Probably not the zoom itself but how personal the conversation felt.

In Oblivion (Morrowind too i suppose) you wouldnt hear their lives stories unless you actually asked about it, which made it feel as if you were actually talking to them.

In Skyrim they spit out an entire conversation as you just walk by them, and they say the same thing every darn time.

Wouldnt it be better if all those annoying people had the greeting of "hi, hello, greetings, look its dragon born, oh.. its you -_-" or so on and leave the "Y'know whats wrong with Skyrim these days? everyone is obsessed with DEATH!" from first interacting with him and then choose "How are things?" as a topic before they speak their loud opinions about you, Skyrim or their whole life story.. i don't know but the fact that it doesnt even let me ask or give me a coversation interface with most npc's makes it feel like i cannot actually talk to most of Skyrims individuals while in Oblivion it felt like i actualyl knew people and they knew ME.

Am i the only one who feels like this?

yes your the only one.

That's why I stopped playing Skyrim and went back to Oblivion, a much, much better game.

I can agree on the comments being simply hello or a greeting. Not a whole line.
But I don't want that stupid lockon zoom thingy.

hence "probably not the zoom itself but how personal the conversation felt."

personally i disliked it. i found the effect unsettling and the front on stare just freaked me out with their eerie look

I never minded the zooming in conversation. I did mind that it paused everything while in dialogue.

It was really jarring to see bustling activity frozen in time, while this one single NPC was not.

I don't miss the zoom at all but the dialogues and lip synching could be a lot better.

I'm slightly undecided; I've found Skyrim is better in some ways, but having other NPCs faffing about when you're talking can be distracting. Especially when said faffing occurs between you and the person you're talking to.

Then again, I found Oblivion's system preferable in others: provided I first reduced the view distance so that they weren't invading my personal space quite so much...

The Oblivion faces were, as many agreed, horrible. With zoom, why add insult to injury? It killed any visage of intimacy for me, really.

Is anyone actually reading my entire post before they reply? It's not about the zoom itself... should have picked a better top name i suppose.

Yeah, it's a little strange having someone spout off a sentence like: "I used to be a captain but blah blah blah, et cetera, et cetera, life story." when you are just passing by.

I think they messed the conversation system in Skyrim. It's like you go into a store and the guy who runs the store come by and tell you.. "I know you gonna buy a couple if tomatos", even though you didn't tell him. That's the way of Skyrim. There's almost always a line of conversation that doesn't make sense, like you or they know things even if you havent spoken to them about it. Epic fail.

"Focus", perhaps. I got what you were saying, but couldn't help thinking of the "don't stand so close to me" element too. :laugh:

I detested dialog zooms. It was probably the single thing (besides menus and closed cities) that I most disliked about Oblivion.

I don't stick my face inches away from someone else's face when I speak to them in real life. If I walk up to somebody on the streets of New York and bring my face that close to theirs when I ask them for directions they'll call the cops. That's just creepy.

Hmm...personally i prefer Skyrim's conversation style over Oblivion, they look a whole lot more natural this way.
I never could stand the instant zoom in conversation style, and always edit the ini so it didn't zoom in so much in Oblivion.

Its an interesting point you brought up about people in Skyrim obsessed with Death.
I suppose this has to do with the general setting of the world.

After all, Skyrim is in the middle of a civil war between Imperials and Stormcloaks with Thalmor manipulation
AND having a prophecy of a dark god ending their world, and having their lives threatened with random dragon attacks.
Yea, the people of skyrim have every reason to be emo lol.

Compare that scenario to Oblivion, where the only big issue (at least from the beginning) was that the Emperor died.
Im sure, that would not affect the population as much as Skyrim does. Some may even welcome the Emperor's death for all we know lol

It's like every npc is the crazy person on the bus.

Ha! I got nostalgic once and got right up in an NPCs face when they were talking. They stopped immediately and took a step back, slightly disturbed at my behaviour.
Apart from what Vometia mentioned about you possibly ending up with others talking over some important dialogue, I'm fine with this new way of doing it. I figured the ones that spout off their life story when you just walk past are just lonely and bored. Especially the guards with the "arrow in the knee" bit. It's like they hate their boring job and are desperate to let everyone know that they were destined for greatness before life got in the way. I know people like that IRL.

I never saw it like that, I just accepted that the reason it zooms in so close is to best hide the fact that time stopped so that you could hear about the chapel of Anvil for the 18th time. Plus, I bring my face within centimeters of a another person's when talking to them, so I didn't find it too odd...

Yea i noticed that as well, and i thought it was a nice touch by Bethesda making fun of their previous dialog zoom style



Ookayy..now thats just creepy~

rofl ya, I see, the topic and your opening sentence is misleading. Not your fault though and I agree with you

saw a really funny post regarding to the same topic... i....can't..remember the title...

I didn't care for the time warping properties of Oblivion's conversation system. You can carry on a conversation for an eternity with an NPC, yet to the rest of the game world this long conversation happened instantaneously.

Skyrim handles this far better as time correctly passes in the game world during a conversation between PC and NPC.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1291762-skyrim-a-world-filled-with-the-mentally-deficient

scenario 2

Close talkers freak me out. Not quite to the degree it freaked Kramer out, but still.

I find wackos who want to stand several inches from each other to have a private conversation pretty creepy.