243 réponses à ce sujet

[fdgvdddvdfdfbdfb]

I like how the discussion has nothing to do with the thread title. Anyway, I will get in on this because I absolutely HATE paraphrases. I can't tell you the number of times Shepard's said something stupid at the end of a mission and I feel like I have to go back a few hours just to see if there are any better options. Often they're worse. It's the uncertainty that kills it- you don't even know if you could do better, like people who leave their partners and end up alone.

My programming knowledge is limited(none) but it doesn't even sound resource intensive at all- all the subtitles are already there. Heck it I imagine a modder could do it if the game wasn't so modification unfriendly.

[Cultist]

David Gaider wrote...
So we would be trading one group of people who believe this is what they want for another group who would take the option and make it a poorer experience for themselves.

You already traded one group for another with Dragon Age 2.
Somehow I can't remember anyone complaining about Deus: EX: HR displaying a full line.

[Cultist]

Maria Caliban wrote...

What's this? Someone wants me to post an image of Deus Ex: Human Revolution's conversations?

Because they're an excellent example of doing what BioWare wants to do while providing the player with lots of information!



Look at that wheel for easy navigation.

Look at those one word tones that can take up very little space and require no icon. Heck, I bet one word is easier to localize than the paraphrases.

Look at that box with a longer bit of text in it.

And you know what? Dues Ex was a very cinematic game with a voice protagonist. It had exactly the sort of stylistic but unobtrusive UI that DA II seemed to be attempting.

Because full lines annoys CoD Crowd.
And because this

[fchopin]

David Gaider wrote...

I get that some people like to imagine their character's tone, and that having that tone made explicit for them prevents them from imagining that for themselves and thus they feel restricted by it. That is, however, not something we can change with the move to a voiced protagonist-- and while the same people can make the argument on these forums time and time again, it's not something we're willing to change.

Thank you for letting us know that you will not be using the toggle for full text.

[nightscrawl]

I get that the full line is not an option. This reply is merely to add to the discussion, rather than persuade.

David Gaider wrote...

I get that some people feel they need allthe information in order to make their dialogue choice-- and they feel that seeing the entire line displayed for them will give them that information. It won't. Or, I should say, it will... but it will break down just as often as paraphrases do. Which is to say not very often, but often enough that you remember the situations where that happens. The only way that wouldn't be the case is if we started writing player lines as if the PC weren't voiced, as in Origins.

It would be helpful if you gave some examples (from your test groups) of it breaking down as often as the paraphrases. To me, that is a really surprising statement, since I felt that the paraphrases broke down quite a bit. And I certainly cannot at all imagine that being provided with the full line in those instances would have led to more or equal frustration.

It's not an issue of not liking what my character said. It's about seeing the available options, understanding what will be said, and picking the best one for me so I don't have to reload when the option I thought I wanted turned out to be some horrible thing I never would have picked in the first place had I known what my character was going to say.

Also, there are a significant number of people who would be greatly annoyed by reading the entire line and then having it repeated to them verbatim. Your response might be "well, they shouldn't select that option then." But many people will. They'll see it in the list of options and think "oh, that's an option that will give me more information? More information is better!" and they'll select it... and then be annoyed by the result. So we would be trading one group of people who believe this is what they want for another group who would take the option and make it a poorer experience for themselves.

I was going through the player feedback options in DA2 and I selected all of them just to see what it was like. These were all of the numbers for player, party, and enemy damage, immunities, combat reactions (miss, etc), and so forth. I didn't like it. It was information overload, so I turned it off.

Are players that ridiculous that they can't turn off an option that annoys them after having turned it on?

And you might say to that "well, I think it would make the game better for me", but I'd suggest you're largely wrong in that. It doesn't actually address your base problem, which is with the voiced PC. At best we'd be going out of our way to not really solve your issue while actively making the game worse for others.

Not everyone who has issues with paraphrases also has issues with the voiced PC. I much prefer the voiced PC, so much so that going back to play DAO is sometimes a struggle. I can even imagine the logistical reasons for having the paraphrase system in combination with the tone and personality system that DA2 used. That doesn't change my preference for seeing the full line.

This is not to say there aren't things we can do to make the system better other than simply being more rigorous with our use of paraphrases. Not being as anal about not repeating words and phrases between the paraphrase and the actual line(s) is one, but there are others... which we will discuss at a later time.

I am really looking forward to seeing what you all have in store for us, but I doubt we'll be able to get a real idea of how the paraphrase system has evolved until we play the whole game and run through the whole gamut of conversation options.

