someone has misunderstood me.

[quote]Moreover, your practice is incredibly confusing. If you don't want people to read your tone, you need to explicitly tell them so[/quote]
I've tried that.  It doesn't make any difference.
[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]
If my position is laid out for them to see, either they'll follow the logic or they won't, and there's nothing I can do about that.

[quote]Very rarely is the specific detail of what a person does relevant.[/quote]
Unless it happens to contradict your general understanding, which is entirely possible.

[quote]You obviously wouldn't.[/quote]
And yet you're expected to make decisions on his behalf, despite knowing almost nothing about his personality.

This is nothing but an error-generator.
[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]
Your physics example is one backed by a mountain of empirical data.  But what you're describing in-game has a tiny amount of empirical data behind it, unless you're assuming some sort of universal set of characteristics for all people (which is obviously untrue).

[quote]You're begging the question against me. Once again: I outright reject that the detail of actions beyond a certain point matters. [/quote]
What is that point?

[quote]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]
It is.

[quote]Er, what? [/quote]
That's the outcome I choose.  I want the opinions I hold to be true actually to be true.

But that breaks your system.  You can only want certain types of outcomes - all external to your character - for your approach to work.
[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[/quote]
Yes, that's exactly what I was going to do.

All three of those statements assert that the speaker will do something in particular, and do it immediately.  The emphasis within the line only serves to draw attention to a specific aspect of the remark, perhaps suggesting that the speaker feels that the emphasised aspect is the portion of the remark which is news to the listener.

But since the speaker can't actually know that, I don't see why it would matter.  The meaning of the line is no 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]
You have a fine level of control over your actions and expressions, but if the outcomes rely on the behaviour of other people then you can't "control" those in the real world either.

[quote]There is a universally acceptable standard. It is freely available.[/quote]
Is there?

Show it to me.  i'd love to see it.

[quote]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.[/quote]
You say that as if the standard "everyone" uses is universally known. 

[quote]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]
The legal system is universally known, or at least freely available for everyone to learn.

The other is not.  Unless you can show it to me.

[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]
So what is this standard?

[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]
I agree entirely.  I've been asking for this for years - ever since BioWare abandoned this design in an effort to "tell better stories".

[quote]It can be, but adversarial conversation is no longer about conveying information.[/quote]
It's about conveying the information you want to convey, and not conveying information you would rather not.

[quote]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.[/quote]
Only of by "understand you fully" you mean that they'll discern some internal mental or emotional state.  If that's what you're saying, then yes, I agree, but that's not my objective (and I still don't see how it could reasonably be yours).  My goal is to convey the literal content of my remarks, and this is an area where there is a universally accepted and freely available guide to interpretation.
[quoteBut 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. [/quote]
Your willingness to contradict the game to suit your own preferences continues to astound me.

[quote]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]
A bit off-topic, but I understand this is actually the_one's position on thought experiments.

[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]
We don't all think about things the same way, despite your explicit assertions to the contrary.

I was reading an entertaining study recently about tracking brain activity when describing emotions.  In many people, this coincides with increased activity in the temporal lobe - the emotion centre.  But in psychopaths, describing emotion uses primarily the frontal lobe - the reasoning centre.

You know that not everyone's brain works the same way, and yet you continue to insist that they do.

And I don't really want to talk about psychopathy - I just changed it up because I usually use autism as my example of neurodiversity.

[quote]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. [/quote]
That's evidence that the game won't always allow you to say the right thing.  Not that it won't allow you to avoid saying the wrong thing.

You appear to have a much broader definition of wrong than I do.

[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.[/quote]
But for that to matter, that requires that you (the player) aren't in cointrol of your character's behaviour.

And again, the example I offered creates a problem if my character hasn't yet decided whether he will help.  And couldn't we simply meta-game and always choose the "truthful" option to avoid the falsehood test?

[quote]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.[/quote]
I base this on people's inability to describe the process by which they read tone.

If I could examine the process, then I could determine its accuracy.  But the process is being hidden from me.

[quote]We can demonstrate statistically that telling the truth and lying are not the same thing. [/quote]
Generally, no.  Specifically?  Maybe.

I'd like greater control over my character than to just group him together with typical behaviour.  Isn't the whole point of playing a hero that he is atypical?

[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.[/quote]
You're driving conversations, forcing others to the fringes of the group.

It's not meaningfully different from bullying.

[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]
Certainly as BioWare currently chooses to design their games.

I'm not confident this was always true, and I'd say it certainly wasn't true in the CRPGs that pre-date BioWare.
[quote]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]
"It seems obvious" doesn't help me.  What standard did you use to determine these, and did it work quickly enough given the time limit?

I didn't find I had nearly enough time to consider what was likely to occur.

[quote]You had several seconds. That's more than enough time to consider different outcomes.[/quote]
That's enough time to consider different outcomes.  It's not enough time to assemble a list of those possible outcomes and then consider them.

[quote]But this may be idiosyncratic, because I am a fast thinker.[/quote]
I found the interrupt system stressful.  Stress heightens memory, but it impedes problem-solving.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 26 novembre 2010 - 06:34 .

[soteria]

Sylvius, sometimes I wonder if you're real. I'm pretty sure I'd have to meet you to be convinced you're not secretly the world's cleverest troll, actually, because I always wonder.

[darrylzero]

He wouldn't have to be a troll. It could be a role he is playing, maybe even one among many. Don't get me wrong -- Sylvius brings a lot to these conversations, and he's on the short list of posters I would really miss if he decided to quit these forums. But there is something a little odd about the combination of his meticulous, rigid logic and the diverse cast of characters, with complicated motivations and flaws, that he writes about from time to time. They have display a rich understanding of how to live in the social world that is explicitly denied at times by Sylvius the forum poster.



Now, I am happy to believe that he is as he presents himself to be, but how could we ever entirely shake the idea that Sylvius is a character that someone tries on for these forums? Since I assume that is not the case, what I mostly find it is interesting. Is it the desire to try on such diverse roles (indeed what appears from afar to be a genuine passion for doing so) that creates a need for such a fundamental concern for logical consistency, or the reverse?

