JC. Denton always wears classes.

Deus Ex was about freedom of expression. Same philosophy as Dishonored. You're arguing against an entire branch of player choice.

If the game is completely mission-based (which we already know it isn't) with very little story, then dialog options don't make much sense. But that sounds like Call of Duty to me, and I'm already bored. But if the game is about exploration, side-quests and your character plays an important role in the shaping of the world, then the inability to manipulate the conversations is going to stand out bright and hideous.

However, I'm betting the "side-quests" aren't organized into a log-book, but are rather just available to be pursued within the simulation.

You hear two guards talking about the safe a few doors over, and you are able to go over and steal from it. However, even if you didn't hear the two guards talking about it you would still be able to go over and steal from it. You hear something interesting? You have to write it down yourself. It's all just part of the world, not a contrived game-state gimmick.

You're doing it again; pretending one thing eliminates the other. Even Elder Scroll games have things that exist in the world with which you can interact with or without officially taking on the quest for it.

Even when it appears in other games it appears sparingly and without any real consequence. The meat of the game is contained within dialogue trees and linear paths.

You should take that up with Bethesda, it has no relevance to what can be in a game like Dishonored. I merely pointed out that both systems work together, even in a clumsy game like Oblivion. Deus Ex succeeded at it much better. But eleven years later, and these philosophies have matured in the minds of men like Harvey Smith... imagine what could be.

We have a heart that reads minds and the power to posses people. I really can't see any use for talking to people. Really why would you need to talk to someone?

They seem to be building the story with the idea that they don't want to include a conversation system. Probably because they are severely limited and they want the game to be limitless. Wouldn't surprise me if they came out and said we played a mute character.

This is one of the most disheartening threads I've ever been a part of.

Why have dialog, why have story, why have exploration or RPG elements? Why have puzzles? why have any of it? It just gets in the way of the action.

It's all part of the simulation, that's why.

It's not about getting in the way of the action, it's about getting in the way of the immersion. We know how to have immersion in game play, but not in conversations. Dialog trees are a very artificial system and are very limited. They don't want to shoehorn player through a system that they can't make limitless.

Utter ballocks. No system is limitless, least of all a system that is meant to allow the player to alter the narrative.

I'm interested to see how far they can push it, but it won't even resemble limitlessness.

Pinky, since you're so adamant that a dialogue system could work really well (if taken to "the next level"). What would it be like?

What would be your ideal dialogue system?

Nothing is limitless, but the two systems are miles apart. In the world, Things can layer several small things till the options just explode. (you can see what I mean by that in the examples they have shown us. Possessing rats and things real dynamic and open stuff.) Dialog trees do not layer, or explode. The options you have are preset and limited by how many the developer can think of and is willing to directly add.

A system that reads your facial expressions and translates them into dialog choices. So you face palm, your character will express the same sentiment. That would be the best. You wouldn't even have to think, your character would just do what you think.

Some people seem to be implying that there were conversation trees in Deus Ex? There weren't. Occasionally you had dialogue options, but they were usually for choosing an item being offered to you, or sometimes a dialogue action in a boss encounter ('Flatlander Woman'). They appeared only very rarely otherwise. You couldn't role play JC Denton through dialogue. You couldn't choose the wise empathic dialogue, or the angry a-hole dialogue. You couldn't call your brother names, or yell at your boss, or whatever.

What you could do was play non-lethally, or avoid combat, or murder everyone, or save your brother or not, or kill Manderley or not, etc. You get the point. Any role playing happened in your actions during gameplay, not in a dialogue choice. That's how it should be.

In too many games important and dramatic options are played out in dialogue. I think that's boring. Take a Deus Ex example: in the 747 you could kill Navarre when she's bent on murdering Lebedev. You make that choice in your actions, and it's even more powerful that the game doesn't reveal that possibility to you. In a game like Mass Effect or many others, that choice would be explicitly spelled out for you in a dialogue option.

1. Kill Lebedev.
2. Kill Navarre.
3. Keep listening.

Or whatever. (Then the result would probably play out in a cutscene ...) I know which I'd prefer. Avoiding dialogue trees wherever possible is a good thing in this kind of game.

It sounds like the dialogue in Dishonored will convey useful or interesting information, but it won't amount to a minigame like it does in some games, and NPCs won't be information dump machines. And the game won't be a relationship simulator like Bioware's games have become.

Ahh, women and communication... I'm not a talkative guy, so conversations have always been the lowest of priorities for me in a game. While I'm a 1st person fanatic, killing and fighting have also never been my priority. What I like in games most is to think. It's natural to me to try and play a game more stealthy, even if the game doesn't support it, so the first thing that I always do is not to head straight into action, but to stop and observe, than think and develope ideas what to do and how to do it. I call it a creative approach.

A game that supports "thinking", by allowing you to discover different ways of approach, options that aren't obvious at first sight and multiple ways to interact with the world is what makes a good game for me.