Modifié par nightscrawl, 19 octobre 2012 - 12:19 .

[nightscrawl]

areuexperienced wrote...

I wonder how many Mr. Gaider & co. convince then and is what you do really going to boil down to having a bigger tally than your opposition? Because, I'm sure, for every one you convince there's probably one that's tired of the same horse being brought for flogging for the umpteenth time.

Gaider and co. don't have to convince anyone though. They're going to make the game they want to make. People will buy it or they won't. Those that do will tell people whether they liked it or not, why they did, and maybe vent or praise on these forums. Keep in mind too that the people on the BSN are a very small portion of the DA player base. Those players that don't come here aren't being convinced one way or the other, they only know that they liked (or disliked) the way DA2 did (or didn't) do things.

I don't know... I think this internet feedback thing can be overrated sometimes. I don't see Miyamoto taking feedback on the latest Mario or Zelda game.

Modifié par nightscrawl, 19 octobre 2012 - 12:39 .

[Apollo Starflare]

Whilst it seems like it won't happen, I have to admit I wouldn't mind having some sort of 'full line' dialogue option. In general I'm a big fan of 'the wheel' and the way BioWare handle their dialogue, but having played through so much ME, DA and TOR in the past x years you definitely get used to picking choices that turn out very differently to what you expected based on the paraphrase. Even if it didn't solve the problem completely, having more dialogue to work with would help with that, surely?

I particularly notice it with TOR, but maybe that's because in that game I am able to quickly esc out of the conversation and retry if the dialogue seems completely OOC and such.

But yeah, probably a moot point if it's not something that's ever going to happen. *shrug*.

[hoorayforicecream]

nightscrawl wrote...

I was going through the player feedback options in DA2 and I selected all of them just to see what it was like. These were all of the numbers for player, party, and enemy damage, immunities, combat reactions (miss, etc), and so forth. I didn't like it. It was information overload, so I turned it off.

Are players that ridiculous that they can't turn off an option that annoys them after having turned it on?

Consider this situation. Say you're a gamer (like most) with a queue of games to play. You know you want to get through them all because another game you're looking forward to is coming soon, and you know the steam holiday sale is around the corner, and you'll probably see something you want from it.

You've heard decent things about Dragon Age 3, and you've sat down to play it. You haven't really been that big a fan before... maybe it was too long, or maybe you just lost interest, or maybe you just didn't like some of the stuff that happened in the previous one.

When you start, you turn on all of this stuff because, like you said, more info = more better, right? So you turn it all on.

And it's annoying. It sure seems to break immersion. It's aggravating. You just can't get into the flow of the game, and instead you start seeing all of the other little things you may have forgiven if you were in a good mood, but now you're already cranky so they annoy you even more. You find yourself losing interest in the game. You could go back and turn it off, but you've still got this big stack of other games to play instead.

So you don't finish. You just pull the disc out and say "I'll just come back to this later after I finish the others." Then you pop in the next game and you're off to the races. Will you ever come back and finish? If you're like most gamers, you probably won't.

The real issue is that you never get a second chance at a first playthrough. Things that break flow, even if they can be turned off, can have a very negative effect on the player's initial experience, and that experience is the only thing that most players will undertake.

[fchopin]

hoorayforicecream wrote...

So you don't finish. You just pull the disc out and say "I'll just come back to this later after I finish the others." Then you pop in the next game and you're off to the races. Will you ever come back and finish? If you're like most gamers, you probably won't.

Do you think you are talking to 10 year old kids or grownups?

[EricHVela]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Many old-school game references including Sierra and OSI games such as Police Quest and Ultima.

You make me feel so old.

My intro to Ultima was U2:RotE. (It was a wierd game that often left me scratching my head.)

My intro to Sierra games was King's Quest (1 - original release).

I got to see them evolve so my perspective on their importance is quite different. (The same goes for OS and programming. I started with IBM's PC-DOS 2 and Assembly on a Magnavox Odyssey2.)

That doesn't mean some of their stuff wasn't awful by today's standards, but it does mean many of us today don't know what things we've lost in today's gaming.

It's part of the reason that a certain not-quite-MMO-and-not-quite-SP space-sim game has enticed me enough to pledge online for the very first time. I would like to introduce today's crowd to some of the styles we've lost over these last couple of generations.

I don't want to lose some of the great things we've invented since those days, but I also feel that we've lost too much.

Relating to the specific topic ITT, the "tone-based narrative" is something I've liked. The sudden anger/politeness/sultriness of dialog has bugged me until the recent games that considered such inconsistencies and automated some dialog based on it. It's a part of character-building that I've liked. It's one of the good things that we've invented since classic gaming in my opinion.

