Taival Mechanics #6: Dialogue Systems
Tired of making decisions alone? Or missing out on the story because you weren't the host of the game? As Taival is a quest-driven co-op game, we wanted the important decisions to be made together. We also wanted the players to experience the story at the same time. However, we also want to have all the less world shaping flavour, chitchat, shop and lore dialogue easily accessible without annoyingly requiring all players to be present at all times. This is why came up with a group dialogue system in addition to your default ordinary dialogue system!
The group dialogue works as follows: whoever first initiates the dialogue with the NPC controls the dialogue options. Other players join the same dialogue, and see the conversation with all the text and bells & whistles synced on their screens. All players' cursors are visible and synced on the screen, allowing players to hover over their dialogue option of choice to show the controlling player what they want to say, or just otherwise chase each others' cursors around. In addition, we've created a little emote wheel just for the group dialogue view, where the players can show their emotions and reactions to the dialogue (we will of course also allow muting certain players' cursors and actions if they do not behave).
In addition to the controlling functionality, the group dialogue system also has a cinematic camera view that calculates the best (or sometimes at least not the worst) view for each talking NPC or player, and syncs this for all players. This creates a nice impact and focus for the dialogue instead of the camera remaining at the normal third person view during the dialogue. All quests are started, ended, and choices regarding them are made in this dialogue mode. Of course, it also works great on single player, with the difference in that case from the ordinary dialogue being the cinematic camera (and emotes with which you can show the NPC how you feel)!
The ordinary dialogue systems works exactly like you'd expect it to. Anyone can initiate this type of dialogue whenever they wish, and they can alone choose what they want to say at their own pace. The camera remains in the third person mode too.
Do you have any ideas for how to make these systems more immersive and more interactive between players? Let us know so we can make this game the be(a)st it can be together!
Thanks for tuning in, and a huge thank you once again for being a patron!
Taival team
Comments (2)
This is awesome, this will not only make it more fun to engage in dialogue with your party, but also helps with people not skipping all of it as well if they can have their party become a part of the conversation. You could also add a way for party members who aren’t nearby to at least hop into the conversation hear/see the dialogue by clicking on a prompt or something just so you don’t need to wait for them to be there. Just have it so they can hear/see but not be a part of the cinematic camera shifts if possible.
How come didn't we think of that idea! We didn't want the players to just teleport to the conversation if they're not near, but that idea instantly solves the problem of having to wait for party members while keeping the party together for the dialogue. We're looking into implementing it, thanks!