[In Exile]

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I'm treating others as I would like to be treated.  Are we not taught that this is polite behaviour?[/quote]

The implied caveat to that is that the other person can comprehend how you would like to be treated. If there is some convention available regarding how to communicate (and there is, and it is universally available, but we will get to that) and you do not respect it and never inform the other person you are, there is no reason to expect that they would be able to reciprocate any sort of behaviour.

The practical limitation, Sylvius, is that your view of conversation is very nuanced and philosophically complex, and most people will lack the knowledge if not the ability to understand it. Expect them to be able to do so is unfair on your behalf.

[quote]And anyway, I can't correct misunderstandings because the information I have suggesting that a misunderstanding has occured doesn't satisfy my standard of evidence.  I can't tell if someone has misunderstood me. [/quote]

Then how can you make the clam that in a video-game, misunderstand is possible? This claim seems to contradict your view that misunderstanding is possible.

Once again: if you take the position that it is impossible to know whether or not something is true or false, then it must follow that it is impossible for you to act on the belief that it is true or false unless you assume it to be true or false. If you assume it to be true or false then you are simply granting my standard of evidence, and if you don't, I don't see how you can take reasoned action, since you never have evidence for any state of affairs.

[quote]I've tried that.  It doesn't make any difference.[/quote]

What have you tried, specifically?

[quote]If my position is laid out for them to see, either they'll follow the logic or they won't, and there's nothing I can do about that.[/quote]

The problem with this is that your position is not laid out for them to see at all. You are using an idiosyncratic standard of conversation using a different standard of evidence that leaves from different and incompatible axioms. You do not make any of this informaton freely available.

To then expect the other person to infer your position is unreasonable. This is the problem with your approach, Sylvius. You take your normative ought and consider it a universal is.

[quote]Unless it happens to contradict your general understanding, which is entirely possible. [/quote]

Well, certainly. Which is why I said it is very rarely relevant, and not outright irrelevant. Smoothing over differences is neccesary for classificaton. This is nominalism.


[quote]And yet you're expected to make decisions on his behalf, despite knowing almost nothing about his personality. [/quote]

And we are right back to begging the question. Once again, you may believe the standard of evidence is insufficient, but that says nothing about what I believe.

[quote]This is nothing but an error-generator. [/quote]

This is an empirical question. What my error rate is, and what acceptable error threshold I use are both up to me to decide. Expect an error rate of 0% is impossible. But an error rate of 5-6% is perfectly acceptable, and this is where preponderance of evidence comes in.

This is a foundational concept in science.

[quoteYour physics example is one backed by a mountain of empirical data.  But what you're describing in-game has a tiny amount of empirical data behind it, unless you're assuming some sort of universal set of characteristics for all people (which is obviously untrue). [/quote]

Why do you suppose I am speaking about physics today? Moreover, why do you suppose you know what threshold of empirical data I believe is sufficient? Thirdly, you are again beggining the question against me because you are (i) assuming I share your standard of certainty, and I don't and (ii) you continue to fail to appreciate that I make simplifying assumptions.

Most people, in most situations, are relevantly similar. This is, once again, a socially created category for the sake of more accurate predictions in the world. The relevant factor at play is a weighing of certainity versus error rate versus predictive precision. Once we reach a satisfactory balance of the three, we can make decisons.

A game makes simplifying assumptions for us. The world has tremendous empirical evidence that justifies supposing people are relevantly similar.

[quote]What is that point?[/quote]

Beyond the point where you can predict behaviour in general terms.

[quote]Er, what?
That's the outcome I choose.  I want the opinions I hold to be true actually to be true. [/quote]

By your own standard that is impossible. You can never know any of the opinions you hold are actually true.

[quote]But that breaks your system.  You can only want certain types of outcomes - all external to your character - for your approach to work. [/quote]

Okay? I don't understand your claim. That our approaches are incompatible?

[quote]Yes, that's exactly what I was going to do.

All three of those statements assert that the speaker will do something in particular, and do it immediately.  [/quote]

And now you are right back to describing behaviour in general terms with a focus on factors external to the character.

[quote]The emphasis within the line only serves to draw attention to a specific aspect of the remark, perhaps suggesting that the speaker feels that the emphasised aspect is the portion of the remark which is news to the listener. [/quote]

No; by changing the pragmatic of the sentence you change the meaning of the sentence. It draws reference to external context factors which modify the exact claim made by phrase.

[quote]But since the speaker can't actually know that, I don't see why it would matter.  The meaning of the line is no different. [/quote]

And now you are right back to begging the question. You cannot counter my claim that linguistic pragmatics illustrate that meaning is influenced by tone with the counterpoint that tone is unknowable. You have to prove this claim.

[quote]You have a fine level of control over your actions and expressions, but if the outcomes rely on the behaviour of other people then you can't "control" those in the real world either. [/quote]

Of course you can. You can control them as well as you can control a chemical reaction, or any other situation where the precise actions that you take influence the kinds of responses available. So long as you have some reasonable predictive mechanism (and it need not be 100% accurate) you can control a situation.

Not to mention that you do not have a fine level of control over your actions or your expressions. I would reccomend you look into semantic priming. External content can modify emotional state, speech and belief without conscious awareness on the part of individuals.


[quote]Is there?

Show it to me.  i'd love to see it. [/quote]

Social convention.

[quote]You say that as if the standard "everyone" uses is universally known.  [/quote]

Social convention is freely available and accesible.


[quote]The legal system is universally known, or at least freely available for everyone to learn. [/quote]

Not at all. Whether or not something is a law is a complicated question, and in jurisprudence it can often be the case that someone raises a challenge to an existing law that seems to fail to cover a particular instance. To claim otherwise is to claim the legal system is exhaustive, which is wrong.

And on that point, Jules Coleman has a good account of judicial convention which I think serves as a good proxy for social convention, since the ways in which judges must deal with discretionary legal cases is no different from resolving social ambiguity.

