rusty_shackleford
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2018
- Messages
- 50,754
Recently spent a bit of time thinking about dialogue in RPGs after playing a few different ones that had very different dialogue systems. Apart from hating dialogue wheels a lot, the one that stuck with me the most was:
The fusion of dialogue trees with being able to ask about specific events, places, people, things etc., was a good idea, if a bit undeveloped. It being abandoned in FO2 -- where it would have been even more useful due to the larger world -- and then forgotten about completely by future RPG developers is a damn shame.
I think I prefer entering the words manually over the systems that use keyword banks(wiz8, morrowind and such.) Manually entering the words requires more thought from the player than just using a keyword bank. If you're given a keyword bank, you'll either go through the entire list to find what they know(what's the point, then?) or the developer would have to limit the times you can ask about things(not a bad idea.) When manually entering the words(or, perhaps, using a keyword bank with limited tries) you'll be more careful about what you ask and take time to think about what this NPC might have knowledge of.
It might have to some extent even helped alleviate the information dumps we've seen in recent RPGs. If you are specifically asking an NPC about something, them giving a detailed response is actually fair.
What's the Codex's thoughts on Fallout's "Tell Me About" button?
The fusion of dialogue trees with being able to ask about specific events, places, people, things etc., was a good idea, if a bit undeveloped. It being abandoned in FO2 -- where it would have been even more useful due to the larger world -- and then forgotten about completely by future RPG developers is a damn shame.
I think I prefer entering the words manually over the systems that use keyword banks(wiz8, morrowind and such.) Manually entering the words requires more thought from the player than just using a keyword bank. If you're given a keyword bank, you'll either go through the entire list to find what they know(what's the point, then?) or the developer would have to limit the times you can ask about things(not a bad idea.) When manually entering the words(or, perhaps, using a keyword bank with limited tries) you'll be more careful about what you ask and take time to think about what this NPC might have knowledge of.
It might have to some extent even helped alleviate the information dumps we've seen in recent RPGs. If you are specifically asking an NPC about something, them giving a detailed response is actually fair.
What's the Codex's thoughts on Fallout's "Tell Me About" button?