On the other hand though, in Deus Ex communicating involved sometimes strategy and awareness. It was not awlays the best thing to say what you really wanted to say, but to observe who you are talking to and what is the best approach to deal with the person. Lying isn't really what I'm referring to, but it is always wiser to speak gentle and concessive (I figured out same goes for real life). Know your goal but be concessive and you may reach your goal, actually it is similar to a stealth approach. Indeed, stealth and conversation have more in common than it might appear.

But still, dialogues are my least priority in a game.

Offtopic: I am glad to see the deus ex gang here , I just need to figure out who is POM on here.

I don't understand all the negativity in this thread, conversations done right does not mean actions will be done wrong. Conversations that can be done right - Arcanum, PS:Torment. On that note Arcanum allowed a biggest freedom of actions that I know to current day.

Pinky is rightfully stating that talking is a large part of what humans do and if you present a "limitless" gameplay it is bit odd to leave it out like that. Sadly I would have to agree with what people are saying, from what I've read and seen about this game, it is not an RPG, but rather an open world Bioshock.

Thief is a good example for a game with game-play that doesn't have nor need dialogues. And it again sustains the point that Dishonored is not RPG nor does it have any of the role playing elements. It is purely an action game, comparing it to game with RPG twist is hit below the belt.

Sadly I feel that the cause of argument it is the lack of information and difference in expectation. I surely would love an open world Dues EX/Vtm:B (Or just Troika RPG) but Dishonored is not it, I would love it to be and would greatly enjoy a deep and varied dialogs but from what I can see it is not it.

It's a sad, ugly notion that a person could choose how to enter a building, but not how to respond in conversation. The simulation should cover this as well. A lot of us (though most of you seem to have forgotten) like the simulation. We like to mine NPCs for information and make choices in conversation. It allows us to roleplay further. It allows us to learn more about the world from those who live in it... or so the simulation would have you believe. It's beautiful when done well, and important.

If you don't like to talk in games, you can choose not to do it very often. But I can't choose to do it if the game is overly shallow in these areas. A deeper game-world is always preferable.


lol. I feel a dialog system would work well if taken to the same level it's been for ten years. You think they're terrible, and I simply expressed a belief that a studio like this could maybe do a better job and make it something you could stomach. I don't know how they would do it. But I'm not of a mind to believe anything is as good as it can possibly be. There's always room for improvement.

Player-driven Conversations, dialog, verbally interacting with the inhabitants of the world... these are the things that connect me to the world, not just the events. What's the point of shaping this world if you have no real connection to it. If all the people of the world are little more than an idea, if you can't walk up to one and have a chinwag, the game feels small and insignificant and sadly hollow. Balder's Gate II, KotOR, Deus Ex... these were games that made you feel connected to the people and land.

You put a deep, richly wrought dialog system into a title like Dishonored and you've got the best game ever made.

Argh, I can't make up my mind. It is a valid point that a well done comunication would not remove from the qualities of the game. Especially if it is optional, the more options there are for player to choose from the better it is. Defending the idea that less options is good is a sure way to (hell) saying that CoD is the best game ever made and there is no need for other ones.

The more I think about it the more I tend to agree that conversation options would be a good possiblity. The player would be able to possess bodies. Why would you lockpick/explode a door when you could possess a guard and ask "your pal" the other guard to open it? Information gathering is another logical idea, of course, you could make "listening in" and "note finding" a big deal but it that would ne working around the issue rather then solving it.

I almost bought Deus EX Human Revolutions but because i am playing someone else's vision of a character is will pass. There seems to be no way to play a female lead in a game with as many different paths the player is supposedly able to take. I have been driving some one else's characters for going on 15 years since i started in Doom 2 and i am pretty bored with it. Deus Ex sounds fantastic, Dishonored sounds fantastic when you expand your vision to include a possiblity for a female lead, send me an email and i will consider your product until then i will pass. I looked at Brink as well and passed on it for no female character models and that was the only reason. If your going to allow for a flexible and dynamic story that is centered around player choice then not allowing for a female lead totally defeats the purpose.

Asai

I've had some interesting discussions about this and I don't think so. To make a really well designed story with reactive character interaction the gender of the main character should be set. Men and women are treated differently in the real world. Men interact with men differently than women, and women interact with women differently than men. Men and women have inherently differnt ways of dealing with similar situations. When your main character is basically anyone and their mother, it's difficult to make the main character and their relations matter (and be believable) as a person within the story. Now, just because a game has only one gender, does that mean that the story is well crafted around a meaningful main character? No. But it's far easier for the devs to work this way.
Until then have fun with Mass Effect, VtM:B, and Invisible War.

Player choice in dialogue for this game would be great. As long as it is optional. I hope your character can talk. In many games like Bioshock I feel like a robot just obeying orders. I don't want that in the game.

And that is, in the first Bioshock at least, both the starting point to the fiction and the main plot twist. Which made the game feel great to me !

Corvo is essentially mute... sorry Pinky.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/podcasts/archive/2011/08/04/special-edition-podcast-dishonored.aspx

Darn

True, but he cold have at least had some personality for me to like him

I guess that's why you can hear your character's comments in all Infinite gameplay videos released so far...