Prototype that!

Just have 2 characters talking on a ZP background using that conversation scheme while one of them examines the other's DVD collection.

Do it!

Wait... the internet has decency protocols?

I cant believe Yahtzee just wailed on the U.S Armed Forces. That's a low blow.

Even for him.

The Bard's Tale game for the xbox (original) a few years back had a lite version of that idea and, thanks to superb writing, it turned out great. The game was a bland over-head hack-n-slash but was a blast to play. One of the very few successes in videogame comedy.

what could be interesting in a game is a d40 style ruleset for making up individual NPC personalities. You could use those stats to generate a dynamic conversation. some attributes could be patience, tolerance, biases, wit, sense of humor, responsibility. this could be used to convince npc's to let you through doors, give you items or permission for other activity; and could lend itself to a very dynamic replayable gossip and drama oriented game. It would be interesting to see how this would effect a group conversation, or even a multiplayer dialog game.

As some others have already mentioned, this reminds me a lot of both Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy) and Façade (the former of which I enjoyed [mostly], but enjoyment of the story suffered because too much concentration was required on the gameplay -- and of course because the story just went weird towards the end; the latter was interesting but I didn't really like it). The trouble with taking this to the extreme that Yahtzee is proposing is that (a) nobody would be willing to record that amount of dialogue and (b) that's the sort of conversations which I play games to get away from.

So no. Just no. Besides, I think the dialogue system in Dragon Age is the best part of the game. :) (I loves me a good story.)

I do agree with another earlier post though: I wish that developers would get over the idea that "anonymous/mute protagonist == good". It's not, especially in a game with dialogue trees. Especially not in a game with dialogue trees and choice of voices in the character creator. The game damn well knows what I want the character to sound like, and exactly what they're saying, so why the hell isn't it voiced?

OK, there's no way I can be arsed to read the preceding 110 comments, so I'll just post my idea. Feel free not to read it either and skip straight ahead to posting your own totally rad idea.

Anyway, I'd suggest a sort of refinement of the dialog menus, rather than trying to turn it into a whole minigame. See the nice thing about RPGs is that they give you time to roll a cigarette or make the tea while J. Random-Sidequest-NPC exposits. It's only a shame you keep having to come back to the keyboard to decide whether or not to tell the guy you like his hat.

So what if you made all these decisions once, during character creation. Like in a pen'n'paper rpg, you decide what kind of character you want to play by picking an alignment, a backstory, quirks, predjudices &c, then when you converse, the game picks your responses to most of the questions for you. You sit back and watch it like a cutscene. It only prompts you for decisions which actually matter. The game updates it's model of what kind of person you are based on the choices you make, and tailors future conversations accordingly.

While we're on the subject, another idea I had was for a sort of "press X to not be a gullible prat" quicktime event. You know when you're talking to an NPC and they are obviously planning to betray you, but there's no conversation option that let's you not trust them. On the other hand, having an "are you a vampire?" option would kinda give the game away. So a "there's something not right here" button that opened up additional options would be pretty handy. Since players would otherwise just spam the button every conversation, you'd have to limit it's use to so many times per level or something.

Peace out, bedtime :)

A DS game called Room 215: Hotel Dusk had a slightly different dialouge system. As people's dialouge (in text) came up on the screen, certain words or phrases would be high-lighted in orange, like "that weird guy" or "what happend a year ago", and if you hit them with the stylus, the character would ask a question about that topic. Sometimes it was a bad idea to do so. If you don't hit anything, the NPC will just keep talking and you miss your chance to interject.

Yahtzee:
Conversation should flow like a river, not like a big clunky lever...

The conversation flows like a lever? That similie doesn't work, Yahtzee!

I dont think there is anything wrong with dialogue trees, most of the time, the fact that im actually in a dialogue tree means i care enough about the character or the situation to merit seeking more information

Fronzel:

Yahtzee:
Conversation should flow like a river, not like a big clunky lever...

