557 réponses à ce sujet

[Estelindis]

By the way, regarding the issue of imagination vs. lack thereof...

I often found that the possibility of reading the written lines of DA:O in multiple different lights allowed me to imagine my Warden's take on things and roleplay her in a very personal way. However, the trouble is that the overall writing arc of the game doesn't, of course, change to reflect this. ;-) So, when the writers don't intend a line to be "delivered" in the way that I imagine my Warden delivering it, of course the response they write to that line won't take into account my imagined delivery, and, indeed, will be incongruent with it. One can only personalise one's roleplaying experience so far in a pre-written computer RPG (compared with, say, a tabletop game where people improvise in real time). Thus, so many times I've immersed myself in a particular roleplaying angle - such as imagining my city elf Warden speaking in a very bland tone, removed of almost all personal emotion (because, after her experience in the prologue, I imagine her real emotions withdraw deep inside herself) - only to find that I can't realistically sustain it past a certain point, because, naturally, NPCs aren't reacting as if my character is behaving this way.

What's the "solution" to this - remove all voice acting? But the words are a part of it, as much as the delivery. And we must have conversations, yes? So why single out the PC's tone of voice more than NPCs'?

[KBomb]

I prefer a voiced protagonist in my games. For different and…….odd reasons, I suppose. I am legally deaf and I learned a long time ago to read lips. It’s mostly how I communicate with others. When I am playing a game and I can’t see my character’s lips move, it seems unnatural to me. It isn’t about reading for me, since I must have subtitles, I read all the time. It’s just the simple movement of the mouth and the facial expressions that I associate with communication. I have had people tell me it’s the weirdest thing they’ve heard and it makes no sense. Nevertheless, it’s my reasoning why.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

In Exile wrote...

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...
And for people like me, who *can* interpret the tone associated with the written words, voiced PC feels unecessary and often jarring. 

Then look back to the previous post I made, and tell me what tone I used in that 3 line interaction about the weather, and explain the tone. 

P1: "The weather is perfect, don't you think?"
P2: "I just love the snow!"
P1: "Yes, if only we had this much show every single day."

This conversation lacks context, thus I could interpret the conversation with a variety of tones.

If I roleplayed P1 as someone who loved snow, their lines would be sincere. If they hated snow, their lines might be dry or openly sarcastic. P2, who again I lack context on, could simply be agreeing but the exclamation point denotes some level of enthusiasm in their rely.

Roleplaying could put a number of tones in there, but again, more context on the participants would be useful. Have P1 and P2 met before? Are they friends? People who just bumped into each other at the bus stop? *shrug*

Perhaps a system that had mood icons along with the full dialogue would better clear things up, but not for people who purely prefer VO.

Mood icons still won't clear up the delivery of the line until you have the reaction to it.

People regularly misinterpret delivery even in the real world, you know. Just because P1 thinks he's being cheerful and sincere doesn't mean P2 won't respond as though he's a patronizing idiot. And even then P1 might not understand what he said wrong.

I don't. Until you can pick voices like we used to pick portraits, or have a sliders for pitch, gravel, accent, enunciation and so on, I'll find it too imposing. Unless it's an established character being voiced, not one I've created, I just prefer my imagination to handle the voice. :/

Your imagination can't handle the voice. Everything is already determined, including how the lines sound. Do you think your imagination determines what characters sound like in books? 

Yes.

But I think the post that followed yours was an excellent response, so I'll leave off with elaborating.

Except to reiterate 'context'.

Modifié par Shadow of Light Dragon, 28 juillet 2011 - 03:46 .

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Morroian wrote...

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

I don't. Until you can pick voices like we used to pick portraits, or have a sliders for pitch, gravel, accent, enunciation and so on, I'll find it too imposing. 

Is there any technical reason why this couldn't be done now? It would certainly solve the problem of having multiple races but only 1 VA per sex.

There probably is -- I don't think voice synth is that advanced, but TBH I don't know enough about the technology to give you a solid answer.

[erynnar]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

In Exile wrote...

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...
And for people like me, who *can* interpret the tone associated with the written words, voiced PC feels unecessary and often jarring. 

Then look back to the previous post I made, and tell me what tone I used in that 3 line interaction about the weather, and explain the tone. 

