390 réponses à ce sujet

[Morroian]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

But without the icons, there is no result promised.

That you think there is a result promised, doesn't actually make it so. Your understanding of the actual mechanics of the dialogue wheel is wrong. The only reason why you think this is the case is simply because it's all you've observed.

A conclusion based on empirical data.  Yes.

My observations through 4-5 play throughs was that the icons didn't promise a particular result.

[hussey 92]

Jade8aby88 wrote...

DoomHK wrote...

Fiacre wrote...

Doesn't Witcher 2 have a list? It's a bit different from DA:O's, but I'm relatively sure that the dialogue options were listed rather than in wheel format.

Yes. Dialogue choices in TW2 are presented to you in a list.

Oh.... Oh, but guess what? No female protagonist. Invalid candidate for my gold star

Thats cause the Witcher is about Geralt.  Not a player generated PC.

Modifié par hussey 92, 04 octobre 2012 - 07:28 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I like your engagement and interaction here Allan and enjoy reading your posts, but this doesn't parse. Maybe I am not getting what you mean by "functionally". The paraphrasing of dialogue choices is NOT same as DAO. Is this not included under the rubric of "function"? Now, we have heard that apparently the wheel CAN display the entire intended line, but the devs chose not to (which, is seems, is a huge concession to console design, saving space and making the choices more easiably navigatable on a controller).

What I'm saying is that, completely from an underlying system level, one cannot look at a conversation and how it is structured within the toolset and be able to tell whether or not it was a DA2 or a DAO conversation, without looking at the actual content (i.e. this says "kirkwall" or "this line has a paraphrase).

If you were to look through and understand the tutorial here for how a Dragon Age conversation and its elements are set up, there's very little difference with DA2.

We made some improvements with how some of the windows look and stuff like that to make it a bit better to use and other things like that, but in order to create a conversation, but my point is that how conversations is created is independent on how we decide to display said conversations on the screen. The workflow isn't dictated by any sort of arbitrary "this has a heart, so the PC must reply in such a way and this is a mechanical limitation of the wheel that writers must work around" which was an idea being put forth in this thread.

I suggest a toggle for full lines of dialogue response, as well as icons in the wheel, which is an aesthic choice, since you said they are functionally indentitcal there is reason to go with one over the other on a PC version. Problem solved.

Unfortunately, people have this idea that options are inexpensive. Many times, they aren't. From just a QA perspective alone, you have straight up doubled the workload of the live playthrough simply by having this option in. Unless you'd prefer we don't test your option at all during live playthrough (something I wouldn't be comfortable being associated with, and we frankly wouldn't be able to because there's no guarantees that we'd pass any of the console certification processes, and it certainly wouldn't go over well with many of our fans that DO play on consoles that wouldn't have such an option available to themselves).

Because we do have goals in our reporting in being able to see that we have in fact hit every single line of dialogue in the game during testing.

[abnocte]

Wissenschaft wrote...

But I don't want Ninjamancing. A big problem with DA:O plain list system was that I had no clue what reaction I would get out of the NPC.

And you do in real life? man, I want to be you.

If say I was talking to Alistair and I know he likes to joke around so I pick a jab in responce that I think is the most funny. Turns out that another option provides a bigger approval boost. How am I suppose to know that?

Why should you know wich dialogue option gives a bigger approval boost? Choosing dialogue options just to max-out Alistair's or any companion's approval is meta-gaming.


About ninjamancing...
I have to say that DA2 was the only Bioware game that had me ninjamanced... mainly because I ended up in a situation where I could only choose between 2 dialogue options:

1.- Bed Merrill
2.- Insult Merrill

Is this the Wheel's fault? not really, I think it's a writting problem created by the frindship/rivalry meter, but the wheel helped because, thought I could guess the outcome to each option, I was guessing.
I didn't use any of the <3 dialogue options on Merril but suddenly she appeared at my house after I refused to help her with the Eluvian ( earning lots of rivalry points ), and was unsure about what was going on. Can I explain to Merrill why my Hawke refused to help her? No, I'm in a rivalry relationship with her so my Hawke must hate mages...

