Suggestion for all games: Dialogue log

[Ryan Timothy B]

Hmm I guess you're right.  I took a look myself.  I always figured any text lines would go to a function in the global script where it determines the length of text, thus creating the display time for that line of text.

Looks like you'd have to recreate your own dialog functions, just so you could do this.

[Kweepa]

Slightly off-topic, but I think it would be great if the "skip" mousebutton/keypress command was disabled just after the current line changed on its own.

I agree
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=14242.0

[qptain Nemo]

Slightly off-topic, but I think it would be great if the "skip" mousebutton/keypress command was disabled just after the current line changed on its own. The way I usually miss a line is when I want to skip the previous line, but it changes just before I hit the button, so I skip the next line instead. For this reason, I'm often afraid to press the skip button, especially on short lines.

Oh, I so much agree with this.

And usually I don't use conversation logs in games which have it. Personally I'd rather reload a savegame and talk again, it's kinda more fun.

[Trihan]

Torin's Passage did this. If you clicked on the little button above the main console, you could see a transcript of the past dialogue.

[Vince Twelve]

Yes often the dialogue can be repeated by talking to characters again, but sometimes that particular dialogue option disappears after use, or your character says something the first time they do something or enter a location and they won't say it again unless you load up and replay.

This is a point that absolutely should be avoided by game developers.  I was planning on making a WYGIB with this point.

If a character says an important piece of information, whether it be the code for a safe, or a hint about what to do to move on, it must be possible for the player to hear that information again. 

Imagine talking to a character, choosing the option "What can I do for you?" and having that character tell you "I've hidden a note under the fourth rock from the left near the cabin in the woods.  Bring it to me."  Then, that dialog option disappears.

If the player now saves and quits and comes back several days later, he will likely have no idea what it was he was supposed to do for this character.

In this case, it's probably best to create a dialog option that says "What was it you wanted again?" or something like that, and have it never disappear.  Another solution would be to have a dialog log, but it had better be easy to search through to find information from a specific character.

Anyway, the player should never have to load and go back to a certain point in the game to retrieve information that he either forgot or accidentally skipped.  That's bad design practice IMO.  All pertinent information should be available (if obfuscated) to the player at the time that it is needed.

Edit: However, I don't see missing small comments or jokes as being a problem worth creating a dialog log for.

[Trihan]

I agree wholeheartedly with Vince. Any piece of information in a game imparted through text that's going to prove vital to progressing in said game should always be accessible at a later date whenever the player needs it.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

If a character says an important piece of information, whether it be the code for a safe, or a hint about what to do to move on, it must be possible for the player to hear that information again.

Imagine talking to a character, choosing the option "What can I do for you?" and having that character tell you "I've hidden a note under the fourth rock from the left near the cabin in the woods.  Bring it to me."  Then, that dialog option disappears.

While I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, often people don't put the extra effort forth to make repeat dialog different.  It seems more like you're speaking to a recorded message than a real person, so if they need to help you with something specific, add some variations to their responses to keep it fresh, like:

'I already told you the code to the safe!'

'B...but, I forgot it.'

'It's 2102.  How hard can that be to remember?'

and

'WHAT?  You forgot the code AGAIN?  It's 2102 for crying out loud.  Can't you write it down on your hand or something?'

'You're a mean old man and I don't like you.'

'It's my job, sonny.  Now go jump in some lava or something.'

and

'2102.  TWENTY-ONE-OH-TWO!'


You don't have to have a mean old man telling you these things, of course, but variations in dialog go a long way to establishing character. 

[Dualnames]

Moreover usually seen in games is that if you skip the dialog and then ask the character again he know has dialog options to remind you what to do.

[TheJBurger]

If a character says an important piece of information, whether it be the code for a safe, or a hint about what to do to move on, it must be possible for the player to hear that information again.

Imagine talking to a character, choosing the option "What can I do for you?" and having that character tell you "I've hidden a note under the fourth rock from the left near the cabin in the woods.  Bring it to me."  Then, that dialog option disappears.

I would normally agree with this, but in some cases it just makes the puzzles and solutions so blatantly obvious. A while back I think I was playing Two Of A Kind--this was a very long time ago, so my memory may be incorrect--and most of the characters had this dialog option enabled. If they required you to complete a task or some-odd, important options would re-enable every time you respoke to characters. For example, you spoke to a store keeper who said it was 'crazy hat day' and then that dialog option remained there, informing you that you somehow had to get a crazy hat for I can't remember why. It was nice because you wouldn't forget your goals, but I also saw it as too informative in the sense that they were basically telling you every puzzle you needed to do until you completed it.

Yes, player goals should be there and be able to be re-seen by the player, but sometimes they are highlighted a little too much, in my opinion.

I don't know. That was a bad example, but I can't think of a better one from my four-year old withering memory.

[qptain Nemo]

Well, you are thinking positively here, BUT

Good adventure games don't only consist of such puzzles like 'ask what to do and do that'. The most interesting puzzles are aimed at your perception. You notice some facts or even patterns of facts in the surroundings and interfere with them to achieve what you need. And actions that you take are based on your observations and conclusions not on some instant tips. For the simpliest roughest example let's make up some guy who likes to drink alcohol and we of course need to get something from him by getting him drunk. The fact that he is a drunkard is told by himself or somebody else, but we're not too familiar or friendly with him so it's supposed to be some subtle gossip about him, not a direct request from him like 'make me drunk and i'll give what you need'. So, you see, in this case you can't make a dialog branch like 'Oh, I forgot, WHAT did you say he likes?' - 'He is a DRUNKARD, silly! He likes to DRINK! *WINK* *WINK*' because it'll make the puzzle ridiculously obvious. You just have to make most of meaningful dialogs re-talkable. Also what if a game also has a lot of good writing and dialog not directly necessary to solve puzzles? If you are putting logs into it you're either going to roughly highlight important things by including only vital pieces of dialog in logs or make lot of pages of plain text which will put away anybody. Once again, it would be more fun to listen to characters say that again than to read/scan all these pages, no?

So what I'm trying to say it that adventure game player should pay some attention to stuff in the game after all. Of course the adventure game has to have things which are quite possible to remember or that's a bad game. But still I haven't seen a shooter that had a 'Oops! I mindlessly spent all my bullets because I'm a dumbass, so give 'em back to me, please' feature. Why return unrationally spent attention? Anyway, I think the ability simply to retalk about something is enough.
On the other hand I'm not at all against some sort of notebook or maybe even a little database where main character puts important things. Is it controversal to what I said before? Do I make sense at all?  You decide.

p.s. Lol, while I was typing this, JBurger already posted thoughts quite close to mine.   

[Trihan]

I think that the negative point here is against games that remove important dialogue options that, without the ability to revisit them, make puzzles that take into account things said during this dialogue practically impossible.

That is to say, if a character reveals -vital- information that you need to remember in order to progress, yet after talking about it you can never access that conversation again. (And I have played games that do this)