Is it just me or does anyone else find the dialogue overbearing?

[S1]

I like this game mechanically and as a pseudo table top rpg i actually find the interactions and episodes engaging. That being said, I find the dialogue overbearing, the writing isn't particularly good and I feel like what is said in 20 panels could probably be reduced to about 4 or 5. This is particularly grating when you're repeating an episode that you've recently read.

I often find myself trying to find a balance between skipping dialogue as quickly as I can and still having some semblance of an idea of what's going on in terms of narrative. I am wondering what other fans of the game think about this

[imaloony]

I seriously thought for a long time that all the dialogue was AI generated. Characters will randomly jump to conclusions (in particular in the first scenario in the break between Chapters 1 and 2 one character determined that the Gorgons needed a symbol to unite their people. And a different character somehow knows immediately that the symbol is a literal one and it's a spear despite that never having been brought up before), they'll bring up random topics for no reason and then drop the train of thought moments later, they'll completely lose the plot at times (forgetting what they were talking about or being surprised when another character presents a fact that the first character introduced just a couple of sentences ago), and sometimes it just feels like they're babbling nonsensically. No joke, it feels like this game was entirely written in AI Dungeon. The gameplay itself is fun, but I have no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ clue what happened in the writer's room. Legitimately one of the worst written games I've ever played.

My second thought was that perhaps this was a foreign game that got a poor translation job, but no. Worldwaker games is based in Austin, Texas. I'm actually going crazy over here trying to figure out how it came out this badly.

[karinundmaedels]

Open the Scenes in the ingame Editor, then you'll see what happens - a ton of the dialogue lines, especially in the random events, are relying on personality, group constellation, relationships, themes etc. Not always everything fits together well, but it's really astonishing how often it does.

[Derpykat5]

引用自 imaloony：

(in particular in the first scenario in the break between Chapters 1 and 2 one character determined that the Gorgons needed a symbol to unite their people. And a different character somehow knows immediately that the symbol is a literal one and it's a spear despite that never having been brought up before),

If you pay attention to the dialogue you'd know that they know this because they studied the Epicryst they got, which contained the legend of a Warrior and their special spear. That's more than enough information to come to both conclusions.

I haven't noticed any of the other things you mentioned.

[imaloony]

引用自 Derpykat5：

If you pay attention to the dialogue you'd know that they know this because they studied the Epicryst they got, which contained the legend of a Warrior and their special spear. That's more than enough information to come to both conclusions.

I haven't noticed any of the other things you mentioned.

I paid very close attention to the dialogue and didn't remember anything like that. I even went back through the dialogue to check because I was unclear where the idea of a spear came from. Perhaps it got buried in such memorable dialogue as:

"What's the first step to raising an army?"

"Raise an army!"

Poetry.

Just one more example for things that you didn't notice but I absolutely did:

During the event to get Ogogen (Child of Night), an NPC with you will mention that they did some research and found a legend that says the lake you're at (Called Starfall Lake I think?) was made by a star falling. To which this dialogue (I'm paraphrasing since I don't have the exact text in front of me) comes up:

PC: "So this lake..."

NPC who just told me about the legend: "Don't tell me..."

PC: "Yes, this lake was made by a falling star."

Idiot NPC: *Surprised Pikachu*

The writing is atrocious. We're talking "I hate sand" levels of garbage.

[Derpykat5]

引用自 imaloony：

I paid very close attention to the dialogue and didn't remember anything like that. I even went back through the dialogue to check because I was unclear where the idea of a spear came from. Perhaps it got buried in such memorable dialogue as:

"What's the first step to raising an army?"

"Raise an army!"

Poetry.

There's a question mark there, not an exclamation point. It's a question, not a witty retort. They're doing a verbal double-take.

Here's an exact transcript of my campaign's version of that tiding (yours might be slightly different due to personalities)

Character A: (talking about what they've discovered from the Epicryst) It makes sense why we've had a few years of relative peace. Imagine you're trying to raise an army. What's the first thing you do?

Character B: Raise an army?

Character A: Right. An army, out of just normal folks.

Character C: I suppose I'd give them a reason. Something to get their blood going. Wouldn't be too hard...

Character A: A symbol. You'd want a symbol to rally support, wouldn't you? Especially if your people are ancients, and set in their ways.

(That seems pretty clear cut to me.)

Character C: So you're saying our Ulstryx, our master of Gorgons, needs this thing? What is it, some kind of divine spear? As a symbol to help convince the other Gorgons to follow it?

The spear in question is heavily implied to belong to the warrior of the legend the Epicryst contains in the following exchanges too.

Just one more example for things that you didn't notice but I absolutely did:

During the event to get Ogogen (Child of Night), an NPC with you will mention that they did some research and found a legend that says the lake you're at (Called Starfall Lake I think?) was made by a star falling. To which this dialogue (I'm paraphrasing since I don't have the exact text in front of me) comes up:

PC: "So this lake..."

NPC who just told me about the legend: "Don't tell me..."

PC: "Yes, this lake was made by a falling star."

Idiot NPC: *Surprised Pikachu*

I've never personally taken that path for that event, but I would guess you're mixing up characters or dialogue somewhere. If not, then I'd bet that the devs would appreciate the continuity error being pointed out to them.

The writing is atrocious. We're talking "I hate sand" levels of garbage.

If a continuity error and you misunderstanding a few lines of dialogue is "atrocious" then this clearly isn't the game for you. It's not perfect, there are still a few grammar errors here and there, but no glaring errors that would make me think an AI wrote any part of it. AI is far too stupid to make anything even half as rich as this.

[Derpykat5]

引用自 imaloony：

During the event to get Ogogen (Child of Night), an NPC with you will mention that they did some research and found a legend that says the lake you're at (Called Starfall Lake I think?) was made by a star falling. To which this dialogue (I'm paraphrasing since I don't have the exact text in front of me) comes up:

PC: "So this lake..."

NPC who just told me about the legend: "Don't tell me..."

PC: "Yes, this lake was made by a falling star."

Idiot NPC: *Surprised Pikachu*

The writing is atrocious. We're talking "I hate sand" levels of garbage.

I'm peering at the event in the editor now, and while the NPC does call the lake "starfall spring" and says it "looks like someone knocked a few stars down", I'm not seeing the NPC saying it was actually made by a falling star, and their dialogue is fixed (concerning those lines at least) so it's not a random/personality thing. Nevermind, I found it. It's a bit further down. let me keep reading.

Edit: Ah, I think I get it. The revelation they're having isn't that the spring was made by a star that fell to earth, it's that it's called "Starfall spring" because it was made by a star that fell to earth, and not because it shines like stars at night.

I'll concede that it's not the clearest of moments, but it's not quite a continuity error.

[Nonbinary]

so for that "raise an army?" part, that thing got me too. but the way it gets me is i feel several options for how they sound saying it. it can be they ask "what do you mean?" but it can also mean "duh, you didnt think of that yourself?". baffled expression. i feel like only way to tell is peeking at their faces, but i more often dont. i spend enough time trying to soak in whats being said without slowing down the game just to stop up and think over things that are not all that significant

i dont think the personality influence in stories is an obstruction to the writing. maybe you experienced a scenario going through your mind, where something traumatic happens, a reaction then happened that you didnt like, you rewind it and rewrite the reaction to what happens. ie. instead of you dying to a car crashing, you dodge it (since the brain is very fidgety about stupid insignificant deaths on self). theres 11 personalities, so the writers just have to make sure 11 responses fit to the car crash, how the car crash happens can fit to the 11 personalities too. its prewritten to "something about a car crash" and "something about avoiding the crash" so it never strays from the structure. its hard to imagine that the reactions you write would be totally out of touch or unnecessary if you already know beforehand what the reaction is based on. its a similar process of letting players choose a voice for their custom character, those voices all have different reactions and initiations recorded for all dialogue, but never says something off or strays from topics

[imaloony]

If ya'll think I'm getting confused because I'm blazing through all the text, I promise I'm not. I read everything, and I often have to go back and re-read because very little these characters say makes any sense.

It's truly not even just the moments I mention. Almost every scene has a least one moment where I have to do a double take because a character says something that's complete nonsense. I promise you I'm not kidding when I initially thought that Chat GPT wrote this whole thing. It all feels so stunted and awkward that it honestly feels AI generated. I could go back in and find more examples, but I'd be here all day, taking screen grabs every few minutes. Suffice it to say that I play a lot of story based games and visual novels and I have never had this problem before. It's not me, it's the game.

[Derpykat5]

引用自 imaloony：

If ya'll think I'm getting confused because I'm blazing through all the text, I promise I'm not. I read everything, and I often have to go back and re-read because very little these characters say makes any sense.

It's truly not even just the moments I mention. Almost every scene has a least one moment where I have to do a double take because a character says something that's complete nonsense. I promise you I'm not kidding when I initially thought that Chat GPT wrote this whole thing. It all feels so stunted and awkward that it honestly feels AI generated. I could go back in and find more examples, but I'd be here all day, taking screen grabs every few minutes. Suffice it to say that I play a lot of story based games and visual novels and I have never had this problem before. It's not me, it's the game.

It's a very unique writing style. I get that it's rather dense and flowery and that makes some people have trouble parsing it, but that doesn't make it bad and it definitely doesn't make it AI generated (if anything, AI generated stuff has the complete opposite problem).

[zandilar]

引用自 imaloony：

If ya'll think I'm getting confused because I'm blazing through all the text, I promise I'm not. I read everything, and I often have to go back and re-read because very little these characters say makes any sense.