No roleplaying at all...

[Direwolf0294]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Direwolf0294 wrote...

It has been obvious in every single BioWare game which dialogue choice was intended to be the romantic choice.

Without the icon, it cannot always be obvious.

I don't want it to be obvious.

That sort of response may leave the player feeling that the dialogue has been poorly written, the game can't properly convey the intent of dialogue options and that the game's not a good RPG. It may have fully been the writters intention that option 3 was the romantic option and the NPC would just react poorly to it, but to the player, who doesn't know what the writter was thinking, that option may now have been interpreted as a nasty option and you being mean to the NPC. This would especially be the case if you're playing a silent protagonist, as you have no idea the tone in which your character supposedly said those words. For all you know, your character was sneering the whole time they said it. By having a heart icon next to the option though, or any icon next to any option, the player at least knows what the intent of the dialogue was. Even if the NPC reacts poorly to it they still know they were trying to be romantic.

I would advise the player not to rely on the game to tell him how his character is behaving.  You say, "For all you know," but I do know.  I always know.  I know because I'm the one who decides.  If I decide my character is sneering, then my character is sneering.  If I decide my characteris flirting, then my character is flirting.  Which line I choose has nothing to do with that.  How the lines are written has nothing to do with that.

I know exactly how my character is going to deliver a line, and what he hopes to achieve by doing so, before he delivers that line.  That's how the silent PC games work, and that should be how the voiced PC games work as well.

And when you intend for your character to say his line with an angry sneer and the NPC greets it with a smile and gives you a hug, what then?

This is a video game, not your imagination. There are always going to be constraints surrounding it, and the major one is that no matter how much you wish it you can't choose what tone your character uses when picking a dialogue option that was not intended by the writter, even in a game with a silent protagonist.

Based on your posts, I'm assuming you play PnP RPGs, and I apologise if that assumption is wrong, and putting this into a perspetive perhapes more relatable to you, you're essentially arguing with your dungeon master. In CRPGs, the writters are the dungeon masters, and as well as controlling the story, loot and monster spawns, they control what your character can say, how they say it and what non playable characters reactions are to it. You are given limited choice, but ultimately they're the ones who control how things are done. If they've decided your dialogue choice was said in an angry tone then it was said in an angry tone and no amount of complaining is going to change that.

That is the reality of not just CRPGs but video games in general. Now you're welcome not to like that truth, but you can't deny it.

[abnocte]

Direwolf0294 wrote...

And when you intend for your character to say his line with an angry sneer and the NPC greets it with a smile and gives you a hug, what then?

Sorry for intruding but... have you ever seen a customer complaining to a clerk? The clerk won't go as far as giving the customer a hug, but certainly he/she is sure to smile.

Also in a PnP RPG the master never tells you how your character lines are delivered, but the master chooses how the NPC reacts, and if the master wants that NPC to react to a angry PC with an smile and a hug, he has all the right to do it.

NPC reactions to are quite irrelevant as long as you can roleplay your PC the way you want.

Edit: Or for example, haven't you ever had a bad day and ended being rude/angry to everyone around you? How did your family and friends react to it?
In my experience some will leave you alone, some will try to sympathice with you, and some will laugh it off and give you a hug.

You can put whatever intent you want on a line, but how it is recieved is up to the other party.

Modifié par abnocte, 04 octobre 2012 - 08:49 .

[Allan Schumacher]

NPC reactions to are quite irrelevant as long as you can roleplay your PC the way you want.

I think this is a matter of perspective. Seeing a game respond to a dialogue in a way that conveys the impression that the line was grossly misinterpreted is a jarring thing for myself. I've seen many state to me that that isn't a breaking of the game world, but it seems as though my personal, real life experiences are very, very different from what others here say.

