aod lose my buisness

[vazquez595654]

Don't know if that really applies, as Vault Dweller doesn't have a time frame other than, when it's done, or his life span.

Like someone else mentioned. AoD is about dialogue, so if this isn't at the forefront, then Vault Dweller is a bad manager/ game designer. If he was making a Diablo clone, non of this would matter.

Since he is trying to create a believable fictional world with shitty graphics, dialogue is all he's got.

 

[Jasede]

I'll edit the dialogues etc

PM me, VD

^
You should take this offer, VD.

 

[PrzeSzkoda]

I'll edit the dialogues etc

PM me, VD

^
You should take this offer, VD.

If Spacemoose's any good as an editor, go for it.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I've been following a few threads on the ITS forums, and I've noticed that AoD has piss poor writing... Bad writing is inexcusable in a C&C heavy RPG.
...
Also, the fact that other aspects of the game (graphics, combat, etc) are crudely done doesn't help it either.

Hmm... let's see... bad writing, bad graphics, crudely done combat. Is it that time of the month again, Ogre? You should team up with Sir Brennus and do a double act.

If this won't be changed until the release, I don't think I'll be interested in a purchase.

It won't be fixed. If my writing (more like my personality, but let's pretend that it's about writing) rubs you the wrong way, forget about AoD and focus on some other game.

I wonder why on Earth he doesn't WANT to hire a professional editor. It's supposed to be a writing-heavy game, the writing should be one of the main selling points. Currently the writing is somewhat better than all of 'em cheap-labor Russian>English localizations we get (like, say, Space Rangers 2), and that's definitely not good enough. It's got the word "amateur" stamped on its forehead.

I humbly disagree. The writing will never be described as great or brilliant, but it's good enough. Good enough to attract a lot of interest and quite a few publishing inquiries. Considering that 95% of screens we've posted are dialogue screens, if the writing was as bad as you imply we would have had empty forums and 0 interest from the gaming audience, press, and publishers.

And don't get me started on the "but we already had a re-write, and you said it sucked!" thing. I bet Scott, the Cyclopean dude, was responsible for the re-write (the unnecessary verbosity of it being a dead giveaway)....

Nope.

Bad writing is inexcusable in a C&C heavy RPG.

Could you show some examples from AoD of what you consider to be bad writing please? I'm curious about this, I think there's an important line to tread between improvement and preserving VD's individual style against the generic.

The voice of reason, which sadly was ignored.

Bad writing is inexcusable in a C&C heavy RPG.

Could you show some examples from AoD of what you consider to be bad writing please? I'm curious about this, I think there's an important line to tread between improvement and preserving VD's individual style against the generic.

Honestly, if you can't see the poor writing from AOD you have no grasp on the english language and I would have to call you a fucking idiot.



The writing is piss poor whether you would like to ignore it or not.

A trolling alt on the Codex? How original and fascinating.

AoD needs help in the writing.

It is too modern, simplistic, 1 dimensional, and reads like a 14 year old's writing.

Quite a statement.

That all sounds nice, but if I were AoD I'd invoke the Bioware excuse. "That's real nice, but it would take a fuckload of time to implement that we'd rather spend on stuff we like."

If it was actually true, if my writing was simplistic, one-dimensional, and that of a 14 year old, I would have found a writer and taken the time to do it right.

You should take this offer, VD.

Because someone said that the dialogues suck? Seriously?

There are a lot more people who think that the writing is good enough than people who agree with Ogre and Vasquez. For example (quick search results; was looking for people with dual "citizenship"):

Annie: I’m impressed with the dialogue...

Cardtrick: Loved it; awesome dialogs. Moar! I love the way the dialog looks with the quotes, too; this game is reminding me a lot more of PS:T than I expected it to. Honestly, I was expecting great choices/consequences and fun Fallout-esque gameplay, but I'm continually impressed by the quality of the writing, which I think seems to surpass Fallout's.

John Yossarian: Maybe Vince can give it a try, his writing is always top notch.

Star: Your writing is great VD, love it.

One Wolf: That being said, the dialog looks truly fantastic. I can't wait to play.

Jora: ...and great dialogues.

Scott: I like the writing.

Overall, I'm under the impression that the overwhelming majority either likes the writing or doesn't see anything wrong with it.

Glad we had this talk.

 

[spacemoose]

don't be like anne rice, VD

you have nothing to lose, but the stilted and uncanny-valley-like dialogue

 

[Lumpy]

aod lose my business :<

 

[kwanzabot]

I've been following a few threads on the ITS forums, and I've noticed that AoD has piss poor writing... Bad writing is inexcusable in a C&C heavy RPG.
...
Also, the fact that other aspects of the game (graphics, combat, etc) are crudely done doesn't help it either.

