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[Runefrog]

This might take a lot of behind-the-scenes algorithms in a game, but wouldn't it be great to be physical towards an NPC either negatively or positively? This has been crudely solved already but bare with me, guys!

Games are expressed physically. When you play a game the first thing you try to do is smash everything to see if there's treasure inside it. But what if you could interact softly instead?

EXAMPLE: You approach a stray animal in the street. Press A to pet it. Hold R1 + press A, and instead of stroking the cat your physical actions are more aggressive. Apply this to every character in the game. When you approach an enemy you would always hold R1 and attack, but if you approach a shop keeper pressing A would let you flirt but holding R1 + pressing A might let you rob the shop instead.

This is just an alternative to choosing dialogue trees. I guess this has already been solved in games because by drawing your weapon in certain games turns you into an aggressor whereas keeping it sheaved lets you interact nicely with NPCs instead.

My point is, it shouldn't be as simple as 'draw sword and swing at it'. I want it to be more complex in the game but as simple as holding down a trigger for the player.

[Graham-]

I like more nuanced control over enemies, interactions etc. We don't see it a lot because it is tough to implement. The more nuance of control the player has the more nuance the software's reaction needs to have to his/her input.

[oodavid]

One of the most interesting things I've discovered recently is how different narrative modes are employed in different mediums, confusingly a lot of Games I've played flip-flop between the first and second person.

During tutorials, "you" refers to the user.
During decision-making scenarios, "I" refers to both the main character and the user.

I don't have much to contribute but I'm keen to get involved

[Graham-]

In FF12 after the epic opening, a character tells you to press TRIANGLE to open the menu. What, the fuck.

There's a neat divide presented in FF6. Kappa, an imp, or Mog (the moogle) - before he joins your party - speaks to the player directly, as "you." Everything else is "I," but only when speaking outside of that black screen that Kappa and Mog used as their meta-game home.

[Dayl]

I loved reading this thread, it's a very interesting topic.

The Paragon/Renegade thing is something I've been wanting to implement in one of my games. I've also been trying to find a happy medium between a blank slate character and an actor. I would love to develop a system where the player could choose the character's general response to an NPC's dialogue such as 'agree', 'strongly agree', 'disagree', 'strongly disagree', and then have different dialogues for each choice. Ideally this would work with the paragon/renegade system so that you could steer the character in your desired direction and slowly mold his character the way you want it. Unfortunately this would require a ridiculous amount of alts for dialogue. And it doesn't fully address the issue that the character might still handle the situation in a manner that would distance the player.

Runefrog, that sounds like an awesome idea to me! I don't think it would require a lot of programming, but again the issue would be in content generation. It would require doubling the animations for interaction, etc. Still, it would be an amazing feature!

[DaHog]

I love when there's a set characterization (the actor) with a game character, but the only problem with that is sometimes it's hard to give them a personality and in some situations, their personality is left as the blank slate/silent (or they were intended to be that in the first place), and the secondary characters are much more interesting to see (and sometimes to play as). Take Mario for an example. Mario's both a blank slate and a silent character, but these days with multiple characters getting the spotlight, you truly see that Mario's pretty boring compared to the rest. Heck, Luigi, originally just a two player clone of Mario has more personality than Mario!