SotA needs to learn from Ultima VII (Dialogue)

Join the translation efforts and all your questions will be answred ;-)

 

Do you think I could sneak actual storytelling in??? If so sign me up!

 

Reading minds is totally different from body language, in which almost all communication actually takes place.

"She says coyly" is not mind reading, it's facial expression reading and voice infection reading, and if you can't show/say it, you write it.

 

Bumping this thread for @Lord British so it doesn't get lost through the cracks!

 

thanks, but in the stream he was told about this thread (he didn't know it even though he was tagged several times) and he replied basically what I have in my signature. Min 29 here https://www.twitch.tv/videos/141129846?t=29m13s

 

Welp, that's pretty disappointing. He does say that he is "willing to have the discussion", so it would at least be nice to head @Lord British give his response to the actual comments in this thread which point out quite accurately that acting is not actually possible with their current tech. I will send him a PM to see if he responds.

 

Yeah i was thinking about doing it myself, he usually answers. Let's try and explain why he is wrong here!

 

This thread is full of explanations of why he is wrong, but @Lord British would need to read it for it to do any good.

I'll try to goat @Lord British: Diablo has better storytelling than Ultima, EA was right with the yearly publishing plan of Ultimas, Trump is better than Clinton, the moonlanding was fake, Arrows to show the next quest goal are essential for older players, NASA needs less funding, nobody uses the name "shards" for MMO servers anymore, the king in those Ultima games is a lazy lama, James Cameron made "Avatar" famous - not Richard Garriott, there are no ducks for sale
(a couple of those are actually true )

Maybe he reads the thread now

(dear mod: the above goating of RG is a joke, don't get your panties in a wad, thanks)

 

The moonlanding! What else!?!? ;-)

Sorry, couldn't resist.
Carry on, nothing to see here.

 

well, disappointingly, 2.5 days on and no response to my pm. Also no response to any of the tags in this thread, even though he had the time to give input on something completely different. Guess he isn't willing to discuss it after all. :/

#thedisillusionmentcontinues

 

I think we are screwed on them adopting a system that delivers the feels. It sucks to admit it, but that's my feeling.

 

*Vas An Corp*

Ok, on the prospect that we don't get new insight - @Lum the Mad is still bound by company decisions and @Lord British probably still maintains that dialogue should live through immersive technology - I want to reopen the discussion.

Why? Because simply put the current technology does not allow the existing dialogue and story to shine.

The last days I played the Path of Courage and Path of Truth quest. (PoC is not yet polished - ok)
Only after writing a simple walk-through / spoilers and had to go to my log files I got all of the dialogues sides.

Here's what IMHO should be improved:

• Multi-Person dialogue is hard to read. Especially if the screen is concentrating on the main actor. (Example dialogue in Grannus Hall with Mara, Essen, Demig...)

• Text too cramped. Lum mentioned that the keyword-bar is hidden as people were just clicking the words and not reading. Perhaps, but it would help if the window, the font, line spacing etc. was supporting this. There is good dialogue but I missed some with the current graphical implementation. This threat (but also the one that was created around the time we got a separate dialogue UI) had several proposals how to use font colour, spacing, identation or even 2d portraits to create more appealing dialogues. Especially for solo-instances in the main quests there is no risks that mobs or player disturb.
  
  
• Personality missing / Meta Information on behaviour & situation - So Lord Ferig is a drunkard. I know because everybody tells me. Do I read that he smells of wine? No. Do I see his graphical representation making funny faces or swaying? No. Or Lady Mara is furious. Do I see this in her Unity 3D model? No. Or perhaps I didn't recognize it. The Knights of Valhold despise Captain Brigid. Can I see this? No. I can deduce it from their spoken statements. It is a pity to give away this chance of deeper story telling because 3D technology should be able to solve it. At least the current engine we have doesn't. Oh, the "frightening" noises siege defenders make are appalling to ridiculous. I ignore them as they are clearly placeholders for a better sound design.
  
  
• Repetion kills the dialogue - Now this is more a writing exercise. But I realize I am often clicking through text as everybody is saying the same bit. Also dialogue goes in circles. I should be exploring more with typing keywords but if e.g. almost nobody in Valhold knows Aurel - or Lord British or other important topics the NPC should know I am losing interest in reading dialogue. It's a pity if NPCs come in three classes "A = Unique Quest NPC" ; "B = Quest NPC" ; "C = Everybody Else". Merchants don't count.... You talk to A and might learn something, talking to B usually is required but the information repeats and gets skipped.
  This is not a complaint about Lum's / the teams work as dialogue takes a lot of work and time. But I believe for immersion and story telling it is more important than many other aspects.

 

Good feedback post @Jens_T.

 

How did I miss this thread? Maybe it is because I have visited here less and less over the years, parallel to the dwindling chances of the game looking or playing anything like what you outlined in the original post of your thread. Or the ones that came before it, from people hoping to see a proper single player aspect.

I'd really beg the people responsible to change and alter the game according to what we know and love from Ultima games of old, but unfortunately, I think I already have, and - to no avail. No, it's going to feel largely like an MMO game with offline mode. Every time I've come back to look at this, there still were no real character portraits (and as a result, very few actual characters), the dialog felt like quantity over quality, the interface was cumbersome. The story, however promising it might be, I've barely felt any of what I've experienced impacting me on an emotional level, save the introduction.

I don't want to be just a negative voice, but I've been pleading this for four years straight, and even though the community is great, you will notice instantly how imbalanced the game is, by how imbalanced it's audience is. It's mostly "MMO or nothing" mentality in development, reporting, podcasts, and the vast majority of this forum. I've noticed how displeased some people get, just because someone speaks out for the single player aspects. I do not feel represented by developer voices either. In fact, currently, I do not feel represented even by Richard, -- I mean @Lord British -- whenever he spoke up, it was only to make assurances towards his intentions for the game. And surely enough, the intentions are pure. That doesn't help though that this boat is not even really going for much of a compromise. The course is set. Straight to MMO Land.

Dialogs that encompass emotions and descriptions of behaviour are important, more so than animations or graphical fidelity. Even though I understand those all need to get a lot of love as well -- like you've stated several times -- playing Ultima 7, reading what the characters told you, and reading about how they acted, that was like a good book. It felt more alive than anything I've read in SOTA. I've made a strong argument for 2d hand drawn character portraits in the past and I stand by those as well. Each and every single one of the U7 portraits oozed more charme than the poor 3D faces ever will. Even if they only have a single facial expression. Add to that that there were issues on the technical and design side, on how to implement the 3D models in a thread I've read several months ago. It was more trouble than it was worth, and 2d portraits would have been cheaper, and easier to put into the game too. I rest my case.