you have ruined the MI style of dialogue

the multiple dialogue choices are usually really funny... too bad it has NO relevance what you choose, because Guybrush will always say something else!

what have you done!? you have completely ruined the MI style of dialogue that is so central to the game. I would go as far as calling it one of the most important things with the whole series. and in Tales of Monkey Island, it is a joke. sometimes there are no choices at all. the dialogue goes on without you having a say at all. and when you have choices - they are usually pretty funny - but why bother choosing any, when Guybrush will just say something unfunny anyway? this is ridiculous.

really disappointing! this takes away so much of the joy for me. I'm really almost heartbroken here... you have taken one of my absolute favourite elements of the Monkey Island series and made it a cosmetic gimmick that serves no purpose.


oh well, alt-tabbing back to the game now. I just hope the other stuff weigh up to this catastrophy.
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Comments

  • edited July 2009
    I didnt like the idea initally when I encountered it in Sam & Max, but ultimately it's good in the sense that I don't laugh at what the character is going to say before the voice actor has said it. It's always a pleasant surprise for me.
  • I agree with Nadir. While it's not exactly what's on the choice, it usually carries the same idea to it.
  • edited July 2009
    Is this a serious topic? Really? You're actually suggesting that what made Monkey Island's dialogue great was that they would repeat the exact line you just read?

    I much prefer this set up. It gets extremely redundant when they just keep repeating the exact same line that you just finished reading.
  • edited July 2009
    You are over-reacting, but I agree to some extent. I've not played far, but when I arrived on the beach it really pissed me off...

    There are certainly times when the effect is a good idea however. For example, if guybrush thinks something rude and then doesn't want to hurt the other character so says something nice to them instead... In that case it fulfils a comedic purpose.

    But, yeah. You're over-reacting... Most of the dialogue hasn't been like this tbh.
  • edited July 2009
    On the contrary, I think it is the best part of the game so far. But hey, each to their own I guess...
  • edited July 2009
    Zeik56 wrote: »
    Is this a serious topic? Really? You're actually suggesting that what made Monkey Island's dialogue great was that they would repeat the exact line you just read?

    I much prefer this set up. It gets extremely redundant when they just keep repeating the exact same line that you just finished reading.

    what if you wanted to say something but something completly diffrent came out of your mouth? such as you just agreed fully with what the TC said, would that be fun?

    what if MI3 was the same way such as

    Guybrush meets Murray the talking skull and you pick the line "you look as fearsome as a door stop" then guybrush says something much less witty and even worse something diffrent all together that has nothing to do with the line you picked at all.
  • edited July 2009
    the multiple dialogue choices are usually really funny... Too bad it has no relevance what you choose, because guybrush will always say something else!

    What have you done!? You have completely ruined the mi style of dialogue that is so central to the game. I would go as far as calling it one of the most important things with the whole series. And in tales of monkey island, it is a joke. Sometimes there are no choices at all. The dialogue goes on without you having a say at all. And when you have choices - they are usually pretty funny - but why bother choosing any, when guybrush will just say something unfunny anyway? This is ridiculous.

    Really disappointing! This takes away so much of the joy for me. I'm really almost heartbroken here... You have taken one of my absolute favourite elements of the monkey island series and made it a cosmetic gimmick that serves no purpose.


    Oh well, alt-tabbing back to the game now. I just hope the other stuff weigh up to this catastrophy.


    lol, wow
  • edited July 2009
    I think it's atrocious the way much of the dialogue is carried out without any interacting from the player as well. like you may choose one thing, then there will be an exchanging of five lines each between Guyrbush and and the npc you're talking to.

    no interacting makes me feel like I have no control and that I'm not even playing as much as I am just watching a dialogue being carried out like on a movie.
  • edited July 2009
    Maybe if you just played the game without exiting out of it every five minutes to moan and complain about it on the forums, you'd get a more interactive experience.
  • edited July 2009
    fire2box wrote: »
    what if you wanted to say something but something completly diffrent came out of your mouth? such as you just agreed fully with what the TC said, would that be fun?

