What?

So if not much has changed and you can still talk to everyone what has changed? I don't understand this "directly" stuff?

Remember how in Oblivion most people only ever hard rumors or quest-related dialog? It's just removing the middle step between "initiate conversation" and "rumors," unless they have important dialog. Or that's what I gather.

The title of the thread is very misleading.

Is speechcraft still a skill?

It always seemed like a skill to me that Bethesda didn't know how to handle - a bit like Mysticism - something that could have been realy great for roleplaying but relegated below combat and exploration - for those of us who roleplayed as bards, healers, monks, pilgrims and other classes which more social in nature this is a blow to not be able to show an interest in the other NPC's - I've read a few comments that thought the Morrowind communication system was poor - yes it could have been improved, however I thought it was made more simple in Skyrim with much less choice and less opportunity to get to know the NPC's. Now it sounds even simpler.

Open world games provide me with a social network experience only in gaming, it gives me a chance for characters to use personality to get to know the backstories of NPC's - one of my favourite mods for Morrowind allowed that - the Less Generic NPC project

I was hoping for more developed NPC's in Skyrim not Disneyland animatrons

im not that bothered. maybe it means alot more npc's to fill the apparently huge cities. its more natural also that strangers wont tell you much more than rumours.

You can only get general rumors from "unimportant" NPCs. Unlike in Oblivion, where even non-quest related NPCs had some unique lines to say about themselves or the city (particularly in the Imperial City, there were a lot of "unimportant" NPCs that had unique things to say to build life into the city; it wasn't just a bunch of autonomous citizens, they were individual people). You could also get quest-related info from "unimportant" NPCs.. eg, when looking for someone in a town, ask a random townsperson if they've seen the person. Restricting unimportant NPCs like that really takes you out of the world and loses some suspense. "Oh, this person's not important because I can't talk to them." or "This person must be important because I can talk to them, even if they don't have anything important to say yet." In Oblivion, anyone could be given important quest-related topics at any time, if the quest designers so chose.

If you can't meaningfully talk to "unimportant" NPCs anymore, why not just add a big glowing ! above important NPCs? After all, if unimpotant NPC dialog was just useless fluff, why not just drop it altogether and let us know exactly who to talk to. It'll keep you from wasting time to even find out someone's unimportant without trying to talk to them. Who cares if it destroys the atmosphere, it's boring and slows the action.

I take it you're not comfortable with the change in the conversation system?

I'm not comfortable with how I understand it to be, no. Feels a bit too much like Dragon Age's lifeless "unimportant" NPCs (they put plenty behind most important ones, but the rest were rather [NUMMIT] and ruined it).

Here's the translated bit from the French magazine - I'm just taking this from the OP. I just want put aside questions about the fidelity of the translation, or the reporting, for the moment.



Focus on that second sentence, which is the controversial bit. One thing the sentence tells us is that there are some NPCs - the quest related ones - who, when we initiate dialogue, can be asked multiple questions. Now, the point I want to make concerns what this information is being contrasted with. Some people are taking the contrast to be: there are some NPCs - the quest related ones, who, when we initiate dialogue, can be asked multiple questions, in contrast to the other NPCs - the non-quest related ones, who ocan not be made to initiate dialogue with.

Here's an alternative contrast: there are some NPCs - the quest related ones, who, when we initiate dialogue, can be asked multiple questions, in contrast to the other NPCs - the non-quest related ones, who, when we initiate dialogue, can be asked only one (or at least very few) questions.

If you can't detect this reading of the quoted sentence, trying saying it aloud this way, where the capital letters indicate rising intonation or stress:

"Only those who offer you missions can BE QUESTIONED by a few questions on the screen" versus "Only those who offer you missions can be questioned by A FEW QUESTIONS on the screen"

Or, the TL;DR version: the sentence from the magazine doesn't necessarily tell us that we won't be able to initiate dialogue with non-quest related NPCs; it could just be telling us that we'll have only one or two dialogue options when we initiate dialogue with a non-quest related NPC.

Ok, so people have already said that, but hopefully this at least makes it more clear why that's a plausible hypothesis, given what the magazine says.

EDIT: Just on the point that it would be a fairly bad situation if non-quest related NPCs were immediately differentiated from quest related NPCs simply by not being able to initiate dialogue options with them. I initially agreed with this, but then I thought it might be ok. In Oblivion it wasn't so bad that some NPCs didn't have many dialogue options, because even if they weren't quest related NPCs at that point, they might become quest related at some later point, and then the appropriate dialogue option will appear in the interface. But it seems pretty straightforward to get something like this even if non-quest related NPCs can not be made to initiate dialogue with. At one point, if you haven't got the right quest, then a certain NPC can not be made to initiate dialogue with. But at a later point, when you get the right quest, then you can initiate dialogue with that NPC.

So you're still, as it were, in the dark about whether an NPC has any quests related to them. The difference between this and Oblivion is just that, at that point in the game when you don't have any quests related to that NPC, you can't bring up the dialogue interface with that NPC. This doesn't strike me as a huge different, TBH - but perhaps someone has a different take on how this matters?

this :turned:

personally that would be a great idea, im sick of having 100 people all saying the exact same thing.
if they have nothing important to say, why should they say anything?

It doesn't seem logical for this to be the case. It points out that quest-related NPCs can be asked "a few" questions, compared to non-quest-rlated NPCs. It doesn't make sense to imply non-quest-related could still be asked "a few" questions since that's what they said about quest NPCs.

The text you quoted is rather difficult to comprehend in English, though. I can only hope it's just an error in translation, and it's not as bad as it sounds.


Actually it's more of a point that most NPCs did have something unique to say, aside from general rumors. It told something about the character, which made them distinctive even if just a little bit, from all the other walking meat bags. Also aside from general rumors, they were at least clued in to faction/town-related matters (eg, you could talk to the people of Chorrol about Dar-Ma going missing during the relevant quest; these were something you asked specifically about). It will feel a lot less lively if most people in Skyrim will just give you passing comments instead of actually conversing with you. It will make me feel a lot less attached to the characters.

Will we get people like the Bruiants? Or Weebam-Na (who had stuff to say outside of quest topics)? Thamriel? Falanu Hlaalu? They were interesting outside of any quests. Changing them to just give passing rumors and not directly engage in conversation would serve make them seem bland and rude, not interesting.

of course there will be people like that, but think about it, you dont just go into the street and start having a detailed conversation with all the random people you meet, the ones that talk to you in depth are the ones that need your services or want you to buy somthing or are related to you in someway

why should a random person that has nothing to do with you want to talk to you because you said hi?
IRL, most people would tell you to sod off or 'call the guards'

To be honest, I hope they bring back a speechcraft system like Oblivion's, but enhanced by the new engine. As detested as the Speechcraft minigame in Oblivion was (And how horribly the "Dialogue Pie" was implemented), I absolutely loved what it represented. I'd spend hours walking up to random NPCs I liked for whatever reason (Including every Female Khajiit in the game, and most of the males) and starting up "Conversations" with them to get them to like me more, just for the more animated and welcoming greeting they offer. Even if they were just "incidental". With the greater impact of disposition, I hope I can have similar conversations and make new NPC friends in Skyrim.

Even if everyone initially hates me, a few minutes of conversation, regular help, and overall being a pleasant person to have around should change their attitude toward me.

Hopefully the game will also implement the ability to eat/drink without going into a menu, and an animation so it doesn't all go away in one moment (I ate 54 Sweetcakes in >1 second in Oblivion. No more of that, please ). That way, I can hang out in a tavern getting drunk while listening to the daily rumors, or, in polite company, discussing business over a glass of wine. It bothered me that despite the atmosphere of the start of the Nothing You Can Possess quest in Oblivion, when Claude Mauric invites you to a conversation over a drink, I couldn't actually enjoy having my character drink the wine (Pushing a button in the inventory doesn't have the same effect as animated drinking during a conversation) while also conversing with Claude.

