885 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

kylecouch wrote...

Thats the thing...you DONT have total freedom

Yes you do.

only an illusion of it.

Being able to decide how things are said is control.  There's no need for illusion.

 You still play the character the writer wants you to play regardless if the PC has a VA or not.

Untrue.  I play the character I design, regardless of what the writer intended.

You can't lose control you never had to begin with.

True.  But not relevant, since we did have the control.

Each dialogue choice already comes with pre-determined tones that the NPC's react too.

Not true.  Each NPC reaction was written assuming a particular tone of the preceding PC line, but that by no means requires that the PC actually uttered the line using that tone.  I'd be interested to hear why you think otherwise.

Simply dismissing those reactions as "misunderstandings" does not grant you total freedom.

I'm not dismissing anything.  I'm interpreting them appropriately given the information available to me, and part of that information is the tone I chose for the line.

You simply try to reject the writers tone to usurp your own.

I deny the writers' tone is present within the game.

[ejoslin]

Ortaya Alevli wrote...

ejoslin wrote...

Some of the sex scenes are better than others.  The DR one is not great.  there are definitely facial expressions in many of them, however.  Zevran's actually are quite good as far as showing emotions (the underwear is far more detracting).

As far as the human noble?  I think this screenshot shows both unhappiness on the HN face and helplessness on Duncan's.  the positioning is unfortunate here (it's the only screenshot I have of that scene), but there are definitely emotions going on there.  same with just before you undergo the joining.  

I don't know whether this shot was meant to be an example of human noble or sex scenes.

I know, it's a bad BAD example for what I was saying because the positioning is unfortunate.  But it is a funny screenshot which shows facial expressions, not a blank slate.

Modifié par ejoslin, 22 novembre 2010 - 06:24 .

[Nighteye2]

Flurdt07 wrote...
Honestly I could care less if the games are voiced or not. The only advantage I can see to it not being voiced is that you wouldnt NEED to recruit the voice actor every time you wanted to make an expansion or create download content.

Or when fans want to create their own mods - where the voiced protagonist is suddenly turned mute in the modded parts of the game.

[Ortaya Alevli]

ejoslin wrote...

Ortaya Alevli wrote...

I don't know whether this shot was meant to be an example of human noble or sex scenes.

I know, it's a bad BAD example for what I was saying because the positioning is unfortunate.  But it is a funny screenshot which shows facial expressions, not a blank slate.

I know, I know. Was just too good an opportunity to pass up.

[TheRevanchist]

ejoslin wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...

For example, in the human noble origin, my character's facial expression and body language are fairly neutral for a woman leaving her mother and father to die. I'd expect tears or at least body language that gives a strong sense of despair, but that might class with someone's character concept.

Or what about the sex scenes?

Some of the sex scenes are better than others.  The DR one is not great.  there are definitely facial expressions in many of them, however.  Zevran's actually are quite good as far as showing emotions (the underwear is far more detracting).

As far as the human noble?  I think this screenshot shows both unhappiness on the HN face and helplessness on Duncan's.  the positioning is unfortunate here (it's the only screenshot I have of that scene), but there are definitely emotions going on there.  same with just before you undergo the joining.  

I can honestly say...if I was the human noble I would not be making a face like that. There is very little emotion on her face. However DUncan does display helplessness very well in this scene. He shows a desire to help but lacks the oppertunity to do so. Where as anyone who even halfway cares about their parents bleeding to death in the floor or getting impaled on swords would be crying their eyes out and trying everything they can to help them even at the risk of their own life. I still feel this scene fails to show emotion on the PC's face.

[Nighteye2]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

I seem to make a habit of making Sylvius' arguments for him in cases where he isn't present to do it himself, but I'm going to do it again. It's especially odd since on this issue we're basically polar opposites, but I hate to see misunderstandings and bad arguments flourish and have an odd compulsion to intervene and set the record straight.