I do not agree with the notion that miscommunication is as common as some make it out to be (especially among people that I have known for some time), but I only have my experiences to go on. Maybe in their lives it is. Especially given that since the game designer has most likely NOT afforded options to elaborate on discussions in the event of miscommunication (which is a common occurrence in my life when miscommunication has happened). Once this happens it becomes pretty clear to me that the line has been intended to be delivered a particular way, as certain responses don't make sense (especially if I have a better idea of that character due to knowing them for some time).

Regardless, I think that straight telling other people that how an NPC reacts is irrelevant to the experience is not really productive. Many clearly disagree, and to imply that they are just "not doing RPGs right" is a perspective I will not accept.


It seems clear to me that those with your perspective do mental gymnastics to rationalize the situations so that they feel it's appropriate and doesn't break the verisimilitude of the scene, while there are those like me that do our own mental gymnastics so that we feel we're still in control of the character and things are playing out appropriately and it doesn't break the verisimilitude for the scene.


For example, to use your example:

Sorry for intruding but... have you ever seen a customer complaining to a
clerk? The clerk won't go as far as giving the customer a hug, but
certainly he/she is sure to smile.

Context is important.  This reaction is appropriate because we can understand and infer why the clerk would be have that way based on various mores and other influences.


If the DM you suggest has all of his characters react to me punching them in the teeth with a hug and a smile, the DM better substantiate why this is happening or the world is going to seem absurd and I'm going to lose interest in it very quickly.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 04 octobre 2012 - 08:53 .

[Icinix]

All this talk of retail work leads me to want a role playing game where I can be a retail worker and vent my frustration at customers and head butt them when they get to silly.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Direwolf0294 wrote...

And when you intend for your character to say his line with an angry sneer and the NPC greets it with a smile and gives you a hug, what then?

My character would likely be annoyed or surprised, depending on his personality.

Or are you asking how I (the player) would feel about that?  When I'm roleplaying, I'm in-character.  My feelings don't matter; they might not even exist.

This is a video game, not your imagination. There are always going to be constraints surrounding it, and the major one is that no matter how much you wish it you can't choose what tone your character uses when picking a dialogue option that was not intended by the writter, even in a game with a silent protagonist.

I did it for years.  Don't tell me I didn't do it, because I did.  I sent Gaider some fan mail when DAO came out because of how well that game supported doing exactly that.

Based on your posts, I'm assuming you play PnP RPGs

I don't play multiplayer games.  PnP is multiplayer.

and I apologise if that assumption is wrong, and putting this into a perspetive perhapes more relatable to you, you're essentially arguing with your dungeon master. In CRPGs, the writters are the dungeon masters, and as well as controlling the story, loot and monster spawns, they control what your character can say, how they say it and what non playable characters reactions are to it.

I can't imagine a game master in a tabletop game ever telling a player how his character delivered a line.  Maybe if the character was Charmed.

You are given limited choice, but ultimately they're the ones who control how things are done. If they've decided your dialogue choice was said in an angry tone then it was said in an angry tone and no amount of complaining is going to change that.

That is the reality of not just CRPGs but video games in general. Now you're welcome not to like that truth, but you can't deny it.

I can deny it all I want.  If that content is in the game, you can point it out to me.  But you can't do that, because it's not there.

Show me the Warden's tone.  I have DAO installed - I can go look at your example.  Show me.  Where is the Warden's tone explicitly established?

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 04 octobre 2012 - 09:12 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Unless you'd prefer we don't test your option at all during live playthrough (something I wouldn't be comfortable being associated with, and we frankly wouldn't be able to because there's no guarantees that we'd pass any of the console certification processes, and it certainly wouldn't go over well with many of our fans that DO play on consoles that wouldn't have such an option available to themselves).

I need to point out how crazy this is.

If I receive a game A, and it has feature B, and I like it, that's good.

If someone else then received game A, and it has features B and C, that has no effect at all onthe game I'm playing.  that someone else has an option makes no material difference to the content of my game.  I still have the game I like, so there's no reason for me to be upset.

