Between Alpha Protocol and most anything BioWare releases, I have been putting some thought into dialogue trees, those ways you choose the inflection of what you say or what exactly you talk about that, to varying degrees, affects things. Namely, I've been trying to come up with ways to make them better. I'll not turn this into a diatribe against them, but I bring it up because it turned out to be a more difficult question than I expected.
So let's get some ideas going, eh? So just think of any flaw you want about dialogue trees (even if it's not an opinion you share) and come up with some way fix it. The nature of brainstorming is that no idea is wrong, but if need be tuned or added to. Like I said, I don't want this to be a rant against dialogue trees and by extension don't want this to become a rant against anyone's ideas.
As I'm sure you expect, I will try to get things started:
One problem I find in dialogue trees is that the activity itself, especially when just going down an itemized list of subjects for someone to give you information about, is boring. Unfortunately, I've only been able to come up with one coherent idea and it would really only fly for one game.
It would be an RPG (which are probably the most prolific users of dialogue trees), and it would tie into how you develop a character's stats. The closest image I can compare to for an interface is the first Mass Effect, but instead of having direct impact on your stats and skills, you choose from a list of character traits to develop, which themselves have effects on stats. But it could also passively affect the way that your character would act in talking to other people. If you put enough points into, say, "timid" (+magic damage done, - strength, or whatever) the information you get from people and actions you take may be different than a character where you put more points into "reckless" (+strength, +damage taken or something).
Other ideas?
So let's get some ideas going, eh? So just think of any flaw you want about dialogue trees (even if it's not an opinion you share) and come up with some way fix it. The nature of brainstorming is that no idea is wrong, but if need be tuned or added to. Like I said, I don't want this to be a rant against dialogue trees and by extension don't want this to become a rant against anyone's ideas.
As I'm sure you expect, I will try to get things started:
One problem I find in dialogue trees is that the activity itself, especially when just going down an itemized list of subjects for someone to give you information about, is boring. Unfortunately, I've only been able to come up with one coherent idea and it would really only fly for one game.
It would be an RPG (which are probably the most prolific users of dialogue trees), and it would tie into how you develop a character's stats. The closest image I can compare to for an interface is the first Mass Effect, but instead of having direct impact on your stats and skills, you choose from a list of character traits to develop, which themselves have effects on stats. But it could also passively affect the way that your character would act in talking to other people. If you put enough points into, say, "timid" (+magic damage done, - strength, or whatever) the information you get from people and actions you take may be different than a character where you put more points into "reckless" (+strength, +damage taken or something).
Other ideas?
