Please make the world more responsive & immersive through dialogs !

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Hello,

as a story player, I immediately notice "quirks" regarding dialogs.

Sometimes, there's some kind of "hole" (maybe plot hole", sometimes, it's just some kind of un-responsiveness.

The other day I was doing the "Oath Of Vengeance" quest in Raveloft.

I was finding out that there was a room filled like with a small council. I talked to the NPCs. I was directed to the commander of the inhabitants.

After placing the skull into the Mausoleum, the voice can be heard that "the oath is lifted" or "unbound" or something in this meaning..

After that, I was eager to talk to the council, eager to learn what they would do now, since the oath was lifted.

But ... the council gave me the same replies.
And that even although I fully expected the voice to be heard by *everyone* within this castle.

This is a kind of "hole" or "unresponsiveness" I meant above. I do realize that micromanagement of so many dialogs is a big thing, and consumes a *lot* of workload,
but on the other hand, immersion is not only created by the looks of a game.

Of course, most quests are zerged through by the majority - as it is a habit in ALL MMOs - which means that people don't really see and thus don't really acknowledge the sheer amount of work that has been going into building a quest - or a world - an expansion - in this case.
I often write that from a cynical point of view . Zergers don't need ANYTHING, but a longish tunnel made of concrete, and a chest of that tunnel. No dialogs, no graphics, no colours needed at all, only xp & loot.

I DO know that the story players are a dying race since Blizzard invented the Action-RPG. Or have always been from the start.

My background as a player comes from the now died-out Adventure Games genre - a genre that had its high time in the 90s, with Sierra and LucasArts at the top, I think.
It has died out, and ... I don't really want to muse about why. It would lead too far into rants & ramblings.
Fact is, that it has died out, and that everyone is playing for p & loot these days ... - no mattzer, which game. Even in single player RPGs, I suspect.

To me, role-playing was nothing but an expansion of playing a story in an adventure game. To me, RPgs WERE in fact Adventure Games ! They only had a few mechanics added, like levelling up, and the use of items for [b]survival/b] (the old Realms Of Arcania games, and the upcoming Realms Of Beyond game). Role-playing games were in fact also ome kind of survival game to me : Your character could die of weather (light clothing in winter !), illnesses (and having no cure for that !) or of enemies (like Orcs, for example).

Besides, this would make up an interesting mechanic : Items protecting the wearer from weather effects, like lightning striking during a storm, or mists (Ravenloft !), or sun beams (desert ! Light beams can already kill !) or clouds made up from swamp gas (like the spell "Stinking Cloud" !). They could act as DOTs.

Immersion is essential for story players. The more immersive a game is, the better the "head cinema" is, the better the game stays in/as good memories.

Me, personally, I can have a great time because of reading novels. My "head cinema" kicks in with full force, then.

Maybe, and that's one of my theories, this is a definitive plus Introverts have.

Introverts are often considered as strange und weird, because they are not so much understandable by extroverts. And extroversion is seemingly the standard in the U.S. and in many other countries.
Thus, games are built for Extroverts.

And, as a result of this shunning of Introverts, the Adventure genre has fully died out.

Extroverts' "loot games" and "kill games" (like Assassin's, Hitman etc.) have become the norm. These have strong visuals, strong impacts, so much stronger, because Extroverts draw their energy and everything from the outside of them, they need strong emotional incubators (through graphics) because of that. That's why, my theory goes, there are often games with excessive graphics of violence. Extroverts would not be touched like subtle things. Not by small things.

Introverts, and also HSPs, absolutely LOVE these small little details !
And they are also the types of players who notice things like that small Ravenloft quest problem I mentioned above.

Introverts really don't need excessive graphics. They don't need ecessive violence. Introverts don't need strong emotion incubators at all. Quite the contrary.
Sometimes, that excessive that Extroverts need is far too much for introverts.

But, since the "gaming industry" is developing solely for Extroverts - apart from the Indies, maybe, no-one notices that there are DIFFERENT kinds of players.
No-one in "the industry" notices the difference between the kinds of players. And since Extroverts are SO MUCH LOUDER than Introverts, they alw<ays get the kids of games they want.
I even suspect that Extroverts heads of gaming companies (like Mr. Kotick) decide to only develop games that would please THEM. Fully assuming that the players are much like the company's boss.

Personally - and yes, I'm so totally selfish ;D - I want more games for Introverts. I'm so much fed up with what's going on in "the gaming industry" these days.

That's why I love DDO : It's one of the most immersive games I've played in the recent years - and it often isn't as grim as so many other games are, which is a plus in my very personal opinion.
I do with there were more games out there that are so much "old school" like DDO.

But because of that, I also notice "quirks" and "holes" much more often. Like NPCs says the same again AFTER the quest has been fulfilled. Or, in the case of the "Oath Of Vengeance", the skull suddenly lying next to the quest giver again, even although
1. according to the quest, it lies within the mausoleaum
2. I am the only inhabitant of the whole Ravenloft world instance.

A great way how it was imho done RIGHT are imho :
1. Snowy + Sunny Korthos
2. The end of the "Phiarlan Carnival" chain, when you just get out of the very last quest into that small plaza, and then visit the Livewood Theatre for the very first time after that !
That was a great experience !

Alrik

[OfElectricMen]

Or devote time and resources to fixing the many things still broken in the game.