| 25 MAY 2008 at 8:19pm |
ShanyGuild Master
Posts : 3313
Joined: 19 JUN 2003
Status : Online | Depends on the situation mostly, but also the writing and the voice acting.
For example I liked talking to a drunk guy in Undercover because he was funny - he didn't say anything too important or interesting.
The conversations in Curse of Monkey Island were almost all hillarious.
The conversations in the [spoiler midtext]prison part of Moment of Silence were very interesting as they revealed just how crazy that place was.
On the other hand I almost fell asleep during parts of The Longest Journey. Too much history and not enough involvement, if that makes sense.
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| 25 MAY 2008 at 9:37pm |
| Deleted User | Well, one of the many things that I enjoyed about Morrowind was their dialogue system (which I know you find in many other games, I'm just using Mw as an example). Important dialogue, and the introductory dialogue with each character is done with actual voices, and the rest of the dialogue is in script.
The protagonist has the freedom to choose (or not) from topics on the one side, but there are also hotlinks embedded in the actual dialogue script from either character that the gamer can click on if he feels the need to find out more about that subject.
I loved this system because people can typically read faster than they can talk, so it's speeds up the dialogue immensely, and leaves you with the freedom to chose which parts of the dialogue you want to enter into or not.
It saddens me that modern gamers are so spoilt that they want every little word in voices. Having it in text is such a faster and more economical mode as far as I'm concerned.
Of course, my very very worst in any game is unskippable dialogue. Absolute death to the soul if you for any reason have to replay a certain part and is forced to listen to the same 'ol dialogue as before, with no option to skip through it! [smiley=zombie.gif]
Otherwise, I actually like conversing and dialogues. (Who would ever have guessed, eh? [smiley=blahblah.gif] )
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| 25 MAY 2008 at 10:22pm |
JanuaryIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 59
Joined: 4 MAY 2008
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Ivinia (25 MAY 2008 7:54pm)
...
The other thing that gets me is when they go on a long stretch talking about nothing important, so I let them ramble away and get myself a drink only to find that one sentence in their dozen or so paragraphs long speech was important and I missed it. Odds are its the second to the last sentence and you have to listen to the entire thing again. >
This happens to me too, in the Sherlock Holmes games I've played or am playing.
But I like SH games in general, though not my favorites.
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| 25 MAY 2008 at 10:24pm |
JanuaryIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 59
Joined: 4 MAY 2008
Status : Online | Originally Posted By TheTraveler (25 MAY 2008 9:36pm)
Absolute death to the soul if you for any reason have to replay a certain part and is forced to listen to the same 'ol dialogue as before, with no option to skip through it! [smiley=zombie.gif]
I hear ya, same here.
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| 25 MAY 2008 at 10:41pm |
CarolineJA+ Overseer
Posts : 16540
Joined: 28 JAN 2007
Location: AU
Status : Offline | Roughly speaking adventure gamers fall into two camps. Those who regard these games as interactive books and get a kick out of dialogue and those who are only there for the challenge, the puzzles, the exploration and couldn't give a brass razoo about chatting to the natives - unless it's totally pertinent to the puzzle solving.
I'd prefer my dialogue in subtitles because I can skim read. I'd prefer not to have branches where options disappear if you choose the wrong topic and it's always the one thing you needed that vanishes.
Frankly, I avoid games that are structured around conversation like the plague - Sherlock Holmes and others. I like that sort of story in a book though.
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| 25 MAY 2008 at 11:13pm |
AubstopperIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 85
Joined: 19 MAY 2008
Status : Offline | I suppose i fall into the catagory of adventure gamers who want their experience to be like interactive books...and for the most part, i enjoy dialogue regardless of how long it is, because it is part of the whole experience of the place. The dialogue is what i loved most about the longest journey; most of it wasn't really pertinent to the plot, but it gave you a good idea of the world you're exploring. Sometimes, it's the impertinant details that make the game to me.
outside of the gaming world, i'm a big lover of books, my favorites being usually the longer and epic types (gone with the wind, doctor zhivago, Les miserables, Thornbirds). Some complain that they may be too wordy, that there's too much backstory, and not enough actual action, but this is not my style...i'm in it for the experience, not for brevity.
"Man's greatest tragedy is that he can perceive of a perfection that he can never attain."
