Both/neither.

Ideal would be if dialogue is real-time, automatically closed when an enemy attacks and an be resumed from where it ended, and if force greetings are disabled in combat.

paused, same reasons other has said. lost count how many times a NPCs walks in to me and push away from the NPC i was talking to and ends the convo .

it was done poorly in skyrim but i am all for well done real-time dialog

since conversations in fallout 4 are not locked and you can still move around/shoot while talking i dont think its that big of a deal.. if an enemy attacks you simply deal with it and continue talking afterwords.. or possibly at the same time since talking only requires pointing your mouse at an npc.

I wouldn't mind it at all. It was weird that in Fallout 3 that time would freeze except for you and the person you were talking to.

I enjoy real-time dialog more than dialog that pauses the video game world when talking to NPC's. So I vote yes on real-time.

I have never really had many problems with NPC's getting attacked and killed while talking to other NPC's in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Several thousand hours in Skyrim and I never really had a problem with being interrupted by anything in conversations or not being able to hear the person I'm talking to. Paused dialogue just seems really awkward to me, especially with the face zooming feature that was in 3 and new vegas.

Only problem there is that if I am blasting a machine gun, and there's a monster roaring in my ear, or a raider unloading a shotgun, (a) the NPC likely would not logically continue with his little dialog unaltered, and ( b ) if he DID, I doubt I could hear, or pay attention to it, while being attacked.

May be a moot point if there are no dialogs where foes are likely to appear.

But suppose an NPC runs up to you and starts freaking out and you mouse over her and choose dialog and then the NPC starts quickly telling you that slavers are chasing her --- all the while they ARE actually chasing her and appear to be closing in on you both, firing. You can break off dialog and attack the pursuing slavers, and IF you kill them before the slave dies, then she can reveal the information she's been carrying, but if she dies, you cannot get the info (having it on a note on her person is a bit of a cop-out).

Now that I present that scenario, as annoying as it could be if the slave died and I lost the info / quest line.... it WOULD be pretty cool.

EDIT: Turns out ( b ) with no spaces is the emoticon. Learn something new every day.

I vote yes, it would be more realistic and is a good change.

Doesn't matter to me. I've played plenty of RPGs to get used to both of them.

I will agree however, that Skyrim did do real time dialogue poorly. I think a good way to implement real time dialogue is the way The Witcher does it. Not necessarily when dialogue acts more like cutscenes (which happens a lot in The Witcher), but when it's with a general NPC. Dialogue takes place in real time and you can see NPCs go about their day and the environment still moving in the background, but at the same time it still separates you from the game world enough to focus on the dialogue. You can't be interrupted by something in the environment or can't hear other NPCs' pvssyr.

Here is an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq3rb4B68a0

I prefer Real Time dialogue. At the same time, I really liked zooming in on a characters face while conversing; I like to see all the little muscles and subtle emotes in a characters face when they speak.

...And Oblivion. I detest that with a purple passion. Psychotically shoving my face into other people's faces is downright creepy. If I were to do that to a stranger in real life they would spray me with mace or call the police.

...such an odd way to interpret that. I've always just seen it as "paying attention to the person you're talking to", not somehow invading their space.

I'm fine with real time, but they should nail us to the ground so we can't be pushed around, that was really annoying.

I miss the oblivion days and it's fov changing in conversations, especially since their faces shown different emotions, i actully tried a mod which added that in Skyrim but it wasn't the same since in Skyrim faces don't have as much expression.

I think I prefer combat to not initiate during conversation (since it's wierd to continue on afterwards or you might miss an options) but have the world in real time, kind of like Witcher.

All features being real-time is better than having a video game world paused and static.

However I 100% agree with you I wish The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim had more emotions for NPC's like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and even The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind in it's bribe, intimidated, and taunt text based way.

real time only id boycott bethesda for the rest of my days if they ever went with paused dialogue again.

Well...

...for me it does, I never felt immersive in the previous games, even though I create my self. Now I will surely will feel some kind of immersion because of the dialogue. Now I will feel like I am watching and playing a movie.

Paused dialogue also serves as a good way to pause without pausing as you reach for a drink in rl.

I wouldn't mind real-time dialogue if I can pick up where I left off (or at least restart the conversation).

TESO has this as well, and I've lost some of the dialogue due to enemy attacks. Since I had to bail, by the time I got back, all I could get was the "final" remark which offers no options.

I voted yes. A buffer should be created though so that random NPCs won't just cut right between you and the person you're in dialogue with.

I vote real-time for immersion, although it does frustrate me a little when I want to talk to a bunch of NPCs in a small area and they all walk away before I get the chance to speak to them because I'm talking to someone else.

Hmm. A bit surprised how many are for realtime. But I suppose I shouldn't be, given how many people on this forum seem to care about/believe in, this "immersion" thing. (Honestly, I still don't really understand what people mean by it.)

Personally, realtime dialogue (at least as someone described FO4's system earlier) seems more like an "extra difficulty"/annoyance feature. Making conversations more fail-able (or like the ever-hated QTE's. Quick, dodge correctly and press your dialogue choice quickly! Wouldn't want to think about what your character would say.....) But maybe I've gotten the wrong impression from people's comments..... I haven't watched most of the gameplay videos, as I don't want to be spoiled.

It's about not being reminded you're playing a game. When the game zooms in on an NPCs face and everything freezes, you are confronted with the idea that you're merely sitting in front of a monitor/TV screen. Little things, like real-time dialogue, make it feel like you're actually part of a living, dynamic world.

But that's the thing - I am aware I'm playing a game. I am "merely sitting in front of a monitor." So I don't have a problem with that. It's what I set out to do when I sat at the computer. First person just gives you a different, potentially prettier view & different gameplay mechanics - it's still all a game, just like isometric turn-based strategy, 2D sprite shoot-em-ups, or a IRL hex-and-counter tabletop wargame.

It's like reading a fictional novel. I know I'm reading a book, and I know the story is made up, but that doesn't stop my mind imagining it's real and letting myself be transported to that world.

To each his own though, I guess.