84 réponses à ce sujet

[Shechinah]

 But when I am, it would be sweet if you ****** people could talk about something else. Everyone's been crying over the paraphrases since 2006 man, holy ****.

 

Firstly, this is a thread created to discuss the topic of paraphrasing so it would be expected of people to politely stay on that topic. If you are uninterested in the topic then you might find other threads to your liking elsewhere on the forums. There are plenty of threads with plenty of different topics.

 

Secondly, while you may consider it sweet, people should not be expected to stop discussing topics simply because you happen to be on the forums that day and are tired of the topic in question. As I've mentioned above, there are plenty of other threads and you do not have to participate in one with a topic you are uninterested in or outright dislike.

 

Thirdly, the reason why people are discussing paraphrasing is because they still consider it a topic worthy of discussion especially as it has an impact on their enjoyment of the game. The age of a topic does not in itself change it's value as a topic for discussion.  
 

[RoboticWater]

If he was implying anything, it's that Bio intended to make a game he wouldn't like, and succeeded.

True, though I'm not a huge fan of his liberal use of the word "mistake."

[Bowlcuts]

 

 

How much do you want to bet that the "Can I help?" and the "Only a dozen?" choices are going to make Shepard say the exact same dialogue? Mass Effect 1 had by far the worst dialogue wheel ever. Almost all of the Paragon/Renegade choices were different in text but the exact same in voice, ruined it for me.

[BloodyMares]

How much do you want to bet that the "Can I help?" and the "Only a dozen?" choices are going to make Shepard say the exact same dialogue? Mass Effect 1 had by far the worst dialogue wheel ever. Almost all of the Paragon/Renegade choices were different in text but the exact same in voice, ruined it for me.

At least it had a middle neutral option (mostly).

[Silvery]

I agree with this it would be nice to see exactly word for word what you person would say first. Only problem I could think of is if what you character was going to say was long, then you could have a problem with a lot of text on the screen. The Witcher 3 did the best job of this from any game I have played, because Geralt's responses are mostly what you expect when you pick a option. Can't recall he saying something that sounded really different from what I though it would be. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

Implying that Mass Effect was even trying to appeal to your standards.

I imply nothing.

No one ever does. Implication isn't real.

[MaxQuartiroli]

Never had any problem with the wheel. I always knew that if I picked the upper option I was going to give a nice answer, the central one was for neutral reaction and the lower one was for using a harsh/nasty tone.

 

They went even further in DA:I  with the personality icons (they began to use them in DA2 tho) and it's enough for me. I don't need to know the exact words that my PC is going to say but just what kind of answer every option triggers.

[Annos Basin]

I like paraphrasing for the same reason I dislike subtitles: I hate repetition. If I've already read the dialog, I'm more likely to just skip the VO even if the VO makes the experience more engaging.

 

To me, it is definitely unsatisfying to know exactly what I'm going to say.  If they are going to give us cinematic dialogue, I want to experience it cinematically.

 

I like subtitles (preferably bigger ones than many games offer by default these days, I don't have room for big americans' tv) because my hearing is just little bit off. So I can't compare paraphrasing to subs. Other is nice, other useful.

 

Even after reading the text, having voice acting is still worth it in cinematic scene. Inquisition and ME3 had some conversations where the feel of interaction (eye contact mostly) didn't quite come over to player due eavesdrop camera, which made me hope these dialogues would've been text only. (In Persona 3 and 4 only certain dialogue was fully voiced. No one seems to mind...) However cinematic conversations in Bioware games feel like luxury, even. I don't remember anything to complain about in ME 1 and 2 in this regard, since everything felt always captivating.

 

 

In previous games paragon had more passionate and kind tone, renegade was more like yelling and sometimes sarcastic and neutral...didn't have a particular tone. I'm sure paragon knows the meaning of sarcasm and renegade can control his anger. Paragon/Renegade are just not enough. And we still don't know what Paragon and Renegade actually mean. "Idealistic vs. practical? Merciful vs. Ruthless? Cunning vs. brutal? Doormat vs. leader? Sensible vs. sociopathic moron? You can find examples of all of these in the game." (by Shamus Young)

But most importantly, they need to make our PC smart for once. It was really difficult for me to play as dumb Shepard (naive paragon dumb, indecisive neutral dumb or biased/lunatic renegade dumb). If our character is having an argument we need to be able to have dialogue options that follow logic. If we're having a tough call, we need the option to make the most obvious and safest choice (or at least an explanation of why we can't make this choice). All the dumb lines ("I thought asari needed another species to reproduce") should be left in 'Investigate' section only so the player can better undestand what NPC is talking about but no dumb lines in actual right side of the dialogue wheel.

