Where BoA falls short

[The Creator]

The Display Dialog node from BoE - which I feel is one the most used and important nodes - has no equivalent in BoA. We do have dialog boxes, but they aren't the same as BoE.

 

How are they different and why does this matter? The difference is there is a picture along with the text in BoE. We can still display big chunks of text, and there's a greater capability for pictures, but there's no good combination. We can have a freaking huge picture with a bit of text, or a small picture that looks very lonely in a vast white expanse with a bit of text, but that's about it.

 

The reason this is so important? Scenario designers have been using the Display Dialog node for a long time now to great dramatic effect - commonly, to simulate conversation. For example, in the middle of a battle, one box comes up with an NPC's face and the words "Quickly! He's getting away!" Now, we can put up a bunch of solid text that tells us "Bob yells out...", or we could have those little words appear over Bob's head. But neither option has the immediacy and impact of seeing Bob's face close up. It feels less like we're reading a book and more like we're reading a comic or watching a movie. And since games are a visual medium to a fair extent, this is a Good Thing.

 

But where it really becomes important is in situations like two NPC's conversing between themselves. Short ones can be done with text bubbles, but anything longer and it becomes annoying. And, while a book can produce strong feelings with only the written word, that's done by enticing the reader to imagine the scenes in his mind. In a game like BoA, where we SEE everything, it's not very powerful to just be told whenever something interesting happens. So if I want to show two characters getting in an argument and one killing the other, it's very difficult to do it in an effective way.

 

And of course, it's incredibly useful for a situation where the speaker isn't actually present. For example, in Tomorrow, Alcritas creates a wonderful creepy atmosphere with the Wickerman's voice floating through the empty tunnels. Or, in a scenario I'm working on right now, I want the main character (i.e. you) to relate an experience in his past, and as he relives it in his mind, you (the player) play through it, with your character narrating the action as you go.

 

While all this isn't ESSENTIAL, it does add tremendously to the atmosphere of a scenario. Anyone who disagrees should play a number of recent BoE scenarios.

 

The capability for a small/medium picture (say, the size of the BoA facial pics) along with a medium/large block of text (3 or 4 paragraphs) should be fairly easy to implement and would make a huge difference. If Jeff would be willing to do this in an update, or one of the people with the know-how to modify the editor could do it, I would be very, very grateful.

[Kelandon]

Small point: I believe this is an app issue, not an editor issue, so only Jeff can do anything about this.

 

But god, would this be neat. Yeah, if we wanted to pull together a petition, I'd definitely be in on it. He does still have to fix a few things, anyway.

[Overwhelming]

Why don't just just place the text in the picture, like in the tutorial?

 

You could do something like this:

 

 

(Don' look at typos, that just a small example quickly made to illustrate what I mean.)(loo=look; overwhelmned=overwhelmed)

[The Creator]

That could work, but it would really bloat download size.

[Overwhelming]

I should get some more sleep. Where's "where2, it should be read "we're".

 

About the size... That sample pic is 11KB big. We can always play with image size and compression quality...

 

Or just use this in key moments.

 

I have broadband internet, so size isn't really an issue to me, but I guess it can be for dial up modem users, for participating in the spidwebs contest (3MB maximum) or even hosting the file in the net...

 

But let's see: to have 3MB of images like the above one, you would have to make around 273 pics! And I guess you don't really need to use pics with all dialogues...

 

Another good point: you can use the font, the colours, etc you want.

[Lilith]

I can very easily imagine a scenario using much more than 273 of those images. Remember, every single dialog box using a picture like that would have to be a separate image.

 

Nice idea, though. I guess it'd be useful for placing emphasis on really major scenes.

[Tristrana]

Yes, but most likely *only in those major scenes*. A good idea, otherwise.

[Fort]

Interesting, a nice point. I never thought of it because I never really paid attention to them in Exile, but I can see how they would be very useful.

 

Where would you like the picture to appear in relation to the text?

[*i]

Yes, I know and I was very disappointed. I fought for this when I was beta testing and he said he wanted to get the thing released. Now that it is, perhaps we should try again.

 

Perhaps a command such as:

 

add_dialog_pic(which_pic)

 

It would place a picture in the upper-left corner of the dialog box set for the standard dialogue size. You can use larger, of course, but it may obscure the text. I do not see why this would be so hard to code in.