So does anyone else think this pop-up is boring? Meeting a new faction should be exciting, but this is kind of a letdown:
I only have 1 option to click on! It's basically a big OK button. I want different options, maybe something like this mock-up:
Choosing a conversation option would cause Relias to respond with some suitable remark that would close the conversation. At the very least, this would spice up these meetings and make them a little more interesting. There could even be consequences for choosing different options. What you pick could influence that faction's initial feelings towards you (warm, neutral, hostile, etc).
And how about this taunt from a bandit? Boring, I say! There's no interaction, no decisions for the player to make:
Something like this would make it much more interesting:
Surely this would not be too hard to implement. The dialog text, conversation options, responses, consequences, etc. could be read in from an xml file, making it easily moddable. Of course it would mean writing a lot more text, especially if you wanted enough randomization to avoid seeing the same set of responses every time you met a kingdom or empire. And the conversation options should be contextual depending on the type of monster speaking to you as well. But that's why you guys hired a professional writer for this game, am I right? Put him to work making up more interesting dialogue! The game is shaping up to be really great, but this is one area that has always seemed a little weak to me.
If it's too much work to make it into beta 5, perhaps you could consider a Diplomacy expansion pack after release that adds this bit of flavor to the game. I would gladly pay a little money for this content, considering that I'm getting the base game for free anyway since I bought War of Magic.
