767 réponses à ce sujet

[Xewaka]

David Gaider wrote...
There are things we can do to make the paraphrase system better, but any efforts we expend will be to make it better... not to subvert it.

Paraphrases, by their very nature, cannot be made better. Simply put, paraphrases can not convey enough information to the player due to their extremely limited space capability. A paraphrase cannot tell the player what his character will say, it lacks the capability. And since a dialogue UI should tell the player what his character will say, paraphrases, by design, fail as a dialogue UI.

Modifié par Xewaka, 22 juin 2012 - 10:53 .

[AkiKishi]

Xewaka wrote...

David Gaider wrote...
There are things we can do to make the paraphrase system better, but any efforts we expend will be to make it better... not to subvert it.

Paraphrases, by their very nature, cannot be made better. Simply put, paraphrases can not convey enough information to the player due to their extremely limited space capability. A paraphrase cannot tell the player what his character will say, it lacks the capability. And since a dialogue UI should tell the player what his character will say, paraphrases, by design, fail as a dialogue UI.

As I said above this is the flaw in the system when you try have a non fixed character and a paraphrase system.

If Geralts version of "sorry" is to say "FU" that's Geralt. If you tried to pull that with a character someone thought they had created it would not work.

I still prefer Deus Ex:HR's intent word but again that only works because Adam is Adam.

You can't roleplay in the first person with paraphrasing. But I think we all realised that anyway. It does not stop you roleplaying however.

Modifié par BobSmith101, 22 juin 2012 - 10:58 .

[Xewaka]

BobSmith101 wrote...
As I said above this is the flaw in the system when you try have a non fixed character and a paraphrase system.
If Geralts version of "sorry" is to say "FU" that's Geralt. If you tried to pull that with a character someone thought they had created it would not work.
I still prefer Deus Ex:HR's intent word but again that only works because Adam is Adam.

DX:HR also showed a non-insignifcant chunk of the actual lines Adam would say. As a matter of fact, it'd most of the time show the entirety of Adam's dialogue. It was a much better system.

[AkiKishi]

Xewaka wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...
As I said above this is the flaw in the system when you try have a non fixed character and a paraphrase system.
If Geralts version of "sorry" is to say "FU" that's Geralt. If you tried to pull that with a character someone thought they had created it would not work.
I still prefer Deus Ex:HR's intent word but again that only works because Adam is Adam.

DX:HR also showed a non-insignifcant chunk of the actual lines Adam would say. As a matter of fact, it'd most of the time show the entirety of Adam's dialogue. It was a much better system.

It was handy for speech challenges otherwise I never found a need for it. The intent word did the job.

[LobselVith8]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

To that end, I'd like to ask that you give us as much detail as you have about what it is the PC is going to say and do based on our wheel selection.  For every dialogue wheel event, the player should know exactly what the PC's words and actions will be, or as close to exactly as you can manage given UI constraints.

And I would like you to consider those UI constraints when writing the wheel events, so that not too much detail is lost.

I really never saw the point in clunky paraphrasing that had me choosing dialogue options that never matched what Hawke said. Choosing "You're useless" and having Hawke scream "Out if my way!" was mind-boggling. Why bother offering me dialogue options if they are completely different than what the protagonist will say? And the auto-lines felt incredibly unnecessary.

[PsychoBlonde]

Xewaka wrote...
And since a dialogue UI should tell the player what his character will say, paraphrases, by design, fail as a dialogue UI.

Why should it?  Why is this mandatory?

Personally, I like being surprised.  Granted some of them don't work for my preferences, in which case, I have the Quickload.

Besides, by this definition even when they completely spell out the line with a silent PC, it tells you NOTHING about the PC's tone in using that line.  There are many times in DA:O where I assumed a line was meant to be sarcastic, and by the way the NPC reacted I realized it was anything but.  And vice versa.  So clearly full lines ALSO fail as a dialog UI.

The only failure here lies in the assumption that there is some way for the devs to convey omniscience upon the player so the player is NEVER EVER EVER confronted with ANYTHING that they didn't SPECIFICALLY ASK FOR.  Which is ridiculous.  Nothing and no one can achieve this.  Why would you even want to achieve this?

You are playing a computer game, not writing your own personal fanfic.  Expecting the computer game to act like a blank screen on which you can compose any story you like yet it's somehow still magically reactive to you is a fundamental misunderstanding of what, precisely, computers can accomplish.  If it makes you unhappy, oh well, but wishing for the moon won't make it possible for you to pluck it from the sky and wear it on your forehead.

[PsychoBlonde]

BobSmith101 wrote...