[quote]The other is not.  Unless you can show it to me. [/quote]

The first isn't, and the other isn't significantly different (minus the fact that it is not written, but freely accesible in behaviour). Which, as it turns out, is Wittgenstein's claim re: language.

[quote]So what is this standard?[/quote]

Again, whatever social convention we have available in a given society.

[quote]It's about conveying the information you want to convey, and not conveying information you would rather not. [/quote]

Most of the time, communication isn't about any of these things. Small talk, and what have you.

[quote]Only of by "understand you fully" you mean that they'll discern some internal mental or emotional state.  If that's what you're saying, then yes, I agree, but that's not my objective (and I still don't see how it could reasonably be yours).  My goal is to convey the literal content of my remarks, and this is an area where there is a universally accepted and freely available guide to interpretation. [/quote]

You're always going to fail at conveying the literal content of your remarks. For one, human memory isn't good enough to story a full sentence, much less several sentences that would have to be stored in their original form for the literal content to even be available for analysis. This might be possible in writing, but it is impossible in speech.

Secondly, it requires that the other person be aware that you are expecting this from them; otherwise they collect all sort of empirical information that to them is relevant (because their lingustic theory names it eviddence) and to you is noise (because such is your linguistic theory).

You are once again asking from things that, from the process of information processing, are impossible.

[quote]Your willingness to contradict the game to suit your own preferences continues to astound me. [/quote]

I don't contradict the game. It is merely that certain conclusions we can draw from the game are logically inconsistent given the premises we are supposed to have. It is no different than a person who believes in helicentrism and appeals to Ptolemic astronomy. We have good empirical (and theoretical) reasons to believe the model is wrong, and any conclusion that follows from it is wrong.

The mere fact you can make the claim that some piece of the game is consistent with your beliefs is no different than a geocentrist making the claim some piece of empiricl evidence is conssitent with his.


[quote]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]
A bit off-topic, but I understand this is actually the_one's position on thought experiments.

[quote]We don't all think about things the same way, despite your explicit assertions to the contrary. [/quote]

We all think in fundamentally the same way, but once again, you are using your same and my same to mean the same thing (horribly constructed sentence, sorry for this) and that's just not the case. There most certainly are individual differences in cognition; but these are at a much higher level of differentiation that basic information processing constraints on the brain.

Let me put it this way: an Acer laptop and a 2003 dell laptop and a Ipad are not the same kind of electronic device. There are many features that do not overlap. Yet they are all constrainted by physical rules, such as the behaviour of electriicty.

An entity that appears identical at one level of analysis can be differentiated at another - this does not mean very much, and your insistence on using a different level of analysis does not prove your point.

[quote]I was reading an entertaining study recently about tracking brain activity when describing emotions.  In many people, this coincides with increased activity in the temporal lobe - the emotion centre.  But in psychopaths, describing emotion uses primarily the frontal lobe - the reasoning centre. [/quote]

The prevalence of psychopathy is anywhere between 0.2% and 2% depending on the study you look at. To reject a simplifying assumption on those grounds is uncalled for.

[quote]You know that not everyone's brain works the same way, and yet you continue to insist that they do. [/quote]

Once again: at one level of analysis, i.e. the information processing level, the brain works largely in similar ways. There are exceptions to this (noise) because scentific categories (and categories in general) do not exist. Making no simplifying assumptions about individuals (i.e. the mere fact two entities look like human males in no way provides me sufficient reason to believe they are human males) only leads to behavioural paralysis.

Please, stop applying your standards of evidence, your normative standards of belief, and your views on certainty to me. I do not believe in the same things you do. Showing me that leaving from your axioms and trying to reach my conclusions is incoherent is not a counter-argument.

[quote]That's evidence that the game won't always allow you to say the right thing.  Not that it won't allow you to avoid saying the wrong thing.

You appear to have a much broader definition of wrong than I do. [/quote]

But those are all the wrong thing. None are things my character would say. No different than your reaction to spoken VO.

[quote]But for that to matter, that requires that you (the player) aren't in cointrol of your character's behaviour. [/quote]

Ah, here we go. You, the individual human being, are not in control of your behaviour to the extent you believe you are. Non-verbal cues are an example of the sort of thing you do not consciously control very well. You can attempt to train yourself to do so, but that merely involves changing habbit. At any point in time, the cognitive load of controlling your physical behaviour at that fine a level and speaking would (for most people) be impossible.

[quote]And again, the example I offered creates a problem if my character hasn't yet decided whether he will help.  And couldn't we simply meta-game and always choose the "truthful" option to avoid the falsehood test? [/quote]

Why would you meta-game? As for the fact your character has not decided to help - that is just a problem of game design. You do not have the option not to decide.

[quote]I base this on people's inability to describe the process by which they read tone. [/quote]

That's a poor standard. That's something is ineffable is not proof that the standard does not exist. A person might not give you an account of body language, but science can.

[qupte]If I could examine the process, then I could determine its accuracy.  But the process is being hidden from me. [/quote]

We can examine the process, and do. Behavioural coding in the lab. Quite simple.

[quote]Generally, no.  Specifically?  Maybe. [/quote]

We can, in principle, in both cases. In general we can simply group truth-tellers and liars as two different populations and correlate behaviours during telling the truth and lying. We can the see what a regression analaysis in terms of the loading of any one behavioural trait on lying.

In the specific case we would have to follow one individual for a very long time and record all possible behaviours when lying and telling the truth and then create an individual behavioural map.

There is nothing special about this at all. Or impossible.

[quote]I'd like greater control over my character than to just group him together with typical behaviour.  Isn't the whole point of playing a hero that he is atypical? [/quote]

Only if it is mentioned in the story. There may be some atypical hero who can fully control body language at any point, but this would need to be a specific gameplay feature it if violates any accepted standard of human behaviour. Suspension of disbelief works by asking us to ignore specific inconsistencies with reality.

[quote]You're driving conversations, forcing others to the fringes of the group.

