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Would you play an MMO without NPC dialogue in it?

FaileasFaileas Member UncommonPosts: 84
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Would you play an MMO without NPC dialogue in it?
  1. Yes13 votes
    1. No
      46.15%
    2. Whatevs
      15.38%
    3. Can I have my item now, please?
        7.69%
    4. *FURIOUSLY PRESSES THE ENTER KEY*
      30.77%

Comments

  • UngoodUngood Member LegendaryPosts: 7,534
    I like game world lore, and at least the illusion of there being reasons why I am a murder hobo, but at the same time I can't say that I enjoy having a long drawn out storyline shoved down my throat
    Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.

  • FaileasFaileas Member UncommonPosts: 84
    Ungood said:
    I am a murder hobo

    MurderHobo, I like that. Do you mind if I borrow that name for my next character? :)

    Ungood said:
    I can't say that I enjoy having a long drawn out storyline shoved down my throat

    My worst nightmare would be if there was no skipping option and you could not exit the game either.  Come to think of it, that's kind of how I feel about life most days.

    Ungood said:
    I like game world lore
    Bwahaha, what lore? You call that pulp "world lore"? I don't think I've ever played an MMO with a truly compelling story before...

  • UngoodUngood Member LegendaryPosts: 7,534
    Faileas said:Koa
    Ungood said:
    I am a murder hobo

    MurderHobo, I like that. Do you mind if I borrow that name for my next character? :)

    Ungood said:
    I can't say that I enjoy having a long drawn out storyline shoved down my throat

    My worst nightmare would be if there was no skipping option and you could not exit the game either.  Come to think of it, that's kind of how I feel about life most days.

    Ungood said:
    I like game world lore
    Bwahaha, what lore? You call that pulp "world lore"? I don't think I've ever played an MMO with a truly compelling story before...


    Murder Hobo is a pretty common gaming reference, so, you might have a hard time securing it for an mmo,but by all means, have fun with it.

    Wold lore. The setting, the situation, why things are as they are. Without lore, what is even the point of the game.

    Might as well play Pac-Man, if all you want from a game is loot and something to kill

    KyleranPo_gg[Deleted User]
    Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.

  • fineflufffinefluff Member RarePosts: 561
    Sometimes less is more. More dialogue does not make a game better. I would rather read a good book tbh. After completing Stormblood and Shadowbringers back to back, I'm burnt out on game dialogue. There is a lot of talking in FFXIV, probably more than any game I've played. Even though I enjoyed most it, it did not move me or have the same impact as other games and stories I've read.

    The world can still be steeped in mystery and lore without too much talking (dark souls). There's other ways to convey story, such as journal entries, item descriptions, the environment and enemy designs. When there is less, you can give it more of your attention and it can have a greater impact.
  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 43,974
    I confess, ESOs NPC dialogue is over the top, I try to read some of them, usually skip the voice overs, and rarely am intrigued by any of the dialogue, but I'll give them credit for trying.

    As said above, world lore is very important, in EVE I really did feel at times I was "living" in that universe, same for FO76 in a different way.


    Ungood[Deleted User]

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    Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm

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  • UngoodUngood Member LegendaryPosts: 7,534
    Kyleran said:
    I confess, ESOs NPC dialogue is over the top, I try to read some of them, usually skip the voice overs, and rarely am intrigued by any of the dialogue, but I'll give them credit for trying.

    As said above, world lore is very important, in EVE I really did feel at times I was "living" in that universe, same for FO76 in a different way.



    This was something I loved about DDO was that there were random NPCs that would be talking around you, giving all kinds of insight into the world and the larger picture.

    Added such a really cool dynamic, that it was there but not being shoved down my throat.

    But then again, in DDO there was no illusion that you were anything other than a murder hobo that was looking to make their fame and fortune through a trail of bodies.