If Geralts version of "sorry" is to say "FU" that's Geralt. If you tried to pull that with a character someone thought they had created it would not work.

I'd say that if you really think you're "creating" your character, you're being unrealistic.  Sure, this can be a fun illusion to have, but it's just that, an illusion.  No matter how many hairstyles, voices, optional lines, body types, tattoos, nose shapes, and eyeliner shades the devs give you, if you are playing a computer game, you are playing something that SOMEBODY ELSE created.

So, yeah, if you allow yourself to forget that all this "choice" stuff is, in fact, an illusion, nothing will ever make you happy.  You're fooling yourself even WORSE when you apply this logic to only ONE area that HAPPENS to be your personal pet peeve, because guess what, it saturates the game.  All games.  It is, in fact, unavoidable.

So, talking about "fixed" versus "unfixed" characters as if they were absolute and entirely different is utterly unproductive.  Even the "falls out of the sky" type of protagonist HAS fixed characteristics--they fell out of the sky with no connections to what's going on.  You don't have the option to play as a character who is personally involved with what's going on, who has already met NPC's, who has a deep lasting vendetta against the Big Bad.  These options are simply not on the table.

If you'd like an example of this kind of thing that peeves ME, I HATE IT when they give you conversation "options"
that lead to identical responses, and this is ALL OVER DA:O and ME.  Why?  Because it makes the NPC the conversation principal.  Whatever the PC says, the NPC is still going to get off their "wise saying" or "witty comment" because the PC is there to RECEIVE dialog, not contribute to it.  I don't go around and diatribe over how this is an IMPROPER WAY TO DO DIALOG and it DESTROYS PLAYER EMPOWERMENT, though.  I just say that I dislike it and don't worry about it too much if they decide to keep it in a few places because, well, it DOES make writing a lot easier.

Now, if it was a major issue (e.g. upwards of 80% of the game was like this) then yeah, I might decide that I'm not really interested in playing the games any more.  But I wouldn't come on the forum and start issuing ultimatums like so many do, either.  I lost interest in the Mass Effect series with ME2.  Didn't buy it, didn't play it when it came free with DA2.  Didn't even look at ME3.  Did I go on the ME forums making snide comments about how "if this doesn't improve, you're losing a sale"?  No.

Are there valid points about how an unvoiced protagonist is better in some ways than a voiced one?  Sure.  Are there valid points about how paraphrases have detriments compared to full ones?  Heck yeah.  Are there valid comments to be made about how many details of the protagonist are explicitly spelled out vs. only implied?  Definitely.

Is treating this like some kind of holy crusade with "sides" and "right" and "wrong" ways of doing things annoying?

OH GOD YES.

[LobselVith8]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

If Geralts version of "sorry" is to say "FU" that's Geralt. If you tried to pull that with a character someone thought they had created it would not work.

I'd say that if you really think you're "creating" your character, you're being unrealistic.  Sure, this can be a fun illusion to have, but it's just that, an illusion.  No matter how many hairstyles, voices, optional lines, body types, tattoos, nose shapes, and eyeliner shades the devs give you, if you are playing a computer game, you are playing something that SOMEBODY ELSE created.

The Elder Scrolls are made with the understanding that fans intend to create their own protagonists. It's mentioned by the developers time and again, including for Skyrim. How is it an "illusion" if some developers acknowledge fan participation in the creation of their protagonist? Simply because Bioware stopped giving us certain freedoms with our protagonist doesn't mean other companies exclude such freedoms as well.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Vormaerin wrote...

Although we almost completely disagree on most topics, I generally respect your position and the way you present it.  But this sentence is pure BS.  

"Oh, the only reason they don't agree with me is they haven't throught it through" is condescending tripe, as is the implication that they should go play some other game.

I'm not claiming that people who oppose VO, as a group, necessarily understand their position terribly well, either.

But since they're on my side, I don't feel the need to point that out. 

BobSmith101 wrote...

Paraphrasing is like that. The phrases are written for a specific character, not the one you think you have created.
This is why it works for games like the Witcher where everything is appropriate for Geralt because no one is under the illusion they created the guy.
While you can choose what Hawke looks like you don't create him, this is where paraphrasing causes problems. The player has this idea of how things should be for the character they think they created. Then the true version smashes that illusion like a very large sledge hammer.

If Bioware want to make you a someone, then they are better served making actual characters like CDPR so you can enjoy them for what they offer rather than trying to rationalise your imagined character with the real character as written.

If BioWare were to come out and tell us that's what they were doing - that they designed the game not to allow us to control what our character does or why - then I would happily not play their game.

As long as they say they're giving the player more control, I'm going to stay here and point out wherever the player lacks control.

