Dialogue-heavy missions and Top 3

paxfederatica · March 2015

I've noticed that since the Foundry Top 3 went live, Valley of the Shadow I and II have gotten dinged by reviewers for too much dialogue to read, more frequently than they got dinged for that reason in the past.

Anyone else seeing this on reviews of their missions? I'm guessing a lot of players new to the Foundry aren't used to missions that require a lot of expository dialogue to flesh out the story. (Part III isn't getting dinged, probably precisely because I got most of the expository dialogue for the VotS trilogy out of the way in Parts I and II.) Anyway, this is something else to keep in mind when building missions in the Top 3 era.

thegreendragoon1 · March 2015

I'm not saying we should make our stories any less complex, but we as authors do tend to overuse exposition. This is something that doesn't translates as well in a video game as it does in a TV show. (Though even the shows were guilty of over-explanation.)

djxprime · March 2015

Whenever I type up a description for a new mission, I like to put in advisories as to if the mission is more dialogue or combat intense to give the player the opportunity to decide on whether or not they want to deal with. I don't think it's a perfect system, but I like to let them know up front when I can.

zorbane · March 2015

djxprime wrote: »

Whenever I type up a description for a new mission, I like to put in advisories as to if the mission is more dialogue or combat intense to give the player the opportunity to decide on whether or not they want to deal with. I don't think it's a perfect system, but I like to let them know up front when I can.

Problem with Top 3 is that it bypasses the description part of the Foundry mission. It goes straight to the mission acceptance dialogue

drogyn1701 · March 2015

I still say, make the mission you want to make. The concerns of others are secondary, and only important if you want them to be. However, if I were to recommend any change to authors I would advise them to not front-load their missions with exposition. Get right to the action, and then space out that exposition throughout the mission.

nynik · March 2015

I love missions that allow me to delve deeper if I want to. So exposition is available from optional interactions rather than only from core completion contacts/actions.

captainhunter1 · March 2015

zorbane wrote: »

Problem with Top 3 is that it bypasses the description part of the Foundry mission. It goes straight to the mission acceptance dialogue

This is one of the reasons i was advocating an 'Investigate other available missions' single line entry point that would open up a conventional list of all missions in a star system. (see link in sig). Important introduction information would not be bypassed, giving a player a choice of what kind of mission they would like (because most missions with text heavy content say so here). t

rekurzion · March 2015

thegreendragoon1 wrote: »

I'm not saying we should make our stories any less complex, but we as authors do tend to overuse exposition. This is something that doesn't translates as well in a video game as it does in a TV show. (Though even the shows were guilty of over-explanation.)

We are so limited with the Foundry, and I don't mean its features. With live actors there is so much that can be said with an expression that can't be related with video game characters. Reading will always seem like "more work" than viewing.

We are in interesting middle ground being able to provide scenery as character but unable to direct our characters emotions and subtle nuance. This dynamic has a way of coming off as verbose.

Since the top 3 I've gotten about 200 plays in a few short weeks so I have seem much more feedback than I did before and some of that is people saying there is a lot of reading. I've also had people say there wasn't enough.

It is what it is. You just have to find the right balance. But don't let that deter you from telling the stories you want to tell.

djxprime · March 2015

zorbane wrote: »

Problem with Top 3 is that it bypasses the description part of the Foundry mission. It goes straight to the mission acceptance dialogue

D'oh! I did forget about that. Nevertheless, I'll still add that in the description in the off chance that someone reads it. You can't please everyone. *shrugs*

wombat140 · March 2015

When I see a mission in the Top 3 and think I might fancy playing it, I've been opening the main Foundry window and looking it up, to see what it's about and whether it's the kind of mission I like (I don't usually go for heavy comabt missions so I'm basically checking it's not one). I suspect other players will quickly get into that habit as well. So definitely worth doing a description.

markhawkman · March 2015

rekurzion wrote: »

We are so limited with the Foundry, and I don't mean its features. With live actors there is so much that can be said with an expression that can't be related with video game characters. Reading will always seem like "more work" than viewing.

We are in interesting middle ground being able to provide scenery as character but unable to direct our characters emotions and subtle nuance. This dynamic has a way of coming off as verbose.

Since the top 3 I've gotten about 200 plays in a few short weeks so I have seem much more feedback than I did before and some of that is people saying there is a lot of reading. I've also had people say there wasn't enough.

It is what it is. You just have to find the right balance. But don't let that deter you from telling the stories you want to tell.

Yeah it'd be nice to have more facial expressions to work with.

thegreendragoon1 · March 2015

rekurzion wrote: »

We are so limited with the Foundry, and I don't mean its features. With live actors there is so much that can be said with an expression that can't be related with video game characters. Reading will always seem like "more work" than viewing.

We are in interesting middle ground being able to provide scenery as character but unable to direct our characters emotions and subtle nuance. This dynamic has a way of coming off as verbose.

Since the top 3 I've gotten about 200 plays in a few short weeks so I have seem much more feedback than I did before and some of that is people saying there is a lot of reading. I've also had people say there wasn't enough.

It is what it is. You just have to find the right balance. But don't let that deter you from telling the stories you want to tell.

I should point out, that by exposition, I don't mean dialog. I mean the tendency to write long, complex descriptions of the situation.

I think there are still things we can do to mitigate the need for exposition though:

As Drogyn pointed out, don't frontload your exposition. Break it up, tease it out and feed it to the player in bite-sized chunks. Think of exposition like candy: in large dumps it'll make them sick, but left like breadcrumbs, it can lead them deeper into the story.
Less expositional, more conversational. Don't just have a Boff explain what is happening and why, make them work it out. Have Boffs working together to puzzle out what is going on and coming up with a solution.
Don't be afraid to cut. Even in writing, there's a cutting-room floor. Odds are not everything you wrote the first time is gold. Always be looking at your dialog and asking, "Can the story still work without this explanation?" If the answer is no, you may need to cut it.

Dialogue-heavy missions and Top 3

Comments