557 réponses à ce sujet

[Barkortran]

I am setting this up to find out once and for all wether people perfer their Dragon age hero to talk to increace the cinematic qalities of the game or if you want to think through the lines in your own head to increace imersion.
 
OK I have some very strong veiws on this subject but I am not going to post them all here as I have already worn my fingers bloody doing it so here is a breif summary of my veiws.

REFUTE OR SURPORT THEM AS YOU WISH I will not get mad.

I think that a voice protagonist clamps down on the imersion of the series as I am now directing Hawke instead of inserting myself into the story. This detaches me from caring about anything that happens because it reminds me it isn't real and the complex moral and ethical choices lose their bite as I cannot emotionally engage in them and it ruins the fun I had in in DA:O wieging up the pros conns and morals of each choice.

Now go nuts  Iwant to see the result of a hopeful long and inteligent argument.

[RinpocheSchnozberry]

Discussion is immaterial. Voiced is here to stay. It's not 1980 anymore.

/thread

[andraip]

Voiced is >>>>>>> Silent
DAO is still fun but if it had voiced protagonist it would be so much better.
Voiced gives you + cinematics experience AND + immersion.
Or do you really think that a silent protagonist who needs others to speak for himself is something real, no it's immersion breaking. At least a little.

[TheCharmedOne]

definitely voiced for me. silent i was bored with, and felt disconnected and kept asking myself, why wont my damned character speak. Im as irritated by a silent protagonist as some ppl on this forum are irritated with DA2

[alex90c]

Voiced protagonist can be completely game-breaking if you don't like the voice (e.g. me w/DA2). So I prefer silent.

[Recycled Human]

My reasons for liking voiced might be on how they did it. I love the dynamic change in voice and the conversation options available to the different personalities. I believe that silent accomplishes a developed personality to an extent (as you are allowed to imagine how your character would say it) but it's nothing compared to actually hearing them say it.

I guess I could go either or, but if voiced meant never getting to choose between different races ever again I'd vote silent.

[stoicsentry2]

I don't understand the desire for voiced. Go play an 'adventure' or something. YOU are the character, it SHOULD be silent.

[TEWR]

Voiced preferably, but I can tolerate silent. Either way I'll be happy.


I guess Bioware should make a toggle for voice and animations (if the latter is even possible). Where the latter would make it so that you don't see the PC's mouth moving. Maybe it just goes to the back of their head and you see the surtitles up top?

[whykikyouwhy]

@OP - I can see how having a voiced protagonist can mar the immersion - that's a valid consideration, imo.

For me, to be voiced or silent, and whether or not it's good or bad, is contingent upon the game and the story. In DA:O, I didn't mind a silent protagonist. Didn't give it any thought really. Except for when there were very long conversations at the campfire (I'm talking about you, Wynne!). I became impatient with those, because as the minutes dragged, they began to feel one-sided. I felt like I was less in the 'conversation' than I was simply listening to the script.

In DA2, with the various tones to choose from, and with seemingly briefer dialogue clips, I had no problem with the voiced PC. There was a decent flow to the conversations, and the VA for F!Hawke is quite pleasing to the ears (whereas, I don't find the VA for M!Hawke to give as much change in emotion - imo, of course).  So here too, I didn't mind the format.

Immersion comes from several areas for me as a player, and the protagonist's voice is indeed one area. But if done well - with a skilled VA, with emotion, and with a good script, I am fine with the voiced. There will still be moments in-game where I don't like what was said or how something was said, but my imagination can fill in those blanks or rewrite them.

[Tirfan]

As if anyone doesn't know - I prefer silent.

I can't rp an character when he is voiced. End of story. I can feel some connection to the character if he is well written, but it is still not the same, the level of emotional investment in the story, if I am not in-character, is considerably lower.

[Faunwea]

Voiced. It made lines more memorable. It also made lines more hilarious when playing sarcastic Hawke.

Modifié par Faunwea, 24 juillet 2011 - 12:11 .

[Nephi_1111]

I prefer a voiced character however I dislike the dialogue wheel I would much prefer an origin style layout (a list of lines) with a small icon at the end to indicate the general tone of the sentence, but not mass effect style paragon/snark/renegade

[bigrdog101]

Both are fine and work, but i prefer silent.

One reason i would like silent to return is that most of the time the character i make does not work with the va they have.

also it would be great if future da games go back to more then one race and i dont think that will happen if they keep a voiced protagonists.

but that is just what i think.....

[Gibb_Shepard]

Both used for two different things. Non-voiced is for playing as yourself (Or roleplaying a fictional character for that matter), and voiced is for steering a somewhat preset character. Both have their charms.

[Barkortran]

Hurrah this is exactly the kind of thing I wanted.

Disclaimer: I am going to refute some of your arguments now however keep in mind I think you have all made very good points and I respect your opinion. This is not a bible bashing convert fest I am only looking for intelligent discussion so respond to my rebuts please.