EDIT: No. I'm not that old. Our Odyssey existed at our house during my 4th and 5th grades of elementary school, but I did play Pong before that, too.

Modifié par ReggarBlane, 19 octobre 2012 - 03:26 .

[jkflipflopDAO]

Fortlowe wrote...

In DA2, we did not select the tone. We selected personality alignment. Which is an altogether different limitation than the widely perceived notion of tone selection in DA2. Had there been tone selection, that tone would not have affected whether or not Hawke did something, only the tone in which the decision was conveyed and how Hawke felt about making it. One can say "No" graciously, Jovially, or Aggressively (among other tones), but the answer remains the same. And how the tone is conveyed impacts how the answer is received, generally, at least. However in DA2 gracious generally represented the affirmative, aggressive the negative, and sarcastic the neutral.

Also, the dialogue wheel offered more dialogue options and directions than the list in DA:O, not less. Fundamentally, the wheel is the list. Except with paraphrasing and alignment data. In other words, conversations in DA2 were more intricate, not less. What the wheel actually did was highlight the fact that tone is not being simulated within the current conversation structure (neither the list or the wheel).

What a huge pile of nonsense. I'm going to assume you just like hearing yourself talk.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Vaeliorin wrote...

Anyway, I tried to play Ultima IV a year or so ago (it might have been a bit longer, I don't recall exactly) and got incredibly frustrated when I couldn't get any sort of response from any of the NPCs.  Now, it's entirely possible the version I had was bugged (it was a flash version on the net), but it was enough to get me to quit after about an hour of trying to get anywhere.

That flash version was a bit buggy, but I don't recall the dialogue to be especially broken (sometimes you'd get the wrong response, which did kind of break the game, but you could get responses).  But the full version of the game is available free from GOG.  I highly recommend it.

But I wouldn't recommend it to a new player.  I would encourage them to play Ultima V first, which is much more accessible.  Or the re-released Ultima I, even - it's a pretty basic game, but it teaches you the relevant skills you need to play U4.

[areuexperienced]

nightscrawl wrote...

areuexperienced wrote...

I wonder how many Mr. Gaider & co. convince then and is what you do really going to boil down to having a bigger tally than your opposition? Because, I'm sure, for every one you convince there's probably one that's tired of the same horse being brought for flogging for the umpteenth time.

Gaider and co. don't have to convince anyone though. They're going to make the game they want to make. People will buy it or they won't. Those that do will tell people whether they liked it or not, why they did, and maybe vent or praise on these forums. Keep in mind too that the people on the BSN are a very small portion of the DA player base. Those players that don't come here aren't being convinced one way or the other, they only know that they liked (or disliked) the way DA2 did (or didn't) do things.

I don't know... I think this internet feedback thing can be overrated sometimes. I don't see Miyamoto taking feedback on the latest Mario or Zelda game.

I understand all of this, I agree and I think you misunderstood me. I meant to offer a counterpoint to the whole "bringing up the same thing over and over again in hopes of changing something" when the question has been tackled a thousand times.

[Vit246]

I just wanna say something.

Approximately just 3 years ago, another Bioware game called DA:O had silent full-text dialogue.
And it was fine. For most of everyone.
I knew exactly everything that was going to be said and I was never surprised. I never had to exactly figure out those paraphrases that sometimes did not even match up at all with the following dialogue.
There was no inherent tone or dominant tone. My character was not defined by one out of 3 dominant tones all the time in response to everything. He was a complex guy who acted accordingly.
And if I chose an "Aggressive" option one time, the game would not decide if I had or didn't have enough "Aggressive points" in order to pick it in the first place and if the NPC believed it or not. 
Example #1: My Hawke chose to be "Aggressive" one time and threaten this guy with a knife, but he didn't believe me with his life on the line (fracking idiot) because I apparently didn't have enough "Aggressive" points, and my character just automatically backed down without going further through with the threat.
Example#2: My generally "Diplomatic" Hawke simply hated the Qunari and truly wanted to side with Ser Varnell, but he didn't believe me just because I wasn't "Aggressive" enough to be able to pick the option to knife and kill the Qunari first, as if my past decisions and actions in other irrelevant things had anything whatsoever to do with this one. As if the game was trying to force my character to think and act in a certain way that the game thinks my character should / must be doing.
My Hawke was "Diplomatic" too many times and the game decided that he would never be really "Aggressive" ever.