David Gaider wrote...

We have a voiced PC. We must write for a voiced PC. If we had a silent PC we would write for a silent PC. They are not written the same way, and this goes beyond the paraphrases.

I do not dispute that.

Simply displaying the voiced PC's next line and/or turning off the voiced PC's dialogue does not turn it into a silent PC.

But both of those would solve significant problems associated with a voiced PC.  Why do you insist that everyone play the game the same way?

We're not going to offer an option for someone to do what they think will turn it into a silent PC which will in fact improve nothing for them and most probably would make things worse.

It is not your job to protect us from ourselves.

There are things we can do to make the paraphrase system better, but any efforts we expend will be to make it better... not to subvert it.

What does "better" entail?  Am I incorrect that a better paraphrase would be a paraphrase from which the player can more accurately discern what his character will do should that option be selected?  Is that not the point of the paraphrase?

If it isn't, then I'm just playing the game wrong.  How should I select paraphrase options if not based on my understanding of the the line in for which they stand?  Is there some sort of trick of which I am unaware?

I asked this when DA2 came out.  I even asked this of the ME games.  How are the paraphrases supposed to be used by the player?  From where I'm standing, they look horribly broken.  If they're not broken, how do they work?

And that's as clear as I can be at this point.

You were very clear, but you were answering the wrong question.

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I think that this is a bit of a pretentious statement.

You've effectively dismissed the position that some fans like VO for their characters in RPGs as them "not really understanding what they want out of gaming."

No need for that.  RPGs have always had a diverse player base and I think it's what makes the community so interesting.

I recognise that people can enjoy any given game for a wide variety of reasons.  I enjoy most turn-based strategy games based on the amount of roleplaying they allow me, for example.  I'm well aware that's not how they're designed to be played, but that's how I like to play them.

But if Sid Meier fundamentally changed Civilization such that it was no longer fun for me, I wouldn't go complain about that.  If it was no longer turn-based, yes, that would warrant a complaint, because that is a core feature of the turn-based strategy genre.

Genre definitions are informative.  I, for example, don't like adventure games.  I never have.  I never saw the appeal of clicking my way through a story just to find out what happens next.  I still don't.  So when roleplaying games are changed so that they are reduced to that, I'm going to complain about it.

Turn-based strategy games are turn-based.  Roleplaying games allow roleplaying.

PsychoBlonde wrote...

A BIT pretentious?  Ignoring the claim about whether or not people think about their own playstyle, Sylvius is probably the number one person who complains about games not being suitable to how HE wants to play them. 

But my complaints are based on a deep investigation of what roleplaying is and how in-character decisions are made.

I am only roleplaying when I am in-character.  How am I supposed to be in-character if, as BobSmith proposes, I am given a character whose mind I do not know perfectly?

[Sylvius the Mad]

Xewaka wrote...

David Gaider wrote...
There are things we can do to make the paraphrase system better, but any efforts we expend will be to make it better... not to subvert it.

Paraphrases, by their very nature, cannot be made better. Simply put, paraphrases can not convey enough information to the player due to their extremely limited space capability.

That's not fair.  They can't be perfect, but they can better.

For example, if the paraphrases always matched the sentence type of the associated line, that would be better.  Right now, you can choose a paraphrase that is written as a question, only to have Hawke ask no question at all and make a declaration instead.  That's obviously a lousy paraphrase, but to say it couldn't be better simply isn't true.

I don't see how paraphrases could ever be as effective as the full text, but clearly they can be better than what we've seen so far.

[Cirram55]

PsychoBlonde wrote...
Why should it?  Why is this mandatory?
Personally, I like being surprised.  Granted some of them don't work for my preferences, in which case, I have the Quickload.

It should because when you're playing a role-playing game, you expect to be playing a role. You can't do that without knowing who you are, and, in this context, what you're about to say.
No offence, but if you like to guess then there is Battleship, or whatever else. If you like to be surprised then ask somebody to make you a present. I don't want to quickload the hell out of a game every time a humorous Hawke says something plain stupid.

Clearly full lines ALSO fail as a dialog UI.

DAO's UI was pretty well done, in my opinion.
For the most ambiguous lines, to prevent misunderstandings, you were even given an intent in brackets.
And you yourself gave the tone for that specific line.

You are playing a computer game, not writing your own personal fanfic.  Expecting the computer game to act like a blank screen on which you can compose any story you like yet it's somehow still magically reactive to you is a fundamental misunderstanding of what, precisely, computers can accomplish.  If it makes you unhappy, oh well, but wishing for the moon won't make it possible for you to pluck it from the sky and wear it on your forehead.