The reason why silent protagonist-text speech works for players who take an imaginative approach isn't that they're unaware that the writers had a specific tone and/or intent in mind. I don't doubt for a second that Sylvius would deny that the writers had something definite in mind. The issue is that when it is just text, that leaves room for doubt and ambiguity. Sylvius and others with a similar approach simply choose to ignore the fact that they are playing a game. There's nothing wrong with this, as everyone's personal approach is what matters to them. As a result, the implied tone of any written (but not spoken) dialogue is open to imaginative interpretation, and therefore even if the response by an NPC implies that their imagined tone was "incorrect" - it can easily be dimissed as a misunderstanding. The benefit of this is it allows the player freedom to play a character above and beyond the implicit intent of the game's writers.

By introducing a voiced protagonist with paraphrased dialogue, not only is doubt and ambiguity removed - the line is clearly and audibly spoken complete with cadence and tone - precise control over the character's word choice is removed, leaving only the consequences of action or spoken dialogue as open to player choice.

To bring it back to my view on how CRPGs are and should be played, that's all I ever felt I was in control of in the first place - so anything that enhances the experience of the consequence of player choice is going to be more valuable to me than the examples I describe above.

/hopes he did Sylvius' position justice
//likes arguing with the guy, just tends to disagree with him more often than not

Well said. I completely agree with Sylvius

[upsettingshorts]

Well, Sylvius himself is around now and can represent his own position far better than I can.

[tmp7704]

In Exile wrote...

I'm not reading the same tone you are. But if the game reacts to you and not to me (or vice versa) we have a problem. In one game, our NPCs are idiots.

I'd imagine if NPCs don't react to lines you pick in your game, then it's a rather curious bug. They aren't of course guaranteed to react exactly like you'd imagine -- misinterpretation of intent happens in real world conversations, too.

As well, the stuff I expressed isn't really an emotion. Unless you think sacrasm or mockery are emotional states?

I think amusement is, and that's generally associated with cracking jokes. Granted, the person on the receiving end of it may be far from sharing the feeling if the joke happens to be at their expense.

[ejoslin]

kylecouch wrote...

I can honestly say...if I was the human noble I would not be making a face like that. There is very little emotion on her face. However DUncan does display helplessness very well in this scene. He shows a desire to help but lacks the oppertunity to do so. Where as anyone who even halfway cares about their parents bleeding to death in the floor or getting impaled on swords would be crying their eyes out and trying everything they can to help them even at the risk of their own life. I still feel this scene fails to show emotion on the PC's face.

see, I think any more emotion would look too emotional. her parents are dying, but she has to survive. In my own experience, when someone you love is dying, the tears come later, and come hard, but during the actual moment, no. now, of course, not everyone is the same as i am.

but there are definitely emotions here. there are emotions when the human noble goes into her sister's in law and nephew's room. too much emotion, though, and I'd wonder how the hn would be able to even fight her way to that point.

Edit; added quote for context.

Modifié par ejoslin, 22 novembre 2010 - 06:37 .

[TheRevanchist]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

kylecouch wrote...

Thats the thing...you DONT have total freedom

Yes you do.

only an illusion of it.

Being able to decide how things are said is control.  There's no need for illusion.

 You still play the character the writer wants you to play regardless if the PC has a VA or not.

Untrue.  I play the character I design, regardless of what the writer intended.

You can't lose control you never had to begin with.

True.  But not relevant, since we did have the control.

Each dialogue choice already comes with pre-determined tones that the NPC's react too.

Not true.  Each NPC reaction was written assuming a particular tone of the preceding PC line, but that by no means requires that the PC actually uttered the line using that tone.  I'd be interested to hear why you think otherwise.

Simply dismissing those reactions as "misunderstandings" does not grant you total freedom.

I'm not dismissing anything.  I'm interpreting them appropriately given the information available to me, and part of that information is the tone I chose for the line.

You simply try to reject the writers tone to usurp your own.

I deny the writers' tone is present within the game.