Modifié par Vit246, 19 octobre 2012 - 05:46 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Eh, I struggle to play Ultima IV (I'm a fan of the Ultima series, but typically focus on ones like 6, 7, and Serpent Isle) now because I frankly feel the game is just dated. Though I didn't exactly find it easy when I first played it either (or even Ultima 6 which was my introduction to the franchise). I ran around not knowing what to do, but eh the world was interesting enough that I didn't really care a whole lot.

I can't imagine not being told what to do ever being a problem.  You do what you like, and let the game deal with it.

This desire to be directed is something I simply don't understand.

And I loathe the inventory mangement of U6 compared to that of U7, for example. So many wasteful clicks/keystrokes but that's just the way it was done back then.

If wasteful clicks or keystrokes is a problem, why do you guys kep using list inventories?  They're horribly inefficient to navigate compared to a NWN-style grid.

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Here's the thing: Games in general are a lot more accessible (and in general just more accepted) now. The skillset required to simply use a computer in the times when Ultima IV came out immediately filter out the types of people that would even be able to play it.

I think what's much more likely the case, is that this teacher is talking with people that frankly wouldn't have enjoyed Ultima IV very much if the first time they picked it up was back when it was released. It's less about "people are forgetting about how to play the older games" and more about "there's a greater variety of people out there now that are able to play games" coupled with "There are enough games out today that appeal to a diverse enough set of skillsets."

This is certainly true, but since the new group is bigger than the old group, game developers make games to serve the new group, leaving the old group behind.

Most modern games are too accessible to be fun for me.  They're too straightforward.  There's no depth to them.  God of War simply isn't interesting.  The things I do within the game aren't intellectually satifying.

Now, I'll admit that I made fun of people who used web browsers in the mid-90s (graphical interfaces are for noobs), and to some degree my criticisms still stand.  It's easier to do some things with a command line - you have greater control over the details of the commands you're entering.  I prefered OS/2 to Windows because OS/2 had more powerful memory allocation tools.  Was it harder to use?  Yes.  But it could do more things.

I see in these comments the usual pejoratives about the "console generation" and things like that, and I don't think they even realize they're doing it. They're speaking down to people who simply don't have the same interest in games that they do, but fallaciously assume that these people would still be gamers in the late 80s and better equipped to deal with an Ultima IV. To them, it's not "these people just wouldn't like this game that I love at any time" but rather "these people don't like a game I loved back in the day, and therefore it must be some systemic problem with how things are being lost in gaming today" rather than "things have been added to gaming today which allows these people that otherwise would NOT play games to now play games."

And by doing so, they dilute the market.  You're right - the gamer population in 1985 consisted almost exclusively of nerds.  Today, nerds are but a small subset.  As such, games aren't being made to cater specifically to nerds.  So the nerds feel excluded.

[Sylvius the Mad]

nightscrawl wrote...

I was going through the player feedback options in DA2 and I selected all of them just to see what it was like. These were all of the numbers for player, party, and enemy damage, immunities, combat reactions (miss, etc), and so forth. I didn't like it. It was information overload, so I turned it off.

Are players that ridiculous that they can't turn off an option that annoys them after having turned it on?

Some people are dumb.

Sadly, those people no longer get eaten by bears.

[Sylvius the Mad]

ReggarBlane wrote...

My intro to Ultima was U2:RotE. (It was a wierd game that often left me scratching my head.)

Ultima II was a weird game.  I've never been able to make sense of it.

[Vit246]

double post

Modifié par Vit246, 19 octobre 2012 - 05:42 .

[The Hierophant]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

nightscrawl wrote...

I was going through the player feedback options in DA2 and I selected all of them just to see what it was like. These were all of the numbers for player, party, and enemy damage, immunities, combat reactions (miss, etc), and so forth. I didn't like it. It was information overload, so I turned it off.

Are players that ridiculous that they can't turn off an option that annoys them after having turned it on?

Some people are dumb.

Sadly, those people no longer get eaten by bears.

They make for easier wins in Tekken, Soul Calibur, and Street Fighter so it's a nice tradeoff.

[AlexanderCousland]

If the Protaginist is the most expensive character in the Game, then why are the companions more seemingly more important to the overall story then him/her.? (Anders)

[Palipride47]

Vit246 wrote...

I just wanna say something.