It's not meaningfully different from bullying. [/quote]

Bullying is about humiliation and persecution. Simply put, in a conversation, if no one is willing to speak, then we either sit around and stare at each other or someone puts forward an idea. If someone has a particular belief, they ought to bring it up and defend it. I certainly don't yell or otherwise try and verbally berate (which I think are signs of bullying); but I will speak my mind when appropriate, and if others choose not to in an environment that allows them to do so, that's certainly not bullying.

[quote]"It seems obvious" doesn't help me.  What standard did you use to determine these, and did it work quickly enough given the time limit? [/quote]

Context. I had a framework of what renegade and paragon roughly meant, i.e. renegade (aggresive, violent and generally if not often murderous in hostile situations) and paragon (sacrificial, idealistic, and hesistant to take any life willingly). Asking me to describe it any clearer would be akin to asking me how I know that if we have p and p=>q we haave q, and I wouldn't know how to describe that inference either.

[quote]That's enough time to consider different outcomes.  It's not enough time to assemble a list of those possible outcomes and then consider them. [/quote]

Why would you assemble a list of possible outcomes? That's just a waste of time. And, in fact, a process that has absolutely no end. I can't understand how it's possible to look at a situation and not pick out the three most salient cases and then generally end up with the right answer.

[Sidney]

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.

...and the NPC's don't repsond to it. They respond as they are set to respond to a particular mood. When you tell Leli "I love shoes" there isn't a way to say it any way other than sincerely because that is her response <and you can now insert your Aspergers argument that people always misunderstand you in real life>.

This argument is disingenuous anyways since you people always gripe about how you can't manage basic reading comprehension of what/how Shep is gonna say something. Now you don't want any indicators?

[Nerevar-as]

Sidney 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.

...and the NPC's don't repsond to it. They respond as they are set to respond to a particular mood. When you tell Leli "I love shoes" there isn't a way to say it any way other than sincerely because that is her response .

This argument is disingenuous anyways since you people always gripe about how you can't manage basic reading comprehension of what/how Shep is gonna say something. Now you don't want any indicators?

This. It doesn´t matter the emotion in your head, the NPC will react to the emotion the writer put there. I´ve insulted Leliana and Morrigan more than once for being harsh when the text seemed joking, serious instead of ironic, and some more.

[ejoslin]

Nerevar-as wrote...

Sidney 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.

...and the NPC's don't repsond to it. They respond as they are set to respond to a particular mood. When you tell Leli "I love shoes" there isn't a way to say it any way other than sincerely because that is her response .

This argument is disingenuous anyways since you people always gripe about how you can't manage basic reading comprehension of what/how Shep is gonna say something. Now you don't want any indicators?

This. It doesn´t matter the emotion in your head, the NPC will react to the emotion the writer put there. I´ve insulted Leliana and Morrigan more than once for being harsh when the text seemed joking, serious instead of ironic, and some more.

But I can think of dialogs where they had a different feeling to them if I said the lines in a different way to myself, even though the npc's response was the same.  For instance, when Zevran offers the earring for the first time, you can be surprised, shocked, teasing, a bit taken aback -- they all work quite well, even though Zevran's responses for the most part are the same (slight differences in some trees).  If you turn it down, he ends up frustrated, but again, given the tone the warden is taking, it just gives the conversation an entirely different feeling.  His frustration can be caused by a few different things.

I find the warden's side of the dialog shapes the feel of the conversation as much as the NPC's.  

Modifié par ejoslin, 27 novembre 2010 - 03:35 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

[quote]In Exile wrote...

The implied caveat to that is that the other person can comprehend how you would like to be treated. If there is some convention available regarding how to communicate (and there is, and it is universally available, but we will get to that) and you do not respect it and never inform the other person you are, there is no reason to expect that they would be able to reciprocate any sort of behaviour.[/quote]
I don't recall any sort of promised positive outcome from this politeness rule.  Just that this is how one should choose social behaviour.
[quote]The practical limitation, Sylvius, is that your view of conversation is very nuanced and philosophically complex, and most people will lack the knowledge if not the ability to understand it. Expect them to be able to do so is unfair on your behalf.[/quote]
And yet somehow I lack either the knowledge or the ability to understand their view of conversation, so where does that leave us?
[quote]Then how can you make the clam that in a video-game, misunderstand is possible? This claim seems to contradict your view that misunderstanding is possible.[/quote]
You're using your standard of evidence.  Something is possible until it has been shown to be impossible.  The lack of evidence for misunderstanding tells us nothing about whether misunderstanding is possible.
[quote]Once again: if you take the position that it is impossible to know whether or not something is true or false, then it must follow that it is impossible for you to act on the belief that it is true or false unless you assume it to be true or false.[/quote]
Yes.
[quote]If you assume it to be true or false then you are simply granting my standard of evidence[/quote]
No.  Because I'm not allowing that this insufficient standard is adequate to inform knowlege or belief.  It's still arbitrary.
[quote]What have you tried, specifically?[/quote]
I've told certain people that my tone isn't informative, and when interpreting me they should refer only to the literal content of my remarks.

And yet, when they claim to have misunderstood me, they still point to tone as the reason why.  Me telling them to rules doesn't make any difference.

So instead I ask for their rules, but they never provide them.  Even when I offer to adapt to them - and in a two-person exchange, I see no reason why either position should be favoured over the other - they won't tell me what they need.
[quote]Well, certainly. Which is why I said it is very rarely relevant, and not outright irrelevant. Smoothing over differences is neccesary for classificaton. This is nominalism.[/quote]
It's sloppy.

Simplifying assumptions should be explicit.  How else can you expect anyone to know which assumptions you've used?
[quote]This is nothing but an error-generator.

This is an empirical question. What my error rate is, and what acceptable error threshold I use are both up to me to decide. Expect an error rate of 0% is impossible. But an error rate of 5-6% is perfectly acceptable, and this is where preponderance of evidence comes in.[/quote]
When role-playing, there are certain types of errors where my acceptable error rate is zero.  That's not going to change.  And I judge games based on their ability to approach an error rate of zero in these areas.