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 2:10am |
InlandAZGuild Master
Posts : 5586
Joined: 4 MAY 2007
Status : Offline | Frankly, I avoid games that are structured around conversation like the plague - Sherlock Holmes and others. I like that sort of story in a book though.
You really did the right thing in returning TLJ then
I love dialog BTW - TLJ is still in my all time top 10.
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 2:55am |
JKingSchattenjger
Posts : 2349
Joined: 4 MAY 2008
Location: 0
Status : Offline | I used to take dialogue trees for granted, as those were the only sorts of adventure games I had been exposed to in my younger years. Now, though, I prefer games that either have no conversation or one-sided conversations (ie. where the player avatar's responses are inferred). Anything else is just too damned limiting, because you can never seem to ask the questions you want.
Now when I am confronted with dialogue, like Caroline I like to have text on hand so that I can quickly skim if I feel it's necessary. In the particular case of The Longest Journey, however, I actually did sit through most of the dialogue at audio pace: the acting was generally quite good, so I felt it was worth it.
You can't kill someone in a studio.
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 3:19am |
CarolineJA+ Overseer
Posts : 16540
Joined: 28 JAN 2007
Location: AU
Status : Offline | ....because you can never seem to ask the questions you want.
You said it right.
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 5:08am |
pavel4444Space Cadet
Posts : 124
Joined: 2 MAY 2008
Status : Online | To me dialogues/interactions are one of the most important things in the game. Of course if the voice acting or writing suck then the dialogues are painful, but if done right they enhance the experience. What really bores me is reading boring long winded hand written journals in the games. If they put that stuff in the game at least make the voice actor read it, I don't want to hurt my eyes and waste my time trying to figure out some bad hand writing. I want to relax and enjoy good voice acting.
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 5:52am |
InlandAZGuild Master
Posts : 5586
Joined: 4 MAY 2007
Status : Offline | What really bores me is reading boring long winded hand written journals in the games.
That makes two of us. (Books are for reading, games are for playing - )
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 6:45am |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By pavel4444 (26 MAY 2008 5:08am)
To me dialogues/interactions are one of the most important things in the game. Of course if the voice acting or writing suck then the dialogues are painful, but if done right they enhance the experience . I find myself having to agree with that one. The more I think about the issue, the more it occurs to me that the quality of both the dialogue and the voice-actor interpreting it colours one's experience towards liking/disliking dialogue/actual voices.
...but I personally don't agree too much with the the next:
What really bores me is reading boring long winded hand written journals in the games. If they put that stuff in the game at least make the voice actor read it, I don't want to hurt my eyes and waste my time trying to figure out some bad hand writing. I want to relax and enjoy good voice acting. Each to his own, but then they should put an option for lovers of text like myself, to skip the voice, and go with skimming the text (at my own hurried little pace)
@InlandAZ:That makes two of us. (Books are for reading, games are for playing - ) That's what they made action games for, Inland. Some of us strange characters actually enjoy a bit of reading interspersed with our action for a change of pace, and as Ivinia (though being in your camp) realised: it helps to flesh out the gameworld.
I like a game with a story, because I love stories -always have. If I want pure puzzles, there's a lot of puzzle gaming software out there, consisting of pure puzzles, and I often do play these pure puzzle 'games'. I can't help wondering why people who don't like stories, don't just rather go for those, as there really are tons and tons of them on the market.
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 9:01am |
Steve VSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 265
Joined: 16 MAR 2008
Status : Online | I think if you are playing a murder mystery/detective type game then almost the only way you can find anything out is by talking to people, and that is how it should be. The problem I had with the Mystery of The Mummy is that Holmes never talks to anybody during the game, still solves the mystery through pure puzzle solving but then gives a completely rushed and garbled explanantion of the plot at the end. If he had interacted with some people during the game I might have had some idea what was going on.
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 1:06pm |
| Deleted User | Re: For those who like dialogs
Reply #11 - Today at 1:52am
Pavel444 Quote:
What really bores me is reading boring long winded hand written journals in the games.
InlandAZ Quote:
That makes two of us. (Books are for reading, games are for playing - [smiley=laugh.gif]
And another makes it a very definite three !
An analogy… and like all analogies a bit far from the mark probably :-
In a computer game the 2 most important things I enjoy (plenty of ‘subsidiaries’) are ideally :-
A darned good gripping story (serious or humorous) :
Some good puzzles (not too hard & not too easy):
On the not too frequent times I watch a good drama or comedy on TV, and on the rare occasions in the cinema, I also enjoy a good gripping story (but of course no puzzles !).
