406 réponses à ce sujet

[WilliamShatner]

As Clint Eastwood proves, the less a hero talks the cooler they are.

[tmp7704]

Pretty true; replacing anything said on say, CSI with "..." would improve the show immensely.

[Phoenix_Loftian]

Malevolence65 wrote...

There are benefits to both, but the benefits of a voiced protagonist far outweigh both its drawbacks and the benefits of a mute protagonist. That's not even taking into account all of the drawbacks of a mute protagonist.

Yes, listening to bad VAs are so much more appealing.

[TJPags]

Right, I'd much rather a silent PC than a VA who I hate. /sarcasm



I have nothing against voiced PC's. The key is whether I like the voice, though.



But to say that silent PC's are no longer viable, I think that would come as a shock to many gamers, and game companies, that still like and use that system.



Frankly, your argument is like saying we have color pictures now - anything done in black and white has no value. That's . . .silly, to put it mildly.

[London]

I originally was very against a voiced protagonist, as I played Dragon Age 1 and didn't want them to mess around with that.



Then I played Mass Effect 1 and now I'm playing 2, and I don't know if I'd enjoy a silent protagonist as much anymore.



I guess it depends on the voice acting and how set the main character is.

[Meltemph]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

I dislike silent protagonists in otherwise fully voiced games for a number of reasons, but "because it's old and played out" isn't really one of them.

I agree with this.  I don't mind a silent protagonist as long as nobody else has a voice.  But when you are the only one that can't talk the responses seem more artificial and your PC's reactions are robotic and lifeless to me.

[TJPags]

Meltemph wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...

I dislike silent protagonists in otherwise fully voiced games for a number of reasons, but "because it's old and played out" isn't really one of them.

I agree with this.  I don't mind a silent protagonist as long as nobody else has a voice.  But when you are the only one that can't talk the responses seem more artificial and your PC's reactions are robotic and lifeless to me.

You know, with respect to "robotic and lifeless" and other comments about "vacant stares" such . . . .that's about more than just having a voice or not.

I mean, would you prefer a game with a voiced PC that also has a "vacant stare" or "robotic and lifeless" graphics, so long as you hear a voice?  Would a silent PC with good animations and expression be acceptable?

Reason I ask this is, right now I'm playing Red Dead Redemption, and while I'm enjoying the voiced PC (whoever did Marsten's voice did a good job, IMO) I see conversation where he has a blank stare or no emotion on his face - and it seems MORE jarring, considering I'm hearing a voice WITH emotion.

[Erode_The_Soul]

Unless you are speaking specifically to the RPG genre (in which case, I still disagree), the mute hero won't likely become a "relic of the past" until Nintendo decides to retire the Zelda series. Zelda games always feature a silent protagonist and that's unlikely to change.

Modifié par Erode_The_Soul, 31 janvier 2011 - 12:08 .

[Maconbar]

TJPags wrote...

Right, I'd much rather a silent PC than a VA who I hate. /sarcasm

I have nothing against voiced PC's. The key is whether I like the voice, though.

But to say that silent PC's are no longer viable, I think that would come as a shock to many gamers, and game companies, that still like and use that system.

Frankly, your argument is like saying we have color pictures now - anything done in black and white has no value. That's . . .silly, to put it mildly.

No but how much stuff gets published in B&W anymore?

[Meltemph]

TJPags wrote...

Meltemph wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...

I dislike silent protagonists in otherwise fully voiced games for a number of reasons, but "because it's old and played out" isn't really one of them.

I agree with this.  I don't mind a silent protagonist as long as nobody else has a voice.  But when you are the only one that can't talk the responses seem more artificial and your PC's reactions are robotic and lifeless to me.

You know, with respect to "robotic and lifeless" and other comments about "vacant stares" such . . . .that's about more than just having a voice or not.

I mean, would you prefer a game with a voiced PC that also has a "vacant stare" or "robotic and lifeless" graphics, so long as you hear a voice?  Would a silent PC with good animations and expression be acceptable?

