Dialogue drafting ideas : III

» Mon May 07, 2012 10:24 pm

As some of you may know I'm working on a large quest mod with multiple large main quests. Now... I have quite a lot of dialogue drafted outside of the CS and I was interested to know what methods people use to structure their notes. Such as greetings, topics, journal entries NPC names and such.
Currently I'm simply writing everything out in word pad in rich text format. Highlighting greetings, topics and whatnot. Like so...

---When player reaches level 10 or higher---
ALL NPC'S WITHIN IMPERIAL LEGION TERRITORY
Latest rumours
Have you heard about the minerals found on the Island of Ashnaar? The Imperial Legion has had a mining operation there for a while, apparently the Head of Census and Excise over in Dagon Fel is overseeing transport of workers and cargo.

JOURNAL ENTRY
It appears that large mineral deposits have been found on the Island of Ashnaar, the Head of Census and excise in Dagon Fel is overseeing the transport to the island and should have more information.

Minerals
The Imperial Legion has found large deposits of ebony on the island of Ashnaar.
Ashnaar
The Island of Ashnaar lies south of Port Telvanni. It is Telvanni territory, however after seeing the potential of the Island, Varus Vantinius decided to set up a mining operation there. The revenue of the island is so great that a large Imperial settlement has quickly developed there.

---Office of Census and excise in Dagon Fel---
LUCIUS PARVI [First Meeting] (Head of Census and excise and Representative of Rockhold, Imperial)
Welcome, I am Lucius Parvi, Head of Census and excise here in Dagon Fel. I am also a representative of Rockhold, an Imperial settlement on the Island of Ashnaar.

Rockhold
Rockhold is a new Imperial settlement built on the Island of Ashnaar. Originally a small camp was set up for Imperial workers next to the mines, but as more and more minerals were found, it became apparent a larger settlement was needed. Rockhold is a very friendly city, always welcome to visitors, housing many services and opportunities for work.

Ashnaar
The Island of Ashnaar lies to the south of Port Telvanni. If you wish to visit the Island you can find Amstein a Nordic sailor at the docks. He is the only person in Vvardenfell who offers a travel service to Rockhold.

JOURNAL ENTRY 2
Lucius Parvi told me the only travel service to Ashnaar is provided by Amstein, a Nordic boatman situated at Dagon Fel docks.

(Don't worrie, I have quite alot more planned for the beginning of the quest. This is an old old sketch. :wink:

)

As you can see, NPC names and topics are bold, underlined and journal entries are in italics. As simple as that. But I find that its quite unclear.

So, how do you prototype your dialogue? Do you have any clearer ways of writing dialogue?

I can't seem to think of a better way to do it myself. But I keep confusing myself with my notes. So, any ideas are really welcome.

Thanks in advance everyone.

» Tue May 08, 2012 1:29 am

Flow charts for branching dialogue scrawled in haphazzard patterns all over an A3 sketch book with doodles all over the place, usually places or characters to go with the dialogue. Organised it isn't but I enjoy looking through it and experiementing and adding to it. Spider diagrams are also prevelant. Brief synopsis' nearby to refer to.

I've tried the organised approach and it felt too static and stodgy. I like being able to have the feeling of just plugging sections in, arrows criss crossing to each topic etc. If something pops into my head at daft o'clock in the morning I just bung it down on a notepad beside the bed. I was the same at university, pages of notes, interspersed with doodles, thoughts and games of noughts and crosses. :biggrin:

» Tue May 08, 2012 4:16 am

For Veloth's Child I have used an organised approach - there were too many variables in the story line to just make it up as I went

I used a flowchart for high level quest development and then used a spreadsheet to mimic the CS dialogue options and would write all my dialogue in that first. This made it easy for me to filter by topic and by character to ensure I had captured everything I wanted.

It ended up http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/1206/dialogue.png

For 9 & 1/2 weeks I am tracking only a single character - as I'm much more comfortable with using dialogue now I have free texted her dialogue - however I have found testing to take considerably longer than using a more organised way as it is easier for mistakes to creep in. When doing dialogue I normally have a greetings window open, various topic windows open and the journal open as well as scripts dependent on dialogue and am constantly cross referencing them.

I do recommend that you follow a methodical approach to dialogue - while writing dialogue is very creative - in gaming it will only work well if you have carefully planned your links and quest markers first... at least that is my experience

» Tue May 08, 2012 2:36 am

@ Hicks. That's pretty much what I'm like, bits of crap and notes written down everywhere. Kinda gets confusing but aslong as your sure what your doing it seems to work.

@ Illuminiel. I see what your doing. Looks like a good idea although it could take me a while to get into. Will have to try it out and see how it goes. Thanks for the pointers.

Anyone else got any ideas?

» Mon May 07, 2012 7:31 pm

Usually I just pick a topic and start writing in the CS. The only time I wrote something down outside of the CS was when I was doing a quest that had multiple ways to finish (or fail) it and I wanted to make sure I had each of the branches in properly. After I'm done writing, I export the dialog and run it through MS Word to catch any obvious spelling and grammar mistakes. I also have Elaura look over it to proofread after I've done an initial one. Still, things slip through and I rely on others to help me track those down so I can fix them. :whistling: