so, anyone else out there sick of those same old conversation-tree style conversations? I know I am. I know this topic''s been talked about before but i''d like to get some ideas from people on what they''d like to see in a conversation system for a game, or any games that have done something particularly cool. The main thing i dislike about the "conversation tree" or worse, the "walk up to the guy and press A" style conversations is that it never really feels like i''m in control of what the character is saying. You''re usually stuck with a few choices that don''t really fit with what you think your character would say. Also, talking never seemed like a challenge, or even a game, it just felt like stories you had to read before you got to the actual game part, which was finding swords and killing monsters. It is a much different feel from pen&paper rpgs, where conversation is often an important part of strategy, and requires skill, not just clicking through every option in a conversation tree until you get the right answer. Now, one conversation system that i thought was great was The Sims. Granted, they all talked gibberish, but other than that i thought it was brilliant. The people you talked to had different moods and you had a variety of different "concepts" (flirt, joke, etc.) to use when you were talking instead of just sentences that the designer chose. So.... anyway, i''m trying to come up with a system that uses that sort of idea in a more rpg-ish setting, or at least in a game that requires actual sentences and information, not just sims-babbling. The idea would be that you could develop a character in your party with high charisma / diplomacy type skills. People walking around in the game could have little emoticon-like things, as the sims did, showing their mood. Maybe with thought bubbles, or maybe using the classic anime cues like that weird drop of water that appears on people''s heads when they are frustrated. Instead of a conversation-tree style list of things to say, you would have choices like flirt, intimidate, grovel, compliment, etc. The person you''re talking to would have hidden meters gauging things like Anger, Fear, Lust, etc. There would also be choices on the conversation menu like "Ask question", which would bring up some kind of sub-menu where you could ask about things, and a "Command" menu, where you could try and get the person to do things like "Run away", "Surrender", "Join my party", or "Give me..." which would bring up their inventory window, letting you demand that they give you all their gold or the key to the evil wizard''s tower. Whether or not they answer your questions or give in to your demands would depend on how high their appropriate meters were. Different NPCs would also have different weights to how their meters work. So the gate guard with a thing for cute elf girls might be easy to seduce, but difficult to intimidate. Also, conversation should be a viable option on every npc, even enemies. So when the giant red dragon spots you marching into its lair, its Anger meter is probably pretty high, but a character with really good diplomacy skills might be able to convince the dragon to leave the party alone. And as the fighters in the party are killing orcs, the diplomat could be standing back shouting intimidating things at their leader, trying to Command him to Surrender. One problem i see with this is it makes conversations kindof vague. At most, NPCs could have particular lines to say when they are in a particular mood, but it seems like it would be difficult to generate exactly what the dragon would say on the fly, and writing every possible response to every possible emotional state would take too long. So a certain amount of sims-style non-conversation would be unavoidable. (Maybe just some growls and some animation to show the current state of the character). So, before this gets any longer, the most important question first: Would this be fun? Or would it be too convoluted and leave people wishing there were just some old school conversation trees that did the work for them? And also, has anyone seen any games that do something similar to this? Anyone have any other ideas?

The problem with Daggerfall was that there was no way to tell which tone of voice worked with each person, it seemed totally random. So I just always chose the first one because it was quickest.

Also it is always annoying in games when you talk to someone and they don''t give you info, but then you talk to them again in another tone of voice or with a different phrase and they cough it up. Basically it just makes talking a tedious chore focused on extracting info from people; if at first you don''t suceed, try and try again...if you make someone angry you shouldn''t be able to just talk to them again a different way and get what you were looking for. Or if you pick choice #1 from a menu and don''t get the full story you shouldn''t be able to go right back and pick choice #2.

quote:Original post by Gaiiden
And speaking of voice inflections, not only would I like a good conversation engine, but an emotions engine to go with it. Deus Ex''s conv engine was ok, but what I really liked was that characters shrugged their shoulders, spread their hands, and all that body language that added to the speech dramatically. Not many game use facial expressions but they should start being considered now with the graphics power we have these days. Definetly.

See SCEE Team SoHo''s The Getaway. Fascinating technology. The characters have full skeletal animation (yawn!) and full facial animation using interpolation of the skeletal positions (of the face). This is connected to the speech engine, so the facial expressions change in realtime in concert with the annotated text fed to it.

GamaSutra has an article on it.