For a game that is entirely text based the lack of dialogue variants is embarrassing.

[Harley001]

I legit think of some 12 year old flying the ship whenever these stupid pirates open their dumb mouths. "Come closer. CLOSER TO MY LASERS" and the fact they like to interdict ships that will probably kill them, like FDL's makes it even worst when they say this crap.

IT would legit probably take 15 minutes to change this but I think frontier legit forgot about pirates talking at all despite how terrible the current NPC pirate system is.

 

[evilchaosmonkey]

Ahh yes the real life possibilities are endless... let's help FD by writing some based on real life shall we, I'll start.....

"I have some puppies in my cargo, would you like to come alongside and play with them?"
Then proceed to have an alien probe inserted where it shouldn't.

"Are you looking at my girlfriend?" answer "No mate" retort "Why not, isn't she pretty enough?"
Then proceed to fight.

"You are a useless husband, all my friend's husbands would just give up their cargo without a fight. Why can't you be a good husband like them".
RL example that one. Except when you talk to their friend's husbands, their wives cite you as being the good husband and claim their husband is the crap one.

"I voted Trump, in the name of making America great again hand over your cargo or I'll build a wall around your ship."
Then proceed to fight or pay a tax or emigrate to another game that stands a chance of surviving the next 5 years.

or just go for the classic start a fight de niro entree.... just note, it's quite sweary so if you're sensitive don't push play

[video=youtube;4e9CkhBb18E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e9CkhBb18E[/video]

 

[Archvillain]

What's so hard about writing up 10 different responces for each situation and randoming them?

In FDev's defense, they already do that; there are generally many variants of each message type, the problem is that ten isn't remotely enough - we've heard all variants so often that they all now register as tiresome repeats
(Also don't forget that every piece of text added to the game first has to be translated into half a dozen different languages or more)

Perhaps they need to solve this the Elite Dangerous Way: make an engine to procedurally generate endless variants and permutations

 

[Dbrn47]

I don't think it's embarrassing but having more variation, voiced lines or even the ability to just turn it all off would be neat.

 

[Spacecat]

Lol, yeah, Fallout 3 has over 100,000 lines of dialogue (and text). ED has like, 30.

 

[Cosmo]

Well, it would be REALLY HARD to get two guys at the office to spend fifteen minutes a day coming up with them and putting them into the game right?

Absolutely need more voiced dialogues in-game. Robot voices would be ok with me (text-to-speech).

 

[Spacecat]

Hell yeah, gotta agree. The dialogue is still at a standard I'd expect from a beta. What's so hard about writing up 10 different responces for each situation and randoming them?

Lol, "I'm glad I found you first. All that (tasty/crusty/juicy/crunchy/rusty/blingy/mighty/smelly/musty/mushy/stuffy/moldy/gunky/sticky/goopy/funky/icky/heavy/crappy/snappy/bloody/munchy) cargo!".

 

[Ben Ryder]

Big haul like that...Good job I found you first...Tasty cargo...Go to hellspace I have heard it all before.
Adding dialogue is not difficult from a technical standpoint.
It does not take very much imagination to write these lines.
This series has generated its own book.
An entire book.
Surely if you have the time to write a book you are capable of coming up with some new one liners for the actual game?
It really is not much to ask.

Totally agree.

And some of the power play characters just sound stupid and strangely enough almost like exactly the same dodgy ill spoken pirate.

 

[Sandmann]

Perhaps they need to solve this the Elite Dangerous Way: make an engine to procedurally generate endless variants and permutations

... or possibly outsource it and take public submissions. They could publish a list of possible situations for npcs to react to and let us offer our suggested responses and choose the best 50 or more. There's enough people just on the forums who're bored enough by the repitition and poor english to give them more ideas than they know what to do with, and it'd make the players feel listened to.

 

[V'larr]

Of all the issues to worry about, this one seems extremely minor to me.

I'm just happy to not see the Wedding Barge spam so often nowadays.

I'd suggest that if you do really care about this, start by not being so negative about the idea, and post an actual suggestion thread over on the suggestion/feedback-dedicated area of the forums.

 

[samuelb]

"and don't forget this liner is in the top 1% of..."

COME ON. The sound engineering in this game is awesome, the graphics sublime, the galaxy vast and complex but the writing, my god it is atrocious.

Even my six year old daughter commented on "why do all the people say the same things Daddy?" - geez Frontier, if you are too strapped to pay a writer, just ask the community fgs.

Empty vessels having their cargo demanded... 100 weddings all following the same script... passengers being reminded about a ship they are already on...

"and don't forget salt is a vital ingredient in life's processes but that doesn't mean you should generate it in obscene levels"

 

[Blackcompany]

To be honest, i wish i could just toggle it off, rather than have even more of it.
Because you're completely right, it comes across like something a few blokes coughed up during their coffee break.
And not very talented or creative blokes at that, i'm sure they're much better at what they actually are hired for.
This whole "Uuuuhh, i'm the bad guy and i'm coming to get you" malarkey should stay where it belongs, in underfunded B and C grade movies.
I know this is pretty blunt, but sorry, that's how i see it.

Well said. I agree.

