Ravenus1 on 27/5/2016 at 04:22
I just finished Breaking The Stone by Hipbreaker for the second time since release. I think there may be more conversations than things to read. Anyhow, this would be a decent example of what you were initially talking about in a mission.
fortuni on 27/5/2016 at 04:36
I absolutely understand your point of view Abysmal but I think it is also fair to point out the the OM's were made by a large team of very talented people who were lucky enough to be working together in the same building, whereas FM's authors usually are working on their own, even if they are part of a team effort, and only communicate with other co-authors via email, thus this solitary environment no doubt subliminally contributes to a resorting to writing books rather than scripting voice interactions. It's convenience rather than laziness I would suggest.
MayheM on 27/5/2016 at 07:24
I agree with severian silk,the most important aspect to me is the ambient sound,lighting and a lot of other simple things yet can make a difference like were you encounter the enemy,traps,secrets,rooftops. I just played the unbidden guest by melan which is a small mission yet i enjoyed it a lot and it has a 0 human interaction.
nicked on 27/5/2016 at 07:44
I think it largely depends on the mission. If you have a developing story which is about interaction between humans on a normal level, then human interaction adds a lot of life and weight to it. If the story is more about murky occult happenings against the backdrop of the Thief world, it's usually far less important, and the immersion comes from the ambience, back story and level design.
Zontik on 27/5/2016 at 12:02
Yes, making conversations is difficult.
But for me, it is boring to make something easy. So if I ever try to make mission without conversations, I get asleep or cry and stop making at all. So do briefings, maps and puzzles. Everything is difficult in mission making. But why some people still make them?
skacky on 27/5/2016 at 14:26
Yes, and how long did T2X take again? How many were working on it? Do you expect missions made by one author to have this kind of sky-high production values? If all of them did you'd have far less missions released because all of that takes a bloody long time.
We have tons of voice work and conversation for the Black Parade, which is one of the reasons why it's nowhere near finished yet.
Random_Taffer on 27/5/2016 at 14:58
I think you're going to like DCE and my upcoming campaign, then. I've tried to make my missions with a lot more adventure elements because that's the sort of thing I tend to enjoy myself. Not to speak badly of missions with little interaction with other characters, however. Some of them are my absolute favorite missions. Lady Rowena's for instance. Rowena's Curse had virtually 0 story that wasn't told through readables and Seven Sisters had more character interaction, but barely. Most of the story and instructions are given through written notes still.
bjack on 27/5/2016 at 16:31
Conversations? I'm a thief. I don't want to be seen, nor heard. Instructions from Basso, or hearing guards grumble about something is cool, but not essential to play for me. I like the aloneness of many missions. I can see the OP's point, but I do not agree with it much. It's an opinion. If it inspires someone to make an FM with lots of interaction, OK... cool. Not essential though.
As for voice overs, it can be done on the cheap. My decent professional rig was about $250 and I also have a sound booth I built. You don't have to go that far though. A $50 USB mic and a laptop in a closet works as a decent basic studio. Software to make WAV or MP3s? That's easy and free. Audacity. Great for mono recording voices. Pretty easy to use and has some decent basic features. But it sounds like recording the voices is less of a problem that coming up with a good script and incorporating that dialog.
And lastly, I actually hate some conversations of guards or others. To hear them well enough to get clues that are critical, you sometimes have to take great chances getting caught. I find some voices are not mixed in well and are really hard to hear. I have to turn up the volume all the way and still the background music will swell up and block the conversation. I've gone as far as hacking into the files and finding the sound files just to give them a listen raw. ;) Just on a few games. Many are fine.
Severian_Silk on 27/5/2016 at 19:51
Weird, I feel like pretty much any FM I've played had tons of life (or unlife, lol) in them and that they feel like real places with real people. It's just that the player is an observer, hence little to no interaction. Isn't it the same with most OM's?
