[CerebroDragon]

Originally posted by TheCrimsomBlade: TO start my spelling sucks, it has always sucked and always will so, try to over look the bad gramer and mis-spelled words. Thanks

Grammar and misspelling? Or was this intended as a joke?
But yes, it is a little inconsistent. (Not to be harsh, just honest)
There's only so many times I can read the word "offical" without cringing.
I've some experience in english tutoring, so I hope you can understand.

Originally posted by TheCrimsomBlade: There are 4 well known actors M/F and 10-20 something others doing other voices. There is also the option of readable text if you want to set it for voice or both voice and text.

If this is true, then I am quite pleased that Bethesda is ensuring flexibility in this area. Bear in mind that I'm not complaining at all, merely enjoying being a part of the discussion. This is what we're here for after all, is it not? Spouting our minor gaming irritations, celebrating a game's virtues or otherwise.

Originally posted by TheCrimsomBlade: I really like the Idea of being able to stand off to the side and over hear two or three NPC's talking about things happening in the country without a box poping up with the same thing in print.

Sure, I like it too. But if one is able to select between text/spoken dialogue in Oblivion then you won't necessarily have to deal with the window popping up with the same thing, or am I missing something here?
However, this isn't a revolutionary idea by any means. Even Arx Fatalis featured small clues and snippets of conversations whispered through various characters as you passed by in the city. Obviously it wasn't implemented on the scale as it will no doubt be with Oblivion, but the idea was there.
Arx also featured no dialogue boxes (unlike its great spiritual mentor Ultima Underworld) but instead opted for cut scenes and sub-titles. It was a beautifully immersive experience for me personally, but as a preference I would have liked more text and interactive dialogue options.

Originally posted by TheCrimsomBlade: There are alot of things in Oblivion that has never been done before and some people are going to like it and others will complain but, they will have to live with it or go play something else.

Well, I think gamers have a cash-given right to express their opinions. We do that here all the time, don't we? I'm sure Bethesda are reasonable enough to know how to sort through rational constructive criticism from the everyday rubbishy whinging nonsense that must appear in abundance on the ES forums. Logically however, if there is enough voicing of opinion on one particular aspect of the game, it will be heard.
So being forced to play something else isn't really an option if you're serious about your games and like to get involved in the discussion of them. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Originally posted by TheCrimsomBlade: If you don't like PC's and NPC's talking to each other and really prefer to read the story then go buy a book.

Quite frankly, this is an absurdly invalid preposition. How can a book replace the physical (mouse or keyboard driven) interaction that is done within a 3D cRPG experience? Whilst reading is generally a physically passive exercise, the act of gaming obviously is not. Furthermore, people tend to go to books and games for different reasons, not to necessarily replace one with the other. Case in point: I'll be reading "Chess is my Life" by Karpov tonight and all of a sudden burst out with longing for an immersive 3d dungeon to explore. Sorry but whilst my mind can imagine a chessboard ok, I really do struggle to mentally conjure the physical details of my Radeon 9200's creations.

That's not to say Roleplaying books are not an option of course! I grew up reading gamebooks, which a long with the C64, were essentially my introduction to roleplaying in the late 80s/early 90s.
I noticed you mentioned Lone Wolf series, Sever. You can actually play these online now, thanks to Joe Dever and the team here: http://www.projectaon.org.
I actually still treasure and ocassionally read books from my Fighting Fantasy collection - there's still half a dozen or so that I need for the entire set!
I must update my thread in books/movies sometime...

Originally posted by TheCrimsomBlade: For those of you that want to read everything, there are 80,000 other games on the shelves for you to read and 40 million books at the library with much better stories.

As I've already shown, this response is not really valid since the experience of your normal every day reading and the reading done whilst gaming in an interactive 3d world, is obviously different in scope.
And while I may yet get to play 20,000 of those games and read 40,000 of those books you mention in my lifetime, there is no reason why I can't be a part of the Oblivion experience. Its not an either/or, exclusive/inclusive issue for me and I'm sure Bethesda would feel the same.

Anyone with a love or passionate knowledge of the history of cRPGS will know how prominent a role the story can have in the experience of playing it. Presumptiously comparing Oblivion's stoyrline negatively to the classics of literature does not detract me from wanting to play it merely to enjoy that aspect. Not in the least. Whilst I don't expect Oblivion's dialogue and plot to be Shakespearian in proportion or quality, I do expect it to at least meet and possibly raise the bar from Morrowind's standards. Is that too much to ask? I'd like to think it isn't.

Originally posted by TheCrimsomBlade: I think it's going to be great to have some NPC walk up to me and not have to read or hear the same line over and over from every NPC in the game and I hate that big POP UP BOX with the list of what you want to hear for the NPC.

What's there to hate about it? That you had to actually stop and read, or even think? It amiably served its purpose of conveying dialogue options rather well, I thought. Being able to resize it to taste, was also a nice touch.
If anything we were spoilt by not having to TYPE each dialogue option into a box instead! (A la the early Ultimas)
But really, my imagination is rich enough to be able to imagine different inflections and idyosyncracies upon phrases and common NPC speech in my head, so that's no problem to me at all.

Originally posted by TheCrimsomBlade: To worry about MODS and the voice acting later is kind of dumb or else you are really a Newb to RPG games.

Are we following the same discussion? I think this thread has dipped into some bigger issues than what's merely on the surface. (I.E What aspects of voice/text creates immersion?) It is also a bit presumptious and dare I say it, 'dumb' to equate any opinion on these matters to someone being new to the cRPG genre.

Originally posted by TheCrimsomBlade: Alot of us have been playing RPG's scence the early 80s and with only pencils and GraphPaper with each of the players sitting around a coffee table makeing up everything on the fly as we played and you want to talk about crapy acting and really stupid sounding voices you should have been around back then.

Admittedly I've only been into roleplaying since the late 80's, but I still meet regularly with a group of mates to play Pen and Paper AD&D. Ad libbing dialogue is truly an artform to behold, but we never care if someone struggles to stay in character or mumbles some incoherent lines. These get togethers are about fun, catching up over a few brews, humour, a good interactive story told with some lively debate thrown in. Its human, free spirited 'otherworldly' fun. There are other possibly deeper themes at play, but I won't go into them right now. [img]smile.gif[/img]

In the world of cRPGs however - there is an audience. This audience expects a little more shall we say, professionalism from its purchased product. Creating a cRPG as a commercial digital artform logically will have standards it must meet for it to be deemed succesful by its creators and also by its audience. To not be concerned with these issues even on a small scale would seem somehow negligent and even ignorant to me.

What I am trying to say is, the expectations and hopes expressed in this thread are somewhat of a by-product of our consumerism and love of the cRPG experience as a whole. It is thus only natural that discussions of this kind take place and so generally I don't find the Pen and Paper analogy that useful.

A certain date in November is fast approaching I must say! I'm sure this forum will start going bezerk with traffic any time soon. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 10-23-2005, 10:02 AM: Message edited by: CerebroDragon ]