544 réponses à ce sujet

[CybAnt1]

Yeah, well, can't get the new universe of everything requiring tonal marking, too.

"Where is the cave?"
"It's down the road to your right."

Was the second person angry, joking, sarcastic, sad? How about - just making a declaration without particular tone.

It's epic fantasy, done cinematic style, but sometimes answering a question is answering a question, without putting any particular emotion into the answer.

I get why we need tone indicators - whether by icon or anything else - some of the time. All of the time? Makes not a lick of sense in the entire world.

Consistency? The hobgoblin of small minds. 

Modifié par CybAnt1, 29 janvier 2014 - 03:37 .

[EmperorSahlertz]

CybAnt1 wrote...

Were you also given only 6 different options consisting of different string of words, because if not then your comparison in the end is useless.

Were I where? 

Secondly, if you mean "in Origins," just because there weren't sometimes, maybe even often, choices of different words, where the words mattered, well, that doesn't mean there couldn't have been. No?

It all comes down to the quality of writing, an independent variable unrelated to the system used to present the options.

I repeat, though, one can see the quality of writing far better when one is looking at the writing, then if one goes into typical TV/movie watching mode and just listens to it recited to them by Hawke the sitcom character. 

If someday somebody shows me hard data that shows 98% of Dragon Age fans don't give a **** about quality writing, and 2% do, I will feel no embarassment to be in the 2%. Then yes, I go to the "Kickstarter games" where they still do. 

In DA:O you had no option regarding the tone of the Warden. He was a soulless husk devoid of emotion. Any kind of emotion or tonal differences in his voice was 100% head-canon.
In DA2 you get to choose the tone of Hawke at the cost of knowing exactly what is going to be said.

Both games are not 100% transparent.

And I strongly disagree that you can better judge the writing by reading it, since wrting the story is so much more than just the dialogue between the characters. WItnessing the story is what gives you the best judge of its quality. That means actually watching the movie, playing the game, reading the book, is what gives you the best posistion to judge the story.

[Cainhurst Crow]

CybAnt1 wrote...

I think their stance on the matter is pretty clear, 

Strategic war is all about fighting the battles that are winnable. 

Toolset? Nah, that is a lost cause. 

This one's not. It's only attitudes fixing it in stone, not hard-coding. 

I figure if I keep making rational arguments, rational people will listen. I'm funny that way. 

lol. This is a lost cause to. Remember, gaider doesnt like your stsnce, therefore, it wont happen.
Pretty much the end of that. Your rational arguments will be sorted into the toxic section and be left there unheeded or even looked at.
Forever.

[CybAnt1]

In DA:O you had no option regarding the tone of the Warden.

Other than occasionally being told that he was trying to be persuasive with his voice, or lying to somebody. Or that he was inquisitive. 

But didn't != couldn't. 

He was a soulless husk devoid of emotion. Any kind of emotion or tonal differences in his voice was 100% head-canon.

That is, of course, totally ignoring the solution to that problem I just suggested above. 

In DA2 you get to choose the tone of Hawke at the cost of knowing exactly what is going to be said.

You know, I sure wish there was any planet where people could communicate by tone alone. 

I wish I could go into a McDonald's and get the right order, just by getting angry. Or just by being diplomatic. 

If I want the McWhopper with Fries, I have to use the right words to get them. And the odd thing is, how I deliver my order doesn't really influence whether I get it or not. I will concede I'm more likely to get it if I ask nicely than yell at the cashier. But FIRST, I need the right words. 

I guess my point is, to me, tonal ambiguity is less important in a game than semantic and syntactic ambiguity.  Which is far more likely when I can't see the words, nor the relation a representation of those words have to the words I'm about to deliver. 

Both games are not 100% transparent.

Then it depends on what kind of transparency you want.

And I strongly disagree that you can better judge the writing by reading it, since wrting the story is so much more than just the dialogue between the characters. WItnessing the story is what gives you the best judge of its quality. That means actually watching the movie, playing the game, reading the book, is what gives you the best posistion to judge the story.

But a game, as opposed to a movie, or a book, is a story you play, involving entities you interact with. It is not a merely passive experience. 