 

[Oguska]

Interaction with NPC's and maybe players with selectable dialogue system is needed, with this current system scan and shoot, nothing else matters.

 

[Zeeman]

I've already mention that FD need to use their RNG powers for good, instead of evil. A sentence constructed of 6 segments, with each segment having six possibilities would result in 46656 possible variations.

Z...

 

[Red Fox Four]

Meh... the text chat should just be removed

For instance... why are we hearing the local PA announcements of the cruise ships? Information like "we'll be in this system for awhile, make sure to enjoy our entertainment system" or whatever they say.

Do pilots on 747 passenger planes hear the PA announcements from nearby planes? "Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to land." ... of course they don't! Nor do we want to hear wedding announcements like "Oh I hope I didn't forget my vows" on the Interplanetary Communications channels. I don't care about his stupid vows.

In fact, I once destroyed a Wedding Barge because I was sick of reading his spam while I was supercruising for signal sources. Guess he won't need those vows when bridge, groom and their entire entourage are transformed into stardust.

So why do we have to listen to (read) this hogwash on what is, presumably, our spaceships communication channel to communicate with the pilots of other ships?

Things we want to hear is VOICES, like the Flight Control at the stations.

When I get interdicted by an authority ship and pulled out of supercruise... I want to hear them tell me, with VOICE, "Stop your ship immediately Commander. This is a routine scan." (furthermore, but different topic, if you run away from a scan you should be fined for doing so). They could even use the same setup as the Flight Control... "Core Dynamics Golf-Hotel-Romeo, please stop your engines and prepare for routine scan."

Anyways... the whole text spam, while it's purpose is probably to add flavour to the game, could be massively improved and worked on. Especially considering the great job they did with the Flight Control... absolutely awesome... so why not extend this to NPC pirates and authority ships who would address you with some voice-chatter.

Granted, they wouldn't necessarily have to spam you with voice chat everytime you get scanned in a REZ site... in fact... why would they send you a message at all? They would just scan you and the voice-chat could trigger if they find something and prepare to attack you (or deliver the terms to drop cargo, or else...).

 

[CAPT. Ho Chi Minge]

i always imagined that with the coming of cmdr avatars and npc avatars that the info panel could be utilised to provide a "comms link". so instead of the usual dreary text we would have soething akin to a ster trek hail, flights of fancy for now but one can hope.

*if at any point you dont want to pickup the call you could just open hardpoints and answer back that way.

 

[Iskariot]

Big haul like that...Good job I found you first...Tasty cargo...Go to hellspace I have heard it all before.
Adding dialogue is not difficult from a technical standpoint.
It does not take very much imagination to write these lines.
This series has generated its own book.
An entire book.
Surely if you have the time to write a book you are capable of coming up with some new one liners for the actual game?
It really is not much to ask.

The game is in development.
Everything needs time. This is no different.

This series has generated its own book.

"A book" ?
There are several Elite Dangerous books written by multiple authors...
But that has nothing to do with it.
Try developing such a huge project yourself and then you will understand.

 

[Zeeman]

Meh... the text chat should just be removed

For instance... why are we hearing the local PA announcements of the cruise ships? Information like "we'll be in this system for awhile, make sure to enjoy our entertainment system" or whatever they say.

Do pilots on 747 passenger planes hear the PA announcements from nearby planes? "Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to land." ... of course they don't! Nor do we want to hear wedding announcements like "Oh I hope I didn't forget my vows" on the Interplanetary Communications channels. I don't care about his stupid vows.

In fact, I once destroyed a Wedding Barge because I was sick of reading his spam while I was supercruising for signal sources. Guess he won't need those vows when bridge, groom and their entire entourage are transformed into stardust.

So why do we have to listen to (read) this hogwash on what is, presumably, our spaceships communication channel to communicate with the pilots of other ships?

Things we want to hear is VOICES, like the Flight Control at the stations.

When I get interdicted by an authority ship and pulled out of supercruise... I want to hear them tell me, with VOICE, "Stop your ship immediately Commander. This is a routine scan." (furthermore, but different topic, if you run away from a scan you should be fined for doing so). They could even use the same setup as the Flight Control... "Core Dynamics Golf-Hotel-Romeo, please stop your engines and prepare for routine scan."

Anyways... the whole text spam, while it's purpose is probably to add flavour to the game, could be massively improved and worked on. Especially considering the great job they did with the Flight Control... absolutely awesome... so why not extend this to NPC pirates and authority ships who would address you with some voice-chatter.

Granted, they wouldn't necessarily have to spam you with voice chat everytime you get scanned in a REZ site... in fact... why would they send you a message at all? They would just scan you and the voice-chat could trigger if they find something and prepare to attack you (or deliver the terms to drop cargo, or else...).

This is so much win. Totally agree. They've done a great job with the stations - I'd argue they need some more voices, possible get the community to submit a few, it'd be awesome to know that actual CMDR's were behind some of those voices. the ones that are there now are excellent, and I've heard quite a few different accents, would love to hear more!

Z...

 

[Dibble]

Or you could always play in open and talk to real people

 

[Enderby]

Biggest game galaxy, fewest npc lines!