624 réponses à ce sujet

[AresKeith]

SpamBot2000 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

SpamBot2000 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

I have no issue with autodialogue as such. The problem are those instances where Shepard says something incredibly stupid, or other things that would break my roleplaying, and I can't opt out of it. There are a handful or more such instances in the game, mostsly in conversations with Hackett and TIM, and the most stupid ones in the prologue. I wonder who wrote that...

So... autodialogue's ok as long as says what you want?

Yes. Isn't it the same for you? Most mission dialogue on the Kodiak, for instance, is neutral. Why would anyone have a problem with that?

I like RPGs.

Thank You, RPGs let you have full control over dialogue

[CronoDragoon]

AresKeith wrote...

Thank You, RPGs let you have full control over dialogue

Then there has never been an RPG video game.

[CronoDragoon]

Tritium315 wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...


The very problem is that ME3 is the third game of the franchise. They had to spend time and money instituting the numerous variations represented by the first two games. They had to program dialogue for Ashley and Kaiden, they had to have dialogue for Wrex and Wreav, for Mordin and Wiks. It is simply unrealistic to expect Mass Effect 3 to incorporate all the possible combinations produced by the first 2 games AND give it the level of dialogue control represented by Planescape or even Dragon Age Origins.

Are you seriously using that argument? Bioware went out of their way to make your choices barely matter. Ashley and Kaiden are practically carbon copies of eachother. Killing the Rachni queen doesn't matter since they found a spare. Nearly every mission plays out the same with dead characters either just missing or replaced with another character that does the exact same ****. Hell, blowing up the collector base, the final decision of ME2, has ZERO effect and is barely even mentioned, if at all.

If Bioware actually did you're saying they did I could understand, but they did the exact opposite.

You are cherry picking decisions that ultimately did not really matter. There are decisions that, at the very least, ate up dialogue lines.

[CronoDragoon]

Eain wrote...
Because narrative flow is by definition impossible in a game that lets you pick your own dialogue. That's the whole thing. You sacrifice flow and logic for the sake of choice. You can't have your cake and eat it. If you want conversations to flow then remove choice and do it all on autodialogue, but then also start the series off on that basis. Don't change halfway through for some non-functional hybrid.

Every time a dialogue tuning fork pops up in ME3 I feel like the developers are taking the ******. I mean, really? Shepard's saying 80% of her lines independently anyway, are you really gonna interrupt your precious conversation flow to give me lame non-influential choice? Just keep talking tbh. I mean if you're gonna kill the game's RPG mechanics you might aswell kill em good. Don't insult my intelligence by giving me two flavours of the same line and railroading the conversation in the same direction anyway.

In a game of absolute choice, you may be right. Mass Effect has always been a balance of the two extremes, though: choice and narrative flow. The dialogue wheel itself exemplifies this: you pick a short sentence that generally frames the lines to follow. That doesn't make the decision to move along the spectrum towards narrative flow inane.

Your second paragraph leads me to think that you don't believe there would be a difference in ME3 if dialogue wheels were completely taken out. 3D's posts in this thread about the no decisions mode proves otherwise.

[o Ventus]

Random Jerkface wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

Yes. Isn't it the same for you? Most mission dialogue on the Kodiak, for instance, is neutral. Why would anyone have a problem with that?

I agree with Ieldra. When the auto-dialogue is just Shepard making observations or giving orders, it's fine. In fact, it's a very good way to showcase her or his leadership abilities and intelligence, since, at this point, those are entirely informed attributes. Philosophical arguments (or arguments of any kind), personality, emotionality, and psychological development, however, should be off-limits. Especially since Auto!Dialogue Shepard's default setting appears to be "moron."

I agree with the sentiment. Autodialogue for some phrases or quotes that don't really necessitate a dialogue wheel (like you said, giving orders or making observations) is fine. It becomes a problem when you're talking to X character and Y event happens or is mentioned and Shepard gives his/her opinion on the matter, or if X character asks you Z question and Shepard responds, or something to the same effect. Also, the point you made about arguments and the like.