    One of the funniest lines in game to was, when a druid was fussing that a bunch of Drugar were strip mining the area for gold and gems, destroying the natural beauty of the island and wants your character to drive them out and destroy their operation, and your character responds with. "gold, gems, your story moves me druid"
    Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.

  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 32,779
    Of course I would. But I don't mind NPC dialogue (assuming you mean recorded) and if it's done well then I enjoy it.

    I prefer spoken/recorded dialogue over just written and if the quests/information is just filler grade text then I'd rather none of it.
    Ungood[Deleted User]
    Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb." 

    Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w


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    Try the "Special Edition." 'Cause it's "Special." https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/64878/?tab=description

    Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo 
  • TokkenTokken Member EpicPosts: 3,644
    No. NPC's and their dialog is important to me. er.... thinking Fallout76 when it launched. 
    UngoodKyleranPo_gg

    Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004!  Make PvE GREAT Again!

  • Robert5421Robert5421 Newbie CommonPosts: 1
    edited March 2021
    Would any of you play an MMO if you just had to be say, a castle guard? edit: If your You also need to accept that storyline is not the focus of an MMO. It's less Praise by other players will always outweigh glorification by NPCs. 121

    expressHR login
    Post edited by Robert5421 on
    Ungood
  • TheocritusTheocritus Member LegendaryPosts: 9,974
    What  I look for is a fun world to explore and play in...The quests really don't mean much to me...it's why Everquest was such a good match for me....Lots of exploration, lots of bosses, lots of Zones, and not much need in terms of NPC interaction.
    Ungood
  • Po_ggPo_gg Member EpicPosts: 5,749
    My main focus in an MMORPG (besides the community aspect ofc) is story/lore and the world building, so I most likely wouldn't play one in the question.
    Maybe would give it a try just to see the rest of the mechanics and ideas, but wouldn't stay for long.

    There was a similar thread in the past about "skipping the text", I'm the full-on antithesis of that player mindset :) 
    I read everything, gather up all the lore morsels, talk to everyone, making notes during play... I'm the kinda player the game writer team aims to please.
    Ungood
  • GorweGorwe Member Posts: 1,593
    Depends on other factors. How engrossing the gameplay is, whether story and lore are communicated through gameplay etc...

    I wouldn't mind an (MMO)RPG with minimal, EFFICIENT dialogues / storytelling(like Dark Souls, just less weird tyvm), but with ABSOLUTELY NO dialogue? Yeah, that's an extreme, I think I'll pass.

    (I don't mind dialogue heavy games, but let's try to stay modern. Standing around, doing nothing while an entire book's worth is vomited at you is simply boring to me nowadays)
  • KnightFalzKnightFalz Member EpicPosts: 4,522
    If I was interested in the game, sure.
  • FaileasFaileas Member UncommonPosts: 84
    Ungood said:
    Might as well play Pac-Man, if all you want from a game is loot and something to kill

    But Pac-Man doesn't even drop loot, does he?
    finefluff said:
    Sometimes less is more. More dialogue does not make a game better. I would rather read a good book tbh. After completing Stormblood and Shadowbringers back to back, I'm burnt out on game dialogue. There is a lot of talking in FFXIV, probably more than any game I've played. Even though I enjoyed most it, it did not move me or have the same impact as other games and stories I've read.
    This. This is exactly how I feel when it comes to game dialogue. I don't like to hear voices. Just as I don't like most film adaptation of books. When I read books, I imagine an entire story playing out in my mind. I see precisely how the characters behave, act and sound like. The only game that come to mind where I absolutely ADORED the voice acting/dialogue was FF Tactics War of the Lions and FFXII... 
    finefluff said:
    The world can still be steeped in mystery and lore without too much talking (dark souls). There's other ways to convey story, such as journal entries, item descriptions, the environment and enemy designs. When there is less, you can give it more of your attention and it can have a greater impact.
    ICO, Shadow of the Colusses, Ocarina of Time. These games are very precious to me and they had no single voice acting in them. Except for Ocarina of Time where the dialogue was mostly gibberish, but that had its own charm. I think I'm okay with voice dialogue as long as they're done by professional stage actors and/or are gabblygook. 
    Sovrath said:
    Of course I would. But I don't mind NPC dialogue (assuming you mean recorded) and if it's done well then I enjoy it.

