557 réponses à ce sujet

[erynnar]

True V, but I don't run into that with the silent Warden and the NPC response. DA2 was like a cluster**** of bad lines delivered the best they could be. I also don't need to know what Hawke is thinking if I am supposed to be playing Hawke.

I don't want to be Hawke's audience of one. Like I said, I prefer to have more control over the tone, the thoughts, their emotions rather than have someone do it for me and click a button to see which way they directed the tone and thoughts to be.

The silent protagonist is a little like the actual world of DAO, it was more open (within reason) and varied due to my inner input. And Hawke's lines were like the re-used dungeons. After a while I didn't care what came out of her mouth because I just wanted to get it over with so I could move the story along.

And please, good folk who love a voiced PC, I am not saying you are wrong or have no imaginations. I don't ever want any of you to think that. Like I said, I just prefer to have more control over the "skin" I am walking around the DA world in.

Modifié par erynnar, 28 juillet 2011 - 01:15 .

[Drone696]

Yellow Words wrote...

erynnar wrote...

Captain_Obvious wrote...

Voiced for me. It's getting more and more difficult for me to enjoy a game where the main protagonist is audibly mute. My idea of immersion includes a character that has a voice just like every other NPC, in Bioware games at least. I'll have to see how Skyrim handles, because that PC is not voiced. I don't care to sit around and ponder the tone in which I want my character to deliver a line. It never once even crossed my mind that I needed to until someone decided to tell me that I was "playing the game wrong." Yeah, that kind of argument is not going to work for me.

It's not that you're playing the game wrong. It's that you prefer to have someone else control who and how your character is. It s a prefrence., not wrong or right. You like having someone tell a voice actor what tone to deliver the lines in and you prefer to pick from a choice of three and watch how that plays out.

I prefer to be the director and the VA. I prefer to be in control, not sit and watch someone else control the avatar. The mute doesn't bother me because the avatar is just the skin I get to walk around the world in and interact with it and the people there. I provide the tone, the thoughts, and the voice, and I am the actor, not the audience. It is a preference, neither right or wrong either.

My problem is when other character actually have a voice that they answer the PC with. More often than not my intended tone and intent does not match their response and I'm pulled out of the game and need to reload. I'm generally curious as to how you deal with that? Acting out the tone and voice when the other characters around have voices and set responses, that is.  

That could happen in Origins too, tbh. I remember my companions yelling at me seemingly out of the blue. I told Al implicitly he failed miserably as lover until I red the toolset comments.
Overall I prefer a (well) voiced PC. The silent PC worked for DAO and the oldschool feeling of this game (I mean that in a good way) but the voiced PC is fitting for DA2. Your character is intended to be less individual ( technically it's Varrics character) than in Origins: You are playing this Hawke fellow who somehow gets dragged into the events but can't really change anything. You only can react.
I see both game as unique pieces of art and it is fitting in both (you know, form and function ...).

[erynnar]

Filament wrote...

Yeah, I don't prefer to have someone else control who my character is. Believe it or not, Hawke is just as much my character as the Warden was. My Warden was only allowed to be my character inasmuch as my character was an option among the dialog choices included by the devs. Except Hawke is much more fully realized instead of it simply being left to the imagination. Which is not to say I can't imagine things, obviously.

Fundamentally I think the only way to properly argue that the Warden offered superior characterization is by doing what Sylvius does and pretending your character can take any infinite number of nuanced tones with a dialog choice despite there being an implicit tone judging by the response received. Which is serviceable, but that's just not the way I play. I imagine the tone based on what I'm pretty sure the tone is meant to be in context. I don't imagine it however I like.

I guess modifying my original statement, it would be more accurate to say, I don't think the devs control who my character is any more in DA2 than they did in DAO. I guess I "do" prefer it that way, it's just that I had no illusion about DAO providing me with something more.

I said that is how I felt about it Fil. And Hawke wasn't mine. She isn't, hasn't been, and won't be. I dont' know if the DLC will change that or not. Maybe. 

Maybe to you it is illusion. But the mod I am writing for, the choice is ultimately yous how you will read those lines. What my tone was when writing it won't mean two squats because it is you that will be reading it.

[Deganis76]

erynnar wrote...

Deganis76 wrote...

I think the devs summed up the problem with the silent protagonist in using the example how it was almost impossible not to flirt with Zevran...even if you were just trying to be his friend. It was actually quite a funny little snippet.

Yes, and I never wound up with nothing but heart icon choices just from talking to Anders, because the Voiced Protagonist took care of that all right. Yeppers, sure it did. Another bs/marketing line and again utter twaddle.

At least you had the option of Not Choosing the Heart Icon.  With Zevran, whenever I tried to let him off easy ("sorry bro, I'm not that kinda guy") he always seemed to think that I was playing hard to get.  SIlly elves...