@bold- I daresay that nothing beats "Wait, you can mate with your own species?". NOTHING.

[Tritium315]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Tritium315 wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...


The very problem is that ME3 is the third game of the franchise. They had to spend time and money instituting the numerous variations represented by the first two games. They had to program dialogue for Ashley and Kaiden, they had to have dialogue for Wrex and Wreav, for Mordin and Wiks. It is simply unrealistic to expect Mass Effect 3 to incorporate all the possible combinations produced by the first 2 games AND give it the level of dialogue control represented by Planescape or even Dragon Age Origins.

Are you seriously using that argument? Bioware went out of their way to make your choices barely matter. Ashley and Kaiden are practically carbon copies of eachother. Killing the Rachni queen doesn't matter since they found a spare. Nearly every mission plays out the same with dead characters either just missing or replaced with another character that does the exact same ****. Hell, blowing up the collector base, the final decision of ME2, has ZERO effect and is barely even mentioned, if at all.

If Bioware actually did you're saying they did I could understand, but they did the exact opposite.

You are cherry picking decisions that ultimately did not really matter. There are decisions that, at the very least, ate up dialogue lines.

That's exactly my point; those were major decisions that did not matter. They should have, but they didn't. This is even true of decisions within the game itself. Not saving Grissom causes Jack to be captured by Cerberus and tortured. This should have been a major dramatic moment because you subjected Jack to her worst possible nightmare, but what did we get? A 30 second audio book and a phantom that's unique in name only. The Rannoch mission if Legion is dead plays out the same with the only
difference being you can't choose peace; they barely even wrote anything
new here, just removed an option.

It's not cherry picking when there are a ****load more examples of your choices not mattering then there are of them having a genuine impact.

[Brovikk Rasputin]

AresKeith wrote...

SpamBot2000 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

SpamBot2000 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

I have no issue with autodialogue as such. The problem are those instances where Shepard says something incredibly stupid, or other things that would break my roleplaying, and I can't opt out of it. There are a handful or more such instances in the game, mostsly in conversations with Hackett and TIM, and the most stupid ones in the prologue. I wonder who wrote that...

So... autodialogue's ok as long as says what you want?

Yes. Isn't it the same for you? Most mission dialogue on the Kodiak, for instance, is neutral. Why would anyone have a problem with that?

I like RPGs.

Thank You, RPGs let you have full control over dialogue

Not all of them. 

[AresKeith]

CronoDragoon wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

Thank You, RPGs let you have full control over dialogue

Then there has never been an RPG video game.

atleast they didn't have the auto-dialogue ME3 had

[Barquiel]

Brovikk Rasputin wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

SpamBot2000 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

SpamBot2000 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

I have no issue with autodialogue as such. The problem are those instances where Shepard says something incredibly stupid, or other things that would break my roleplaying, and I can't opt out of it. There are a handful or more such instances in the game, mostsly in conversations with Hackett and TIM, and the most stupid ones in the prologue. I wonder who wrote that...

So... autodialogue's ok as long as says what you want?

Yes. Isn't it the same for you? Most mission dialogue on the Kodiak, for instance, is neutral. Why would anyone have a problem with that?

I like RPGs.

Thank You, RPGs let you have full control over dialogue

Not all of them. 

I can't think of a single one.

[Eain]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Eain wrote...
Because narrative flow is by definition impossible in a game that lets you pick your own dialogue. That's the whole thing. You sacrifice flow and logic for the sake of choice. You can't have your cake and eat it. If you want conversations to flow then remove choice and do it all on autodialogue, but then also start the series off on that basis. Don't change halfway through for some non-functional hybrid.

Every time a dialogue tuning fork pops up in ME3 I feel like the developers are taking the ******. I mean, really? Shepard's saying 80% of her lines independently anyway, are you really gonna interrupt your precious conversation flow to give me lame non-influential choice? Just keep talking tbh. I mean if you're gonna kill the game's RPG mechanics you might aswell kill em good. Don't insult my intelligence by giving me two flavours of the same line and railroading the conversation in the same direction anyway.

