[Poll] SoD banters via script VS dialogs

[Roxanne]

I just hope this http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=27760&page=1 will not be done in the new style. Too bad if all those dialogues would be buried in stringheads.

 

I'd like Beamdog to convert those pseudo-banters to dialogue instead of Stringhead

Do you really believe that?

[K4thos]

The thing that frustrates me is that this new banter system is another feature (after journal popups that thankfully has been fixed by Mr2150 and will show correctly in RC6 regardless of framerate) that caters only to those who play exclusively on 30 FPS. I've been using 45/60 refresh rates dating back to 1998 and simply can't stand sloppy gameplay and animations at default speed. After 2 whole SoD playthroughs I didn't notice that the game has actual banters even though I'm playing with full party and there is more than 100 (sometimes) fully fleshed out conversation that enriches the NPCs. If you don't know what I mean - increasing framerate affects how long string is visible on screen when triggered via DisplayStringHead.

 

 

edit:

I just hope this http://gibberlings3....ic=27760&page=1 will not be done in the new style. Too bad if all those dialogues would be buried in stringheads.

majority of those are interjections rather than banters. And even if it would be the other way around as mentioned the new system is worthless for people playing on higher FPS, so it's not going to happen. If for example BG1 NPC Project would be updated to use such system than I would no longer play with it.

[Roxanne]

I found already one extremely bad example in a otherwise pretty good new mod - the author of Sirene NPC felt forced to put her SoD banters into those strings (she is normal in the BG1 part). Now all her smart banters with the vanilla cast are sadly wasted.

[Roxanne]

The thing that frustrates me is that this new banter system is another feature (after journal popups that thankfully has been fixed by Mr2150 and will show correctly in RC6 regardless of framerate) that caters only to those who play exclusively on 30 FPS. I've been using 45/60 refresh rates dating back to 1998 and simply can't stand sloppy gameplay and animations at default speed. After 2 whole SoD playthroughs I didn't notice that the game has actual banters even though I'm playing with full party and there is more than 100 (sometimes) fully fleshed out conversation that enriches the NPCs. If you don't know what I mean - increasing framerate affects how long string is visible on screen when triggered via DisplayStringHead.

Even on normal rate, it is quite difficult to follow a conversation in this way, when there are more than just one-liners involved. Often you need to pause the game and scroll backwards in the dialogue window to follow it - especially if other actions/pop-ups interfer with a longer conversation.

[smeagolheart]

I just hope this http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=27760&page=1 will not be done in the new style. Too bad if all those dialogues would be buried in stringheads.

 

I'd like Beamdog to convert those pseudo-banters to dialogue instead of Stringhead

Do you really believe that?

 

Yes I really believe that if enough people complain about it on Beamdog, they will notice and possibly change it. If no one says anything there nothing will happen for sure.

[K4thos]

looks like we have a draw here (9 vs 9) In such case I will probably add it to EET_Tweaks at some point despite what I wrote in one of the previous posts. After taking closer look I see that every single of these scripts is constructed in the exact same way, so it shouldn't be much work to write a code that converts it. In other words we will keep it as an optional component (which will also work on vanilla SoD as suggested by Mike) . Thanks for feedback and votes.

[jastey]

I voted keep it vanilla. Not because I'd appreciate the scripted banter concept of SoD (I agree to all complaints about how you can miss them etc), but I second the thoughts about compatibility with mods and possible changes from the game devs.

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

The thing that frustrates me is that this new banter system is another feature (after journal popups that thankfully has been fixed by Mr2150 and will show correctly in RC6 regardless of framerate) that caters only to those who play exclusively on 30 FPS. I've been using 45/60 refresh rates dating back to 1998 and simply can't stand sloppy gameplay and animations at default speed. After 2 whole SoD playthroughs I didn't notice that the game has actual banters even though I'm playing with full party and there is more than 100 (sometimes) fully fleshed out conversation that enriches the NPCs. If you don't know what I mean - increasing framerate affects how long string is visible on screen when triggered via DisplayStringHead.

 

 

edit:

I just hope this http://gibberlings3....ic=27760&page=1 will not be done in the new style. Too bad if all those dialogues would be buried in stringheads.

majority of those are interjections rather than banters. And even if it would be the other way around as mentioned the new system is worthless for people playing on higher FPS, so it's not going to happen. If for example BG1 NPC Project would be updated to use such system than I would no longer play with it.

 

Holy cow. I've been playing at 60 too and just assumed it was a bug to be fixed later.

[Roxanne]

I noticed that most voters for the vanilla solution argued that it provides *better mod compatibility*. I wonder if someone could enlighten me on that, because I discovered the issue due to missing compatibility when my mod NPCs started stuttering in SoD because they tried to banter with another of the vanilla ones (They all have the same DVs as in BG1, thus a banter looking for e.g. InParty("Safana") etc may as well trigger during SoD unless you disable it by globals) - and then the b-file is missing.

