So, http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/1407/article/bethesda-reveals-new-skyrim-facts/ has a bunch of new information about Skyrim.

A lot of it is very saddening, but I think this one takes the cake.

* Most NPCs will not have a complete set of dialogue, with only "important" characters having substantial dialogue.

This is TES, not Fallout. One of the last redeeming qualities of TES was that it kept the oldschool appeal, the fact that what originally made RPGs different from other games was the fact that the NPCs in the game were real, and had lives, and conversations. I hate the fact that in the new Fallout games we get "a towns person" and they have one line of dialogue.

I do not want my games to have 15 NPCs with maybe 10 minutes of dialogue that is Voice acted by expensive voice actors with the other x randomly generated number of NPCs being one liners. It should be a ton of NPCs, with text, lots of it. Morrowind did it right.

Ugh, this is definitely becoming a rant, it just saddens me to see TES so readily throw off the mantle of depth.

Well, there goes one of the few redeeming features of Elder Scrolls, that, along with auto-targeting = nothing to see here folks, move along.

I don't think not having everybody with full dialogue kills depth, but what it will kill is immersion. I always loved that everybody was the same, every character had just as much to say as everybody else, and that plot-important characters weren't pointed out and said "They're really special and worth talking to, unlike the other people".

It turns TES from a world, to merely a game. That saddens me.

They had about 50 hours of voice work for OB, it will most likly be similar for SR. As for the random npcs, in OB you clicked on some dude and all they had were rumors, now they just say them. But better I think, plus this most likely mean a lot more npcs than MW or OB, using generic NPCs is necessary to create realistic world, hopefully we won't see the large cities of SR underpopulated like in MW or OB.

@PhYoshi, every character did not have as much to say in OB, not even close, as for MW it was like I was on Wikipedia and every one just said the same stuff.

They can't have every single NPC have tons of dialouge. Would become way too expensive.
You can't compare Morrowind in this case, since it was text, not voice.

Even though I do agree that every NPC should say at least a few things; I think it just wouldn't work financially.

Some NPCs in Oblivion (a lot actually) only had these "Rumour" topic or "City name of which the NPC live in". Nothing of real value.
It's kinda unnecessary to have a dialouge tree for small things like that, isn't it?

I think more focus will be drawn to passive dialouge, i.e. when you hear people talking to others; instead of actually talking to them yourself. And I like this feature

But they had names, they had schedules, they were people, generic npcs aren't required to have a realistic world, realistic npcs are required. Just because theres a thousand ants in front of me, doesn't mean that I believe this is a realistic world because theres a bunch of ants.

As for MW being a wikipedia entry - it made sense, people know the place they live - and they know it pretty indepth.

Ha, you do realise that most NPCs in Oblivion didn't have **** all to say either?

FO:NV's system works very well. BGS were kidding themselves with Oblivion, when most NPCs could only talk about rumours or the settlement that they were in. The shift to a more Fallout like system isn't really a change.

Edit: as for the schedules and names, you do not know that they are gone. Don't speculate on next to no information.

I blame mandatory voice acting. Surprisingly

And the change is for unimportant NPCs:
In Oblivion: Greeting->Rumour->Goodbye.
In Skyrim (and Fallouts): Rumour.

Some of the most popular mods for MW and OB, were mods that added in more NPC, because the game were underpopulated. And even if FO3, the generics, like in Megaton, had a place to sleep and stuff, very basic schedules.

Beth added them in FO3, because they understood this(saw the demand and the fact the it made the game more immersive, for me and others at least), so I think they will also be in Skyrim

Because Morrowind's NPC dialogue was so varied and interesting.

"I am a warrior I kill things"
"I am a servant. I do whatever needs doing"

Still, I prefer voice acting much more than a dialouge text.
It may cost more, but it's also 10 times less... boring/tiresome.

I got really tired of reading and reading and reading in Morrowind, that I didn't really care about the wikipedia-list everybody had (with mindless info). It was kind of uselss imo.


What I'd prefer most is:
- No expensive, famous voice actors.

In order to:
- Have more voice actors for some voice... diversity. This would be a lot cheaper.
- Have some more dialouge, depending on how much money is left on the voice acting budget.