In a game of absolute choice, you may be right. Mass Effect has always been a balance of the two extremes, though: choice and narrative flow. The dialogue wheel itself exemplifies this: you pick a short sentence that generally frames the lines to follow. That doesn't make the decision to move along the spectrum towards narrative flow inane.

Your second paragraph leads me to think that you don't believe there would be a difference in ME3 if dialogue wheels were completely taken out. 3D's posts in this thread about the no decisions mode proves otherwise.

That's because dialogue and narrative decisionmaking are performed through the same mechanic. Technically speaking the amount of meaningful wheels in this game is directly equal to the amount of major storyline decisions. The only times in this game the player truly -needed- agency was at the end of each major story arc and a few other smaller times inbetween.

Technically Bioware could take out all dialogue wheels and replace narrative choices like genophage cure/not cure, or save quarians/save geth with large buttons, a blue one on the left and a red one on the right. You'd get the exact same game.

But if this is what Mass Effect has become then I am no longer part of the target audience. I went into this trilogy expecting an RPG with shooter mechanics. What I got, in the end, was Gears of War with ability choice. Now I'm a major Gears of War fan, but that isn't what I went into ME for.

[Brovikk Rasputin]

Barquiel wrote...

Brovikk Rasputin wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

SpamBot2000 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

SpamBot2000 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

I have no issue with autodialogue as such. The problem are those instances where Shepard says something incredibly stupid, or other things that would break my roleplaying, and I can't opt out of it. There are a handful or more such instances in the game, mostsly in conversations with Hackett and TIM, and the most stupid ones in the prologue. I wonder who wrote that...

So... autodialogue's ok as long as says what you want?

Yes. Isn't it the same for you? Most mission dialogue on the Kodiak, for instance, is neutral. Why would anyone have a problem with that?

I like RPGs.

Thank You, RPGs let you have full control over dialogue

Not all of them. 

I can't think of a single one.

I see a lot of praise for Deus Ex HR on here. That one had a lot of auto dialogue. The Final Fantasy games all have lots of auto dialogue. Pretty much every single JRPG has auto dialogue.

Modifié par Brovikk Rasputin, 01 août 2012 - 09:22 .

[wright1978]

Eain wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

Binary_Helix 1 wrote...

This inane babble about "narrative flow" and skipping gameplay altogether illustrates to me people are embarrassed that they work in the video game industry. Just look at the push to make games an art form. All a desperate move to win approval.

Please explain how wanting to improve narrative flow is inane.

Edit: The end boss fight quote is indeed ridiculous.

Because narrative flow is by definition impossible in a game that lets you pick your own dialogue. That's the whole thing. You sacrifice flow and logic for the sake of choice. You can't have your cake and eat it. If you want conversations to flow then remove choice and do it all on autodialogue, but then also start the series off on that basis. Don't change halfway through for some non-functional hybrid.

Every time a dialogue tuning fork pops up in ME3 I feel like the developers are taking the ******. I mean, really? Shepard's saying 80% of her lines independently anyway, are you really gonna interrupt your precious conversation flow to give me lame non-influential choice? Just keep talking tbh. I mean if you're gonna kill the game's RPG mechanics you might aswell kill em good. Don't insult my intelligence by giving me two flavours of the same line and railroading the conversation in the same direction anyway.

and rub salt into the wound by calling it full decisions mode

[o Ventus]

Brovikk Rasputin wrote...

I see a lot of praise for Deus Ex HR on here. That one had a lot of auto dialogue. The Final Fantasy games all have lots of auto dialogue. Pretty much every single JRPG has auto dialogue.

Final Fantasy isn't built on the notion of choice. In fact, I don't think there are any JRPG's like that. Never played Deus Ex.

So yeah, invalid comparison.

[Eain]

Brovikk Rasputin wrote...

I see a lot of praise for Deus Ex HR on here. That one had a lot of auto dialogue. The Final Fantasy games all have lots of auto dialogue. Pretty much every single JRPG has auto dialogue.

