What if there was a "talk" button in FPS games?

You could make the character as chatty or silent as you want. Perhaps you could be looking at something, press the button, and the character might make some quip about it like in point and click adventure games, or an NPC could say something to you, and you could choose to ignore it or respond to it.

Could also be used as something of a hint system, or just for fun to say taunts when engaged in combat.

I'd play Brutal Doom if it had a dropdown menu of verbal taunts or something (it already has a middle finger taunt). Yo momma is so fat, she tried to eat the donut effect in e1m2! Yo momma's so fat, she got stuck because a spider mastermind entered her hitbox!

I seem to remember there being a little Duke3D mod that did sort of that.  Basically instead of Duke saying stuff automatically when certain things happened, you'd hit the button and he'd shoot his mouth off whenever you wanted.

10 minutes ago, rdwpa said:

Yo momma is so fat, she tried to eat the donut effect in e1m2!

Thy donut consumed...

I am going to assume you talk about FPS games with silent characters (which mean we are going to ignore Duke Nukem, Blood and the rest of the talky guys), then...

BJ: This a new hallway? Yeah! ...Nah its the same...

Doomguy: I wish my dad could see me now!Hah, "no, you will be kill by demons", yeah right.

Strifeguy: I wonder how Blackbird looks like. Probably ugly as a bat. Nothing with a voice that sexy can look good.

Ranger: Look you stupid bastard you've got no arms left! Nor anything for that matter.

Freeman: Come on guys! It ain't funny anymore! Yeah yeah, we got Gordon scared! Alright, props on the costumes and the fake blood, but can we quit now?!

Hacxguy: Kill meeeeee... End my nightmare...

42 minutes ago, rdwpa said:

Yo momma is so fat, she tried to eat the donut effect in e1m2!

Tried to eat the 'O' of Destruction...

You know what? When I try hitting a switch in a hurry, and I miss it, I'd like a button that makes doomguy say:

"Whatever rhymes with *switch*"

Because it's so annoying when that happens that I really forget any etiquette there is...

Well, presumably you could try and make friends with the monsters, form alliances...

Blood 2, Duke 3D and, yeah, Brutal Doom all have a "taunt" button that allow you to badmouth and insult enemies, but they don't seem to have any functionality beyond mildly amusing the player(or in BD's case, angering the Cyberdemon, but that's about it). While it is funny to have your character insult the enemies, I always thought it would be cool if you could actually talk to enemies/npcs, and not in a predefined, scripted way like in Deus Ex, or Mass effect.

I imagine that something like that could work as such: Every NPC would have a set of variables in their code that dictate their basic personality and temperament. Things like, how brave/coward they are, how easy going/uptight, how agressive/submissive, etc. Every NPC, and the player, would then have a list of stock answers and questions, and you'd be able to simply chose whether or not you want to respond positively, or negatively. Depending on the NPC stats, you'd have to interact a certain way in order to get an answer out of them. Beyond mere amusement, this gimmick could be used as a way to find secrets, learning more about the plot, and maybe even forming alliances.

Wonderful! Finally you can legally talk to the character youre playing ! (dont you do talk to them from time to time already, or is it just me?^^)

- blaming him for having no skills, he can decide not to accept your commands anymore. Or..

With one of these humanalike chatbots (ever made a Turing Test?) you get basic Talk-interaction (Focus on the game but thx to the Chat-engine in GTA35 less dying from Scorbut on playerside) and with some new...features. Hidden Advertisements, Archievements.... tons of ideas how to enhance.... erm..  Really! think of it guys what might happen when you chose a female character to play (with) and then, well....erm..

Actually wondering they dont have this already - just need to put stuff together already invented,..  Probably they already did include such - just forget to tell about the button - your FPS-Charakters pushes it if it wants to talk to YOU, not the other way round..

4 hours ago, rdwpa said:

I'd play Brutal Doom if it had a dropdown menu of verbal taunts or something (it already has a middle finger taunt). Yo momma is so fat, she tried to eat the donut effect in e1m2! Yo momma's so fat, she got stuck because a spider mastermind entered her hitbox!

 

don't forget the voice-actor screaming at the top of his lungs, followed by the audio gain being raised so high, it's distorting and clipping all over the place.

if only you could talk to the monsters

Doomguy: Hey mister Imp, don't worry, I'm not going to blast you in half with a well placed shotgun blast. Instead I want to know what are you interested in reading? The other day I found myself lost in those hellish libraries in the tower of Eibon. While I was looking for the red skull key I stumbled upon the Pnakotic manuscripts. I was intrigued by Cxaxukluth's controversial speech about demon rights. How do you feel about equal rights for all demons? I mean look at the Baron and Cacodemon war that's been going on for a millennia, they hate each other so much. It was a real page turner!

Imp: I like Archie comics.

19 hours ago, Blastfrog said:

Perhaps you could be looking at something, press the button, and the character might make some quip about it like in point and click adventure games

I like this in Adventure games and probably would like this in an FPS as well. Unreal had something like that with text messages.

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or an NPC could say something to you, and you could choose to ignore it or respond to it.

Doom 3 does this and it works well. Not with your character actually saying something, but you can interact if you want to hear more. Next step would be a fully-realised dialogue tree.

I think this would be a great idea as someone who believes that immersion is just as important as game play in a video game. Having the player control how much they speak would really allow the player to develop the character IMO. 

I dig it. Although the first thing that came to mind was this:

12 hours ago, Piper Maru said:

Imp: I like Archie comics.

wow, they really are evil

1 hour ago, Impie said:

I dig it. Although the first thing that came to mind was this:

 

 

Hey SeaNanners!

On 5/12/2017 at 2:05 PM, Nine Inch Heels said:

Thy donut consumed...

Plot twist: the demons only came to our world for donuts!

Since we're on the topic of space weed...

Quake 3 comes to mind...

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What if there was a "talk" button in FPS games?

I would not play it.

Not with todays games - developers often dont put any spirit or devotion into their products, especially the big ones - EA,...you name it.  So I guess a combination of ideas and successful game might only be found around some indygames-production.

  But its all there (Talk Buttons we have like 30 years now in games ;), all be shown somewhere in small parts, but nobody drove this to the edge...rather make money with stuff that worked with least amount of energy and ressources put in

...But here´s potential, yeah.