67 réponses à ce sujet

[Ecael]

Anathemic wrote...

Ecael wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

Voice acting limits imagination, I can't create a suave character if there's no suave dialogue. Most likely, it'll be a Mass Effect system where you won't even know what will be said until you actually say it - so you'll be forced into a few molds that the writers have created. You can't be a 'cocky paladin' or a 'loveable rogue', you'll probably be forced into the Paragon / Middle / Renegade option like in Mass Effect.

Correction: All voice acting limits imagination.

Getting the same response from an NPC even though you picked a different option every time is limiting.

Why is no one asking for the days of no voice acting?

You are not immersing yourself into the NPC, you mostly immerse yourself into the PC because it's 'your' character that you are playing, VO for NPCs are fine because you are not the almighty hand of power that controls what a NPC does/says which limit immersion drastically when that immersion could be focused on your PC rather than every individual in the game.

You're not immersing yourself in the PC either when your dialogue consists of multiple choice.

Until you can talk into a microphone or type out your response and have them respond in real-time, your choices are always going to be limited - even moreso with NPCs voiced, and even moreso with PCs voiced.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Lord Gremlin wrote...

give several voices to choose from.

That would make the game very short.

Though, a short game that is playable is better than a moderate-length game that is not.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Ecael wrote...

You're not immersing yourself in the PC either when your dialogue consists of multiple choice.

Sure you can.  There are two ways (that I've found so far) to do that.

First, the core of the roleplaying experience isn't in controling what your character says and does, but why your character says and does those things.  As such, choosing explicit lines allows you to avoid those lines that would contradict the motives you've already established (and since the game is necessarily unaware of them, you're the only person who can do that).  And the lack of a PC voice allows you to determine now lines are said, so any tone or demeanour relevant to your character is also under your control.

Second, you can view those lines as abstractions of the actual lines uttered by your character.  Remember those old CRPGs where you'd just type keywords?  Your character wasn't actually running around shouting single word responses like NAME or JOB at people.  No, you'd type in NAME and your character would ask the targetted NPC his name, and would do so entirely as you saw fit.  You told the character what to do, and he did it to your satisfaction.  Every time.  It was guaranteed to be the way you liked it because you had total control over it.

So, why should we stop viewing dialogue like that?  Just because the option displayed on screen says "Keep them away from the ship!" doesn't have to mean that's exactly what your character says or how he says it.  You're not required to view that line as the actual line uttered.  Those details are left implicit, and thus mutable based on your preferences.

But voicing the PC makes the words, and their delivery, explicit, thus depriving you of much control over your character's behaviour within conversations.

[Tsuga C]

As Georg Zoeller said, DA1 would've been around 50% shorter if the PC were fully voiced. That's NOT a palatable trade-off, especially considering the lackluster expansion pack for DA. If expansion packs are no longer to be of HotU calibre, then the main game had better be 60+ hours long.

Modifié par Tsuga C, 09 juillet 2010 - 07:55 .

[Herr Uhl]

Tsuga C wrote...

As Georg Zoeller said, DA1 would've been around 50% shorter if the PC were fully voiced. That's NOT a palatable trade-off, especially considering the lackluster expansion pack for DA. If expansion packs are not longer to be of HotU calibre, then the main game had better be 60+ hours long.

Is that for one PC voice per gender or one per origin though?

[Anathemic]

Ecael wrote...

Anathemic wrote...

Ecael wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

Voice acting limits imagination, I can't create a suave character if there's no suave dialogue. Most likely, it'll be a Mass Effect system where you won't even know what will be said until you actually say it - so you'll be forced into a few molds that the writers have created. You can't be a 'cocky paladin' or a 'loveable rogue', you'll probably be forced into the Paragon / Middle / Renegade option like in Mass Effect.

Correction: All voice acting limits imagination.

Getting the same response from an NPC even though you picked a different option every time is limiting.

Why is no one asking for the days of no voice acting?

You are not immersing yourself into the NPC, you mostly immerse yourself into the PC because it's 'your' character that you are playing, VO for NPCs are fine because you are not the almighty hand of power that controls what a NPC does/says which limit immersion drastically when that immersion could be focused on your PC rather than every individual in the game.

You're not immersing yourself in the PC either when your dialogue consists of multiple choice.

