And yet you don't see that you're annoying
Not my war but:
1. Morrowind, New Vegas, Bloodlines… still get patches decades after release by their dedicated fanbases. Because they're great games.
4. True, but roleplaying and dialogs rocks.
5. It's a regular inventory system, nothing special. Loot has been improved with patches (more ammo!)
Dialogs are a cheap option sure but not really lazy. All the options you provided cost more development ressources, and usually only games with poor grapical representations can "afford" all of them. I also like to note that all are recurring options actually present in Arcanum (maybe not the disguise thing, I only remenber one instance of that happening in the game).However, present a player with a locked door and the options are endless:
Steal the key
Bash the door down
Use an unlock spell
Pick the lock
Complete a quest to be rewarded the key
Kill the key owner
Solve a puzzle/riddle to open the door
Get to the other side of the door by going a different route and finding a back door or secret entrance
Teleport
Disguise yourself as someone allowed through the door
Bribe the guard
^ this is just a door. One door in a 'proper' RPG. Off the top of my head I've provided 12 "choices" for the character, all of which will relate strongly to the specific class chosen by the player and their alignment.
No NPC dialogue required. What does an NPC dialogue provide? A choice between, what, two or three heavily scripted 'events outcomes' that, more often than not, completely break your fourth wall and usually have next to fuck all to do with what you had in mind for your character.
Steal the key
Bash the door down
Use an unlock spell
Pick the lock
Complete a quest to be rewarded the key
Kill the key owner
Solve a puzzle/riddle to open the door
Get to the other side of the door by going a different route and finding a back door or secret entrance
Teleport
Disguise yourself as someone allowed through the door
Bribe the guard
^ this is just a door. One door in a 'proper' RPG. Off the top of my head I've provided 12 "choices" for the character, all of which will relate strongly to the specific class chosen by the player and their alignment.
Obviously, we are all talking about our own individual preferences, but I would personally not be interested in a game that has no/little dialogue but gives me tons of options unless that game were pretty short.
An example of that would be Dishonored, where you have 3-4 ways to complete most quests/maps, but still after the 20 hours of gameplay, I had more than enough.
- Intimidate guard into opening door (using strength
- Make guard fall asleep by giving him a drink laced with some sedatives
- Become friends with the guard, making him open up for you
- Make the guard believe something is wrong somewhere else (i.e. village being attacked, kid being bullied, someone being robbed)
- Seduce guard
- Become a superior to the guard through a questline and ordering him to leave his post
- Become acquainted with the resident to invite you in
- Work for the resident so they invite you in
- Pretend to help the resident (conman)
- Make a fire somewhere nearby to alert the guard and make them move
- there to be a roof to climb on using a grapple hook and rope and a door to get in from
- to be able to use a sledgehammer to break the wall
In Underrail for example, you can go into one house through multiple ways:
- Sneak past the manor guards and enter the lower floor
- Sneak past the manor guards and climb up (if enough agility) to the upper floor
- Befriend one or two of the residents who invite(s) you in
- Shoot your way through the guards and kill everyone in your way
You could create 12 additional options easily in your head, but as these options all need to be programmed, it's not so simple.
Just to clarify, dialogue by itself is not the issue here, the issue is dialogue choices being in some way related to RPGing and the character you chose to play. And how the options available never can or do equate with your build/character with any consistency.
Your expansive list of 'options' that revolve around dialogue prove my point precisely in how restrictive and de-optioning dialogue 'options' are:
Every single one of your options here involve the guard. The ones that don't simply transfer the options to other individuals (guards by another name). The situation you've created is that you're no longer using the door as gameplay, you've converted the door problem into a people vs people problem. Every aspect of the game is suddenly a talking heads scenario.
In the options I listed the talking heads scenario is but one option among many, in your scenario it's every option is a talking head scenario. However, you say you'd ideally have all these dialogue options available as well as the options I listed? Why? One talking solution is enough for the builds that will be using talking, why would anyone implement a game with one solution for all builds but then give one specific build, the talking build, 14 similar options? That's just confusing bloat.
The first of these two is just a variation of finding a back door and the second one here is just another version of bashing down the door, both flavour versions of the same thing, but no game needs to always have both those options simultaneously. Again, that would just be pointless bloat.
Yes, the traditional triumvir of a sneak option, a talking option and a muscle option, and you'll notice that only one of those options is a talking option.
Exactly my point. You will never encounter a computer game which satisfactorily provides dialogue options for every permutation of character you could build, they will always be dissatisfying forced events that you can never truly guess as to the ideal outcome for your chosen character.
Practical aspects of exploration, however, such as doors, are both easily feasible to implement and can easily perfectly match any chosen character. Hence a developer who concentrates on doors more than NPCs will always produce a 'better RPG' than someone who concentrates on NPCs over practical environmental choice.
Someone with low social skills, aka low charisma or low diplomacy, or whatever the game chooses to call it, should not even be seeing the options that higher charisma players see. Dialogue options in themselves are only relevant in an RPG to the specific classes that use dialogue skills.
And because the door scenario is a scenario that all players will face, that is where the development time should be in priority. Because very few people will see the dialogue options, what with them being only relevant to 1 or 2 classes tops, that aspect of the game inherently gets less development time priority.
Why not both? Name me an RPG that does both well. I guarantee you that any game you mention will either have shit combat or it'll be a short choose your own adventure and will rely entirely on your highly subjective appraisal of it's status as a 'good' RPG.
As per usual with you Pladio, it's getting very hard to tell what you're reading as literal and what you're reading as general principle.
Underrail isn't a talky game, it's a combat game that has some talking options. A single character one at that. Underrail was designed from a practical environmental standpoint rather than as a talk-fest, but you seem to be using it as your primary go-to for reasons why dialogue-options make an RPG.
No, not every option is always available for every door in the game, LOL, that was not meant as literal but as a description of principle, LOL.
You seem to be agreeing that talking options should only be available to characters who select talking classes and skills, which, as per usual with you, is exactly what I was saying but you are now arguing with me that class-based talking options are the equivalent of a game simply having talking options as a default for all characters and saying it's an RPG because it 'has options' regardless of class or skills?
I know this topic takes a lot of very precise language and it's often difficult to convey complex ideas in the written form, especially in just a couple of paragraphs, but do you really need me to detail the distinction between additional dialogue options for talkers and blanket dialogue options as a general rule when it comes to the concept of RPGs?
If you agree with the former, then you agree with me.
If you agree with the latter then that's not what you're describing.
I think I mostly agree with you. I am not sure with "additional" being the right word, as I think it should be part of the system, just as much as lockpicking or bashing is.
Not sure what you mean though by "blanket" dialogue options ?
Also, the only reason for using Underrail is because it's a fresh example in my mind, having played it recently. It is designed from a 'practical' standpoint but without the dialogue options, would, in my opinion, become a fairly unfun game, which I would not have played as much.
Fun thing is, one of the major reasons Arcanum is praised for the dialogues is the fact that your character build DOES matter. Try playing a stupid character, it's a whole different experience (in regards to dialogues. Not the poor combat, that's still the same. )