Should NPC dialog be stored in XML or in a script?

Posted by Andrea Tucci on Game Development See other posts from Game Development or by Andrea Tucci
Published on 2012-08-06T16:23:52Z Indexed on 2012/09/01 15:49 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 321

Filed under:

rpg

|

scripting

|

Xml

|

text

|

npc

I'm developing an action RPG with some friends. I would like to know the differences and pros/cons of making NPC's dialogue using a file in XMLformat instead of using a script.

I see that script method is often used by game developers for NPC text, but is it better then a XML file? We've thought that a XML file with tags like

<FirstText>[text1]<SecondText>[text2]

et cetera is perfect for NPC text and also for possible quests to give the player.

So what are the differences between this two methods? Is a script suitable for this aim?

© Game Development or respective owner

Related posts about rpg

Best way to go about sorting 2D sprites in a "RPG Maker" styled RPG

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I am trying to come up with the best way to create overlapping sprites without having any issues. I was thinking of having a SortedDictionary and setting the Entity's key to it's Y position relative to the max bound of the simulation, aka the Z value. I'd update the "Z" value in the update method… >>> More
Pivot 1.4, Spring and Hibernate is my RPG Game

as seen on Code Project - Search for 'Code Project'
Pivot 1.4, Spring and Hibernate is my RPG Game >>> More
I’m sorry RPGs, it’s not you, it’s me: The birth of my game idea

as seen on Geeks with Blogs - Search for 'Geeks with Blogs'
One of the things I’ve had to give up in order to have some development time at night is gaming. It’s something I refused to admit for years but I’ve just had to face the facts. I’m no longer a gamer. I just don’t have hours and hours of free time to pour into gaming and when I do have hours and hours… >>> More
using text and ntext SQL Datatypes in RPG

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'll preface this with saying that I'm a .NET developer, and am NOT an RPG developer. I'm working with one of our RPG developers to come up with a solution, so any suggestions you provide will get passed to him. We have a scenario where we want our iSeries to read from a SQL Server database. One… >>> More
Random movement of wandering monsters in x & y axis in LibGDX

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I am making a simple top down RPG game in LibGDX. What I want is ... the enemies should wander here and there in x and y directions in certain interval so that it looks natural that they are guarding something. I spend several hours doing this but could not achieve what I want. After a long time… >>> More

Related posts about scripting

Advantages to Server Scripting languages over Client Side Scripting languages

as seen on DotNetBlocks - Search for 'DotNetBlocks'
There are numerous advantages to server scripting languages over client side scripting languages in regards to creating web sites that are more compelling compared to a standard static site. Server side scripts are executed on a web server during the compilation of data to return to a client… >>> More
Scripting the Vim editor, Part 5: Event-driven scripting and automation

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
<b>IBM Developerworks:</b> "Why repeat yourself? You can configure Vim’s comprehensive event model to execute time-saving scripts whenever particular editing events—such as loading a file or switching between editor modes—occur." >>> More
What does (Lua) game scripting mean?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I've read that Lua is often used for embedded scripting and in particular game for scripting. I find it hard to picture how it is used exactly. Can you describe why and for which features and for which audience it is used? This questions isn't specifically addressing Lua, but rather any embedded… >>> More
How to find from GUI whether Client Side scripting or server side scripting is running

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
We have a GUI which runs on ASP.NET 2.0 framework (Client-Server model). From the support perspective how can one find whether the pages which are opening on GUI at any point of time is a server side scripting or Client side scripting. The reason why I ask this is because I understand that some of… >>> More
UNIX Shell-scripting: UDV

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am writing a simple unix shell script: #!/bin/bash # abort the script if a command fails set -e # abort the script if an unitialized shell variable is used set -u i = 0; while [$i -l 1] do src/meshpro input/martini.off video/noise/image$i… >>> More