Until you can talk into a microphone or type out your response and have them respond in real-time, your choices are always going to be limited - even moreso with NPCs voiced, and even moreso with PCs voiced.

Social interaction doesn't require to know and/or command what the other counterpart is going to say, but requires what you, the person, wants to say.
Now since in a game we are trying to immerse ourselves into the person, the PC, it gives a better immersion experience without the VO, where a voice actor can only go so far, but in our imaginations/creativity/heads we can think of different ways to do a reply,
Take the simple "no" for example, a VO would only be able to say "no" one way because you can only record one "no" to fit the dailogue choice for the character, whereas in no VO you could probally make up 3 ways to say "no" maybe 5, positive, neutral, negative, etc.
Now for VO for a NPC or the other counterpart of the conversation, like real-time social interaction, you really have no control over what the counterpart is going to say, giving a more 'realism' feel to it, rather than "I give a positive no, and now you give me a positive reply" which would be dreadful to do that with every single choice in the game.

Modifié par Anathemic, 09 juillet 2010 - 07:55 .

[soteria]

In a strange way, I found that having a voiced PC in ME made me feel more like my dialogue choices meant something. Most of the time, I could do without the dialogue, but it really paid off during the intimidate and persuade options. I guess there's just something about sticking a gun in someone's face and making them cry that you can't do with a silent PC. Admitedly, it takes away from the imagination and possibly takes away from replayability as well, but I'm not sure. I've only played ME twice and ME2 once, but DA 5+ times, but that could be from other factors.

What it certainly does do is make the PC's dialogue a lot more memorable. With scant few exceptions, I can't remember very many of the unvoiced (PC) lines of dialogue. I remember a good number of the lines from ME, particularly as a renegade.

[Merci357]

Tsuga C wrote...

As Georg Zoeller said, DA1 would've been around 50% shorter if the PC were fully voiced. That's NOT a palatable trade-off, especially considering the lackluster expansion pack for DA. If expansion packs are not longer to be of HotU calibre, then the main game had better be 60+ hours long.

I'm quite sure this quote is said in context of requiring more then one male/female voice set for origins, due to different playable races.

soteria wrote...

Most of the time, I could do without the dialogue, but it really paid off during the intimidate and persuade options. I guess there's just something about sticking a gun in someone's face and making them cry that you can't do with a silent PC.

This. Modern games are very visual, or cinematic. I've no problem to imagine a normal conversation by just reading it. I've also no problem to imagine how a character would threaten someone in a book, since most likely it's described anyway. However, I do have a hard time to imagine my emotionless Warden happens to threaten some NPC, while nothing at all of this is visible on screen.

Modifié par Merci357, 09 juillet 2010 - 08:01 .

[soteria]

Oh, and in response to the length objection, ME and ME2 were plenty long as well. I think I spent 50 or 60 hours on ME.

[ThomasAndrew]

Herr Uhl wrote...

Tsuga C wrote...

As Georg Zoeller said, DA1 would've been around 50% shorter if the PC were fully voiced. That's NOT a palatable trade-off, especially considering the lackluster expansion pack for DA. If expansion packs are not longer to be of HotU calibre, then the main game had better be 60+ hours long.

Is that for one PC voice per gender or one per origin though?

Either way it shortens the game and adds nothing to it.

[Herr Uhl]

ThomasAndrew wrote...

Herr Uhl wrote...

Tsuga C wrote...

As Georg Zoeller said, DA1 would've been around 50% shorter if the PC were fully voiced. That's NOT a palatable trade-off, especially considering the lackluster expansion pack for DA. If expansion packs are not longer to be of HotU calibre, then the main game had better be 60+ hours long.

Is that for one PC voice per gender or one per origin though?

Either way it shortens the game and adds nothing to it.

Well it does add a voice, which many do want. Though I am not one of those people, I just don't want to think that it was cut in half, rather retracted about 17% instead.

[Merci357]

soteria wrote...

Oh, and in response to the length objection, ME and ME2 were plenty long as well. I think I spent 50 or 60 hours on ME.

I did as well spent about 50 hours on ME, but, let's be honest here, those UNC missions were a huge timesink with little to none story progression, and barely any dialogue.

