588 réponses à ce sujet

[Renmiri1]

Don't feed the rude troll peeps.

[Allan Schumacher]

No, they don't use the same format. That's what I tried to show by presenting viedos which, IMO, can't be replicated by a Wheel. That's my evidence. If you want to refute my evidence, you can either dismiss it out of hand, which doesn't help your case, or watch it, & address it.

Structurally, the conversations in DA2 are done the same way as DAO. Given DAO had a response restriction of 5 lines, it would actually be not be all that difficult to use the wheel to display each of the 5 options without even using an investigate hub, since the wheel innately supports 6 options (5 if you remove one for the investigate).

So the issue you have isn't with the wheel itself, but rather how we use the wheel and what type of information we wish to present to the player to help inform their responses.

[Iakus]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

No, they don't use the same format. That's what I tried to show by presenting viedos which, IMO, can't be replicated by a Wheel. That's my evidence. If you want to refute my evidence, you can either dismiss it out of hand, which doesn't help your case, or watch it, & address it.

Structurally, the conversations in DA2 are done the same way as DAO. Given DAO had a response restriction of 5 lines, it would actually be not be all that difficult to use the wheel to display each of the 5 options without even using an investigate hub, since the wheel innately supports 6 options (5 if you remove one for the investigate).

So the issue you have isn't with the wheel itself, but rather how we use the wheel and what type of information we wish to present to the player to help inform their responses.

I suspect that's the case

Personally, I have no problem with voiced protagonists (especially with mood icons to give me an idea how answers will be delivered).  However, I do think it's understandable to fear that the wheel will put an artificial limit in the number of possible responses.  Yeah, having more than five is kinda rare, but it should still be possible.  I recently replayed jade Empire, and having 4-6 responses semed normal.

Add to it the concern over the autodialogue in ME3,  where two responses "nice" and "mean" seemed the norm.  I'm not so sure it's concern about the dialogue wheel itself so much as how many spokes get used.

[Emzamination]

chuckles471 wrote...

MissOuJ wrote...

Hey thanks to the person who took my comments and posted them into the Escapist magazine forum instead of engaging me here.

Really ****ing mature of you.

Don't feel bad about the Escapist people talking ****.
I got a ban for asking a MOD to give me the personal information of everyone on topic called "having sex with children should be legal"(most people on it were serious), so I could pass it on to the police.

A ban well deserved, I should say. Where do you get off requesting other peoples personal information? No matter how strongly you feel about what they were discussing, you were completely out of line. It is the duty of the owners and operators of the board to report any illegal discussion/activities to the proper law enforcement, not yours. Next time report the issue to the community manager and let them take care of it.

[Nerevar-as]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

No, they don't use the same format. That's what I tried to show by presenting viedos which, IMO, can't be replicated by a Wheel. That's my evidence. If you want to refute my evidence, you can either dismiss it out of hand, which doesn't help your case, or watch it, & address it.

Structurally, the conversations in DA2 are done the same way as DAO. Given DAO had a response restriction of 5 lines, it would actually be not be all that difficult to use the wheel to display each of the 5 options without even using an investigate hub, since the wheel innately supports 6 options (5 if you remove one for the investigate).

So the issue you have isn't with the wheel itself, but rather how we use the wheel and what type of information we wish to present to the player to help inform their responses.

Why don´t you just ignore the tone? Origins had several options, and several were often neutral. DAII was constrained by always having to have nice/bloody idiot/jerk options for all situations, even those where they were completely out of place (joking about the vicount´s son death? Really?

[nightscrawl]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Structurally, the conversations in DA2 are done the same way as DAO. Given DAO had a response restriction of 5 lines, it would actually be not be all that difficult to use the wheel to display each of the 5 options without even using an investigate hub, since the wheel innately supports 6 options (5 if you remove one for the investigate).

So the issue you have isn't with the wheel itself, but rather how we use the wheel and what type of information we wish to present to the player to help inform their responses.

Here is that big thread with all of those Bioware responses about the dialog wheel, including you, and fun visual aids! I just link to this thread whenever this comes up... lol.

