406 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

It is part of the essential tension. Silent VO is actively inhibiting the kind of characters I want - people who dominate the conversation,

While I intensely dislike people who do that.  I can't imagine ever wanting to play one.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

We need to see how the PC expresses the emotion to understand the NPC reaction to it. To make sense of the NPC reaction, we have to see what the NPC reacts to.

To address your point, I always "see" myself express an emotion insofar as I know what I want to do, and then I can "see" myself doing it insofar as I can hear what I say and "feel" how I'm saying it (i.e. if I'm frowning or smiling). This is all feedback I get when I talk.

It's very possible to have something "come out wrong" i.e. not be said as intended. Lots of reasons for this. You can immediately correct in the real world.

An RPG is not the real world. You cannot correct misunderstandings.

Actually, no, let me stop you there.  The difference in an RPG is that you never see your character make a mistake.  If he ever does, then he corrects it immediately and the game moves on without mentioning it. 

If you want your character to express some emotion, and he doesn't do that despite you think you've told him to, then the game is broken.

This might be why I don't think it's as important to correct misunderstandings.  I don't think they can actually happen in the way you describe.

[tmp7704]

In Exile wrote...

It is part of the essential tension. Silent VO is actively inhibiting the kind of characters I want - people who dominate the conversation, who take action in dramatic moments, who make the rousing speech, etc. In DA:O, the PC did none of these things. I don't object to silent VO per se, but rather to the set of features that seem tied to VO.

I can see how this could be source of frustration for you; when coming with this preference the side-effects of typical execution of silent VO can certainly be annoying.

Personally i'm rather glad these side-effects exist because i'm more of a "equal opportunity" type -- i like seeing others play similarly active role in conversation, that including taking the lead every now and then. It's probably also part of why i'm not as enthusiastic about the whole voiced protagonist thing... since i suspect this will result in more of what you enjoy. Afraid this is just one of these situations where we can't be all winners

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I'm not speaking for Xewaka, but I both don't speak a lot (I mostly listen, and respond only when necessary), but I also construct much longer responses than you describe. 

Right. I'm very interesting in hearing about this. I am not saying you can't do this (that would be silly, since if you can do it, you do it). Rather, I am interested in how you do it.

They do tend to be single sentences, but they're usually quite long, with multiple interjections.  After assembling them, I go over them in my mind to find their rhythm, which allows me to memorise them.

I'm not sure I understand. Read what I saw below before clarifying, however.

You can learn song lyrics, right?  There's a lot more than 7 words in a song.

Right, but there's a way to essentially ''chunk'' that. You can learn nonsense strings of numbers that go on for hundreds of digits. The issue I'm interested in is the compensatory strategy you use to actually manipulate the sentence.

Say you write something: you can look at the sentence as you wrote it, manipulate it, and then submit. Mentally, you can't do the exact thing because you might not be able to hold each word as an element.

Now, what I think you do (and you can correct me if I'm wrong) is essentially develop the sentence in ''chunks'' that you then keep in mind, so that each completed ''part'' of the sentence isn't stored as 4 words, say, but rather as one ''part''.

We should talk about this in PM since it is a sidetrack, but I am very interested.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
While I intensely dislike people who do that. 
I can't imagine ever wanting to play one.

I can appreciate that. Like I said: it isn't silent VO per se that's the problem, but the set of features that seems to be included with silent VO rather than VO.

I do wish there was a way for all of us to get the game we want, but there seems to be a resource oriented conflict in terms of us meeting our preference.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Actually, no, let me stop you there. 
The difference in an RPG is that you never see your character make a
mistake.  If he ever does, then he corrects it immediately and the game
moves on without mentioning it. 

But the game does mention it: I can see the NPC reaction.

My PCs, being a reflection of my conversation style (let's call it that for now) would push the issue until either the misunderstanding is resolved and so the NPC reacts in a predictable way, or the situation would essentially collapse into a conflict that would end the conversation then and there, likely in a hostile way.

If you want your character to express some emotion, and he doesn't do
that despite you think you've told him to, then the game is broken.

Certainly; but you continue to discount the crucial role ''guiding'' the NPC plays, and so the how critically important feedback from the NPC is in terms of knowing whether or not a character was broken. This requires information on what the NPC is reacting to. Which requires knowing what the PC does.

This might be why I don't think it's as important to correct
misunderstandings.  I don't think they can actually happen in the way
you describe.

That's because you have wholly unrealistic views about what is possible in a conversation. But let's put this conflict between the two of us aside for the moment.

Suppose for a second this kind of misunderstanding is possible - do you see why I think this feedback is important to an RPG, and why it is not like watching a movie when it is present?

Modifié par In Exile, 02 février 2011 - 07:09 .

[In Exile]

tmp7704 wrote...
I can see how this could be source of frustration for you; when coming with this preference the side-effects of typical execution of silent VO can certainly be annoying.

Personally i'm rather glad these side-effects exist because i'm more of a "equal opportunity" type -- i like seeing others play similarly active role in conversation, that including taking the lead every now and then. It's probably also part of why i'm not as enthusiastic about the whole voiced protagonist thing... since i suspect this will result in more of what you enjoy. Afraid this is just one of these situations where we can't be all winners

It seems to be that way, sadly. What I do want to get at in our conversation, though (and in fact in the thread in general) is that a preference for VO or for an expressive protagonist is not at odds with what people here consider roleplay.

I get up in arms when people talk about ''not your character'' or ''third-person story'' because that's not at all what I feel with VO or with cinematic presentation. While I don't presume that my taste is at all universal, I do object to this very clear distinction people think they have.

Effectively, my problem with silent VO is this:

It consistently forces my character to act is such dramatically atypical ways (generally based on design choices) that any kind of connection with that character is impossible. I do have (relatively speaking) superficial preferences for things like voice and expresiveness... but I would easily be able to compromise on these if the kind of experience I wanted to play was available. The problem is that, well, it isn't. And so VO is the only thing that does give me that RP experience.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

Right, but there's a way to essentially ''chunk'' that. You can learn nonsense strings of numbers that go on for hundreds of digits. The issue I'm interested in is the compensatory strategy you use to actually manipulate the sentence.

Say you write something: you can look at the sentence as you wrote it, manipulate it, and then submit. Mentally, you can't do the exact thing because you might not be able to hold each word as an element.

Now, what I think you do (and you can correct me if I'm wrong) is essentially develop the sentence in ''chunks'' that you then keep in mind, so that each completed ''part'' of the sentence isn't stored as 4 words, say, but rather as one ''part''.

We should talk about this in PM since it is a sidetrack, but I am very interested.

You've described it pretty well.  As the sentence gets built, each clause or phrase is reduced to a memorisable 'chunk', as you call it, and then subsequent clauses are assembled and appended to the end.  Occasionally I'll need to go back and amend an earlier phrase to get the rhythms to flow together in a way I can remember.

This is why I prefer written communication.  It's faster.  I can just read the first part of the sentence without having to memorise it.

I can appreciate that. Like I said: it isn't silent VO per se that's the problem, but the set of features that seems to be included with silent VO rather than VO.

Sure.  Similarly, the voice itself isn't something that's a problem for me.  That the voice is always the same, doesn't suit all possible characters, and is accompanied by an obfuscatory UI element - these are the problems.

That previous sentence, by the way, had a memorisable rhythm.  That's a great example of a sentence I would utter in conversation.  For clarity, I really should have replaced "accompanied by" with "hidden behind", but that doesn't work as well for me as a spoken sentence, and I wanted to show you one of those.

But the game does mention it: I can see the NPC reaction.

Right, but in the real world you have some uncertainty about what your emotional expression was.  If you didn't, you wouldn't ever take someone's reaction as evidence of your failure.

In a game, you don't have that uncertainty.  In a game that caters to you, you chose the emotional expression from a list, so you got exactly what you wanted.  In a game that caters to me, you can impart any expression you'd like, and you can only fail if you decide that you failed.

That an RPG isn't like the real world is a point in my favour here. 

You say you want to correct the NPC where he's reacted to the wrong expression, but in the game the wrong expression never happens.

Certainly; but you continue to discount the crucial role ''guiding'' the NPC plays, and so the how critically important feedback from the NPC is in terms of knowing whether or not a character was broken. This requires information on what the NPC is reacting to. Which requires knowing what the PC does.

In a game that caters to you, you can see the PC's expression, right?  So you should know immediately whether your character was broken, even before the NPC reacts.

If your character behaved as you wanted him to behave, then any failure of the NPC to understand your character is the NPC's failure, not the game's failure.  The only way your position makes any sense is if your PC sometimes doesn't do what you want him to do.  And that's its own problem.

Suppose for a second this kind of misunderstanding is possible - do you see why I think this feedback is important to an RPG, and why it is not like watching a movie when it is present?

Yes, if the game is designed to simulate this disconect between the character's intended expression and his actual expression, so he does sometimes fail to express himself as he intends, then I can absolutely see the value in that sort of feedback mechanism.

But, I don't see that design in these games, so the expression failure you describe isn't possible.

[SkittlesKat96]

I'm for having the main character have a voice but there isn't anything that I can say to assure you guys that the game is going to be way better off, we'll just need to wait for it to come out.

[Sacred_Fantasy]

In Exile wrote...
I get up in arms when people talk about ''not your character'' or ''third-person story'' because that's not at all what I feel with VO or with cinematic presentation. While I don't presume that my taste is at all universal, I do object to this very clear distinction people think they have.

When the people who support VO protagonist themselves designate their own character as "He/She", they already raised the white flag before they begin taking arm. You can't really blame others such as myself for blatantly  talk about "not your character" or "third-person story." True RPG-er never designate themselves as "he or she" Only confused amateur RPGers do that.  Here are some good examples posted by those who really roleplay their character.

-I ended up killing her carefully (without removing limbs) and placing her on my love theme bed. It looks shes always sleeping when i come home. =O

I've still got her head pinned to the wall in my megaton house. In fact I have 6 heads pinned to the wall in my house

I've also managed to get all the people living in Megaton to chase me into my house, where I then proceded to blow up/use the nail gun each one who came into my house with the V.A.T.S system.
A few people obviously run away, so I chase them and blow them up and then carry bits of there body and place them outside my front door while Dogmeat keeps watch.

I also collect all the body parts from the gore bags I come across and put them in my house. I've managed to completely cover the ground floor of my house with body parts. 

Makes a lovely squishy noise as I walk around.

http://asia.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/fallout3/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-46910277&pid=939932

Scary huh? It's amaze me how deep and crazy a person can be when it come to roleplay. And this come from players who play Fallout 3. 

But you are worthy RPG-er and prove yourself why you are capable to ropleplay Commander Shepard despite the odds ( I can't. I gave up roleplaying him after my first play through. I have no intention to replay Mass Effect 2. ) And I do agree with you that the whole issue of VO vs Non VO is subjective. This is something I can't argue. All I can say I salute you for your position.

Thanks for your point of view. 
  

Modifié par Sacred_Fantasy, 02 février 2011 - 01:16 .

[Maleficent]

In Dragon Age:Origins the hero was voiced but through the players dialogue choices.Having Audio voice this time is no bad thing,I guess it's personal preferance but I see it as a good move as long our voice choices are nicely varied and acted well,Male Shepard anyone?

[TMZuk]

Maleficent wrote...

In Dragon Age:Origins the hero was voiced but through the players dialogue choices.Having Audio voice this time is no bad thing,I guess it's personal preferance but I see it as a good move as long our voice choices are nicely varied and acted well,Male Shepard anyone?

MaleShep was awful, IMO. FemShep was a lot better, luckily, or I'd never have completed the game. She was still having a few very bad moments, though. Her attempt to chat up poor Jacob springs to mind.

That is another huge flaw of the fully voiced protagonist. I am very picky in regard to voices, and especially acting. But one person's good acting is another's boring/awful/tedious or what have we acting. MaleShep have many fans, but to me, his acting is nothing but a monotomous drone. I simply can't play game through, listening to that.

While I have only heard a little bit of MaleHawke's acting, I am not impressed. FemHawke I have heard nothing off.

[Archereon]

Despite the flashiness, silent PC is generally better for immersion than voiced PC. A voiced PC's emotional responses are limited, unlike that of the person playing them. While an unvoiced PC is limited to a number of "action" responses, the person behind that PC can have a much wider range of emotional reactions to something in the game than a voiced PC allows for. An unvoiced PC also allows the player to decide their character's motivations in saying and doing things. A voiced PC will inevitably voice their motivation, or express it through emotional and social cues. That motivation will often differ from the motivation the player would have in taking that action, reducing the immersion further.

Plus there's the problem mentioned above about voices.  Male Hawke has yet to make an emotional response.  That's the other end of the voiced PC immersion problem.  A complete monotone and brown prose makes it easier to immerse oneself in a character, but also makes them unbelievably boring. 

Modifié par Archereon, 02 février 2011 - 03:14 .

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
You've described it pretty well.  As the sentence gets built, each clause or phrase is reduced to a memorisable 'chunk', as you call it, and then subsequent clauses are assembled and appended to the end.  Occasionally I'll need to go back and amend an earlier phrase to get the rhythms to flow together in a way I can remember.

This is why I prefer written communication.  It's faster.  I can just read the first part of the sentence without having to memorise it.

That makes sense. Like I said: this is the common WM strategy, but the tactic is atypitcal, so I wondered if you hadn't found a more clever way of manipulating elements.

Sure.  Similarly, the voice itself isn't something that's a problem for me.  That the voice is always the same, doesn't suit all possible characters, and is accompanied by an obfuscatory UI element - these are the problems.

I absolutely see where you're coming from. I agree with you entirely. My response to this is not that VO avoids these problems; rather, I think silent VO always had these problems.

Of course, where we differ is that you do not think the text is literally what is being said nor that because it requires coherence with the NPC reaction, there is always a narrow and fixed range of tone (I say range because I do want to distinguish that no VO allows you to imagine a rang of voices... just never a unique tone for any like across those voices).

So it is not so much I do not think these things are problems as I do not think they are VO specific problems, or made any worse by adding VO.

Right, but in the real world you have some uncertainty about what your emotional expression was.  If you didn't, you wouldn't ever take someone's reaction as evidence of your failure.

No. Rather, in the real world it is possible that my wording might be confusing or stumbling (because I compose the sentence as I speak) or the other person is used to people sufficiently different from me that reading my expression is not easy.

I see conversation as more dynamic, remember. In all honesty, to me it does not really make sense to speak of only the one person in a conversation. I think it neccesarily requires speaking of all participants to be coherent.

In a game, you don't have that uncertainty.  In a game that caters to you, you chose the emotional expression from a list, so you got exactly what you wanted.  In a game that caters to me, you can impart any expression you'd like, and you can only fail if you decide that you failed.

This is where we disagree. The game does not actually let me choose the emotional expression from a list.  It lets me choose (prior to Alpha Protocol - which only partially did this well- , and now potentially DA2) the content of the line. Paragon/Renegade was not precise enough to consistently impute expression, and the literal content of the line was never enough to inpute tone.

When I say there is a narrow range associated with the line, it does not follow that I have access to the tone while reading the line.

This is part of our disagreement: I do not actually think the game provides this information.

Moreover, because you and I disagree on what expression is, I do not think it is possible to impart what expression I like.

That an RPG isn't like the real world is a point in my favour here. 

Not if you inaccurately describe the mechanic. Which in this case I would argue you do.

In a game that caters to you, you can see the PC's expression, right?  So you should know immediately whether your character was broken, even before the NPC reacts.

Yes, this is entirely true. It is just not the whole story.

Let me put it this way:

If I wanted my character to be excited about something, I choose a dialogue option, and my character is sad intead... then the dialogue choice broke the character.

Alternatively, my character might say something in a happy way, and the NPC might react to it as if the NPC said something said. So far, there is no problem.

Now, if the dialogue does not let me correct the misunderstanding, the character is still broken.

This is what I mean by the role of the NPC being important in conversation. It is not that the NPC couldn't and shouldn't misunderstand. But when neccesary actions are not possible (and these actions sometimes dependent on NPC reactions) a character is still broken.

An example would be the Anora offer to the HNM. If any of my Wardens would have been in that scenario, their hardline counter would be that they are either made King or my Warden supports Alistair's claim alone (as a threat - he had no intention of doing this and would rather force the landsmeet to make him King).

Here, a possible action based on an NPC reaction is not possible. I'm sure you would see this as an option the game does not provide independent of the NPC, but my response to that is that a situation like this depends invariably on the NPC reaction (in this case, I might never have thought not being able to make this offer was a problem if it wasn't Anora's refusal but rather some other reason that preventing me from being King outright, like the fact that a Teryn's blood can't simulatenously be heir to a Ternyr and be King).

If your character behaved as you wanted him to behave, then any failure of the NPC to understand your character is the NPC's failure, not the game's failure.  The only way your position makes any sense is if your PC sometimes doesn't do what you want him to do.  And that's its own problem.

The issue that we have, again, is that you think silent VO avoids the ME dialogue-wheel problem of a character acting incoherently. I don't think it does. 

I argue, remember, there is no significant difference between VO and non-VO in terms of how often control is taken out of your hands. You are just less sensitive to my problem (non-options and neccesary mental states), in the way I am less sensitive to your problem (need for literal expression).

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...
When the people who support VO protagonist
themselves designate their own character as "He/She", they already
raised the white flag before they begin taking arm. You can't really
blame others such as myself for blatantly  talk about "not your
character" or "third-person story." True RPG-er never designate
themselves as "he or she" Only confused amateur RPGers do that.  Here
are some good examples posted by those who really roleplay their
character.

That's a .... really weird standard. I would never say ''me'' when refering to anyone who isn't actually me, because I feel that makes me sound a little like I've jumped off the deep end.

I would say the Warden as much as I would say the Courrier or Hawke/Shepard.

What you need to look at are instances of my Shepard, or my Hawke (pardon the pun - stupid name). And these are very common.

[In Exile]

Archereon wrote...
A voiced PC's emotional responses are limited, unlike that of the person playing them. While an unvoiced PC is limited to a number of "action" responses, the person behind that PC can have a much wider range of emotional reactions to something in the game than a voiced PC allows for.

But the game doesn't recognize it at all.

An unvoiced PC also allows the player to decide their character's motivations in saying and doing things. A voiced PC will inevitably voice their motivation, or express it through emotional and social cues. That motivation will often differ from the motivation the player would have in taking that action, reducing the immersion further.

But - again- the game does not recognize this at all.

To me, that makes a connection with the character much weaker.

[Archereon]

In Exile wrote...

Archereon wrote...
A voiced PC's emotional responses are limited, unlike that of the person playing them. While an unvoiced PC is limited to a number of "action" responses, the person behind that PC can have a much wider range of emotional reactions to something in the game than a voiced PC allows for.

But the game doesn't recognize it at all.

An unvoiced PC also allows the player to decide their character's motivations in saying and doing things. A voiced PC will inevitably voice their motivation, or express it through emotional and social cues. That motivation will often differ from the motivation the player would have in taking that action, reducing the immersion further.

But - again- the game does not recognize this at all.

To me, that makes a connection with the character much weaker.

It doesn't matter if the game doesn't recognize it, the player has an emotional response, and the game leaves the character's response and motivations up in the air, allowing the player to insert their own.  While the immersion is limited by the choices the game allows, that's unavoidable.  While the game IMPLIES your character said something a certain way, and responds as if you did, it gives you a lot more leeway on why you said it than a voiced PC.

Also, you don't seem to understand what I said by emotional response.  With an unvoiced PC, the exact emotional response the character has is a lot less limited, since you only have the game's response to the conversation choice you picked, the tone the PC used is slighly up for grabs (sarcasm will be sarcasm, but with an unvoiced PC, you can interpret that sarcasm in many ways).  With a voiced PC, you only have as many emotional responses as the game inserts.


My conclusion?  An unvoiced PC is a proper non-character, and allows the player to self-insert and immerse themselves into the game better than a voiced PC, which is inevitably a character, and generally a flat and poorly written one comared to more defined characters.  Voiced PCs in a game with choices put the player in the akward position between a properly defined character, and a more open non-character.

Modifié par Archereon, 02 février 2011 - 04:11 .

[Gvaz]

I can't agree with a voiced protagonist that says a bunch of lame **** and not how i'd say it.

No thanks, no voice for me.

[In Exile]

Archereon wrote...
It doesn't matter if the game doesn't recognize it, the player has an emotional response, and the game leaves the character's response and motivations up in the air, allowing the player to insert their own. 

This is where we disagree. If something isn't recognized by the game (especially something as critically important as motivation or emotional respnse) I think the game is much weaker for it.

I argue that good RP requires reactivity. 

While the immersion is limited by the choices the game allows, that's unavoidable.  While the game IMPLIES your character said something a certain way, and responds as you did, it gives you a lot more leeway on why you said it than a voiced PC.

But that's the same as telling you how you said it. Recently, I've come to appreciate a lot how crucially important exactly how you said something is to some people. But to me, that's a minor point. What matters is the rough way I'm expected to say something.

If there are four lines - one that is generally happy in tone, one neutral, one angry and one mocking... only four possible reactions that are identical for every character exist, and that's one of these 4. If all characters pick the happy line... they've all said essentially the same thing in any meaningful way and are 100% indistinguishable if you just see that interaction alone.

Again - I understad why some feel that this is not the case and no VO gives much more freedom - but this is not universal. That is my point. To me, the things you say free you up for RP I argue destroy RP completely.

[Archereon]

In Exile: My point is that, in my personal opinion, Voiced PCs in games with character choice are the uncanny valley of immersion. A fully defined and voiced character leaves the player in the position of a proper third person observer, while an unvoiced non-character makes it easier to feel like a first person observer. Motivation is the big limitation of voiced PCs; even if the writer meticulously removes any mention of the PC's motivations, and tries their best to avoid implying that motivation, social and emotional cues in their character's speech inevitably imply a motivation, a problem that is much less severe with an unvoiced PC, since it is much easier to come up with alternate interpretations of a one sided conversation.

[LdyShayna]

SkittlesKat96 wrote...

I'm for having the main character have a voice but there isn't anything that I can say to assure you guys that the game is going to be way better off, we'll just need to wait for it to come out.

I'm pretty sure that nothing whatsoever will change in my opinion once the game is released.  I have a good idea of what they're going for and why, but the simple fact of the matter is that in my mind this change pushes over that fine line from me playing my character to me playing theirs (I realize opinions on where this line is will vary).   I just never get as attached to developer created characters, no matter how well written.  It's why I don't play JRPGs, after all.  It's also why I had zero interest in Leliana's Song.  It's why my interest in Dragon Age 2 is a tiny fraction of my interest in Dragon Age: Origins.  And if this is the future of all of their games, it will be why my interest in BioWare's products overall will be in sharp decline.

Some people will say, "Fudge? Chocolate cake?  Whatever!  I like desserts!"  Some will say, "Fudge is always superior!"  I happen to prefer chocolate cake.  I don't mind fudge being made, but I am annoyed by people who claim that fudge is THE FUTURE, just because they like it better.  I would like the people that have made some of the best chocolate cake EVER to continue to make chocolate cake. 

At least some. 

Cupcakes, maybe? 

[Rylor Tormtor]

 There is a review on Slate of Dead Space 2 which is relevant to this discussion. You can draw your own conclusions about the review, which I thought was incredibly insightful and not full of the drek you see on gaming websites. The reviewer discusses the choice of adding VO:

The second, far more harmful decision made by Dead Space 2's creators was to allow Isaac Clarke to speak. It somewhat undercuts the game's fiction that a man whose dead girlfriend forced him to tear hundreds of necromorphs limb from limb sounds about as tormented as a high-school wrestling coach. At one point, Isaac is attacked by a crazed monster. "Jesus," he says after killing it, "that thing was angry." You don't say! At another point, Isaac is hanging upside down from a crashed subway car, blasting the limbs off a dozen converging necromorphs—a singularly nerve-flaying set piece. When Isaac finally frees himself, he radios his contact and says, cheerfully, "Dana! I need a new route." Worst of all, two potentially powerful moments near the end of a game—one involves Isaac saving the life of a friend, the other him coming to terms with his girlfriend's death—would have been far more eerie and potent had Isaac been allowed to remain silent.Prior to the release of Dead Space 2, several of the game's creators took their case for a talking Isaac directly to the video-game media. "We felt it could really … kind of help drive the story forward," Shereif Fattouh, a Dead Space 2 producer, told Gametrailers.com. "[Isaac is] a human being and he's going through this … situation and we really wanted to get people to kind of see it through his eyes." But what about a silent Isaac prevented us from seeing through his eyes? Does not a talking Isaac place an unwelcome tint over the player's eyes? In a game of such extraordinary intensity, are not the player's emotions far more important than those of the character they control? And what does "drive the story forward" mean for a medium in which pacing can largely be controlled by the player?These questions get to the heart of what makes video games unique and horror games so compelling. I used to love watching horror films, but I rarely do anymore, not if I have the option to play a horror video game. It is all too easy to determine, at the beginning of a horror film, which of the characters will live and die, but horror games are immune to this brand of precognition. Of course, Dead Space 2 telegraphs any number of things. If you walk into a room and see a bunch of ammunition lying around, gird your loins for an imminent space-zombie attack. But the central character in a horror video game is never safe, and it is this oppressive sensation that annuls any need for "character" or "personality." Isaac's emotions do nothing to deepen the experience of running him through a gauntlet of necromorphs, and, in fact, considerably take away from that experience. In Dead Space 2, Isaac is not relaying an experience. He is, rather, the relay we carry and protect during our experience.

To read the whole review http://www.slate.com/id/2283385 . Hopefully this isn't a prophecy of things to come, but who can tell?

[TDelamay]

Rylor Tormtor wrote...

 There is a review on Slate of Dead Space 2 which is relevant to this discussion. You can draw your own conclusions about the review, which I thought was incredibly insightful and not full of the drek you see on gaming websites. The reviewer discusses the choice of adding VO:

The second, far more harmful decision made by Dead Space 2's creators was to allow Isaac Clarke to speak. It somewhat undercuts the game's fiction that a man whose dead girlfriend forced him to tear hundreds of necromorphs limb from limb sounds about as tormented as a high-school wrestling coach. At one point, Isaac is attacked by a crazed monster. "Jesus," he says after killing it, "that thing was angry." You don't say! At another point, Isaac is hanging upside down from a crashed subway car, blasting the limbs off a dozen converging necromorphs—a singularly nerve-flaying set piece. When Isaac finally frees himself, he radios his contact and says, cheerfully, "Dana! I need a new route." Worst of all, two potentially powerful moments near the end of a game—one involves Isaac saving the life of a friend, the other him coming to terms with his girlfriend's death—would have been far more eerie and potent had Isaac been allowed to remain silent.Prior to the release of Dead Space 2, several of the game's creators took their case for a talking Isaac directly to the video-game media. "We felt it could really … kind of help drive the story forward," Shereif Fattouh, a Dead Space 2 producer, told Gametrailers.com. "[Isaac is] a human being and he's going through this … situation and we really wanted to get people to kind of see it through his eyes." But what about a silent Isaac prevented us from seeing through his eyes? Does not a talking Isaac place an unwelcome tint over the player's eyes? In a game of such extraordinary intensity, are not the player's emotions far more important than those of the character they control? And what does "drive the story forward" mean for a medium in which pacing can largely be controlled by the player?These questions get to the heart of what makes video games unique and horror games so compelling. I used to love watching horror films, but I rarely do anymore, not if I have the option to play a horror video game. It is all too easy to determine, at the beginning of a horror film, which of the characters will live and die, but horror games are immune to this brand of precognition. Of course, Dead Space 2 telegraphs any number of things. If you walk into a room and see a bunch of ammunition lying around, gird your loins for an imminent space-zombie attack. But the central character in a horror video game is never safe, and it is this oppressive sensation that annuls any need for "character" or "personality." Isaac's emotions do nothing to deepen the experience of running him through a gauntlet of necromorphs, and, in fact, considerably take away from that experience. In Dead Space 2, Isaac is not relaying an experience. He is, rather, the relay we carry and protect during our experience.

To read the whole review http://www.slate.com/id/2283385 . Hopefully this isn't a prophecy of things to come, but who can tell?

That was very insightful and mirrors my own feeling about voice-over characters. It does change the immersion. I loved Amnesia where you only hear your character's voice narrating while reading letters. In Mass Effect 2, Sheperd sounded too tough and surreal. It dictate too much about the character and makes it harder for the player to feel involved with it.

[Killjoy Cutter]

In Exile wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...
Gonna get a little off-tangent here, but in DAO at least things you can say are generally limited to single sentence (since there's something like 65 char limit per line)  This is well within limits of forming it completely in memory beforehand, i think?

As a psychological concept, WM capacity is 7 unique "things" +/-2. This is a complicated clasificatory thing.

But essentially, here is an example:

"Today we ought to head to the store."

Is something that could push the WM capacity for many people if they try to focus on each word as a separate and manipulable object. You can keep a lot more than this in memory, but you are actually encoding it in a different way and aren't shifting in words in/out.

DA:O doesn't have this problem per se because the statements are short. But I wasn't asking about DA:O. I was asking about how people actually speak in the real world.

An example of this is everything I wrote above: I didn't actually "plan" this out. I just wrote essentially what came to mind on the topic; as if I was speaking to you, essentially.

My own internal experience contradicts what you're saying here.

[Sacred_Fantasy]

In Exile wrote...
That's a .... really weird standard. I would never say ''me'' when refering to anyone who isn't actually me, because I feel that makes me sound a little like I've jumped off the deep end.

I would say the Warden as much as I would say the Courrier or Hawke/Shepard.

What you need to look at are instances of my Shepard, or my Hawke (pardon the pun - stupid name). And these are very common.

I'm not saying actually me. . "Me" as in roleplay like the examples I've given above.
And you're saying your Shepard, Hawke and all the rest of RPG main characters are very common? 

Please allow me to ask you one simple question. Could you afford to claim yourself as the Warden, the Courrier or Hawke/Shepard or could you not?

In Exile wrote...
DA:O doesn't have this problem per se because the statements are short. But I wasn't asking about DA:O. I was asking about how people actually speak in the real world.

How about you start asking how people actually speak and hear their own voice in the real world.

Modifié par Sacred_Fantasy, 02 février 2011 - 07:27 .

[Lyssistr]

tbh I favor a VOd protagonist but in any case, can't they add an option to mute him/her so that everybody's happy?

[LdyShayna]

Lyssistr wrote...

tbh I favor a VOd protagonist but in any case, can't they add an option to mute him/her so that everybody's happy?

And watch her lips move as she walks around, gestures, sits, stands, drinks, etc...but just not hear words? If they edited the wheel to also display the exact text  before selection (seeing it after the fact as sub-title would not be acceptable to me), I would consider it a sigh inducing compromise, but wouldn't be terribly happy, I'm afraid.

With apologies.  I feel I'm being difficult, but just trying to be honest here.

[Lyssistr]

LdyShayna wrote...

Lyssistr wrote...

tbh I favor a VOd protagonist but in any case, can't they add an option to mute him/her so that everybody's happy?

And watch her lips move as she walks around, gestures, sits, stands, drinks, etc...but just not hear words? If they edited the wheel to also display the exact text  before selection (seeing it after the fact as sub-title would not be acceptable to me), I would consider it a sigh inducing compromise, but wouldn't be terribly happy, I'm afraid.

With apologies.  I feel I'm being difficult, but just trying to be honest here.

 One sec, people who don't want a VOd protagonist, are also against facial expressions etc? I'm trying to understand what you want, you don't have to explain why you want it, your tastes are your own business but facial expressions are a new cool thing in computer graphics and I can't see how this correlates to having VO or not having VO.

Modifié par Lyssistr, 02 février 2011 - 07:33 .