Conversations

thehuntress

I'm curious in knowing what tricks everyone uses when creating involved conversations. The paths and the build can be overwhelming and I'm wandering if using Excel first to map it out before using the editor is a good way to start the design.

essenti

It is definitely better to design your dialog externally. I create outlines in Word mainly for the added benefit of built-in spell check, but I imagine it should be easy to use Excel.

thehuntress

How involved do conversations need to be? Of course a more lively dialogue may be enjoyable but creating one with options to choose and links can be difficult at times but a linear conversation can be boring too.

essenti

I am pretty fond of the dialog system, it's probably the most sophisticated thing we have access to in the foundry. I actually made a form of rock paper scissors game completely within a dialog... that was ridiculously complex!

The conversations should be as complicated or as simple as the quest you've designed needs them to be. A straight action focused quest might be better off with simpler more linear dialog, while a story focused quest may benefit from complicated dialog that advances the quest into different directions.

In my own quests, I am trying to design around the core "action" and develop dialog that establishes the most direct route through it by making those choice 1 (you are trying to get those players to the action as fast as possible). I'm aiming at making the core as streamlined, interesting, and as fun as I can with minimal complexity.

After the core is developed, start adding in all the dialog that ties into optional objectives, using the MISSIONINFO tags to clue-in the player that they might want to discover more about that topic. Players who aren't interested in a complex story or exploration can choose to speed through the quest by short-cutting through the dialog, but at the expense of missing out on optional content. These players will only experience the core quest which should still be fun and interesting, but they never reach that hidden area with the additional sub-boss fight or other Easter eggs.

thehuntress

Thanks for the tips.