The Sandcastle - Let's Play Discussion and Drama (Archive info in OP!)

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Greyarc: Dec 29, 2016

Could I get some opinions about SSLP formatting? Characters are starting to routinely go into long expositions and I'm worried about readability.

Here's an example from a recent post:

quote:

What tumult?

It was twenty years ago that villages throughout this land met their ruin, you know.

For that was when the Orthodoxy ordered all roads be blocked to spare the city of Eternia from the approaching plague.

And Everlast Tower and Eternian Central Command that yet stand there in the city? They were once the property of the Crystal Orthodoxy, you know.

Everlast Tower was the Temple of Earth, and Eternian Central Command was the Orthodoxy's head temple. Hmmm, yes, that was what they were once called.

They were the reason the Orthodoxy sought to stem the plague's spread before it reached the city.

And yet that meant blah blah cont.

I'm already editing together short lines on the advice of someone here from before I started the LP, but with this amount of dialogue, it's barely helping. Having the same character's dialogue go on more than three lines in a row, especially without a portrait change, looks clunky. But this doesn't seem much better:

quote:

My commentary

What tumult?

It was twenty years ago that villages throughout this land met their ruin, you know. For that was when the Orthodoxy ordered all roads be blocked to spare the city of Eternia from the approaching plague. And Everlast Tower and Eternian Central Command that yet stand there in the city? They were once the property of the Crystal Orthodoxy, you know. Everlast Tower was the Temple of Earth, and Eternian Central Command was the Orthodoxy's head temple. Hmmm, yes, that was what they were once called. They were the reason the Orthodoxy sought to stem the plague's spread before it reached the city. And yet that meant the Orthodoxy sacrificed countless lives in outlying villages to save what they held sacred. Hrmm, perhaps the templar, ever concerned for the people, could not forgive that. The day he invaded, he attacked the Temple of Earth straightaway, the very place his former masters sought to save. But the people saw his actions as heroic. For it was he who ordered the energy welling forth from the Earth Crystal be fused with white magic and used to advance medicine. So it was that death by sickness has been nearly vanquished from our land. We can now live without fear of an untimely demise. But is he a hero who freed us from the terrors of sickness? Or a usurper who brings terrors unto the world? It all depends upon one's perspective, I suppose.

My commentary

Any thoughts? Or LPs where large NPC text blocks have been handled particularly well?

Greyarc fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Mar 3, 2018

# ? Mar 3, 2018 11:25

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 21:30

Mega64: May 23, 2008; I took the octopath less travelered,

And it made one-eighth the difference.

If you�re worried about convos looking too long, throw in a screenshot when the conversation changes direction or some big reveal happens to break up the text a bit.

I don�t think long blocks of text are necessarily a bad thing, though. It�s up to you.

# ? Mar 3, 2018 11:37

DoubleNegative: Jan 27, 2010; The most virtuous child in the entire world.

Greyarc posted:

Any thoughts? Or LPs where large NPC text blocks have been handled particularly well?

Break it up into smaller paragraphs. Not necessarily where each new text box has its own portrait, but combine a couple text boxes at a time. There's no elegant way to handle large expository blocks of text, but that's the best way I've found.

# ? Mar 3, 2018 11:38

Hwurmp: May 20, 2005

How about this?

Greyarc posted:

What tumult?

It was twenty years ago that villages throughout this land met their ruin, you know.
For that was when the Orthodoxy ordered all roads be blocked to spare the city of Eternia from the approaching plague.
And Everlast Tower and Eternian Central Command that yet stand there in the city? They were once the property of the Crystal Orthodoxy, you know.
Everlast Tower was the Temple of Earth, and Eternian Central Command was the Orthodoxy's head temple. Hmmm, yes, that was what they were once called.
They were the reason the Orthodoxy sought to stem the plague's spread before it reached the city.
And yet that meant the Orthodoxy sacrificed countless lives in outlying villages to save what they held sacred.
Hrmm, perhaps the templar, ever concerned for the people, could not forgive that.
The day he invaded, he attacked the Temple of Earth straightaway, the very place his former masters sought to save.
But the people saw his actions as heroic. For it was he who ordered the energy welling forth from the Earth Crystal be fused with white magic and used to advance medicine.
So it was that death by sickness has been nearly vanquished from our land. We can now live without fear of an untimely demise.
But is he a hero who freed us from the terrors of sickness? Or a usurper who brings terrors unto the world?
It all depends upon one's perspective, I suppose.