I may agree on this part, cRPGs have obvious limitations. This does not mean that there's no possibility to work around them, though.
Claiming to be able to improve DAII dialogue system (voiced PC and paraphrases), and then ruling out every suggestion one can think of, is a bit confusing to say the least. DAII dialogue system is so much flawed (from an RPG point of view) and it doesn't seem to be fixable, but Bioware will stick with it for reasons of their own.
I understand that, but do not call DA an RPG anymore, because stats and inventory just aren't enough.

Modifié par Cirram55, 22 juin 2012 - 11:55 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

BobSmith101 wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...
As I said above this is the flaw in the system when you try have a non fixed character and a paraphrase system.
If Geralts version of "sorry" is to say "FU" that's Geralt. If you tried to pull that with a character someone thought they had created it would not work.
I still prefer Deus Ex:HR's intent word but again that only works because Adam is Adam.

DX:HR also showed a non-insignifcant chunk of the actual lines Adam would say. As a matter of fact, it'd most of the time show the entirety of Adam's dialogue. It was a much better system.

It was handy for speech challenges otherwise I never found a need for it. The intent word did the job.

Because you were playing the game differently from how Xewaka plays it.  This is why you don't find the paraphrases problematic but he does.

DX:HR is an example of a game that serves his needs without harming yours.  That's the sort of improvement BioWare needs.  Make the game better for some people without making it worse for others.

So far, they've consistently made it worse for some.  Hopefully that can stop.

[Fallstar]

David Gaider wrote...
snip

I realize you prefer the silent PC, and you can keep preferring that if you wish. I sympathize with you not getting the same thing out of a voiced PC with paraphrases, and there are clearly others with the same preference, but this is what we are doing. There are things we can do to make the paraphrase system better, but any efforts we expend will be to make it better... not to subvert it.

And that's as clear as I can be at this point.

Despite my preference for the silent PC (I like to play my canon save that I carry through as if it's me as the protagonist, and the silent PC is obviously superior for that) I can see the advantages of the voiced PC. Having a voiced PC does not prevent me from creating a character and playing through the game as that character. However the paraphrase system does make it difficult to do this. 

If a VP is now required for the cinematic experience or whatever (Soap in COD4 wasn't voiced, just saying) then fine. But the paraphrase system doesn't add anything to the game. It just takes away more control over your character, without adding anything. Since you have to write the full dialogue that the VP says and then go and make paraphrases for that dialogue, you're then spending resources on something that only has negative impacts on the game. 

If you can please explain what the paraphrases add that'd be great. The introduction of the paraphrases means I now no longer know specifically what I'm going to say. So what's the benefit in no longer knowing specifically what I'm going to say? 

If this paraphrase system is so important, could you at least add a popop when we hover over or highlight a paraphrase that shows the dialogue so that we can also read the actual dialogue. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

Besides, by this definition even when they completely spell out the line with a silent PC, it tells you NOTHING about the PC's tone in using that line. 

It doesn't have to.  The tone is provided by you.

There are many times in DA:O where I assumed a line was meant to be sarcastic, and by the way the NPC reacted I realized it was anything but.

Why do you thnk you know that?  See, this is the sort of thing where I think you haven't thought this through.

Why do you think you can tell why someone reacted the way he did?  Can you read his mind?  I think you're misunderstanding how communication works, and you only don't notice this in the real world because most people you meet are relevantly similar to you.  You're all drawing bad conclusions, but you're all drawing the same bad conclusions, so you never see the contradictions.

If you'd step back and examine what it is you actually know, making sure to avoid the confirmation bias that will promote the positions you already hold baselessly, you could see this.  You would see that you cannot accurately predict how someone will react to what you say.  What you're doing is rationalising that reaction after you've already seen it.

And vice versa.  So clearly full lines ALSO fail as a dialog UI.

They succeed perfectly.  They tell you what you can say.  That's all they do.  That's all they're supposed to do.

If the paraphrases are supposed to be doing something different from that, I'd like to know what it is.  What are the paraphrases suypposed to represent?  If BioWare would define this for us and then apply that definition rigidly, then we'd be getting somewhere.

[Sylvius the Mad]

DuskWarden wrote...

If you can please explain what the paraphrases add that'd be great.

I can answer some of that.  Whether you think these things are valuable is for you to decide, but the paraphrases do offer the writers some significant benefits.

First, with the paraphrases they're now able to write dialogue that wouldn't fit on the screen.  This is especially relevant since BioWare has adopted that grossly inefficient centred dialogue wheel that limits the displayed options to half the width of the total UI (made worse by their need to accommodate SDTVs for console users - NWN didn't even support a 640*480 display, but somehow games made more than 10 years later have to).  So rather than be forced to write conversations where the PC's lines were never more than 40 characters long, the paraphrase frees them of that restriction.

