Diplomacy: A Different Approach to Conversation?

[Yst]

Apathy is death.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Apathy is death.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Apathy is death.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Is it?

 

Meh.

 

I dunno.

 

Who cares?

 

...

 

<dies>

[Darth Barth]

All I know is that if you implement a "Dialogue Combat" system, there better be a Rage bar that builds on the NPCs because if in real life someone was spamming "humorous joke" or some crap I'd punch him in his pie hole.

[Aaron Contreras]

[Are you saying you're implementing this system into Vanguard?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'm not responsible for designing the system. I'll probably generate content for it.

 

The Diplomacy system in Vanguard is not a replacement for traditional conversations. Meaningful dialogues with NPCs will happen at all levels of gameplay across all three spheres (adventuring, crafting/harvesting, diplomacy). Diplomacy does serve as an abstraction of communication - it simply isn't realistic to use prose dialogues as your core system given just how much Diplomacy content is planned.

 

Maybe once we figure out how to clone Avellone....

[Darque]

Maybe once we figure out how to clone Avellone....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Nuclear Fission?

[metadigital]

The Diplomacy system in Vanguard is not a replacement for traditional conversations.  Meaningful dialogues with NPCs will happen at all levels of gameplay across all three spheres (adventuring, crafting/harvesting, diplomacy).  Diplomacy does serve as an abstraction of communication - it simply isn't realistic to use prose dialogues as your core system given just how much Diplomacy content is planned.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, that's what I see, too. The "dialogue combat system" is a seperate entity, not capable of replacing the function of dialogue.

I think the greatest potential I see here is the ability to make conversation more than a matter of choice making, which is basically all that dialogue trees are in today's RPG's.  Sure, there's room for improvement even there, but while the level of writing can certainly rise, the underlying limitations of the dialogue tree system are rather obvious.  I don't see us getting much further than KOTOR 2's level of interaction via dialogue trees alone because let's face it, KOTOR 2 was one of the most text heavy games in recent times and I just don't see publishers (or game writers, for that matter) going much past that.  How many tens of thousands of lines of dialogue can you put into a game before it becomes less a game and more of a book?

 

Besides, there are some weaknesses of the dialogue tree system that you can clearly address with this sort of abstract conversation making.  For instance, there are many times when what's written as a sentence in the dialogue tree isn't exactly what you want your character to say.  Clearly, the devs can't program every possible response in the world into the dialogue tree, and for that matter, they can't even really program more than half a dozen before it seriously clogs up the interface (and the players' patience reading through them all), so you make do and compromise with 3-4 choices.  And you'd have to, as long as we maintain the dialogue tree paradigm.  But imagine now that you could combine different textual signals to form meanings (which is what language is, though thousands of times more complex) - now we're talking about improvements that could really lead to full natural language processing.  True natural language is an impossible task for the AI of today, but pseudo-natural language processing is not, and what better way to push forward the envelope in gaming conversation than to integrate these sorts of technology?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The limitation to a free-form approach is that you cannot distil the plot through the dialogue (i.e. by providing dialogue options that give backstory or new narrative information), and also it is more than probable that some/most information will not be found in the course of normal conversations ... also I find the whole process of asking the same questions "name, job, grudge, fed-ex mission for me" to every NPC more tedious than navigating a dialogue tree.

Of course, there's the more important issue of being fun, and as far as I can tell, conversation could be fun if underlying it is a sense of being able to effect change through being a master of language.  Rather than simply "making the right choice" via a dialogue tree and being rewarded for that, why not up the ante and make a game out of "saying the right things"? Of course, it can't simply be a matter of a template that you use for each NPC that'll always get you the best results, but it doesn't have to be.  That's a design problem, and until someone seriously sits down with a team and tackles it, I don't think any of us can simply dismiss the idea outright by saying that it can't be done, that conversation can never be made fun.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Perhaps having an extra option or two in the dialgue trees, for a standard riposte / question (if you were role playing a dectective, for instance), or even free text input for parsing? I'm not sure it would be an improvement, however. I gain a certain amount of satisfaction when a new dialogue option opens up on an NPC that previously had nothing to say.

That's really why I wanted to tell everyone about what's being attempted in one particular frontier of NPC interaction.  Success or failure, it's a departure from what we're used to, and in my book, it's always good to keep an open mind about new things because before you know it, it might just become the Next Big Thing.  And who's to say that you can't combine the best of dialogue trees (good writing & personality) with the best of interactive conversation? Now that would be a wonder to behold.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I would say that it is inevitable that we will have (pseudo-) natural language processing in RPGs and Adventure games eventually. After all, that was the pinacle of the text based adventures: Infocom replaced the standed "VERB NOUN" two word input of the existing adventure games with their own natural parser, and it was very successful. It will come at a cost, though: that little feeling of achievement when the pesky NPC gives you the extra dialogue option that you've been wating for.

[Plano Skywalker]

I like the idea of knowing that the only response I can give that will not affect anything is the "take a pass" answer...everything else WILL affect the story in some way

Wrong.

 

Apathy is death.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I think you miss my point. My point is not to glorify that response. My point is just to illustrate that everything effects something else.

 

Kind of like how a butterfly flapping his wings in one part of the world creates a hurricane in another part of the world.

 

Once in a while, the devs might give us a "safe answer" that affects nothing. But then, those of us who are really into roleplay are not going to be using that very much anyway, now are we?

[Plano Skywalker]

The limitation to a free-form approach is that you cannot distil the plot through the dialogue (i.e. by providing dialogue options that give backstory or new narrative information), and also it is more than probable that some/most information will not be found in the course of normal conversations ... also I find the whole process of asking the same questions "name, job, grudge, fed-ex mission for me" to every NPC more tedious than navigating a dialogue tree.Perhaps having an extra option or two in the dialgue trees, for a standard riposte / question (if you were role playing a dectective, for instance), or even free text input for parsing? I'm not sure it would be an improvement, however. I gain a certain amount of satisfaction when a new dialogue option opens up on an NPC that previously had nothing to say. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

right. I can see this being more effective in an "open-ended" game like Morrowind or Fable than in a true story-driven RPG like KOTOR. Dialogue trees help tell the story. They help get you from point A to point B.

 

I can also see this as part of a mission. Remember the Manaan quest in KOTOR I at the Republic Embassy? You actually had a list of things you could do to get the information. You could interrogate the prisoner, you could break into the Sith base and other options you could try. Same thing here...using a "diplomacy campaign" against someone could be one of those options. Keep it rare enough and optional enough so that those who aren't interested can use a different approach.

[metadigital]

I can also see this as part of a mission.  Remember the Manaan quest in KOTOR I at the Republic Embassy?  You actually had a list of things you could do to get the information.  You could interrogate the prisoner, you could break into the Sith base and other options you could try.  Same thing here...using a "diplomacy campaign" against someone could be one of those options.  Keep it rare enough and optional enough so that those who aren't interested can use a different approach.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, that sounds quite feasible from a player point of view.

All I know is that if you implement a "Dialogue Combat" system, there better be a Rage bar that builds on the NPCs because if in real life someone was spamming "humorous joke" or some crap I'd punch him in his pie hole.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This is a serious point, there would need to be pathways to escalate the argument into different stages of confrontation, from mind distrust, annoyance and bitter anger and jealosy right up to physical assault. And there would be ways to diffuse a situation, too -- bribery comes immedaitely to mind.

[Plano Skywalker]

another thing that comes to mind is the different types of persuasion.

In Morrowind (a game that was not really known for dialogue), you could almost always BRIBE, TAUNT, FLATTER, or INTIMIDATE.

 

In the KOTOR games, sometimes you see more than one [persuade] option but rarely do you see all this:

 

[Persuade/Bribe] "Please open the door. I'll make it worth your while".

 

[Persuade/Flatter] "You look lovely today...could you do me a favor and open the door?

 

[Persuade/Taunt] "I betcha you don't even know how to open the door, you loser".