Approximately just 3 years ago, another Bioware game called DA:O had silent full-text dialogue.
And it was fine. For most of everyone.
I knew exactly everything that was going to be said and I was never surprised. I never had to exactly figure out those paraphrases that sometimes did not even match up at all with the following dialogue.
There was no inherent tone or dominant tone. My character was not defined by one out of 3 dominant tones all the time in response to everything. He was a complex guy who acted accordingly.
And if I chose an "Aggressive" option one time, the game would not decide if I had or didn't have enough "Aggressive points" in order to pick it in the first place and if the NPC believed it or not. 
Example #1: My Hawke chose to be "Aggressive" one time and threaten this guy with a knife, but he didn't believe me with his life on the line (fracking idiot) because I apparently didn't have enough "Aggressive" points, and my character just automatically backed down without going further through with the threat.
Example#2: My generally "Diplomatic" Hawke simply hated the Qunari and truly wanted to side with Ser Varnell, but he didn't believe me just because I wasn't "Aggressive" enough to be able to pick the option to knife and kill the Qunari first, as if my past decisions and actions in other irrelevant things had anything whatsoever to do with this one. As if the game was trying to force my character to think and act in a certain way that the game thinks my character should / must be doing.
My Hawke was "Diplomatic" too many times and the game decided that he would never be really "Aggressive" ever.

I think this is what to OP was getting at (right, OP?) and my main problem.

I may diagree with this poster in that I liked voiced protagonist. I like the wheel (for the most part). I liked the "intent" icons (like the "flirt" button, it saved my skin many, many times - if they weren't there, that is). I like that investigative bits were separate. After playing DAO after DA2, I can see that it was "essentially" the same, with three kinds of "responses" and some investigative choices mixed in. 

I do like that the actions you could take (lie vs threaten) were based on personality. You can hold a knife to someone's throat and have them beleive you wouldn't dare, that you are bluffing. It made it "inconvienent" (that I couldn't just use 4 skill points and then be a Jedi), which was annoying, initially, but it is better. 

What I did not like was that the plot points (siding with Varnell is the main one I can think of) were based on personality. What I did not like was that you liking or disliking someone/ something seemed to be based on your personality. What I did not like was that diplomatic choices were "agreeable" (you support Merrill's mirror obsession, or think what Anders did with the spirit was well intentioned, so therefore it was ok) and that agressive choices were "disagreable," (like calling Anders an abomination was restricted to aggressive remarks)  

I wouldn't know how to make it work better, or what could replace it. I am not working on the game, and don't know anything about the mechanics or possibilites, but there's my several cents, if another loudmouth on the BSN posting on a groan inducing thread topic (I swear this is right up there with bisexual LIs) means anything

[FieryDove]

nightscrawl wrote...

I was going through the player feedback options in DA2 and I selected all of them just to see what it was like. These were all of the numbers for player, party, and enemy damage, immunities, combat reactions (miss, etc), and so forth. I didn't like it. It was information overload, so I turned it off.

Are players that ridiculous that they can't turn off an option that annoys them after having turned it on?

I'm guessing yes. The demo was a locked difficulty because people might click nightmare, die and quit and not buy the game. Or they might have picked casual thought this is so easy/boring! and also not bought the game. Strange times to live in.

I still do not think it's a good argument for not allowing people to select an option so we can see what we will say before we say it..but the ship has sailed and is moot.

[TheRealJayDee]

nightscrawl wrote...


Are players that ridiculous that they can't turn off an option that annoys them after having turned it on?

The option to turn a feature on and off, even if the whole process and the consequences are well explained, is obviously confusing for players. They will inevitably turn on something they don't like or turn off something they like and that will annoy and frustrate them. Therefore, as a considerate game designer, you can't include too many options on things. You have to build your games around the interests and abilities of ignorant and dumb people. Or so I've heard...

[David Gaider]

TheRealJayDee wrote...
The option to turn a feature on and off, even if the whole process and the consequences are well explained, is obviously confusing for players. They will inevitably turn on something they don't like or turn off something they like and that will annoy and frustrate them. Therefore, as a considerate game designer, you can't include too many options on things. You have to build your games around the interests and abilities of ignorant and dumb people. Or so I've heard...

Ah, yes. Because people who might turn on a feature and find themselves annoyed without being aware of the exact cause are ignorant and dumb, yet everyone who comes onto a forum thread with a specific complaint always knows exactly what the source of their problem is as well as how to fix it-- with perfect clarity and self-awareness. Yes, I've noticed that as well.

I completely understand that many people have a problem with conversation options, to varying degrees-- even if I don't generally agree when they also provide a suggestion as to how that might be fixed... or, that if their suggestion would fix their problem, that it's something we'd be willing to implement. That these people post regularly in threads complaining on this specific subject should not be surprising, and while I'm not sure that constitutes many people that doesn't make their concerns less valid. So we will continue to work on it.

And I will leave it at that.