One thing that I found quite annoying in Oblivion was the often discordance between what happens and what NPC’s say. Suppose I just saved one’s life, he/she expresses many thanks, I owe you for life, bla bla, and the moment I close dialogue he/she just spits a “get out of my house” or something. It’s pretty much an atmosphere breaker, especially for someone who likes to roleplay. The same thing with beggars, now they beg for money and the next minute they have a totally different tone.

While I’m not keen on computer programming, I assume it should be easy to set some disposition variables for each NPC in the game so as the direct interaction with the hero should have priority over generic faction/racial/politics related values.

I agree. I'm hated by everyone in Cyrodiil (except the factions) and when I do good for them, they insult me and I'm like D: Though, I think the dialogue will be better, perphaps a bit like FO3 and FNV.

Heres hoping.

Yeah the beggar thing is ridiculous. It was basically the reason I didn't ever really give money to them. They sounded false, as if they were having me on, when they would beg in a voice that made you sympathetic, and then start talking in a voice that could have suited an everyday person in Cyrodiil when you ask them about rumours and the like.

You shouldn't give them money - its all a scam anyway. They'll just spend the gold on cigarettes and booze. :foodndrink:

I just hope every NPC don't have an attention seeking disorder. Annoyed me to hell, in both Morrowind and Oblivion, where everyone is constantly greeting me, whenever I walk past. Perhaps if I stay in the vicinity of an NPC for 5 seconds or so, then I should get some attention. Or it could also be dependant on my fame. Or disposition.

When is the TESV Suggestion topic coming up? It's a tad crazy going 'round hundreds of threads.

Oh man those begars were lame. I even remember the woman who asked me to save her husband trapped in a picture, she threw me out of the house eventually.
But coherence shoudnt be only about voice dialogue it shoud be about everything npc's do relative to what's happening mean its pretty lame there is an invasion going on and they mind their daily business like nothing hapened like daedra in their backyard is not big deal.
Id like very reactive npc's, to make coments abot what you wear, to run if they see you naked or sneaking, to cover theirwindows and doors and stay locked in the house when an Oblivion gate just opened 30 feet away, to try to steal from you, to pick up items that you abandon (man, if I dropped valuable items on the roads because of full inventory I can still find them there tomorrow, with all the travellers and highwaymen around, they are really religious citizens I guess) I want npc's to react to what they see and hear I mean its ridiculos being to steal in someones room at night he's sleeping so deep he can't hear a huge hammer I drop on the floor. Their awareness shoud be noise sensitive like in Thief games not dependant on your stealth level. I mean a hammer dropped on the floor is heavy like a hammer dropped on the floor no matter how stealthy you are.
That's coherency, not only what npc's say. Its about all their mechanics and behavior that needs to be changed.

The beggars have the weirdest dialogue changes. When they ask for you to give them money they sound very weak, when you give them money they sound Irish, and when you close the dialogue and they say, "Blessing of _______ upon you." they sound like a stoic warrior.

I always got a laugh out of it, but it should be fixed.

Even now if you go to a town of <1000 complete strangers down the street say hi to you and will stop to talk to you all the time. I agree that it should be partly to do with fame and/or disposition but even in reality strangers in towns of that size talk to you.

What annoys me is when they stop whatever they're doing to do the "oh. hello" thing in a really annoyed tone, even if they're disposition's maxed or they greet you and then you open up conversation and they don't talk to you.

but their old war veterans

"Hi there!"
"What's going on with you?"
"HáaaaKK *cough* *cough*"
"Bye..."

:confused:

I would love to see more of a focus on writing, and less of a focus on making sure everything is voiced. I know that Beth is of the opinion that your average, drooling, non-hardcoe, console playing Elder Scrolls player hates to read, but if only the main story were voiced, and all the side dialog were simply text, with some voiced greetings and farewells, they could focus much harder on real dialog.

Besides, once the dialog is written and voiced, it suddenly becomes much harder to make any changes. Find something doesn't quite make sense? Tough. We already paid Patrick Stewart fifty billion dollars to say that line, so we have to work with it anyway. Think a quest could be better understood if explained thusly? Deal with it. Linda Carter already did the voicework for that, and now she is in the Bahamas working on her Wonder Woman tan.

Voice work kind of locks you down.