RinpocheSchnozberry: Discussion is immaterial. Voiced is here to stay. It's not 1980 anymore.
You make an interesting argument there but do you mind qualifying it I would like to see where this is going

andraip: Or do you really think that a silent protagonist who needs others to speak for himself is something real, no it's immersion breaking. At least a little.
and
brownboy77: definitely voiced for me. silent i was bored with, and felt disconnected and kept asking myself, why wont my damned character speak. Im as irritated by a silent protagonist as some ppl on this forum are irritated with DA2

This is a good set of points but aren’t you supposed to be your character. In my opinion you are allowed to speak for your character because you are your character. While I do agree that in some games a voiced character makes the whole world seem more real but it reminds you that you are the puppet master not the hero. Real heros don’t have benevolent beings telling them what to do. It’s kind of like when a warden kills the arch demon. When they give protagonists a voice they give him a soul a character that I always find clashes with mine when I try to walk in his shoes and feel the rush of life or death decisions and the triumph against amazing odds. Now I do enjoy voice protagonists but when I make a choice I want to feel the emotional blow back. But then again for me emotion always plays a bigger part in narrative than intrigue so I think that is why we may disagree

Now feel free to disagree with me on these but if you can let’s get a bit of back and forth going. Of course if you suspect we are disagreeing on a fundamental level on how we personally get enjoyment out of games you can just say that and there won’t be much else to talk about unless you want to discuss pro and cons of different gaming approaches which can get very treacherous but this is what the internet is for.

[FieryDove]

RinpocheSchnozberry wrote...

Discussion is immaterial. Voiced is here to stay.
/thread

I have to agree with Rin this time. (faints)

Voice is here to stay no matter what we say.

[Siven80]

Oh this topic again.

I prefer voiced, makes the character feel more alive.

But having an option to toggle the voice off for those who prefer silent is fine.

[Gibb_Shepard]

Barkortran wrote...

Hurrah this is exactly the kind of thing I wanted.

Disclaimer: I am going to refute some of your arguments now however keep in mind I think you have all made very good points and I respect your opinion. This is not a bible bashing convert fest I am only looking for intelligent discussion so respond to my rebuts please.

RinpocheSchnozberry: Discussion is immaterial. Voiced is here to stay. It's not 1980 anymore.
You make an interesting argument there but do you mind qualifying it I would like to see where this is going

andraip: Or do you really think that a silent protagonist who needs others to speak for himself is something real, no it's immersion breaking. At least a little.
and
brownboy77: definitely voiced for me. silent i was bored with, and felt disconnected and kept asking myself, why wont my damned character speak. Im as irritated by a silent protagonist as some ppl on this forum are irritated with DA2

This is a good set of points but aren’t you supposed to be your character. In my opinion you are allowed to speak for your character because you are your character. While I do agree that in some games a voiced character makes the whole world seem more real but it reminds you that you are the puppet master not the hero. Real heros don’t have benevolent beings telling them what to do. It’s kind of like when a warden kills the arch demon. When they give protagonists a voice they give him a soul a character that I always find clashes with mine when I try to walk in his shoes and feel the rush of life or death decisions and the triumph against amazing odds. Now I do enjoy voice protagonists but when I make a choice I want to feel the emotional blow back. But then again for me emotion always plays a bigger part in narrative than intrigue so I think that is why we may disagree

Now feel free to disagree with me on these but if you can let’s get a bit of back and forth going. Of course if you suspect we are disagreeing on a fundamental level on how we personally get enjoyment out of games you can just say that and there won’t be much else to talk about unless you want to discuss pro and cons of different gaming approaches which can get very treacherous but this is what the internet is for.

No, that's not true. None of my voiceless nor voiced characters have ever been "me". I usually create fictional character with their own struggles, i find it a lot more interesting that way. I'm already me, making another me is boring.

But some like to emulate themselves, and that's fine.

[Morroian]

If you want cinematic games you have to do voice. Cinematics make a silent protagonist look strange like the Warden frequently did with the thousand yard stare etc..

[TEWR]

Alistair's rallying speech to the soldiers.

*Xanthos Aeducan thinks to self "Huh. There's a bunch of birds up there. Oh, should I be giving a speech? I'll just let Alistair handle it while I stare at the birds.*

Here before us stands the might of the Darkspawn horde! Gaze into them....

*Xanthos Aeducan thinks to self "Ha! That bird is pecking the bird next to him! Do de do de dum dum dum...*

Bah, Xanthos Aeducan should've given a speech.

[t0mm06]

Barkortran wrote...

I am setting this up to find out once and for all wether people perfer their Dragon age hero to talk to increace the cinematic qalities of the game or if you want to think through the lines in your own head to increace imersion.
 