# ? Mar 3, 2018 12:54

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Really Pants posted:

How about this?

Gaaah that's somehow worse!

Try:

quote:

It was twenty years ago that villages throughout this land met their ruin, you know. For that was when the Orthodoxy ordered all roads be blocked to spare the city of Eternia from the approaching plague. And Everlast Tower and Eternian Central Command that yet stand there in the city? They were once the property of the Crystal Orthodoxy, you know.

Everlast Tower was the Temple of Earth, and Eternian Central Command was the Orthodoxy's head temple. Hmmm, yes, that was what they were once called. They were the reason the Orthodoxy sought to stem the plague's spread before it reached the city. And yet that meant the Orthodoxy sacrificed countless lives in outlying villages to save what they held sacred.

Hrmm, perhaps the templar, ever concerned for the people, could not forgive that. The day he invaded, he attacked the Temple of Earth straightaway, the very place his former masters sought to save. But the people saw his actions as heroic. For it was he who ordered the energy welling forth from the Earth Crystal be fused with white magic and used to advance medicine.

So it was that death by sickness has been nearly vanquished from our land. We can now live without fear of an untimely demise. But is he a hero who freed us from the terrors of sickness? Or a usurper who brings terrors unto the world?

It all depends upon one's perspective, I suppose.

# ? Mar 3, 2018 13:48

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

StrixNebulosa posted:

Gaaah that's somehow worse!

Try:

This is the best of the options presented.

# ? Mar 3, 2018 16:35

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

StrixNebulosa posted:

Gaaah that's somehow worse!

Try:

Yes to bot of these. JFC was RP's attempt painful.

# ? Mar 3, 2018 16:56

Hwurmp: May 20, 2005

these overreactions are literally making my eyes explode into cancer

# ? Mar 3, 2018 20:47

Greyarc: Dec 29, 2016

It's helpful to see different versions in action, so your example's appreciated, Really Pants.

The one problem with having the text split across several lines without an accompanying portrait is interference with LPer commentary. I use regular text, not italics for my commentary, so with Strix Nebulosa's example things might get confusing:

StrixNebulosa posted:

It was twenty years ago that villages throughout this land met their ruin, you know. For that was when the Orthodoxy ordered all roads be blocked to spare the city of Eternia from the approaching plague. And Everlast Tower and Eternian Central Command that yet stand there in the city? They were once the property of the Crystal Orthodoxy, you know.

Everlast Tower was the Temple of Earth, and Eternian Central Command was the Orthodoxy's head temple. Hmmm, yes, that was what they were once called. They were the reason the Orthodoxy sought to stem the plague's spread before it reached the city. And yet that meant the Orthodoxy sacrificed countless lives in outlying villages to save what they held sacred.

Hrmm, perhaps the templar, ever concerned for the people, could not forgive that. The day he invaded, he attacked the Temple of Earth straightaway, the very place his former masters sought to save. But the people saw his actions as heroic. For it was he who ordered the energy welling forth from the Earth Crystal be fused with white magic and used to advance medicine.

So it was that death by sickness has been nearly vanquished from our land. We can now live without fear of an untimely demise. But is he a hero who freed us from the terrors of sickness? Or a usurper who brings terrors unto the world?

It all depends upon one's perspective, I suppose.

My commentary More commentary

Hmm. Does the commentary stand out enough with an extra line break?

# ? Mar 3, 2018 21:23

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

That would be confusing.

# ? Mar 3, 2018 21:25

Arist: Feb 13, 2012; _{who, me?}

I'd say just do a long paragraph and if you really feel the need to break it up take a screenshot on a particularly interesting line or find an excuse for mid-conversation commentary.

# ? Mar 3, 2018 21:31

TheMcD: May 4, 2013; Monaca / Subject N 2024
---------
Despair will never let you down.
Malice will never disappoint you.

Back when I did Root Double, I had a similar problem - plain text with no portrait was simply narration from the game, and it happened fairly often, like it would in your scenario there.

I don't think there's a way to clearly distinguish your commentary from the other non-portrait normal text without changing the font on one end. I went with italics for my commentary, and it worked fairly well.

It's all just a matter of staying consistent.

Also, personally, I'm a wall of text kind of guy. If some guy just waffles on for a while, then I'm just going to make one big block of text out of it. I've never had any complaints.

TheMcD fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Mar 3, 2018

# ? Mar 3, 2018 21:31

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

I do a mix, I use italics when my commentary is in the middle of dialogue and regular when it's not.