    ...Well since I'm not a video game that would probably be cause for concern. But seeing as this is a video game, and does not function like real life, these really aren't comparable circumstances.

    Redundancy in a joke is really bad in a game like this. The joke often loses much of it's impact when you essentially here it repeated twice. I definitely prefer the idea of lines giving you an idea of what you're going to say, you possibly laugh at the line, and then the character says something along those lines, and possibly have a whole new line to enjoy. Even if the new line isn't always quite as funny, it's much better than redundancy that ruins the joke.
  • edited July 2009
    thank you for your contribution, xChri5x. also I am done playing it for now. it's 4am and I gotta get up early. am looking forward to (hopefully) finishing the game tomorrow. most aspects of it is really good.
  • edited July 2009
    While I have not had a chance yet to play the game, I do agree with the OP to a certain extent. Sometimes I pick the insulting lines just to see the reaction/effect. If it's true that Guybrush is changing the lines to be more polite or whatever, then the game suddenly becomes quite linear.

    There are certain small things that make Monkey Island what it is and this is one of them. Removing it is like removing grog.
  • edited July 2009
    This forum has an echo... cool
  • edited July 2009
    Zeik56 wrote: »
    I definitely prefer the idea of lines giving you an idea of what you're going to say, you possibly laugh at the line, and then the character says something along those lines, and possibly have a whole new line to enjoy.

    if this was the case at all times, I would probably be happy. but I find that way too many times he just says something "regular" and "un-Guybrush". especially when talking to Nipperkin.


    anyway I wholeheartedly agree with icedan about it making the game linear.
  • edited July 2009
    Telltale! Please don't listen to these guys :( I don't want this game to change in future chapters!
  • edited July 2009
    Of course, thinking about it more, you have to admit, if they added audio for each line, plus the replies to that line, you're going to end up with a 500mb file to download.
  • edited July 2009
    icedan wrote: »
    While I have not had a chance yet to play the game, I do agree with the OP to a certain extent. Sometimes I pick the insulting lines just to see the reaction/effect. If it's true that Guybrush is changing the lines to be more polite or whatever, then the game suddenly becomes quite linear.

    There are certain small things that make Monkey Island what it is and this is one of them. Removing it is like removing grog.

    Yeah, the parts with Nipperkin are quite awkward.

    You'll literally get four or five options for what you can say to him in the situation, but it doesn't change how the scene plays out.

    Just for a quick example:
    "Hello Creepwood. Nice to meet you. I'm Nipperkin!"
    (Potential Responses)
    A. I need to go, I need to find my wife!
    B. I need to go, I need to stop LeChuck!
    C. I need to go, I need to get back to my monkeys!
    Now, regardless of which option you choose, he says
    "I need to go rescue my wife."

    And, this sort of thing happens four or five times in a row. I mean, the dialogue options are funny, but since he always chooses one of the options, not even the general idea, it's rather idiotic.
  • edited July 2009
    I certainly liked the original MI dialog style better. In the original games, there were a couple of occasions where Guybrush said something other than what you'd expected, and that added comic effect.

    When you do it in EVERY DIALOG, the comic effect is lost.

    When, on top of that, making different choices doesn't even alter WHAT Guybrush is saying, offering the choices at all seems completely pointless.
  • edited July 2009
    Huh? is everyone just focusing on the discussion with Nipperkin?

    Because I had discussions with Elane and Le Chuck before that and those were discussions with various paths and all - Nipperkin is the only discussion I found so far where Guybrush's answers are linear at all