[Fast Jimmy]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

No, they don't use the same format. That's what I tried to show by presenting viedos which, IMO, can't be replicated by a Wheel. That's my evidence. If you want to refute my evidence, you can either dismiss it out of hand, which doesn't help your case, or watch it, & address it.


Structurally, the conversations in DA2 are done the same way as DAO. Given DAO had a response restriction of 5 lines, it would actually be not be all that difficult to use the wheel to display each of the 5 options without even using an investigate hub, since the wheel innately supports 6 options (5 if you remove one for the investigate).

So the issue you have isn't with the wheel itself, but rather how we use the wheel and what type of information we wish to present to the player to help inform their responses.

I would agree to this, as it explains how I feel as well. The Wheel tells us what will move the conversation forward and what won't. The Investigate hubs are, nearly categorically, data dumps and are flagged as such. I always check them out, personally, since I am a completionist-type player, but I know that all I need to do is lean back and read for the next few minutes, that there involves nearly zero roleplaying or choice. Throw in the dominant tones and, more often than not, you are going to be on auto-pilot for the vast majority of your dialogue choices.

Contrasted with the list, which forces you to review each line of dialogue and scrutinize it not only to determine if you are saying what you want (which the Wheel and paraphrases prevents) but also forces you to think "do I have all the information I need to make this response?" Should I say "die, bandit!" without first asking why they are robbing people? Or should I see if there is a reason behind their actions?

These types of little decisions and requirements make dialogue a constantly challenging and engaging experience. The Wheel is good at organizing choices for convenience, but this same convenience runs the risk of disengaging the player from the dialogue, at least in my case. I had no control over what my character was going to say exactly, so I had to detach myself from caring about the exact wording or tone. Couple that with the fact that I knew exactly what was going to advance the dialogue, what was going to result in a romance, what was going to result in combat... it makes the action of choosing dialogue as very passive.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

(Skyrim) + (Witcher II) / 2

*walks away*

[Fast Jimmy]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I would agree to this, as it explains how I feel as well. The Wheel tells us what will move the conversation forward and what won't. The Investigate hubs are, nearly categorically, data dumps and are flagged as such. I always check them out, personally, since I am a completionist-type player, but I know that all I need to do is lean back and read for the next few minutes, that there involves nearly zero roleplaying or choice. Throw in the dominant tones and, more often than not, you are going to be on auto-pilot for the vast majority of your dialogue choices.

To me, this sounds like a horrible, horrible problem for role-playing.

To be fair, it may not be a problem for everyone or even the majority, but I know it is a problem for me. 

[Fast Jimmy]

Ease of use is a two way street in a game. If combat was designed to make it as easy as possible to win, then it would be a very passive activity. I feel that dialogue can fall into a similar trap - if it becomes too easy to know exactly what you are going to chose every time, it becomes mind numbing and a bit boring.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 20 février 2013 - 08:06 .

[AmstradHero]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
I would agree to this, as it explains how I feel as well. The Wheel tells us what will move the conversation forward and what won't. The Investigate hubs are, nearly categorically, data dumps and are flagged as such. I always check them out, personally, since I am a completionist-type player, but I know that all I need to do is lean back and read for the next few minutes, that there involves nearly zero roleplaying or choice. Throw in the dominant tones and, more often than not, you are going to be on auto-pilot for the vast majority of your dialogue choices.

The solution to this problem is simple, in that all you need to do is make some of the investigate nodes one-off options, and lead to a sub-node that offers a roleplaying choice. It doesn't even need to be anything more than a tonal choice (if you're using a DA2 style tone vs choice icon system), the main thing is that some of the investigate nodes have to be more than a single click-stub. This makes the investigate nodes more than just a pure info dump and instead allows them to provide scope for roleplaying.

Ideally, if you make the "right" choices within those roleplaying in the investigate sub-hub, the main hub would gain an additional "special" dialogue option as a result of those choices. This would add further meaning to not only the investigate hub, but the dialogue within it.