I try to break up long stretches of dialogue as well, preferably with either commentary or a dialogue screenshot. I don't have any ironclad rule for it though, I just go with whatever I feel like suits that particular situation the best.

# ? Mar 3, 2018 21:38

Rea: Apr 5, 2011; Komi-san won.

For narration text in Etrian Odyssey games, I made a "portrait" based on the icon that shows up when saving.

It works well enough for conveying that the following text is neutral narration, not character dialogue. Maybe see if you can do something similar for narration?

# ? Mar 3, 2018 22:26

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Ragnar Homsar posted:

For narration text in Etrian Odyssey games, I made a "portrait" based on the icon that shows up when saving.

Yeah. I've been using the MST3k crew as the portrait for my own interjections, and that (along with italics when I add some ~~fanfic~~ thing) seems to work well enough.

# ? Mar 3, 2018 22:36

TooMuchAbstraction: Oct 14, 2012; I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.; Fun Shoe

Yeah, whip yourself up an icon you can use. Italics for commentary gets excessive especially if you like to talk.

# ? Mar 3, 2018 22:37

Tendales: Mar 9, 2012

What about splitting up the text like StrixNebulosa's suggestion, but repeating the portrait to be clear the NPC is still talking and it's not commentary:

quote:

It was twenty years ago that villages throughout this land met their ruin, you know. For that was when the Orthodoxy ordered all roads be blocked to spare the city of Eternia from the approaching plague. And Everlast Tower and Eternian Central Command that yet stand there in the city? They were once the property of the Crystal Orthodoxy, you know.

Everlast Tower was the Temple of Earth, and Eternian Central Command was the Orthodoxy's head temple. Hmmm, yes, that was what they were once called. They were the reason the Orthodoxy sought to stem the plague's spread before it reached the city. And yet that meant the Orthodoxy sacrificed countless lives in outlying villages to save what they held sacred.

Hrmm, perhaps the templar, ever concerned for the people, could not forgive that. The day he invaded, he attacked the Temple of Earth straightaway, the very place his former masters sought to save. But the people saw his actions as heroic. For it was he who ordered the energy welling forth from the Earth Crystal be fused with white magic and used to advance medicine.

So it was that death by sickness has been nearly vanquished from our land. We can now live without fear of an untimely demise. But is he a hero who freed us from the terrors of sickness? Or a usurper who brings terrors unto the world?

It all depends upon one's perspective, I suppose.

I, the LPer, have words to say about this situation.

# ? Mar 3, 2018 22:38

Arist: Feb 13, 2012; _{who, me?}

That'll get real tiring for the audience to read.

# ? Mar 3, 2018 22:51

EponymousMrYar: Jan 4, 2015; The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

From a readability perspective, condense lines-per-NPC box like what Tendales said, with splitting it up with a screenshot every two to three exposition dumps. It keeps things moving.

# ? Mar 3, 2018 23:23

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

[sentence saying something like "NPC now has a short monologue for worldbuilding"]

: "It was twenty years ago that villages throughout this land met their ruin, you know. For that was when the Orthodoxy ordered all roads be blocked to spare the city of Eternia from the approaching plague. And Everlast Tower and Eternian Central Command that yet stand there in the city? They were once the property of the Crystal Orthodoxy, you know. Everlast Tower was the Temple of Earth, and Eternian Central Command was the Orthodoxy's head temple.

Hmmm, yes, that was what they were once called. They were the reason the Orthodoxy sought to stem the plague's spread before it reached the city. And yet that meant the Orthodoxy sacrificed countless lives in outlying villages to save what they held sacred.

Hrmm, perhaps the templar, ever concerned for the people, could not forgive that. The day he invaded, he attacked the Temple of Earth straightaway, the very place his former masters sought to save. But the people saw his actions as heroic. For it was he who ordered the energy welling forth from the Earth Crystal be fused with white magic and used to advance medicine. So it was that death by sickness has been nearly vanquished from our land. We can now live without fear of an untimely demise. But is he a hero who freed us from the terrors of sickness? Or a usurper who brings terrors unto the world?

It all depends upon one's perspective, I suppose."

[LP commentary]

Quotation marks indicate that it's all the same speaker without having to repeat the picture. I've placed these breaks here because they're natural pauses in the dialogue. The first is all talking about Everlast and Eternian command, the second continues the thought but is broken up with "Hmmm," implying the speaker paused to think. Same with the third. Then the last sentence is separated for emphasis and another natural pause.

# ? Mar 4, 2018 04:27

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

The formerly first sentence becomes the second, the second becomes the third, and the fourth falls off the cliff.

# ? Mar 4, 2018 04:29

Arist: Feb 13, 2012; _{who, me?}

I used quotation marks for my aborted first LP and I don't recommend it, both because of in-conversation quotes and because it's super easy to forget to do it and looks pretty weird even if you do.

# ? Mar 4, 2018 04:43

EponymousMrYar: Jan 4, 2015; The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

In FactsAreUseless' case, that's actually the correct way to use quotation marks in a long speech. The only reason it looks weird in standard SSLP's is because the dialogue is usually the only text being displayed which kind of makes them redundant.

But for long speeches like that? Yeah, it's a perfectly fine way to do it.

# ? Mar 4, 2018 04:59

Arist: Feb 13, 2012; _{who, me?}

I'm not saying he's doing it wrong, I'm saying that it looks bad, is unnecessary, and will get in the way of in-conversation quotes.

# ? Mar 4, 2018 05:02

Sally: Jan 9, 2007; Don't post Small Dash!

Arist posted:

I'm not saying he's doing it wrong, I'm saying that it looks bad, is unnecessary, and will get in the way of in-conversation quotes.

A matter of opinion. These have all been solid suggestions--that's what the Sandcastle is for, to workshop ideas--but in the end, it's a stylistic choice that comes down to how the LPer wants to present it.

I hope they choose the one they feel works best.

# ? Mar 4, 2018 05:17

Fedule: Mar 27, 2010; No one left uncured.
I got you.

I've been doing the

[headshot]
one textbox full of dialogue
another textbox full of dialogue
yet more dialogue

[headshot]
dialogue

dance for VLR, and I'm kinda astonished at how badly it's not gone.

I can get why it might be annoying generally, but in this one specific case it worked.

# ? Mar 4, 2018 05:28

Jamesman: Nov 19, 2004; "First off, let me start by saying curly light blond hair does not suit Hyomin at all. Furthermore,"; Fun Shoe

What's keeping you from summarizing instead of doing a text dump?

# ? Mar 4, 2018 06:01

Sally: Jan 9, 2007; Don't post Small Dash!

The desire to make the thread suffer through the miles of needless exposition so that they too may truly experience the horrors of a game?

# ? Mar 4, 2018 06:05

Arist: Feb 13, 2012; _{who, me?}

Jamesman posted:

What's keeping you from summarizing instead of doing a text dump?

Ahahahahahaha, I wish this was an option

# ? Mar 4, 2018 06:05

nine-gear crow: Aug 10, 2013

Blind Sally posted:

The desire to make the thread suffer through the miles of needless exposition so that they too may truly experience the horrors of a game?

What's the point of having a thread if you're not going to make it suffer though? :devil:

# ? Mar 4, 2018 06:06

Crosspeice: Aug 9, 2013

Put the monologue into a gif, or just link the speech into the offsite poster so only the squares who want to read the whole thing can do that instead.

# ? Mar 4, 2018 06:19

DoubleNegative: Jan 27, 2010; The most virtuous child in the entire world.

Jamesman posted:

What's keeping you from summarizing instead of doing a text dump?

Because if it's a long enough text dump you can have all sorts of fun with it.

That Paper Mario TTYD LP that I abandoned posted:

: Well, well... Murphy! You must have gotten my request. Good, good. Truth be told, I've been a touch lonely here with no one to talk to. Since you're here, why don't you relax with me for a bit. Indulge an old Koopa. Hoo... To tell you the truth, I've got a few things to say about kids these days. Their tempers are too short for their own good, for one! Makes me want to smack 'em! For twelve years, you have been asking, who is John Galt? This is John Galt speaking. I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. Why, I was shopping at the Toadstool Bros. Discount Super Shop the other day... I was trying to pay, and my coin purse was stuck closed, and the kid behind me said "Hey, geezer, wanna pay so we can get out of here before the sun goes down?" Now I may be a geezer, but sundown was clearly taking longer than I was. Clearly! You have heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis. You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no meaning. You have cried that man's sins are destroying the world and you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the virtues you demanded. ...Speaking of sundown reminds me of dating the missus back before she was the missus. Always had to have her home by sundown, yessir. Her pa was an absolute maniac. Yep, I'd keep my eyes on the sun and off the face of my missus. Gentlemanly, eh? Actually it was sort of awkward. Kind of blinding, in a painful sort of way. Heh! Just thinking about it makes me feel awkward! Heh! Isn't memory grand? But that's not what I was talking about. Now where was I? Hrrrrrmmmm... Oh! That's right! Kids today! They know nothing about patience, I tell you! I want to stand up and yell: "HEY! YOU PUNKS! BE MORE PATIENT! RIGHT NOW!" That world is not the product of your sins, it is the product and the image of your virtues. It is your moral ideal brought into reality in its full and final perfection. You have fought for it, you have dreamed of it, and you have wished it, and I-I am the man who has granted you your wish. Speaking of which, I think I proclaimed my love for the missus in a loud voice... Yup! She was leaving on a train, and I yelled it from the platform! Like in a movie! Now, err... What was it that I yelled to her? Something about her shell, maybe... ...Oh. Wait. I think I've strayed from my main point again... Or wait... did I? Anyhow, me and the missus were madly in love! Head over shells, I tell you! No... Wait, my point was something about kids today, right? Awwww, whatever... Oh, my dear, sweet missus! The way you combed my eyebrows! Such tenderness! You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and achieved all that which you held to be good. Why, then, do you shrink in horror from the sight of the world around you? ...Huzzuh? Oh, sorry! I got distracted, there. Anyway, you get my point. Sorry you had to listen through all that. Wasn't too boring though, I'd wager. I'm just happy to get a little face time with the youth of today! Oops I forgot to set out the tea! Aren't I an old ninny? My apologies. In fact, I haven't even added the hot water part. Awful sorry.

# ? Mar 4, 2018 06:27

Sally: Jan 9, 2007; Don't post Small Dash!

lol

# ? Mar 4, 2018 06:36

Scaramouche: Mar 26, 2001; SPACE FACE! SPACE FACE!

Tendales posted:

What about splitting up the text like StrixNebulosa's suggestion, but repeating the portrait to be clear the NPC is still talking and it's not commentary:

I actually like this one. What I find personally is that after a certain time in a screenshot thread with talking head dialogue you kind of internalize the character images as a kind of punctuation. It might be though that I read those kind of threads on the archive mostly after they're finished, whereas in an ongoing thread the reader might not "learn" the same habit (or rather quickly unlearn it because they aren't reading the whole thing in one go).

# ? Mar 4, 2018 06:38

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Arist posted:

I'm not saying he's doing it wrong, I'm saying that it looks bad, is unnecessary, and will get in the way of in-conversation quotes.

You just use single quotes ' ' for in-dialogue quotations. That's not a formatting decision, it's just a standard English writing convention. The reason we rely on rules of grammar is that they provide a standardized way to read things, so rather than asking "what's the best way to present this," we can just fall back on the convention people should know.

# ? Mar 4, 2018 07:07

Arist: Feb 13, 2012; _{who, me?}

My point, I guess, is that there's no reason to have to do that in this format, and it looks worse than not doing it. It's all personal preference, though.

# ? Mar 4, 2018 07:36

EponymousMrYar: Jan 4, 2015; The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

DoubleNegative posted:

Because if it's a long enough text dump you can have all sorts of fun with it.

Ah, the good ol' Catchumen tedium technique in conjunction with the Pacinian fatigue bombardment. Your use of a monadic dribble-though method was noteworthy.

Arist posted:

My point, I guess, is that there's no reason to have to do that in this format, and it looks worse than not doing it. It's all personal preference, though.

There are always exceptions. You're right that it's personal preference though.

# ? Mar 4, 2018 08:07

Idran: Jan 13, 2005; Grimey Drawer

EponymousMrYar posted:

In FactsAreUseless' case, that's actually the correct way to use quotation marks in a long speech. The only reason it looks weird in standard SSLP's is because the dialogue is usually the only text being displayed which kind of makes them redundant.

I thought the correct way to use quotation marks in a long chunk of dialogue that's actually broken up into paragraphs is to have an open mark at the lead of every paragraph, in order to make it clear that the dialogue's continuing as you're reading along, and a close mark at the end of the last paragraph to mark that it's finished?

# ? Mar 4, 2018 09:01

EponymousMrYar: Jan 4, 2015; The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

But there are opening marks right... Not there.

:negative:

# ? Mar 4, 2018 09:13

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 21:30

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Jamesman posted:

What's keeping you from summarizing instead of doing a text dump?

To be blunt, as a reader I wouldn't read the LP if it were done this way.

# ? Mar 4, 2018 11:06

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > The Sandcastle - Let's Play Discussion and Drama (Archive info in OP!)

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