    I prefer spoken/recorded dialogue over just written and if the quests/information is just filler grade text then I'd rather none of it.
    I was pleasantly surprised by Blade & Soul's NPC voice acting (yeah guys, I've been out of the loop for so long that this is the only MMO I've played since 2000 something). Back in the day I would always shutdown NPC voice dialogue, because their voices always sounded so nasally and amateurish. If they were as funny as this, I probably wouldn't skip though. :) 
    Would any of you play an MMO if you just had to be say, a castle guard?
    Yeah. What is the gameplay like, though? Do I get to stare menacingly at people passing by? Please tell me more. I think we're on to something incredible.
    Po_gg said:
    I read everything, gather up all the lore morsels, talk to everyone, making notes during play... I'm the kinda player the game writer team aims to please.
    Oh my... Bless your sweet soul, Sir/Madam. You are too good for this world. :( I really like your dedication and inquisitive spirit. I'll be honest, I just smash the skip button over and over again until I've received my due reward. My motto is: "Don't talk to me unless it's important or about ghosts." 
    remsleep said:
    Not only that I would - i have and it was totally fine.

    I play most mmos without ever reading a line of npc dialogue period- because its such shit.
    I admire your brutal honesty. Too bad I'm too much of a coward to confess it so bluntly... But yes, I'm the same as you. :( 
    Gorwe said:
    I wouldn't mind an (MMO)RPG with minimal, EFFICIENT dialogues / storytelling(like Dark Souls, just less weird tyvm), but with ABSOLUTELY NO dialogue? Yeah, that's an extreme, I think I'll pass.
    I think it could be an interesting experiment. I would be quite intrigued to see how an MMO or game would pull off having zero dialogue... Actually, ICO did that. It had almost ZERO dialogue in it throughout the entire game. Very relaxing experience. Almost like you're in a daze... 
    Gorwe said:
    (...Standing around, doing nothing while an entire book's worth is vomited at you is simply boring to me nowadays)
    You just haven't found the right Audiobook yet. :) 
    You've bumped your one post head. I'll take the most mundane NPC drivel over another person's live mouth/finger excrement any day.
    Pft, haha. Turns out I'm not the only grim and disgruntled sounding person here... ;)

  • KnightFalzKnightFalz Member EpicPosts: 4,522
    Would any of you play an MMO if you just had to be say, a castle guard? edit: If your You also need to accept that storyline is not the focus of an MMO. It's less Praise by other players will always outweigh glorification by NPCs. 121

    Maybe. It depends on how the MMORPG was set up such that a castle guard would be a viable character. Might be kind tricky as it may be too confining an area.

    A town or city guard would probably work better, or a bodyguard.
  • KnightFalzKnightFalz Member EpicPosts: 4,522
    Kyleran said:
    I confess, ESOs NPC dialogue is over the top, I try to read some of them, usually skip the voice overs, and rarely am intrigued by any of the dialogue, but I'll give them credit for trying.

    As said above, world lore is very important, in EVE I really did feel at times I was "living" in that universe, same for FO76 in a different way.



    It would be nice if ESO had a lot less or no incidental dialogue between NPCs triggered over and over when you walk in certain areas. GW2 was similar in that regard. It doesn't help much with immersion.
  • FaileasFaileas Member UncommonPosts: 84
    remsleep said:
    Kyleran said:
    I confess, ESOs NPC dialogue is over the top, I try to read some of them, usually skip the voice overs, and rarely am intrigued by any of the dialogue, but I'll give them credit for trying.

