390 réponses à ce sujet

[AdmiralDavidAnderson]

Well say the 'heart' icon option is available - We are then able to click it to reveal more options on how you would like to pursue the relationship i.e. lets take it slow, I love you or we'll bang ok?

[JWvonGoethe]

First up, this is a really good discussion. I always thought the dialogue wheel was one of the best innovations in RPGs in recent years, and it worked really well in Mass Effect and Deus Ex (which obviously stole it from Bioware,but excellent game nonetheless!) However, in a series like Dragon Age, where the idea is that the player is less the angel/demon sitting on the shoulder of a fixed PC character, subtly influencing their personality and decisions, and is more supposed to be taking the reins and directly controlling the PC's responses (which is  much more adventurous path for a developer to take) I found it had a few problems. However I think these problems can be overcome.

Wulfram wrote...

The problem with the wheel is it highlights the formulaic nature and artificiality of RPG dialogue choices, by making investigate options feel less like real choices, and by making the standard Nice, Neutral, Nasty choices into an explicit feature.

I really agree with this. Exploring the Investigate options in DA2 felt like going through the motions and did not provide any roleplaying oppurtunities. Then you could choose only one of three roleplaying options on the right hand side, which felt sparse, and it felt jarring to have Hawke use a diplomatc option in one conversation, then an agressive option in the next. This led to virtually no roleplaying oppurtunities for a lot of people, who just tended to always use the same either diplomatic or sarastic or aggressive option in every conversation by default, in order to have Hawke not go suddenly out of character.

However, I think the solution is... [continued in next post]

[JWvonGoethe]

Swagger7 wrote...

Direwolf0294 wrote...

[Images/text cut]

This is a great idea.  However, I actually think it's kind of nice to have all the options to move the conversation forward on the right side.  Maybe they could just add an extra on each side?  There'd be two benefits to this.  First, you'd always have one conversation type (nice/neutral/mean) that would have two options (ie charming and sarcastic, or direct and aggressive) .  This would lead to much needed diversity in the dialogue options.  Also, it would allow for four investigate choices, and thus make the investigate submenu occur less frequently.  (I hate that thing.) [...]

I think this is the solution. The right hand side should have only agree strongly/agree neutral/disagree strongly (or good/neutral/evil) options, resulting in the dialogue moving on the next stage, with much terser lines being spoken by the PC (eg "I suppose I could help" being spoken for neutral dialogue option . However, there could be two more options above and below Investigate on the left hand side as Direwolf pointed out. 

These options could be there solely to provide roleplaying oppurtunites. You would have two options, each one being either diplomatic/agressive/sarcastic/charming/flirtatious/pro-mage/pro-templar/pro-chantry etc or defer to companion. This would make choosing an option (or not) feel like an active choice, giving the player a greater feel of control over their character.

Furthermore, these options could change depending on what Investigate option you last picked (as in Mass Effect occassionally), for example:

Dialogue options (left hand side):

Charming option
Investigate ------------- Question 1 ---Question 2 --- Question 3
Sarcastic option

After asking question one in the investigate option, which is say, a question about the rite of tranquility, this could change to:

Pro-mage option
Investigate ------------- Question 1 --- Question 2 --- Question 3
Pro-templar option

These roleplaying options should only appear the first time you ask the question. If you repeat the question, no roleplaying options should appear (to prevent the PC from contradict him or herself.)

[Cultist]

Upsettingshorts wrote...
Project Eternity has 50,992 backers as of this post, of which I am one.

Dragon Age 2 sold at least 2,000,000 units and this was considered - by the BSN at least - disappointing. link

They are simply not comparable business models. 

Plus, there's the Project Eternity thread in Off-Topic.  You could go there. 

Which is twice less than Origins. I suppose if Inqusition will sell 1 million you'll still consider it a success.
And we are not comparing budgets of PE and DA2.
I guess people prefer business model that focuses on making RPGs, not interactive movies with awesome buttons.

[tmp7704]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

To be fair, is sticking to a preferred style any more stubborn than sticking to one way to play a game?

If anything its a battle of stubbornness.  