    I think the joke is that all other responses would be out of character for Guybrush but also that the reporter is constantly asking questions so Guybrush hasn't much time between them to speak. I thought it was a rather amusing discussion despite the linear result
  • edited July 2009
    I Think the dialogs are JUST fine with the otucoming option of "Guybrush is going to say anything he wants"!
    It did not ruined any specific part of the game!
    I´ve been playing a fui minutes already and it only makes me laugh!!
  • edited July 2009
    Its not all that different then the old games. There were always scenes where no matter what you picked he'd say the same thing. It didn't happen all the time then, but it doesn't happen all the time here either, people need to chillax.
  • edited July 2009
    I'm definitely not a fan. This is a big part of what's killing the game for me.
  • edited July 2009
    While I never had an issue with this in Sam and Max, it did strike me as extremely odd when Guybrush completely and ungracefully ignored my response choices. For me it seems more strange than bad.
  • edited July 2009
    We've touched on this issue before, and I'll just repeat what I said last time.
    Basically, it'll start to get boring when you've read the line and then hear the character say the exact same thing.
    Basically. =P Sometimes its very much needed to know exactly what you're going to say. I remember my partner playing Mass Effect, the dialog he chose he thought was to save a life, but ended up killing him instead.
  • edited July 2009
    I agree 100 percent that the dialogue system is at times god-awful terrible. I'm cool with Guybrush just saying something similar to what you've selected, but when he completely ignores it, what's the point? I may as well be watching a cutscene. At least then I wouldn't feel frustratingly ignored.
  • edited July 2009
    oh shut up. You're forgetting the fact that we've been waiting for NINE YEARS for this to come out. I think the game is GREAT, don't change ANYTHING.
  • edited July 2009
    I'm another in total agreement with the OP. The dialogue system of the earlier MI games worked perfectly, why change it now?
  • edited July 2009
    We've touched on this issue before, and I'll just repeat what I said last time.
    Basically, it'll start to get boring when you've read the line and then hear the character say the exact same thing.

    Yeah, except that's not the case. This is a case of there being multiple options, and instead of choosing your choice, Guybrush chooses to read one of the choices word for word, making your input irrelevant.

    As with the already highly visible Nipperkin conversations, you are given multiple choices. No matter what you choose, he chooses the most appropriate one for you.

    No, not what you didn't expect. No, not a variation on the concept you chose. No, he chooses, almost word for word, the option that is (usually) the most boring.

    As I already pointed out, when you're choosing between "I have to save my wife" and "I have to stop Le Chuck", and he automatically chooses "I have to save my wife", regardless of your choice, it's not even unexpected, or something new to read. It's just retarded.
  • edited July 2009
    I hate reading the joke before the characters say it. Telltale did absolutely the right thing. Sam & Max Hit The Road was even better you'd just click on an icon and the character would say something so you'd have no idea what kind of funny dialogue sam & max would say.. I think this is one of the supidest criticisms I've heard.
  • edited July 2009
    We've touched on this issue before, and I'll just repeat what I said last time.
    Basically, it'll start to get boring when you've read the line and then hear the character say the exact same thing.
    Basically. =P Sometimes its very much needed to know exactly what you're going to say. I remember my partner playing Mass Effect, the dialog he chose he thought was to save a life, but ended up killing him instead.

    oi, AUSTRALIAN; can you explain why it wasn't boring for me in Monkey Island 1, 2 and 3.
  • edited July 2009
    This stroke me negatively at first as well; but I grew to like it because I can laugh at what I read and not have to re-hear Dominic say it again. The only disadvantage is that by making every choice essentially the same you also narrow the response to 1 as opposed to 3 or 4 funny ones.
  • edited July 2009
    Rofl that's only for the opening cutscene. Play it all before judging.
  • edited July 2009
    As a old MI fan, I too was disappointed by the dialog, it is missing the good old MI sprit every much. Though it works better in S&M but in MI, no, not by a long shot. Besides replayability is degraded by this very much.
    Elane has also changed and is not as "hard" on guybrush as she normally is.

    I am just hoping there isnt gonna be a insult fight in this, if the dialog is gonna be like this. It would definitely make it hard for me to ordre the next series even though I normally go for the full package.
  • edited July 2009
    the multiple dialogue choices are usually really funny... too bad it has NO relevance what you choose, because Guybrush will always say something else!
    Dude, calm down. This was a good decision that made it a better game, you're just overthinking it.

