Is the dialogue functional like Baldur's Gate or is it DM-dependant?

Xaelifer, could you stop using the sad smiley in all your topics? They're there to express emotion in regards to a certain topic, they're not your private property or some sort of "trademark".

As for your question, the dialogue in single player will be like in the BG games of course, since you won't get a live DM to make it for you.

In multiplayer on let's say an ALFA server, the dialogue for NPCs will probably be written by live DMs.

From what I've seen, in multiplayer DMs can either use scripted responses for NPCs or 'take them over' and give live responses.
Sneakey DMs will probably include spelling mistakes in the scripted responses and 'stereotypical' speech when taking over just to keep players on their toes. ;) You shouldn't be able to tell the difference.

I hated the whole "insert a spelling mistake" idea from the beginning. As if a genuine dialogue MUST contain some errors. :rolleyes:
If anything, good DMs should strive to present text without any flaws, not insert random ones just to make it look authentic. There are many ways to figure out whether an NPC is real or not, so all that's left of that bad idea is poorly written text.

And since there's a really easy way to check out whether an NPC is real or not (initiate dialogue, back away, initiate it again, if it's the same, it's not real), I can frankly dump this moronic idea in the bin where it should stay for good.

Promoting bad grammar and spelling mistakes to make NPC text look authentic must be one of the dumbest ideas I've heard in a long time.

[This message has been edited by Taluntain (edited November 24, 2001).]

Clearly for example an orc has to have bad grammar when speaking. But spelling errors will just be annoying.

I must say that I agree with Tal on this one. If NWN is supposed to recreate PnP as close as possible, then knowing who is and is not an NPC should be easy to figure out. In PnP, it was always given who was an NPC. The spelling mistake thing is really not a good idea. If you really want to make the players think that an NPC could be a PC, then having a multitude of dialogue options would be the way to go. It may take some time, but from what I have read this will be possible.