 

I like sensitive protagonists who care (stakes get bigger, and it's up my alley), so paragon was my choice. Though the naivete got on my nerves too sometimes. Shepard outright pushed the responsibility on the villains, and I wouldn't had minded if that would had sometimes led into betrayals. (I don't like hardened nor openly reluctant protagonists, but I like internally broken ones.) However if paragon would had been a goodguy who loses temper when facing villainy, while renegade would've been always smooth and manipulative, who rather stabs backs than attacks brutally, I wonder if I would had played as renegade instead. Scheming against krogans in ME3 (for greater good=Mordin) was my highlight moment.

 

Anyway, the argument about paragon being order and renegade chaos hardly holds up since it's been way too arguable and unclear. (It is possible that my view on renegade Shepard is narrow since I saw that option so little, after learning to avoid it. Always seemed too jerk. Unless if you count in that lying to krogans part.)

 

Shepard being silly character grew on me, so I didn't mind if he came off somehow "dumb". Though I don't mind uninformed character, that on its own never means they're stupid. In many cases the info dump conversations are a bit meta anyway, same way as someone advising you to press certain button to access inventory. Not that I would mind smart protagonist. (Main reason I'd like a salarian protagonist is that the smarts would be the selling point.)

 

One of the good things about paragon/renegade system was making dialogue wheel's paraphrases predictable, helping that nice flow during conversations. (Biggest/only problem for me being that you had to drop the roleplaying at times to avoid ninjamances or to collect para/rene points. Meh.) Still, to be honest I would like to see something new instead of return of para/rene. I like the moments when you have to stop and think when the options aren't clearly good vs bad.

 

 

Never had any problem with the wheel. I always knew that if I picked the upper option I was going to give a nice answer, the central one was for neutral reaction and the lower one was for using a harsh/nasty tone.

 

They went even further in DA:I  with the personality icons (they began to use them in DA2 tho) and it's enough for me. I don't need to know the exact words that my PC is going to say but just what kind of answer every option triggers.

 

I'd root for personality and escpecially mood icons over binary morality choices. though hoping you won't get stuck with one personality in case you want to grow or change your mind during the story, or just be complex. If there would be reputations points, protagonist could always complain in the end about how people can't see the full picture of them.

 

But anyway, I guess I go with the Team Paraphrase. Not a dealbreaker (few things are, it's up to you to learn to play the games you want to play), but it has worked for me in previous games really well, for most parts.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Never had any problem with the wheel. I always knew that if I picked the upper option I was going to give a nice answer, the central one was for neutral reaction and the lower one was for using a harsh/nasty tone.

They went even further in DA:I with the personality icons (they began to use them in DA2 tho) and it's enough for me. I don't need to know the exact words that my PC is going to say but just what kind of answer every option triggers.

The tone icons are insufficiently well defined to be useful to me. This is why I turn them off, and I find DAI works better without them than DA2 did with them (I have never played DAI with the tone icons enabled).

Sadly, it only disables some of the icons, not all. I'm not sure why.

But regarding your first point, if ever I don't get to decide the substance of what my character says, that's a problem. DA2 and ME2 routinely didn't let me do that. I thought ME3 did better (when it provided a wheel at all).

[CronoDragoon]

But regarding your first point, if ever I don't get to decide the substance of what my character says, that's a problem.

 

This is actually why I don't have a problem with the dialogue wheel, because I know that in every single CRPG I can't decide what my character says to a sufficient specificity with sufficient freedom to seriously consider mapping my character's personality out to the degree that some do. It's only ever made sense to me to tailor the nuance of my character's background and feelings to the degree to which a particular game allows me to express those thoughts and feelings. Therefore, I might decide on general stances towards things, but don't get hung up on exactly what the character says. It's allowed me to pick dialogue wheel options without contradicting my character for 95% of games with dialogue wheels.

