The future of interactive dialogue is an interesting one, and one that I think will be redefined not so much by its underlying structure but by general character development, depth and emotion. Thoughts anyone?
For what it's worth, this brings to mind several games of the great developer Chris Crawford, which avoided those stilted dialog trees and used a mix of symbols for subject, action, and emotion. Thus, you might speak with a character and use the symbols for:
take + crystals + joy
only to have the character respond:
stop + you + worry
By intermixing a form and large numberof emoticons (before there ever were such things on the Web), Crawford allowed for a largely freeform continuity. I have to say I'd regret the loss of the outstanding dialog in BG2 and PS:T, but most games lack that quality. Crawford was onto something, in my opinion. A shame no companies had interest in following it up.
