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Game characters talk too much. Unless, of course, they're J'zargo.
I like shirts. I enjoy owning them, wearing them -- pretty much everything you can do with shirts, really. Which is mostly just those two things. So I recently visited a custom T-shirt website, because why not? And then -- because I'm oddly proud of my exceedingly embarrassing geekiness -- I searched for Skyrim apparel. What I discovered made me laugh like a hyena that'd recently eaten a live clown. Then it made me deeply, deeply depressed. Mere days after the game had launched, there were shirts emblazoned with phrases like “You tried mercenary work? It might suit you” and “My cousin's out fighting dragons, and what do I get? Guard duty.”
If you've played Skyrim for more than two seconds, those phrases probably haunt your nightmares -- perhaps uttered by deeply unsettling images of your disapproving father as a giant praying mantis. Why? Because Skyrim's all-too-talkative denizens bellow them every time you're within bellowing range. Dovahkiin shouts? The Voice? Those are nothing compared to these all-powerful, sanity shattering sentences. And that's a rather large problem.
Skyrim's blabbermouth inhabitants speak to a much larger issue within modern games: There's far too much telling, and not nearly enough showing. Ken Levine recently put it best when he said, “It's always very tempting to have people talk. We'll do a level review and either me or somebody else will have like an idea, 'this person will say this!', and generally that's the least effective way to get across information in a videogame.” Because it really, really is -- and not just in the case of 80-trillion-hour behemoths like Skyrim.
For example, let's take a game that's essentially Skyrim's polar opposite, like Modern Warfare 3 or -- on the console side of things -- Uncharted 3. Both games are so heavily railroaded that, if you so much as briefly wobble off the tracks, everything explodes and dies. Sometimes literally. In Uncharted's case, especially, it's a byproduct of telling a very deliberate, pre-written story. If those spike-and-glass-and-bee-coated guard rails weren't in place, the whole illusion would fall apart. Expertly crafted scripts would be read out of order. The player could put a bullet in allies' one-liner-spewing robo-brains mid-sentence. And that'd make some weird fraction of a liner. A half-liner? Where's the fun in that?
In all of the above cases, dialog -- what the game's explicitly telling us -- is the first thing to break. And when you can see immersion's seams, it's not long until the stuffing's all over the floor and your cat eats it. Dialog, after all, is a limited resource. No matter how much fancy AI or procedural tech you have, you can't magically teleport voice actors back into the studio each time someone scales to the tippity top of a dialog tree. So typically, the character just goes on infinite repeat, and that's the game's way of saying, “Alright, you can go away now. Nothing to see here. Go on, then! Shoo!”
Obviously, good writing -- and, perhaps more importantly, well-placed writing -- can help remedy this to a certain extent. But even then, in order for it to be effective, incredibly restrictive design constraints are pretty much required. Take Portal, for instance. As far as writing and dialog go, it's nearly untouchable. But it's also a few hours long, linear as a maze designed by a Medieval jouster, and good for roughly one playthrough -- at least, storywise. Moreover, one of its best story moments arises not from prose that'd make Shakespeare throw down his quill and pick up some Ben and Jerry's, but from the power of ever-so-slight suggestion.
Comments are closed on this article
Aelish
December 29, 2011 at 1:28pm
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newegg911
December 05, 2011 at 5:30pm
Although I like the Elder Scrolls, this aspect has always turned me off from open world games in general. In an open world there are just too many things that can break and kill your supension of disbelief.
Jeffredo
December 01, 2011 at 9:37pm
At least Oblivion was a little more generic in what NPCs would say to you as you got in range. I'm so sick of hearing "I work for Belethor at the General Store", and "I'm not afraid of you, you know!" and "I was an adventurer like you until I took an arrow in the knee" (which is becoming a meme its so stupid). Just have them say "Greetings!" or "Good day" and leave it at that.