Human beings - (or even humanoids, to be fair) - appear to utilize dialogue to interact with other human beings. Well, that, or you can steal from them, konock them out, or kill them. Generally, though, most of the time that interactivity is through dialogue. Which is why it matters. 

Good dialogue is good for a TV drama. It's even better for a good interactive experience, i.e. a game. 

Modifié par CybAnt1, 29 janvier 2014 - 04:30 .

[CybAnt1]

Remember, gaider doesnt like your stsnce, therefore, it wont happen. 

That's cool, he's both incapable of changing his mind, and he runs Bioware. All of it. 

Good to know. 

[Cainhurst Crow]

CybAnt1 wrote...

Remember, gaider doesnt like your stsnce, therefore, it wont happen. 

That's cool, he's both incapable of changing his mind, and he runs Bioware. All of it. 

Good to know. 

And knowing is half the battle.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

Best solution:

'Toggle' Hidden dialogue system is best of both worlds though.
You can have both systems; Mass Effect Dialogue wheel and DAO style dialogue menu. The player can choose which one in the options menu. It won't be too hard...

[EmperorSahlertz]

CybAnt1 wrote...

In DA:O you had no option regarding the tone of the Warden.

Other than occasionally being told that he was trying to be persuasive with his voice, or lying to somebody. Or that he was inquisitive. 

But didn't != couldn't. 

He was a soulless husk devoid of emotion. Any kind of emotion or tonal differences in his voice was 100% head-canon.

That is, of course, totally ignoring the solution to that problem I just suggested above. 

Being inquisitive is NOT a tone of voice. Persuasive is NOT a tone of voice. Lying is NOT a tone of voice. So yes, It is ignoring what you previously said, becasue that it is utterly wrong.

CybAnt1 wrote...

In DA2 you get to choose the tone of Hawke at the cost of knowing exactly what is going to be said.

You know, I sure wish there was any planet where people could communicate by tone alone. 

I wish I could go into a McDonald's and get the right order, just by getting angry. Or just by being diplomatic. 

If I want the McWhopper with Fries, I have to use the right words to get them. And the odd thing is, how I deliver my order doesn't really influence whether I get it or not. I will concede I'm more likely to get it if I ask nicely than yell at the cashier. But FIRST, I need the right words. 

I guess my point is, to me, tonal ambiguity is less important in a game than semantic and syntactic ambiguity.  Which is far more likely when I can't see the words, nor the relation a representation of those words have to the words I'm about to deliver. 

You also has to pick the correcdt tone of your voice. If you walk in to the resturant and scream at the top of your lungs that you would like a burger. You will be asked to leave since you are making the other customers uncomfortable.
In DA:O we had no knowledge of the tone of voice our wardens used. In DA2 we had.
In DA2 we had incomplete knowledge of what would be said word by word. In DA:O we had.

CybAnt1 wrote...

And I strongly disagree that you can better judge the writing by reading it, since wrting the story is so much more than just the dialogue between the characters. WItnessing the story is what gives you the best judge of its quality. That means actually watching the movie, playing the game, reading the book, is what gives you the best posistion to judge the story.

But a game, as opposed to a movie, or a book, is a story you play, involving entities you interact with. It is not a merely passive experience. 

Human beings - (or even humanoids, to be fair) - appear to utilize dialogue to interact with other human beings. Well, that, or you can steal from them, konock them out, or kill them. Generally, though, most of the time that interactivity is through dialogue. Which is why it matters. 

Good dialogue is good for a TV drama. It's even better for a good interactive experience, i.e. a game. 

Ignoring that a fistfight is also a form of dialogue, a game is not build up solely by text. A well written script allows for good cinematography, which create capturing scenes. There is MUCH more to a captivating story, than simple conversations between characters.

[Sylvius the Mad]

TipsLeFedora wrote...

Roleplaying yes there is no risk and reward. However, roleplaying games do have risk and rewards.

So does life.  Does that make life a game?

Darth Brotarian wrote...

It seems, and the word is rather overused I will admit, nitpicky to be mad over paraphrased dialogue displays. Textbook definition of what it is to nitpick if I were to be perfectly blunt about it. Really, what is it that is truly lost outside of a false assumption of control over a character and a reality being pushed into your face that your character is defined through the selection of pre-defined options? Now, I have played modern bioware rpgs more then I have older rpgs, I will admit. Mass effect and dragon age's games up to their current releases, SWTOR, and knights of the old republic, are all under my belt. And I can say, for myself at least since that's all anyone in this thread has done, that the paraphrased dialogue was better then the spread out dialogue.

