I know I'm a bit late with this ... but I just wanted to point out, that her's another person, who wants VINCE to know, that he shouldn't / needn't listen to some (imho missleading) advice in this thread:
VD, my friend, I mentioned this at the RPGCodex thread for this article. There is nothing wrong with dialogue, but there is a problem with too much dialogue. The character seems to be giving a monologue each time, and talking just doesn't work like that. I mean, what you have there is interesting. But it seems a lot of the time like you're writing for the sake of writing. Like you love to hear yourself type. I don't mean to offend, I hope you understand.
I totally disagree !! - The dialogue, referring to this statement, is very well read, great designed in legth and options and overall quite entertaining (mostly due to the - intentional - unusual manner of the demon / guard) !
Additionally I think that elaborated dialogue ads much to the atmosphere of the game, because only this way the player can get important additional information of the involved characters - i.e. their feelings, attitude, motivation or even personality.
And (for me) this is very important, since in an computergame - esspecially in an RPG - you lack the other possibilities of "showing" these characteristics to the "audience", compared to other media like books or films.
Surely this can also be overdone, but (for me) this is only the case, if the average gameflow is slowed down too much by those "walls of text", so that it results in an uncomftable / boring breakdown of the overall gameaction. But I would never get this feeling in this case - especially since it's a turnbased RPG !
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The "demon" is a talkative type. *He* likes to hear himself talk. I thought that would be a nice change from one-word, personality-lacking golems. He's enjoying his superiority and his control of the situation. Should the situation change, his attitude would change as well.
My comment is that the writing is too colloquial. To me, the dialogue reflects the way people talk here in the 21st century. It doesn't sound like a different world/different time, and it doesn't sound like professionally written dialogue. From proofreading stuff for other people I've seen this a lot. Writing dialogue is a different skill than accurately transcribing how people talk in casual conversation.
I also totally disagree !! - Maybe it's "colloquial" and maybe it sounds like "21st century" (I wouldn't even notice one of them), but in my opinion it surely is as "professional" as Scott's attempts to correct it:
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It should be fixed.** Written dialogue isn't the same as spoken. You'll spot that right away if you compare a transcript from a radio show or live interview with decent fiction.
example:
I do believe we have a visitor. Unfortunately, it appears that we are closed at the moment, and I've been instructed to dispose of all visitors. Therefore, we have a dilemma.
A visitor. Interesting. We have not had a guest here for centuries. Unfortunately, for you, my final instruction was to immediately dispose of all unannounced visitors.
Kill. Destroy. Murder. Do you have any preferences in the matter? If there is some sort of death you would enjoy more, feel free to share it with me. Being an expert in killing, I'm sure I'm familiar with most methods and would be more than happy to accommodate your request.
Yes, dispose. Kill, destroy, annihilate. Are semantics so important to you during your final moments in this existence? My masters made me an expert in disposing of unwanted nuisances. If there is a particular manner in which you wish to die, I will be able to accommodate you.
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The only (negative) difference I can see in this is, that the character of the demon changed "from casual and conversational to intellectual ramblings of a sentient machine" (quoted from >JuJu< in an additional post) - and for me - in this context - this never would be an improvement or advantage.
Written dialogue is more formal...
Why is that a good thing?
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However, I'm not sure that my dialogues are equally, uh, "colloquial". Not being defensive, just trying to understand. You are a much better writer. Of that I have no doubts, so your opinion carries a lot of weight. However, I think that decently written "spoken" dialogues isn't necessary a bad thing. At very least I think that's one of my strengths and even though such style could be frowned upon by real writers, it would be unwise to trade it for a style I'm less skilled at.
Yes ! Exactly this is my opinion, too ! - and VINCEs way of writing for me showed in many examples, that he's (at least) an equaly brilliant dialogue-writer, as the others here claim for themselves or for others.
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