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December 01, 2011 at 10:50am
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bling581
December 01, 2011 at 10:44am
Skyrim is an incredible game, but one of the things that have really annoyed me is the dialog. I can't stand the annoying kids that run up to you and spout off, especially when you aren't allowed to do anything to them. "Some may call them junk, but I call them treasures" is probably the most annoying line.
It may seem petty to be griping about the voice acting, but sometimes the little things actually make a big difference. When the NPC's are constantly speaking without you interacting with them and it's the same stuff all the time it gets pretty dull.
Can't wait for a good voice over mod.
wrldqueeek
December 01, 2011 at 8:54am
To comment on what you said about Portal; When I played it, I understood that I was "supposed" to feel some attachment to the companion cube, but I couldn't get past the logical reasoning "It's just a cube, now open the door"
I'm not the only one, right?
Cooketh
December 01, 2011 at 12:24am
You can't even mention dialogue in the video game world and not mention Deus Human Revolution and, more importantly, Mass Effect (1 and 2, yes both).
I know this is more a cynic rant type of article so talking about games that get dialogue right isn't the focus, but you did briefly go into Portal 2 and Ico on their merits of sucessfully remedying alot of the dialogue issues most games have. Yet you do not mention Human Revolution or the Mass Effect series?
I still think the coolest part of Human Revolution are the dialogue sequences where you get to use your social augment. It's cool, unique, entertaining even on a 2nd and 3rd playthrough, and is thought provoking in terms of ingenuity. It's an ingeniously fun and creative gameplay mechanism.
And the Mass Effect series, most notably the 2nd Mass Effect, speaks for it (no pun intended). Change the video game dialogue interaction is approached altogether. What Bioware did for dialogue in Mass Effect 1 & 2 (and kotor to some extent), is as revolutionary to gaming as Halo 2 was in removing the health bar from first person shooters (something that is whole heartidly the standard today).
Skyrim's focus was never dialogue, and no one expected it to be, especially when Bethesda told us that while the Dialogue interactions improved (and the idle NPC to NPC chitchat is a little less insane), it's still nothing to write home about, spoken word for word almost.
I relate to the article and agree with just about everything in it, I'm just utterly shell shocked that Human Rev and ME weren't mentioned.
Roll Tide
November 30, 2011 at 9:50pm
how about this? have an option to dynamite the NPC that really cant help you anymore ala yogscast?
Espresso77
November 30, 2011 at 8:57pm
I think everyone's personal play style might affect this alot. I'm roughly 60 hours in on my first play through of Skyrim, and I don't recognize either of the quoted lines. In fact, this article made me realize that I hadn't heard, or at least hadn't noticed, repeated dialogue. With the extreme exception of "I'm sworn to carry your burdens."
I wonder if future incarnations of elder scrolls or fallout series could effectively employ something like a computer vocalized chat bot. (eg. Dynamically continue a conversation or create quests with a mad lib style formula that makes sense for the npc, your character, your character's relationship to the npc, and surrounding events.)
Or a possible intermediary step of vocalized text adventure engine where you speak and the game speaks back to replace the normal text commands.
Sorry going a little off topic, this is just the kind of thing I like to ponder.
CleverBullet
November 30, 2011 at 10:21pm
Half-Life sort of had this with the Black Mesa PA Guy (He sounded like he had horrible sentence rhythm). If you looked in the folder where his sound files were, there were files for each word he said and the game composed them via script.
Roll Tide
November 30, 2011 at 8:50pm
I read your article and whole hearedly agree except for the one statement below...
So typically, the character just goes on infinite repeat, and that's the game's way of saying, “Alright, you can go away now. Nothing to see here. Go on, then! Shoe!”
What enchanted shoe is this that scares away even the meanest of warriors. Is it a level 80 penny loafer that reduces health by 50% with each swat? Is it a flip flop that confuses the enemy with each slap? How about a croc that has real crocodile teeth? What prey tell is this most menacing of shoe that will cast us away?