[Tommy6860]

Deganis76 wrote...

erynnar wrote...

Deganis76 wrote...

I think the devs summed up the problem with the silent protagonist in using the example how it was almost impossible not to flirt with Zevran...even if you were just trying to be his friend. It was actually quite a funny little snippet.

Yes, and I never wound up with nothing but heart icon choices just from talking to Anders, because the Voiced Protagonist took care of that all right. Yeppers, sure it did. Another bs/marketing line and again utter twaddle.

At least you had the option of Not Choosing the Heart Icon.  With Zevran, whenever I tried to let him off easy ("sorry bro, I'm not that kinda guy") he always seemed to think that I was playing hard to get.  SIlly elves...

But, in the end, you still turn him away, just with more in-depth meaningful convos that can be initiated by the PC at any time, instead of the times the game script allows for me in DA2.

[erynnar]

Filament wrote...

That's how you feel about it regarding your own experience, sure, but you were extending that to explain other people's reasoning for preferring voice, assuming they see it the same way as you do but just assign different value to different aspects of it.

You know what FIl, it was an obsevation. I didn't say I was right. I give up with you. Seriously, you win, I lose. I lose on a game I hoped to have a sequel to that improved it not did a 180. Instead I get a voiced PC, gorilla spawn and a game that has very little to do with what I loved. So you know what? You win.

I am too broken, and heartsick to do this anymore. with you.

[FieryDove]

erynnar wrote...

I am too broken, and heartsick to do this anymore. with you.

Hugs Erynnar.

[Tommy6860]

erynnar wrote...

Filament wrote...

That's how you feel about it regarding your own experience, sure, but you were extending that to explain other people's reasoning for preferring voice, assuming they see it the same way as you do but just assign different value to different aspects of it.

You know what FIl, it was an obsevation. I didn't say I was right. I give up with you. Seriously, you win, I lose. I lose on a game I hoped to have a sequel to that improved it not did a 180. Instead I get a voiced PC, gorilla spawn and a game that has very little to do with what I loved. So you know what? You win.

I am too broken, and heartsick to do this anymore. with you.

Ery: What is it with not taking what I say regarding how I expereinced DA2 and Origins?
Tommy: Oh, so you think the DA2 barabarians will swoop down upon you?
Ery: Yes, swooping is bad!

[Dave of Canada]

Filament wrote...

people's silly opinions about a silly game.

In my opinion, it's your opinion that is silly. Not mine. Bears thinking they have opinions? Pft.

Edit: This isn't serious.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 28 juillet 2011 - 02:30 .

[In Exile]

Blastback wrote...
Well, to a certian degree, yes.  Sometimes it does.  It depends on how much detail the author gives about how a specific line is delivered.  Say character A makes a threat, and character B reacts in a very scared manner.  But the actual delivery of the threat is not specified.  You just get the dialoge between the two.

Well, sure. If you ignore that in the book, characters have fixed voices (i.e. the author has a sketch of who they are) and there may already be enough information in the book to prevent incongruent behaviour.

That leaves room for my imagination to decide if said threat was a menacing whisper, a simple deadpan, or even playfully with a dangerous undertone.  There are limits to this sure, you can't imagine it any way you want, but potentially there are is room for individual interpritation.  

But the whisper, deadpan or playfull comment all relate to the character of the, well, character, and that's something we can infer to a great extent from the book itself.

Gotholhorakh wrote...
YES. Absolutely.

"Damn you!" Henry yelled, his gruff voice finally betraying the anger he struggled to suppress. 

That's something where you think you have a choice in imagining a different voice? 

[Merci357]

Dave of Canada wrote...

In my opinion, it's your opinion that is silly.

Isn't that the fundamental law of the internets? <_<

[In Exile]

erynnar wrote...
And please, good folk who love a voiced PC, I am not saying you are wrong or have no imaginations. I don't ever want any of you to think that. Like I said, I just prefer to have more control over the "skin" I am walking around the DA world in.

But we (or at least I) object to the view that you have more control. I certainly wouldn't argue that you feel more in control. But I disagree that the lack of VO means more control; I think it means much less. 

[In Exile]

erynnar wrote...
Maybe to you it is illusion. But the mod I am writing for, the choice is ultimately yous how you will read those lines. What my tone was when writing it won't mean two squats because it is you that will be reading it.

So how do you write your NPC response? Based on what you think the NPCs will think it says? And then what do you do if the player disagrees with that interpretation? Force them to pick another dialogue that maybe plays the right way? Or are there options to correct misunderstandings? 

[erynnar]

Filament wrote...