Second, now that the player is explicitly not selecting the full line, the writers are now free to have back-and-forth exchanges stemming from a single paraphrase selection.  Those dialogue events that in JRPGs are presented with only one available option are now skipped over completely with the PC responding automatically.  With full text dialogue, BioWare was forced to consult the player for every single instance of PC input into a conversation, even if that input was trivial.  Now they've decided they can write better conversations if they don't have to do that.

Third, the cinematic designers want to be able to construct more interesting scenes.  This requires the PC be an active participant in these scenes, so now not only words but actions would need to be described to the player in a full-text system, and there certainly isn't space for that without constraining the cinematic design quite severely.

I can offer rebuttals to each of those if you'd like.

[PsychoBlonde]

Cirram55 wrote...

It should because when you're playing a role-playing game, you expect to be playing a role. You can't do that without knowing who you are, and, in this context, what you're about to say.

I do?  I can't?  Nonsense.

DAO's UI was pretty well done, in my opinion.

"Pretty well done" is not perfect.  The way it was stated, not perfect = TOTALLY UNSUITABLE AND A COMPLETE FAILURE.  If you meant "suboptimal" you shouldn't have said "failure".  I actually found even ME's paraphrase system to often be better than DA:O's system, and DA2's paraphrases + tone were (largely) an improvement even over ME.  Oh, and Origins does NOT have tone indicators.  It has a few indications of when you're using a specific conversation skill, and a couple of (Lie) tags.  There are no (hyperbole) or (sarcasm) or (****) tags.  You have to guess.  Granted, they help you out a little by (generally) putting the milder replies at the top of the list while the jerkiest ones were at the bottom, but depending on your personality even this may not be the case.

I may agree on this part, cRPGs have obvious limitations. This does not mean that there's no possibility to work around them, though.
Claiming to be able to improve DAII dialogue system (voiced PC and paraphrases), and then ruling out every suggestion one can think of, is a bit confusing to say the least. DAII dialogue system is so much flawed (from an RPG point of view) and it doesn't seem to be fixable, but Bioware will stick with it for reasons of their own.
I understand that, but do not call DA an RPG anymore, because stats and inventory just aren't enough.

I'm not ruling out suggestions so much as saying that the way in which they're being suggested is total BS.  Do I think the paraphrases can be improved?  Sure.  Even if I personally loved EVERY. SINGLE. CONVERSATION. in DA2 I'd STILL think there was room for improvement, because this is how life is.  It's not a matter of fail vs. perfect.  It's a matter continuum with a lot of personal preference noise thrown in there.  Just because something doesn't work perfectly for a given person in every instance does not by itself indicate a PROBLEM.  It may just be an inherent LIMITATION that must be accepted instead of constant attempts to unscrew the inscrutable.

DA2 dialog is not flawed "from an RPG point of view" because RPG's are things, they don't have points of view.  It's flawed, for most people, from a personal point of view, for a variety of reasons from "OMG I HATE THAT VOICE!!!" to "haha, Hawke is such a dick, who wrote this crap?" to "why is the hottest NPC your sister?" to a billion other things.

And if you want to talk about DA2 not fitting in the RPG genre because "stats and equipment aren't enough", here's this to chew on: the VERY FIRST computer RPG's I played did not have conversation options, you just hit continue until the NPC was done talking and then went off and did yer questing.  Since those predate RPGS where you get to pick from a list of options, it'd be perfectly valid by your reasoning to state that the whole conversation thing is a "corruption" of the genre, and games like Arcanum, Fallout, and DA: O ARE NOT RPG'S because anything OTHER than equipment and stats is TOO MUCH.

[Sylvius the Mad]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

Oh, and Origins does NOT have tone indicators.  It has a few indications of when you're using a specific conversation skill, and a couple of (Lie) tags.  There are no (hyperbole) or (sarcasm) or (****) tags.  You have to guess. 

You do not have to guess.  You get to choose.  From an infinite list.

PsychoBlonde wrote...

And if you want to talk about DA2 not fitting in the RPG genre because "stats and equipment aren't enough", here's this to chew on: the VERY FIRST computer RPG's I played did not have conversation options, you just hit continue until the NPC was done talking and then went off and did yer questing.  Since those predate RPGS where you get to pick from a list of options, it'd be perfectly valid by your reasoning to state that the whole conversation thing is a "corruption" of the genre, and games like Arcanum, Fallout, and DA: O ARE NOT RPG'S because anything OTHER than equipment and stats is TOO MUCH.