[Dave of Canada]

Ecael wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

Voice acting limits imagination, I can't create a suave character if there's no suave dialogue. Most likely, it'll be a Mass Effect system where you won't even know what will be said until you actually say it - so you'll be forced into a few molds that the writers have created. You can't be a 'cocky paladin' or a 'loveable rogue', you'll probably be forced into the Paragon / Middle / Renegade option like in Mass Effect.

Correction: All voice acting limits imagination.

Getting the same response from an NPC even though you picked a different option every time is limiting.

Why is no one asking for the days of no voice acting?

I played four Human Nobles in Dragon Age through the enitre game:
One was a cocky bastard, he enjoyed being noble and when it was all taken away from him he went into bad mood and treated the 'commoners' as trash. He didn't help elves and always viewed himself as above the rest. He'd always respond with insults whenever possible.

The other was a kind and gentle noble, he assisted everybody but was sarcastic and silly the majority of the time. Whenever there was an option to tease Alistair or Oghren and such and essentially was friends with everybody.

The other one was sexist, believing that women were the superior gender and would treat the male party members badly and would always respond with snarkiness to men but be extremely gentle to female members (even against their wishes, such as Morrigan).

The last one I played was the determined Warden, who was to stop the Blight at all costs and would always say that stopping the Blight was his first priority and didn't do sidequests that didn't tie in to the end of the Blight.


Four different characters created from the same 'Human Noble' origins, changed simply by dialogue options and such. Every single one was entertaining, they all felt like a different story. Yet, Shepard on the other hand is limited to three dialogue options at each conversation: Paragon, 'middle' and Renegade. You can't go in big detail to work and change who you are because you ARE Shepard, Shepard isn't YOU.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 09 juillet 2010 - 08:03 .

[Jonp382]

soteria wrote...

Oh, and in response to the length objection, ME and ME2 were plenty long as well. I think I spent 50 or 60 hours on ME.

I think 50-60 hours is a long time for a game of ME or ME2. I averaged 20 for the first and 25-30 for the second doing everything. My first character in Dragon Age: Origins was 80 hours, doing almost everything without DLC. The shortest I've managed is just over 60, skipping quite a bit.(As that character didn't feel compelled to do certain things)

[Tsuga C]

Herr Uhl wrote...
Is that for one PC voice per gender or one per origin though?

I do not know for certain, but were I to hazard a guess I'd say that 2 sexes x 3 races x 6 origins = prohibitively expensive was probably the equation he was working from when he made that statement.

Regardless, funding cutsey-pie, fully voiced acting for the PC at the expense of other things with the limited developmental budget is an absolutely abysmal idea. 

Edit: in an ideal world they'd have an unlimited budget and could provide scores and scores of potential PC voices, but that's never going to happen.  As such, give me a longer game every time! 

Modifié par Tsuga C, 09 juillet 2010 - 08:07 .

[Ecael]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Ecael wrote...

You're not immersing yourself in the PC either when your dialogue consists of multiple choice.

Sure you can.  There are two ways (that I've found so far) to do that.

First, the core of the roleplaying experience isn't in controling what your character says and does, but why your character says and does those things.  As such, choosing explicit lines allows you to avoid those lines that would contradict the motives you've already established (and since the game is necessarily unaware of them, you're the only person who can do that).  And the lack of a PC voice allows you to determine now lines are said, so any tone or demeanour relevant to your character is also under your control.

Second, you can view those lines as abstractions of the actual lines uttered by your character.  Remember those old CRPGs where you'd just type keywords?  Your character wasn't actually running around shouting single word responses like NAME or JOB at people.  No, you'd type in NAME and your character would ask the targetted NPC his name, and would do so entirely as you saw fit.  You told the character what to do, and he did it to your satisfaction.  Every time.  It was guaranteed to be the way you liked it because you had total control over it.

So, why should we stop viewing dialogue like that?  Just because the option displayed on screen says "Keep them away from the ship!" doesn't have to mean that's exactly what your character says or how he says it.  You're not required to view that line as the actual line uttered.  Those details are left implicit, and thus mutable based on your preferences.

But voicing the PC makes the words, and their delivery, explicit, thus depriving you of much control over your character's behaviour within conversations.

If you were to approach Mass Effect the same way, you could disable/delete all the main character files and essentially write your own responses based on the clues you're given on the dialogue wheel, and it would work the same way.

