Well, here we go again. Let's try to keep the rage to a minimum. I definitely want to stick to Morrowind's topic system - it allowed for a very realistic way of becoming informed about the lore and local culture, especially in conjunction with your journal's keywords. What I found to be particularly odd with Oblivion's system was that NPCs seemed to only be able to talk about topics they cared about, which detracted somewhat from your options in roleplaying.

In regards to voices, I'll just quote myself:

Oh lordy.

Except in the case of conversations with the player, aside from custom greetings, NPCs really aren't talking about what they're interested in. With the topic system, it's the player poking and prodding them for trivial information.

I like Fallout 3's system because of the branching dialogue and you could usually ask about some lore or the local history if you talk to the right people anyways. I'd really like the game to be fully voiced but I don't want to limit the game because of how much disk space it seems to take up.

Morrowind's system plus dialogue trees with no dialogue voices would be wonderful. :wub:

EDIT: Nevermind, arguing with brick walls that take you out of context is never fun.

I want Morrowinds dialog back, because I don't like missing out on content just because it takes up too much time/disk space/money.

I"m sort of undecided on the whole thing.

I'm playing Gothic 1 and 2, which have marvelous full VA'd dialog - leagues better than TESIV.

However, unlike TES games, you can't really customize the race/gender of the main character. So, he can have a voice actor and that's cool. But, in games like TES, how can you provided set dialog for the player character when there are gender and race combos? Having the player character mute while the other NPCs talk makes the game feel kind of weird.

I like dialog trees, and I'm cool with partial voice acting (like TESIII).

I think the devs still need to work on a system that is flexible, allows for a lot of content, and doesn't blow the budget. If they can't get voice actors for cheap, then they should just stick with VAing important characters (like Neverwinter Nights) and leave the more generic NPCs unvoiced (but with voiced idle sounds, greetings, etc. like Morrowind).

Morrowind style.

I don't know if i would call Morrowind's dialog system realistic. I would rather say it was informative. Morrowind's NPC's feelt a little too much like if they where living encyclopedias for my liking.

What sort of dialogue system would you want in the next Elder Scrolls game? Custom (Please Specify). I would say they should take a look at BioWare and then mix it with the morrowind and oblivion system. Not the horrible Dialog wheel from Mass Effect ofcause, but the system from Dragon Age Origins.

Do you want fully voiced dialogue in TES V? No! Far more complex writing can be achieved without voiceovers! (Morrowind style voices) I prefer my own characters to shut up since i'm rarely satisfied with their voice and besides, if he/she dosn't speak, you can imagine any voice you want for your character. Much better for roleplaying. As for the NPC's, they would all ideally be fully voiced. however, i'ts not really that important to me and i think Beth could spend their time and money on much better things when they develop the game so i would be fine without fully voiced NPC's.

1. There should be no dialogue window/screen. When you walk to an NPC and hold your cursor over him, a list of topics appears in the corner of the screen which can be selected from. You can move around while talking, and walk to and from dialogue seamlessly.

2. This means that real time passes while you are in conversation. People will move around you.

3. Dialogue can not be initiated during combat, and dialogue is immediately ended if the player gets into combat while an NPC is speaking.

I don't care, I just want TES V.

StoneFrog, you didn't include Daggerfall's dialogue. :nono:





:P

I omitted Daggerfall because its dialogue system is basically Morrowind but limited to directions and rumors. Oh, and you speak in grammatically incorrect sentences.

If you're looking Castle Daggerfall is just go east of here.

It's a little different. etiquette-normal-blunt

Where may I find work?

Where's my house?

I just want to add that some of the topics in Morrowind's topic lists led to dialogue trees.

So, really Oblivion's system was Morrowind's, minus the branching quests. Fallout 3's was Morrowind's minus the topics.

Seems to me like they're really experimenting to decide which feature is best to sacrifice in order to accommodate the recording and lip-snycing.

Polite: Hail. I was wondering if you had any knowledge of business opportunities?

Glad they don't speak that way in Morrowind and Oblivion.

Oh yes, it's polite-normal-blunt, right? I haven't played in too long.

It's better than Arena's way of speaking. "Thou art truly a child of the empire. I thank thee for thy assistance. From this day forth, you shall be known as the Eternal Champion. From you shall the deeds of the empire be met. I, Uriel Septim, true emperor of Tamriel thus decree and do make law. Arise, my champion, and take thy rightful place at my side."

Of course, Uriel's always been a little weird.

"Let me see your face. You are the one from my dreams."

:huh:

I prefer the Morrowind system of dialogue, i could always imagine what the npc's sounded like and what tone they were using, much like reading a book.
And the amount of topics was great.

I was shocked when i first played oblivion and tried to talk to an npc which only had one or two topics, i remember trying npc after npc in the imperial market district, hoping to spark a new dialogue choice like in morrowind, eventually my shock turned to horror when i realised 'rumors' and 'the grey fox' were all i was going to get.
So if thats what voiced dialogue does to game content then i hope they simply get rid of it.

And to me fallout 3's dialogue is in no real way an improvement on oblivions.

I think FO3's system is near perfect, just a little more variety in voices would be nice.

Oblivion's system is just plain bad.

Morrowind's is alright, but the dialog screen and topics killed immersion for me.

Morrowind text+topics + Fallout 3 branch dialogue system, the game will be fully voice...you only have to see their two latest games..(TESIV-FO3)..so nothing will change that.

Is there an option other than between full voice acting and text? How about using Microsoft Sam?

Sorry but I don't think that after Oblivion that they will ever go back to Morrowind style, especially if they are planning to release on consoles. The only games I have really seen it in recently are STALKER: CoP and (like you mentioned) Neverwinter Nights, but neither was released on consoles and both were (arguably) partially voiced. I would be fine with partially voiced dialogue, something like quests are fully voiced, but topics like Rumors and such aren't to allow for more depth.

Unfortunately I just don't ever see that happening, I'm fairly sure that they will fully voice the entire game, and I'm 100% sure they won't go back to Morrowind style.
If they do fully voice the game, I hope they use a variety of actors and not spend a ton of money on a few big actors. Fallout was much better than Oblivion but it could still use some work.


:cookie:

I voted for Morrowind's style. Like someone else said earlier, I can imagine the characters with their own voices like reading a book. A lot of the characters did have very textbooky replies, which was a little disappointing given the huge amount of liberty all text-dialogue provides. But if they use text in TES V, hopefully they would have the sense to give some characters that aren't related to any quests their own personalities, because some of the quest NPCs had very well-written dialogue. I love reading Nibani Maesa's dialogue.

I still don't know what that means.

No-one ever gave me my fishy stick either.

In all seriousness, has there been any improvements in speech emulators? It's probably decades away from replacing voice actors, but i'm curious.

Umm... The Short Blade kill was in the past three games prior to Oblivion. That changed. Change happens. Just because you don't like the change, doesn't mean it won't happen. There's a bunch of other examples (Seasons, etc.), but you get what I mean.

I can't really vote, myself. I'm really not too bothered, as long as stupid amounts of disc space isn't taken, the dialogue is completely immersive, high quality, and plentiful. But, I just don't see this happening without multiple discs. For some reason, companies have an irrational fear of releasing multiple discs for consoles. For some ridiculous reason, when they cut things to fit on that single console disc, they feel they have to cut it on the PC copies, too.

I still say TTS (voice synthesis) is the answer. It can be made to be almost as good as voice acting, while taking less time and disk space. While it is more than just writing the line and running it through the TTS engine, the adjustments needed for proper pronunciation will take less time than recording the line for each character that needs to say it, and will support more variety of voicing than voice acting can hope to accomplish.