Fooine

it's Ouroboros. A symbol present in numerous ancient mythologies reprensenting cyclicality. I don't know anything about the themes the writers are hoping to explore, but if it's relevant, then keep it.

And I guess you'd get inside the van of anyone who gives you enough candy too? The problem with an influence system is that it can lock you out of content and dialogue with companions, especially if it only goes one way (I'm looking at you, KotOR2). Now what if the only "punishment" in terms of locked content was if you stayed apathetic towards a party member? As in, whether he strongly likes or hates you, you can still ask him about his backstory and stuff. How he feels about you decides whether this information is given in the form of a heated argument or a pleasant conversation.

But are they greater than?

Plot hook is vague indeed, but it does tell us something: they'll be trying to tell a story that involves a PC in a deeply personal manner, rather than just be something that happens around him. So probably more meaningful than your tired old "there's a big bad invading. Go save the world". I, for one, am glad.

I don't think there's that big an audience seeking instant gratification here. I mean, we were all drawn to the kickstarter under the promise of a RPG going back to the roots of the IE games, and these were text-heavy. In fact, the richness of the writing is what made them great in the first place (I know I wasn't a fan of the AD&D rules, but it was worth dealing with). That's probably where the opposition comes from. This is a crowdfunded project. The devs aren't held accountable to a publisher. I don't want to see them try to cater to the lowest common denominator. Giving the option to replace all dialogue with a TL;DR version would be doing that.

I didn't aswer the second question in the poll, because no answer really satisfied me. The way I'd see it, it'd be "You see a dialogue option and so you know it's available to you". Have available options depend on skills/attributes/whatever, but don't raise a flag saying "this option is only here because you have skill X". Doing that pretty much tells you that this option is beneficial and should absolutely be taken. Removing such flags would creating increase the difficulty of navigating succesfully through a conversation, and add nifty little discoveries when replaying. As in "huh, this option wasn't there the first time around. That's pretty cool I guess". Also, I'd advise against having a "roll" made to determine success or failure. In a conversation, my character either knows something or doesn't. It doesn't make much sense to subject something like convincing people to random chance.

Let's agree to disagree then. I guess I'd just lose immersion if I saw the dialogue trees being exactly the same regardless of the choices I made in the beginning or as I level up. I'd still go through the hoops and play as a consistent character, but suddenly these choices would feel irrelevant. I guess you feel otherwise, but that's okay too.

@RogueBurger The thing is, there are many things that affect what someone might or might not say in a conversation that aren't related in any way to the relation he has with his/her interlocutor. Things like acquired/innate knowledge, wit, the ability to convey a point clearly and efficiently, etc. These are things that, in all likelihood in a RPG, are reflected as numbers on a character sheet. That's the main reason I would want some dialogue options to be tied to these numbers. To enforce some amount of consistency in the storytelling. Probably, even if everything was open and the game trusted me to pick what makes sense according to me, then I'd do exactly that. When rolling a character in a RPG, I like to decide upon a particular voice, personality and set of values, then stick to that. But then I'd see the game allowing me to be a know-it-all Mary Sue who's always right about everything regardless, and I'd think "wow, that's kind of s**tty interactive storytelling. It doesn't feel like the character I decided to play beforehand makes any difference at all in that aspect of the game".

There's a lot of talk about romances, and whether they're good or bad. But has anybody said anything about bromance? In my dream RPG, there'd be ways to have rich and meaningful interactions with NPCs without necessarily ending with boning them. It got super weird in DA2 when I just treated Anders like a bro and eventually he showed up on my porch, confessing love. Romance is sometimes well done but I wouldn't want Obsidian to go the Bioware route of making it the next-to-only way to have a meaningful relationship with party members.

I think you bring some good points; certainly everyone here is a fan of good storytelling in games and no one wants to see a trite fantasy world full of clich

Here's a couple of ideas to make dialogue interesting and maybe even somewhat challenging: 1) There is room for a "persuade" or "speech"-type skill, but it's not absolutely essential. Investing in it would mean making a commitment to diplomacy by being less powerful in other areas, and some will argue that it's a bad thing or it doesn't make sense. But there could still be room for it. 2) Even then, other stats/skills/acquired knowledge should play an equally - if not even more - important role in dialogue options offered. 3) Give minimal information as to whether a dialogue option is there because of a skill/attribute or not. If we are to be told, then we shouldn't know whether or not it will succeed. Optionally: we get to judge that based on the actual quote i.e. whether it is a poorly worded request or an eloquent speech.

That's a major point for me too. Not necessarily in order to be an evil a-hole, but having NPCs being affected by your actions improves immersion so much in a game like this. If a battle erupts in a populated center, I want to see people run for their lives instead of staying around unfazed, unclickable and invincible like furniture. I want the possibility to feel like s**t about collateral damage. I want non-hostile "scenery" NPCs to be subject to the same set of rules a hostile NPC or party member would be. This is something that was in Fallout and BG, which i've missed so much in more recent games such as DA. Also I want the ability to play the game without being a complete psychopath. It feels like most games these days will have your body count in the hundreds, if not thousands, even as you play as a paragon of goodness and virtue. Sure you may kill bad guys and bandits, but killing on such a scale should be a bigger deal than it usually is. I want ways to resolve issues without resorting to wanton slaughter.