That would be a fair argument.  Are you making it?

It still wouldn't support the PC making statements without player input.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 23 juin 2012 - 12:08 .

[Fallstar]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

DuskWarden wrote...

If you can please explain what the paraphrases add that'd be great.

I can answer some of that.  Whether you think these things are valuable is for you to decide, but the paraphrases do offer the writers some significant benefits.

First, with the paraphrases they're now able to write dialogue that wouldn't fit on the screen.  This is especially relevant since BioWare has adopted that grossly inefficient centred dialogue wheel that limits the displayed options to half the width of the total UI (made worse by their need to accommodate SDTVs for console users - NWN didn't even support a 640*480 display, but somehow games made more than 10 years later have to).  So rather than be forced to write conversations where the PC's lines were never more than 40 characters long, the paraphrase frees them of that restriction.

Second, now that the player is explicitly not selecting the full line, the writers are now free to have back-and-forth exchanges stemming from a single paraphrase selection.  Those dialogue events that in JRPGs are presented with only one available option are now skipped over completely with the PC responding automatically.  With full text dialogue, BioWare was forced to consult the player for every single instance of PC input into a conversation, even if that input was trivial.  Now they've decided they can write better conversations if they don't have to do that.

Third, the cinematic designers want to be able to construct more interesting scenes.  This requires the PC be an active participant in these scenes, so now not only words but actions would need to be described to the player in a full-text system, and there certainly isn't space for that without constraining the cinematic design quite severely.

I can offer rebuttals to each of those if you'd like.

For the first point, that's a problem caused by using a wheel instead of a list. (Another thing that seems to have infiltrated Bioware's games without much reason) But surely you could be able to have whatever does fit show up, then when you click or highlight the option it shows you the rest of the line? 

As for the second, back and forth dialogue can be possible with the full dialogue. Or if that isn't deemed cinematic enough, they could do it exactly as they do now, and have the entire conversation based off of one line and tone indicator, but at least have us know what that one line is.

Only important actions would need to be described. Most of the this active participation involves Hawke sitting down or walking around a bit. Something like

1. [Flee from Arishok] *Dialogue*
2. [Stand and fight] *Dialogue* 

could have worked fine. 

I know you don't necessarily agree with all of the points you provided, but thanks for answering the question anyway.

Modifié par DuskWarden, 23 juin 2012 - 12:30 .

[Cirram55]

PsychoBlonde wrote...
I do?  I can't?  Nonsense.

I can't find a meaning to this sentence.

"Pretty well done" is not perfect.

Well then allow me to rephrase it: "DAO's UI was better than DAII's one as it gave me more freedom and choice (note: I'm not saying it gave me absolute freedom and choice).

Oh, and Origins does NOT have tone indicators. It has a few indications of when you're using a specific conversation skill, and a couple of (Lie) tags. You have to guess.

Lie, persuade, bribe, etc. are intentions. DAO told you what your intention would be if you picked that particular dialogue option. DAII had icons, that weren't even aways recognized (you can actually have 6 personalities, but for the game you only have 3).
And no, in DAO I didn't have to guess. Right at the beginning of DAO, I gave a tone (yes a tone! unbelievable) to my warden, one of six (if I recall correctly) that the game itself provided.
Have we played the same game?

DA2 dialog is not flawed "from an RPG point of view" because RPG's are things, they don't have points of view.

I'm sorry, I am not a native english speaker, so I find explaining myself rather difficult at times.
What I meant is that you look DAII from a certain perspective, you'll find out that it doesn't grant all that role-playing for many people. Hence it's flawed (all this is imo, of course).

"why is the hottest NPC your sister?"

Bethany wasn't that hot, I found her face's shape similar to a pig's.

And if you want to talk about DA2 not fitting in the RPG genre because "stats and equipment aren't enough", here's this to chew on: the VERY FIRST computer RPG's I played did not have conversation options, you just hit continue until the NPC was done talking and then went off and did yer questing.  Since those predate RPGS where you get to pick from a list of options, it'd be perfectly valid by your reasoning to state that the whole conversation thing is a "corruption" of the genre and games like Arcanum, Fallout, and DA: O ARE NOT RPG'S.

I would argue that those latter games you mentioned are an evolution towards more freedom, role-playing and choices.
You didn't mention DAII among those, and that's my point.

Modifié par Cirram55, 23 juin 2012 - 12:26 .

[PsychoBlonde]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

DuskWarden wrote...

If you can please explain what the paraphrases add that'd be great.

I can answer some of that. 

There's also the fact that it's kind of . . . redundant to first read the lines and then click on it and hear the PC just read the line you already read.