ABouman
December 01, 2011 at 11:30am
Haha, it's a Chuck Taylor All Star of course. (and fixed. my bad. I blame the DayQuil I've been on all week).
Kinetic
November 30, 2011 at 8:07pm
You make some good points, but I think the biggest weakness of "talky" games is that they're mainly a chore to replay. That said, I still love games like Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect.
dgrmouse
November 30, 2011 at 7:39pm
Some interesting and valid points in this article - would be much more effective edited down to an article of about half the length.
poee
November 30, 2011 at 11:13pm
^this^
Nice style you have there, but applied so liberally it encumbers the article. Subtlety is louder than so much effort.
sladeofdark
December 01, 2011 at 10:10am
im so glad i am not the only person that notices that the young writer is a bit effusive, he will be great when he refines his style. i understand now what my academic writing professor was talking about when he told me to do the same thing.
Gezzer
November 30, 2011 at 4:43pm
All ready mentioned in another Skyrim article (the one about tweaking it) about how this is one of my pet peevs. How many people, who aren't pushing a shopping cart, do you encounter in any given day that say the same thing everytime you see them? I'd hazard a guess at none.
What's worse is this type of treatment to a game doesn't just totally break the immersiveness, it also makes me become less concerned with the over all story and interacting with the NPC's. I find I only talk with the NPCs that are either a mercent or a quest giver. I could care less about any NPC stories because I'll hear all about it as I walk by them anyway.
Now I understand that there has to be a limit to how many voice files a game has. Due to both size restrictions and the cost of creating a lot of dialog options. But since Skyrim has a reputation system why not have the NPCs say nothing other then their normal interacting dialog till you have a certain level with whatever faction they're part of. Then limit it to a common reaction. Things like "Greetings friend" or "You have a lot of nerve showing up here", and how often they say it depends on how far the reputation moves up or down. Then throw in a more unique line that is the character's own once in a blue moon. That way you'd start to tune out their more common comments and when they did say the extra comment it would be a surprise. Hopfully a pleasent and maybe even funny one.
It's simply a RPG check mark item. If you can say your game has every character "voiced" it's a great marketing tool. If every NPC's dialog is repeated ad nauseum then your feature becomes less of a positive one. Often to the point where you want to go on a reputation destroying killing spree just to get a moments peace.
Archangel1976
November 30, 2011 at 4:35pm
I think you hit on something I alluded to in an earlier post.
EVERYONE uses the same worn-out, old formula. This formula being..... game-on-tracks. 90%+ of games out there are really a choose-you-own-adventure book. Make decision A, B, or C.... turn to page X, Y, Z. Excluding a game like Minecraft, which is essentially LEGO's on a computer platform, all games have this inherent weakness.
EVE does a pretty good job of running the limits of this, and I really think they are running an idea that needs to be taken to that next step....... free-play. All of these video game universes lack the ability to be shaped by the people in them. That is the strength of an old pen-and-paper RPG versus a computer MMO: direct impact on the fictional reality.
Again, back to EVE, the makers of that game are going to introduce a FPS that "talks" with the people in the EVE Online world, and allow the people in one game, to interact and affect the outcome of the other game's world. THIS..... is a groundbreaking idea.
Imagine: World of Warcraft with a shapeable world. Horde invades Stormwind and takes over, but at the same time, Alliance took over Thunderbluff and kicked everyone off the mesa and started building a castle on top.
The major problem with this: every server would become a parallel universe. None would be the same and that creates a dev problem in a way. How do you introduce new content? At the same time though..... it's NOT a problem because you allow your player base to CREATE the new content by being the driving force. Another major issue.... lack of control. You might really have someone "destroy the world". Take that same scenario. You end up with a very unbalanced population.... one side essentially annihilates the other.
Really though, the future of gaming is not in creating a storyline for the player..... the future is in creating a fictional reality that allows greater freedom in creating their own story. Building a better sandbox instead of a better maze.
