Fallout 3 - Dialogue Forum Tidbits

GhanBuriGhan said:

But I do know that Oblivion Hype did not mention dialogue, choice and consequence, and branching much if at all.

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"I think the strength of our dialogue and characters in Oblivion are actually going to surprise a lot of people." Gavin Carter, producer.

Also, a bunch of dev quotes VDweller failed to attribute when posting on NMA, ask him who they're from:
"Past actions may also come back to haunt you."
"How the story unfolds is up to you and many times we give you more than one path..."
"We also spent a good deal of time considering what happens when you hit the top of each faction..."

fatB said:

If you want to vent steam there is a thread dedicated to bitching and moaning about Oblivion here.

Meanwhile, please remember that YOU are entitled to YOUR opinion but that doesn't mean that the rest of the world has to agree with you.

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And even though you say that, you're to one telling him he should stick his bitching and moaning in another thread. You stress everyone's entitlement to an opinion, yet he didn't tell you shut up, you told him to shut up.

And so the world keeps turning.

Just saying.

Some dev posts = hype? Let's not stretch things unnecessarily.

Dhruin said:

Some dev posts = hype? Let's not stretch things unnecessarily.

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This thread is about a forum post, so I'm comparing it to forum posts made about Oblivion.

Unlike RPGCodex, I don't care whether or not the Bethesda devs were lying and whether this was a part of Bethesda's overall PR. All I know is that from experience, I can put very little stock in what Bethesda devs say in forum posts (or interviews) about their upcoming titles. I'm applying that lesson to this. It's that simple. My personal liking of Emil Pagliarulo and vague hope about Fallout 3 dialogue really shouldn't get in the way of simple reality. Only an ass bumps into the same stone twice.

It's basically like Molyneux, only less silly. I can go "well maybe this time Pete's being true and Fable 2 will be the amazingors", or I can just assume nothing's changed and he can still not be trusted on his word. His motives are irrelevant, his truthfulness thin.

Brother None said:

And even though you say that, you're to one telling him he should stick his bitching and moaning in another thread. You stress everyone's entitlement to an opinion, yet he didn't tell you shut up, you told him to shut up.

And so the world keeps turning.

Just saying.

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Hmmm, perhaps my choice of words was not the most neutral in the world. I tend to get a little ticked off when I'm, more or less, being called an idiot for liking something that another person doesn't based purely on personal preferences and that probably had something to do with my "heated" choice of words.

However, the intent of the comment remains true. There really IS a thread dedicated to venting steam about Oblivion, hence the name "Let's Rant and Rave about Oblivion".

@BN, You chose to quote GhanBuriGhan, who specifically talks about the hype with what looks like obvious context to me in response to Mareus. If your reply is general, don't quote.

I don't disagree that you should take Bethsoft's interviews with a grain of salt but let's be clear that dialogue and branching plot lines were not a focus in Bethsoft's PR.

Sounds nice. Though my worry is a bit what I felt happened to Oblivion.
The voiceover seemed to limit the amount of text and topics from the NPCs in Oblivion.
And I really liked Morrowind in terms of what you could learn from the npcs.

So I am a bit concerned if Fallout 3 will feel the same way limited because of the vcoiceover. Ofcause with the less NPCs in the world, hopefully it won't be a problem.

Dhruin said:

Some dev posts = hype? Let's not stretch things unnecessarily.

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The above mentioned quotes are from interviews. While I agree that the marketing focus was on soil erosion, Patrick Stewart!!!, and pretty graphics, Bethesda made a lot of very specific promises in regard to dialogues, choices, consequences, and role-playing in general.

VDweller said:

The above mentioned quotes are from interviews. While I agree that the marketing focus was on soil erosion, Patrick Stewart!!!, and pretty graphics

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Well they certainly delivered on the first two

fatBastard() said:

Hmmm, perhaps my choice of words was not the most neutral in the world. I tend to get a little ticked off when I'm, more or less, being called an idiot for liking something that another person doesn't based purely on personal preferences and that probably had something to do with my "heated" choice of words.

However, the intent of the comment remains true. There really IS a thread dedicated to venting steam about Oblivion, hence the name "Let's Rant and Rave about Oblivion".

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Not personal preferences, but FACTS. If you like Oblivion, it is a personal preference. If someone states the game sucks with valid arguments it is not a personal preference but a FACT.

Mareus Durante said:

Not personal preferences, but FACTS. If you like Oblivion, it is a personal preference. If someone states the game sucks with valid arguments it is not a personal preference but a FACT.

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Of course if someone would state whats good about the game with valid arguments it would be FACT too, eh? So the it sucks part is actually still opinion. But I won't bother, I don't like the game well enough to come to Bethesdas defense here.

fatBastard() said:

Hmmm, perhaps my choice of words was not the most neutral in the world. I tend to get a little ticked off when I'm, more or less, being called an idiot for liking something that another person doesn't based purely on personal preferences and that probably had something to do with my "heated" choice of words.

However, the intent of the comment remains true. There really IS a thread dedicated to venting steam about Oblivion, hence the name "Let's Rant and Rave about Oblivion".

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I agree with your sentiment in that telling people their tastes are stupid is - in itself - stupid. I've never liked this attitude either.

Though it seems a bit unconductive of real debate to try and filter all negative comments about Oblivion into one thread. Oblivion and its flaws are simply valid points to bring up in any talk of Fallout 3.

