Aye, with the convos being triggered once during the story that could work, I think. Good idea!
Yes, those two cops are the worst case for sure.
Yes, those two cops are the worst case for sure.
Funny thing here, is it is exactly the same issue with The Witcher 3.
Just fired that game back up after years to try the new mods and re-acquaint myself before the next-gen update arrives; and as much as I still love the game, one of the biggest immersion-breaking factors so far has been the repeat dialogue.
Every town or small area I go to, every day at the same time are the same people saying the same things lol. XD
Just fired that game back up after years to try the new mods and re-acquaint myself before the next-gen update arrives; and as much as I still love the game, one of the biggest immersion-breaking factors so far has been the repeat dialogue.
Every town or small area I go to, every day at the same time are the same people saying the same things lol. XD
This is not an issue: it's simultaneously a design decision and a development limitation.
The games utilize these scripted "dialogues", replete with custom voice acting and animation packages to create unique scenes scattered throughout the game world. However, if they play only once and are deactivated in game, then players would be left with generally empty spaces and shapeless NPCs.
"So, make more of them so that they play randomly..." someone may argue. Now we get into cost. In order to record and integrate that many different scenes, it would be an enormous expense. And all for something that was inherently meant to be simply background detail and passive world-building.
So, that leaves the devs with three options:
1.) Play each dialogue once, then they vanish and are replaced with nothing.
2.) Spend a significant amount of resources and man-hours to add more, which will make that staff and budget unavailable for other parts of the game.
3.) Have each scene play indefinitely until the world-state itself is changed at later stages in the game.
Each comes with pros and cons, but obviously, the devs opted for #3. I can admit it does get a little distracting, but I like it a lot more than the canned NPC antics in GTA, or the...radiant...dialogue that can occur in Bethesda games:
A: "Good morning."
B: "What news?"
A: "Have you heard? The daedra are attacking the roads! The Imperial Guard can do nothing!"
B: "Maltius Arran told me an infusion of bloatweed is good for the joints."
A: "I'll be seeing you."
B: "Get out of my sight, cur!"
The games utilize these scripted "dialogues", replete with custom voice acting and animation packages to create unique scenes scattered throughout the game world. However, if they play only once and are deactivated in game, then players would be left with generally empty spaces and shapeless NPCs.
"So, make more of them so that they play randomly..." someone may argue. Now we get into cost. In order to record and integrate that many different scenes, it would be an enormous expense. And all for something that was inherently meant to be simply background detail and passive world-building.
So, that leaves the devs with three options:
1.) Play each dialogue once, then they vanish and are replaced with nothing.
2.) Spend a significant amount of resources and man-hours to add more, which will make that staff and budget unavailable for other parts of the game.
3.) Have each scene play indefinitely until the world-state itself is changed at later stages in the game.
Each comes with pros and cons, but obviously, the devs opted for #3. I can admit it does get a little distracting, but I like it a lot more than the canned NPC antics in GTA, or the...radiant...dialogue that can occur in Bethesda games:
A: "Good morning."
B: "What news?"
A: "Have you heard? The daedra are attacking the roads! The Imperial Guard can do nothing!"
B: "Maltius Arran told me an infusion of bloatweed is good for the joints."
A: "I'll be seeing you."
B: "Get out of my sight, cur!"
I do have some problem with dialogues in places which we are visiting regulary like megablock. They are a bit annoying after some time. But - there is tens of dialogues on the streets and in places where player will be only once if lucky and those could be duplicated in some other areas as well.
This NPC dialogue "challenge" will be solved in the future using the Chat bot tech and text to voice actor's speech tech combined together. We already have very good working proof of concept version of both, they just need to be put in the games. That will depend on how much resources future games can handle. Or more likely and (unfortunately) it will be done by streamlining it from the game providers servers via always on line.
Always on line requirement tastes like Kale
So for a realistic example (the following AI chat bot program can run on a desktop PC ) .
So say you are in a game where you are the last human and all the NPC around now are robots that originally were intended as service bots. They are everywhere in your post apocalyptic city where all living creatures have been killed but you survived because of reasons. So now you are a scavenger wandering the city for supplies and BLA BLA BLA...
You come up behind two nanny robots pushing baby carriages (with a strange baby shaped pile of dust in them) in the street and hear them having this conversation:
This was NOT scripted, it was all impromptu dialog that only needs one "seed" question to get it started. And the really wild part is that the real human could INTERUPT them in the middle of their conversations and talk to them and change the direction of the dialog. Even ask for directions to the local Radio Shack so you can loot it!
.
You may say "sure that works for robot NPC, but what about NPC that are suppose to be real people?"
