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Speaking as your Captain - Dialog options
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
I've been testing missions over the past week - excellent work for the most part. The hard work really shows on many of these great missions!
I wanted to bring up a topic for discussion. I noticed when testing missions that many creators use the response box to fill in a detailed reply from the player's captain, often simulating both sides a conversation with the contact or bridge officer. I have found this to be problematic.
If I am playing my Vulcan captain, and the provided response is informal (using contractions, slang, or laid-back conversational speech), I find it very jarring and out-of-character. On the contrary, if I am playing my more cavalier, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants captain, the responses that sound too formal are also annoying.
I think this is why Cryptic uses the word "Continue" in all or nearly all of the single-response replies, and the branching dialog choices are very brief and to the point. The reason for this is it is impossible to predict what type of captain a player has created, or how they speak. Making the responses generic may be a bit lacking in flavor, but the alternative, at least for me, breaks the immersion.
Thoughts? Comments?
I wanted to bring up a topic for discussion. I noticed when testing missions that many creators use the response box to fill in a detailed reply from the player's captain, often simulating both sides a conversation with the contact or bridge officer. I have found this to be problematic.
If I am playing my Vulcan captain, and the provided response is informal (using contractions, slang, or laid-back conversational speech), I find it very jarring and out-of-character. On the contrary, if I am playing my more cavalier, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants captain, the responses that sound too formal are also annoying.
I think this is why Cryptic uses the word "Continue" in all or nearly all of the single-response replies, and the branching dialog choices are very brief and to the point. The reason for this is it is impossible to predict what type of captain a player has created, or how they speak. Making the responses generic may be a bit lacking in flavor, but the alternative, at least for me, breaks the immersion.
Thoughts? Comments?
Post edited by Unknown User on
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that is why I have left all conversation dialog continue buttons as continue.
Cryptic has it on their priority list that there will be branching dialog options
As far as I'm concerned, Cryptic should have a matrix of responses and possible dialogs, one criterion of which would be the race and gender of the person doing the talking. This way, an author could supply different dialog lines that convey the same meaning but sound and read differently based on what character the player is talking to, or talking as.
All in good time though... baby steps and all that.
i realise that some dialogue for some characters dont work but to be honest i dont think its something i will stop doing because its my mission and thats what i like to do, but i am conscious of not overdoing dialogue that wont fit everybody.
in fairness cryptic dont always get it right either. often my bo will say or describe stuff that does not fit the one i have chosen.
I hate the "Continue" stuff. The current way most of the dialogs in the game work, I have the feeling that I am just some stupid guy and my BOs give me thinly veiled orders. I don't feel like I am in charge.
The button replies I use are often neutral, but meaningful. They are not mere filler-text. Within the tiny text allowed to a Captain, I try to make him competent and the guy in charge, while trying to avoid overly emotional or character-specific responses.
Not to be hypocritical, I will acknowledge right here and now, that my missions may make people feel like there's too much talking and not enough fighting.
Another perfectly valid reason to try and make our Foundry missions different. We need to show Cryptic what we want and I figure the best way is to craft Foundry missions that would play and feel more personal to us as Players and Captains.
Same here.
Secondly, some of us probably need to get over the fact the bo will never have a personality that kind of way and just enjoy the mission for what it is, a star trek episode in which you are interacting.
When star trek episodes aired on t.v did you nitpick and say, oh hey worf wouldn't say something like that, or he shouldn't say something like that? Just enjoy it for what it is. If people do not try to do new things with missions, missions will remain generic and boring. At least missions being created in the Foundry, because the devs will have advanced internal tools to do certain things and we see their creativity letting loose with recent featured episodes. They might also in turn get some ideas from us, and be better able to implement them on their side.
Foundry is limiting at best, don't matter if your story deserves a bloody oscar, it all boils down to shooting something.
It doesn't have to. The mission I'm currently working on is an archeological mission, and as of right now there are no enemy groups to fight. I might add some in for flavor, but it certainly is not the focus.
That said, I admit to a personal amusement with the dialogs. For example, right now when you approach the space probe you are given the option to "scan the hell out of it." Or my tactical officer, after telling me the door is jammed and that he can open it, gives the option "Hulk smash!" But again, that's for my own personal amusement. I would NEVER publish with my placeholder dialog being that ridiculous.