The conversation flows like a lever? That similie doesn't work, Yahtzee!

....errr....yes it does

the conversation should FLOW like a RIVER, not like a clunky LEVER

read it again

Personally I think if the DS can have a DS level of input response and Ikea's website can have an ASK ANNA breadth of response to the weirdest of questions its about time that voice recognition caught up. All consoles have microphones for them already.

Even if all ingame dialogue responses sounded like Stephen Hawking.

HELL, stick Steven Hawking in the next Guitar Hero game. I hear he's fantastic at keyboard.

I actually quite like the idea of this, it would add a whole new level of interaction. Yes, granted would take ALOT to set up, but, if done right it would make dialogue oh so more natural.

I remember in the 'Blade Runner' adventure game. You could select your character's general attitude at any time by pausing the game I believe they were: intense, friendly, surly, normal and erratic (which was random) other than that the dialog worked the same.

I agree that it dousen't sound very solid but it might work in execution if its done properly.

Totally off topic and most likely the wrong place to ask this, but, is PC gamer still really too important to mention the escapist?

TitsMcGee1804:

Fronzel:

Yahtzee:
Conversation should flow like a river, not like a big clunky lever...

The conversation flows like a lever? That similie doesn't work, Yahtzee!

....errr....yes it does

the conversation should FLOW like a RIVER, not like a clunky LEVER

read it again

"Flow" has both "river" and "lever" as objects. Levers can't flow. They're not liquid.

i don't like this idea because at least with long conversation trees there the option of just "slam space til the chat ends / decision needs to be made"
i can read a response subtitle before they get to the second/fourth word depending on the voice acting,
for when you need to know something, sounds like this could break away from good gameplay.
of course, if your gameplay sucks, lengthy chat is a welcome reprive.

Well, the original Fallout and Fallout 2 had some really good dialogue trees. If you acted snarky to someone, they responded in kind, and if you were a complete dick, they'd stop talking to you.

With Fallout 3 (And Morrowind, and Oblivion, but I'm trying to keep in a franchise) comes the problem of having interactive dialogue in a game with voice acting up the wazoo, in as much as you have to have more spoken word data bloating the game since thanks to prettier graphics, people have stopped enjoying the world of text and reading and now are forced to needing pictures on their McD's cash register to perform their job properly. I'm getting tangential, but, were, say, Fallout 3 as lushly fleshed out as say, Fallout 2, the game would have had to be shipped on 4 Blu-Rays and require the server base of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan to operate (Both hyperbole, but makes a point).

So, in the end, as things get more and more powerful, things like story are going to have to be put to the wayside. Due to the amount of money, dataspace, and continued sloth of the modern area, if we're to have plot, it'll be shoved off to one side, more and more made into little cut scenes between times where you simply run around making huge piles of dead bodies. We've come back to about where Nintendo was pre Dragon Quest 1, where even if we were blessed with a plot, it'd pop up between levels with a picture and some text. The picture and text have been replaced with people talking and some expensive models staring lifeless at one another, but that loses that whole, "I'm mattering!" sensation so few games managed to get out, and now probably will never.

Hmm...interesting point. I agree more with your own disagreement with quick time events than this. Quick time events tend to seperate me from my immersion. Dragon age does immersion quite well in my opinion by allowing the player to choose topics if their socializing talents are up to snuff, if they have found some tidbit of knowledge (whether or not you read the codex or just read between the lines when a more knowledgable response option comes up), or have finished off a quest. I mean, it's not as good as it can be, but its a step in the right direction by having intuitive A.I, right? And at the least looking at the grey of an issue rather than pretending its all black and white. I mean the immersion must be working if you're clicking the dialoge option enough, say when talking to Morrigana, to being stuck saying simply "this conversations over." Without immersion, I personally would just pass by all these conversation options missing the small bonuses you get depending on their friendship level (big deal, right).

I understand what you're getting at, but my big qualm is that your characters cunning attribute doesn't effect the conversation by creating different ways the dialoge reads out. Making how you level up or create a character truely seem unique. But keeping inmind the scale of the game, it's as forgivable as the lackluster graphics to me.

I remember another similar "conversation" minigame. In Romance of the Three Kingdoms X there was a debating minigame. It portrayed actual conversation just about as well as Leisure Suit Larry did it sounds like, but atleast it wasn't list menus.

You know, i loved everything in this review except for the part when you commented on what Modern Warfare 2 would be like if it were real. FUCK YOU, YAHTZEE! FUCK YOU! THAT'S NOT WHAT THE MILITARY IS LIKE SO FUCK YOU, YOU STUPID AUSTRALIAN. MY ENTIRE FAMILY IS MILITARY SO FUCK YOU! IT GIVES US FOOD ON THE TABLE AND A ROOF OVER OUR HEADS SO FUCK YOU!!! I'm very sorry, fellow escapists, but people insulting the military is one thing i can't bear. I love Yahtzee's humor and still do, i just don't like what he said in that one instance. I apologize.

I think the dialogue system needs a major overhaul. In an industry where realism is becoming a major selling point, this chunky back-and-forth is a major tripping spot. Not that realism is important to me in a game (quite the opposite), but it does sort of ruin immersion.

I think that with some work, this could definitely be a viable option. I was even thinking once while playing Mass Effect that the other control stick could be used for more options, but I think this system would work better: one for topic, one for attitude. I can see BioWare implementing it, nobody else really comes to mind.

Actually, I disagree. Although the whole 'choose a response' thing is kind of annoying, I think it works alright. In Fallout 3, the replies are generally along the lines of what kind of things I would choose from (If I like them "Yeah, sure, that sounds great"; if they're pissing me off "Go fuck yourself, git"). Everything else just sounds to gimmicky, and would probably just end up like Oblivion. I think that it's just a matter of choosing good dialogues instead of crappy ones (when making the game, I mean). KOTOR is a good example of how it can be done well.

There is definitely one fix that needs to happen, however: you should be able to end a conversation at any point. I'm tired of having to go back two menus just to say "I have to go now" (just like in Ben's quote). In fact, maybe it would be cool if the player could still move around while we had conversations, and if he/she wants to end it, they just walk away.

mishagale:
So what if you made all these decisions once, during character creation. Like in a pen'n'paper rpg, you decide what kind of character you want to play by picking an alignment, a backstory, quirks, predjudices &c, then when you converse, the game picks your responses to most of the questions for you. You sit back and watch it like a cutscene. It only prompts you for decisions which actually matter. The game updates it's model of what kind of person you are based on the choices you make, and tailors future conversations accordingly.

I actually like this idea, but maybe instead of only doing this at the start of the game, you could change it any time (including during a conversation). Maybe you could actually choose "make the decisions for me" from the list, and the computer would do it (unless something important came up). That way, if you wanted to, you could actually have the conversation yourself OR have the computer do it.

Why not just use quicktime events. That outta make it plenty interactive.

Why does this idea make me think of Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy?

What does Yahtzee have against fuzzy felt? He has complained about it in many and varied reviews. I'm all for the vague pop culture reference, but here are the few I can think of off the top of my head:
Fuzzy Felt Deep Space Nine
The beginning of this Extra Punctuation thing
Comparing Lara Croft's facial features to it
Fun somewhere between fuzzy felt and banging two bricks together. (Scribblenauts)

I remember fuzzy felt...
EDIT: i also don't really mind dialogue menus. I remember them in Monkey Island 3, one of the first games i ever played. yahtzee's idea sounds like something too complex to have in an actual game, but i encourage someone to make an online conversation game incorporating the ideas: sounds like... fun...

i do agree with yahtzee for the most part. convos in these games are usually really weird or dry. But there are exceptions, for instance; your convo with the president comp in fallout 3. choosing the intelligence response to make go haywire and explode is awesome! :D

This sort of thing would probably be too in-depth for something like a fighting game or an RPG, which is, after all, trying to do a whole bunch of other things at the same time, but it could really shine in something like a detective simulation, a genre I'm not sure really exists.