These new features consistently increase that error rate.
[quote]Most people, in most situations, are relevantly similar. This is, once again, a socially created category for the sake of more accurate predictions in the world.[/quote]
Okay, this is my basic objection to psychology as a field (sociology's even worse):

If a psychologist can make a prediction about people's behaviour with 98% accuracy, that doesn't mean that for any person I put in front of him he can predict 98% of that person's decisions.  What it means is that for 98% of people that I could put in front of them, he could predict their behaviour every time.

This means that 2% of the people completely fail to be described by him.  Psychology marginalises idiosyncrasy.

In a game, I would probably love it if the game would accommodate 98% of the decisions I want to make for any character I could possibly imagine.  But they don't.  What they do is allow for an even greater rate of success for a narrow scope of possible characters.  And that means that there are characters I can create that are completely failed by the game.

But unusual people are more interesting characters.  Roleplaying is a terrific testing ground for possible sets of beliefs and opinions.  If can take a character I design and play through a game finding out what sets of decisions she needs to make in order to remain internally consistent, that teaches me about beliefs generally.  It allows me to reduce sets of beliefs I encounter to a previously solved problem, as I've already tested that set (or a relevantly similar set) of beliefs in a game environment.

(I may have just answered darrylzero's question)

I explained to you before my opinion regarding the action/inaction dichotomy.  This is an opinion I reached through thought experiments, and roleplaying is basically one giant thought experiment.
[quote]Okay? I don't understand your claim. That our approaches are incompatible?[/quote]
My point is that your approach only works if you limit your set of desirable outcomes to things that are external to your character.  If your desired outcome is that your character be or do something in particular, your approachs fails you.
[quote]No; by changing the pragmatic of the sentence you change the meaning of the sentence. It draws reference to external context factors which modify the exact claim made by phrase. [/quote]
I honestly have no idea how those sentences might have different meanings.

Either you're completely wrong, or I just don't understand your example.
[quote]And now you are right back to begging the question. You cannot counter my claim that linguistic pragmatics illustrate that meaning is influenced by tone with the counterpoint that tone is unknowable. You have to prove this claim. [/quote]
I wasn't claiming that tone was unknowable.  I was claiming that the knowledge-level of the audience was unknowable to the speaker.

But since we appear to disagree about what the tone was actually doing in your example, this point is moot.
[quote]Of course you can. You can control them as well as you can control a chemical reaction, or any other situation where the precise actions that you take influence the kinds of responses available. So long as you have some reasonable predictive mechanism (and it need not be 100% accurate) you can control a situation.[/quote]
Prediction != control.

Prediction might be relevantly similar to control under many circumstances, but they are not the same thing.
[quote]Social convention is freely available and accesible.[/quote]
If that's true, where can I learn about it?  Where's the reference guide?

I don't think it is true.  I think that most of you all reach the same conclusions independently from each other because you're relevantly similar to one another.  And those who aren't just get left out in the cold.

This is also how I think empathy works.  And I've said so before.
[quote]Not at all. Whether or not something is a law is a complicated question, and in jurisprudence it can often be the case that someone raises a challenge to an existing law that seems to fail to cover a particular instance. To claim otherwise is to claim the legal system is exhaustive, which is wrong. [/quote]
I am strongly of the opinion that the legal system should be exhausitve, and where it is not exhaustive it is useless.
[quote]And on that point, Jules Coleman has a good account of judicial convention which I think serves as a good proxy for social convention, since the ways in which judges must deal with discretionary legal cases is no different from resolving social ambiguity. [/quote]
Finally, a reference guide.

Thank you.
[quote]You're always going to fail at conveying the literal content of your remarks. For one, human memory isn't good enough to story a full sentence, much less several sentences that would have to be stored in their original form for the literal content to even be available for analysis. This might be possible in writing, but it is impossible in speech. [/quote]
I've always said that the spoken language is but a poor limitation of the written language.

Much as I always want CRPGs to emulate table-top RPGs, I always want speech to emulate text.

This is why I prefer text in games.  It eliminates the middle-man.
[quote]The mere fact you can make the claim that some piece of the game is consistent with your beliefs is no different than a geocentrist making the claim some piece of empiricl evidence is conssitent with his. [/quote]
Absolutely.

But if playing from a geocentric position is more fun for me, and nothing in the game contradicts geocentrism, then why bother telling me that geocentrism is wrong?  Why would I care?  How would that even be relevant?
[quote]The prevalence of psychopathy is anywhere between 0.2% and 2% depending on the study you look at. To reject a simplifying assumption on those grounds is uncalled for. [/quote]
The simplifying assumption is unfair to those individuals it discounts.
[quote]Please, stop applying your standards of evidence, your normative standards of belief, and your views on certainty to me. I do not believe in the same things you do. Showing me that leaving from your axioms and trying to reach my conclusions is incoherent is not a counter-argument. [/quote]
It demonstrates the weakness of your position.

Behaviourial paralysis is often my objective in discussions like this.  I want people to stop believing unjustified things and give their approach more thought.  But they're not going to do that as long as their approach works for them (and it will as long as they can accept those assumptions blindly).
[quote]But those are all the wrong thing. None are things my character would say.[/quote]
In these circumnstances, how large is the set of things your character could say?

Your approach to interrupts makes me wonder if you settle on a specific behaviour, or a very narrow set of behaviours, and then you're annoyed when you can't do them.  Just as when your looking an an interrupt in ME2, you settle immediately on the outcome you think likely and jump to the conclusion (by my standard) that you're correct.

When I'm choosing dialogue options in a game, there's a vast set of possible lines my character could say without complaint from me, and a similarly vast set of possible lines my character cannot say without violating his personality.  When the options are presented to me, I simply sort them into the two groups, and that usually selects my option for me.

