Small Enquiry About Dialogue

[Pepisolo]

I notice that you use a rather simple xml system for implementing the dialogue which is straightforward to change. A dialogue overhaul mod for example would technically be very easy. Might it not even possible for users from the community to help you extend upon or even improve the existing dialogue? If so, would you even be able to accept any such help? There must be a few budding writers floating around the board. Not to disparage the existing writing, but some of it is rather more functional than it need be.

The reason I'm interested in this is because I was once part of a collaborative text-adventure project that turned out reasonably well so maybe the community here could organize something similar in order to improve upon the current writing. Little bit of an outlandish idea, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Just to clarify, I hope that nobody is offended by my criticism of the writing. It's just that I realise the team probably don't have much time to make any improvements in this area (I doubt they have a dedicated writer) and so a little community help might prove beneficial (as well a being a bit of fun).

[zespri]

I personally have no problems with writing, but then again I care very little about lore and flavour. I personally hate when clear technical description is sacrificed for lore reasons. From my perspective all the messages are well written and easily understood. This means that there ARE people that would prefer that they retain the information they currently have rather been substituted to lore stuff.

On the other hand I can understand that people who care alot about lore and immersion can find them off putting.
Traditionally Arcen games are not moddable. Having a mod system just for dialogs feels a bit weird. I hope that you get your satisfaction, but from all I know to me it seems unlikely that your request is granted. We will wait here to hear from horse's mouse so to speak of course.

[madcow]

I almost wish the dialog had intentional mispellings in it. It really comes across as 80s game cheesy, which I surprisingly don't find myself minding. A few well-placed "mistranslations" (like in the victory screen or something - not overdone though) would go well with the style.

[Pepisolo]

Traditionally Arcen games are not moddable. Having a mod system just for dialogs feels a bit weird. I hope that you get your satisfaction, but from all I know to me it seems unlikely that your request is granted.

Actually, I'm not requesting a modding system -- that would be well outside of the scope of what I would expect Arcen to do. Looking through the game files, it seems that all the text for the game is kept in simple xml files and would easily be moddable now as it stands, you'd really just have to rewrite the text. It's quite a neat system actually.

[LaughingThesaurus]

I almost wish the dialog had intentional mispellings in it. It really comes across as 80s game cheesy, which I surprisingly don't find myself minding. A few well-placed "mistranslations" (like in the victory screen or something - not overdone though) would go well with the style.

You have to be careful that people get the joke in that case. I'd think any misspelling, in the game's current state, was unintentional and I'd report it to Arcen.

[chemical_art]

I've played a few games with intentional joking. For anything short of having the whole game built around such humor, nothing short of a clear mod and or "optional" method for such a thing comes to mind. Such changes, even if minor, very dramatically disrupt the immersive feeling for the game.

At most, I would have to imagine it like Fallout: NV's model. At the start of the game there is what is in effect a comic perk. The game bluntly says it will add in some whacky things sprinkled into the game, and it is meant to be silly. A similar thing maybe could be added here, in that a whacky mode could be unlocked, if (big if) enough interest was found in it.

[LaughingThesaurus]

That could basically be an xml edit mod of sorts, if it mostly changes the dialog and stuff. Maybe there can eventually be a proper place for people to show off these edits. I understand that Arcen Games generally doesn't allow modding. I don't really know exactly why, but if it's a case of impracticality, xml files are apparently really easy to edit. So, why not allow public sharing of xml mods, including a 'wacky' mod?