In the not so distant future desk top PC will be able to do this:
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Good thread, that touches on something that never bothered me though I did notice it a thousand times. But I have to disagree that this is an "issue" and I absolutely agree with @SigilFey . As someone who studied systemic design in video games, the fact that these dialogues and situations are even there is already something pretty huge, and allocating ressources to make these details even better is just not going to happen, maybe not until the game is fully patched up, and even then...
I think they *could* maybe cycle the appearance of these dialogues and situations, like only once every three days let's say just to reduce the "annoying" factor but maybe that would make it worse? I don't know. Regardless, I think it's fine as is it right now.
I think they *could* maybe cycle the appearance of these dialogues and situations, like only once every three days let's say just to reduce the "annoying" factor but maybe that would make it worse? I don't know. Regardless, I think it's fine as is it right now.
Yes I think on matters of background colour like this people have totally unrealistic expectations of how much time, work and money is involved.
You have people here asking for points of interest associated with every NPC who opens their mouth. You have people saying every NPC with unique dialogue should have three times as much.
On top of a game where almost all side quests and gigs play out in unique locations with unique characters and brimming with progress-sensitive and highly detailed radio and TV media segments that are themselves optional background colour.
Honestly, how much more are people going to ask for? It starts to get insane, especially for a game set almost entirely in a populated city (Witcher 3, by comparison, must be three quarters or more forest or water, and Skyrim even more so, with the "cities" boasting populations of 10; it's not, by comparison, hugely demanding to expect the people who do appear to do a bit more).
These demands for more and more and more of every little thing are why Ubisoft ended up turning to a cookie cutter approach where every game had exactly the same mechanics repeated 100 times each, and it got so out of hand they're now trying to backpedal from it.
The choice is between having attention to detail and tailored content as much as possible, or having everything do a little bit of everything a lot and badly (think endless fetch quests, undetailed and cut and paste locations, NPCs spouting banalities, etc). If people want both, they can expect the price of these types of games to hit $150, or even $200.
I've been playing a lot of Horizon Forbidden West recently, and it has the same "repeated dialogue lines" of NPCs in settlements.
(Now, that's an incredible game - keeps on surprising me).
Honestly, where it really bothers me is when the interactions don't seem very repeatable and are in zones that you spend a lot of time in. (Which, in CP2077, is just two of them - the policemen arresting a resident near your apartment, and the two policemen at the street level ("Do you want to talk about it?") - most of the other repeated lines are just an artefact of how the game has to work.
Cheers,
Merric
(Now, that's an incredible game - keeps on surprising me).
Honestly, where it really bothers me is when the interactions don't seem very repeatable and are in zones that you spend a lot of time in. (Which, in CP2077, is just two of them - the policemen arresting a resident near your apartment, and the two policemen at the street level ("Do you want to talk about it?") - most of the other repeated lines are just an artefact of how the game has to work.
Cheers,
Merric
Why its so imporant? Cyberpunk is simply amazing universe, why dont they let it shine instead. I would pump up the Cyberpunk for expansion as much I could.
Radio would be one way. Media. Roles. Even new Main Character, (spin off?) V kind of Mercenary isnt real the best match.
What Im saying is that Cyberpunk itself is the best choice of weapon to use for CDPR.
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Every single game has it. Even sport, cards games, slot machines are repetitive. Some people want somekind of real world VR game.
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Yeah, I could imagine that would be sort of draw more attention to it, actually.
Absolutely true. But I do get what bugs people about it. I remember encountering it for the first time in TW3 in White Orchard, and thinking, "Am I...actually going to have to listen to that every time I walk down this street? Really? Oh. Oh... Yes. Yes, I am, it seems. Every time."
Then, my brain did it's little "WTF?" process, and I quickly realized:
Well, this is a lot better than being badgered by every single NPC I wander too closely to...about the weather...finding their grandfather's sword in some bandit cave...or how they'll probably never get married. ("I'm literally just going to the alchemy store to buy two ingredients. Get out of my face, people.") It also feels much less stilted than the shapeless "clutter" NPCs in Bioware games or the "attitude on roller skates" NPCs in GTA games.
I'll put it this way: yes, it's noticeable. Yes, it can be somewhat immersion breaking. But, I've never once wanted to download a mod like this for TW3 or CP2077:
I'll never forget the song sung by the kid at the intersection
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And just to add a detail, instead of TW3, there are hundreds of dialogue lines which are played only once and which, I imagine, many players never heard. In the GIGs/NCPD Scanner Hustles, enemies have dialogue lines that you can hear, only if you are discrete. And only once, because obviously, after complete these events/GIGs, you won't hear these dialogues again.So CDPR already put a lot of work on "something" which probably, the majority of players never paid attention
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The top and bottom of it all is a game/dev's limitations, no game can have trully believable dialog, or non-repeating dialog.
But, one of the best implementations of interacting with random NPC's is that in RDR2, as it feels rather natural, not too complex and its quite surprising what R* was able to do on old tech like the PS4. So it's a bit surprising that CDPR could not do similar, perhaps its a serious limitation of the RedEngine, and hence the move away from it.