P1: "The weather is perfect, don't you think?"
P2: "I just love the snow!"
P1: "Yes, if only we had this much show every single day."

This conversation lacks context, thus I could interpret the conversation with a variety of tones.

If I roleplayed P1 as someone who loved snow, their lines would be sincere. If they hated snow, their lines might be dry or openly sarcastic. P2, who again I lack context on, could simply be agreeing but the exclamation point denotes some level of enthusiasm in their rely.

Roleplaying could put a number of tones in there, but again, more context on the participants would be useful. Have P1 and P2 met before? Are they friends? People who just bumped into each other at the bus stop? *shrug*

Perhaps a system that had mood icons along with the full dialogue would better clear things up, but not for people who purely prefer VO.

Mood icons still won't clear up the delivery of the line until you have the reaction to it.

People regularly misinterpret delivery even in the real world, you know. Just because P1 thinks he's being cheerful and sincere doesn't mean P2 won't respond as though he's a patronizing idiot. And even then P1 might not understand what he said wrong.

I don't. Until you can pick voices like we used to pick portraits, or have a sliders for pitch, gravel, accent, enunciation and so on, I'll find it too imposing. Unless it's an established character being voiced, not one I've created, I just prefer my imagination to handle the voice. :/

Your imagination can't handle the voice. Everything is already determined, including how the lines sound. Do you think your imagination determines what characters sound like in books? 

Yes.

But I think the post that followed yours was an excellent response, so I'll leave off with elaborating.

Except to reiterate 'context'.

Again, far more eloquently said than my loser self. Thanks Shadow for being the person who said what I could not.

[Shadowlit_Rogue]

I personally prefer a silent protagonist. When the PC has a voice, it adds a degree of separation between what I feel is my intent and the resulting actions of my character; I have to interpret the option on the dialog wheel and more or less guess what's going to happen. It ends up becoming something more akin to a Shepard or Hawke simulator than an RPG to me. With a silent PC, I know exactly what's going to be said, and things typically play out how I imagine them.

I never got as involved with games like Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Dragon Age 2 as I did with Baldur's Gate, KotOR, Oblivion, Fallout 3/New Vegas, etc. That doesn't mean there's not room for RPGs with voiced protagonists; I know most prefer them, and it did work out well with Mass Effect. But that's just where my preference lies.

I would hope that in the future, developers can find a way to please both parties by having an option to mute the PC and have text-based responses. That might be asking way too much, but still!

[T764]

erynnar wrote...

T764 wrote...

I don't find either one to be better.

My problem with the warden was that i would often be disconnected from him or her due to the choices given or actions undertaken, because i was being forced to act out of character i found myself wishing that i could hear the wardens thoughts, just so that i could justify being forced to do something that i thought was daft.

With the fully voiced Hawke that sense of disconnection was there from the start, so when they did something stupid it was justified by being Hawke.

If i have more choices and i am not forced into out of character actions silent is better, if the story demands involuntary acts of stupidity then voiced all the way.

See, that is what I don't get. I am the Warden. So I hear the Warden's thought's just fine. And yes, every Warden was different, so I play the character. My Aeducan is totally different from my Duster, from my Cousland etc. You supply the Warden's thoughts, that makes it roleplaying in my book.

Having Hawke speak her thoughts made her a TV show character like on "Laugh In," except less funny.

I don't disagree with the first part, i just found it hard at times to figure out why my warden would act in a certain way when i felt it was out of character.
Example- I have a warden that would not stop to talk to an abomination, yet i have to act out of character to progress the story, the warden stops being under my control.

I don't know what "Laugh in" is but i probably should have used read instead of hear in that sentence.

I was thinking more along the lines of pre-voiced jrpg's, you would have text blocks that revealed the characters thoughts and allowed you to get into their heads, when they walk into an obvious trap you know what they are thinking in the run up to and after the event, with Origins i had moments of "are you walking into a trap just because some old guy told you to?".

[Gotholhorakh]

In Exile wrote...

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? 

If you think there is only one way a man's gruff voice could sound exclaiming "Damn you!" angrily, you do not live on planet Earth, or lack observational skills to the point of a borderline problem.

There are billions of voices even in reality, let alone the imagination. I don't expect you really think all voices sound identical.

Modifié par Gotholhorakh, 28 juillet 2011 - 07:54 .

[Tommy6860]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

In Exile wrote...