Both of these options are easy to implement in terms of structure, and maintain the integrity of the wheel's flavour/action demarcation, while also providing some additional roleplay scope within the "flavour" section.

I know it's possible because within Shattered War I've used whatever tools possible to clearly mark between "investigate" and "progress" options in the DAO list format as much as I can, but as the same time, I use this technique to make those "investigate" options of value to the player.

[Fast Jimmy]

AmstradHero wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...
I would agree to this, as it explains how I feel as well. The Wheel tells us what will move the conversation forward and what won't. The Investigate hubs are, nearly categorically, data dumps and are flagged as such. I always check them out, personally, since I am a completionist-type player, but I know that all I need to do is lean back and read for the next few minutes, that there involves nearly zero roleplaying or choice. Throw in the dominant tones and, more often than not, you are going to be on auto-pilot for the vast majority of your dialogue choices.

The solution to this problem is simple, in that all you need to do is make some of the investigate nodes one-off options, and lead to a sub-node that offers a roleplaying choice. It doesn't even need to be anything more than a tonal choice (if you're using a DA2 style tone vs choice icon system), the main thing is that some of the investigate nodes have to be more than a single click-stub. This makes the investigate nodes more than just a pure info dump and instead allows them to provide scope for roleplaying.

Ideally, if you make the "right" choices within those roleplaying in the investigate sub-hub, the main hub would gain an additional "special" dialogue option as a result of those choices. This would add further meaning to not only the investigate hub, but the dialogue within it.

Both of these options are easy to implement in terms of structure, and maintain the integrity of the wheel's flavour/action demarcation, while also providing some additional roleplay scope within the "flavour" section.

I know it's possible because within Shattered War I've used whatever tools possible to clearly mark between "investigate" and "progress" options in the DAO list format as much as I can, but as the same time, I use this technique to make those "investigate" options of value to the player.

I would be all for this. Or some variant of it, at least.

As it was in DA2, conversations felt like "let's hop on the dialogue train! First stop! Time to investigate... five minutes before the train leaves! Alright, let's move on forward! Next stop! Do your investigates, etc."

Being dip/snark/aggro rarely resulted in any differences (not to say they did in DA:O necessarily, but we had to identify them and also make sure that we chose the statements that moved dialogue forward or investigate) other than to move the plot forward. When we were actuat give a choice other than those three or an investigate, I almost felt like I was waking up in the middle of class, where a professor had asked me a question out of the blue. "Wha? Huh? Could you repeat the question?"

Slight hyperbole there, of course, but it does reflect how I felt - by making everything easily identifiable and compartmentalized, it results in very little choice. The three tones rewarded you with less content if you didn't stick with them throughout the game (just look at the all-aggro Patriece outcome for an example) and there were a FEW cases where the Investigate dialogue did raise a flag for a later comment or choice.

So if the game incentivizes us to stay within out dominant tone and then let's us know when the data dumps will be happening, the only dialogue choices we get are when we DON'T see the three standard tones or the investigate option. And if you view DA2's dialogue like that, you'll find the amount of dialogue choices is VASTLY reduced... even if they aren't that drastically different in nature from DA:O's dialogue.

Too much information and guidance makes us feel like we are on a ride with our path clearly spelled out, not like we are making a choice with every thing our character says.

[karushna5]

I don't think it forces you into one tone, the one you use the most is considered dominant, if you use one tone more than the others, than it is considered yours. I think saying the game pushes you to stay with one is not entirely true. You always have a dominant personality. But I can see how identifying what is aggressive or sarcastic can take away the role play value of guessing.

I am a little confused about what you mean by the investigation Dialogue. It is fairly easy to know what is investigation in DA:O and even there I sigh when you get to the questions of investigate which are always rather large. Investigate is a bit of a necessary evil but it slows down you in Origins just as much, and the countdown of lines always made me happy when there were only two left which meant most of the investigate options have been finished.

[EpicBoot2daFace]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

No, they don't use the same format. That's what I tried to show by presenting viedos which, IMO, can't be replicated by a Wheel. That's my evidence. If you want to refute my evidence, you can either dismiss it out of hand, which doesn't help your case, or watch it, & address it.

Structurally, the conversations in DA2 are done the same way as DAO. Given DAO had a response restriction of 5 lines, it would actually be not be all that difficult to use the wheel to display each of the 5 options without even using an investigate hub, since the wheel innately supports 6 options (5 if you remove one for the investigate).

So the issue you have isn't with the wheel itself, but rather how we use the wheel and what type of information we wish to present to the player to help inform their responses.

Anyone who has played the original Mass Effect knows the dialogue wheel supports multiple responses. However, Bioware seems to want to limit those responses to only two or three. Still, I thought the dialogue wheel was done well in DA2. I just thought the responses like "I want to be a dragon" were really stupid.

[Knight of Dane]

EpicBoot2daFace wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

No, they don't use the same format. That's what I tried to show by presenting viedos which, IMO, can't be replicated by a Wheel. That's my evidence. If you want to refute my evidence, you can either dismiss it out of hand, which doesn't help your case, or watch it, & address it.

Structurally, the conversations in DA2 are done the same way as DAO. Given DAO had a response restriction of 5 lines, it would actually be not be all that difficult to use the wheel to display each of the 5 options without even using an investigate hub, since the wheel innately supports 6 options (5 if you remove one for the investigate).

So the issue you have isn't with the wheel itself, but rather how we use the wheel and what type of information we wish to present to the player to help inform their responses.

Anyone who has played the original Mass Effect knows the dialogue wheel supports multiple responses. However, Bioware seems to want to limit those responses to only two or three. Still, I thought the dialogue wheel was done well in DA2. I just thought the responses like "I want to be a dragon" were really stupid.

Which is why it's optional to pick it, yes? 

[Fast Jimmy]

karushna5 wrote...

I don't think it forces you into one tone, the one you use the most is considered dominant, if you use one tone more than the others, than it is considered yours. I think saying the game pushes you to stay with one is not entirely true. You always have a dominant personality. But I can see how identifying what is aggressive or sarcastic can take away the role play value of guessing.

I am a little confused about what you mean by the investigation Dialogue. It is fairly easy to know what is investigation in DA:O and even there I sigh when you get to the questions of investigate which are always rather large. Investigate is a bit of a necessary evil but it slows down you in Origins just as much, and the countdown of lines always made me happy when there were only two left which meant most of the investigate options have been finished.

I don't have a problem with Investigate dialogue (that is, dialogue that does not move the conversation forward and provides contextual information) but it is different if it is clearly labeled.

If I know three of my six responses will be nothing but data dump, it lets you drop your attention and sit passively for the dialogue in question. I like that I can find out more, but I dislike KNOWING exactly which option/dialogue/question will not advance things at all. In a dialogue list, it isn't INCREDIBLY difficult to do, but at the same time, they aren't all flagged and stored for easy access. Just like in real life, it was possible to move on to a different topic without meaning to. It was also possible to start a fight without realizing it, or enter/end a relationship.

In regards to your comment about the game penalizing you for changing tones, I never said that. I said it incentivized you to stay in the same tone. There is a difference between penalizing an action and rewarding an action.

For instance, certain content was unlocked for those with all responses in a certain tone (again, I submit the Sister Patriece living outcome as an example of an all-Aggressive response play through). In addition, since we had no knowledge of what our current "dominant" tone was trending at, a sarcastic remark at a certain time of the game could change the tone, which wound up sounding drastically different in some cases, especially with male Hawke. Neither of these things are penalties, but you will miss scenes and dialogue with Patriece if you are a diplomatic character, regardless of your actual choice or intent, and you can miss lines with your (assumingly) preferred tone if you try and vary up your choices.

All in all, putting everything in places on the wheel that make it easy to identify makes me treat the dialogue options like I have already played the game before - where I feel like I know exactly what to choose every time before even hearing what I'm being told, let alone what my paraphrased options are. That I'm needlessly clicking buttons, since I have no real control of what's being said and little incentive to change it even if I thought I did.

[EpicBoot2daFace]

Knight of Dane wrote...

EpicBoot2daFace wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

No, they don't use the same format. That's what I tried to show by presenting viedos which, IMO, can't be replicated by a Wheel. That's my evidence. If you want to refute my evidence, you can either dismiss it out of hand, which doesn't help your case, or watch it, & address it.

Structurally, the conversations in DA2 are done the same way as DAO. Given DAO had a response restriction of 5 lines, it would actually be not be all that difficult to use the wheel to display each of the 5 options without even using an investigate hub, since the wheel innately supports 6 options (5 if you remove one for the investigate).

So the issue you have isn't with the wheel itself, but rather how we use the wheel and what type of information we wish to present to the player to help inform their responses.

Anyone who has played the original Mass Effect knows the dialogue wheel supports multiple responses. However, Bioware seems to want to limit those responses to only two or three. Still, I thought the dialogue wheel was done well in DA2. I just thought the responses like "I want to be a dragon" were really stupid.

Which is why it's optional to pick it, yes? 

Optional or not, it's still stupid.

Modifié par EpicBoot2daFace, 20 février 2013 - 10:29 .

[The Hierophant]

Lucy_Glitter wrote...

The Hierophant wrote...

MissOuJ wrote...

Anita Sarkeesian.

Ugh, that situation was all around stupid. But it's hilarious how she hoodwinked all those idiots into giving her over $100,000 while she didn't make that "sexism in gaming" video like she promised. 

Most of her videos are insulting to me. Only a couple I have seen are valid and most of them are her just mistaking a perfectly good and viable female character with sexism because that female in question has boobs. I don't condone her being bullied at all, mind you. No one deserves that. Doesn't mean I don't think she's an idiot.

Agreed especially at the bolded, as she's mostly a sensationalist. Sadly, uninformed bleeding hearts gave her free money to make "sexism in gaming" vids that already  exist on Youtube from female/male gamers with multiple povs.

EpicBoot2DaFace wrote...
Optional or not it's still stupid.

Are you talking about  DA2 making comedy out of having STDs stupid or the lyrium idol obliterating someone's IQ stupid?

[Knight of Dane]

EpicBoot2daFace wrote...

Knight of Dane wrote...

EpicBoot2daFace wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

No, they don't use the same format. That's what I tried to show by presenting viedos which, IMO, can't be replicated by a Wheel. That's my evidence. If you want to refute my evidence, you can either dismiss it out of hand, which doesn't help your case, or watch it, & address it.

Structurally, the conversations in DA2 are done the same way as DAO. Given DAO had a response restriction of 5 lines, it would actually be not be all that difficult to use the wheel to display each of the 5 options without even using an investigate hub, since the wheel innately supports 6 options (5 if you remove one for the investigate).

So the issue you have isn't with the wheel itself, but rather how we use the wheel and what type of information we wish to present to the player to help inform their responses.

Anyone who has played the original Mass Effect knows the dialogue wheel supports multiple responses. However, Bioware seems to want to limit those responses to only two or three. Still, I thought the dialogue wheel was done well in DA2. I just thought the responses like "I want to be a dragon" were really stupid.

Which is why it's optional to pick it, yes? 

Optional or not, it's still stupid.

Opinion. Anyway, doesn't matter.

[Anomaly-]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
All in all, putting everything in places on the wheel that make it easy to identify makes me treat the dialogue options like I have already played the game before - where I feel like I know exactly what to choose every time before even hearing what I'm being told, let alone what my paraphrased options are. That I'm needlessly clicking buttons, since I have no real control of what's being said and little incentive to change it even if I thought I did.

This, + pretty much everything else Fast Jimmy said sums up most of my dislike for DA2's dialogue wheel. It felt to me like there was too much of a cinematic focus, choosing options based on desired outcomes rather than on words that most closely match what you want to say and actually being surprised/engaged by the outcome. It really hurt roleplaying for me, and I felt it really took away from the dialogue experience in general.

