Reading a new http://metro.co.uk/2015/08/20/bethesdas-pete-hines-fallout-4-interview-were-doing-stuff-that-other-folks-wouldnt-do-or-dont-do-5352056/. Pretty good read. He addresses complaints about graphics, animations, etc. But one thing really stuck out for me:

I hope the actual developers don't feel the same way he does towards dialogue...

Are [censored] 5 year old kids directing this game?

I'm just speechless.

That's got to be a huge PR gaff. If the guy doing PR says he can't be bothered to sit through the dialogue but he can sit through dialogue written by another developer, he's kinda' saying he feels like his own team's dialogue is crap and can't be bothered to listen to it.

I never understood people who "space-barred" through dialog in games, skipping through everything to get to the decision points THEY had to make, or in some cases just to finish the "conversation" so that the quest would advance to the next thing in the list, so they could follow the glowing trail or the waypoint directly to the thing to click on or kill next.

This ability to walk away from conversations actually worries me a bit, as I can easily see a stray mole rat or raider walking by and all of a sudden the dialog I was having gets cut short and I miss a critical piece of story / lore. One of the things I loved about SWTOR was that, once you enter into a conversation, you got locked into "dialog mode" and your character (in the open MMO world) became totally invulnerable to any form of harm. So there was no chance you'd get 'interrupted'.

My thoughts exactly...

The new generation of gamers want more action, like he said in the interview: "just get on with it." That worries me about the future of TES/Fallout if they are looking at it in that same way. Gameplay > Story/dialogue.

He's the PR guy, not part of the development team. The sky isn't falling.

Let's hope this doesn't mean they cut back on the dialogue.

Sounds more like he';s taking about escaping from a conversation rather than having to wait for someone to finish or having to skip through dialogue so you can click that magic 'goodbye' topic.

And when he talks about 'playing other stuff' he's probably not even refering to their previous games either. I mean how many times have you been playing a game and you have to sit through a load of dialogue you just heard because it was after your save point, or you reengaged conversation in error or it's terrible writing?

He isn't saying anything negative about dialogue in general, but about having to sit through stuff you've heard before or dialogue where it rambles on and on, just to say 'kill the guy next door'

Seriously, I am willing to bet, every single person moaning about his words -which seem strangley worded as if something was trimmed out, the sentence structure is weird- regulalry press the skip dialogue button because they can't be bothered to listen to the NPC.

It can still influence members of the team, though.

It's only a problem if you have to listen to a character with terrible writing, or just, as you said, having to hear 50 minutes of dialog just to know that you have to kill some dudes. And that fits with bad writing, at least for me (if you have any other words to describe it, you're welcome to tell me).

I would not call 100 000+ lines of recorded dialogue cutting back.

Wasnt the latest number around 175k?

If that includes all the random oneliners, set piece speeches and idle grunts, and if the number of conversationable NPC's is through the roof, the total amount might not mean anything in terms of quality or depth in the branching of the conversation.

I'm now officially scared Fallout 4's choices and consequences will not matter when I do the main quests and side quests.

I have a feeling whatever my decisions are that I make that there will be no impact on the video game world in Fallout 4.

I'm reminded by the time that Bioware writer said something about not being really interested in gameplay but liking story, and if they put in a "no story" mode for shooter fans, why can't they put in a "no combat" mode for the story fans. Cue Overdone Internet Outrage.......

Yeah, I only skip through convos when they're ones I've done a dozen times already. If you're not going to listen to the dialogue/follow the story, why bother? But I do realize that they're a non-small chunk of the "gamers" out there. (probably overlaps somewhat with the folks who deride story games as "walking simulators" /eyeroll)

Yeah, the new dialogue system does concern me a bit. I like the traditional dialogue-box style of interaction. I want to pay attention to NPC interactions, not ADD past them.

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Yes, because the PR GUY designed the conversation system. All that comment reveals is that he's not a very good PR guy.

(I wonder how you'll feel when the texture artists reveal that they can't write......)

Yeah, total lines of dialogue mean nothing when we have no clue how big or how many NPCs are in the game yet.

And people wonder why folks from game studies are hesitant to talk

Peter Hines: "well gonna mention something that 100% about my own private way of playing games"

Beth forum: "omg omg the dialogue system in FO4 gonna svck!" *flails arms in panic*

I think there is a big difference between not wanting to listening to dialog and not wanting to listen to someone go on and on. Sometimes you want to hear "Just the facts, ma 'am.", and sometimes you want more info to get more details as in "maximum verbosity".

I work with a guy who goes on and on most of the time and it would be great to "just walk away".

I think it has nothing to do with Bethesda's quality of dialog in Fallout 4, but in 3 and New Vegas, there are times when some characters say the same stuff you've heard many times before and you just want to "walk away"!

I wouldn't put too much stock in this. I often click through dialog if I have heard it before, or I can read it faster than it is spoken so I don't need to listen to the NPC talk. This is what worries me about all the spoken dialog in FO4, without subtitles I will have to stay and listen to the whole thing instead of reading and clicking to make it pass quicker. This is especially true of vendors where you have heard everything they say a hundred times over when selling loot. I lose patience with them too and just click through to get to the buy/sell screen.

lol, so what does this say about Bethesda's quality of writing if Pete Hines just skips through it haha. Oh gawd that's funny. Maybe they should hire Naughty Dog to do the writing for them.

Eh, Uncharted is a basically linear, action/platform/shooting "cinematic" game series, right? With a defined cast of characters including the protagonist? Told in cutscenes? No surprise that there'd be a strong/coherent/compelling story there. I'd bet Naughty Dog would have some trouble writing dialogue for a non-linear, open-world, less-defined protag, talk-to-any-NPC-in-any-order game. Not to say this automatically excuses Beth's servicable writing, but I'm generally of the opinion that the more linear & defined a game is, the easier it is to write a "good" story.

And what did you do in the previous games from Bethesda when the dialogue was voice acted? The only difference is that the pc speaks as well

Uncharted is one of the finest games to come out this last generation cycle. The team they have also made The Last of Us I believe, which many would say is one of the greatest titles ever made, and I would agree.

As far as writing being more difficult with open-ended games? I wouldn't know for sure, but I can say the writing in Bethesda games is pretty sub-par even compared to other games in the genre including the original Fallouts, Planescape Torment especially, and Baldur's Gate 2. Even Ultima 7 had better writing.

Of course many linear titles also have terrible plots and writing as well, so I'd be more inclined to believe that it's the quality of the writers that counts. The dialog in Uncharted is incredible, and the writing is well done. I imagine if they were hired to do the writing for Bethesda, you might see the same quality there.

Haven't played either of them, unfortunately. Tried the Uncharted 1 demo once, and I just can't shoot accurately with a controller. Couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

(Last of Us seemed a bit too dark/depressing/brutal for me. No clue if it's gameplay would give me similar issues.)

Oh, sure. That's why I said linear/defined made it "easier", not automatic.

You need to play the Last of Us, like right now! Omg, it's an incredible experience. What a fantastic game that was. I might play it again actually, once I get the remastered.

My gaming experience is really rather limited despite my age, 48, so I couldn't tell you as I don't have much time in any game before FO3 and Skyrim. I tried Oblivion but didn't get very far and do not remember how the dialog worked in that game.