    As said above, world lore is very important, in EVE I really did feel at times I was "living" in that universe, same for FO76 in a different way.



    It would be nice if ESO had a lot less or no incidental dialogue between NPCs triggered over and over when you walk in certain areas. GW2 was similar in that regard. It doesn't help much with immersion.

    I can't tell you how many times I just wanted the option to kill those overlly annoying NPCs that repeat the same line over and over and over again... just to have them gone for 5 minutes of peace before respawns -is that too much to ask?
    No, I feel ya brother. That's what I liked about games like Skyrim. If I didn't like someone, I could just silence them by cutting them down with my broadsword. Although, I did get beaten up pretty badly by the guards. That's not so fun... 
  • ShaighShaigh Member EpicPosts: 2,150
    blah blah blah kill 10 boars. blah blah blah kill 10 bears....blah blah blah kill 10 spiders


    i don't need to be told a life story if all i'm going to do is kill stuff.
    Theocritus
    Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
  • UngoodUngood Member LegendaryPosts: 7,534
    It really depends on the game and how they set things up.

    Case in point, in EQ1, the north and south Freeport guards were on different factions, and it was up to the player to figure out why, if they wanted to talk with the Npc and the like. But this was totally optional.

    I enjoy situations like that in a game, where there is this world lore about what is going on, but I also like it to be low key.

    I didn't really care for the way GW2 did dialogue, the start of the dungeons was cool, even the npc chatter was great for some of them but the campy stand around and talk was Bleh.

    So a lot of it depends on delivery.

    As far as Pac-Man goes, the entire game is this insatiable hungry ball running through a dungeon consuming piles of loot, while being chased by mobs, and the win mechanic Bing to consume all the loot, with extra points awarded for collecting rare spawn items and killing mobs

    It's the perfect hack and slash dungeon running game
    Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.

  • GorweGorwe Member Posts: 1,593
    edited March 2021
    Faileas said:
    Ungood said:
    Might as well play Pac-Man, if all you want from a game is loot and something to kill

    But Pac-Man doesn't even drop loot, does he?
    finefluff said:
    Sometimes less is more. More dialogue does not make a game better. I would rather read a good book tbh. After completing Stormblood and Shadowbringers back to back, I'm burnt out on game dialogue. There is a lot of talking in FFXIV, probably more than any game I've played. Even though I enjoyed most it, it did not move me or have the same impact as other games and stories I've read.
    This. This is exactly how I feel when it comes to game dialogue. I don't like to hear voices. Just as I don't like most film adaptation of books. When I read books, I imagine an entire story playing out in my mind. I see precisely how the characters behave, act and sound like. The only game that come to mind where I absolutely ADORED the voice acting/dialogue was FF Tactics War of the Lions and FFXII... 
    finefluff said:
    The world can still be steeped in mystery and lore without too much talking (dark souls). There's other ways to convey story, such as journal entries, item descriptions, the environment and enemy designs. When there is less, you can give it more of your attention and it can have a greater impact.
    ICO, Shadow of the Colusses, Ocarina of Time. These games are very precious to me and they had no single voice acting in them. Except for Ocarina of Time where the dialogue was mostly gibberish, but that had its own charm. I think I'm okay with voice dialogue as long as they're done by professional stage actors and/or are gabblygook. 
    Sovrath said:
    Of course I would. But I don't mind NPC dialogue (assuming you mean recorded) and if it's done well then I enjoy it.