You're saying that the people in the first group would be annoyed if the second group had an extra feature, but f that's true then the only way to make fix it is to give the extra feature to everyone.  Taking away a feature from the second group doesn't affect the first group at all, so it shouldn't make them less annoyed.

I'm not saying you didn't accurately describe how people behave.  I'm saying that the behaviour you've described is insane.

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Seeing a game respond to a dialogue in a way that conveys the impression that the line was grossly misinterpreted is a jarring thing for myself.

I don't even agree that it's possible for the game to do that.  Unless we can read the NPCs minds, we can't know why they responded the way they did.  As such, it's not possible for their response to tell us that the line was misinterpreted.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 04 octobre 2012 - 09:14 .

[Direwolf0294]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Show me the Warden's tone.  I have DAO installed - I can go look at your example.  Show me.  Where is the Warden's tone explicitly established?

It is established in the NPCs response to what the Warden has said. I don't understand how that's a hard concept to grasp.

And with that, I'm going to leave this converstation.

[Cutlasskiwi]

abnocte wrote...


Also in a PnP RPG the master never tells you how your character lines are delivered, but the master chooses how the NPC reacts, and if the master wants that NPC to react to a angry PC with an smile and a hug, he has all the right to do it.

NPC reactions to are quite irrelevant as long as you can roleplay your PC the way you want.

It's true that the DM decides how the NPCs react but just like in real life if a misunderstanding happen I can correct it and try to explain what I meant. This is usually not possible in games. If a NPC walks away form a conversation thinking my PC meant something that s/he didn't - that's a failure for me.

[abnocte]

@Allan

Context is important, but more so the "NPC personality/out-look on life" or whatever you want to name it.
Depending on that "personality" the writer will choose one outcome or another to a certain line regardless of the intent the writer wanted behind that line. So if the intent behind that line doesn't determine the NPC reaction why is it important to tell the players that that line intent is X and only X?

You can heart-icon Aveline all you want, yet she is never going to start a romance with Hawke, so why my Hawke can't say those exact lines with another intent? may be she just wants to mock/tease/joke around with Aveline, why the game is telling me my Hawke really meant those words when she says them?

May be I want my Hawke to try to be on Aveline's good side by saying those lines, in the hopes she will turn a blind eye or be more forgiving about Hawke's shady business.

The same applies to any romanceable companion.

Pre-wheel dialog allowed the reason behind my PC choosing a line to be their own.
The wheel tells me that there's only one reason behind my PC choosing a line.

Just in case you didn't read this because you were writing your post while I edited mine:

Edit: Or for example, haven't you ever had a bad day and ended being rude/angry to everyone around you? How did your family and friends react to it?
In my experience some will leave you alone, some will try to sympathice with you, and some will laugh it off and give you a hug.

@Cutlasskiwi

You are assuming the other party allows you to explain yourself and that after you have explained, they believe your justification.

[formaristarry]

Bondari the Reloader wrote...

but perhaps in the same way that there is an investigate sub-menu there could sometimes be a color sub-menu that would list multiple options for the same tone. I realize this would take more work and be more expensive, but it would be a way to increase RP options without having to completely overhall the layout.

This is exactly what I was trying to propose in a different thread. The dominant personality and viewpoint were sometimes lumped together into one option on the wheel. My example for a solution was this:

Anders: "Mages should be free of the circle."

Diplo 1: I agree, let's free them all.
Diplo 2: (undecided) Maybe there is a compromise or better way.
Diplo 3: I disagree, the circle serves a purpose/works just fine.

The same would go for sarcastic and aggressive personalities. Let's say you are roleplaying an aggressive personality but want to agree with what Anders said:

Aggressive 1: (agree) Yeah! Let's destroy all the circles!
Aggressive 2: (undecided) That is controversial.
Aggressive 3: (disagree) That's heresy! Shut your mage mouth!