Why do you presume that the assumption was false?  We did get to control our character.  We chose what he would say, and we chose how he would say it.  DAO allowed both.  DA2 allows only the latter.

Why you may ask? Simple, the delivery was superior and the weight of the choice more pronounced. Weight is a difficult word to define though, so I shall present my own definition to give context. When making a choice, I find it important that a person feel like they made a choice and feel the emotional, intellectual, or even simply the empirical confirmation of the choice they made. In other words, to feel as if a choice has actually been made on some level.

I don't need to feel like I made a choice.  I know I made a choice.

I had and still do not have such a problem with the voiced protagonist games, and their paraphrased dialogue. I remembered every choice I made by the line my character spoke, and the tone in which they delivered it. Moreover to the point I had no trouble decreeing the effect of what my character said would have, and that to me was enough because it was the same way it was handled in dragon age origins. You may not hear your character say anything in dragon age origin, but that is a double edged sword since you can't prove your character is saying what he is saying word for word.

You don't need to prove it.  You actually get to decide it yourself.

For all you know the warden talks in massive monologues, and what we get are paraphrases of those monologues.

If you want your Warden to speak in long monologues, you can dcide that he does, and the game won't contradict you.  This is a positive feature, and one I enjoyed.  You're talking about player control like it's a bad thing.

I know this is the case for I have experimented myself, I skipped spoken dialogue from my character once and looked away from the subtitles. I had nothing to go on but the paraphrases, and yet the scene progression, was the same as it was in origins.

This is why I asked for the option to mute just the protagonist in DA2.  I was hoping to emulate DAO's dialogue system by turning of the PC voice and the subtitles, so then I would have no information about the line except for the content of the paraphrase.

I must also, while I am here, bring up a point Fast Jimmy made. He said that the written lines were already in game in the form of subtitles. To that, I will respond with this. If they put the entire line of dialogue in the dialogue wheel or dialogue bracket or whatever method you think works, and then had the line displayed on the subtle as it is said, which they would need to most likely do in order to help people understand what is said, then they are not saving budget, they are losing budget. They are creating twice as much created dialogue now for the PC, as the lines must be displayed twice, rather then shortening the response displayed and then simply having the full line subtitled. The only way to resolve that, is to remove subtitles from the game. And I am not sure many people will be fond of that novel solution to this problem over the status quo.

The word budget wouldn't be affected - those words still need to be written and voiced.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Ieldra2 wrote...

I do not disagree. Hawke does feel more real than the Warden. However, the Warden feels more mine.

This is important.

My real world neighbours are presumably real.  They certainly seem more real than video game characters.  But I care more about my Warden than I do about my neighbours.  I'm invested in my Warden.

Hawke was the worst of both worlds, by not being real and not being someone in whom I was invested.

It is as I said in the OP: the game might give me perfect roleplaying options or not. Those options that do exist won't necessarily change between a design like DAO's and one like DA2's. Annoyance about things I might want to say but can't might happen nonetheless. However, the paraphrasing makes even the perfect options invisible and prevents me from knowing my character's mind.

And knowing your character's mind is the most important aspect of roleplaying.  You inhabit your characters.  You perceive their world from their perspective.  Your perspective as player is subsumed.

Darth Brotarian wrote...

But do you have proof that DAO isn't paraphrasing the dialogue?

Of course not.  And that's a good thing.  If the dialogue options in DAO are not entirely adequate, you can treat them as abstractions (like the keyword dialogue systems in the classic Ultima games, or Morrowind).  This is much harder to do with fully voiced and acted scenes, as the writers make far more assumptions about your interpretation of events.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 29 janvier 2014 - 07:51 .

[Cainhurst Crow]

But now you need to write them in twice, every time the inquisitor speaks. You can't see how the cost compounds to being too expensive. To do the system of non-paraphrased lines, the PC would need to either be silent and thus remove subtitles, or have less options to actually speak, whether that means giving less chances to select dialogue or removing the amount of dialogue available.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

A combination of an icon (indicating tone) along with full text resolves the confusion the above quote from Gaider makes, BTW. To say "full text won't solve the problem" is true, there will be times when the full text is not the same as what the voiced protag will say. However, an icon (that is clear and makes sense - no more diamonds or squiggly lines) can indicate tone able the full text shows the exact words of the message to be delivered in that tone.

