How should PE's dialogue be presented?

[Gibbscape_Torment]

The two IE giants, Planescape and BG2, have two different ways the dialogue is presented. Planescape has novel-eque dialogue, in the sense that it describes a character's movements and tone throughout the dialogue; while BG2 keeps the dialogue at it's fundamentals, showing only what is spoken by the particular character.

 

Example:

 

BG2: "...what do you want?"

 

Planescape: You see a young girl, her stance emanating a desire to run. She looks at you with widened eyes, an expression you can only deduce fear being the culprit for; "...what do you want?"

 

Planescape was sometimes berated for it's lengthy text, and much of that text was indeed describing character visuals instead of keeping to the basics. Nevertheless, i personally enjoyed the higher amount of detail such a presentation was able to deliver.

 

What would you prefer in PE?

[kabaliero]

As tempting as it is to say that BG2 and PS:T dialogues were pretty much the same, i prefer PS:T style.

[jezz555]

I wouldn't mind voice acted description and strictly basics dialogue

[Monte Carlo]

On a less prosaic note can we please have a font size option independent of screen resolution?

 

Any Torment-esque walls of text will be unbearable otherwise.

Edited November 3, 2012 by Monte Carlo

[gholam]

A mix of both would be best IMHO.

[Jojobobo]

Depends how detailed the NPC sprites are going to be and how in depth their animations are. If you can clearly see what they look like and what they're doing there's not a great deal of need to describe that.

[Thangorodrim]

I would prefer the dialog options be more in line with BG2 ... however, to have a voice narrator to provide atmosphere or location descriptions would give it more of an old PnP RPG feel. The narration concept also worked extremely well in the indie title Bastion so I think they could make it work. I would like that approach better with reading the dialog and listening to a narrator add depth over individual voicing of the characters (which would also increase cost).

 

A lengthy written exposition in exploration situations might be very useful though, as opposed to the dialog example. For example, "As you enter the Forest of "Insert creative non-infringing name here" you remember the stories they used to tell by the communal campfire when you were young, of spirits that haunt these woods. As you feel the oppressive silence beat upon you, like waves washing ashore at high tide, you can almost believe these old campfire tales. But you are young and the stories are old, so you tighten the cinches on your armor and step into the quiet darkness between the trees ...." and other such things

[Nanakamado]

I liked Torment way of dialogues.

And I think there is no need of full dubbing. Biger and more complex dialogues equals for me better game. And with full dubbing we probably could not have more than in the witcher. It was quite much for contemporal RPG, but still could be more.

[Osvir]

A mix of both would be best IMHO.

 

^This.

 

I love the dialogue in PS:T, but I also love the simplicity of it in Baldur's Gate.

[Wirdjos]

Depends how detailed the NPC sprites are going to be and how in depth their animations are. If you can clearly see what they look like and what they're doing there's not a great deal of need to describe that.

 

I'd be happiest if this were the case. However, if I can't see how the scene is meant to be painted from the sprites, then I would prefer P:T's action describing text.

[Hellfell]

PST style with description in Italic and speech in normal or slight bold

[rjshae]

Anti-aliased text with good contrast, infrequent color and style changes, and a minimum of eye strain would be preferred, thank you.

[rjshae]

PST style with description in Italic and speech in normal or slight bold

Yuk. Italics should be infrequent and used properly.

 

I'm not visually impaired, but the same guidelines provide a good standard for readable computer text.

 

http://www.textmatte...isual_impaired/

Edited November 3, 2012 by rjshae

[Labadal]

I know some people thought the PS:T descriptions of people talking with you were not appreciated by all, but I liked it. They couldn't use the animations to make someone look scare, or otherwise show characters' feelings. If the engine in PC can show off peoples reactions with animations, then descriptions are not needed.

[Archmage Silver]

Baldur's Gate II style for me. PS:T has a good system, but I think it's just a bit too heavy on the text-per-slide side of things.

[JWestfall]

I'd say somewhere in the middle - descriptive prose when it is appropriate, or to make up where the visual scene falls short. PS:T got pretty heavy at times for my taste, but sometimes it's important to set up an NPC in more subtle ways than just dialogue & graphics.

 

I also echo that text rendering needs to be done well, and scale correctly with resolution. Even better - have an option for small/medium/large text size in the UI, to further accommodate different monitor sizes, resolutions, viewing distances and eyesights.

[TCJ]

I really like the BG style. The writers were able to show moods and personality quite well without adding in descriptive text, and I always appreciated that aspect. It's not an easy thing to do.

[actionjezus6]

Just please, don't do dialogue circle (BioWare style)... they are terrible :/

[Drake456]

I do hope we will get a dialogue box like BG or torment, instead of the dialogue floating over head like arcanum, which i found hard to keep up with.

 

And i would perfer bg stye dialogue,i dont need all that info on an npc. though i would not mind either way.

Edited November 4, 2012 by Drake456

[AGX-17]

P:T. It's not like NPCs in an isometric game will have facial expressions or nuanced body language. Plus it will scare off all the Bibliophobes!

Edited November 4, 2012 by AGX-17

[syn2083]

On a less prosaic note can we please have a font size option independent of screen resolution?

 

Any Torment-esque walls of text will be unbearable otherwise.

 

For all that is sacred and holy this.

[Heresiarch]

PST all the way.

 

Did anyone actually read all those wall of text and replies in BG? I sort of went diagonally most of the time and tried to gather the meaning from key words. And I am a big fan of reading actually. But when it's all bare dialogue it's simply not engaging enough. In Planescape a huge load of experience of presented through text. Memories, thoughts, feelings, actions, meeting Deionarra, Lothar, Ignus, and other random NPCs... you just can't create detailed enough visuals in an isometric game and, thus, you can't create a proper narrative with dialogue only.

[AgentOrange]

Mm, without quality voice acting (KotOR 2, Fallout: New Vegas) or the detailed facial expressions that real people can have in films, it would definitely help to have character descriptions.

[wanderon]

PS:T for me altho I doubt it will be as verbose (sadly)...

[vv221]

PS:T, no hesitation about it!

 

Having quite half of the game being presented in text format is what makes it unique and unforgettable.

Half game / half novel / half heavily narrated RPG… Yeah, PS:T is made of three halves! Maybe even more!

 

Please : use our imagination!