NPC Chat Bubbles

[Vengeance]

Tonight I spent a while on npc dialog to make it more readable.  I noticed in doing the tutorial recently that sometimes the NPCs say a LOT in a single response.  This shows up as a huge chat bubble with all the text on there at the same time.  And a big blob of text in a pretty limited chat window.  It makes it harder and more laborious to read it all.

With the new enhancement, the dialog processor automatically breaks up each sentence into its own bubble.  So now in a single response you may see 2-3 smaller bubbles in a row instead of a huge one.  I'm hoping that breaking it up into more bite-sized pieces will make the quests easier to follow and more enjoyable to read.

Thanks.

[Prolix]

I am wondering if it would not be useful to put some kind of player controlled chat speed governor on these. For example if you click in the chat bubble the current line stays until you click continue somehow. I personally do not pay too much attention to chat bubbles because I play in first person camera mode mostly and frequently the bubbles do not fit in the frame without craning of the neck.  What I end up doing is waiting for the npc to stop talking and then scrolling the chat window. Anyway by making the text a longer series of shorter units you run the risk of either drawing out the conversation excessively or having the units flit by too fast to read. I am not certain what effect the npc chat cam has because while I have had it on briefly I haven't seen how it works, perhaps I will notice it more as time goes on. Does it work in first person mode?

[Vengeance]

Good question about the npc chat camera.  I'll check it out.  I'm intending to do some work on that camera anyway and make it a bit more like a video I saw of the dialog in KOTOR.

I debated doing a "Continue" button of some kind for the chat bubbles as well but I think that could get very annoying too.  Probably if you can't see the bubbles you should just disable them entirely.  Incidentally, we're only talking about 3-4 bubbles here--not some long string of never-ending bubbles (I hope :-))--and the duration of the bubble depends on the length of the text, so it is just a few shorter bubbles instead of one huge one that stays up a long time.  Perhaps we need a slider bar in Options for how long each one stays, since some people zip through them and other non-native English speakers probably need extra time to read everything.

As with every feature, it seems, it's a balancing act of fun, good for players, flexible but not annoying, and complexity to code.

[Prolix]

I wasn't actually thinking of a button to continue, click anywhere in the displayed chat bubble and that comment remains until you click in it again. If you do not click in it in the first place it runs at normal speed. It would mean clicking twice for each bubble of text but that isn't too onerous. Still I'm not sure how easy it would be to implement so it is just an idea. I suppose it depends what chat bubbles are, I imagine they are not 'items' that can be clicked already but more like transitory 'labels' which are attached to the character but not independently selectable.

[Toobah]

Hi, I've just started exploring PS and I do find it difficult to read many of the bubbles I've encountered so far. Most often they dissapear to quickly. A "continiue" function might not be a bad idéa at all, as long as it is easilly available through some hotkey.

Perhaps even the any-key? Since I'm a guy, my multitasking skills limits me when I'm reading a bubble so that I'm not likely to be using the keyboard for something else at the same time... 

Keep up the good work!

[Prolix]

Ok, not meaning to hijack the topic but related to the ongoing discussion, I have seen the npc camera in action and have a few thoughts. This camera does not kick in when you simply give a quest item to an npc as is fairly common, you get sent for an item and proffer it silently when you return. It would seem to me this ought to trigger the camera as there will be some dialog. Secondly I think the framing could be a bit better because as it stands the npc on the left of the screen generally appears under standard gui elements. It might be better to have a longer view with the characters more centered ,  at least customizable. I see there is no npc camera in the options panel.

[Vengeance]

First part of that is already done.  You go into npc camera mode as soon as you get the popup menu of your dialog choices (or giving choices).

As far as framing goes, I referred earlier to KOTOR for my example.  I'm shooting for something like this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr81SliHytA

Thanks.