Because that is how the game is designed. It is designed to play out the story the writers give you while provideing you with the illusion of controling the flow of the story when you really don't. I seriously think you need to watch more Dev interviews they explain all of this quite frequently. Each dialogue comes with it's own tone...weather you want to belive or not is irrelevent because it's a fact. IF a reaction was writtin in response to a tone then the line posses a tone you cannot control. You can imagine that tone was not delivered but the NPC's reaction will never change regardless of whatever tone you thought it was, this is also a fact. The writers create the story THEY want YOU to experience. Therefor they create tones to go with each piece of dialuge to ensure you reach the point of the game they want to reach to. Simply assuming you have godly control over the dialogue is nothing more then an illusion created by the writers to help you enjoy the the pre-determined experience.

[AlanC9]

Lyssistr wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

outlaw1109 wrote...
But I digress, the point of this is that they had DECIDED to include the fully voiced PC before they recieved the budget and it was thus included in the budget.  If they had chosen a different path, the additional money provided FOR voice acting would have been non-existant within the budget itself.  Thus, it couldn't be applied elsewhere.

I don't quite follow this. It just assumes that the non-voiced path would be lower cost; on what basis are you assuming that an alternate DA2 plan would necessarily be a cheaper one?

 this is cost for voice actor vs cost for including race customization for character. No-one has the numbers at hand but it's reasonable to assume that voice acting costs more, provided that the actor is somewhat known (e.g. ME2's actors were quite well known).

 Tbh voice acting is fine, if it's good it can help immersion. Not that I have any particular preference on that matter both VOd and mute protagonist are fine.

I guess I wasn't clear there. We're talking about Bio submitting two different possible  plans for approval to EA. Plan one is the plan we got, with a voiced protagonist. Obviously that plan needs a budget for the feature.

Then there's plan 2, maybe one that Bio discussed, maybe one from some parallel universe. No VO protagonist, therefore no money for that. Is plan 2 cheaper than plan one, or are the budgets approximately equal? My guess is that they'd likely be approximately equal, though we can't actually know anything about the road not taken. I don't think Bio's incentives are to lowball EA here.

This is all assuming that the budget is drawn to the development plan, rather than the plan being made to fit the budget. We always used to make our plans with a pretty good idea of what top management would approve, though since my industry is relatively stable I don't know how relevant this is.

[Nighteye2]

ejoslin wrote...

I prefer a silent protagonist for many reasons. I'm not sure if I'll be able to explain this well -- it's not much to do with freedom or whatever.

Say my warden is having a conversation with Alistair (I'm not an Alistair fangirl mind you). I read a line in my mind, click on it -- I've just "said" that line in my inner voice, and Alistair responds, perhaps sweetly, perhaps angrily. But it feels like he responded to something *I* just said, since i had imagined saying the line.

when it's a voiced protagonist, i lose the half of the conversation that is coming from ME. Now, instead of, say, Alistair talking to me, giving me a rose, having a playful conversation yet romantic conversation with me (after all, all those lines are being heard by me in my own voice), with a voiced protagonist, I'd be watching two people have that same conversation.

watching two people talk, whatever, can also be deeply engrossing. But it takes "me" out of it and puts "Hawke" or whomever into my place.

I hope that makes sense.

It makes perfect sense - I posted that same argument earlier in the thread, albeit with less examples. The paraphrases create an unwanted mental distance between the player and the PC.

[Maria Caliban]

ejoslin wrote...

As far as the human noble?  I think this screenshot shows both unhappiness on the HN face and helplessness on Duncan's.  the positioning is unfortunate here (it's the only screenshot I have of that scene), but there are definitely emotions going on there.  same with just before you undergo the joining.

When I first saw the image, before I read your paragraph, I assumed it was a 'joke' image of Duncan and the HNF having sex. Without any context, I didn't read sadness on the HNF face at all.

That's because there isn't any. 'Sadness' is one of the universal facial expressions (like smiling) and the face in your image doesn't have any of the markers. Her eyebrows aren't oblique. The lip corners are not turned down.

Alistair is good at sad face.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

I seem to make a habit of making Sylvius' arguments for him in cases where he isn't present to do it himself, but I'm going to do it again. It's especially odd since on this issue we're basically polar opposites, but I hate to see misunderstandings and bad arguments flourish and have an odd compulsion to intervene and set the record straight.