 

[Persuade/Intimidate] "You will open the door or else".

 

[Persuade + Awareness] "Your boss told me that he is thinking of promoting you. I'll put a good word in for you if you open the door."

 

I personally would like to see more of that. In Morrowind, the Taunt thing was important if you liked fighting NPCs in town (that was not really a big issue for me).

If you started the fight, you would get arrested. However, if you taunted the guy enough and he started the fight, you were within your rights to defend yourself.

 

Actually, in addition to having a numerical rank to your Persuade skill, it might be good to have a Persuade feat tree. The higher you advance on the feat tree, the more sophisticated options you get.

[metadigital]

I agree with those thoughts completely!

 

The whole interaction needs more depth, and I think that a freeform exchange -- while obviously providing the capacity for such depth -- would not provide the support to make the interaction fun.

 

Definitely a blunt "charisma" score doesn't do the art of conversation justice, that's why the "persuade" skill was created. There needs to be a further evolution of these skills, as they play such a central role in the game mechanics and delivery of the plot.

[Yst]

another thing that comes to mind is the different types of persuasion.

In Morrowind (a game that was not really known for dialogue), you could almost always BRIBE, TAUNT, FLATTER, or INTIMIDATE.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Jade Empire has done this with Charm, Intimidate and Intuition options tied to statistics, as well and it was nice how it did it.

 

I am somewhat hesitant to wish for anything more complex than that though, simply because the developers (and voice actors) don't have an unlimited ability to script an infinite array of distinct resolution and still work them all into a cohesive plot. Also, the only thing worse than munchkinism is munchkinising (reducing to a statistical/strategic framework which the player will inevitably try to tweak and max out) social aspects of the game, so I'm leery of overcomplicated dialogue systems which reduce the social to the statistical.

[Azarkon]

I think that conversation skills needs to be tapped in the same way combat is for a certain genre of roleplaying to arise that would not depend on physical confrontation for its intrinsic gameplay.

 

The current breed of RPGs is obsessed with combat. When's the last time you played a RPG that wasn't action driven? Yet if you were to ask many fans, it's not the action that they remember, but the NPCs, the plot, and the dialogue. That's not to say that you could successfully make a RPG these days without action, but it's to say that there are untapped veins in that direction. Particularly stories set in the modern day that aren't about warfare, and stories set in worlds that aren't filled with monsters. How would you set about to create the gameplay of such a world? Simply filling it with NPCs with dialogue trees *probably* won't work. So what to replace combat with?

 

I think that advanced systems of NPC interaction, combined with other kinds of non-combat activities, will need to suffice. Taking a cue from games like the Sims, it's wholly possible to build a game on imagined relationships between players and NPCs. But the Sims has other, playing-god features going for it that RPGs probably won't, so a designer would need to seriously think about how else they might attract a player otherwise.

 

This also applies to games where the focus is not on the fighting, like in PS:T, which I think would've really benefitted from having a strong alternative to combat, given how terrible the combat was for many people.

[Azarkon]

I am somewhat hesitant to wish for anything more complex than that though, simply because the developers (and voice actors) don't have an unlimited ability to script an infinite array of distinct resolution and still work them all into a cohesive plot. Also, the only thing worse than munchkinism is munchkinising (reducing to a statistical/strategic framework which the player will inevitably try to tweak and max out) social aspects of the game, so I'm leery of overcomplicated dialogue systems which reduce the social to the statistical.

 

The statistics need to be hidden, as they are in dialogue trees. The trick is simply a matter of giving off the illusion of reality. Dialogue trees are, after all, no more than statistical systems themselves - why are they, then, superior to any other forms of statistical systems, given similar "masking" interfaces?