This way, you can agree or disagree in a tone that suits your dominant personality and let your stance on a particular subject be known without a point going toward a different dominant personality. This would do several things: Eliminate sounding out of character for the personality you're roleplaying. Eliminate the by-product of having a personality sometimes become dominant due to your stance on a particular subject. Still allow the player to change their dominant personality over the course of the game if they wished. And create more nuance in how the companion or npc (in this case Anders) responds to you. 

It should also still affect the friendship/rivalry bar, only a bit differently, if I diplomatically disagree with what Anders said then I should still get rivalry points because I'm going against his stance (maybe +5 rivalry for being nice about it, +10 for disagreeing aggressively)

Anyway, that was terribly long-winded but I don't think I got my point across the way I wanted to in my other post and this thread offers the oppurtunity to ask a question.

I read the tutorial you provided Allan, that was very informative on the whole process, so thanks for that. One thing that you said was that the writers are not "pigeonholed" so to speak, into writing lines for just the three tones by the layout of the wheel or mechanical process. I understand that, but if the writers were to add these colored sub menus, how much hardship would it place on the mechanical aspect? It would seem that the extra writing would add layers to how you "build" a conversation but would it change the layout of the wheel overmuch?

I also remember another post, I can't remember by who, that said all the available lines of dialogue are not shown at once but it doesn't mean they're not lined up for a series of "checks" or "flags". And that by moving all of the investigate options to a hub on the left meant opening up more space for dialogue that moves the conversation forward(or tone responses) rather than a question taking up one of the slots. So would it be plausible in some conversations, for the colored sub menu to take up these slots or the slots of the dialogue held for flags?

If it were not possible for the sub-menu to take up those slots, and the writers decided to add this "extra dialogue" then wouldn't it call for a reworking of the layout? And if the layout changed because of this, then it would also mean that the writers would be concious of the reworking and therefore write some things differently in turn.

If I'm misunderstanding something, please correct me, or if you cannot answer some of these questions without revealing too much about any reworkings of the dialogue system then feel free to disreguard. If you took the time to even read this monster post I would be pleased, and thankyou.   

[Wulfram]

The NPC misinterpreting what was said wouldn't be much of a problem if you could correct it. But you don't get that chance because as far as the game is concerned, there was no misinterpretation.

[Firky]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

What I'm saying is that, completely from an underlying system level, one cannot look at a conversation and how it is structured within the toolset and be able to tell whether or not it was a DA2 or a DAO conversation, without looking at the actual content (i.e. this says "kirkwall" or "this line has a paraphrase).

You've probably disappeared.

I'm interested to know what this would actually look like, then, for DA2 under construction - or DA3, I guess. I'm unsure if yourself, or a writer, is allowed to say (or could be bothered) but I'm intensely curious.

1. So, a conversation for DA2/DA3 is structured so that it still has the red owner lines and the blue player lines?

2. Player lines then have some kind of additional tabs, presumably cinematics, but also an editing tab for the paraphrase and tone icon?

3. Are the paraphrases written at the same time as each line of dialogue, or afterward?

I'm really interested, because I'd pictured something different. And this makes a difference to how I'm conceptualising it. I'd pictured the process as,

[[OWNER]] Blah blah blah.
> Paraphrased response.
    > [[PLAYER]] Actual response.
> Paraphrased response.
    > [[PLAYER]] Actual response.
etc

Now I picture it as,

[[OWNER]] Blah blah blah.
> Actual response (paraphrase/tone)
> Actual response (paraphrase/tone)
etc

It's probably an insignificant question. But I'm really interested.

Modifié par Firky, 04 octobre 2012 - 11:10 .

[Cultist]

Upsettingshorts wrote...
I'd say we're getting closer to a tenuous agreement here.  

What you call "complexity" I would describe as... and this is a bit clumsy, "imagination opportunities."  By that I mean, when the game does not provide tone in the form of voiceover, you can imagine whatever tone you wished and the game would do little in the way of contradicting you.  

The thing is, these options offer no value to me.  I recognize they offer value to you and many others, but to me the notion of objective complexity as you are using implies a non-subjective number of options.  I do not believe this is the case.

As such, if a game does not react to my choices, including ones as simple as "I want my protagonist to convey anger" then to me it is not an actual choice and therefore doesn't contribute to complexity.  Therefore, a game with a dialogue system in which every option provides a reaction possesses, to me, inherently more options that I can appreciate.

I think it's a matter of preferences. So we agree to disagree.

I disagree categorically with this assertion.  If you accept my argument above as broadly true, you can start to see why.
To me, the change from a silent protagonist to a voiced protagonist is not a dramatic change but a natural evolution along lines I expect.
Because others such as yourself have always played cRPGs different from me, your expectations are different and this change is a radical departure that strikes at the very foundation of what you think a cRPG is.
Whereas I see a dialogue layout/voice that better reacts to my choices and not much more.

Once again a matter of preferences, what you see as evolution, I see as degradation, and vice versa. Rather pointles to argue here, it's like  two people will argue what dish is better.

Cultist wrote...
Again I disagree.  I won't deny that they are very different and provide different things and do not dispute that there are good reasons to dislike one system or the other, but my assertion is this:

Voices protagonist/paraphrase:  Provides opportunities for characters to react along explicit lines at the expense of limiting the room in which your imagination can play with your character.  Players who value reactivity in their cRPGs appreciate this system as they never saw the point in options not reacted to by the game in the first place.  A common criticism of this is, "But don't you like to use your imagination when roleplaying?"  To that I would answer yes, and that my position on roleplaying is actually so demanding that I've never thought single player cRPGs were any good at it because a scripted game can never be as dynamic as a human DM and should focus on reactivity.  But that's just me personally.

I dislike voiced options because it replaces "your" story with someone else's story. It worked for games like Witcher or Deus EX, but failed with DA. And along with it always come paraphrases and autodialogues, where all you can do is hope that the character will say at least something similar to that paraphrase, and often they say quite the opposite. And this lack of control over what your character are doing is adding to the feeling that you ware playing interactive movie, not an RPG.

Cultist wrote...
This is entirely derived from a single quote by Fernando Melo where he says CoD players are familiar with experience points and approaching said crowd by explaining RPG mechanics they already use is a smart plan.  The only thing in the original article that implies a grasp at the Call of Duty crowd was the headline, which was written by the website and not BioWare.  Here's where that comes from, this story.

That is irrelevant. The point is that they tried to grab action and arcade preferring playerbase. As a result, the game alienated a lot of original RPG fans, but failed to attract enough arcade players to compensate for diminished "core RPG" playerbase.

Cultist wrote...
If BioWare borrowed from the action genre at all, a point I'm likely to dispute, it wasn't in the dialogue layout so I won't get into it here.

It's not like they borrowed some exact part of action games and implemented it into a DA2, more like they started to shift the gameplay from thinking and planning to action and reflexes. And this inevitably caused game aspects like dialogues and conversations to shrink and wither, transforming into a primitive paraphrasing form, which favors dialogue wheel.

Cultist wrote...
You absolutely cannot know that.  It is impossible to derive a conclusion such as this from sales alone.  As I've demonstrated here, I am in favor of the voiced protagonist.  Yet I have purchased Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim, Oblivion, and Dragon Age Origins.  Does that mean that I as a consumer have actively endorsed the superiority of the silent protagonist five times?  No.  It means that the sum of the games parts was, in my estimation, worthy of purchase.  There simply is no way of knowing how many more people made similar evaluations.

DA2 sold two times less than Origins. That means even with overlapping auditories, that prefer both variants -  VO and silent, could not compensate the audience lost.

[Rylor Tormtor]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I like your engagement and interaction here Allan and enjoy reading your posts, but this doesn't parse. Maybe I am not getting what you mean by "functionally". The paraphrasing of dialogue choices is NOT same as DAO. Is this not included under the rubric of "function"? Now, we have heard that apparently the wheel CAN display the entire intended line, but the devs chose not to (which, is seems, is a huge concession to console design, saving space and making the choices more easiably navigatable on a controller).