But, one of the best implementations of interacting with random NPC's is that in RDR2, as it feels rather natural, not too complex and its quite surprising what R* was able to do on old tech like the PS4. So it's a bit surprising that CDPR could not do similar, perhaps its a serious limitation of the RedEngine, and hence the move away from it.
Maybe because that RDR2 is only available in english (or maybe it's why it's only available in english...)
If RDR2 was released in all Cyberpunk languages, it would require 10 times more work...
I think one of the from the outset problems of Cyberpunk, though, was its setting. It's a city. Things need to be happening everywhere and the population needs to be dense for it to even start feeling real.
So when people don't talk at all, it's noticeable and that type of activity needs to be happening more or less *everywhere* within the non industrial parts of the city. That does mean that the effort may feel at times spread thin -- even though probably considerably more work went into it overall than other games that benefit from those geographical gaps between NPCs -- and there's a limit to how much work can be put into any one NPC.
One thing I found quite striking was that going out to Pacifica the overheard conversations feel very organic -- because there's barely anyone else around.
I haven't played the second one myself yet, but I will admit that it seems to have a very nice way of handling NPCs. They're still a bit canned, but it's also very seamless. I'd argue (just based on what I've seen of NPC reactions and interactions in gameplay videos and whatnot) that this is a beautiful implementation of that approach.
As for CDPR "doing similar" things -- they definitely could have! Nothing was preventing them. But the devs are always trying to handle things uniquely, tread new ground. Is it as seamless as the way RDR2 handles it, arguably no. That would be my argument as well, but it does create fantastic first-time impressions of places. Definitely helps to make areas feel 100% unique. I'd say that's a pretty fair trade in the end, although I totally agree that it can break immersion if people hear the same dialogue one too many times.
It's an interesting challenge for the future, maybe.
This is also a major factor. If a game is released in only one language, that opens up worlds of opportunity for the amount of NPC dialogue and interactions. Thus, for even a small project -- let's say 5 voice actors, 1 director, 1 sound engineer, and 1 programmer that will install the dialogue -- that will involve only 5,000 lines of dialogue (extremely small for a video game) with no motion capture, it will take a full working week per actor just for the recording. The director, engineer, and programmer will have to be paid continuously for each actor (...you can't record all 5 people at once). This also does not include any time spent on rehearsals, multiple takes, technical issues, etc. This would mean around 900 man-hours total that need to be paid.
Let's say this is a really low-paying gig, so actors will make only $500 total for their performance. The director, engineer, and programmer will make $500 for each actor they record and finalize, so that's $1,500 each. That means for the roughly 30 working days this will take, the crew will be paid $4,500, and I'll need $1,500 for the actors. In the end, I'll have roughly 2 hours of recorded dialogue that's probably not going to be all that great, since in order to cut costs, I didn't bother with rehearsals or multiple takes.
Grand total: over a month of studio time, $6,000, and the results are likely to be flat and uninspired. If I want to record my game in a different language, I'll need to pay $6,000 again. A third language? $6,000 again. Etc.
And that's for a tiny game. 5,000 lines of dialogue is roughly 2 hours.
Cyberpunk 2077 has about 28 hours of dialogue. (And they're not paying people part-time wages.)
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Maybe because that RDR2 is only available in english (or maybe it's why it's only available in english...)
If RDR2 was released in all Cyberpunk languages, it would require 10 times more work...
Perhaps CDPR should have started with English only, then slowly rolled out other languages to cut the work load?
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I couldn't agree more here. I was surprised to see very little happening when walking around NC. I think perhaps I might have been spoiled with games like RDR2, but I assumed that CP77 would have had more variation, random events and seeing NPCs doing more things in NC, especially since CDPR said they wanted to have some focus on the city.
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Yeah, its like I just said, maybe I was spoiled a bit coming from something like RDR2 then into CP77 and it did feel a bit jarring to me.
I get to some it doesn't bother them that much, and that's totally cool as different strokes for different folks, but I think it could have been an awesome addition to the NPC's to have something like that. For me, it helps sell the whole "living world" feeling of games.
And since Night City is a wild place, it might have been pretty cool to antagonise some citizens to the point that they pull out a Slaught-O-Matic and try and unload on V.
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Not english, the VO is Polish... (according to Pawel) So I'm not sure that majority of english players would love playing Cyberpunk in Polish with English subtitles
I just imagine that if Rockstar decided to fully translate RDR2 in 10 more languages, it would required a quite huge amount of work/money, work/money that could not have been spent elsewhere (maybe the quality/less dialogues/less interactivity of the NPCs for example).
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Mandarin Chinese perhaps is a better option from a business perspective and to try to aim to the widest possible player base: