Does anyone else find the dialogue from the What It Is really off-putting?

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I found the dialogue between the newly hired dude and the lady over the radio overly snarky and really unrealistic. It's hard to believe two people who just got acquainted with each other to be comfortable enough and know each other well enough to toss around that much sarcasm, especially in a professional environment. It's also a bit strange that they can play off each other like they've known each other for years.

I'm really interested in the setting and the set up of the story. Everything seems really grounded and doesn't seem to rely on supernatural elements to keep it interesting. I just hope the dialogue isn't like that throughout the entire game.

I must have missed the bit about them never having met one another, because I was under the assumption they had some sort of history.
Context of the dialogue aside, the voice performances were what killed it for me. The Oxenfree comparison is very sound in that respect. The characters sound like people reading lines off of a script, which in a walking and talking simulator, seems like kind of a big deal.

From what I've seen from some streams, it seems there's an in-world justification for why the woman acts so friendly with you the first time you're talking with her over the radio. She was a bit drunk I think
And I think the guy was trying to get away from some personal issues by coming to this very remote job, so he has some reasons for acting snarky.

@spitznock: I think you ought to play or replay Gone Home. I wasn't aware of it at the time, or it has been done so much better since, but the VO in that game has the off putting stench of a professional voice actor trying to infuse emotion and meaning in to a script. Like oxenfree, it sounds so far from how people actually talk despite being good in most other contexts.

@alistercat: Unfortunately, I had the main beats of Gone Home's story spoiled for me shortly after its release, so my playing through that game at this point would be nothing more than an opportunity to snoop around some random family's house.

It feels like the lines were recorded in separate locations and were extremely forced.

The game in and of itself is off putting to me, though

I feel like I must be some kind of weird alien creature dropping into this thread, because I found all the dialogue bits tantalizingly realistic. The choices Jeff was fostering were all the snarkiest/ least pleasant options, so that wasn't great, but even so they seemed pretty natural, and more importantly, fun. I suppose it's entirely possible I don't communicate like an ordinary human, though, and that's not just me being deliberately antagonistic either.

Well... that... I mean... They are on the radio. It's weird talking to somebody over a radio, and they are in different loc-- you know, forget it.

Yeah. It feels like two people that barely know each other talking over a radio. I thought It was quite realistic and well performed.

I didn't watch the whole QL (due to spoilers as I'm highly likely to play this for myself) but what I heard sounded fine to me.

I think the game looks super cool but man that dialogue was hard to sit through. I've only seen the GB video so maybe it gets better later on or with different options, I don't even blame the writing so much as the acting - I had the same reaction to Oxenfree the acting there had a similar feel.

The only thing that's strange about this game is the sort of cartoony animations regarding the hand and the arm.

I found the voice work to be odd as well but I think that might be because the writing just seemed to be trying too hard for me. Almost every line felt like it was intended to be a joke or some sarcastic riff. There was barely any genuine conversation going on between the two characters.

Maybe they'll play with that? Maybe the sarcasm was a newly acquainted defense mechanism or something. I hope so.

The dialogue was good I thought but the delivery from the protagonist was really poor which could be a big problem seeing as they are going for comedy, at least for the part they showed.

I thought it was all fine. where I'm from sarcasm in the work place is the norm.

Someone in the Quick Look really nailed it when they said the dialog "sounds like Reddit"

I listened to the initial few lines on the radio in the quick look and turned it off. Probably not for me.

@humanity: I would've imagined Reddit to sound similar to old TV's that aren't tuned, possibly with the occasional fart noise.

@twolines: There's a huge difference between voice actors making awkward, distant, snarky conversation (what you refer to) in a believable, quality way and it sounding forced and badly done, which describes it, to me, to a t.

It looks really nice but maaaaan do i not care about anything else in that game besides reading a wiki to see how it ends. Multiple hours of walking and using the walking dead's dialog system does not make a fun game, rather, it feels lazy

I didn't enjoy neither dialog nor delivery but I wouldn't go as far as to compare it to a fart noise (I'm not saying thats what you mean either, I get your comparison to Reddit completely) that said it feels stilted and too self aware, trying too hard possibly.

Who knows, seems to be a pretty even split on people that thought it sounded great and those that thought it sounded artificial. I fall into the latter camp which is a shame because I liked what I saw, but the dialog drives the entire game (I assume) and I'm not down for 5 more hours of what I had heard thus far.

That and I can't shake the feeling that the male protagonist sounds like Buzz Lightyear.

i think the dialogue sounds great. lightyears better than most video games where the dialogue is garbage but nobody cares because that's not the focus.

When it comes to realism of the dialogue in any kind of fictional media, whether it's video games, movies, theater, literature or whatever, I'm of the mindset that no piece of work/art fully realizes the jumbled mess that is realistic everyday conversation, BUT that's perfectly fine. Since the way humans naturally communicate contains so many oddly timed pauses, so much hesitation, plenty of overlapping, unique in-the-moment inflections, requests to repeat what was said before (more than once), surprising lexical choices, stumbling in ones own words, grammatical "mistakes" etc. that it's both difficult, or maybe even outright impossible, to capture that 'magic' into a script and then for someone else to perform it naturally.

Never mind for the average viewer, player or reader to keep their interest in a story if the dialogue seems to be stuck in place and not going anywhere for long periods of time, or being so fast or ambiguous that it's hard to keep track what is even going on because of its realistic nature. That, however, doesn't mean that it's not worth pursuing in fiction the things that make dialogue between humans 'realistic', especially in cases where the dialogue, that may be too stylized and polished, would perhaps lessen the experience for (most of) the audience.

This is not to defend or bash the dialogue heard in the Quick Look of this specific game since it didn't bother or thrill me, though I wasn't at all times paying attention so I missed large portions of it. I just wanted a place to write down my quick thoughts on realism of fictional dialogue in general that I've had for a couple of years now. Hopefully it may spark some thoughts for other people as well without souring them on fictional dialogue which can be and is still often clever, engaging, funny, elegant and stylistic even if it isn't necessarily realistic (to the extent that I personally consider realistic conversation).

And perhaps someone could give some or plenty of examples of works of art that do contain language that they deem near life-like while keeping it captivating, and that would be great as well since it's interesting to read, hear or see when something gets close to the (perhaps unobtainable?) real thing in writing (and performance).

I think it sounded absolutely fine.

I actually tend to think dialog has gotten really good in most big budget games these days. Uncharted usually has really good voice acting and writing. The Last of Us had some phenomenal voice acting. Hek, even Call of Duty pulls off some pretty darn good performances considering the source material of "shooty shooty pow pow."

Fair enough.

To me the dialogue often sounds like it think its very clever, when often it isn't.

Seemed fine to me. I've met plenty of people I could talk to the same way from moment 1. I guess maybe your personal experiences will affect how realistic it seems to you. The other thing to remember is that it's not that professional. They have a job to do but they're also sitting around a national park doing nothing much.

As far as trying to sound clever... Often times people think the things they're saying are clever when they're not. I think it's the difference of being a part of the conversation or not. You're effectively eaves dropping the entire game despite the fact you're playing as one of them because you don't really determine what they say, you pick the gist of a couple options. Just remember, they aren't you, and the way the characters feel may not be the same as you would.

Lastly.... That wasn't the beginning of the game.

Personally I loved the interactions and the delivery. I tended to just take it at face value as a part of the overall experience. It appears like most people who have a problem with it are looking to it with a much more critical eye than I did. Times like this are when I value my ability to just turn off that part of my brain and go with the flow.

But hey, personal opinions... aren't they great?

I really like what I have heard of the dialogue.

I agree it's not really all that believable. I too have a hard time believe two complete strangers would talk with each other that way, and the voice performances themselves don't sound great. That said, the tone and the story look compelling enough that I am more than willing to overlook those potential flaws.

I've met people and had that connection instantly. It's rare, but it happens. I do agree that it feels a bit unbelievable in this case.

No, I thought it was fine. I'm glad it's trying to be entertaining at least, a narrative game where all you do is listen to 2 characters interact would be so boring if they went in a serious direction with no jokes or sarcasm. I'm not surprised some people have a problem with it though, I can see how those characters could be annoying or whatever.

I thought the performances were great, but maybe I'm biased because Harry Crane is the best character in Mad Men. Probably had more of an issue with the writing itself, which seemed to sort of clash with the semi-realist tone of the plot. There was a lot of Hollywood Writing, constant quips and artificial back-and-forth. No hesitations, everyone always has something funny to say about everything they say. I think it's a really problem this industry has with the set-up of these sorts of games; when you tell a writer "Hey here's ten things in the environment, can you have something cool for the player to say when they interact with it?", it's difficult to realise you've actually just staged a scenario where the main character says ten thought-out quips in the span of a minute.

I mean once I got into it, the quippy writing didn't bug me. But it's like a Joss Whedon script, something you just kind of need to accept.

The voice performances have actually been one of my favorite aspects of the Firewatch videos I've aeen. The dialogue may seem rushed at time but the performances themselves have actually seemed impressive. @LackingSaint summed up my thoughts pretty well.

Actually my play-through didn't have that much snark in it. I picked the nice options and I got some sarcasm but not as much as What Is Firewatch had.