    I prefer spoken/recorded dialogue over just written and if the quests/information is just filler grade text then I'd rather none of it.
    I was pleasantly surprised by Blade & Soul's NPC voice acting (yeah guys, I've been out of the loop for so long that this is the only MMO I've played since 2000 something). Back in the day I would always shutdown NPC voice dialogue, because their voices always sounded so nasally and amateurish. If they were as funny as this, I probably wouldn't skip though. :) 
    Would any of you play an MMO if you just had to be say, a castle guard?
    Yeah. What is the gameplay like, though? Do I get to stare menacingly at people passing by? Please tell me more. I think we're on to something incredible.
    Po_gg said:
    I read everything, gather up all the lore morsels, talk to everyone, making notes during play... I'm the kinda player the game writer team aims to please.
    Oh my... Bless your sweet soul, Sir/Madam. You are too good for this world. :( I really like your dedication and inquisitive spirit. I'll be honest, I just smash the skip button over and over again until I've received my due reward. My motto is: "Don't talk to me unless it's important or about ghosts." 
    remsleep said:
    Not only that I would - i have and it was totally fine.

    I play most mmos without ever reading a line of npc dialogue period- because its such shit.
    I admire your brutal honesty. Too bad I'm too much of a coward to confess it so bluntly... But yes, I'm the same as you. :( 
    Gorwe said:
    I wouldn't mind an (MMO)RPG with minimal, EFFICIENT dialogues / storytelling(like Dark Souls, just less weird tyvm), but with ABSOLUTELY NO dialogue? Yeah, that's an extreme, I think I'll pass.
    I think it could be an interesting experiment. I would be quite intrigued to see how an MMO or game would pull off having zero dialogue... Actually, ICO did that. It had almost ZERO dialogue in it throughout the entire game. Very relaxing experience. Almost like you're in a daze... 
    Gorwe said:
    (...Standing around, doing nothing while an entire book's worth is vomited at you is simply boring to me nowadays)
    You just haven't found the right Audiobook yet. :) 
    You've bumped your one post head. I'll take the most mundane NPC drivel over another person's live mouth/finger excrement any day.
    Pft, haha. Turns out I'm not the only grim and disgruntled sounding person here... ;)

    It's not about the Audiobooks(haven't tried those, perhaps I should ; sometimes books are just too drab for me, but that probably says more about the book than about me), it's that when playing games, I want to...PLAY them. There are countless(probably) modern ways how you can handle dialogues and standing around is NOT one of those. Disco Elysium built an entire game around creative dialogue, compare that(or how Diablo 3 handles story - I am talking about mechanics, not about quality here) to the entirely static "blah blah blah".
  • MendelMendel Member LegendaryPosts: 5,609
    Dialog isn't the problem, static dialog is the problem.  You hail Deputy_Fife and he says exactly the same thing he's said for the last 30,000 game days.  It never changes, consequently, it never matters.  Static dialog is prone to spoiler sites.  I hate those guys. :)

    Even if there was a rotating schedule of dialog from a fixed pool, it would help.  A true effort at truly dynamically generated content would be ideal, but I don't know any game that has really attempted improving the AI to a degree that alter a) quests in the game, and b) NPC dialog leading to those quests.

    We're against the wall of hand-coded, hand-created, hand-written content.  It is too slow and costly to develop, and doesn't personalize the responses very well.  It would be amazing for an NPC to be curious about an item I've not worn before and ask me a question, or compliment my latest achievement.  Point out someone else who recently did the same thing, pointing me to a potential group, even.  It would make the NPCs more lifelike and help foster immersion in the game.



    Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.

  • AdamantineAdamantine Member RarePosts: 5,093
    edited June 2022
    I dont mind lack of voiceover, if thats the question.

    I cant see how you could make a roleplaying game without dialogue. Thats just not possible.



    Edit: Great, now this thread also has the NECRO flag. It was the fourth most recent thread, for heavens sake !
  • LynxJSALynxJSA Member RarePosts: 3,334
    I'd prefer an MMO with no NPCs. However, if it had to have NPCs, I'd rather organic dialog than static dialog. And if static dialog is necessary, there should be an option to slap the NPC when he's asking you to go find the same thing that the past two people just handed in.

    Like, there should be an option to take photos of Mankrik's dead wife and then staple them to that idiot's face every time you go past him. 
    -- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG 
    RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? 
    FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?  

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