What I'm saying is that, completely from an underlying system level, one cannot look at a conversation and how it is structured within the toolset and be able to tell whether or not it was a DA2 or a DAO conversation, without looking at the actual content (i.e. this says "kirkwall" or "this line has a paraphrase).

If you were to look through and understand the tutorial here for how a Dragon Age conversation and its elements are set up, there's very little difference with DA2.

We made some improvements with how some of the windows look and stuff like that to make it a bit better to use and other things like that, but in order to create a conversation, but my point is that how conversations is created is independent on how we decide to display said conversations on the screen. The workflow isn't dictated by any sort of arbitrary "this has a heart, so the PC must reply in such a way and this is a mechanical limitation of the wheel that writers must work around" which was an idea being put forth in this thread.

I suggest a toggle for full lines of dialogue response, as well as icons in the wheel, which is an aesthic choice, since you said they are functionally indentitcal there is reason to go with one over the other on a PC version. Problem solved.

Unfortunately, people have this idea that options are inexpensive. Many times, they aren't. From just a QA perspective alone, you have straight up doubled the workload of the live playthrough simply by having this option in. Unless you'd prefer we don't test your option at all during live playthrough (something I wouldn't be comfortable being associated with, and we frankly wouldn't be able to because there's no guarantees that we'd pass any of the console certification processes, and it certainly wouldn't go over well with many of our fans that DO play on consoles that wouldn't have such an option available to themselves).

Because we do have goals in our reporting in being able to see that we have in fact hit every single line of dialogue in the game during testing.

Ah, I see what you are saying. I was looking at at from an end content as opposed to content generation perspective. 
I never assumed what I suggested would be cheap. I think it would be nice certainaly. I assume the VA scripts are available to the programmers and such. It seems that a part of the reaction against voiced PC and paraphrasing might be allleviated by reducing the paraphrasing, at least for the PC version. 

To me, the wheel is interesting test case in ideas of tradition and conitnuity. For some (note that I make no assumption about this number, just that there is at least more than 1 person) the wheel is a natural part of the Bioware RPG experience, since maybe ME was one their experiences. It seems strange that it is become such a centerpeice of the interface after ME, since personally I don't feel it is necessary or even a natural progression, but as our friend MT says "de gustibus, non disputandum est".

OT - man, is the forum posting box being super jumpy and annoying for anyone else?

[Kidd]

Icinix wrote...

All this talk of retail work leads me to want a role playing game where I can be a retail worker and vent my frustration at customers and head butt them when they get to silly.

Make that a fighter/RPG hybrid so I can do crouching jab, crouching short, headbutt into ultra combo at the retailers when they ask me if I want to preorder. Asking about preorders isn't safe on block, and I would appreciate the option to punish unsafe mistakes on the part of a less experienced player.

randomlycosmic wrote...

Aggressive 1: (agree) Yeah! Let's destroy all the circles!
Aggressive 2: (undecided) That is controversial.
Aggressive 3: (disagree) That's heresy! Shut your mage mouth!

I love Anders <3


But seriously, I agree. It's difficult when views and personalities are tied together like that. My first Hawke was an Anders friendmancer cause she wanted to save the mages as well. She was 100% on Anders' side and was quite militant about it, yet somehow she sounded so soft all the time when agreeing with him.

Modifié par KiddDaBeauty, 04 octobre 2012 - 12:12 .

[Novate]

yes totally, Please Bioware spend all your time and effort not in creating a better game , but to spent months just to make an Dialogue wheel and an Non Voiced PC option.
Yeah, We gamers apparently don't want a great game, great plot, great story, it seems Bioware fans only worry about whether or not their PC is voiced or not, and whether or not there is an Dialogue wheel.

