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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"Talk to everyone. Talk is cheap. You don't talk, you don't learn."''|'''''[[Morrowind|The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind]]'''''}}
Universal generic gaming advice to when you're stuck in a game and don't know where to go. [[Nintendo Power]] gave this particular advice the top position on a list of "top video game tips".
90% of the time, you're thinking too much and getting too far ahead, and then promptly dying from high level monsters. 95% of the time [[Welcome to Corneria|all people want to tell you]] is "Welcome to ______!" over and over. This is frustrating if you've saved at an odd time and are talking to people in an [[Now Where Was I Going Again?|effort to remember where you were supposed to go]].
Occasionally, just ''speaking'' can cause unseen consequences, like a cutscene or a trigger to a later event. In fact, you'd better have talked to that goose salesman at the very beginning of the game if you ever want Sir Bob to get the [[Infinity
Failure to ''follow'' this advice, particularly in older games, can often lead to a [[Guide Dang It]] scenario. More than one game has a seemingly-obtuse puzzle that is fairly easily solved if you've collected enough information from someone nearby.
See also [[Try Everything]].
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
== Action Adventure ==▼
== Video game examples ==
▲=== Action Adventure ===
* ''Zelda''
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
* In ''[[Sonic Unleashed]]'' you get an achievement/trophy for talking to every NPC in the game.
* ''[[Star Control]] 2'': Talking to everyone repeatedly is ''extremely'' important. Since the star map is huge, you need hints from the dialogue to have any idea where to go next. Some of these can be very obscure and easy to miss, and you'd better take notes on paper, because you cannot review past conversations. Thankfully, the game has truly excellent writing, so this is not boring, though talking to hostile alien races can get tricky.
=== Adventure Game ===
* In the PC game ''[[Sherlock Holmes]] and the Secret of the Silver Earring'', the trope is present in the
** A DOS [[Full Motion Video]] [[Sherlock Holmes]] game averts it, however. You recieve a better final score for talking to as few people as you possibly can in order to solve a case.
* The ''[[Little Big Adventure]]'' games make use of this, since friendly NPCs can provide useful info, including tips on [[Medium Awareness|what Twinsen is capable of doing as a]] [[Player Character]]. When you have a specific objective, Twinsen will usually ask about it, and if you're talking to the right person, chances are you'll be given some
=== Edutainment ===
* In the ''[[Carmen Sandiego]]'' games it's talk to the ''right'' everybody. At each location on the trail of the thief there's somebody with a clue to the thief's next destination, and somebody with a clue to the thief's identity. Miss the first kind and you'll lose the trail; miss the second kind and you won't be able to get a warrant for their arrest. But misinterpret a clue, and you'll waste your time traveling to a location where nobody you talk to knows anything at all.
** Averted: One ''[[Where in
=== Role Playing Game ===
* Not always necessary for plot advancement, but the requirements to unlock some of the hidden scenes, artes, and weapons in the [[Tales
* In ''[[
* Early iterations of the ''[[Ultima]]'' series of [[RPG
* During the first visit to Mysidia in ''[[
** There's a trick to this: for the Pig and Frog transformations, you can talk to them again and get untransformed, because the Pig and Frog statuses cancel when recast.
* ''[[Final Fantasy]]'': Just about every game has some sort of character you speak to in order to get special items.
** ''[[
** In the final dungeon of ''[[
** ''[[
* ''[[
** In ''[[Final Fantasy XII
{{quote|
* In ''[[
* ''[[
** In ''[[
** In ''[[
** This trope is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in ''[[
* ''[[
* Mocked in ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'', in a conversation with a random old woman early in the game.
{{quote|
::Of course, in gameplay it's played entirely straight.
** The Nameless One quickly becomes infamous amongst Sigil's more knowledgeable residents for his persistant questions, to the point where at least one character tries to ''run away'' before TNO can strike up a conversation.
* In the original ''[[
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
** ''[[The Elder Scrolls: Arena
** ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
** ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
* Some situations in ''[[
* This advice is given to the player in ''[[Sunset Over Imdahl]]'', then cruelly, cruelly justified: {{spoiler|your character unknowingly has [[The Plague]], and the advice-giver wants you to spread it and wipe out your hometown.}}
* In ''[[Ultima III]]'', you'll eventually run into someone who will say "You should go to bed! It's too late to be playing Ultima!"
* ''Star Trail'' was particularly bad about this. There are at least a few quests that can only be solved by checking every single house in 300 house town, where 298 of the people in those houses will tell you to go away.
* ''[[Persona 4]]'' scatters its [[Fetch Quest
=== Simulation Game ===▼
▲== Simulation Game ==
* ''Rune Factory''
** In ''Rune Factory: A Fantasy [[Harvest Moon]],'' you ''must'' speak to all of the townspeople to get all of the basic farming equipment that previous games have given you from the beginning, much to the chagrin of the player. Without an FAQ, some of the tools are very difficult to find. The game requires you to talk to everyone in town in order to start your next day on the farm.
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* ''[[Animal Crossing]]'' has the tradition of forcing the player in their first job at the beginning of the game to talk to ''every single towns-person'' in their town. Mind you, you usually don't have a map handy unless you go to the postboards of it. Sometimes you can easily find them in their house, but often they will be outside wandering. This is even worse in the more recent games as the map is no longer divided into screens, and animals are free to wander the ''whole'' town. Even moreso, pity the person who joins in on another player's file, and the town has up to 15 residents if it's on the Cube. Oh, did I mention they don't tell you who you have, and have not talked to? Hope you have good memory.
=== Turn Based Strategy ===
* In ''[[Shining Force]] II'', talking to random people proves ridiculously useful. Kiwi and May join your party, completely out of the blue, just because you talked to them in Granseal and Rubble, respectively. Then again, this game is notorious for having people join you for the silliest reasons.
=== Visual Novel ===
* ''[[Ace Attorney]]'': The entire exploration/investigation part of the series is made of this trope. Basically, to advance in the plot, you need to talk to everyone and choose every dialogue option, as well as explore every tiny bit of the scenarios and "present" relevant objects in your inventory to the appropriate person (which, usually, opens up another dialogue tree with them).
=== Tabletop Games ===▼
▲== Tabletop Games ==
* This trope is derided in pen and paper roleplaying games where, thanks to the presence of a GM, you ''really'' can talk to all 130,000 inhabitants of New Gundark if you really want to. The movie ''The Gamers: Dorkness Rising'' lampshades this by depicting the new player talking to the first person she comes across (a merchant) and trying to gain intelligence about the plot from a lowly NPC. The other players incinerate the merchant to discourage her from doing this. Much to the chagrin of the DM, who was about to give them the information they needed through the mouth of the NPC. In this particular case, it was less "talk to everyone" that the other players hated, so much as "talk to ''anyone''"...
=== Web Comics ===
* [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2007/02/20/episode-810-efficient-use-of-time/ Mocked] in ''[[
* The NPCs in ''Gold Coin Comics'' really want the main character to [http://www.goldcoincomics.com/?id=58 go to the tavern].
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