There are also a large number of other potentials that they used somewhat but not fully.  For instance, with the paraphrase system you can put the PC in the role as exposition source, instead of pretty much being forced to have conversations that look like this:

NPC: And then we had the besnargnblurgle.
1.  What's a besnargnblurgle?
2.  Get to the point.
3.  Screw your besnargnblurgle.

Which I consider to be a huge waste of time and space as well as establishing the PC firmly as the most clueless person in the entire universe.  Personally, given the choice between playing someone  whose every word I don't always 100% control and playing someone with the awareness of a concussed kitten, I'll go with the former, especially since I've yet to see a game where that 100% perfect control actually existed.  The dialog options in Origins were often amazingly frustrating to me, personally, because there was never, ever, NOT EVEN ONCE, this option:

5.  Seriously?  SERIOUSLY?!  Are you really so dense that you cannot see how that statement/metaphor you just made is full of contradictions and misapplications?  GOOD GRAVY.  YOU PEOPLE ARE ALL IDIOTS.  ARE YOU SERIOUSLY GOING TO ARGUE WITH ME ABOUT THIS STUPID CRAP?!  How about this then.  Take your stupid Blight and SHOVE IT RIGHT UP YOUR ASS.  If ya'll can't see the big picture and figure out how to get along, I wash my hands of you. I hope the Archdemon personally sits on your stupid fat head.

Granted, it might have been a short game if they'd done that, but, I tell you, I wanted to say that a LOT.  But they wouldn't let me.    Sadface.

I find that I don't have this problem with the paraphrase system precisely because I didn't *exactly* pick what came out of my character's mouth.  Makes it easier to sit back and enjoy the ride rather than obsessing over what the devs wouldn't let me say.

[David Gaider]

DuskWarden wrote...
If you can please explain what the paraphrases add that'd be great.

I've done this before. Considering most of the same people are here who were there when I explained it last, arguing the same points, I don't imagine there's much point repeating myself. Considering it's not a change we're considering, it's not really a useful conversation to have again. Perhaps someone can dig up a link for you.

If this paraphrase system is so important, could you at least add a popop when we hover over or highlight a paraphrase that shows the dialogue so that we can also read the actual dialogue.

No, we looked at that. Extensively, actually, as it was an idea brought up on the forums and it bore investigation. Considering the way we write for the voiced PC, showing you the following line doesn't always give you the information you think it would. Often it does, sure, but with paraphrases we're talking about frequency of disconnect... and the frequency is no less when we show the following lines unless we change how we write the voiced PC to make it the same as the silent PC (and thus lose the advantages of such). There is no improvement.

Modifié par David Gaider, 23 juin 2012 - 12:24 .

[Fallstar]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

There's also the fact that it's kind of . . . redundant to first read the lines and then click on it and hear the PC just read the line you already read.

My response to this is that you should be able to choose your dialogue before you say it regardless of the voiced PC. If the voiced PC actually adds so much to the game, it shouldn't matter that you know what they're going to say. If the voiced PC is rendered redundant by the use of full dialogue, shouldn't this have set a warning bell going in someone's head about whether or not the voicing is in fact redundant.

There are also a large number of other potentials that they used somewhat but not fully.  For instance, with the paraphrase system you can put the PC in the role as exposition source, instead of pretty much being forced to have conversations that look like this:

NPC: And then we had the besnargnblurgle.
1.  What's a besnargnblurgle?
2.  Get to the point.
3.  Screw your besnargnblurgle.

Which I consider to be a huge waste of time and space as well as establishing the PC firmly as the most clueless person in the entire universe.  Personally, given the choice between playing someone  whose every word I don't always 100% control and playing someone with the awareness of a concussed kitten, I'll go with the former, especially since I've yet to see a game where that 100% perfect control actually existed.  The dialog options in Origins were often amazingly frustrating to me, personally, because there was never, ever, NOT EVEN ONCE, this option:

5.  Seriously?  SERIOUSLY?!  Are you really so dense that you cannot see how that statement/metaphor you just made is full of contradictions and misapplications?  GOOD GRAVY.  YOU PEOPLE ARE ALL IDIOTS.  ARE YOU SERIOUSLY GOING TO ARGUE WITH ME ABOUT THIS STUPID CRAP?!  How about this then.  Take your stupid Blight and SHOVE IT RIGHT UP YOUR ASS.  If ya'll can't see the big picture and figure out how to get along, I wash my hands of you. I hope the Archdemon personally sits on your stupid fat head.

Granted, it might have been a short game if they'd done that, but, I tell you, I wanted to say that a LOT.  But they wouldn't let me.    Sadface.