With Dragon Age, you're given the exact responses to choose from, which - like I said - is very limiting, just as voiced player characters are.

[Sylvius the Mad]

soteria wrote...

What it certainly does do is make the PC's dialogue a lot more memorable. With scant few exceptions, I can't remember very many of the unvoiced (PC) lines of dialogue. I remember a good number of the lines from ME, particularly as a renegade.

The thing I remember about my RPG characters is who they are as people.

The trouble with Shepard was that I never really knew him.  Since I wasn't in control and couldn't even choose what he was going to say or do, I really had no idea what sort of person he was.  At best, I could know him as well as I could know someone I met in the real world.

But that's not good enough.  I should be able to know my character as well as I know me, and I know me pretty well.  I have something approaching perfect knowledge of me.  I fail to see how I could roleplay a character without that depth of insight.

[Deviija]

Tsuga C wrote...

Regardless, funding cutsey-pie, fully voiced acting for the PC at the expense of other things with the limited developmental budget is an absolutely abysmal idea. 

Edit: in an ideal world they'd have an unlimited budget and could provide scores and scores of potential PC voices, but that's never going to happen.  As such, give me a longer game every time! 

Yes, please.  I , too, have my concerns over length due to player voice (and the relatively short? development cycle).  I'd prefer to toss out the VO and have more 'other things' than to focus on VO and miss out on other content that I could be interested in.  

[Luke Bioware]

SILENT PROTAGONISTS ARE EVIL D:.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Ecael wrote...

If you were to approach Mass Effect the same way, you could disable/delete all the main character files and essentially write your own responses based on the clues you're given on the dialogue wheel, and it would work the same way.

Yes.  I think Mass Effect would be a fine game if we could turn off the PC Voice-over and cinematic dialogue (I don't want Shepard doing anything I didn't ask for, either).

[the_one_54321]

In a perfect world the NPCs would all be independently programed AIs and all you would do is type in your own dialog, to which they would react based on their personalities and the circumstances. One day, one day...

[Ecael]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Ecael wrote...

If you were to approach Mass Effect the same way, you could disable/delete all the main character files and essentially write your own responses based on the clues you're given on the dialogue wheel, and it would work the same way.

Yes.  I think Mass Effect would be a fine game if we could turn off the PC Voice-over and cinematic dialogue (I don't want Shepard doing anything I didn't ask for, either).

Well, technically speaking, if there was an editor for the subtitle files and dialogue wheels, you could do this, and also write your own responses as long as they followed the wheel's general meaning.

...That would be a nice option, to be honest.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Ecael wrote...

Well, technically speaking, if there was an editor for the subtitle files and dialogue wheels, you could do this, and also write your own responses as long as they followed the wheel's general meaning.

So you're saying we should also be asking for a powerful toolset...

I'm okay with that.

[Merci357]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

soteria wrote...

What it certainly does do is make the PC's dialogue a lot more memorable. With scant few exceptions, I can't remember very many of the unvoiced (PC) lines of dialogue. I remember a good number of the lines from ME, particularly as a renegade.

The thing I remember about my RPG characters is who they are as people.

The trouble with Shepard was that I never really knew him.  Since I wasn't in control and couldn't even choose what he was going to say or do, I really had no idea what sort of person he was.  At best, I could know him as well as I could know someone I met in the real world.

But that's not good enough.  I should be able to know my character as well as I know me, and I know me pretty well.  I have something approaching perfect knowledge of me.  I fail to see how I could roleplay a character without that depth of insight.

But don't you realise that your view is biased? You are not the warden, and you never have 100% control over him. You have options, and very likely, with a silent PC more then with a voiced one. No need to argue there. Also your imagination helps to fill in some blanks. But, honestly, you are still limited by options. Sometimes there just isn't the dialogue option I'd like my PC to take. No matter how many are presented. I agree, it's the lesser of two evils if character freedom is your only goal. But you are still limited, and still railroaded.

[Felfenix]

ThomasAndrew wrote...

Solostran85 wrote...

I agree, it's a good suggestion. Why can't there be a middle ground?

Because the game is getting made in an 18 month period to please EA.

If they really wanted to rush the game, they wouldn't VA it.