It's quite true, yup. I think there's a difference from practical standpoint, though -- allowing the players 'win' this conflict of stubborness should result in more players pleased the game allows them to play how they're used to, vs having a number of players ticked off the game forces them to change their habits. That's why the decision not to doesn't make much sense to me -- technical cost induced limitations are one thing, but "stylistic choice" is another matter.

edit: addtionally, i'm not sure if the "stubborness" on both sides can be viewed equal. Often we have preferred style for something because that's genuinely the most comfortable arrangement for our brain to work with, or a result of preferences beyond our control (some people like blue, some people like red, that sort of thing)  As such it can be quite harder to change than a "stylistic choice".

Modifié par tmp7704, 03 octobre 2012 - 10:35 .

[abnocte]

So far I've seen two reasons as to why Bioware uses the Dialogue Wheel:

1.- Reading the full text and then hearing the voice actor is redundant, plus avoids any possible conflict between how the player imagined the line would sound like and how it is actually delivered.

I'm not a native english speaker, so I always ( try to ) read all subtitles ( in english, I've come to dislike translations ). So for me the above argument is invalid, we could argue that it is not the same reading before hand than reading while hearing the line, but the only thing I know is that now I do twice as much fast reading than before.


2.- Style

No matter how stylish a DVD-case is, if I can't open it in less than 5 seconds is nothing but a failure.
Style should never undermine the ease-of-use of a product.

So far the paraphrases hide relevant information to the player and the icons meaning needs to be known beforehand to understand them. I found myself going back to the manual to check the meaning of an icon more than once while I was playing DA2.

So yeah, the wheel and the icons are pretty... but so far... not practial

Also, your wheel will never be able to beat this:

Modifié par abnocte, 03 octobre 2012 - 12:11 .

[Cultist]

abnocte wrote...

So far I've seen two reasons as to why Bioware uses the Dialogue Wheel:

1.- Reading the full text and then hearing the voice actor is redundant, plus avoids any possible conflict between how the player imagined the line would sound like and how it is actually delivered.

I'm not a native english speaker, so I always ( try to ) read all subtitles ( in english, I've come to dislike translations ). So for me the above argument is invalid, we could argue that it is not the same reading before hand than reading while hearing the line, but the only thing I know is that now I do twice as much fast reading than before.


2.- Style

No matter how stylish a DVD-case is, if I can't open it in less than 5 seconds is nothing but a failure.
Style should never undermine the ease-of-use of a product.

So far the paraphrases hide relevant information to the player and the icons meaning needs to be known beforehand to understand them. I found myself going back to the manual to check the meaning of an icon more than once while I was playing DA2.

So yeah, the wheel and the icons are pretty... but so far... not practial

Also, your wheel will never be able to beat this:

Not quite correct example, as we can add dozens of dialogue options where we have to guess the answer or solve a riddle.
Good old picture of RPG then and NOW have better comparison - actual dialogue options and three equivalents of "Continue" button. And dialogue wheel never be able to come even close to that level of complexity in conversations, limitin us to dumbed down primitive dialogues with three or, in best case, four options.

[upsettingshorts]

Cultist wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...
Project Eternity has 50,992 backers as of this post, of which I am one.

Dragon Age 2 sold at least 2,000,000 units and this was considered - by the BSN at least - disappointing. link

They are simply not comparable business models. 

Plus, there's the Project Eternity thread in Off-Topic.  You could go there. 

Which is twice less than Origins. I suppose if Inqusition will sell 1 million you'll still consider it a success.
And we are not comparing budgets of PE and DA2.
I guess people prefer business model that focuses on making RPGs, not interactive movies with awesome buttons.

PE could sell much less than 1m and be a success, I'd wager.  But I'm not privy to the details of their financials, and thus my opinion on the matter is next to useless.  Like any other poster here really.

Your point about business models for different kinds of games makes no sense. But really, it's not terribly confusing what's going on here.  No publishers want to touch a game like Project Eternity - the reason it's being funded with a Kickstarter to begin with - and this has made a niche of customers frustrated and angry.  They are willing to voice this position with their wallets to the tune of a couple million.  Congrats, Kickstarter has found a way to monetize your passion.  50,000+ preorders/backers of various tiers already say so, but numbers like that don't really make publishers stand up and take notice, and Avellone himself has conveyed as much in interviews.  It's an entirely different matter, really.

As such, your comments here are a combination of stating the obvious and stating the meaningless.  

tmp7704 wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...

To be fair, is sticking to a preferred style any more stubborn than sticking to one way to play a game?

If anything its a battle of stubbornness.  

It's quite true, yup. I think there's a difference from practical standpoint, though -- allowing the players 'win' this conflict of stubborness should result in more players pleased the game allows them to play how they're used to, vs having a number of players ticked off the game forces them to change their habits. That's why the decision not to doesn't make much sense to me -- technical cost induced limitations are one thing, but "stylistic choice" is another matter.

edit: addtionally, i'm not sure if the "stubborness" on both sides can be viewed equal. Often we have preferred style for something because that's genuinely the most comfortable arrangement for our brain to work with, or a result of preferences beyond our control (some people like blue, some people like red, that sort of thing)  As such it can be quite harder to change than a "stylistic choice".

As long as the people who prefer it exist in any significance, this point doesn't carry with it the weight you're implying.

When I said that there was stubbornness, I did not mean to lump all players together.  As far as "play how they used to" I'm sure you've been around long enough to have read my lengthy 1st vs. 3rd person gamer rant more than once and I'll spare you the repititious - also I am getting ready for class so I don't have time - and simply state that the wheel and paraphrase does not represent a radical departure in how these games are played to all of BioWare's fans.  The ones for whom it does are naturally louder, I would expect nothing less if the reverse was true as well.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 03 octobre 2012 - 12:44 .

[Cultist]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

PE could sell much less than 1m and be a success, I'd wager.  But I'm not privy to the details of their financials.

BioWare already stated that they expected DA2 to sell no less than 5 mil copies. They barely get 2 mil.
And when the sequel sells two times worse than original, that means there's something terribly wrong with it and how it was made.

[upsettingshorts]

Cultist wrote...

BioWare already stated that they expected DA2 to sell no less than 5 mil copies.

Can you provide sources on this?

Cultist wrote...

And when the sequel sells two times worse than original, that means there's something terribly wrong with it and how it was made.

Not necessarily.  You are assuming that sales numbers exist in a vaccuum detached from the cost of development:

DAO took over five years of development, DA2 took less than one year.  That alone ought to explain a host of differences in both quality and performance, before subjective preferences are introduced at all.

I can't know how much each game cost in terms of man hours or cash, but comparing them directly and saying that their raw sales is all anyone needs to look at in order to determine how successful the company likely considers them is disingenuous.

In any case, DA3 will be the first Dragon Age game to have a proper development window, and I'd start making comparisons then.  But that's me.

That said, this has rapidly gotten wildly off-topic for a thread about dialogue layouts.  

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 03 octobre 2012 - 12:50 .

[addiction21]

How do you "sell two times worse"? Is that possible or am I just missing something here?

[upsettingshorts]

Cultist wrote...

Good old picture of RPG then and NOW have better comparison - actual dialogue options and three equivalents of "Continue" button. And dialogue wheel never be able to come even close to that level of complexity in conversations, limitin us to dumbed down primitive dialogues with three or, in best case, four options.

This comparison is disingenuous.  The right, the fact it's deliberately taken from a bugged out image to mock it aside, offers something to me - a third person gamer, something the older games of BioWare never could.  The reactivity, on a micro level, of choosing an angry dialogue option and seeing my protagonist get angry, and the world around him react to that anger.  

What you see in that comparison is far different from what I see.  The way it is presented, but in the image itself and in your summary of it, ignores this.  That's why posters like me will argue 'till we're blue in the face about this and we're accused of being ****s or BDF or what have you.  In your frustration at the existence failure of old school RPGs, PE aside that is, you are pretending, typically because you either disbelieve or don't care, other players with different preferences exist and always have.  They are dismissed as a new and dumb audience.  It's incorrect, and it's insulting.  So we'll keep pushing back.

I don't look at those images and see complex vs. dumb.  I see a dialogue layout of a predominantly unvoiced text based game versus a fully voiced game, with all the pros and cons of each, not a judgment of what kinds of players prefer either as it would like to imply.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 03 octobre 2012 - 01:01 .

