Category:Dialogue

Dialogue is any text that is spoken in the game. All dialogue is organized into quests. You can find dialogue elements in the Topics, Conversation, Combat, Persuasion, Detection, and Service tabs.

Overview

• Response: The smallest unit of dialogue. Each response is limited to 150 characters. There is a separate sound file for each race that might say the response. Each response has an emotion associated with it.
• Info: A collection of responses. An info is the smallest unit that can be spoken. There is no way to trigger only one response in an info. The whole thing must be spoken. Infos are usually conditionalized for who is allowed to say them, as well as under what conditions.
• Topic: A collection of infos. This is the smallest unit that can be triggered by a quest or script. The game chooses which info to say based on the conditions.

When a quest or script requests a topic to be spoken, the game looks through all active quests that include that topic. It sorts them in order of quest priority. It then examines the infos one by one, checking the conditions to see if each is valid. The first valid info is the one spoken. You can see the full list of infos for any topic using the Filtered Dialogue window.

Some topics are always available, defined by the game. They used by the game for specific purposes. These default topics are listed on the pages describing each section of the Quest window.

See Editing Dialogue for a complete description of editing dialogue in the Quest window.

Dialogue with an NPC

Dialogue menu

When the player enters dialogue with an NPC (either by activating the NPC, or by the NPC activating the player), the Dialogue Menu is displayed. Dialogue which takes place between the player and an NPC in the Dialogue Menu is organized on the Topics Tab of the Quest window.

When the NPC first enters the Dialogue Menu, she will say an info pulled from the default GREETING topic (see Topics Tab).

Then the topic list will be displayed. Only topics from the Topics Tab are displayed, and only those topics that:

• Have ever been added to the player's topic list (see below)
• Have at least one info which is in an active quest and pass the conditions

A topic will not appear in the topic list on the dialogue screen until it is added in some manner: either with the AddTopic script command or by using the Add Topics feature (see below). Until it is added, the topic is never displayed to the player regardless of what conditions are set on it.

Spoken Dialogue

Much of the game's dialogue takes place outside the Dialogue Menu. NPCs can talk to each other, or say hello to you as you pass by on the street. This dialogue is organized on the Conversation Tab of the Quest window.

Default Dialogue

NPCs use speech for many other purposes, which are stored in default topics organized on the remaining tabs of the Quest window:

• Combat Tab: All combat-related dialogue is stored here
• Persuasion Tab: All dialogue used in the Persuasion mini-game is stored here
• Detection Tab: All dialogue related to detection is stored here
• Service Tab: Dialogue used in the various service menus (Barter, Recharge, Repair, Training) is stored here
• Misc Tab: Dialogue for miscellaneous default topics is stored here