And DX:HR was allowed to because it's not got any preceeding games that do things radically different. Its a game in the exact same vein as earlier Deus Ex and is also, for all intents and purpose, a sort of fresh injection of life into the franchise. So it gets more leeway. It's not part 3 of a trilogy, and moreover, the amount of times where the player gets dialogue choice, that dialogue actually really does have a meaningful role in the game. What you say matters, and dialogue is as much a way to achieve your goal as is sneaking or killing.

In ME3 dialogue is completely superfluous. The events move forward anyway, and Shepard already says 80% of her lines by herself. May aswell kill off the tuning forks that remain and accept that the game is no longer an RPG.

[Conniving_Eagle]

Dialogue is Mass Effect's selling point. What is the rationalization behind limiting it? It would be the equivalent of Epic deciding to 'tone down' the blood and gore of GoW.

Modifié par Conniving_Eagle, 01 août 2012 - 09:27 .

[spirosz]

Binary_Helix 1 wrote...

Ah yes Bioware is "learning" much like Bioware is "listening". Don't make me puke.

Ahaha, full of win. Good post by OP anyway. I do agree in the sense tha the scenes do "flow" better because they do, there is no pause, no awkward staring, etc - it's like an actual conversation, but I do miss my ability to interact because this is well, a game... which I should have a lot interaction in. There was good auto-dialogue and a lot of bad, IMO - the bad outweighs the good - The whole Jacob scenario with FemShep basically plays out in a way that Femshep agrees with what Jacob has done, WITHOUT the player's interaction - it's like okay, you said you loved me, but I'm cool with you banging that chick and naming the baby after me, thanks Jacob, get wild on the Citadel later? There are other scenes as well, but whatever - it is a learning curve to an extent, but I'd rather they choose to do this with Dragon Age because they were already changing out the dialogue since Origins, why change something that's established - Paragon/Neutral/Renegade in the last game? Seems wack to me.  

Modifié par spirosz, 01 août 2012 - 09:29 .

[Eain]

Conniving_Eagle wrote...

Dialogue is Mass Effect's selling point. What is the rationalization behind limiting it? It would be the equivalent of Epic deciding to 'tone down' the blood and gore of GoW.

The rationalisation is that Bioware thinks they can make interactive movies, without realising that this is what CoD and GoW and Battlefield all already do with their singleplayer and none of them pretend to be RPG's. Are these really the games that Bioware should aspire to make? Well, if they want to. But it's not their forte, so why bother? Leave GoW to Epic and BF to Dice and RPG's to Bioware. I hate all this hybridisation.

[RiouHotaru]

Nothing Weekes said was wrong or incorrect. Arguments like "We SHOULD have FULL control!" is where the "entitled gamer" thing comes from. You're asking for something that's simply not possible from a programming standpoint or a development standpoint.

Netural dialog was taken out because yes, it was RARELY if ever selected. Even as far back as ME1, neutral dialog served NO purpose. The nature of the P/R system dictates you needed to decide on a moral stance and stick to your guns. Imports allowed for some leeway, but generally if you were leaning in a moral direction you STAYED in that direction.

And auto-dialog DID keep the conversations moving at a regular pace. Even if you queued your dialog choice ahead of time there's still a very visible and obvious pause before Shepard acts on your choice. Now imagine that pause occuring during every single line of dialog?

I won't deny that SOME of the auto-dialog is inane, but only a small portion of it. ME3 at least solved the issue ME2 had where dialog options and the actual spoken line were so different from each other as to be two separate choices altogether (the infamous "I want you, Thane" comes to mind!).

You're never going to get full operational control over Shepard's dialog, or heck ANY character in an RPG. There's always going to be some removal of agency. That's just the nature of playing a video game created by someone else.

[AresKeith]

RiouHotaru wrote...

Nothing Weekes said was wrong or incorrect. Arguments like "We SHOULD have FULL control!" is where the "entitled gamer" thing comes from. You're asking for something that's simply not possible from a programming standpoint or a development standpoint.