[DonSwingKing]

Not necessarily.  You are assuming that sales numbers exist in a vaccuum detached from the cost of development:

DAO took over five years of development, DA2 took less than one year.  That alone ought to explain a host of differences in both quality and performance, before subjective preferences are introduced at all.

As always you forget that creating the complete Dragon Age universe takes a lot of time. The actual game took no longer than two years of developemnt, im sure. Otherwise the graphical and technical quality couldn't compete to other games from 2009.

The whole DA2 disaster ahs nothing to do with time. The game runs technically flawless. It is simply a matter of design decisions.

[In Exile]

DonSwingKing wrote...
As always you forget that creating the complete Dragon Age universe takes a lot of time. The actual game took no longer than two years of developemnt, im sure. 

You think it took three years to create... what, the lore? You'd also be wrong. That clearly came in pre-production. 

Here is Ostagar (circa 2004):



Here is a screenshot from what is clearly the sacred ashes quest:

Modifié par In Exile, 03 octobre 2012 - 01:19 .

[In Exile]

Cultist wrote...

Not quite correct example, as we can add dozens of dialogue options where we have to guess the answer or solve a riddle.
Good old picture of RPG then and NOW have better comparison - actual dialogue options and three equivalents of "Continue" button. And dialogue wheel never be able to come even close to that level of complexity in conversations, limitin us to dumbed down primitive dialogues with three or, in best case, four options.

Yeah, just look at all those options! Here is one of my favourites:



Here is my second favourite:



Don't get me wrong - DA:O had more dialogue than DA2, especially since it could get away with a lot more dead "end options" (i.e., options where the PC had multiple lines that led to the same response from the NPC) than DA2  (because each PC line has a cost). VO costs you dialogue options from the PC.

But any character VO costs you dialogue. 

For comparison's sake, in DA2:



That's four options, with investigate adding 1-3 (I can't recall that scene) for a total of up to 7 lines at that one point in time. 

For the sake of a real comparison (re: what Bioware does), look at KoTOR:

Modifié par In Exile, 03 octobre 2012 - 01:29 .

[upsettingshorts]

DonSwingKing wrote...

The whole DA2 disaster ahs nothing to do with time. The game runs technically flawless. It is simply a matter of design decisions.

Yes, I'm sure they made the conscious design decision to repeat environments and it had nothing to do with time.

The development was 11 months.  Source.  That is very short, and in terms of how long BioWare typically tends to develop games it is an outlier (as is Origins, which was stuck in development hell and switched engines as the screenshots In Exile posted show)

That isn't to say they didn't make a lot of controversial design decisions, I wouldn't dispute that with a straight face.  But to pretend the fact DA2 was rushed didn't have consequences is lunacy.  Following that, it's just illogical to assume those issues will repeat themselves.

[Maclimes]

I think this thread is flirting with a lock-down, guys. Let's get it back on target.

Modifié par Maclimes, 03 octobre 2012 - 01:47 .

[Cutlasskiwi]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Cultist wrote...

Good old picture of RPG then and NOW have better comparison - actual dialogue options and three equivalents of "Continue" button. And dialogue wheel never be able to come even close to that level of complexity in conversations, limitin us to dumbed down primitive dialogues with three or, in best case, four options.

This comparison is disingenuous.  The right, the fact it's deliberately taken from a bugged out image to mock it aside, offers something to me - a third person gamer, something the older games of BioWare never could.  The reactivity, on a micro level, of choosing an angry dialogue option and seeing my protagonist get angry, and the world around him react to that anger.  

What you see in that comparison is far different from what I see.  The way it is presented, but in the image itself and in your summary of it, ignores this.  That's why posters like me will argue 'till we're blue in the face about this and we're accused of being ****s or BDF or what have you.  In your frustration at the existence failure of old school RPGs, PE aside that is, you are pretending, typically because you either disbelieve or don't care, other players with different preferences exist and always have.  They are dismissed as a new and dumb audience.  It's incorrect, and it's insulting.  So we'll keep pushing back.

I don't look at those images and see complex vs. dumb.  I see a dialogue layout of a predominantly unvoiced text based game versus a fully voiced game, with all the pros and cons of each, not a judgment of what kinds of players prefer either as it would like to imply.