..I'm sorry? I'm not sure if it's the game you're broken and heartsick about or events in real life, but if it's the game... there's no need... it's just a silly game, and people's silly opinions about a silly game.

It's not the game I am heartsick and broken over. So no worries. Just tired, RL , and my job was particularly sad today. So, pfft on me. Don't take it personally, old bear. You have nothing to be sorry over. I apologize to you. *HUGS*

[erynnar]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Filament wrote...

people's silly opinions about a silly game.

In my opinion, it's your opinion that is silly. Not mine. Bears thinking they have opinions? Pft.

Edit: This isn't serious.

*TICKLE* Thanks for making me laugh Dave.

[erynnar]

In Exile wrote...

erynnar wrote...
Maybe to you it is illusion. But the mod I am writing for, the choice is ultimately yous how you will read those lines. What my tone was when writing it won't mean two squats because it is you that will be reading it.

So how do you write your NPC response? Based on what you think the NPCs will think it says? And then what do you do if the player disagrees with that interpretation? Force them to pick another dialogue that maybe plays the right way? Or are there options to correct misunderstandings? 

No, I write it in a conversation that goes together. Whether you read the tone as I wrote it, we will never really know. You may put more inflection or none at all. Seriously, too tired to bother. You win. Your voiced PC and interactive clicky movie will live forever. And my playing a book is dead. long live the clicky movie. So forget it.

[erynnar]

FieryDove wrote...

erynnar wrote...

I am too broken, and heartsick to do this anymore. with you.

Hugs Erynnar.

Thanks, I probably don't deseve them for being grumpy. But thanks!

[erynnar]

Tommy6860 wrote...

erynnar wrote...

Filament wrote...

That's how you feel about it regarding your own experience, sure, but you were extending that to explain other people's reasoning for preferring voice, assuming they see it the same way as you do but just assign different value to different aspects of it.

You know what FIl, it was an obsevation. I didn't say I was right. I give up with you. Seriously, you win, I lose. I lose on a game I hoped to have a sequel to that improved it not did a 180. Instead I get a voiced PC, gorilla spawn and a game that has very little to do with what I loved. So you know what? You win.

I am too broken, and heartsick to do this anymore. with you.

Ery: What is it with not taking what I say regarding how I expereinced DA2 and Origins?
Tommy: Oh, so you think the DA2 barabarians will swoop down upon you?
Ery: Yes, swooping is bad!

ROFL! Swooping is bad!

[Estelindis]

Personally, I prefer a voiced protagonist. I prefer to hear my character's voice alongside the voices of NPCs and party members, rather than having her as a silent void that everyone seems to think crucial to the world's most pivotal events in spite of her having less demonstrable personality than, say, Alistair (who was never apparently the "Warden" referred to, even when he and my Warden were standing side by side). However, I think that the conversation wheels for both the Mass Effect series and Dragon Age II could be improved.

The paraphrase method of the conversation wheel in general is essential for the voiced protagonist; otherwise, the player is left with the unenviable and boring task of reading a line of dialogue and then having to listen to his or her character repeat that line verbatim. The problem, identified at various points in Mass Effect, comes when the short paraphrase doesn't give sufficient notice of what the player is really choosing. DAII's attempt at fixing this with the mood/intent icons is broadly successful. However, there were points where it disappointed me, mainly when it came to the romance dialogue, which seemed to lose a great deal of subtlety as a (wholly unnecessary) consequence of the player knowing exactly when they were flirting. It's not the player knowing when they were flirting that was the problem; that was entirely how things should have been. It was more that the resulting dialogue uttered by Hawke when the player clicked a heart icon was very... direct. Cutting straight to the chase, as it were: I felt it had the style of propositioning more often than flirting. It lacked the delicious ambiguity and muddled romantic confusion of many DA:O conversations.

Just my two cents.

Modifié par Estelindis, 28 juillet 2011 - 02:53 .

[Sutekh]

erynnar wrote...

No, I write it in a conversation that goes together. Whether you read the tone as I wrote it, we will never really know. You may put more inflection or none at all. Seriously, too tired to bother. You win. Your voiced PC and interactive clicky movie will live forever. And my playing a book is dead. long live the clicky movie. So forget it.

Must be very hard to do. And now I want to play that.

And I want tons of playable books for you in the future because, yes, that's not fair at all, considering. *hugs erynnar*

[Zubie]

Prefer silent. Though it's pretty obvious were stuck with voiced now.

fml

[Blessed Silence]

On this subject, the thing is people are getting bored and uninterested in reading lines and lines of text. They want to be immersed in the game as if watching a movie and less like reading a book.

THough I am not thrilled with the voices chosen for Hawke (and I did call it who male Hawke's voice was going to be bwahaha) I'm happy that he/she has a voice.