So you'll want a sample conversation then or are you after a pure demonstration of movement and basic object interaction? Might have to get you to email me some dialogue files to play with

A little bit of dialogue as well... and though I could send you some DLG files, if you have any IE game yourself (BG2 preferably, any should work though) it's probably better if you get [url=http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~joh/ni/download.html]Near Infinity[/url] and poke around in the game yourself to get a hang of how it works. The dialogue is much more than simple text files, and though they probably could be described in XML, I don't know of any application to convert them, so any work other than planning and typing would have to be done in NI where you can add actions (like giving gold, items or experience to the party, setting a variable that's used later, or spawn an npc/monster), conditions (an option does not appear unless a specific npc is in the party, a variable is set, the party has more/less than a specified amount of gold...), and sounds for various dialogue options (fully voiced? would be difficult, but nice), and save it all as a .dlg file (except sounds or any referenced scripts).
If NI doesn't seem like your cup of tea, you could always build an html list or something that shows the dialogue tree and a description of non-text extras, and I can try to put it into the game data.

Is there any sort of tool that can be used for this stuff? Something along the lines of NWN's where you can lay out the script and associated commands in a simple interface?
I can certainly code a HTA app that will run the conversations but thats the sort of thing that can't just be imported directly

[url=http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~joh/ni/download.html]Near Infinity[/url] can edit most of the data present in IE games, including references to - but not the actual - graphics, sprites, and sounds (mos, bmp, bam, wav, acm).
Infinity Explorer can display and export, but not edit, about the same data.
WinBiff can extract and add datafiles from/to the archive files (bif)
Infinity Dialog Workshop should be able to edit dialogues, but it doesn't work for me
DLTCEP (Dragonlance Total Conversion Editor Pro) can do a lot of things, including creating tilesets (all area backgrounds are built up of a number of 64x64px squares, not a single large image) and editing various aspects of areas (graphically defining where containers, doors, walls, traps, etc. are placed)
IE Tileset Map Editor pretty clearly says what it should do, I prefer using DLTCEP though
MOS Workshop, though old and very similar to MS Paint, is useful for the fact that it can convert from normal graphics formats to MOS and BAM and back - the installer doesn't work on my 64-bit Win7 though, so I used a virtual machine with XP and then copied the binaries and dll's back from the VM.
...yeah, that's the tools I've tried to use, I recommend DLTCEP for editing area data, MOS Workshop for converting graphics, and Near Infinity for just about everything else.
There are some photoshop plugins on the same page as MOS workshop, for exporting and importing graphics, but I couldn't get them to work (my photoshop is probably too recent; CS4).

I'll grab near infinity and the dialogue workshop for a squiz. Shame about needing java, hate that in an app.

Can I help with the dialogue?

No, but you can voice the sound assets.

Oh, goodie, you're here. Look above, graphical stuff is probably where help is needed the most, and you said you knew that sorta thing.

Well yeah but it requires consistency and commitment. Thinking back, I don't think I can afford the time for it :(

Ah, thanks anyway, any help is appreciated, it's not like we're drowning in participants.

Hey folks,
Sorry to interrupt but I'd be happy to lend a hand if you need one, not that I have masses of time free but I've got some experience with this sort of thing and I'll help out where I can. You seem to have a nice concept going, I'd really like it to succeed :)
I've done some work in the games industry, Mostly coding like physics/particle systems, bit of modelling/design and recently been dabbling in that new fangled XNA studio (which is pretty sweet btw, had a sharp 2D scrolling shooter with sounds, graphics, enemies and 'splosions set up in about half a day!). I'm a developer by trade so I should be ok with a bit of scripting if needs be. Let me know what you think...
Either way, I'd like to make a little suggestion, growing from what Lowyhong wrote. Personally, i think theres way too many games at the moment that have grossly over used voice actors, like 1 actor = 50+ Characters! (see oblivion, and yahtzees spot on rant on ZP). And seeing how the community here at gog is, I think If you put it to them that they could volunteer to voice a character at home and send you the files, with you lot having written the dialogue for them, you have a bit of a gold mine on your hands :) It would be a shame to leave such a resource go to waste.

Yeah and I don't want to disappoint anybody by committing only halfway. My grades are slipping this semester.
But I'll try to help wherever I can, like maybe during the vacations. It's not like I have money to go on a holiday to Europe or anything like that anyway ;)

Damn I must have missed reading this thread. Sorry to take so long getting back to you. Can you send me an email so we can talk about it if you're still interested? My address is my gog username at gmail.com