But you seem to want a very specific line or action, regardless of what the available options are.  You're very expression-driven.  You want your mental state always to drive your behaviour, so when it can't do that the game is broken for you.
[quote]In the specific case we would have to follow one individual for a very long time and record all possible behaviours when lying and telling the truth and then create an individual behavioural map.[/quote]
It's not really practical for most people, though.  You can't really do that for everyone you know.
[quote][quote]You're driving conversations, forcing others to the fringes of the group.

It's not meaningfully different from bullying. [/quote]
Bullying is about humiliation and persecution.[/quote]
Yes.  I think socially dominant behaviour does that.

That's certainly how it makes me feel.
[quote]I will speak my mind when appropriate, and if others choose not to in an environment that allows them to do so, that's certainly not bullying.[/quote]
The presence and behaviour of a socially dominant person is part of the environment for the others in the group, and that environment prevents them from taking part.
[quote]Why would you assemble a list of possible outcomes?[/quote]
To compare them against each other and the available evidence to see which is more likely to be true.

Otherwise you're stuck with whichever one occurred to you first, and there's no reason to think that one is more likely to be correct.
[quote]And, in fact, a process that has absolutely no end.[/quote]
I'm not saying it needs to be an exhaustive list, but a sample of five is better than an example of one.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 28 novembre 2010 - 07:32 .

[AmstradHero]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I've always said that the spoken language is but a poor limitation of the written language.

Honest question: do you have autism or aspergers?

It is said that in face to face communication, approximately 7% of the communication is achieved by words alone. Therefore in order to convey the same meaning using only words, the words have to make up for that 93% of tone, body language and facial expressions that assist in the delivery of content in a real exchange. Word for word, the amount of information that can be gleaned from written information is far less than can be gleaned in a real verbal or face-to-face exchange. That you say you prefer written language specifically for its clarity implies to me that you're failing to glean the wealth of extra information available in non-written communication.

An NPC speaking to me and delivering lines with particular expressions and animations tells me a lot more as a player about their emotions and what they are saying than if I was simply reading a line.

If we're going for a cinematic approach in a game where all the character interactions are shown, then if I've told my character to deliver an angry response, I want that character to deliver the line in an angry tone, with appropriate facial expressions and body language.

If my character is threatening someone, I'd expect him/her to "rough-up" that NPC - particularly if I've been given meta-game information in the form of an icon telling me that he/she is going to do so. The exact form of that "roughing-up" is not something that I particularly care about - if it's a punch to the guts or pressing them up against a wall, I don't mind, though I get the impression that you might.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 28 novembre 2010 - 07:53 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

AmstradHero wrote...

Honest question: do you have autism or aspergers?

Even ignoring the dangers of self-diagnosis, I'm not qualified to determine that.

That you say you prefer written language specifically for its clarity implies to me that you're failing to glean the wealth of extra information available in non-written communication.

I find the lack of punctuation in spoken sentences to be far more of a burden than any missing tone in written sentences.

If we're going for a cinematic approach in a game where all the character interactions are shown, then if I've told my character to deliver an angry response, I want that character to deliver the line in an angry tone, with appropriate facial expressions and body language.

What if you want to deliver exactly the same line, but less angrily?  A voiced PC denies you that option.

If my character is threatening someone, I'd expect him/her to "rough-up" that NPC - particularly if I've been given meta-game information in the form of an icon telling me that he/she is going to do so.

And if you would rather threaten someone in a calm, even tone, what then?

[AmstradHero]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I find the lack of punctuation in spoken sentences to be far more of a burden than any missing tone in written sentences.

I think with that single sentence you just answered my previous question, and demonstrated why you are coming from an inherently biased position.

With that response in mind, it's obvious that a voiced protagonist will never suit you, because you're simply not going to be able to read as much into a voiced-line as you would a text-only version of it. This is in contrast to the majority of people who will take the tone of voice and all other non-verbal clues into consideration when interpreting the line.

As for what if you want a "calm threatening" option - well, what if you want an option in a text-only adventure that's not there either? It comes down to an issue of granularity. Should we have "threaten calmly,", "threaten by punching NPC" and "threaten by shooting NPC's ally" options? Those would be three separate options in a text-only adventure as well, and you're never going to find any computer RPG that can cater for every single action your character will want to take until we've got engines with real language interpretation abilities. If you want that now you'll have to settle for a pen and paper RPG with real people. I expect you will argue that a text-only adventure allows for more personal interpretation of individual lines despite the fact that they are delivered in a set way because of the NPC's response to that particular line - we've had this discussion before.

In short, you personally cannot derive as much emotion out of a voiced character as the majority of the population, therefore will always prefer a text-only approach.  That's fine, and I'll happily concur that it is possible to potentially (but not always) read more variance into the delivery of text-only dialogue, but this also gives the potential for players to misread dialogue and potentially reduces the range of emotions that can be displayed my NPCs.  How is it possible to convey (for example) incredulity, surprise or sarcasm via text alone without the use of book-like prose? It would be rife for misintrepretation by players, leading to potential misunderstandings.

For most people, voice-overs provide increased levels of emotional information to assist in the interpretation of their dialogue. For you they don't, but it is a fallacy to say that they are universally less appropriate because of your own personal preferences regarding communication.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 28 novembre 2010 - 10:53 .

[Nighteye2]

AmstradHero wrote...
It is said that in face to face communication, approximately 7% of the communication is achieved by words alone. Therefore in order to convey the same meaning using only words, the words have to make up for that 93% of tone, body language and facial expressions that assist in the delivery of content in a real exchange. Word for word, the amount of information that can be gleaned from written information is far less than can be gleaned in a real verbal or face-to-face exchange. That you say you prefer written language specifically for its clarity implies to me that you're failing to glean the wealth of extra information available in non-written communication.

About that: it's actually a myth, based upon misinterpretation of a scientist's work.

In spoken word it may be easier to determine whether or not someone is lying. But when communicating a meaning or concept, it is much clearer to do so without the obfuscating signals given by facial expressions and intonation.

[Maria Caliban]

In Exile wrote...

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.

No, *you* can't even know what the paragon interrupts do. *I* have no problem in that regard but have a world of trouble predicting the renegade ones.