The big difference being that in (good) games I am interacting which I always find much more enjoyable than just sitting and watching a film, however good it is.
In 3/4s of a century of film watching I cannot remember either in the cinema or on TV, a single instance where static pages & pages of some letter, journal, diary, document, whatever are screened for my reading !
Why is this necessary in games ? In any case I don’t find it comfortable reading (often several or even many) pages on a monitor… I much prefer hard copy of some sort. And when it’s composed in some ersatz ‘handwriting’ or other small script, it’s even more irritating, boring & frustrating … FOR ME !!!
P.S.
I don’t take it to extremes. A few words or even lines say scribbled on a letter or printed, are OK; but not the pages you so often get in some games --- frequently describing the history &/or background of some fictitious world… or the details & geography of some location !!
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 1:09pm |
JKingSchattenjger
Posts : 2349
Joined: 4 MAY 2008
Location: 0
Status : Offline | Len, I'd be interested to know whether you would like Betrayal at Krondor, one of the few computer roleplaying game I actually genuinely enjoy (perhaps because it shares much in common with two loves of mine: adventure games and novels). The game being more primitive, it has no voice, but it features considerable dialogue, scripted scenes, and long prose passages on-screen when one enters certain areas. Fantastic soundtrack, too.
You can't kill someone in a studio.
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 1:38pm |
IviniaGuild Master
Posts : 4459
Joined: 7 JUN 2003
Location: US
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Caroline (26 MAY 2008 3:18am)
....because you can never seem to ask the questions you want.
You said it right.
But Caroline, I don't think that asking people where you can pick up some chocolate is pertinent to the story.
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 1:43pm |
IviniaGuild Master
Posts : 4459
Joined: 7 JUN 2003
Location: US
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By pavel4444 (26 MAY 2008 5:08am)
What really bores me is reading boring long winded hand written journals in the games. If they put that stuff in the game at least make the voice actor read it, I don't want to hurt my eyes and waste my time trying to figure out some bad hand writing.
I agree with you on the first part here. Pages upon pages of text in a book is another one of those things that cause me to let out a long sigh. I don't mind the reading, but give it to me in small doses and only give me the important stuff. I have exploring to do dammit, but PLEASE don't let the character read it out loud. That would probably be even worse!
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 1:45pm |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By LenG (26 MAY 2008 1:06pm)
Re: For those who like dialogs
Reply #11 - Today at 1:52am
Pavel444 Quote:
What really bores me is reading boring long winded hand written journals in the games.
InlandAZ Quote:
That makes two of us. (Books are for reading, games are for playing - [smiley=laugh.gif]
And another makes it a very definite three !
*sigh* I'm obviously the only one here who reads entire books online! I find it saves a lot on paper and ink. (Well, I'll usually cut and paste them to Word, just in case, but then I still read most of it onscreen. I'm talking entire novels here. As in Tolstoy's War and Peace. (No, I didn't read that one online. I'm not quite that nuts yet) :
Quote @LenG:
Why is this necessary in games ? Len, to use your own analogy, games are interactive, while movies are not. The more interactive a game is, the more it resembles real life, and allows you to perform actions you would perform in real life, right?
Well, I do read a lot of text in real life, so therefore I do find it immersive and interactive to read stuff like books and scrolls in games. If I walked into someone's library in real life, I would immediately start browsing the shelves and soon find a good book to sit down with and start reading. So if a game allows me to perform these actions as well, it immensely heightens the realism and immersiveness of the game to me. It makes me feel as if I'm really there. Maybe that is also why I prefer playing in 1st person perspective, it heightens the immersion and feeling of realism.
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 2:03pm |
JKingSchattenjger
Posts : 2349
Joined: 4 MAY 2008
Location: 0
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Ivinia (26 MAY 2008 1:37pm)
Originally Posted By Caroline (26 MAY 2008 3:18am)
....because you can never seem to ask the questions you want.
You said it right.
But Caroline, I don't think that asking people where you can pick up some chocolate is pertinent to the story.
As we've already established that story for Caroline is more often than not just window dressing, surely we should instead be discussing what would heighten her enjoyment of a game, and I dare say that chocolate would make any adventure game worth playing!