Perhaps it could be used in an adaptation of a Raymond Chandler novel, or some such. The Hard-Boiled Private Eye, after all, tends to do way more walking and talking than actual fighting.

Actually this idea actually has some mileage to it.

Stupid Internet, I was getting kind of interested by the end. Yahtzee should patent this idea if it turns out to be a success. If he did end up revolutionizing dialogue in all games, he should retire from reviewing and buy an estate by a sunny Australian shore. I agree with him entirely and wish him luck in trying to convince the thick-headed executives of bioware to actually be innovative.

I'd like to believe it does but... no, not really.

My God, that's well thought out.

The idea has some potential, but I'm not sure it would be really worth it.
Being able to move your haracter with one stick and pick options with another might be an interesting addition.

I totally agree!

Another direction (~A certain PS3 RPG that should be game of the year~) went, where you didn't have to play the fake/predefined, comment/question/answer game, just to sell the player a story. You controlled or partook in the goings on by simply doing it. Everything was all done by taking action and realtime gameplay. 90% of the time, other than "sell me shit", the only dialog between an NPC was "(insert something informative or interesting here)" and simply "sticky white stuff"-to describe a character where some may feel the need to produce said substance.

It didn't go like this...
1."r u sic?"
2."do u like my appearance?"
3."are you a bad guy?"
4."ok ill free you"
5."ok ill free you (lie _because you cant make a conscious decision to lie on your own_)"
6."i dont like your attitude"
7."man japan 21 powered collection session"
8. "words task and an item"
9. "generate bad acted funny response"
10."make her sing"
11."kill command"
12."^all of the above and grab a sandwich"

It was more like,

PC in thought---theres a heavily armored dude banging hes weapon against a cage... hes wanting out and doesn't sound like a nice person... im just standing there staring at him... hes started to threaten me... what should i do?

"open cage"

PC in thought-ok hes thanking me with a hint of ulterior motive... hes just walking around... OH WAIT! (you notice he carries a dagger that resembles the same dagger that, if you look deep enough in the game, is the same dagger used by a clan of notorious assassins... (that actually kill people)

"start wailing on him"
"he gets mad"
"don't stop wailing on him"
"fight ensues"
"he dies" (or promptly kicks your ass, as is the way in this masterpiece of a game)
"get glorious loot + badass armor set + the unique dagger he was carrying"
"or lose all your shit"-(in case of the latter)

(or you could have just killed him through the cage)
(or you didnt have to kill him at all, which is what most people who didn't know better would probably do, and your luck, he'd come back and wipe your entire town of NPC's... (cuz hes an assassin right?) which means you'd no longer be able to buy-shit,lv-up, or anything...)
(also knowing that hes an assassin you'd assume he gets paid by someone...)
(if your an evil bastard i guess you could always find out who's paying him and do the job yourself...)

....and i didn't have to go into any "poor, back and fourth, text-book-adventure, mini-game"
...and while keeping everything within and progressing the setting, story, and lore.

"NPCs have invisible stats that regulate their Fondness for the player and their Relaxation, which can go up or down, depending on the Attitudes the player character shows and whether the NPC appreciates them or not. Fondness changes what the NPC says - a NPC who likes you will talk about whatever you want to talk about, while a NPC who dislikes you will be less forthcoming, and may move the conversation to other subjects, such as how much of a douche you are. Relaxation changes how much detail the NPC will go into. In our current example, the Relaxed NPC will not be satisfied until they have explained exactly what brand and condition of douche you have most in common with."

That is a good idea. I'd vote on "hiding" the stats though, and instead just use them behind the scenes as a means to generate some kind of "emotion engine" so to speak... (not the PS2 thing)

... nvm you said "invisible"

technotica:
Lots of words

I have no idea what you're trying to get across here.