Netural dialog was taken out because yes, it was RARELY if ever selected. Even as far back as ME1, neutral dialog served NO purpose. The nature of the P/R system dictates you needed to decide on a moral stance and stick to your guns. Imports allowed for some leeway, but generally if you were leaning in a moral direction you STAYED in that direction.

And auto-dialog DID keep the conversations moving at a regular pace. Even if you queued your dialog choice ahead of time there's still a very visible and obvious pause before Shepard acts on your choice. Now imagine that pause occuring during every single line of dialog?

I won't deny that SOME of the auto-dialog is inane, but only a small portion of it. ME3 at least solved the issue ME2 had where dialog options and the actual spoken line were so different from each other as to be two separate choices altogether (the infamous "I want you, Thane" comes to mind!).

You're never going to get full operational control over Shepard's dialog, or heck ANY character in an RPG. There's always going to be some removal of agency. That's just the nature of playing a video game created by someone else.

before anyone tries to throw the word entitled around, learn what that word means

[spirosz]

RiouHotaru wrote...

Nothing Weekes said was wrong or incorrect. Arguments like "We SHOULD have FULL control!" is where the "entitled gamer" thing comes from. You're asking for something that's simply not possible from a programming standpoint or a development standpoint.

Netural dialog was taken out because yes, it was RARELY if ever selected. Even as far back as ME1, neutral dialog served NO purpose. The nature of the P/R system dictates you needed to decide on a moral stance and stick to your guns. Imports allowed for some leeway, but generally if you were leaning in a moral direction you STAYED in that direction.

And auto-dialog DID keep the conversations moving at a regular pace. Even if you queued your dialog choice ahead of time there's still a very visible and obvious pause before Shepard acts on your choice. Now imagine that pause occuring during every single line of dialog?

I won't deny that SOME of the auto-dialog is inane, but only a small portion of it. ME3 at least solved the issue ME2 had where dialog options and the actual spoken line were so different from each other as to be two separate choices altogether (the infamous "I want you, Thane" comes to mind!).

You're never going to get full operational control over Shepard's dialog, or heck ANY character in an RPG. There's always going to be some removal of agency. That's just the nature of playing a video game created by someone else.

Neutral served a lot of purpose in my playthroughs in ME1/2. It made it so I wasn't an extremist on either side and less of a stupid Shepard. Most of the neutral dialogue for Jack's romance for example, sounded more natural and less "creepy" IMO, compared to the Paragon and Renegade ones. 

You know, just sayin' 

That's what makes other Shepards unique, but hey - I liked the "illusion" of choice. 

[Kathleen321]

I appreciated neutral dialogue in ME1 I think a neutral character should be another reputation in future games. I feel that forcing us to be completely renegade or paragon is a bit harsh.

[wright1978]

RiouHotaru wrote...

Nothing Weekes said was wrong or incorrect. Arguments like "We SHOULD have FULL control!" is where the "entitled gamer" thing comes from. You're asking for something that's simply not possible from a programming standpoint or a development standpoint.

Netural dialog was taken out because yes, it was RARELY if ever selected. Even as far back as ME1, neutral dialog served NO purpose. The nature of the P/R system dictates you needed to decide on a moral stance and stick to your guns. Imports allowed for some leeway, but generally if you were leaning in a moral direction you STAYED in that direction.

And auto-dialog DID keep the conversations moving at a regular pace. Even if you queued your dialog choice ahead of time there's still a very visible and obvious pause before Shepard acts on your choice. Now imagine that pause occuring during every single line of dialog?

I won't deny that SOME of the auto-dialog is inane, but only a small portion of it. ME3 at least solved the issue ME2 had where dialog options and the actual spoken line were so different from each other as to be two separate choices altogether (the infamous "I want you, Thane" comes to mind!).

You're never going to get full operational control over Shepard's dialog, or heck ANY character in an RPG. There's always going to be some removal of agency. That's just the nature of playing a video game created by someone else.

