Of the many key activities in Mass Effect—shooting, driving, bumpin’ uglies—talking to others was the most satisfying. Though not something with much marketing appeal, dialogue is one of Mass Effect‘s most effective game mechanics. It is easy to use, produces natural-sounding dialogue, and adds a sense of discovery to conversations. It was what I enjoyed most, and, despite a few faults, something I would like to see in other games.
The dialogue wheel is easy to use
The dialogue wheel is an efficient means of presenting and selecting dialogue options. It is a variation of a pie menu: options are arranged in equal distance around the player’s cursor. Any one option is as close to the cursor as any other; the player need only pick a direction to highlight an option. This maps options to a gamepad’s analog stick directly: the direction in which the player takes a conversation is the one she takes with her thumbs on the stick.
In traditional list-based menus, some options require the player to move the cursor farther than others. Lists also place options along the same dimension, which makes it more likely that the player will overshoot the option she wants, selecting the wrong one or spending time correcting herself.
Conversations flow
Mass Effect‘s designers also made it simple for the player to decide on an option. Firstly, the options are short and quick to read. Secondly, the position of dialogue options is meaningful: options along the right half of the wheel advance the conversation, along the left, they are more exploratory; nice-guy, neutral, and aggressive options are along top, middle, and bottom respectively. The player need not read all the options, only the options relevant to her. This helps conversations to move at a natural pace because the player does not spend much time reading and deciding.
On top of that, the dialogue wheel appears a moment before the final line of dialogue is spoken. The player can begin deciding among dialogue options while the current piece of dialogue is ending, making it less likely that there will be dead time between utterances. The dialogue seems to be written in a way such that information relevant to the player’s objectives comes early on; what she hears when the wheel appears is not important, so she can be a little distracted by the new dialogue options.
The combination of ease of use, well-placed and well-timed presentation of options, and good writing make conversations seem much more natural than they do in other games while reducing the burden of reading and picking options.
Dialogue is about discovery
Natural dialogue that is easy to participate in is quite an achievement, but what I found fun about it was the sense of discovery. The terse dialogue options in Mass Effect are quick to read, but only suggestive. It isn’t until the player selects one that she can know exactly what it was.
For the most part, dialogue in other adventure games can only be discovered by the player if it is spoken by non-player characters: the player knows what her character is going to say because she picked the lines already. In effect, her half of the dialogue is repetition.
There some exceptions: Sam & Max Hit the Road and Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People use icons to represent dialogue options. These, as with the short options in Mass Effect, suggest a response instead of showing it outright. When the player selects one, she has some idea of what her character will say, but not exactly what.
Not knowing exactly what will be said adds freshness to the player character’s half of the dialogue, and creates a sense of exploration.
Unfortunately, this method risks betraying the player’s intentions: ambiguous or poorly written dialogue options can cause the player character to say something the player didn’t want. The position of dialogue options in Mass Effect adds information that can help a player know whether an option is along the Paragon or Renegade path, but that does not necessarily map to the character’s tone or discretion. Another problem occurs when options do not seem different enough from one another, making decisions more difficult or feel as if the writers and designers are forcing the player to follow a particular path. Such problems are less likely to occur when dialogue options are presented verbatim.
Tags: dialogue, gamepad, mass effect, user interface, xbox 360
Have you played Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines?
The dialogue in that game was equally well-crafted, and made use of the same good/bad attitude responses that are also influenced by whatever you’ve spent skill points on.
The comparisons are actually pretty startling when I think about it. Like Mass Effect, VTM:B was only an okay RPG; I’m certain that it could have easily carried itself as an adventure game. Too bad it’s not such a lucrative genre anymore.
I’d also say that the video game industry needs more of the maturity exhibited by both games.
Thanks for the recommendation, Andrew. I played Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption back in 2001, but not Bloodlines. I can’t remember there being anything notable about the dialogue, but it’s been a long time, and the two games were made by different developers, so what little I remember probably isn’t all that accurate anyway.
Having the Paragon/Renegade split was useful to me when trying to figure out what selecting one dialogue option would cause (will Shepard calm this guy down or start a fight?), but a binary good/bad split like that (represented explicitly in the stats) still seems kinda ham-handed to me. I would like to be able to express my (or my character’s) attitude in a subtler way.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by “mature.” At its best (first visit to the Citadel), Mass Effect is very sober—but it is still a fantastic, militaristic, shoot-those-dudes game. That is, “mature” in the sense used by the ESRB: violent and sexy.
I believe that Bioware wanted a Heroic Quest to begin with, and therefore left the dichotomy of evil/good and instead made is so that your choices are either renegade/paragon, and that you can be equally much both at the same time. This reflects in the dialogue option (downwards left is always the renegade answer, and upwards left is paragon), which I find frustrating because it makes you stop thinking for yourself about the choices you make. This conclusion is based on the assumption that players will power-game and go for one choice or the other, but the question is; does the mechanics of the dialogue-pie encourage power-gaming or does it not? What kind of player will tend to power-game more because of it, and would this player perhaps just be frustrated without the guidelines for paragon/renegade because ze decided to power-game to begin with?
Ava, you make a good point: it could be that by making the two choices unambiguous in the interface, they’ve made it less likely that the player will consider the Renegade/Paragon options carefully in the role-play.
This has been argued of BioShock‘s harvest/save decision: players will choose the option that rewards them most because it rewards them most, not because they’re considering the decision in terms of the game fiction. They’ll “power game” instead of role-play.
Actually, I think the ambiguous nature of the options presented by the dialogue wheel was a fantastic part of the game. I loved feeling like I wasn’t in control of my character. I was providing a framework for the decisions, but the character had developed a unique personality… a sort of child-like pattern associate learned though earlier choices I had made in the game.
I tend to play the evil angle in most games, and I loved how my character would take the most innocent options and turn them into insults or violent actions. It was often surprising and kept me playing.
I think the ambiguity—uncertainty—you’re speaking of comes from the fact that in the wheel, dialogue options are short and suggestive, not verbatim; whether or not the option is on the Renegade, Paragon, or neutral path is more certain, as it’s shown by the position of the option along the wheel.
I also really liked discovering my character’s reactions, even when they weren’t what I had wanted her to say or do (something I was very careful with when talking with Wrex when he found out about the xenophage thing, because it would’ve been tough to fight it out with him.)