Dhruin said:

@BN, You chose to quote GhanBuriGhan, who specifically talks about the hype with what looks like obvious context to me in response to Mareus. If your reply is general, don't quote.

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Yeah, my bad, bad quoting.

Dhruin said:

I don't disagree that you should take Bethsoft's interviews with a grain of salt but let's be clear that dialogue and branching plot lines were not a focus in Bethsoft's PR.

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Focus, no. But the funny thing is that they only deliver on part of their promises even when it comes to focus of PR, like Radiant AI. I suspect this'll be no different. If the sentiment is (and I'm not saying it is) that because Bethesda is focusing on dialogue, c&c and branching storylines in PR now and wasn't for Oblivion, we can trust it turns out ok, I disagree. We can trust it is indeed more of a focus for them this time, which is kind of kicking in open doors because it wasn't a focus at all for Oblivion.

I don't disagree at all. My personal take is to be very cautious - as with Oblivion - I'm a bit cynical and particularly don't trust the lack of (dialogue) screens.

But I also remember the official Oblivion hype very well and equally won't waste my time with the "it's a proven fact that Oblivion sucks" stuff. In fact, soil erosion wasn't a major part of their PR thrust either but some people still insist on starting every sentence will "Bethesda? Soil erosion!!!!!!lollliipop!!!!!!ftw!!!".

I'm not really in the Oblivion sucks = fact camp either, but I do remember a major point of hype was Radiant AI. On which they failed to deliver at all.

Sure, the argument is flawed if you focus purely on soil erosion or what they said about dialogue in Oblivion, but it's not like the fact that their PR on Oblivion was on other topics - makes it less likely that their claims will turn out equally false for Fallout 3. If they're lying, they're just lying on another topic.

That's why, for me, the whole "they didn't talk much about dialogue, c&c and branches in Oblivion PR" is an irrelevantism (lol). The things they say in their PR has a track record of being untrue. The most important part of the foregoing sentence is not "the things", it's "they say". "The things" are interchangeable, but they will always say.

QED.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL8pyOP0VQI

The last third is my favorite part. They like to give the impression that everything that happens there is random and there is actually an AI behind it, but I've never seen NPCs playing with dogs or reading books (or gaining skills - that would be totally irrelevant anyway with such an "original" skill-system).

It is totally appropriate to write about oblivion here, since their advertising of (and repeated lying about) oblivion shows that these people can not be trusted.

The demo I saw at GDC was chock-full of scripted events. In fact, absolutely nothing except the details of the fights were left to chance. That's obviously the same case for that infamous E3 demo too.

The odd thing is why people won't recognize scripts for scripts and do write-ups as if they saw AI in action. Sure, Pete or Todd can go "Wow, is that his eye" at every demo showing after blowing a mutant's head apart, but sooner or later you should note that every other journalist who saw it saw the same thing. And that means this was prepared, not random. Same goes for RAI making a supermutant flip off the PC during combat, as one journalist wrote about the most recent demo.

So far, Desslock is the only journalist who even agrees with me that the entire demo was obviously scripted. Other journalists did write-ups on Fallout 3 and its "improved AI". What? We didn't see any improved AI. Hell, we didn't see any AI!

If anyone knows his stuff, it's Desslock!!

GhanBuriGhan said:

Of course if someone would state whats good about the game with valid arguments it would be FACT too, eh? So the it sucks part is actually still opinion. But I won't bother, I don't like the game well enough to come to Bethesdas defense here.

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If someone offered arguments what was good in Oblivion, without saying what was also bad it wouldn't be an argument.
I offered strong arguments what sucks and I also said what was an improvement. I could count hundreds of things that were badly done in Oblivion again and I could again repeat what was done better, but I wont repeat myself because I don't want to start another Oblivion debate.

I even made a post on Beth's forums what sucks and what should be done better in their future games, but all I got for a reply was:
-its not feasible
-make your own game
-make mods
-why would we make such a game when there is modding community? (yes they actually said that)

It's like they want the gamers to do their work for free while they will pick up all the glory and money.
The worst thing is, when i tried to type Oblivion sucks, it turned to Oblivion is the best game in the universe, so I HAD to use very soft words. I can't show you the actual discussion because they deleted it!! Talking about self delusion.
Does this sound like someone who is listening to fans and who is willing to fix things that were obviously a fail in Oblivion? Bethseda hasn't done anything yet to make me believe their words. Look at this picture:


This was what Bethseda presented as an actual screenshot. Does anyone know how to hold a sword while on a horse in Oblivion? Nope... that means they lied! They lied about many things and it will be the same with Fallout 3.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... I don't think so.

Look, I agree that "Oblivion sucks" is a bit too strong word for a game that still beats the crap out of all the shooters and many other crappy games that come out today, but it is in no way worthy of those 95/100 scores it got on most review sites, while it should barely hit 70/100.

As I said, I don't wanna argue it either, I am tired of the deabte, and not too happy about Bethesdas PR myself. But that that screen was posed, and that there was no mounted combat, was known well before release; no lie in my book.

GhanBuriGhan said:

As I said, I don't wanna argue it either, I am tired of the deabte, and not too happy about Bethesdas PR myself. But that that screen was posed, and that there was no mounted combat, was known well before release; no lie in my book.

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Well I found out it was a lie after I bought the game. So it was sure a god damn lie for me. And trust me, mounted knight is the least of what I am talking about.

Please continue this dialogue in the appropriate thread!!