Conversation Choices + The DT:CoM release

One of the biggest time sinks in module-making in Dragon Age after level building is writing dialogue. Even when you start with a concrete story and well-defined NPCs and companions, writing dialogue is not so easy. The most basic issue, at least for me, is trying to keep in mind that I am not writing a story but an interactive adventure.

What does this mean? Let's take an example - I was writing a conversation today and at one point a companion says the following line: "I don't want to talk to you. Ask him what he wants". Now, this interjection is not completely necessary to the conversation but it helps the flow and builds on an already established relationship between the companion and the conversation owner. Only when I was reviewing the conversation did I notice the "him". A few copy-paste as links and plot flags later, the conversation was complete.
Now, the above is fairly simple but this is one area I wish the DA conversation system was a little more flexible and allowed us to use tags to reference race/gender/class/background/specialization/etc. It seems almost unintuitive to write multiple lines just to change one word.

The bigger problem (and unrelated to the conversation system) is trying to come up with dialogue options - the backbone of an interactive conversation. Now, in some cases, these options just flow organically. I was writing a conversation for a minor NPC and multiple choices at each node was so easy. Then, I started writing another piece for a companion and ended up being stumped. Offering choices while maintaining the flow of dialogue is extremely important - irrelevant options can easily destroy that flow and tone set previously.

I take pride in my writing skills in English even though it is not my native tongue. However, I've lost track of the number of times I've referred to an online dictionary/thesaurus to make sure I am using a particular phrase or idiom in the correct way. And I don't even want to talk about writing emotional scenes - I just plain suck at those, a fact I've come to accept. I spent over half an hour today writing eight lines, eight lines with no options at all and it's still not final. Anyway, the journey continues and hopefully, these efforts help to bring the story together in a cohesive manner in the end.

Lastly, good news for the DA community - the first installment in the Dark Times: Confederacy of Malkuth saga has been released. Check out the details in the official announcement thread. I haven't had a chance to play it yet (have set aside time during the weekend for it) but it appears to be fairly long and involved and most important, it is, as far as I know, the first significant addition to the Official Campaign...and this is just the first part! For those ruing the fact that Bioware won't be releasing DLCs for DA:O anymore or that they can't continue their Warden's story (seriously, what's with this Warden fixation? If you don't believe me, go check out how many threads in the DA2 forums refer to this), head over to the DT:CoM thread and fill that void up!