18 replies to this topic

[doomjockey]

True, in fact I can't recall ever seeing any personalized messages besides the aforementioned two. And it seems they can do it, because they've already done it. Which makes me wonder why decade old games can input your name in every text field available yet in a monster like Oblivion, developers didn't quite see the need.

In old games, there was no, or very little voice acting. If NPC A is saying, "Hello, <charname>!" and there is no voice acting, then he'll say, "Hello <charname>!" However, if that bit is voice acted, he really can't. The game makers have no way of knowing what the player is going to input, or even how it's going to be pronounced. You take a look at a name like Gyiraaldhithlk and tell me you can pronounce it exactly the same way I can. Personally, I wouldn't like it if every single NPC butchered my name. Now I'm not excusing Bethesda, what they did was wrong. Many other games stuck the player's name in even voice acted segments just fine. They'd just stick in areas where the NPC doesn't actually need to say it, like above. The voice acted part would simply be, "Hello!" while, "Hello, <charname>!" would appear on screen.

Right.

Let me clear this up:

I wasn't trying to give the impression that your name should be voice acted, merely used more frequently in textual instances. While a great idea, I understand voice acting your character's name would be quite difficult to accomplish satisfactorily. That is why I mentioned text fields in my griping about Bethesda not textually using your name throughout the game more. Like say, in an in-game book i.e. "<charname>'s Diary" or that not so "personal note" ("...to <charname>" instead of "to the Hero of Kvatch"). Written word.

[Abramul]

The 'assassin' quote was in someone's sig for a while here. Probably where you saw it.

Does Oblivion even allow variables in books?

The outlaw named %PCName, stated trade of %PCClass, lately called 'Incarnate' and 'Nerevarine,' now is shown to the investigating Ordinators and Magistrates of this district to be an agent in the pay of the Imperial Intelligence Service.

P.S. Doomjockey, I've replied to your post in Five Deaths.

[doomjockey]

Does Oblivion even allow variables in books?

Sorry to say, I've no clue. I'm not well versed in coding or programming so I'd have to look it up. It's been a while and I couldn't tell you if Morrowind allowed for that in books either- But I will tell you it would have been a damn decent idea.

Oblivion is a great game, sure. But it's rather impersonal treatment of the player really takes away from the experience.

[Abramul]

Morrowind has these available for use in dialogue.

%Name		The speaker's name.
%PCName	The player's name.
%Race		The speaker's race.
%PCRace	The player's race.
%Class		The speaker's class.
%PCClass	The player's class.
%Faction	The speaker's faction. If they have no faction, it will be blank.
%Rank		The speaker's rank.
%PCRank	The player's rank in the speaker's faction.
%NextPCRank	The player's next rank in the speaker's faction.
%Cell		The cell the player is currently in.
%Global	Any global variable value. Floats display as 1.1, such as %Gamehour.

So, a book or NPC could say "%PCName, a PCRace PCClass, defeated Dagoth Ur." But if you wanted to specify whether the player character was male or female, you'd probably need two versions of the book or topic.

The quote I edited into my previous post was from a Public Notice that is enabled during Morrowind's main quest.

The CS help file also lists a number of "Defines for controls", which I suppose are used to tell the player what does what during CharGen.

[doomjockey]

Morrowind has these available for use in dialogue.

%Name		The speaker's name.
   %PCName	The player's name.
   %Race		The speaker's race.
   %PCRace	The player's race.
   %Class		The speaker's class.
   %PCClass	The player's class.
   %Faction	The speaker's faction. If they have no faction, it will be blank.
   %Rank		The speaker's rank.
   %PCRank	The player's rank in the speaker's faction.
   %NextPCRank	The player's next rank in the speaker's faction.
   %Cell		The cell the player is currently in.
   %Global	Any global variable value. Floats display as 1.1, such as %Gamehour.

So, a book or NPC could say "%PCName, a PCRace PCClass, defeated Dagoth Ur." But if you wanted to specify whether the player character was male or female, you'd probably need two versions of the book or topic.

The quote I edited into my previous post was from a Public Notice that is enabled during Morrowind's main quest.

The CS help file also lists a number of "Defines for controls", which I suppose are used to tell the player what does what during CharGen.

I see and I think I remember that particular item. It fits for Morrowind as very little of the dialogue was voiced, but I've found nothing similar in my search of Oblivion scripts. Had to pop over a few sites and refresh my memory with a few primers. I can only guess they decided not to include it. For what reasons I can't imagine...

[wasder]

Before my computer crashed (character file was lost), I was playing a Dark Brotherhood character, who join the DB BEFORE Kvatch and saved (what was left of it) in DB armor. I think my character should not have received any praise for the deed since nobody should know his identity for obvious reasons.

"A good assassin is unknown and feared by the masses. A great assassin is well known a loved by the populous."

That's so taken from assassins creed , Or ubisoft stole it from google, Maybe it's a conspiracy ...

Or it's just an old and well known saying (I think it's from a book but I can't remember which).

Hmmm... I think It wouldn't take much to make a mod that added your name to a plaque on the Bruma Statue.
Maybe add graffiti Eg. "YOUR NAME HERE is our hero" or something written on walls. That would be pretty cool.

[Thomas1616]

Addressing the first post: I agree with every point you make here. You complete the main quest and you just have this awful feeling of "great, what exactly did I do to be celebrated this way". I don't care how improbable and unrealistic it is. I will always maintain the Mehrunes Dagon should have been the final boos to be fought by your character.

[dezdimona]

the name thing would add a personnal touch,unfortunately you need an mp3 file for your name.As far as the fame and name on my statue, my characters choose to remain humble!

[troyatistic]

I've actually never thought of this before, but now that I have, it bothers me. Like, for example, in Morrowind I remember being really surprised with the one note you find in Ald'Ruhn in the Rat in the Pot that actually says "[name of your char] is not to be believed and is prosecuted by the Tribunal for claiming to be the Nerevarine etcetc". The note actually mentions the name of your char, proving that is would be possible in Oblivion as they already did it in Morrowind. Also, some NPCs say "Hello, [name of char]!". But then again, in Morrowind there was no voice-acting, I recognize that.

It would add a nice touch to the game if the "personal note" and the Hero Statue-thing etc were scripted to have the name of your char in them, and some NPCs would say in the dialogue subtitles "Hello, [name of char]!" or something like that, even if the spoken dialogue was only "Hello!". I have to admit, that if Bethesda had put the name in the subtitles and not in the spoken dialogue some people would most likely have grumbled about that, and if they had put an automatic name-sounding machine-thing (I have no idea what they're called, but you know what I mean) people would have grumbled about how it sounded all the names wrong. They did the best they could with the dialogue, but the personal touches on some other things would have beem nice (and not to mention completely possible).

Because right now, the feeling I have during gameplay is kind of like: "Hey, dude, I SAVED you and all the rest of Cyrodiil, and you don't even know my NAME?".