The worst dialogue options are the ones like "Who is Boethiah?" Are you a freaking moron? Are you so ignorant of the world you live in that you don't even know the gods that threaten your very existence, or the gods that inhabit the same realm as you? I mean, I can see it in some rare circumstances. Like, a Khajiit might ask "Who is Dagon?" merely out of ignorance that the humans call the Khajiit god, Merrunz, "Mehrunes Dagon." But to flat out not know? I mean, I understand offering the player ways of learning about the lore of the world and who the gods are and such, but it implies the character has been living under a rock. Why not "What can you tell me about Dagon?" or something along those lines?

Other than that, I really didn't notice any times where I was forced to sound stupid. On the contrary, I was pleased that I was able to sound knowledgeable most of the times, but maybe that's just me.

Yes. So much yes.

I do, however, understand why some options are vague, so you can use your imagination, but those that do give detail, like the ones you mentioned, should be more like Fallout 3. In place of Intellegence Strenght and Endurance, the skill requirements for "better" dialogue options should be mana stamina and health respectively, as these things are related in virtually all fantasy settings. I never felt more immersed in a game than I did when conversing with people in Fallout 3 and New Vegas. I felt like I was actually educated in certain fields, and that my choices helped design a unique character. The same should occur in Skyrim. If the wizard in Whiterun is calling me an idiot, I should be able to retort with a complex intellegent statement that surprises him and makes him respect me from then on. Just some little dialogue changes is what I'm asking for really

I have to disagree with the specific example you gave. Responses like that are meant to express a common theme in the elder scrolls: the ignorance of the masses. While the PLAYER can go online and has played past games and has dictionaries and is electronically connected to every culture on earth, the people of Tamriel are not. There are many people who only have a passing knowledge of the daedra as "scary demons" and those that actually have an understanding of their true natures are either devout worshippers or scholars. THAT is why it's a dialogue option

This is a very good point. In Mass Effect, your options are "Be extremely kind and svck up" - "Be emotionless, ask a lot of questions, and be boring" - "Be a roid-raging maniac shouting and punching everyone all the time for no reason"

I mean, my Nord Warrior character would, in my mind, be more or less similar to the default chat options. However my Dark Elf hybrid guy who I much prefer would generally be deep, dark, quiet, and intelligent. The only time I can really play him like this is during the Dark Brotherhood questline, being able to say dark thing, or nothing at all.

I've had enough of your disingenuous assertions.

*SHEPARD PAWNCH!*

...how do you amicably brawl with someone?

"Hello, good chap, fancy a fist fight?"

Alcohol has remarkable qualities.

And as I recall there is an orc in one of the strongholds who brawls you rather cordially

Come now, let us duel like proper gentlemen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdd3_qx6Eqw

I would've preferred FO3 type dialouge where we had different responses based on skills or attributes (though these would be much more simplistic with just 3 attributes). Dragon Age Origins had a pretty good system too, you had a variety of responses that would spark different reactions in NPCs. Some of Skyrim's dialouge does make you sound like a dunce, but I normally use each option because I want to hear what they'll say in response.

The lack of real dialouge trees annoy me more than bad default responses though. Often you'll get just 2 responses if you're lucky (normally an answer of "affirmative" or "negative"), sometimes all you get is 1 option prompting them to continue or saying yes.

I don't think its that big of a deal. They obviously made it this way for the casual gamer who only opens books for the skill perks.

fallout 3 and NV blow TES out of the water in this regard. there was all kinds of dialogue options that sprang up based on your stats and skills, so if your were smart you wouldnt have to keep asking for something to be completely spelled out, or if you were good at computers you might spout some technobabble that makes it seem like you actually know computers.

skyrim is almost like what happens when you min/max and put your intelligence at 1 to increase your other skills:

"hey, can you do something for me?"

"DUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRR....."

*quest added*

if they dont want to spend the meager effort to implement some proper text based responses, they should just do what morrowind did and have generic "yes no rumors" choices so you can fill in the blank yourselves. dialogue pertaining to lore that the player might not know can be easily worded in ways that dont make your character look like a simpleton. instead of "who is this talos person you speak of?" say "tiber septim was a nord before he became talos... how are the people of skyrim handling the ban on his worship?". in the end its just an excuse for the NPC to go into an expository speech then instead of turning into history teachers, they say "everyone had their own little shrine despite the ban... talos conquered the old elven dominion and ascended from mortality to godhood, the least the rest of the nords could do was keep paying their respects. of course, the stormcloaks had to stir up trouble and now the thalmor are taking people off the streets! they probably feel the god of warriors and generals will bless their cause if they refuse to stop worshiping him."

story telling 101 bethesda, seriously. blend exposition into a conversation.

Some dialogue options are extremely unsuitable for both my character and myself. "Who is Stendarr", "Who is Akatosh", "Who is Meridia", "Who is Malacath", "Who was Tiber Septim", "Who were the blades", "where do you [Kahjiit] come from", etc etc.

I guess those dialogue options are great for newcomers to the series, but if you know anything about TES lore and if you're trying to roleplay as a knowledgeable, cultured Imperial, they make you feel stupid and without a voice. Most dialogue seems geared toward simplistic, introductory options.

Apparently the knowledgeable option is to push tab and end the conversation;
hardly a coincidence when multiple dialogues with mages in quests tend to only have only dialogue options of "big words hurts head" to "nerd derp"

Wonder why they didn't bother to take skill checks from fallout; too many numbers makes frat boys squirm ?

Yeah, not sure I agree with this. DAO had some of the best player dialog I've come across. And DA2 was considerably dumbed down but still offered more choice than Skyrim - and it was voiced. One of the major benefits of not voicing the main character is supposed to be a bigger selection of dialog options.

You could simply not ask them. Just exit the conversation. That's what I do.

On the other hand, once one of those questions has been asked and answered, there's no need for it to turn up in every conversation afterwards. Or do people really forget things that quickly?

Absolutely! This is the main reason I couldn't play mass Effect. I make up the dialogue and voice in my head. the moment the game does it for me, it isn't my character anymore.
I love Bethesda for giving us that freedom, and hope they'll never change to a Dragon Age or even worse (shudder) a Mass Effect system.
Use your imagination people

" 'We found some sort of orb thing....' "



yea, you don't wan't to chose that dialogue option to sound smart. i have only seen other people make that choice. when you explain to him that you have found something in the ruins you don't want to attempt to explain it with your limited knowledge on the subject (or at least that is the way the mighty arch-mage perceived it) but be blunt and present what it is you do know: "tolfdir said to come and find you. we found something in the ruins and he wanted you to check it out". it was just simple choice and he doesn't seem care either way. i think he's a [censored] and he deserves the pain he endures.

i actually figured that i was just screaming whatever topic word i chose.

DUNMER!?!?!?

EMPEROR TIBER SEPTIM?!?

DWEMER PUZZLE BOX!?!?!?

LEVER!?!?!?!?

That made my night for some reason..

I always reply verbally when nobody's around. Which is fun since my main is a lizzie, my second is a Khajiit lass and my third is.. for simplicity's sake we're gonna call him a really manly Altmer. Easier than 'Fifth-dimensional Prince whose race just happens to be yellow,' yes?

Point is, I fill in the gaps mentally, but the dialog in Fallout often made me smile in its own right and I'd love more like it in mah TES; I rarely found issue with my character saying the lines I had to pick in FO.

edit: To Mass Effect's credit, (and I only say this because of the Bioware vs gamesas thing going on here) the voice gives a lot of life and the dialog options are nice. Downside is having just a male and female voice means having more than two characters in a ME game is.. strained. Jim and Enyo do sound nice voiced, though.