Hmm... let's see... bad writing, bad graphics, crudely done combat. Is it that time of the month again, Ogre? You should team up with Sir Brennus and do a double act.

If this won't be changed until the release, I don't think I'll be interested in a purchase.

It won't be fixed. If my writing (more like my personality, but let's pretend that it's about writing) rubs you the wrong way, forget about AoD and focus on some other game.

I wonder why on Earth he doesn't WANT to hire a professional editor. It's supposed to be a writing-heavy game, the writing should be one of the main selling points. Currently the writing is somewhat better than all of 'em cheap-labor Russian>English localizations we get (like, say, Space Rangers 2), and that's definitely not good enough. It's got the word "amateur" stamped on its forehead.

I humbly disagree. The writing will never be described as great or brilliant, but it's good enough. Good enough to attract a lot of interest and quite a few publishing inquiries. Considering that 95% of screens we've posted are dialogue screens, if the writing was as bad as you imply we would have had empty forums and 0 interest from the gaming audience, press, and publishers.

And don't get me started on the "but we already had a re-write, and you said it sucked!" thing. I bet Scott, the Cyclopean dude, was responsible for the re-write (the unnecessary verbosity of it being a dead giveaway)....

Nope.

Bad writing is inexcusable in a C&C heavy RPG.

Could you show some examples from AoD of what you consider to be bad writing please? I'm curious about this, I think there's an important line to tread between improvement and preserving VD's individual style against the generic.

The voice of reason, which sadly was ignored.

Bad writing is inexcusable in a C&C heavy RPG.

Could you show some examples from AoD of what you consider to be bad writing please? I'm curious about this, I think there's an important line to tread between improvement and preserving VD's individual style against the generic.

Honestly, if you can't see the poor writing from AOD you have no grasp on the english language and I would have to call you a fucking idiot.



The writing is piss poor whether you would like to ignore it or not.

A trolling alt on the Codex? How original and fascinating.

AoD needs help in the writing.

It is too modern, simplistic, 1 dimensional, and reads like a 14 year old's writing.

Quite a statement.

That all sounds nice, but if I were AoD I'd invoke the Bioware excuse. "That's real nice, but it would take a fuckload of time to implement that we'd rather spend on stuff we like."

If it was actually true, if my writing was simplistic, one-dimensional, and that of a 14 year old, I would have found a writer and taken the time to do it right.

You should take this offer, VD.

Because someone said that the dialogues suck? Seriously?

There are a lot more people who think that the writing is good enough than people who agree with Ogre and Vasquez. For example (quick search results; was looking for people with dual "citizenship"):

Annie: I’m impressed with the dialogue...

Cardtrick: Loved it; awesome dialogs. Moar! I love the way the dialog looks with the quotes, too; this game is reminding me a lot more of PS:T than I expected it to. Honestly, I was expecting great choices/consequences and fun Fallout-esque gameplay, but I'm continually impressed by the quality of the writing, which I think seems to surpass Fallout's.

John Yossarian: Maybe Vince can give it a try, his writing is always top notch.

Star: Your writing is great VD, love it.

One Wolf: That being said, the dialog looks truly fantastic. I can't wait to play.

Jora: ...and great dialogues.

Scott: I like the writing.

Overall, I'm under the impression that the overwhelming majority either likes the writing or doesn't see anything wrong with it.

Glad we had this talk.

this is what i mean, you take more time to reply here then to work on your fucking game, you're a lazy fucking flop

 

[Azrael the cat]

AoD needs help in the writing.

It is too modern, simplistic, 1 dimensional, and reads like a 14 year old's writing.

There should be greater range in vocabulary appropriate to the NPC.

Vault Dweller should have revisions of his dialogue.

1. He should categorize the NPC's into groups. Highly educated, somewhat educated, and uneducated. Then go through each of there dialogues and choose more advanced vocabulary/less cuss words for the highly educated and work down to simpler dialogue for the uneducated.

2. For each important NPC in the game, make sure his vocabulary and style match with who he is. Maybe there actually is a highly educated noble who cusses a lot.

3. Make sure each character has a personality. Not simply based on the description you give of the character, or what the character has done, but also in the way the character talks. Is he/she very jolly innkeeper, shy child, outspoken politician, witty wise man, dim witted sailor, rambling government official, a straightforward and dry soldier.

One cuss word goes a long way. Profanity should only be used for the sake of understanding, or getting to know an NPC. Authors rarely use profanity because there are usually more descriptive and better ways to express a character than "fuck".

If you are going to use "fuck", use it extremely sparingly, because one "fuck" goes a long way. Especially since we aren't used to seeing it in writing. One "fuck" would stay with you for the entire course of a dialogue with an NPC.

