One of the main problems, Fallout 3 had was the dialog and the writing. At best it was passable, at worst it was horrible, especially when it comes to dialogue stat checks. It feels like the writer had no clue what an intelligent or charismatic or perceptive person might say, so your intelligent lines often look absolutely idiotic.

I fight the good fight with my voice!
[intelligence] Ah, so you fight the good fight with your voice, eh?
I can see that you are very smart.

That’s what happens when you think that any monkey can write dialogues. With a better storyline and well written quests it could have been a great game, despite any other flaws. Considering how solid the quest design is, not fighting the “dialogue battle” is unforgivable.
[img]http://img96.imageshack.us/i/albumpicphpzp.jpg/[/img]

Then came Fallout: New Vegas.
Obsidian has brought to the table some much-needed brains. The moronic writing in Bethesda’s Fallout 3 made everything involving NPCs (other than shooting them in the face) almost intolerable and often incredibly painful. The writing (and the difference it creates) in New Vegas is much better. It’s like a breath of fresh air that adds a surprising amount to the atmosphere and setting. Skill checks are widely used, which is always a plus. Speech is a dominant skill that does a great job handling or avoiding difficult situations. If you want to see many of the game’s alternative scenarios, it’s a must-have skill. Outside of trading, Barter is often an alternative to Speech and supports different builds quite well. Even combat skills will have a use in dialogue on occasion.


I know this game isn't Fallout 3, but Oblivion had some pretty awful dialogue too.(the quests were nice tough)
So, will Skyrim have the "dialog" level of Fallout 3 (and Oblivion) or something decent like New Vegas, or maybe something in between?

Didn't the original Fallouts have extra options of dialogue that were based on one of your skills? You had mor options based upon a skill. That was a good thing.

However, I think one of the overall complaints from MW was that there was too much reading needed in order to make the game work. I can't remember the context - if it was just pertaining to quests, or dialogue as well. The point is that folks didn't want to read. So along came Oblivion...

And I wonder if voice acting also has an impact.

As to who is doing the dialogue...can't help ya.

This is one of my main concerns. I'd be very interested in knowing who is in charge of writing dialogue.

Bethesda has a team of monkeys writing the dialog. The same team of monkeys they borrowed from youtube.

Anyway.... I think what they were trying to do with the dialog is make it as simple/ short as possible to fill in the players RP imagination. But I agree with you, they do need to work on giving us more to say to NPCs, especially since we can’t hear our own voice.

Extremly in the first fallouts, your character could barely speak english if you didnt have high enough intelligence.

Yep this is esentially my biggests gripe with Bethesda games. The dialogue is pretty terrible. It's like the writing was done by everyone in the company, like "Hey Dave we need some lines for this Npc" and then he says "Well I'm a designer, but I guess if you really what me to do it..."

They should definitely hire writers as capable as the folks in Obsidian and Bioware. I played Fallout: NV and just having awesome dialogue made the game so much more entertaining than Fallout 3 or Oblivion. Skyrim looks so promising and I'd hate to see NPCs going around talking like they are actors in a theater. Cause to me the NPCs in Oblivion and Fallout 3 don't feel like real characters, they feel like bad actors and I feel that has alot to do with the dialogue.

Or perhaps we just have to hope Bethesda lets Obsidian make an Elderscrolls game. =D

*User "ken007" does not exist any more*

I sincerely hope for your sake that this was a joke. If I hear anyone utter something so blasphemous ever again, I swear I'm going to take a dump in a Walmart bag and smack them across the face with it...












:P

I sincerely hope for your sake that this was sarcasam.

Writing is my main concern, too. We'll probably get linear main story and mediocre dialogue/characters.
Everything else looks great so far.

"I ran into a mudcrab the other day. Nasty creatures.."

I sincerely hope for your sake... that....

Anywho, it's probably being written by the dialog people, duh.