Nope people did choose neutral dialogue. Just because you point hunted doesn't mean others didn't roleplay.
Who cares about dialogue flow? Remove the manual combat then and force everyone to watch staged fighting cutscenes then or more realistically go watch a movie if you have no interest in interacting in a supposedly choice based game.

People aren't talking about full control over Shep. They are talking about maintaining the level of control with auto-dialogue being minimal and limited to non characterising elements that was present in previous games. ME3 had bucket loads of awful charactersing auto-dialogue that conflicts with previous choices. Is it really unrealistic to expect the player characterisation features not to be butchered?

[Eain]

RiouHotaru wrote...
Netural dialog was taken out because yes, it was RARELY if ever selected. Even as far back as ME1, neutral dialog served NO purpose. The nature of the P/R system dictates you needed to decide on a moral stance and stick to your guns. Imports allowed for some leeway, but generally if you were leaning in a moral direction you STAYED in that direction.

A textbook example of the Bioware MO. Something doesn't work? Take it out.

Can't make exploration work? Take it out.
Can't make the Mako work? Take it out.
Can't make neutral options work? Take it out.
Can't make chosen dialogue flow? Take it out.

Just take out all the things. And then discover your third game is a barebone knockoff of the first two that only deserves the same name because it has Shepard in it. Seriously, this game is a joke. Rather than improve on things that exist Bioware just culls everything.

And auto-dialog DID keep the conversations moving at a regular pace.

The dialogue in Gears also flows at a regular pace and Epic didn't pretend to be making an RPG with meaningful player agency. 

Even if you queued your dialog choice ahead of time there's still a very visible and obvious pause before Shepard acts on your choice. Now imagine that pause occuring during every single line of dialog?

So what? Really, so what? That's the whole point of dialogue choice. You give the player agency and you sacrifice flow for it. It's one or the other. You can't just decide two-thirds through a trilogy that you'd rather have flow and then take agency away. Save that for the next franchise, the next big trilogy. Do all the things you learned from the ME series there, and keep ME as it is. That's integrity.

Modifié par Eain, 01 août 2012 - 09:38 .

[RiouHotaru]

Eain wrote...

A textbook example of the Bioware MO. Something doesn't work? Take it out.

Can't make exploration work? Take it out.
Can't make the Mako work? Take it out.
Can't make neutral options work? Take it out.
Can't make chosen dialogue flow? Take it out.

"Exploration" consisted of driving palette/texture swapped empty planets with nothing on them besides the same old minerals, probes, and thresher maws.  "Fixing" that would've required far more resources, money, and time than likely would've been worthwhile.

The Mako (as joked in ME3) was a clunky, unresponsive vehicle whose tendency to spaz out thanks to physics made it a tedious and annoying affair.  The Hammerhead as it's replacement was a godsend.

Neutral options, as Weekes said, often made no visible impact in the dialog or the decision making processes, and often the major decisions had NO netural option choices whatsoever.

Also, as far as chosen dialog goes, there's MORE chosen dialog in ME3 than in 1 or 2 (the statistics given during PAX proved that).  Just because there's more dialog lines in between doesn't detract from that quantity.

So what? Really, so what? That's the whole point of dialogue choice. You give the player agency and you sacrifice flow for it. It's one or the other. You can't just decide two-thirds through a trilogy that you'd rather have flow and then take agency away. Save that for the next franchise, the next big trilogy. Do all the things you learned from the ME series there, and keep ME as it is. That's integrity.

Agency isn't taken away.  Shepard characterizing him/herself on their own between dialog lines is, in my opinion, far better than the utter LACK of characterization or interaction at all that occured in ME1.  ME2 got better at it, especially with LotSB, where Liara's question prompted almost a full MINUTE of auto, characterizing dialog.

Modifié par RiouHotaru, 01 août 2012 - 09:46 .

[CronoDragoon]

Eain wrote...


The dialogue in Gears also flows at a regular pace and Epic didn't pretend to be making an RPG with meaningful player agency. 

Meaningful player agency is preserved in ME3. Every single decision was up to me. People need to cut out the hyperbole.