I think that BOffs should certainly have personality, but realistically most of the times they're interacting with you in missions is to relay information. And that should generally be rather boring, matter-of-fact, because it's their job. I mean, there's only so many ways to spin "Scanning for life forms."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWBmaKk32fE
To Me that is what We Normally do... How Many Military Leaders Have used "Over-the-Top" Rhetoric to Inspire the Troops in the face of Certain Death. Part of Command is Confidence and Inspiration and our Players are supposed to be Exceptional Characters.
The small amount of Text allowed for the "Captain" to reply Lends it's self to "One-Liners" that will trigger a response from people familiar with a certain metaphor such as "Lock & Load" or "Assimilate This" or many other infamous one-liners...
I use the Continue Button Position to Tell NPC's what to do... the Generic Continue Button is just Weak Writing...
I would NEVER say "Continue" EVER... Some Neutral sounding script is more effective like "Battle Stations - All Hands" or simply "Engage" or "Energize". The Use of Continue by Cryptic Designers seems like a giant Flaw in the Immersion for Players.
cryptic missed a good opportunity to do this with their recent presever missions, i mean come on, the preservers are a very interesting topic in st, not much is known about them, there is a lot to speculate on the information provided, alot of worthy subject material to engage the player in an immersive semi interactive discussion.
but instead they chose to have one bridge officer relay to you every thing they found out during the mission about the preservers, and this was boring, i find myself clicking continue continue when dialogue is long motonoous and boring, im like get on with the next mob, but some of the foundry missions have me reading dialogue again because its being presented differently.
If the only achievement of presenting dialogue different is to get more players to read it and understand it and know whats going on then that is still important. No one wants to be lectured to by your all knowing BO's.
I completely agree with this, thanks!
Yes. I also use the response button to simulate your character's dialogue. I saw that was how Cryptic uses it - especially in Night of the Comet as an example with the response buttons for Cassidy's drink e.g. "I am glad you enjoyed every last drop" etc.
So when I was building my mission the thought did cross my mind - should I make all the responses generic? What would other players think about the kind of responses I am putting on these buttons?
So I tried to keep them as generic as possible. I still can't stand using just "Continue" though. Mostly I stick with one word responses most of the time, e.g. "Understood" "Acknowledged" "Energize" "Proceed".
But some times I just couldn't resist putting something a little more forceful in there. Like "Let's go!" or "Let's move". One time though, just before a big battleship arrives I think I put "Bring it!" as the response. That obviously wouldn't work for a Vulcan lol
Sometimes a story just can't work with players that make things difficult and I'm not going to worry about 1% of a player base....
Good Stories evoke an emotional response from the consumer and that should be a prime consideration for dialogue. The Vulcan Factor is a "non-starter" for me. TRIBBLE all that... I'm not going to dumb-down anything just because some moron wants an "un-emotional robot-like" response...
The problems of Vulcan Commanders interacting with Humans is well documented and beyond the normal development of human-based stories... Now if We had some means of altering a story due to different species of players I would consider it an option... As it stands now my stories are for Normal Humans with emotions... If that doesn't suit someone's weird character then that's just tough.... I'm not going to lose Any sleep over it...
it is really hard to even throw out the illusion of getting the player involved if there can only be one possible response. Sure, we now know how to make multiple dialog options, but the issue here is that those dialog options have to ALL be clicked for you to progress to the next script- and that still doesnt add to player immersion. So until we get the ability to add better player immersion into our dialog boxes, i am not going to make a great effort to try and make creative response buttons, because not everyone shares the same taste and outlook on a given situation
I can understand what some people feel if there is dialog in the buttons or in the actual dialog field itself. However, I am not going to limit my story because some people lack imagination to look past the limitation of the workbench. I have come up with some techniques for the player dialog.
Lately, I have been using my own narrator character as the player's own character dialog. Sometimes, I use the button for the dialog, if it makes some sense. However, sense is an individual experience. I feel the player will either get it or not. Some players are so rigid and inflexible, that they take anything you do as to literal. If they cannot conceive it in their minds, then they won't grasp the story.
I am coming to learn to, 'do what you think is best for your story'.
Remember, no one player is worth it. The goal is to have fun and create your story how you want to tell it. We are not paid writers on the foundry.