You two should do the banter :shifty:

If it's any indication, the text at least is good enough that? Von Sydow seemed eager to take the role according to the sound of Skyrim interview.

ahahahahahaha dude these are the best jokes.

also i like how whenever ANYBODY [censored]es about Fallout 3's dialogue they only ever use that one line, as if Fallout and Fallout 2 (and New Vegas) weren't filled to the brim with equally [censored] writing.

Error #404: ken007 not found

I would not be insulting of any previous dialogue because I don't think that's the right way to go with this. Fallout New Vegas raised the bar and I'm extremely happy with the writing, the depth of the stories and companion development. I found many of the stories to be very compelling and they touched me deeply. Many character comments were just heartbreaking in a post-apocalyptic world. This is what I'm hoping for in Skyrim with the dragon crisis in that world and I believe the devs are wanting this too. It's a huge project and they've had 5 years to work on it. I'm expecting great leaps forward and at this point, I have faith I won't be disappointed.

Fallout New Vegas was great, but it is nothing compared to Bethesda's work with TES. Fallout 3 was kinda bad of course, but I still liked it. Probably for the music, I don't know. Bethesda vs Obsidian is a choice between a good game, and good dialog. I just hope we get Wes Johnson voice again. Lucien Lachance/Mr. Burke.

The trailer monologue-speech, whatever was pretty nicely written imo.

I always choose Speech as a first skill and train it as high as possible, to gain access to information some people might not want to share and get what I want out of a situation. Dialogue is important to me, I like to read everything and not rush through the game. I hope the dialogue is intelligent in Skyrim but I'm sure we'll encounter some monosyllabic grunting from some naked Nords. hehehe :biggrin:

Sorry to crush your hopes, but it wasn't.

Oh, how I'd like it to be me some day. Anyway, NV did do that right. You were able to talk quite a bit, and if you wanted to you could even talk your way around the last boss if you were that kind of character. Alduin is a spirit who could talk circles around us with what he knows about Mundas alone. I'd think we could talk to him, and charasmatic characters could have a shot to try and talk up the people of Nirn and why they should be allowed to live...even though they were just caught with their pants down in a civil war over nothing more than power.

I always found the "Too much dialogue" complaint "some" had from Morrowind to be absurd, why don't we remove leveling, exploring and the tons of skills in the process and fill the game with CGI cut scenes everywhere.
No, ES to me is a series that works with excessive Dialogue, it's an extremely lore heavy series and I like it that way, there are many hours to be wasted bashing things later, for now you should be able to deal with sitting your ass down and listening to a nice story or two, you'll live, maybe even learn a thing or two, otherwise ES is obviously not a series for you.

Anyway I do agree many lines in Oblivion were fairly subpar, the writing in general also, if you weren't doing Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild or the Main Plot or even Shivering isles, you were listening to someone talk crap basically.

Morrowind had so many witty or clever NPC's and alot of the spoken dialogue in the game was actually just really good even if it were simple one liners at times.

I'll say this over and over and over again. Video games are a form of fiction. And dialogue in fiction is an overstudied topic. There are countless treaties on how to write punchy dialogue. I would recommed reading/listening to Robert Mackee's take on the matter.
Enlightening. If applied, sure to cure most if not all of ESdialogue malaises.

Absolutely, video games are art and there's a creative process and storyboards and lots of techniques that are similar to movie making. Characters, plotlines, scenery, etc. ZeniMax is making lots of $$ and they can promote the hiring of the best creative people out there to produce amazing games. One of the reasons I've come back to videogaming again is because TV has gone to hell with all the reality shows. I know there are writers out there who need work...I like writing and plotlines and great stories done by professionals...the best voice actors too. Ok, end rant. I have no reason to think we're not going to get an amazing Skyrim. The teases are promising. Now I want to see the female armor please.

This is going to be outrageously OT.

But have you watched Mad Men (seasons 1 -3 )?
Acting is top notch and dialogue is just plain wonderful!

Shame about the plotlessness, though.