Reason I ask this is, right now I'm playing Red Dead Redemption, and while I'm enjoying the voiced PC (whoever did Marsten's voice did a good job, IMO) I see conversation where he has a blank stare or no emotion on his face - and it seems MORE jarring, considering I'm hearing a voice WITH emotion.

It would be even worse to me with what you are saying.  As much as I don't like the robotic poses and what not showing that kind of emotion and picking lines and that emotion showing would be almost creepy to me and just as off putting if not more.

[nijnij]

Depends on several factors :

-acting quality. Monkey Island 1 and 2 have the funniest dialogue in history. The new voiced special edition killed all the humor by having VAs overact.

-when it comes to role-playing, clicking the lines equals speaking them. Having someone say it again breaks the immersion, especially if you can't relate with the voice.

[Cutlass Jack]

There's a huge difference between the 'mute protaganist' of JRPG fame (aka spectator in his own game) and a protaganist that speaks fully but just doesn't have a voice track. (ala Origins)

There's nothing wrong with the latter. Especially since it gives far more dialogue options than a voiced character will ever have. Also less chance of your hero not sounding like you imagined.

That said, I'm not judging DA2 on the matter until I see, er hear, it for myself.

[TJPags]

Maconbar wrote...

TJPags wrote...

Right, I'd much rather a silent PC than a VA who I hate. /sarcasm

I have nothing against voiced PC's. The key is whether I like the voice, though.

But to say that silent PC's are no longer viable, I think that would come as a shock to many gamers, and game companies, that still like and use that system.

Frankly, your argument is like saying we have color pictures now - anything done in black and white has no value. That's . . .silly, to put it mildly.

No but how much stuff gets published in B&W anymore?

Well, I'm neither a photographer nor an artist, but when I DO go to exhibits (not often, admittedly) I do tend to see black and white photos on display.

[Meltemph]

Having someone say it again breaks the immersion

I've never felt the kind of "immersion" that sentences like this seem to infer... I mean, I get the dictionary definition of immersion(as in being very engrossed) but I never forgot I'm playing a game. That said, I agree that saying the line after already reading it and picking it is redundant and hurts the dialog a bit. but that is why I am fine with/like the wheel.

[IndigoWolfe]

In KOTOR I didn't mind the mute hero because of two reasons. The first and primary of which; you saw your character. In Dragon Age, the camera only switches back to your character when you pick an dialogue option on rare occasions. This alone made the silent protagonist more alive to me. The second is the fact that you weren't entirely still. Your face moved statically, or otherwise made signs that there was life in that jumble of polygons.

In summation; in KOTOR, I felt like I was picking my character's lines, even thought they were silent. In Dragon Age, it felt more like it was simply making the other character respond, if that makes sense.

If Bioware do another game with a silent protagonist I'm fine with that, I just hope they aren't for the most part faceless as well.

[SirGladiator]

ME/ME2 was awesome with Jennifer Hale, but Fallout NV was awesome with you providing your own voice in your mind, I don't think either one is necessarily 'better' in an overall sense, its probably easier to be better for a silent character, because the only way a voiced character is good if the voice is really good. Certainly Fable 3 didn't live up to that ME standard. Hopefully DA2 will have an awesome voice, we haven't heard her voice yet, but there's nothing at all wrong with doing it the DAO way, its easier and maybe even better, but if it isn't its still quite good.

[Ailith Tycane]

Faust1979 wrote...

 It's 2011 a mute hero was fine in the 80s and 90s when games and hardware didn't have a lot of power. But it's 2011 now. It's time to leave the mute hero in the past. Games need to grow and change not stay in the past. Dragon Age is one fun game but the mute hero is a relic of the past. 

Agreed, agreed, agreed, a hundred times agreed.

[Ryzaki]

Eh. Nonvoiced PCs will always be vastly preferred to me because there's a lot of ham acting in video games.

[Altima Darkspells]

 It's 2011 a male hero was fine in the 80s and 90s when games and hardware didn't have a lot of masculine security. But it's 2011 now. It's time to leave the male hero in the past. Games need to grow and change not stay in the past. Dragon Age is one fun game but the male hero is a relic of the past.

Hey, look, such logic can be changed to support for anything!  It's almost as if it were an opinion about a preference than absolute fact.

[In Exile]

TheMadCat wrote...
Why'd you hate it thought?

The problem with the forced first person dialogu system is that it effectively kills any measure of the character in-game. Insofar as the display is concerned, the game is talking to you directly. I can't see a way to script movement or contact, so effectively you've got talking head syndrome.

You say the following:

If the characters acted more alive, the world din't grind to a complete halt, and the conversations felt more natural and real don't you think it would have been better then what we got in Oblivion and Fallout?

That's easy to say, but it's not clear there's any way to do this with forced first person.

TJPags wrote...
You know, with respect to "robotic and
lifeless" and other comments about "vacant stares" such . . . .that's
about more than just having a voice or not.

I mean, would you
prefer a game with a voiced PC that also has a "vacant stare" or
"robotic and lifeless" graphics, so long as you hear a voice?  Would a
silent PC with good animations and expression be acceptable?

Obviously, if you do PC VO poorly the feature will suck. The issue is that these things that you can do with PC VO - i.e. the expressions, the graphics, the interaction... you can't really do with a silent PC.

If you just "mute" Shepard, people will still be up in arms about how Shepard acts e.g. why is Shepard smiling without my input, acting when the dialogue isn't clear Shepard would act, etc. etc.

This is where the issue with a predefined PC comes in.

The bigger issue is passive characters. Once you remove the voice, but keep everything else (other characters having voices, cinematics, etc.) then you're basically either going to have an emotionless mute drive the scene, or you're going to have to push the PC into the background.

And that's what I hate about silent PCs. You're a lickspittle/errand-boy/meaningless player. Shepard is the first character in an RPG to actually drive the scene instead of be part of the bacground.

Modifié par In Exile, 31 janvier 2011 - 03:06 .

[Addai]

And you'll always end up with whitebread heroes sounding like they're reading off a cue card. Sounds great.

[In Exile]

Addai67 wrote...

And you'll always end up with whitebread heroes sounding like they're reading off a cue card. Sounds great.

I'm not up to date on my slang, apparently. What does whitebread mean?

[Liablecocksman]

In Exile wrote...

Addai67 wrote...

And you'll always end up with whitebread heroes sounding like they're reading off a cue card. Sounds great.

I'm not up to date on my slang, apparently. What does whitebread mean?

Conventional. Regular.
White middle-class.
Boring. "Normal". etc.

[TheMadCat]

In Exile wrote...

TheMadCat wrote...
Why'd you hate it thought?

The problem with the forced first person dialogu system is that it effectively kills any measure of the character in-game. Insofar as the display is concerned, the game is talking to you directly. I can't see a way to script movement or contact, so effectively you've got talking head syndrome.

You say the following:

If the characters acted more alive, the world din't grind to a complete halt, and the conversations felt more natural and real don't you think it would have been better then what we got in Oblivion and Fallout?

That's easy to say, but it's not clear there's any way to do this with forced first person.

I don't know, Drakensang: The River of TIme, a semi-low budget RPG managed to pull it off. The characters you were talking to could move and gesture fluidly and vividly, the shot panned nicely and handled conversations with more then 2 people nicely, the world continued on and you could see NPC's walking in the background, trees blowing in the breeze, etc. I'd like to think that if Radon Labs with a low budget, German centric release could pull it off half way decent EA/BioWare with it's mountains of cash and army of talent could actually do a very nice job with it.

Modifié par TheMadCat, 31 janvier 2011 - 03:44 .