 

In spite of my lack of issues with dialogue wheels, I also think an option could be integrated that keeps the elegance of the wheel; something like a full dialogue box on highlight. The basic functionality for this was actually in DAI, though used for a different purpose: if BW wanted, they could repurpose the box that tells you the consequences during  a decision wheel into something that shows you the full dialogue.

 

[LinksOcarina]

Man, this conversation is topical to something I wrote earlier today about the Dialogue Wheel, looking at its strengths and weaknesses and why its innovative.

 

That is kind of the key here, innovation. It was BioWare using that wheel to make their games more cinematic, something they wanted to do since 2000, and it was a great leap forward in making that happen. It's major strength is the use of tone and creating a more visual presentation of the game and more seamless transition between cut-scenes and characters.

 

The negatives are what has been said in this thread, but I kind of try to sum it up as two different tastes going for the same goal. "It is the difference between a cinematic approach and a novel approach- both are catering to similar audiences, but one would prefer to read and carefully control their actions, while others would rather listen and carefully respond to what they hear. Both, in the end, offer strong role-playing choices, big and small, that would provide the player with what they want: a RPG experience."

 

It's basically a question of preference and style; we come to close to the same conclusions regardless of that style, but the journey of getting there is different for everyone else.

 

Now, BioWare is not going to remove the wheel in the end, so asking them to do so is kind of moot here, but the constant revisions to the dialogue wheel has helped it over time; and if ToR is an indication, perhaps going back to a silent, list style is a possibility, or at least a similar style for the wheel with fuller dialogue choices intact.

[AlanC9]

Interesting stuff, though I do wish you'd made it clearer in that piece that the good-neutral-evil response structure predates the wheel by many years. Remember the fuss when Bio switched the order of the choices on the Temple Mount in KotOR?

[LinksOcarina]

Interesting stuff, though I do wish you'd made it clearer in that piece that the good-neutral-evil response structure predates the wheel by many years. Remember the fuss when Bio switched the order of the choices on the Temple Mount in KotOR?

 

I honestly don't.

 

In fact, I never really noticed a pattern for dialogue before the wheel. KotoR and Baldur's Gate I just thought it was a list in semi-random order.

[Hair Serious Business]

How much do you want to bet that the "Can I help?" and the "Only a dozen?" choices are going to make Shepard say the exact same dialogue? Mass Effect 1 had by far the worst dialogue wheel ever. Almost all of the Paragon/Renegade choices were different in text but the exact same in voice, ruined it for me.

 

Pic was just used to be plain example(was too lazy to take my own personal screenshot of "hey this is how dialouge wheel is nightmare at chosing options").

 

Options in there look fine but as I said pic was just little example of it, however in game if you you got no clue when you have conversations did you picked right one. In ME sure everyone was like pic 1st for nice, 2nd for neutral and 3rd for being arse! But even that is proof how badly dialogue wheel was handled in here and again why too many people tend to dislike it.

 

You seem to have had a near-total reading comprehension fail there, unless I just expressed myself terribly. For me, it isn't random. I don't know the precise content of the spoken line, but I know it well enough to know which one of the available lines is the best available one for my PC to speak at the time,and that's the only decision I can make there. More information on the line is counterproductive once I have enough to make the decision accurately.

So plz don't tell me this kind of way wasn't issue in here. Because thank you very much I don't want thing that has defined "black and white" and pic for 1st to be angel, last to be demon and if you pick in middle you gain no paragon/renegade and you will be screwed later on in game. So please anyone wanting to say that this kind of thing "isn't serious issue" might as well jump on shooter games because ME is meant to be ARPG in here!

 

So it is not "I lack to read issues" it is lack of game being ARPG issues.

[AlanC9]

Pic was just used to be plain example(was too lazy to take my own personal screenshot of "hey this is how dialouge wheel is nightmare at chosing options").