OK I have some very strong veiws on this subject but I am not going to post them all here as I have already worn my fingers bloody doing it so here is a breif summary of my veiws.

REFUTE OR SURPORT THEM AS YOU WISH I will not get mad.

I think that a voice protagonist clamps down on the imersion of the series as I am now directing Hawke instead of inserting myself into the story. This detaches me from caring about anything that happens because it reminds me it isn't real and the complex moral and ethical choices lose their bite as I cannot emotionally engage in them and it ruins the fun I had in in DA:O wieging up the pros conns and morals of each choice.

Now go nuts  Iwant to see the result of a hopeful long and inteligent argument.

Personally i prefer a voiced pc, BUT i can see why some people disliked how DA2 was done, i feel there were a few main problems, firstly the shortened bit that you choose is sometimes drastically different to what you say, and also hawke get a 'personality' once you start to pick the same type a lot (sarcastic//good/angry) where as i think everything hawke/the pc says shoudl be picked by me not by 'the game' then i can have 100% controle over my characters personality and not just guide his personality to around what i want it to be. 

this said there will always be the problem with not being able to say Exactly what you want regardless of voiced or not, 

[Sutekh]

Both are very personal and a pure matter of preference. I don't believe there's a right or wrong here.

In games where the NPCs are themselves voiced and dialogs are staged and viewed from a third person PoV (such as DAO and DA2), I prefer voiced, because then a silent PC feels very strange to me and this can be immersion breaking, especially if the dialog is long or emotional or the scene very theatrical (Landsmeet comes to mind). In such scenes, I want to not only see but also hear the back and forth between the protagonists, as opposed to have a seemingly one-sided conversation.

In all my DAO playthroughs, I kept having this very disturbing feeling of playing a telepathic mute. It broke the fourth wall every now on then, in places where immersion and emotion should be strong. Like watching a movie and suddenly being very aware that those people on screen are actors playing a part, and not characters involved in a given situation. So, instead of making the PC more "mine", it made me realize that my beloved Warden was nothing but a bunch of pixels and code.

It might also come from the fact that I don't play "me", be it in CRPG or PnP. I play a role, which can be as far from "me" as imaginable. I don't hear "my" voice (in PnP, I have to get over my voice). I am a she playing mostly male characters, so my voice would sound really weird most of the times.

As for the tone, it's usually given both by the line the PC is saying and by the NPC reactions to said line. You can give it whatever tone you want, the actual meaning and result are the ones intended by the writers. A CRPG is always a constrained setting for a PC, even with so-called "blank slate" characters. Especially in tight plot games like DA.

Someone in another thread made a very good case for Silent Protagonist, and while I agreed with all their points in theory, in practice, I know my preferences, and I know what effect SP has on me, which isn't a good one. It's not something that can be reasoned. It just is.

I think a toggle where you could deactivate sound and lips synch files would be an acceptable solution, even if not perfect.

[Blastback]

Personally, for roleplaying purposes, I feel that the Silent PC is better. I can put more of my own spin on the character, and feel more like I am the character.

Voiced PC is better for a more cinimatic experiance, but honestly, I don't think that that is really very important. The cinematic elements worked great in Mass Effect, but they did nothing for me in Dragon Age. At this point at least, I don't think the trade offs are worth going with voiced.

Ultimatly a toggle would probably be best, but at this point at least, Bioware doesn't seem to think it's worth the time and effort.  Cause it would likely require some major work to get it to work.

Modifié par Blastback, 24 juillet 2011 - 01:20 .

[Brockololly]

I don't mind voiced protagonists in games like Geralt or Adam Jensen in Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

But my like/dislike has much to do with how established the PC is as well as the dialogue system. The BioWare brand wheel / paraphrasing / tone icons sucks. Its terrible. If they change that, maybe I'd be more favorable to a voiced PC in a BioWare game.

Until they make a drastic change to their dialogue system, I vastly prefer a non voiced PC.

Just change the POV for dialogues if you're worried about the PC having the blank stare- again, not unlike how Deus Ex: HR goes into first person view for big conversation moments so that the focus is on reading the emotions/facial expressions of the person you're talking to- reading their expressions and body language. And it frees up a good amount of resources to be used elsewhere in the game since you don't have to voice countless lines from the PC which will be obfuscated by BioWare's Sacred Cow dialogue wheel/paraphrasing. Not to mention the resources freed up could more easily allow for greater character customization and the likely return of multiple races.

Never mind that in DA, I don't think the engine/lighting/visuals/texturesanimations are up to par to hold up to the greater scrutiny which a "cinematic" focus brings.

Its low hanging fruit really- but BioWare seems to have the mandate to have all their games fit a single cookie cutter cinematic mold, desperately trying to look and play out like barely interactive movies and not even trying to tap into the unique things you can do in a video game versus other media.

Modifié par Brockololly, 24 juillet 2011 - 01:23 .