Modifié par Anomaly-, 20 février 2013 - 11:35 .

[AmstradHero]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Offtopic, but you're still making this, Amstrad? I looked at that project a while ago and saw nothing happening, so I guess I assumed it was scrapped.

Hrm, I suppose I should update the project page here on BSN, but most of my ongoing work and notes I post on my blog.

That said, yes, it's most certainly still happening - I'm doing a LOT of work with voice actors at the moment to get all the dialogue recorded, integrated and animated within the adventure.

[Gotholhorakh]

I think the list comes away from some of the main problems I had with it, and I think some other people did too.

Trouble is, TFA is a joke in the context of a PC Gamer article- as such it comes off like a "feeble attempt to relate" to the people who felt a bit gutpunched that the "sequel to Dragon Age Origins" "best RPG of the decade" was full of what they now identify as problems that "obviously" need fixing, (and frankly, it was not very sequelly for those of us expecting something like DA:O).

The audacity of it comes not from the idea they would differ in opinion from the rest of us initially, or from the notion they have changed their mind, or that it's a different author, any of which is reasonable/understandable, but from the fact that most of the things there is an "obvious" need to "fix" right there under their masthead will have jumped out very obviously when playing it through for the review, but were rationalized out.

An example - the kirkwall-centric limited content is now a problem that needs fixing "obviously", but back then:

"At first, I felt a little let down by the lack of escape from that
single city, but ten years in the same place also breeds a welcome
familiarity. There are benefits to knowing a city backwards: it let me
get a complete grasp on the game’s complicated political situation."

et voila, 94 per cent. I mean come on.

There is no point in criticising something for a problem that needs "fixing" when the organisation hosting the article have emphatically demonstrated that come the glorious day of release it will, no matter what, say "actually there are advantages to no longer having mages in the game lol" and give it 96% or something.

I don't suspect actual corruption and I do get irritated when people suggest it, because the best reviewers are gamers like the rest of us (we are here because of our enjoyment of games one way or another, rite?), and they no doubt get swept up in the excitement of being in contact with the games industry sometimes, and this probably breaks a reviewer's ability to give a clean, critical opinion that people can trust.

They need to fix their reviews, a lot more than BioWare needs to fix their games, in my opinion.

MissOuJ wrote...

Hey thanks to the person who took my comments and posted them into the Escapist magazine forum instead of engaging me here.

Really ****ing mature of you.

Sometimes people discuss things with their friends, or on a forum with rules which allow their preferred rules or among people they enjoy spending time with.

Nothing wrong with that, when you post something on the web-o-netz, the set of people who can read it and discuss it is much larger than BSN members. Sometimes people talk amongst themselves about stuff - there's nothing wrong with that, nothing to criticise them for.

Nothing to get upset about.

PS: Never go to the 'dex if that bothered you. That's my advice because... your mind == blown if you do.

chuckles471 wrote...
Don't feel bad about the Escapist people talking ****.
I
got a ban for asking a MOD to give me the personal information of
everyone on topic called "having sex with children should be legal"(most
people on it were serious), so I could pass it on to the
police.

Sounds about right to me. You are free to report stuff to the guy in charge, or to report things directly to law enforcement if you think a crime has been committed. Requesting lists of people's personal data is just weird though, and possibly smells of murdererism.

I think if you did that on a forum I mod, I might, say, IP ban you too - just to be safe. That's regardless of what action I was going to take about the other matter in hand.

That's if 100% as presented. On the other hand we have no idea whether the thread warranted that level of response anyway. If you were for instance about to call the police on people for something that was obviously not what you were presenting it as, that's a reasonable ban in itself and I think most people would agree.

Allan Schumacher wrote...
Eh,
my dislike of gaming journalism is probably more tied to "Allan the
discerning human being" than "Allan the BioWare employee."

Whoa whoa whoa! Never distinguish between an employee and a human being, or a developer and a human being.

It might seem harmless enough now, but that's just what they want you to do...

Modifié par Gotholhorakh, 21 février 2013 - 11:18 .