This! Thank you for putting it so eloquently.

[hangmans tree]

Upsettingshorts wrote... Congrats, Kickstarter has found a way to monetize your passion.
 50,000+ preorders/backers of various tiers already say so, but numbers
like that don't really make publishers stand up and take notice, and
Avellone himself has conveyed as much in interviews.  It's an entirely
different matter, really.

big fishes will say darn anything to ridicule the problem they are facing. See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil. They HATE kickstarter with a passion, coz it takes away a reasonable chunk of their cake...

Imagine this grows proportionally; where would publishers be at that rate? What role would they assume then? I think you are wrong assuming they are indifferent to kickstarter.

[Icinix]

hangmans tree wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote... Congrats, Kickstarter has found a way to monetize your passion.
 50,000+ preorders/backers of various tiers already say so, but numbers
like that don't really make publishers stand up and take notice, and
Avellone himself has conveyed as much in interviews.  It's an entirely
different matter, really.

big fishes will say darn anything to ridicule the problem they are facing. See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil. They HATE kickstarter with a passion, coz it takes away a reasonable chunk of their cake...

Imagine this grows proportionally; where would publishers be at that rate? What role would they assume then? I think you are wrong assuming they are indifferent to kickstarter.

I doubt that very much.

At most publishers might be looking at it as something they can use to offload costs for games that aren't AAA.

But hate it? Kickstarter has barely been a drop in the ocean to the kind of numbers the big publishers look at.

At best it gives indie developers a chance to make and break on their own in a bigger way than previously possible and allows developers to explore hobby ideas outside of the publishers gaze.

[upsettingshorts]

Don't misjudge, if Kickstarter games start pulling in a ridiculous amount of money, sure publishers might care more.

But the number of backers and money involved so far isn't gonna get any big publishers out of bed in the morning. Chris Avellone has said this. I don't think this point is particularly controversial in any respect as a result.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 03 octobre 2012 - 02:07 .

[In Exile]

Maclimes wrote...

I think this thread is flirting with a lock-down, guys. Let's get it back on target.

Getting it back on topic, I just can't really see how much more information you get out of DA:O/KoTORs sentences. They're very sparse. The confusion is from the paraphrase/VA'd line incongruence. The solution is to not have those two as far apart as they are. 

[upsettingshorts]

In Exile wrote...

Maclimes wrote...

I think this thread is flirting with a lock-down, guys. Let's get it back on target.

Getting it back on topic, I just can't really see how much more information you get out of DA:O/KoTORs sentences. They're very sparse. The confusion is from the paraphrase/VA'd line incongruence. The solution is to not have those two as far apart as they are. 

Which is something DG has said in this thread they are moving away from, thankfully.  I hope it helps the people who struggle.  I mean it won't help everyone but if it helps some, good show.

[In Exile]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Which is something DG has said in this thread they are moving away from, thankfully.  I hope it helps the people who struggle.  I mean it won't help everyone but if it helps some, good show.

Wait, say what? Okay. Time to track down that post. 

[upsettingshorts]

Here ya go.

David Gaider wrote...

Cstaf wrote...
I agree that the wheel does not take away the number of choices. It does however force, the way bioware seems to want to do it, the usage of shorter paraphrase due to the limitation of space

Not quite true. We can list the full line, though it ends up looking quite messy on the interface. We can even truncate the displayed line and display the full line on-hover. We won't do that, however, as a stylistic choice.

We intend to be less paranoid, however, about repeating information between the paraphrase and the actual line. So that makes the lines a bit easier to paraphrase. And, yes, I agree that more iteration of the paraphrases is necessary to lower the percentage of misinterpretations (which is low, but could stand to be lower).

I know that some people just don't like the perceived "mechanical" nature of the interface, or the use of the icons to make the intended tone more explicit (tones which were always present, even in DAO, as that's the way we wrote them). Abandoning the entire style to deliberately go back to a more obscure interface, however, isn't something we're going to entertain... and I personally believe wouldn't actually do what some people seem to believe it would. I do hear the criticism, but don't agree with the diagnosis. In the end, however, I'd rather show what we're doing than discuss it in this manner, so I'll hold off going into detail.