[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by jjacob

(on keywords)
I just think it would avoid unnecessary confusion Especially in the beginning of a game, where the player would still have to get acquainted with the protagonist's character.

At the beginning... hm, it could work. What I'm concerned about is that it may seem like the PC is thinking too much about what to say. Often a story (especially if it's an RPG) starts with the PC in a comfortable routine, so that just wouldn't make any sense. Better to just have the early dialogues be fairly inconsequential, so that the player just gets the hang of the three buttons in a risk-free environment, and introduce the keywords only when trouble starts. But then taking them away would be awkward. Nah, it wouldn't work.

Why what happened?

Why the character acted differently than the player anticipated.

The player has to anticipate the dialogue intuitively, not evaluate it in hindsight. We may be talking about a significant amount of trial-and-error in places players would not expect nor desire it.

I don't understand what you're talking about. What trial and error? Didn't I say the idea was to have the player only go through each dialogue once? If it goes badly, you move on. Oh well. That's life. Or do you mean an error in anticipating the character's next move? There's no error unless the player makes a faulty assumption. That's the player's problem, not mine.

And why should the player know exactly what the character's going to talk about? Here, I'll give you an example. Early on in a game, the character should always know more than the player. I mean, he wasn't born at the moment the player started playing. Try to work around the player's inability to anticipate dialogue, and he can't get to know the backstory by being surprised by the PC's statements. The player should try to anticipate the dialogue, certainly, but I don't see why he should be able to right from the start. He should grow into the character with time.

And, as I said, it might take as long as half the game before the player gets acquainted with the protagonist's character.

Is this a bad thing? It's good for replay value, the connection between player and character will be more satisfying, the character will seem to have more depth. Where's the problem in keeping the player in the dark for a while? I think it's good that he should have to put something into it to get anything out. We're so used to culture spoon-feeding us, telling us everything we need to know right at the start, but it doesn't have to be that way.

I have to disagree with you there; how the hell would the player know what say, "inquiry" would result in? Besides, I don't want to think a minute before saying something, I don't want to have 20-minute conversations with an NPC and having to constantly relate to a PC's character, especially if that person is something I don't like or totally can't relate to (and I've had this with many protagonists already).

It's an acquired language. A little time with the three buttons, and you'd start to understand it intuitively. I have- Even though I charted out the whole thing, it's hard for me to think of any of that as I'm playing. All I see is that I'm giving a command and the character's following it in his own way. Then again, it may help that I've dealt with this character often before, so I know him well. At first, the player might have to struggle a bit, but I think it would quickly become second nature to control the character.

As I said, is that the kind of trial and error a player would find desirable in a game? And as you say, "eventually" may not be quick enough for the many people with a relatively short attention span.

I'm not interested if the player will find it "desirable", or if the player has ADD. If the player isn't sophisticated enough to handle a good character, screw 'im. I'm sick of all this lowest common denominator-targeting trash we see. Players can adapt to something more serious.