Mass effect vs Kotors dialoge systems

[Kzin]

I´ve been playing a bit of mass effect and i must say i realy miss the more traditional dialouge system kotor had. I can understand the idea behind the bew system but i think the old system does everything better.

*The keyword of the different responses doesnt alway correspond very well to what you character actualy says. This sometimes leads to that you say something you didnt mean to say.

*Since you basicly just have keywords for the lines, you miss out on a lot of the hillarious dialoge. A big part of the fun from kotor was reading the things you didnt say. Some times the keywords may be i litle funny, like in "time to die". But nowhere near as fun as "it was like managin little children" or "because fat persons usualy lie".

*The new system takes all the thinking out of the dialouges. Paragon = up, neutral =left, renagade = down. You dont get to think about what you are going to say and what consequenses the different lines will have. Its just up or down. This takes away from the feeling of actualy roleplaying, of being this character and your freedom to be the kind of character you want to be. It feels much more forced down a predetermend path.

I read somewere that the dialoge system in obsidians new spy rpg will use some kind of attitude based system =/ I wanne be able to control the conversations, god damnit. I dint realy like how so many games this gen seam to lean toward some kind of 3rd person shooter =/

Dare I hope in a KOTOR3 wihtout real time combat and with a proper classic dialoge system?

 

[Spaceman-Spiff]

I have not yet played played Mass Effect, but can understand you. I also like to see dialogs. In KOTOR, I usually pick the hilarious dialogs when playing a dark jedi. This is also the case when playing older adventure games, like Monkey Island series.

I love picking the funny dialogs and hearing the responses.

 

[chroniceyestrain]

Good point, I like reading all the dialog options as well.

One thing I noticed when playing the KOTOR, many times the responses you get are the same regardless of which dialog option you choose, the only difference is whether you get dark or light points. Mass Effect is the same.

 

[silhouette]

I won't trade ME's dialogue system to the old ones... In the whole game with hours and hours of dialogue, I only feel twice that the placeholder does not reflect what is actually being said (or done) with my character. Other than that, the new dialogue system works like a charm and speeds up the dialogue much much faster. In addition, it is not only about dialogue any more. Your characters may start doing an action depending on what you choose (e.g. the famous "drawing gun" scene)... This is one of the shining things of ME.

 

[L233]

I kind of like the fact that I'm not presented with the exact lines. It makes listening to the dialogue more interesting.

That being said, there are a few problems with the way ME handles dialogue. One was already mentioned: since the Paragon/Renegade options are always located at the same segment of the wheel, the whole thing becomes kinda pointless. You don't even have to consider which answer is the paragon or renegade one.

Seriously, they could just add an auto-paragon/renegade function and let things play out automatically, it wouldn't change a fucking thing. The game is essentially a story-driven shooter and the interactivity during the dialogues is nothing but smoke and mirrors.

Furthermore, Bioware uses the system to hide the fact that most of the time two of the 3 dialogue options result in Shephard speaking identical lines. They pretend to have 3 options, but in reality it's just two options in most cases. And even with the two real choices that you have, the outcome is pretty much always the same. It's all a bunch of pseudo-choices that change nothing except giving you either paragon or renegade points at the end of the conversation. Kinda self-serving, don't you think? Get Renegade points so you can get a higher skill in Intimidation so you can make sure you always have the Renegade dialogue options available so you can get more Renegade points... rinse, repeat. Lame.

I also don't see how the "drawing gun" thing is a strength of the dialogue system. It's just a scripted part of the dialogue. I don't see why such stuff shouldn't be possible with the old dialogue system. In fact, early ME footage showed stuff like being able to interrupt other persons or getting phyiscal and stuff... nothing of that made it into the game. ME's dialogue system is just one of the many, many areas in which ME just falls short of expectations. It promised to be an evolutionary step towards more dynamic dialogue, it ended up being just the same old thing with a fancy wheel instead of a list to pick your lines.

 

[vazel]

One thing I noticed when playing the KOTOR, many times the responses you get are the same regardless of which dialog option you choose, the only difference is whether you get dark or light points. Mass Effect is the same.

Yea that's a little annoying.