Originally Posted By TheTraveler (26 MAY 2008 1:45pm)
Well, I do read a lot of text in real life, so therefore I do find it immersive and interactive to read stuff like books and scrolls in games. If I walked into someone's library in real life, I would immediately start browsing the shelves and soon find a good book to sit down with and start reading. So if a game allows me to perform these actions as well, it immensely heightens the realism and immersiveness of the game to me. It makes me feel as if I'm really there. Maybe that is also why I prefer playing in 1st person perspective, it heightens the immersion and feeling of realism.
I don't believe I could have said it any better, madam! In fact, I actually have pilfered someone else's library in such a fashion---shamefully, while they were standing right behind me trying to get my attention... [smiley=blush.gif]
You can't kill someone in a studio.
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 3:36pm |
Lucien21Guild Master
Posts : 4876
Joined: 9 JUL 2003
Location: 0
Status : Offline | I certainly disagree with Carolines' split of the adventure community, that somehow we either want puzzles, exploration and a challenge OR an interactive book.
The inference that just because it has dialogue it's noting more than an interactive book is flawed.
I'm a greedy person I want a challenge, puzzles, exploration and a great story and dialogue.
However the dialogue has to be brief and well written in each conversation, nothing worse than lenghty boring dialogue. It is also preferable to lots of reading ingame. Nobody likes reading from computer screens for any lenght of time.
Dear Diary, My teenage angst bullsh*t now has a bodycount.
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 3:58pm |
IviniaGuild Master
Posts : 4459
Joined: 7 JUN 2003
Location: US
Status : Offline | I think it's an issue of moderation. Too much of anything starts to get old fast whether it be reading lots of text at one point in the game, going through a massive conversation, or even a single puzzle with way too many moves.
Case in point:
Nancy Drew: Crystal Skull. Ok, we got it, the riddle refers to a name in the cemetery. Did we really need to solve a dozen of them? Even worse, we couldn't take the book with the list of names of people that were buried so you had to go back and forth from the house, out to the cemetery for the next riddle, back to the house, back to the cemetery for the next riddle... It was a lot of fun for maybe 3 riddles. After that it was annoying.
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 4:45pm |
pavel4444Space Cadet
Posts : 124
Joined: 2 MAY 2008
Status : Online | Originally Posted By JKing (26 MAY 2008 1:09pm)
Len, I'd be interested to know whether you would like Betrayal at Krondor, one of the few computer roleplaying game I actually genuinely enjoy (perhaps because it shares much in common with two loves of mine: adventure games and novels). The game being more primitive, it has no voice, but it features considerable dialogue, scripted scenes, and long prose passages on-screen when one enters certain areas. Fantastic soundtrack, too.
Wow, another Betrayal at Krondor fan? To me that game was the best game ever made by a mile (except for Master of Magic which was also amazing). I also really liked Betrayal in Antara. Too bad they no longer make games like this.
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 4:53pm |
pavel4444Space Cadet
Posts : 124
Joined: 2 MAY 2008
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Lucien21 (26 MAY 2008 3:36pm)
I certainly disagree with Carolines' split of the adventure community, that somehow we either want puzzles, exploration and a challenge OR an interactive book.
The inference that just because it has dialogue it's noting more than an interactive book is flawed.
I'm a greedy person I want a challenge, puzzles, exploration and a great story and dialogue.
However the dialogue has to be brief and well written in each conversation, nothing worse than lenghty boring dialogue. It is also preferable to lots of reading ingame. Nobody likes reading from computer screens for any lenght of time.
I agree, but I don't really mind lengthy dialogues if they are well done--funny, witty, intelligent or interesting.
I am surprised some people don't enjoy dialogues and rather play those lonely, depressing, but beautiful Myst type puzzle games.
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| 26 MAY 2008 at 4:54pm |
JKingSchattenjger
Posts : 2349
Joined: 4 MAY 2008
Location: 0
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By pavel4444 (26 MAY 2008 4:45pm)
Wow, another Betrayal at Krondor fan? To me that game was the best game ever made by a mile (except for Master of Magic which was also amazing). I also really liked Betrayal in Antara. Too bad they no longer make games like this.
Every once in a while I fire it up again just so I can visit Highcastle. I've never actually progressed any further than the fourth chapter, though. I suppose I should give it another try sometime.
(I likewise feel it is one of the best computer games ever produced, but I've never felt a burning need to play through it, as I read the novelization several years ago)
You can't kill someone in a studio.
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