I think you're merging the "background" and "my trade" conversation options. The background one usually states who they are or if they hold any positions in a guild. The "my trade" usually goes into a great detail about what they're expected to do.

Its more than just a line. :rolleyes:

I personally prefer voice acting over text, but I could not go back in time and wish for Morrrowind to be fully voice acted. The sheer amount of dialog would make it impossible.

Hyperbole, my friend.

Hyperbole.

I think that article had a lot of good news! Ok, sad that not all npc:s will have full dialogues, but that's nothing to be "sad" for. Many npc:s in MW had very little to say also.

I realize most of the dialogue with unessential npcs in Oblivion was just rumors, but opening dialogue with every npc was one of the small things that I liked about Tes compared to other similar games that were in my eyes more "limited". However I could still appreciate this change if it is "balanced" by making the dialogue with the essential npcs much much deeper than Oblivion's. I would like many dialogue choices like in the Bioware games.

As long as every NPC has the rumor topic available then I'm happy.

Hmm it's a trade off. Would we like less dialogue from NPCs, or will everyone complain again that everyone [sounds the same/has the same things to say]. I still hope they take the NWN approach, where principal characters speak all lines and the minors only say a greeting and the rest is texted based.

I hate how restricted voice acting makes everything!! In Morrowind you could write thousands of lines in a quest on your own, but in Oblivion (and now in Skyrim) you need to have a team of actors to play your lines!

All that other stuff on the link was good news though, double plus good. Also if we can now duel weld do this mean we can do it with spells too? Like pull both triggers(360 controller)and let off two spells at once? That would be cool.

Perhaps, but I reckon most people would consider that a complete 180 for the wrong direction. I didnt mind reading in Morrowind. I still read everything in Oblivion and turned subtitles on, but voice acting helps with immersion.

We had this discussion already, actually. I decided that it wouldnt be any worse than RPGs like KOTOR where you could query townspeople for passing dialogue which changed depending on the situation in the world. It is saddening, but I'm hoping that they make the characters that do talk more interesting and interactable (though,. part of me thinks it will be even LESS than Oblivion so that people who are "Bored of talking" will be appeased, but heres hoping).

This is why we have mods...


Well... I guess we could make dialouge with voices...

This is why I dislike voice acting.

Not only does text allow an NPC to have more 'dialogue', it is also more immersive than voice acting.
For the very same reason the book is always better than the movie.

With text you get to use your imagination to know what an NPC's voice sounds like. You choose wich words he emphasises and what tone he uses.
The voice acting in Oblivion made it a whole lot less immersive than Morrowind was.
Other peoples take on this is always different than mine, so can and does mean things jarring.

The Lotr films are nice, but pretty as the CGI landscape is, it doesnt hold a candle to what I built in my imagination over the years.
Gandalf may be an accomplished actor, he still does it less well than the Gandalf in my imagination did, simply because its not tailored to my personal preference.

I know voice acting is the game standard now for some reason, but things like you wrote make me sad.
Nostalgia is a powerful illusion, but in this case I think the old games were better.

And so dies the Golden Age of RPGs.

We already knew this, and it's not depressing, consider you can still listen to them talk to each other (instead of asking them for rumors and hear the Fighters Guild-talk for the 50th time).

And is it really that important to know that http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Gaturn_gro-Gonk was once a member of the Fighter's Guild but cast out for breaking the law, when they instead can use that time and money to add something epic instead?

I really can't believe this thread... first of all, they never said they the NPCs in Skyirim are going to be statues... they will move, talk and have a schedule. Worried about the generic npc being too... generic? Well...

Let's play a game, close your eyes and imagine you're in a city, circa 1000 ac, now, there's people on the street, but how many of them have an interesting life? A farmer's life will be devoted to his farm, a servant? a guard? all the same. Do you understand the point? in a 100 people town, how comes everyone must have epic lives, and personal history, and tons of quests (and, of course, rare artifacs to give you as a reward)?

Am I missing something here?

(Edit: Besides, how comes everyone wants to talk to you? What are we roleplaying? A news reporter? And even they don't get some people to talk to them... for me it's perfect that some NPCs ignore you)