    If you hear him say EXACTLY what you just read, not only is it repetitive/boring, but you spoil the punchline. In the first two games there was no voice acting so this wasn't an issue, but in the voice-acting era, this has long been a way of keeping things fresh. Under a Killing Moon did it back in 1994, and Mass Effect did it last year. Even Curse of Monkey Island did it with some of the dialog, and Escape from Monkey Island did it too.

    Just because it's different, doesn't make it bad. It's not that the choices have no relevance, it's just a better way of writing for the talkie era.
    and in Tales of Monkey Island, it is a joke. sometimes there are no choices at all. the dialogue goes on without you having a say at all.
    Yeah, dude, play some old Monkey Island games. They all did this for certain dialog.
  • edited July 2009
    But this is only for the opening bit with the reporter. It doesn't happen that often, and it's funny half the time.

    Finish the game, then rant.
  • edited July 2009
    When you do it in EVERY DIALOG, the comic effect is lost.

    When, on top of that, making different choices doesn't even alter WHAT Guybrush is saying, offering the choices at all seems completely pointless.
    Totally agree. In fact I was just alt-tabbing out of the game because I was pretty disappointed with this.

    CMI is a good example of how it is done. Sometimes he'll say exactly what is written, sometimes he'll veer from it but it will be a surprise. And most of all, the choice you pick changes what he says, whether he says it word for word or not.

    This is a hard situation, because it has past greatness to measure up to. TMI has got a lot of things right, but it's hard to get over a few initial disappointments
  • edited July 2009
    Frogacuda wrote: »
    If you hear him say EXACTLY what you just read, not only is it repetitive/boring, but you spoil the punchline.

    Disagree. It was never repetitive/boring. That's like saying it's repetitive/boring for every action you do.

    e.g. "Pick up cheezles". Guybrush picks up cheezles. Shit! Guybrush did exactly what I told him to, that is so boring and repetitive.


    Now that I've debunked this repetitive/boring nonsense, i'll hold the rest of my opinions until I have played the game, other than this one: I firmly believe Telltale Games decided, long ago when they were making these web-based games, that in order to keep the file size low and perhaps other economic reasons, the dialog system had to change; it's not necessarily a BETTER idea for the game itself, just a more EFFICIENT one.

    And I don't believe for a second that any one of you would turn down the option to have multiple paths of dialog.
  • edited July 2009
    icedan wrote: »
    Disagree. It was never repetitive/boring. That's like saying it's repetitive/boring for every action you do.

    e.g. "Pick up cheezles". Guybrush picks up cheezles. Shit! Guybrush did exactly what I told him to, that is so boring and repetitive.
    Except in this case he does say basically what was written, but he phrases it differently so you get two jokes for the price of one. Except for one or two spots where all the choices come out the same (EVERY Monkey ISland game did these, it's just a joke) you still have full control of the conversation.

    It's not confusing, he doesn't go off topic, you're still in control. It's just a way of not spoiling jokes.
    I firmly believe Telltale Games decided, long ago when they were making these web-based games, that in order to keep the file size low and perhaps other economic reasons, the dialog system had to change; it's not necessarily a BETTER idea for the game itself, just a more EFFICIENT one.
    You can believe what you want, but Sam and Max Season One and Bone didn't do it, and what you're proclaiming doesn't even make sense since it has ZERO to do with development time or file size. There are still four different option, but now they write two versions of each. It's actually more work.

    I've spoken to Dave Grossman about this. When I first saw the game last month, I was very pleased at their decision to do it this way and he elaborated on why they did it. You can accept it and try to appreciate the upside, or you can let it ruin your day because it's different.
  • edited July 2009
    icedan wrote: »
    oi, AUSTRALIAN; can you explain why it wasn't boring for me in Monkey Island 1, 2 and 3.

    Since you're from NZ, i'll let the 'AUSTRALIAN' thing slide. ;)

    But I do believe it happens(perhaps less often) in the previous games as well. Don't quote me on that though, I may be wrong.
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