I still think the icon is a mistake.  The tone of each line should be left to the player to determine.

Sidney wrote...

The choice, not the words, define your PC.

Without knowing the words, we couldn't ever know what the choice was.

I offer again my favourite example from DA2, when my Hawke was concluding a deal with some slavers, slavers who'd dealt with him fairly, and everyone was leaving satisfied.  The slaver then asked, "Can I go now?"

Hawke had two options.  The paraphrases were "Yes" and "No".  The No parphrase had an attack icon, so I know that saying No would cause Hawke to attack the slavers.  I didn't want to attack the slavers, because they'd been completely fair and honest, and Hawke bore them no ill will.  So I chose "Yes".   I was happy to let them go.

Hawke seethed, "Get out of my sight!"

What?  How does that make any sense?  I couldn't possibly have foreseen that.

If I had kown that Hawke had to hate the slavers regardless (that's a completely different problem with DA2), I would have chosen the other option.  It wouldn't have been a good option, but at least it wouldn't have been nonsensical.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 29 janvier 2014 - 08:00 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Darth Brotarian wrote...

But now you need to write them in twice, every time the inquisitor speaks. You can't see how the cost compounds to being too expensive. To do the system of non-paraphrased lines, the PC would need to either be silent and thus remove subtitles, or have less options to actually speak, whether that means giving less chances to select dialogue or removing the amount of dialogue available.

So you're suggesting we remove subtitles and make the game unplayable by people with hearing disabilities?

[Cainhurst Crow]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...

But now you need to write them in twice, every time the inquisitor speaks. You can't see how the cost compounds to being too expensive. To do the system of non-paraphrased lines, the PC would need to either be silent and thus remove subtitles, or have less options to actually speak, whether that means giving less chances to select dialogue or removing the amount of dialogue available.

So you're suggesting we remove subtitles and make the game unplayable by people with hearing disabilities?

There are 4 options at the bare minimum. They are,

1. Removed vocal performances by the protagonist so as to remove subtitles.
2. Reduce the protagonists speaking roles in order to save more money.
3. Create a drain on the budget by having all dialogue displayed as much as possible.
4. Status Quo.

I am very good with the status quo.

[Fast Jimmy]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

TipsLeFedora wrote...

Roleplaying yes there is no risk and reward. However, roleplaying games do have risk and rewards.

So does life. Does that make life a game?

Life is the ultimate game.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Sir JK wrote...

Yes, I do want them to react accordingly to how a line is delivered. Because I cannot clarify that they misunderstood me. Which I find extremely frustrating and potentionally immersion-breaking.

Just as I find it frustrating when I can't make corrections after my character mis-speaks.  If he says something I don't want him to say, I either need him to correct himself, or I need to reload the game.

And in DA2, he says something I don't want him to say at least once per conversation.

Pasquale1234 wrote...

What is immersion-breaking for me is the idea that everyone in the game world always understands exactly what the PC says and means and fully comprehends the intent - because that isn't how conversation works IRL.

What someone says =/= what others hear.

Here is an example:

Person A says "I don't understand what John does all day."

Person B hears: "John is lazy."

Person C hears: "John doesn't have enough real work to do to justify a full-time position."

Person D hears: "John's job is too complicated for anyone else to understand it."

Person E hears: "John does a lot of busywork to make himself look more important than he is."

Person A might have meant any or all of those things, or none of them.  Person A might have been expressing casual curiosity, or interest in learning the skill set needed to perform John's job, perhaps to help him.  People hear what others say through their own filters colored by their own baggage and experience.

Excellent point.  You can't know how other people will interpret what you say.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 29 janvier 2014 - 08:08 .

[Cainhurst Crow]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

TipsLeFedora wrote...

Roleplaying yes there is no risk and reward. However, roleplaying games do have risk and rewards.

So does life. Does that make life a game?

Life is the ultimate game.

This one understands.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Darth Brotarian wrote...

