SotA needs to learn from Ultima VII (Dialogue)

The latest change to quest NPCs where only players with a quest able to see their emotes is a step forward. They can use the same type of effect to hide/show/swap entire NPCs, buildings and such to extend more of a player narrative if they were so inclined. Its difficult, and requires a lot of work, but I have hope that this will be used at some point to provide a much more rich story than we are accustomed to in MMOs.

As long as they change respawn so it mobs don't pop right in front of you. Argh, talk about a MMO staple that needs to die...

 

Since we're taking this thread off topic anyway.... I love the way corpians crawl out from the ground!

 

Thank you Lum!

@Lord_Darkmoon and @2112Starman could we please stay on topic? thanks, it was a positive on topic thread before this detour. This is NOT about Ultima vs UO.

 

Great opening post! I totally agree that contextual clues and cues like this instantly add more to my feeling of 'atmosphere' that I'm in. I think D&D Online was the last game to remind me of this. Creepy messages about the situation added a lot. There's a reason that D&D was popular as a spoken word - not visuals - game. Modern MMO visuals and sounds might be fancier, but don't totally replace the power of the word. I like the starting player pop up text as one tool for that. Adding it to NPC dialog would add a ton of value too.

 

Speaking of D&D both styles of voicing NPC are valid.

There are talented voice actors like Matt Mercer of Critical Role who always speaks as NPC in the first person, he is very good at emoting with just his voice as it is his day job.

There are also talented story tellers and game authors like Adam Koebel of Roll20 and RollPlay who are not actors, so he usually speaks in a monotone dialect as the NPC first person and narrates as the DM in third person to better describe their mood and intent.

Neither way is right or wrong, they are just different. The DMG even says understand that there are different player types - you cannot force narrators to be actors or vice versa.

ESO and Skyrim do just fine using the spoken rather than written word in their narrations, despite not having any expressive animations, all they have is text to lips technology and idle animations.

Personally as a first person RP player, I want the story given in spoken word, I don't want a voice of god DM adding more narrative than what was said. It just becomes a reminder that the world I am seeing and hearing is inadequately presented.

It worked in Ultima back when you had pixel sprites that was little better than the D&D minis on a scribbled map so you had to use your imagination encouraged by the narrated story. It won't work in SOTA where you are full 3D avatars, any attempt to cross the bridge into more reality with animations will fail as that technology is failed even in bigger budget games who spend time on animating cinematics. Any attempt to cross that bridge with narration will also fail, because it is just a reminder I am viewing a game with poor AV compared to reality.

The reason that old school RPG of prior decades seemed better at story telling is literally because you had to use your imagination, which will always be the best story teller. It is called the uncanny valley, too much detail blocks your imagination and even creeps you out as unrealistic, too little detail enables your imagination. Look how many people can immerse in Minecraft which is made of 1m blocks and 8b avatars!

 

What would be your solution?

 

In a text game I voice the NPC characters in my head and use my imagination for what their emotions are. This is why you can play Morrowind repeatedly, the NPC may be different in your head every time. But this is an MMO you are not intended to repeat the quests, although I would still prefer to enable rather than constrain my imagination. There is no right or wrong here, the quests writing can be done either way just as a D&D game can be played either way, what is important is it be consistent style. I certainly would like to hear LB reasonings.

 

The conversation system of Ultima VII supports multiple NPC participants to take part in conversations with NPCs. (See a gameplay video from Ultima VII). The conversation system of SotA supports only one-to-one conversations without allowing any other NPCs to jump in. Group conversations are possible in Ultima VII, but not in SotA. The present state of the conversation system of SotA is a disgrace to most, if not all Ultima VII fans.

 

Ok, so now it's save to assume that we will not get an answer. It almost feels like there is an attitude of "don't you try to tell me how to design a game, I am the mighty veteran here" OR "I ignore trolls.". Both misses the point. First off, this is a suggetion, if there is a reason not to do it, it's better to let us know why than to just to ignore us (I think it got enough support to make it something that should be addressed). Second, not trolling, just wanting this game to be better. I am disappointed, not that it matters.


edit:

you are absolutely right, I didn't even think of this till now. Multiple participants in a conversation would be necessary for immersive storytelling imo.

 

I really would see it as a strong sign if @Lord British could enter the discussion.
@Lum the Mad sounded like he sees the advantages for immersion if conversation scenes include descriptive content. As many participants pointed out SotA's technology is too limiting to offer a full immersion.

I would argue that for me immersion through well written dialogue and descriptive text is higher than with animations and other gfx the game engine allows. It is also a more cost-effective and flexible solution.
The extend of such descriptions (i.e. just facial expressions / tone of voice of your interaction partner vs. environmental effects vs. player character reactions "chill down the spine") could be discussed. But just ignoring this valid feedback and trusting that the game engine will solve it doesn't convince me.

 

This isn't true. We've had conversations with multiple NPCs at once for a while now (for example, you, Charlotte and Edvard will talk to each other during the Solace Bridge tutorial).

 

Spoiler: Battle of Solace Bridge

 

@Lord British said he was open to discussing this stuff during the Postmortem, so here's where it's happening good Sir!

 

But it is strange to see only two of three people who are involved in a conversation. Maybe my memory doesn't serves me right and I can see all persons. I will replay this scene to check that. Another important point for me is how often such conversations with more than two people happens.

 

At first I thought you were trying to illustrate how much better it would be if there were feeling in the conversation. Then I realized you're trying to say that 2 NPC's can be in a conversation at the same time.

 

The camera does not dynamically focus on the characters as they are talking. The devs eventually will have to add that feature. They just do not have that feature right now.
(See 01:38:04–01:38:14 on the R41 Postmortem Livestream video).

 

@LoneWerewolf thank you for this topic. It's not just about the content (improving the dialogues quality), but also about a retrospective look about why we let good things get lost in the past and why we don't try to learn from them.

This is a great example and I also want to know your reasons why you think we don't need this for our game @Lord British, and what's your thoughts about the possibilities to improve this without the need of new tech or better animations.

 

what stuff?

 

Min 29m Here https://www.twitch.tv/videos/141129846?t=29m13s

 

Thank you for the video @Leinad Laurelwreath , even if I don't share the content