The reason why silent protagonist-text speech works for players who take an imaginative approach isn't that they're unaware that the writers had a specific tone and/or intent in mind. I don't doubt for a second that Sylvius would deny that the writers had something definite in mind. The issue is that when it is just text, that leaves room for doubt and ambiguity. Sylvius and others with a similar approach simply choose to ignore the fact that they are playing a game. There's nothing wrong with this, as everyone's personal approach is what matters to them. As a result, the implied tone of any written (but not spoken) dialogue is open to imaginative interpretation, and therefore even if the response by an NPC implies that their imagined tone was "incorrect" - it can easily be dimissed as a misunderstanding. The benefit of this is it allows the player freedom to play a character above and beyond the implicit intent of the game's writers.

By introducing a voiced protagonist with paraphrased dialogue, not only is doubt and ambiguity removed - the line is clearly and audibly spoken complete with cadence and tone - precise control over the character's word choice is removed, leaving only the consequences of action or spoken dialogue as open to player choice.

To bring it back to my view on how CRPGs are and should be played, that's all I ever felt I was in control of in the first place - so anything that enhances the experience of the consequence of player choice is going to be more valuable to me than the examples I describe above.

/hopes he did Sylvius' position justice
//likes arguing with the guy, just tends to disagree with him more often than not

If I'm to make any correction here, I'd rather not describe my reaction to NPC lines as dismissal.  That suggests I'm aware that they're responding to the wrong tone, and I'm choosing to ignore that.

But that's not true.  Since I'm unaware I'm playing a game, the NPCs can only be reacting to events that have taken place within the game, and the relevant event here was the PC uttering a line using the tone I preferred.  The NPC's reaction then stands on its own.

There's a conversation with Leliana in DAO where apparently the line I selected was inteded to be a joke (it was a cheesy attempt to flirt with her).  However, my PC then was socially awkward and was honestly trying to flirt with Leliana.   Leliana's reaction, "Eww, awkward!" was taken by many players as a reasonable reaction to the supposed joke, but that interpretation never occurred to me when playing because my PC wasn't joking.  Instead, he took the line as a dismissive rejection, and he never spoke to Leliana again (because he was embarrassed) and even avoided using her in the party (so as to avoid interacting with her).

[Sylvius the Mad]

Nighteye2 wrote...

It makes perfect sense - I posted that same argument earlier in the thread, albeit with less examples. The paraphrases create an unwanted mental distance between the player and the PC.

Exactly.

This is actually very similar to Yahtzee's objection to motion-controllers.  He thinks (and I agree) that the goal of input systems should be to reduce the distance between the player's mind and the action on the screen.  Motion-controllers do the opposite, and so does the ME paraphrase system.

[ejoslin]

Maria Caliban wrote...

ejoslin wrote...

As far as the human noble?  I think this screenshot shows both unhappiness on the HN face and helplessness on Duncan's.  the positioning is unfortunate here (it's the only screenshot I have of that scene), but there are definitely emotions going on there.  same with just before you undergo the joining.

When I first saw the image, before I read your paragraph, I assumed it was a 'joke' image of Duncan and the HNF having sex. Without any context, I didn't read sadness on the HNF face at all.

That's because there isn't any. 'Sadness' is one of the universal facial expressions (like smiling) and the face in your image doesn't have any of the markers. Her eyebrows aren't oblique. The lip corners are not turned down.

Alistair is good at sad face.

Of course it's a joke screenshot -- I actually wish i had other screenshots but I definitely see sadness on her face.  that's very interesting that you do not.  people see things differently I guess.  I don't think she's overcome with emotion, but she, to me, looks very sad.

Edit; when I say "joke" screenshot, it's not a toolset shot.  It just struck me as funny in a stupid way.

Modifié par ejoslin, 22 novembre 2010 - 06:47 .

[upsettingshorts]

And if you always took the view that such distance was always implicit, you're probably going to be in favor of a voiced protagonist with paraphrases. Or at least more likely to be.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

And if you always took the view that such distance was always implicit, you're probably going to be in favor of a voiced protagonist with paraphrases. Or at least more likely to be.