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I think that advanced systems of NPC interaction, combined with other kinds of non-combat activities, will need to suffice.  Taking a cue from games like the Sims, it's wholly possible to build a game on imagined relationships between players and NPCs.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Maybe I'm not understanding where you're coming from, but the only problem I see when this idea is applied on computer RPGs is that imagination is not what a computer RPG should be about. I can imagine whatever situation I want when I play a CRPG, but this is pointless, as the game can't react to it. It can only react to what it has been programmed to react. And that is something where the Sims fails, establishing a relationship of that kind. I can imagine multiple situations, moments, lines of dialogue and every detail of their lives, hundreds of entire biographies for every character imagined and gradually updated mentally as their life cycle passes by - but it simply doesn't matter. It doesn't contribute to the game, nor does it register. In the end, you're still left with the only tangible thing that existed before, gameplay. If a game is trying to have me establish imagined relationships between players and NPCs (or anything else strongly established by means of imagination), then I feel it's failing as a game, specially as an interactive game. I could just as well imagine things on my own.

[Azarkon]

I suppose it's a matter of semantics, as I'm not really saying that one should attempt to build a game purely on imagination - as that would be a non-game, a mere blank screen. What I am saying is that each time you establish any kind of fictional relationship with a NPC, it is an imaginary one. No one actually believes that the relationship is at all meaningful, but there's a point when a player's immersion within the game is deep enough that he can come to care about the NPCs therein. It's the same as if you were reading a novel and begin caring about what happens to fictional characters. The relationship is never real, merely a creation of the mind that willingly suspends its disbelief, causing the character in question to become an actual entity rather than a set of 1's and 0's. That's what I mean by imaginary, and it's very much applicable to the distinction you draw. That is, the distinction between a good and a bad NPC can sometimes be as simple as the fact that the good NPC invites the establishment of an imaginary relationship, while the bad NPC simply serves to remind the player of how artificial everything is. These attributes are often a result of detailed representations vs. shallow ones.

 

On that note, you can of course always approach games with an attitude of disbelief and never become immersed, choosing instead to be always "above" it all. But that's not, I think, what draws people to RPGs. What's shown on the screen becomes important through its ability to actively immerse you within the world - the creation of the imagined immersion is the purpose of well-designed NPC and world interactions. They must not, as you said, be merely assumed to be a result of imagination on the player's part, though in the end they are ultimately exactly that, since a couple of pixels on the screen is nothing close to being an actual character, but nevertheless is in the player's imagination, assuming everything is done right.

[Aponez]

And, if you don't like diplomacy what you do?

 

Why not simply let you put what you want to say or let you attack the other?

[Squidget]

This is an intriguing system, but I tend to agree with what some others have said - it could only work in a single player RPG is used in conjunction with dialog rather than instead of dialog.

 

I definitely don't want to see less dialog or story used in RPGs in favor of mechanics. The story is the primary reason I play those games, and while the mechanics are interesting and I enjoy a fun combat, I'm less likely to play a game with just that.

 

However, I think even the strongest supporter of dialog trees will admit that there are some things they do not do well. They often falter when it comes to extremely detailed descriptions of both PC and NPC experiences, because there is only so much either can say at any one time. They are also very bad at any kind of debate, since a PC can only present arguments that the designer has thought of and presented as options, so nothing they say is really their own or representative of their character's opinion.

 

I can see use for a system like this if it was specifically initiated by dialog. After talking to someone for a while you might get an option...

 

[Verbal Battle] I think X, but not Y and Z because...

[Verbal Battle] I think X and Y, but not Z because...

[Verbal Battle] I think X, Y, and Z because...

 

And from there, the 'diplomatic combat' would initiate and your character's stats would determine who won the argument, or whether it came out to be a tie. I'm not entirely convinced it would be ideal, but it could work okay for some situations.

 

Another thought for improving dialog would be something along the lines of 'flashbacks'. I personally found myself more moved by the movie scene of Kreia's Fall in KOTOR2 than I was by most of the party member dialog otherwise. Being able to see these events visually really plays better on the video game medium than straight dialog in all situations, and used sparingly I think it could make these things a lot more interesting.

 

I'd be most interested to see an RPG where, after you talk to your party members enough, you eventually get to experience what they're telling you as they experienced it. Perhaps a movie scene in some cases, but more often an actual short quest where you're playing as that character for the moment in question. In my opinion, that could be a lot more meaningful if done right.