thePhilanthropy Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 Lately i've replayed basically all of the Infintiy Engine games. Ok, alright, they are really old and out-dated by now. But, when it comes to RPGs, Planescape:Torment is still the "top-notch", the "second to none", the "ne plus ultra". Why? Because of the superior dialogue. The superior dialogue-*SYSTEM*. Not only did NCPs have actually useful/interesting/curious stuff to say. No, so did YOU. Dialogue was everything in those games. Without it, they would never have worked. What I want to see in Oblivion is a new dialogue system. No more timed, voice acted dialogue. I want to see a system where voice-acting is secondary (a nice but *nonessential* addition). Alright, this is my vision:Fonts are smaller. Every line of text will stay on screen UNTIL you click. Voice acting/sound is *optional*. Your character can enter a REAL conversation. More like Morrowind. Ever played Baldur's Gate (1 &/or 2)? Ever played Planescape:Torment? Those games had depths Oblivion could only dream of. Even without voice-acting for every generic line of text. So, if there is such a mod out there, please tell me. Otherwise, how could it be accomplished? PS: I think for modders this would be a bliss! No longer would you have to bother with fixed dialogue (*this line of text needs to last at least 10 seconds*. wtf?). New quest-mods would be far easier to make. And so on and so forth... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tchos Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 I haven't played those games you mention, aside from Morrowind, but I couldn't agree more. Voice acting ALL dialogue means "not much dialogue", which results in a shallower user experience. Voice acting should be restricted to greetings and exclamations, and the dialogue should be detailed, witty, and a pleasure to read and interact with, like the old LucasArts games, or indeed like Morrowind. I'll have to look into those other games you mentioned. In response to your question, though, I'm guessing such an improvement will not be happening for Oblivion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarb Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 Voice acting is nice, but as mentioned, this can potentially limit flexibility and quantity. I also find it odd that the player's dialogue potential is even more limited. I had envisioned some mods with more verbalizing on the part of the player, but unless I am missing something, that is quite restricted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Brasher Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 Yes. It really stinks that when your character talks, he or she can say about six words in one speech, but the NPCs can talk for hours, two sentences at a time. (But then the mod is too large to upload and download.) I wish there was a mod like you describe, but I suspect the problem is with the game engine itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex2avs Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 well... the first step would be to write down all the dialogs for every or almost every NPC in-game. Then it's a matter of scripting more like quest making . Anyway... it will take lots of time to finish this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pronam Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 I think the simplest thing would be to do without the current face2face dialogue.Instead the converstations with only subtitles are used. Then some script that forces you to look to the player, as if he's talking...If you got one choice to say at all, you don't need a messagebox asking you to chose the 1st one..It would be nice to have a real conversation without the possibility to wait an hour before you click with your mouse... I agree with the part that it should be a possibility to use the old type of dialogue though..but as david says, that would require a difficult change to oblivion.. ----Indeed.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thePhilanthropy Posted June 27, 2009 Author Share Posted June 27, 2009 hmmmm........... Yeah, I've given this some thought. Conclusion: Too much work. Reasons: OK, there are many reasons. Theoretically it would be possible to change the dialogue-system in a manner such as described. I guess it could be done by simulating an alternative dialogue system. For that, though, one would have to use something like Pluggy to render the dialogue on screen (in form of a HUD maybe). But then, you'd still have to have a method of finding the correct dialogue for every NPC you talk to. You'd have to be able to read, scan (for special syntax and dialogue branches), interpret all of it AND built your own GUI.It IS certainly possible, but too much work. I even checked all those xml files. While they do spit out some info for me, all they really seem to do is define the appearance of GUI elements. But they don't tell the engine how to handle dialogue at all, e.g. how long to wait till the next line of text appears. So, all this seems pretty fruitless. I just hope TES V/FO IV will have a better interface. Because this one su*ks big time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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