TechRaptor - Mass Effects Dialogue Wheel

[Silver]

TechRaptor has an interesting editorial on Mass Effects dialogue wheel and its effects on rpgs. This is contrasted to what games like Pillars of Eternity and Shadowrun Returns attempt to do.

The basic layout of the dialogue wheel in Mass Effect.

[...]
This is the dialogue wheel's greatest strength in the end: controlling tone. Many have cited the problem with the dialogue wheel was that tone would be inconsistent with the character, and while in some extreme cases, most notably in Dragon Age II, this can be argued as true, the tonal shifts also add another layer to characters by showcasing the gamut of emotions-or how realistic people would act in such situations. If someone is criticizing you, you could instead act aggressive towards them, then shift back to diplomatic when they get the hint. Tone also gives each conversation texture to it; it provides feedback to players how NPCs would react to your character, in effect giving you direct feedback of their response and possibly intention.

More information.

 

[Morbus]

Of all the terrible things in the latest Bioware RPGs, the dialog wheel is the worst by far. It serves no purpose for the PC, and the only purpose it serves for the consoles is to make it easier to chose the dialog line you want.

 

[Farflame]

Surprisingly bad article. If author really thinks that "tonal control" is some great innovation in dialogues then he either never played RPG before DAO/ME or never cared about his responses. In classical listed dialogues your tone is clearly visible in the text. You see your response as a whole, not just short sentence as a summary, or (in worst cases) one descriptive word that could be very misleading. So you see if your response is angry etc. So there is no innovation in "explicit tonal control". It is/was more likely dumbing down and step back if you control your tone but hardly control real content of your responses.

Or… I hope that author is not so dumb that he thinks that angry response is only angry if there is some colorful angry icon attached. In such case it would mean that Bio(EA)ware treat players as idiots who needs explicit icons to be able to recognise between friendly/angry/… response.

 

[Avantenor]

In classical listed dialogues your tone is clearly visible in the text. You see your response as a whole, not just short sentence as a summary, or (in worst cases) one descriptive word that could be very misleading. So you see if your response is angry etc.

Actually, that's not necessarily true. For example it's dependant on the quality of writing. I remember several dialogs in Dragon Age: Origins where my choice lead to a direction that I clearly didn't expected. I didn't want to romance Zevran, but choosing some harmless funny snippets resulted in a clearly sexual response that imho wasn't foreseeable. It seems the writer assumed that joking to an obviously gay character must always be a pick-up line (might be that shallow for straight romances as well, but in this case it really bugged me). I also want to remind of the irony problem in written text. And last but not least the tonal control definitely is helpful for people who are not capable of recognizing these nuances, people with autism for example.

 

[Emerwyn]

I like that you can choose tone in dialogs, be it by some wheel or any other method. It allows me to control exactly how I want my character to behave, which often is not as obvious as one would think in other RPGs. In fact, certain RPGs like to twist your choice of words to give it the worst possible outcome, as if they found that funny or a perk in their RPG.

No sir, if you're giving me the choice to play the character I want, I also want him/her to behave in the way I choose. You can tweak how NPCs react to my words, but don't manipulate what I say or how I behave.

Dialog wheels aren't a new thing either I remember quite old PC games working via dialog wheel and working well, like the critically acclaimed as a masterwork KotOR, when I don't think consoles even had access to internet yet. These days it's easy to jump on the "I'm a PC hipster, consoles are killing my RPGs" bandwagon, but this is the wrong door to knock.

 

[joxer]

I didn't want to romance Zevran…

Riiiiiiight.

On the topic, I can't spit on the idea that is not bad really - the wheel works fine with both mouse and children toys, even better it would work on touchscreens too.

But the execution is another thing.
Okay, there is an exact spot to go inquire for more info as shown on the pic which is IMO great, those interested in lore and are not fastrunners know where to get their fix, those who don't want to know anything about the ingame world but just want to fight are aware of what not to pick.
However good/evil/paragon/renegade spots are a complete fail for a quality demanding audience. It acts as a dumbed down dialogue where it doesn't even matter what's written and what text your character will actually say any more, it's blue if it's blue, if not it's red or blueish or reddish.

All they need to do is to keep "info" and "buhbye" spots fixed, but the rest of choices should not make reading before choosing irrelevant.

 

[rjshae]

Of all the terrible things in the latest Bioware RPGs, the dialog wheel is the worst by far. It serves no purpose for the PC, and the only purpose it serves for the consoles is to make it easier to chose the dialog line you want.

The wheel seems like a throwback to the GoldBox games. Where's the Haughty option?