And as much as some people say "People just don't like to talk to others"... there are several instances in real life where people have random conversation with each other... usually out of mutual boredom waiting for something else to happen. Or idle chat when doing something else. People are more interesting than others give them credit.

Another thing that Oblivion sort of got right, but also screwed up was the compliments. Morrowind had a similar system with the compliments for an expensive outfit (Despite the fact my character was wearing nothing but a belt, two rings, and an amulet at the time due to the inability to acknowledge empty equipment slots, but that's not important)... People do comment about interesting qualities about others they see.

So... I like some of Oblivion's dynamic conversations... even if I had to pretend they were actually talking/saying something else but similar.

Only due to lack of dialog choices. Given the amount of time you can spend playing the game, though, there is plenty of time to talk to the individual NPCs. Don't need the game telling me who's worth talking to.

Honestly, I'd much rather have the size of Oblivion's "towns" and cities if it meant avoiding filler NPCs who won't talk with you. If you're going to have characters, don't just make them empty shells, otherwise, what good are they?


Too bad(?) this isn't RL.

To answer your question OP.

Of course not! Of course there will be some non-quest related folks you will be able to talk, also, bartenders, merchants and even some beggars. Look at New Vegas and Fallout 3, they both had a bunch of NPCs to fill some locations with life. Yet, there were a bunch of folks that you could talk and they would still not be related to quests. Like Billy Creel, or Manya Vargas, et cetera.

Clearly, this was just a misunderstanding by the magazine's crew.

they are good for killing

if bethesda had 10 years to make every npc fully fleshed out, then yeah, i would agree with you, but they dont so they have to choose who to make interesting and who to make a 'filler'

in my cities, i like having a population of more than 30 people, personal preference and all.

Removing selectable dialogue from unimportant npcs allows for more npcs to be added, and leads you to the ones that actually do somthing.

let me guess... you like football, dont you?

or some other brainless activity, like that, im sure...

now, if you cant read, and listening to people talk hurts your brain, and attempting to think hurts your brain... how are you even alive? can you be considered a person?

...why are you even playing games?

by the way, im not insulting you... you basically just insulted yourself, by saying even the most basic thought is too much for you. :rolleyes:

They don't have to be fully fleshed out, but something a bit more than Citizen #24 who only talks about mudcrabs and doesn't know jack-[NUMMIT] about the town they "live" in.

this is a little un settling but iam not too worried.as long as inkeepers,quest related characters and shop keepers have exstensive dialogue thats all good.but still i would at least like a little bit of dialogue for everyone,but as long as they say somthing thats cool.in mass effect you couldnt talk to everybody and that had one of the best and most immersive dialogue systems i have ever used in a game

I don't think it's that clear that it says that quest related NPCs can only be asked "a few" questions. Maybe you mean the bit about "only a few speeches to the people", but I don't think it's clear that what is meant by the "a few" in the first sentence is exactly what is meant by the "a few" in the second sentence.

But whatever, there's probably only so much we can wring out of that one sentence. I'm hopeful that non-quest related NPCs will still have a few dialogue options.



Well, I think that's a different issue - that's more a question of what tradeoff you make if you want to put in more/better dialogue. The point I was making was just that being able to detect non-quest related NPCs by their lack of a dialogue interface isn't so bad - it just cuts out that little bit in Oblivion where you brought up the dialogue interface only to find that the NPC didn't have any quest related dialogue options.

well i guess this just proves that different people want different things.

but really, you would prefer to talk to a whole heap of people saying the exact same lines in a different voice, then not wasting time at all and only talking to the important ones?

Well, I'm guessing you can't initiate conversation with everyone because there are too many people.

I believe that Beth has put emphasis on "big" cities. It's something people complained about a lot in Oblivion. If that means that there will be dozens of NPCs on screen at once, even if some of them are generic, then hoorah!! If they took the same approach as Oblivion, and just made your average non-quest related joe talk about rumors, then this is a good thing!