Yes, that makes sense.

[ejoslin]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

And if you always took the view that such distance was always implicit, you're probably going to be in favor of a voiced protagonist with paraphrases. Or at least more likely to be.

That makes a lot of sense, actually.  I felt dragon age put me into the story more than even books do.  The romances had me *sighing*, some of the situations really ticked me off in a personal way (my first playthrough I ranted about how Bhelen was treating me like a tool).

I suppose if someone does stay a bit more distant from the character, a voiced protagonist is better.

Well, at least i do understand the voiced protagonist point of view a bit better.  Thank you!

[Sylvius the Mad]

ejoslin wrote...

Well, at least i do understand the voiced protagonist point of view a bit better.  Thank you!

As do I, though this has made it very clear that it isn't a playstyle I could ever enjoy.

[tmp7704]

ejoslin wrote...

I actually wish i had other screenshots

I looked through mine to see if there's ever an expression on PC's face but it looks there isn't any.

oh ****, i was supposed to be scared in this scene? no one told me!


there's an ogre in the tower? pah these fools may show some emotion reacting to that but me, never.


no, i'm not at all sad i just caused a woman kill her own son, i'm just counting floor tiles.


oh hey Riordan just felt off the archdemon. here's me, totally unconcerned.


me, wanting to gut that guy like a fish? absolutely not, it's business as usual.


it looks Alistair is about to die killing the archdemon. wanna go buy some icecream?

[upsettingshorts]

[Ryzaki]

^I lol'd.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
If I'm to make any correction here, I'd rather not describe my reaction to NPC lines as dismissal.  That suggests I'm aware that they're responding to the wrong tone, and I'm choosing to ignore that.

But that's not true.  Since I'm unaware I'm playing a game, the NPCs can only be reacting to events that have taken place within the game, and the relevant event here was the PC uttering a line using the tone I preferred.  The NPC's reaction then stands on its own.

No, it has to be a dismissal. Put another way, we can say expression is the combination of a mental state + some series of physical states. The NPC (or the other person) only has access to the physical states, and has to infer the mental state. During a misunderstanding, the NPC (or other person) uses the physical states as an indication of the wrong mental state.

But here is the issue: is the failure on the part of the NPC, for not getting the mental state right, or the PC, for not neccesarily using a universal cue?

You're using a standard of evidence that makes the internal state the only acceptable standard of comparison.

ETA:

Let me just add that obviously we should take the mental state to be the true representation of the emotional state; it's just that, by doing so, we dismiss any possible alternative account. I took that to be the usage of dismissal. Could be wrong, though.

Modifié par In Exile, 22 novembre 2010 - 07:48 .

[In Exile]

tmp7704 wrote..
I'd imagine if NPCs don't react to lines you pick in your game, then it's a rather curious bug. They aren't of course guaranteed to react exactly like you'd imagine -- misinterpretation of intent happens in real world conversations, too.

This is an excellent example of misinterpretation. I meant to say, but apparently failed to convey, that if you were the writer associating an emotion with each line, what my take on the line would be is different from yours, but your NPC reaction would be written for your emotion and not mine, and so there would be dissonance.

Of course, in the real world, any case of misinterpretation can be quickly addressed. Like right now, I can correct myself. In a game, this is impossible.

This is the core issue between the sides. For one side, the game has to react to make the choice meaningful. No choice that exists only our minds is taken to be a real choice. Conversely, for the other side, the game should not contradict an internal state.

These are very different predispositions, because one leads to detailed and scripted content, and the other leads to as much free flowing content as possible. IMO, this is essentially the same philosophical difference re: inventory and armour choice.

I think amusement is, and that's generally associated with cracking jokes. Granted, the person on the receiving end of it may be far from sharing the feeling if the joke happens to be at their expense.

At least as I use sarcasm, amusement isn't really what I'm feeling. Maybe irritation? It's hard to pin down an emotional state, but I don't think amusement is right.