It's truly not even just the moments I mention. Almost every scene has a least one moment where I have to do a double take because a character says something that's complete nonsense. I promise you I'm not kidding when I initially thought that Chat GPT wrote this whole thing. It all feels so stunted and awkward that it honestly feels AI generated. I could go back in and find more examples, but I'd be here all day, taking screen grabs every few minutes. Suffice it to say that I play a lot of story based games and visual novels and I have never had this problem before. It's not me, it's the game.

Are you just talking about the Omenroad bit? If you go back to the game as it was released, the dialogue and writing has a similar style. Wildermyth (2021) pre-dates ChatGPT (2022).

Obviously, Omenroad doesn't predate cGPT - but the writing style is very similar to, if not the same as, the base game as far as I can tell, and I'm someone who has studied writing extensively (just graduated with a Masters in Creative Writing this year, in fact). I really like the style of the game's narration and dialogue - it's not an easy task to write for such a game, given that the narrative relies on a plethora of variables plus branches, and especially for a smaller developer.

It is a dense and lyrical style of writing, and it is a style that isn't necessarily appealing to everyone - so I don't blame you for not being able to follow it (I find it hard to follow sometimes too). But I think this is more a preference issue than an actual issue with the writing. (And perhaps a little bit of jankiness introduced due to the nature of the procedurally generated text.)

[Avallach]

I love the style of writing - it took a little bit of getting used to at first, but it soon became my favourite thing about the game, and it's what made Omenroad an immediate purchase.

I love the playfulness of the word-twistings, and my brain is happy to play along and be immersed in the whimsical otherness of it.

He's very much doing his own thing, but maybe some familiarity with old english and with poetry has left me more attuned to that sort of playing with words. People who aren't native speakers, or who haven't explored the language beyond the conversational or pop-cultural, understandably might not have that sort of attunement. But some, I hope, will have discovered it along the way.

Yes this is something different, and it quite legitimately might not be to everyone's taste. But it's certainly not nonsense, and overbearing isn't really the right word either.

[imaloony]

引用自 zandilar：

Are you just talking about the Omenroad bit? If you go back to the game as it was released, the dialogue and writing has a similar style. Wildermyth (2021) pre-dates ChatGPT (2022).

Obviously, Omenroad doesn't predate cGPT - but the writing style is very similar to, if not the same as, the base game as far as I can tell, and I'm someone who has studied writing extensively (just graduated with a Masters in Creative Writing this year, in fact). I really like the style of the game's narration and dialogue - it's not an easy task to write for such a game, given that the narrative relies on a plethora of variables plus branches, and especially for a smaller developer.

It is a dense and lyrical style of writing, and it is a style that isn't necessarily appealing to everyone - so I don't blame you for not being able to follow it (I find it hard to follow sometimes too). But I think this is more a preference issue than an actual issue with the writing. (And perhaps a little bit of jankiness introduced due to the nature of the procedurally generated text.)

I'm not accusing the writers of using AI to write. I'm saying their writing was bad enough that I confused it for AI writing. In particular how it seems like the characters will "see ghosts" so to speak. Basically be in the middle of a conversation and bring up something completely unrelated/suddenly bring up hitherto unknown facts in a way that it feels like the character just made it up on the spot. Or go back and forth several times in a way where nothing of actual substance is said, (Paraphrasing: "What about X" "X?" "Yes, X." "Ah yes, X!" "Well, what do you think?" Hmmm, about X?" "Yes." "I don't really know.") And at times the flow of their conversation makes no sense; two characters talking to each other often feel like they're having two completely different conversations.

Preference in writing style is one thing, but this is something else.

[Skeleton]

My friends and I voice act/ad-lib nearly 90% of the dialogue. Whether it's me VAing an incredibly inappropriate Uncle Ruckus narrator, a pirate, or the stereotypical New Yorker. I feel all of the script in the game is made 1,000% more enjoyable with a bit of fun and imagination.

At that point however, it's basically little more than an XCOMlike/D&D-lite hybrid experience with what is arguably better dialogue. If this is the intention, then the writing is great. If that isn't the intention, then the writing has obviously failed miserably.

[zag queen of chaos]

my only issue with the dialogue is when it starts describing the environment for like 5 minutes like dude I can see whats going on around us you don't need to sit here and explain it to me

[jotwebe]

引用自 karinundmaedels：

Yup, here's the thing: I've played this game for 250 hours. I'm not a native speaker, I'm quite okay with simple day-to-day english as long as you don't expect my grammar to be perfect or my words to be precise, since i have vocabulary of... like 3000(?) words at best, probably, despite using the language daily. I can read texts, but i cannot read books, since I don't know like 50% of all words. Looking up specific words is no option to me, cuz until I've looked up all words in a chapter, I've forgot about the story already, so my only option is ignoring anything i don't know and use my imagination. I never came even near classical literature or poetry.

Have you tried the German translation? (Just making a guess based on your username here). I've been very impressed by it, it's way better than what you usually find in video games, or even film and Fernsehen.