Next I expect you to tell me how simple it is to pee standing up.

[GodWood]

Its pretty easy

[Maria Caliban]

Depending on your anatomy, but the majority of the people in the world are likely to find it pretty cumbersome or pretty messy.

[AmstradHero]

Nighteye2 wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...
It is said that in face to face communication, approximately 7% of the communication is achieved by words alone. Therefore in order to convey the same meaning using only words, the words have to make up for that 93% of tone, body language and facial expressions that assist in the delivery of content in a real exchange. Word for word, the amount of information that can be gleaned from written information is far less than can be gleaned in a real verbal or face-to-face exchange. That you say you prefer written language specifically for its clarity implies to me that you're failing to glean the wealth of extra information available in non-written communication.

About that: it's actually a myth, based upon misinterpretation of a scientist's work.

In spoken word it may be easier to determine whether or not someone is lying. But when communicating a meaning or concept, it is much clearer to do so without the obfuscating signals given by facial expressions and intonation.

I'm not saying words don't matter, but there is a huge amount of information that is conveyed from tone and body language.  If you're purely debating points of fact and logic, then sure, written language is generally superior. When was the last time you heard someone read the entirety of their doctorate thesis?

If you actually read that page in full, you'll see that it's not actually a myth, or rather, not entirely a myth. I'll agree that the actual percentages are most likely off, but if tone and body language didn't matter so much, why is it so easy to get a "good vibe" or "bad vibe" from someone even though their words are perfectly normal?

Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable.

That's from the page you linked, though I modified which words were bolded for emphasis. Let me rephrase so it's not in the negative form:

"If a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are applicable."

RPGs aren't purely about facts and logic. They're not a thesis. They're about characters, feelings, emotions and attitudes. Every time your companions interrupt a conversation, they're giving their feelings or attitudes about the situation. When Alistair is reminiscing about his time in the Grey Wardens, he's giving you his feelings. When Loghain is delivering his speech about how you've betrayed Ferelden, he's giving his attitude about events. They aren't mindless automaton delivering cold, calculated data, and for that I am extremely grateful.

As soon as emotion comes into the picture, the written word is inferior. Don't believe me?

Read the words "I love you."
Now have someone who actually means them say them to you with all the associated emotion infused in their tone and body language.

Which packs more punch? I bet it's not the first one.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 28 novembre 2010 - 11:28 .

[Maria Caliban]

AmstradHero wrote...

As soon as emotion comes into the picture, the written word is inferior. Don't believe me?

Read the words "I love you."
Now have someone who actually means them say them to you with all the associated emotion infused in their tone and body language.

Which packs more punch? I bet it's not the first one.

If someone I loved wrote that, it would have a 'punch.'
If you came up to me and said it, it would have no emotional punch.

By your reasoning, I've just given evidence that the spoken word is inferior when emotion is in the picture.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 28 novembre 2010 - 11:36 .

[AmstradHero]

Maria Caliban wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...

As soon as emotion comes into the picture, the written word is inferior. Don't believe me?

Read the words "I love you."
Now have someone who actually means them say them to you with all the associated emotion infused in their tone and body language.

Which packs more punch? I bet it's not the first one.

If someone I loved wrote that, it would have a 'punch.'
If you came up to me and said it, it would have no emotional punch.

By your reasoning, I've just given evidence that the spoken word is inferior when emotion is in the picture.

Ridiculous argument is ridiculous.

We're talking about delivery from the same person - the delivery of a single line from two difference sources provides no reasonable basis for comparison when we're talking specifically about the difference between verbal and non-verbal communication. In scientific terms, you've altered more than one variable in your experiment. That means the results can't be reliably attributed to a single factor.

But you're right. I should have explicitly stated that in both cases the line should come from the same person.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 28 novembre 2010 - 11:46 .

[Nighteye2]

AmstradHero wrote...

Nighteye2 wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...
It is said that in face to face communication, approximately 7% of the communication is achieved by words alone. Therefore in order to convey the same meaning using only words, the words have to make up for that 93% of tone, body language and facial expressions that assist in the delivery of content in a real exchange. Word for word, the amount of information that can be gleaned from written information is far less than can be gleaned in a real verbal or face-to-face exchange. That you say you prefer written language specifically for its clarity implies to me that you're failing to glean the wealth of extra information available in non-written communication.

About that: it's actually a myth, based upon misinterpretation of a scientist's work.

In spoken word it may be easier to determine whether or not someone is lying. But when communicating a meaning or concept, it is much clearer to do so without the obfuscating signals given by facial expressions and intonation.

I'm not saying words don't matter, but there is a huge amount of information that is conveyed from tone and body language.  If you're purely debating points of fact and logic, then sure, written language is generally superior. When was the last time you heard someone read the entirety of their doctorate thesis?

If you actually read that page in full, you'll see that it's not actually a myth, or rather, not entirely a myth. I'll agree that the actual percentages are most likely off, but if tone and body language didn't matter so much, why is it so easy to get a "good vibe" or "bad vibe" from someone even though their words are perfectly normal?

Prejudice based on past experiences. Having had good or bad experiences in the past with someone who looked or sounded vaguely similar. You're not treating that someone fairly if you respond based on such feelings.

AmstradHero wrote...

Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable.

That's from the page you linked, though I modified which words were bolded for emphasis. Let me rephrase so it's not in the negative form:

"If a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are applicable."

That's not the same. If you want to rephrase it, this would be more accurate:

"If a communicator is talking about their feelings or attititudes, these equations may sometimes be applicable, under the right circumstances"

Not always not applicable is not the same as always applicable.

AmstradHero wrote...

RPGs aren't purely about facts and logic. They're not a thesis. They're about characters, feelings, emotions and attitudes. Every time your companions interrupt a conversation, they're giving their feelings or attitudes about the situation. When Alistair is reminiscing about his time in the Grey Wardens, he's giving you his feelings. When Loghain is delivering his speech about how you've betrayed Ferelden, he's giving his attitude about events. They aren't mindless automaton delivering cold, calculated data, and for that I am extremely grateful.