Options in there look fine but as I said pic was just little example of it, however in game if you you got no clue when you have conversations did you picked right one. In ME sure everyone was like pic 1st for nice, 2nd for neutral and 3rd for being arse! But even that is proof how badly dialogue wheel was handled in here and again why too many people tend to dislike it.

So plz don't tell me this kind of way wasn't issue in here. Because thank you very much I don't want thing that has defined "black and white" and pic for 1st to be angel, last to be demon and if you pick in middle you gain no paragon/renegade and you will be screwed later on in game. So please anyone wanting to say that this kind of thing "isn't serious issue" might as well jump on shooter games because ME is meant to be ARPG in here!

So it is not "I lack to read issues" it is lack of game being ARPG issues.

Um... what are you talking about? I didn't say anything about your illustration; I didn't even really look at it since I know what a dialogue wheel looks like. Actually, this whole post is such an incoherent mess that I have no idea what you're trying to communicate.

Just to be perfectly clear, I was saying that I don't find my choices to be random over the entire game. Again, with the exception of one bad paraphrase in DA2. I wasn't talking about your example in particular.

[AlanC9]

I honestly don't.

In fact, I never really noticed a pattern for dialogue before the wheel. KotoR and Baldur's Gate I just thought it was a list in semi-random order.

You should look again. In KotOR the LS options almost always come at the top of the list, DS ones at the bottom. Hilarity ensued when the big choice that irrevocably turns the PC to the Dark Side came at the top of the list, and a few players who were just clicking the top option because it was LS ended up destroying the Republic.

Of course, they were mercilessly mocked from one end of this board to the other when they posted to complain about it.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Interesting stuff, though I do wish you'd made it clearer in that piece that the good-neutral-evil response structure predates the wheel by many years. Remember the fuss when Bio switched the order of the choices on the Temple Mount in KotOR?

I never noticed the order until someone pointed it out years later. I wish they were randomized.

And I find I can happily ignore the order if it's not applied explicitly. ME bothers me because of how heavily the paraphrases rely on wheel position to convey information, and DAI (with the icons disabled) works fine, because the paraphrases need to be able to stand on their own.

[Linkenski]

How much do you want to bet that the "Can I help?" and the "Only a dozen?" choices are going to make Shepard say the exact same dialogue? Mass Effect 1 had by far the worst dialogue wheel ever. Almost all of the Paragon/Renegade choices were different in text but the exact same in voice, ruined it for me.

You don't notice it on a first playthrough and aside from that it had moments where all decisions were unique, so I didn't mind it, but of course I'd prefer them to improve.

[AlanC9]

I never noticed the order until someone pointed it out years later. I wish they were randomized.
And I find I can happily ignore the order if it's not applied explicitly. ME bothers me because of how heavily the paraphrases rely on wheel position to convey information, and DAI (with the icons disabled) works fine, because the paraphrases need to be able to stand on their own.

Right. ME took something that the writers had been doing from, apparently, force of habit, and made it something that a player was required to pay attention to.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Right. ME took something that the writers had been doing from, apparently, force of habit, and made it something that a player was required to pay attention to.

And that was bad. Given how badly defined paragon and renegade were (throughout the series), requiring an understanding of them to make sense of the paraphrases was absurd. There was no way for people to be confident they knew what a line in ME actually did.

To this day, I don't know how to be civil when talking with TIM at the start of ME2.

[pdusen]

Frankly, I don't find any of the lines in the OP the least bit ambiguous.

 

Only two times has a a dialogue choice in a Bioware game seemed at odds with the resulting action. The first time was in DA:O (due to the lack of tone indicators), and the second time was in DA:2.

[AlanC9]

Well, that's something that DAI tone icons would help with.

I'm definitely hoping for P/R to go away too. Though not expecting it.

[Shechinah]

I'm definitely hoping for P/R to go away too. Though not expecting it.

 

Yeah, I think the Paragon and Renegade aspect should go because I see it as more limiting than benefiting especially since it locks options behind a meter rather than behind actions.
 

[pdusen]

I imply nothing.

No one ever does. Implication isn't real.

 

I do. Quite often. Implication is real.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I do. Quite often. Implication is real.

Can you point to it? Is it demonstrably there? Does it make any material difference? How can you tell?