Personally, I would rather they fix everything that was wrong with DA2, ME3 and create another master piece in story telling and character development. I don't care if there is an Dialogue wheel, or Voiced PC. Just give me a compelling story that isn't half baked and doesn't end with 3 color choices.

[NRieh]

I can't imagine a game master in a tabletop game ever telling a player how his character delivered a line. Maybe if the character was Charmed.

Nice example, by the way. To those who demand full lines, I have a question.

How often does "true" player at the table roleplays full conversation?
I mean..you're at tavern, there's an NPC girl you like to flirt with. Are you saying, that you fully RP your reading poems to her and singing songs to her, or are you just giving GM a basic idea about your intentions ("I'm flirting with Mary and reading her some of my new poems") and do charisma roll? If it's former - your RP table game sessions must be....reeeally long. Because it would take you about an hour or more just to have a snack in a tavern.

First person full RP (with "no paraphrase" at all) is needed only in LARPs, actually. Even in "true" table such RP is something you can add optionally, but do not include 100%. Same as rare GM 100% RPs all the NPCs and their dialogues. If he does and can stand more than 2 hours session - he's godlike. Now would pleasу someone be so kind to answer me - WHY are you looking for any kind of "freedom" in a videogame, which is scripted and restricted by pre-written lines, when even in "true" RPGs, which are only restricted by GM&player's imagination do not provide it? 

note: I'm not taking into consideration setting- and gm-free mindgames, which are literally pure unrestricted RP, I'm talking about table RPGs, which were direct prototype to PR videogames. And which I practiced a lot both as GM and player.

Modifié par Nrieh, 04 octobre 2012 - 12:20 .

[NRieh]

About ninjamancing...
I have to say that DA2 was the only Bioware game that had me ninjamanced... mainly because I ended up in a situation where I could only choose between 2 dialogue options:

1.- Bed Merrill
2.- Insult Merrill

You know...I'd hardly call it "ninjamancing"....because to get to this point you had to press "heart" button few times through different conversations. You flirt with a girl and you don't expect her to take your serious?..that's neither her nor heart icon's fault, I'm afraid..

[fchopin]

All i want to know is if we will get a toggle to remove the icons and show the full sentence in text?

When will Bioware decide and when will they tell us?

[abnocte]

Nrieh wrote...

About ninjamancing...
I have to say that DA2 was the only Bioware game that had me ninjamanced... mainly because I ended up in a situation where I could only choose between 2 dialogue options:

1.- Bed Merrill
2.- Insult Merrill

You know...I'd hardly call it "ninjamancing"....because to get to this point you had to press "heart" button few times through different conversations. You flirt with a girl and you don't expect her to take your serious?..that's neither her nor heart icon's fault, I'm afraid..

As I said in that post just after where you left the quote, I didn't use any "heart" icon on her. More over I was on a friendship path with her but I refused to help her with the Eluvian and ended up in the rivalry path. I had no reason to believe that Merrill was in love with my PC.

And I consider it a "ninjamance" because I couldn't get out of that conversation without either bedding her or insulting her, both options having nothing to do with *my* Hawke intentions.

[Kidd]

Nrieh wrote...

I mean..you're at tavern, there's an NPC girl you like to flirt with. Are you saying, that you fully RP your reading poems to her and singing songs to her, or are you just giving GM a basic idea about your intentions ("I'm flirting with Mary and reading her some of my new poems") and do charisma roll? If it's former - your RP table game sessions must be....reeeally long. Because it would take you about an hour or more just to have a snack in a tavern.

Not to mention it can get very awkward when somebody around the table doesn't understand that what the barmaid is feeling doesn't necessarily align with what the GM is feeling~

In my group we kind of go back and forth about this. When I GM I will always start out RPing the NPCs in first person, but when I notice people respond back in third person for whatever their reason, I follow suite. Works pretty well, I find.

But wait, my preferred RP style in cRPGs is 3rd person, so perhaps I wasn't supposed to answer this anyway? =D