 

At the moment I solved this issue by assigning the BG1 banter file (via BDBanter.2da) to a number of NPCs who also appear during SoD (Safana, Edwin, Dynaheir) to have continuity. The alternative would be to disable or *free floating* banters from my mod during SoD, which in my view would be a great disadvantage.

 

Consequently - my proposal is, that regatrdless of the EET solution, there may be some sense in agreeing on a convention to use the BG1 banter files during SoD by anyone who has an interest to provide dialogue banters during SoD. In my own case - and this may be applicable to other mods as well - some banters trigger during SoD without need to be being specifically designed for that campaign, since they are simply free to happen whenever the two NPCs involved are in party.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I noticed that most voters for the vanilla solution argued that it provides *better mod compatibility*. I wonder if someone could enlighten me on that, because

Well, simply because it's not a fix of anykind, it's a tweak and will always be.

I doubt that you could make your NPC for example, if someone went and used DISABLE_FROM_KEY to many of the game files you effect. Or otherwise irrevocably destroys the facts that control it.

Banters, dialogs, etc fun things, say for example, the EasyTutu. I bet your mod will never be compatible with it! Because you would need to edit your edits, and there are still mods that do that, but that's because they are made to handle Total Conversion stuff like this. But it would be insane to add 20 thousand tons of the stuff while you could just leave it as is, and then make a mod that does it, but NOT in EET. The EET Tweaks being the obvious candidate.

[Roxanne]

I noticed that most voters for the vanilla solution argued that it provides *better mod compatibility*. I wonder if someone could enlighten me on that, because I discovered the issue due to missing compatibility when my mod NPCs started stuttering in SoD because they tried to banter with another of the vanilla ones (They all have the same DVs as in BG1, thus a banter looking for e.g. InParty("Safana") etc may as well trigger during SoD unless you disable it by globals) - and then the b-file is missing.

 

At the moment I solved this issue by assigning the BG1 banter file (via BDBanter.2da) to a number of NPCs who also appear during SoD (Safana, Edwin, Dynaheir) to have continuity. The alternative would be to disable or *free floating* banters from my mod during SoD, which in my view would be a great disadvantage.

 

Consequently - my proposal is, that regatrdless of the EET solution, there may be some sense in agreeing on a convention to use the BG1 banter files during SoD by anyone who has an interest to provide dialogue banters during SoD. In my own case - and this may be applicable to other mods as well - some banters trigger during SoD without need to be being specifically designed for that campaign, since they are simply free to happen whenever the two NPCs involved are in party.

In this post http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=27913&page=3&do=findComment&comment=245824 k3thos proposed to establish (yet another set of) banter files in EET for SoD. Due to the reasons stated above, I think the better solution would be to continue the BG B-files instead. Most mods use the !Global("EndofBG1","Global",2) to determine the game prior BG2. Since this global is 1 during EET, the use of BG1 files will allow to let NPC banters to continue into SoD naturally.

[Mirandel]

New to modding, so, possibly should not even participate in the poll, but have to say that poll questions are confusing indeed - would not it be more clear to label first option "SoD style" and second - "Old BG style"?

[jastey]

New to modding, so, possibly should not even participate in the poll, but have to say that poll questions are confusing indeed - would not it be more clear to label first option "SoD style" and second - "Old BG style"?

 

Not exactly, as there were no NPC-NPC banters in dialogue form in BG(1). On the contrary, the scripted voiced lines that happen while playing are the original vanilla BG style.

Unless I took your phrase too seriously and you meant "original BGII style" for banters.

[Mirandel]

 

New to modding, so, possibly should not even participate in the poll, but have to say that poll questions are confusing indeed - would not it be more clear to label first option "SoD style" and second - "Old BG style"?

 

Not exactly, as there were no NPC-NPC banters in dialogue form in BG(1). On the contrary, the scripted voiced lines that happen while playing are the original vanilla BG style.

Unless I took your phrase too seriously and you meant "original BGII style" for banters.

 

 

For me this is the same - I mean, BG - not BG1 or BG2, just BG. SoD is new, but even BGEE is counted as "old BG" to me (as I said, so new to modding, that never even thought dialogs were handled differently in BG1 and BG2). So, for someone like me the ability to pause the game on a dialog executions (like it was done in BG) looks as an "old BG style", beats any modding convenience and worth any additional work.

[Ser Elryk]

 

 

New to modding, so, possibly should not even participate in the poll, but have to say that poll questions are confusing indeed - would not it be more clear to label first option "SoD style" and second - "Old BG style"?

 

Not exactly, as there were no NPC-NPC banters in dialogue form in BG(1). On the contrary, the scripted voiced lines that happen while playing are the original vanilla BG style.

Unless I took your phrase too seriously and you meant "original BGII style" for banters.

 

 

For me this is the same - I mean, BG - not BG1 or BG2, just BG. SoD is new, but even BGEE is counted as "old BG" to me (as I said, so new to modding, that never even thought dialogs were handled differently in BG1 and BG2). So, for someone like me the ability to pause the game on a dialog executions (like it was done in BG) looks as an "old BG style", beats any modding convenience and worth any additional work.

 

 

I agree.