There are 4 options at the bare minimum. They are,

1. Removed vocal performances by the protagonist so as to remove subtitles.
2. Reduce the protagonists speaking roles in order to save more money.
3. Create a drain on the budget by having all dialogue displayed as much as possible.
4. Status Quo.

I am very good with the status quo.

I think you're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

Displaying text they already have is not a significat resource drain.

But of those options, I'd choose #1.

[Sylvius the Mad]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

In DA:O you had no option regarding the tone of the Warden.

You had every option.  The Warden's tone could be whatever you wanted 100% of the time.

Was it all head-canon?  Yes.  But so is your suggestion that he was a soulless husk devoid of emotion.  You didn't see him deliver the lines.  You don't know that he always did it stoicly.

[Sir JK]

Pasquale1234 wrote...

What is immersion-breaking for me is the idea that everyone in the game world always understands exactly what the PC says and means and fully comprehends the intent - because that isn't how conversation works IRL.

*Cut the example for brevity*

It is especially true of snark or sarcasm, because the form that much of it takes is to say something untrue, or in some cases, the exact opposite of what is meant.  Some listeners will not understand the sarcastic intent, and come away with a completely different understanding of what was said.

This is another reason why I dislike not only paraphrasing, but intent icons.  Simple text lines of dialogue model real world conversation much more closely.

It's a valid point. Not everyone understands what was said all the time. I recognice that. Happens often enough as it were.

The difference between real communication and that in the game is that if I notice or suspect that what I said was misunderstood I can always clarify or repeat. If someone laughs when I wasn't joking I can tell them I wasn't joking or that it isn't funny. If someone starts explaining something I already know I can tell them I know what it is.

But this would be completely ungainly in game. You can't have an option to clarify every single line in the game. That's a completely hopeless errand.
I can tolerate people misunderstanding me in the heat of the moment, like under stress or when it's made part of characterization (like say, Aveline missing that you flirt with her or Merrill's general failure to understand sarcasm). But I'd have a hard time standing people consistently misunderstanding my character and having no tools whatsoever to make sure they get the message.

EDIT: To perhaps frame better why I'd have such a time standing it. It's because if someone misunderstands me, I always blame myself first. I see it as my failure to communicate my intent/message. As such, a game that wouldn't recognice my intended message and provide no means for me to clarify would be one huge excersize in frustration.
Fortunantely it does not happen very often.

Modifié par Sir JK, 29 janvier 2014 - 08:19 .

[Pasquale1234]

Darth Brotarian wrote...

CybAnt1 wrote...

Remember, gaider doesnt like your stsnce, therefore, it wont happen. 

That's cool, he's both incapable of changing his mind, and he runs Bioware. All of it. 

Good to know. 

And knowing is half the battle.

Interesting how decisions made by / for the team and conveyed by a member of that team are attributed to somehow reflect that individual team member's preferences.

[Cainhurst Crow]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...

There are 4 options at the bare minimum. They are,

1. Removed vocal performances by the protagonist so as to remove subtitles.
2. Reduce the protagonists speaking roles in order to save more money.
3. Create a drain on the budget by having all dialogue displayed as much as possible.
4. Status Quo.

I am very good with the status quo.

I think you're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

Displaying text they already have is not a significat resource drain.

But of those options, I'd choose #1.

Greatest RPG protagonist ever.

[EmperorSahlertz]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

In DA:O you had no option regarding the tone of the Warden.

You had every option.  The Warden's tone could be whatever you wanted 100% of the time.

Was it all head-canon?  Yes.  But so is your suggestion that he was a soulless husk devoid of emotion.  You didn't see him deliver the lines.  You don't know that he always did it stoicly.

If it is only in your head, then it had no impact on the game world, making it meaningless to the game world.

[Sir JK]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Just as I find it frustrating when I can't make corrections after my character mis-speaks.  If he says something I don't want him to say, I either need him to correct himself, or I need to reload the game.

And in DA2, he says something I don't want him to say at least once per conversation.

Trust me, I sympathize. I may not agree with you what the optimal dialogue system would look like, but I don't wish you to suffer through that.
I truly do hope that whatever improvements Bioware has made it'd make it at least a little more accurate for you.

[Reever]

I'd prefer to see the whole sentence my character is about to say, too!