I find that I don't have this problem with the paraphrase system precisely because I didn't *exactly* pick what came out of my character's mouth.  Makes it easier to sit back and enjoy the ride rather than obsessing over what the devs wouldn't let me say.

That's not a failing of being presented with the full dialogue line. If you had been given those dialogue options but with paraphrases instead, you'd still feel that there wasn't a suitable dialogue option for you, except you don't get to know precisely what that dialogue is before hand. That is just there not being a wide enough variety of dialogue options.

[PsychoBlonde]

Cirram55 wrote...

Lie, persuade, bribe, etc. are intentions. DAO told you what your intention would be if you picked that particular dialogue option.

In real life, yes.  In the game, they were indicators for a mechanical system governed by specific mechanical skills.

And no, I didn't have to guess. Right at the beginning of DAO, I gave a tone (yes a tone! unbelievable) to my warden, one of six (if I recall correctly) that the game itself provided.
Have we played the same game?

You selected a VOICE SET.  It did NOT affect what dialog choices you got or how they were received by NPC's.  THAT is the type of tone option you have in DA2: different tones actually change what you can say and how the NPC's react.  There is a huge difference between picking between one of several options that have absolutely no impact on anything and having options that do have at least some impact on SOMETHING.

I would argue that those latter games you mentioned are an evolution towards more freedom, role-playing and choices.
You didn't mention DAII among those, and that's my point.

I also didn't mention The Witcher, Gothic, Mass Effect, or Fallout 3.  Does this indicate that I don't consider these games to be RPG's?  It does not.  But I'll keep in mind for future reference that any time YOU don't list EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF A CATEGORY, you intend to exclude those things from the category.  Better start listing, you're gonna be at it for a while.

As far as I'm concerned, DA2 is continued evolution toward broader role-playing options and choices.  So, again, by your own reasoning, excluding it from the category because it does not have exactly the same features as what came before is nonsense.

[PsychoBlonde]

DuskWarden wrote...

That's not a failing of being presented with the full dialogue line. If you had been given those dialogue options but with paraphrases instead, you'd still feel that there wasn't a suitable dialogue option for you, except you don't get to know precisely what that dialogue is before hand. That is just there not being a wide enough variety of dialogue options.

I didn't say it was a failing of being presented with the full dialog line.  I said my DETACHMENT was a BENEFIT of NOT being presented with the full dialog line.  Just because something is a BENEFIT of one style does not necessarily mean that the CONVERSE is a FAILING of another style, because they're not some kind of perfect philosophical mirror-opposite.

If you find that hard to parse, let me put it this way: if I say that I consider it good (convenient) that oranges have thick peels, that doesn't mean I'm saying that apples are therefore BAD because they DON'T have thick peels.

Modifié par PsychoBlonde, 23 juin 2012 - 12:33 .

[Fallstar]

David Gaider wrote...
snip

No, we looked at that. Extensively, actually, as it was an idea brought up on the forums and it bore investigation. Considering the way we write for the voiced PC, showing you the following line doesn't always give you the information you think it would. Often it does, sure, but with paraphrases we're talking about frequency of disconnect... and the frequency is no less when we show the following lines unless we change how we write the voiced PC to make it the same as the silent PC (and thus lose the advantages of such). There is no improvement.

I get that as you are writing for a voiced protagonist you now have back and forth conversations that might not work as intended if they have to be constantly interrupted for player input. At least I think that's the advantage you are referring to losing. But the frequency of disconnects will still be reduced even if we only get full dialogue for the inital line in a popup box with the paraphrase and tone indicators still doing what they do in DA2. That initial line of dialogue will at least show the direction your protagonist is going in when you choose that option, rather than only having a paraphrase with no clue as to how that paraphrase will be implemented - something the pop up box would provide.

PsychoBlonde wrote...

I didn't say it was a failing of being presented with the full dialog line.  I said my DETACHMENT was a BENEFIT of NOT being presented with the full dialog line.  Just because something is a BENEFIT of one style does not necessarily mean that the CONVERSE is a FAILING of another style, because they're not some kind of perfect philosophical mirror-opposite.

If you find that hard to parse, let me put it this way: if I say that I consider it good (convenient) that oranges have thick peels, that doesn't mean I'm saying that apples are therefore BAD because they DON'T have thick peels.

 

Sure I get that. But as you say, a 'benefit' of not being presented with the full dialogue line is that you become detached from the conversation. Is that a good thing? At least in your example where you were frustrated at the lack of choices you still cared enough about the conversation to have those feelings of frustration. Personally I would rather want more options than feel like I'm just along for the ride.

Modifié par DuskWarden, 23 juin 2012 - 12:44 .