Not disagreeing with the rest of the post, but I don't have a problem with the language sounding modern. I WOULD if it was set in medieval England - but it isn't...it's set in post-Roman Empire. I.e. it is set in an area that doesn't speak English. Writing in ye old English would be wrong chronologically (old English came later) and regionally. The only sensible way I can see of translating ancient Roman is to do it exactly how we'd translate it today - going straight from whatever language was used at the time (if it's post-fall, then possibly not latin, except as a version of common I guess) to modern English. Putting it into old English would actually be a 3rd translation step, with less accuracy.

And when a piece is well translated, most stuff from ancient Rome translates pretty well into modern English. The latin language is (obviously) a close cousin of French, Spanish, Italian etc, and whilst that's a different linneage to English, English 'grew up' around those languages, and so translates across without needing to sound weird (as opposed to some oriental-to-English translations, where there is often no such thing as a direct translation that 'captures the whole meaning'). And if he's setting it in the Germanic tribes, then that's English's ancestor languages - a direct translation into modern English should be fine.

So talk modern as much as you like. It isn't clashing with reality - it's as close to ancient roman/germanic as old Englisjh would be, it just clashes with peoples' innaccurate expectations from movies. It's like people complaining that english language films set in Germany aren't using German accents - yeah, because people walk around in Germany all the time, speaking to other Germans using English in german accents, rather than just speaking German (if you had someone use a German accent, that would actually translate as a foreigner who spoke German as a second language - as any native Germans would be speaking without accents).

Sounds wanky, I know, but Shakespeare had a neat way of doing ancient Roman dialogue in Julius Ceasar. In roman times, ancient Greek was the 'cultured' language, whereas in Shakespeare's day ancient Latin was the 'cultured' language. So he had all the characters speaking English (for Roman), and when a character says something while trying to sound cultured/stylish (Julius upon his assasination: 'et tu Brutus') he had it in ancient Latin, meaning that in the play's logic the character was speaking Ancient Greek.

 

[Kingston]

uncanny-valley-like dialogue

That's actually a good description of the writing quality. It's not bad or anything, it's just that... it feels wrong. Something just doesn't fit. It doesn't feel cohesive, like it's part of the world. I know this is pretty useless feedback when I can't explain what it is that's wrong with it. A good editor might.

The writing quality is not bad, but it does appear to be the game's biggest flaw. And I think increasing the quality of the writing would do the game more good than ironing out the smaller flaws in mechanics or making the graphics better.

 

[Vault Dweller]

The writing quality is not bad, but it does appear to be the game's biggest flaw. And I think increasing the quality of the writing would do the game more good than ironing out the smaller flaws in mechanics or making the graphics better.

It's nearly impossible. An editor would either change the style completely, creating an entirely different one, or try to preserve my style, tweaking minor things. I'm not sure that the latter will satisfy the "aod writing sucks!" crowd. In fact, I doubt they would even notice the effort; as for the former, it's a gamble as the new style may or may not work/be well received.

Now, it's possible that a professional editor with years of experience will be able to improve my writing without changing the style, but that's not what we're talking about here, is it? We're talking about "your writing sucks, someone should rewrite it". I'm not sure it's a good idea.

 

[Kingston]

Now, it's possible that a professional editor with years of experience will be able to improve my writing without changing the style, but that's not what we're talking about here, is it? We're talking about "your writing sucks, someone should rewrite it". I'm not sure it's a good idea.

I'm talking about the first option. You don't necessarily need an editor to rewrite it, but to give guidance. The editor reads your writing, types up a bunch of stuff that he thinks would improve it and hands it to you.

Games will always have flaws and you will always have to leave something unfixed. If you think the game has bigger flaws than writing, then you are obviously on the right track.

Edit: Maybe slightly wrong wording. The writing isn't a flaw. But improved writing would raise the general quality of the game a lot more than anything else, I'd imagine. The graphics and mechanics and quests are probably honed to as good they can get. You're getting diminishing returns from them.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I'm talking about the first option. You don't necessarily need an editor to rewrite it, but to give guidance. The editor reads your writing, types up a bunch of stuff that he thinks would improve it and hands it to you.

I've tried working with 3 editors (from the Codex). Two changed the style (for the record, I liked their style more, but most people disagreed), one did minor tweaks.

Edit: Maybe slightly wrong wording. The writing isn't a flaw. But improved writing would raise the general quality of the game a lot more than anything else, I'd imagine.

I completely agree and I honestly wish I was a better writer. Unfortunately, the only way to improve it is to get someone to write better dialogues, which probably isn't a good idea.

I mean, you say that the dialogues are lacking something. Do you think that a few minor tweaks will magically improve them? I doubt it. Someone would have to rewrite each and every sentence. If you see something I don't, please provide examples.