In OB, NPCs repeated themselves too

I swear, Beth looks at the complaints about the dialogue from OB, does something about it, and now OB was OK to the same type of folks that used to complain about it, and Skyrim's dialogue is a problem

In my opinion, the common thread here is people like to complain

so that justifies it being worse in skyrim? if you complain about a pain in you wrist and i solve it by swinging a tire iron into your groin, you should be grateful?

the fact that we we can reference OB as a positive example just highlights how much skyrim failed to deliver. the conversations havent improved at all and have even worse execution. bethesda addressing the issue in some way is not nearly the same as actually fixing it. the random dialogue was wonky in OB, but that wasnt fixed, it was just removed and replaced with one endlessly repeating introduction that triggers way too often and never never ever stops.

instead of fixing your car, bethesda scrapped it and gave you a bike. i dont know about you, but the planet im from doesnt consider that the same as fixing.

it was replaced by the radiant story remember the "broken unwanted feature" that was scrapped

There are actually NPC-NPC conversations. The strange thing is it happens only between members of enemy factions. If you are a sneaky type, heard what the bandits have to say (between them) before you kill them/are discovered.

My friend, I'm honestly having a difficult time agreeing any more on this.

Well done. +1

Bring back intelligence? What intelligence? Are you talking about how Morrowind NPCs that would surrender and flee because you got to the high ground? Or the intelligence of Oblivion bandits who, when faced with a player that jumped on top of a rock out of melee range, simply kept swinging at the rock in vain hope of landing a hit? Or maybe those intelligent Daggerfall monsters that in their impatience get easily caught on dungeon corners?

I get the feeling the bulk of the development was put into the environments and atmosphere, at least that's where the biggest results were achieved. Or, that definitely had a priority over other things, like dynamic npc's, superior quest writing etc.

Well said. I hate it when Bethesda hears complaints about a feature, and instead of fix it they just throw out the whole thing and often replace it with something worse. At least in Oblivion, NPCs did an introduction, and then various greetings plus regular dialogue from then on. Skyrim has NPCs giving their introduction for all of eternity and almost nothing else.

"I've fought mudcrabs more fierce then you", "I saw a Mudcrab yesterday, horrible Creatures".

Nope Oblivion dialoge is much worse and that's only the tip of the iceberg. Skyrim is better, not perfect but much better.

The quality of dialogues is obviously the game's biggest flaw.

Scripted dialogue is better, I'm talking about standard ambient dialogue. Skyrim has virtually no ambient dialogue, all it has is NPCs endlessly repeating their introductions. Do you think that is a better alternative to the Oblivion system?

It would be fine if they limited how often it's triggered.

Most important mod of ANY TES game is one that limits the range of the NPC dialogs.

Yes I'm running past you, I'm armed and armored, I look busy, why are you telling me intimate details of your life as I run past? etc etc etc.

NPC dialogue in skyrim is even worse (in my opinion) then in oblivion. The problem of oblivion was that there were only 12 voice actors. Still I hope that the modders and the CK may greatly improve this. And they should improve it in some dlcs

I have heard random NPC-NPC dialogues, I remember recently one woman bought something from a merchant (or said she did, I doubt anything actually happened) on her husband's tab. However, I do agree with the generic lines problem, though in both Oblivion and Morrowind (yes, but in text) NPCs would repeat their introductions after a certain amount of time had passed (in Morrowind they did check if the player had interacted since though, and it was quite a while).

I like that they removed a lot of generic dialogue for most people; in real life, people wouldn't be that interested in talking to you randomly, however, the few lines they chose to give generic NPCs... aren't generic enough (Stop talking about being a sailor, just say "Hmm" or something simple that I can believe). On the one hand, a lot more NPCs are unique... in that they all get one special line to give you every. single. time. you speak to them.

The thing I don't get is why all NPCs talk to you. How about you mind your own darn business? Makes me feel like I'm in a theme park. Actually, all of Skyrim is like a theme park.

Exactly, attempting to should warrant a confused look, "Hmmphf" or insult if you continue to pester. Then you can focus on making the important NPCs much more interesting, and improve NPC to NPC behaviour

Yeah, I know right?
3 years of sitting by a computer designing a gigantic world filled with content.
Compete utter laziness.

All of Bethesda's games have terrible voice acting in my opinion. I should offer my services. They could use a proper actor of voice in their games. Some things should remain written and not spoken...

Certain aspects of the game have shoddy workmanship, which some people refer to as laziness. Ambient NPC dialogue was very poorly done in Skyrim, so many people refer to Bethesda's work on it as being lazily made.

If it isn't the slayer of the Glenmoril Witches. How can I assist you, Companion?

The voices file is 1.4GB. There is probably a limit of how much they could include. Its easier for smaller games with fewer npcs to give each more lines and conversation option.

Dialogue has some problems but I'm having a hard time thinking of anything that Oblivion did better than Skyrim...even dialogue.

One reason it sounds bad is that many NPCs have only one (or a small number of) greetings. I don't really fault Bethesda for that, because there are so many NPCs in the game there are only so many lines they can voice act.

But what makes this much worse is how they have to say something everytime you are in some vague vicinity of them. That is, in my opinion, a fault. The first mod I've installed keeps NPCs quiet unless you pretty much bump into them. So far that is my only mod, and I consider it an essential mod to stop the blather.


... the Altmer have powerful Wizards, it could be a dangerous situation.

The rumor turned out the be a very correct!

How is that proof that oblivions dialogue is better? Unless your refering to a time that someone said both one immediately after the other, which I never experienced let alone could not get away from hearing short of sitting in the middle of a forest not moving.

The first is a insult and suits it's purpose fine, would you like it if someone said to you you're weaker then a crab? the later is a commoner that went to trade some goods/visit someone and saw these common place creatures that attack on sight and are vile looking not to mention ripe with disease.

Yes both got said often but OB probally did have more choices in dialogue for situations, to some extent people talking in passes has been completely removed. And neither I would say where said any more often then I took an arrow to the knee (at least its more believable that everyone would have seen a mudcrab at somepoint over every single guard being an ex-adventurer that got shot in the knee of all places(plus why would your inablity to walk round alot and fight without pain make you a grand candidate for a guard post just to further drive home the poorly choices in dialogue writing) or being called a sneak thief. Plus there are people that literally have the one line and will repeat it over and over if you get anywhere near them.