Skyrim Followers--Unique Dialogue?

[Drinking with Skeletons]

By now we're probably all getting a little sick of Skyrim-related news, threads, and memes. However, I would like to know more about follower dialogue, and I can't find much information about it around the web.

I know that Vilkas has special dialogue if you bring him into the Bards' College during the lecture (I've only seen it once, so I don't know if there's other ways to get it to happen) and I've heard that Marcurio (whom I've never hired) has a more robust-than-usual selection of lines, including some kind of game-breaking argument with Delphine in Riverwood. Are there more than that? I mostly ignored the followers during my 100+ hour playthroughs, but now I kind of wish I had used them more (the trick is to give them good equipment, at which point they become pretty decent).

Anyone know of more follower-specific dialogue or scripted events? SPOILERS assumed.

[Hensler]

Lucien has some unique dialogue about all the Dark Brotherhood quests, once you get the power to summon him. Not quite a follower, but close.

[DigitalSignalX]

Am curious about this also - haven't witnessed any that I can recall.

[Drinking with Skeletons]

Guess there isn't much of this in the game. Shame.

[Wulf]

I did a thread about this. The consensus was that people are boring and they like their characters to be lifeless planks of wood. :P Believe me, this didn't come from me, this is what people want.

*makes lots of irritated noises.*

But yes, I did a thread about this. I'd love to see some DLC with followers that have actual commentary, that share opinions, and that have their own storyline. Sort of like the followers from ME2 and New Vegas. But I just don't think that people care about that, at all. I think so long as you give someone something to bash the skull of in, they're happy. Story be damned, intellectual layers be damned, emotional impact be damned, and so on, and so on.

And then I get all darkly depressed and start thinking that the media was right all along.

:P

Really though, I'd like to see that too. But I suppose you have to be a creative, imaginative sort, a dreamer, to want it. I may even throw together a companion of my own, just to run around offering his own brand of meta-commentary on the state of affairs in Skyrim. That might be fun. Getting it done and voiced would be a chore though, since it would probably be a thankless, unpaid job for myself and anyone I involved.

Still, there are things I'd like to do with Skyrim. Lots of potential in Skyrim, so much of it unrealised.

[DzX]

But I suppose you have to be a creative, imaginative sort, a dreamer, to want it.

Damn, could this post get anymore pretentious?

[soldant]

Damn, could this post get more pretentious?

Could have included some references to common taste and higher artistic style or something. Wasn't a bad attempt though!

I think the problem with the unique dialogue thing is that Skyrim is friggin' huge, it's not like Mass Effect where there are only a comparatively small number of locations to visit. Expecting oceans of dialogue for the larger number of followers is asking a bit much. I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice, but I think we need to draw the content line somewhere and I can fully understand why it wasn't done.

[DigitalSignalX]

... that Skyrim is friggin' huge, it's not like Mass Effect where there are only a comparatively small number of locations to visit. Expecting oceans of dialogue for the larger number of followers is asking a bit much. I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice, but I think we need to draw the content line somewhere and I can fully understand why it wasn't done.

It's a catch 22 of sorts, we see one aspect of the game done so masterfully, we naturally want to see all the other elements live up to that standard. These become "flaws" when held as comparison, but in truth, they are at the same level as their counterparts in many other games of similar design. Companions in Fallout Vegas are also very wooden and characterless, suffer from poor pathing, get in the way of fights - but because we get 2-3 character story quests with them, they suddenly are bright and shining beacons of creativity next to the followers in Skyrim.

Neither of them hold a candle to the followers of ME or DA:O because a significant portion of the game is designed around them. But it's ok, they are completely different games.

[Berzee]

The consensus was that people are boring and they like their characters to be lifeless planks of wood. :P

As one of the people who agreed with you in that thread about wanting more fleshed-out followers, I wonder at how quickly you forgot that you were never utterly forsaken. =)

[Drinking with Skeletons]

It's a catch 22 of sorts, we see one aspect of the game done so masterfully, we naturally want to see all the other elements live up to that standard. These become "flaws" when held as comparison, but in truth, they are at the same level as their counterparts in many other games of similar design. Companions in Fallout Vegas are also very wooden and characterless, suffer from poor pathing, get in the way of fights - but because we get 2-3 character story quests with them, they suddenly are bright and shining beacons of creativity next to the followers in Skyrim.

Neither of them hold a candle to the followers of ME or DA:O because a significant portion of the game is designed around them. But it's ok, they are completely different games.

I think you're partially right. However, I certainly didn't go into Skyrim expecting or even wanting robust party members. The franchise has never been that kind of game, and expecting it to change suddenly is foolish.

However, Bethesda decided to include followers. Many of these followers will only join you if you complete quests for them, and many of them have unique dialogue as they go about their business (I assumed Mjoll the Lioness would end up an enemy of the Thieves' Guild based on just how much she has to say). You can give them equipment and make them actually pretty decent in a fight. A very small number of followers--exactly how many is still unclear--have genuinely unique dialogue, some of which only occurs under very specific circumstances. At this point, wanting more from the followers isn't unreasonable on the players' part; we're invested in them, and it would be nice to have a reward beyond a beefy, if rather brain-dead, robot following us around.

It's not player expectations that have changed, its Bethesda having gone just far enough to raise our expectations and then disappoint us.

[Nalano]

It's a catch 22 of sorts, we see one aspect of the game done so masterfully, we naturally want to see all the other elements live up to that standard.

Eh. At this point I think I'd prefer letting Bethesda craft the world and then putting some other outfit on the task of actually fleshing out the characters, quest lines and dialogue.

Mappers they have. Writers, not so much.

[Lukasz]

Don't want to sound like a prick but don't we have enough skyrim threads? there is like 6 of them.

[Nalano]

Don't want to sound like a prick but don't we have enough skyrim threads? there is like 6 of them.

Well, we could add another BF3/EA thread, if that'll make you happy.