It adds flavour to their speech, at the expense of clarity. Especially if the wrong words get used, which people tend to do when they get emotional. For example, when a girl asks her boyfriend "do these pants make me look fat?", she gets indignant when he honestly answers her yes - even if it's the truth. It would be much clearer if she was more direct, asking literally what she wanted to know: "Do you still love me?".

You can't expect to be clearly understood if you neglect to communicate part of your message in words, assuming that people will accurately pick up on that part of your message based on your intonation, body language and the context alone. All those are open to interpretation and may lead to different people getting a different message - different from each other and different from what you intended to communicate.

AmstradHero wrote...

As soon as emotion comes into the picture, the written word is inferior. Don't believe me?

Read the words "I love you."
Now have someone who actually means them say them to you with all the associated emotion infused in their tone and body language.

Which packs more punch? I bet it's not the first one.

Depends on who wrote them, how they were written, and who spoke those words (as maria already pointed out)

[AmstradHero]

Nighteye2 wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...

Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable.

That's from the page you linked, though I modified which words were bolded for emphasis. Let me rephrase so it's not in the negative form:

"If a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are applicable."

That's not the same. If you want to rephrase it, this would be more accurate:

"If a communicator is talking about their feelings or attititudes, these equations may sometimes be applicable, under the right circumstances"

Not always not applicable is not the same as always applicable.

Fair point, even though I didn't state that it was always applicable. I'd argue that an accurate rephrasing would be: "If a communicator is talking about their feelings or attititudes, these equations may be applicable."
But now we're getting into the semantics of language and the implications of wording, which is another kettle of fish entirely. The main point is that the delivery of the line by an NPC is going to affect how the majority of people perceive the words within the sentence, because it's going to have added emotional content to inform their interpretation of those words.

Nighteye2 wrote...
It adds flavour to their speech, at the expense of clarity. Especially if the wrong words get used, which people tend to do when they get emotional.

We're talking in the context of a game, where the words are exactly the same regardless of whether they are voiced or text only. There are no "wrong words", or if they are, they're equally wrong for the written and verbal forms. Much like the issue of who is saying the words, you can't claim that the verbal form is obviously a less effective form of communication based on the premise that "wrong words" will be chosen in that form that are not in the written form because then you're comparing two different scenarios where multiple variables change.

We're comparing communication in a video game where set characters have set lines that are exactly the same regardless of whether they are written or spoken. We're not comparing forms of communication between people in the real world, because then there are a myriad of factors that come into play that we can't possibly boil down into a simple discussion.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 28 novembre 2010 - 12:56 .

[soteria]

No, *you* can't even know what the paragon interrupts do. *I* have no problem in that regard but have a world of trouble predicting the renegade ones.

I'm almost the opposite. I could generally guess *what* the renegade interrupt would do, but I didn't necessarily know how. In one case, I figured the interrupt meant I would stop talking and start shooting. That was pretty much the case, but I couldn't have predicted that I was going to shoot a tank loose and have it fall on the enemy's head. In a way, I guess I could have done the same with Paragon interrupts--I knew I would console that person, but I didn't know if that meant a hug or what.

[kartupelis]

yes, voices are really worth it and are needed. now bugger off.

[Nighteye2]

AmstradHero wrote...

Nighteye2 wrote...
It adds flavour to their speech, at the expense of clarity. Especially if the wrong words get used, which people tend to do when they get emotional.

We're talking in the context of a game, where the words are exactly the same regardless of whether they are voiced or text only. There are no "wrong words", or if they are, they're equally wrong for the written and verbal forms. Much like the issue of who is saying the words, you can't claim that the verbal form is obviously a less effective form of communication based on the premise that "wrong words" will be chosen in that form that are not in the written form because then you're comparing two different scenarios where multiple variables change.

We're comparing communication in a video game where set characters have set lines that are exactly the same regardless of whether they are written or spoken. We're not comparing forms of communication between people in the real world, because then there are a myriad of factors that come into play that we can't possibly boil down into a simple discussion.

Even then, players can easily misinterpret NPCs by misreading those emotions - worse if Bioware plans on players taking NPC emotions into account, which could result in the actual words being deliberately ambiguous, in the way I illustrated.

Don't be suprised if Isabella asks you whether those clothes make her look fat. <_<

It's better to have the entire message available in text, without the added ambiguity of vague emotional cues and signals that are open to multiple interpretations and may even be inaccurately mimicked in-game.

How good are you in reading the emulated emotions of an NPC in-game? Good enough to know when they really mean something else than they're actually saying?

[jackkel dragon]

Nighteye2 wrote...

How good are you in reading the emulated emotions of an NPC in-game? Good enough to know when they really mean something else than they're actually saying?

I've been told that Master Li is "obviously evil" and his Voice Acting was cited as the giveaway. This was at the opening of Jade Empire.

Not always the case, but it seems to work.

Edit: But there are some games that should have remained silent... *coughelderscrolls4cough*

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As for words always carrying meaning better than the speech... (paraphrased from NWN)

PC: Do you want some protection?
NPC: ...What do you mean?
PC: I can keep you safe from the escaped convicts.
NPC: OH GOD NO SAVE ME I'LL PAY YOU ALL I HAVE!
Me: ...oh. That's protecttion racket dialogue. Oops.

Modifié par jackkel dragon, 28 novembre 2010 - 07:28 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

AmstradHero wrote...

As for what if you want a "calm threatening" option - well, what if you want an option in a text-only adventure that's not there either?

I understand why you think that's analogous.  In both cases, the player wants an option that isn't being presented to him.

However, with a voiced PC the options presented are terribly specific, with a specific line being delivered a specific way accompnied by a specific action.

With a silent PC, all you get is the specific line.  All of the other details (and arguably even the exact wording of the line) are left either implicit or ambiguous, and that allows the player's character a far greater range of behaviour.

Of all possible responses the player can imagine, a game with a silent PC offers a much larger set of them as options.