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...
And for people like me, who *can* interpret the tone associated with the written words, voiced PC feels unecessary and often jarring. 

Then look back to the previous post I made, and tell me what tone I used in that 3 line interaction about the weather, and explain the tone. 

P1: "The weather is perfect, don't you think?"
P2: "I just love the snow!"
P1: "Yes, if only we had this much show every single day."

This conversation lacks context, thus I could interpret the conversation with a variety of tones.

If I roleplayed P1 as someone who loved snow, their lines would be sincere. If they hated snow, their lines might be dry or openly sarcastic. P2, who again I lack context on, could simply be agreeing but the exclamation point denotes some level of enthusiasm in their rely.

Roleplaying could put a number of tones in there, but again, more context on the participants would be useful. Have P1 and P2 met before? Are they friends? People who just bumped into each other at the bus stop? *shrug*

Perhaps a system that had mood icons along with the full dialogue would better clear things up, but not for people who purely prefer VO.

Mood icons still won't clear up the delivery of the line until you have the reaction to it.

People regularly misinterpret delivery even in the real world, you know. Just because P1 thinks he's being cheerful and sincere doesn't mean P2 won't respond as though he's a patronizing idiot. And even then P1 might not understand what he said wrong.

I don't. Until you can pick voices like we used to pick portraits, or have a sliders for pitch, gravel, accent, enunciation and so on, I'll find it too imposing. Unless it's an established character being voiced, not one I've created, I just prefer my imagination to handle the voice. :/

Your imagination can't handle the voice. Everything is already determined, including how the lines sound. Do you think your imagination determines what characters sound like in books? 

Yes.

But I think the post that followed yours was an excellent response, so I'll leave off with elaborating.

Except to reiterate 'context'.

You're the best at elaborating on this, Shadow!
+50

[Blastback]

In Exile wrote...

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? 

In that case no.  But not all dialoge is written so descriptivly.  And that's how I view silent PC dialoge.  Yes, I know what it is that I say and I know how the other characters respond.  So then I can take what room for interpretaion that leaves, which sometimes is a fair bit, other times is miniscual. 

[Cutlasskiwi]

rapunzel696 wrote...

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 ...).

I was talking about DAO above, so sorry if I was unclear and I had the same problems with NPC's reactions, in DAO, that often forced me to reload. It just pulls me out of the game when everyone else is talking and showing emotion and my character isn't, so for me DA2 was a big improvement in that area.

But I don't see the PC having a voice as meaning that you'll have less characterization or control over the PC. For me it's the other way around.

[Fleapants]

I felt that the voiced Hawke was the best thing about DA2, as it made me more connected to the character.
The silent chumps of DA:O felt a bit silly at times, especially at the culmination of Redcliffe.

[Leoroc]

So DA3 is probably going to be in Orlais. I wonder how long we'll be able to stand the French accent for =p

[Drone696]

Leoroc wrote...

So DA3 is probably going to be in Orlais. I wonder how long we'll be able to stand the French accent for =p

I want to sound like Dulci

[Fleapants]

I'm guessing the Orlesian will sound "normal" and everyone else will have exaggerated, silly accents :>

[Tirfan]

Oh the horror of that...

On the topic of control - yet again this is mostly feeling-based.

Hawke is to certain degree more fleshed out character in the context of the game with the voicing and animations - to me, these things are putting me out of control - It is not me who supplies the voice and the body language, I'm, as I have put it before, forced out of character by this alone - I'm the director instead of the actor.

I glanced over the moments in DA:O where I had to act OOC far more easily, it was easier for me to supply the thought process WHY in this certain situation I'm acting differently than normally. I didn't found that there was that many restriction in terms of characterization in DA:O, and when there was, well, I adhered to them (there is always restrictions) or did my best to play around them. I can't say I wasn't occasionally bothered about them - but well, I could get over them.

It got worse in DA2, perhaps I notice the moments far more easily, perhaps I take greater notice of the restrictions and perhaps I have an inherent dislike for playing a character that doesn't care about anything, likes killing, is an moderate andrastian and has no emotions.

Most of the game I truly felt I had no control over Hawke - he really isn't my character, he is some random killing-machine, I did those horrible reload-fests in act1 during every conversation to determine the least bad dialogue-options, trying out which of them was the closest to what the character I thought I could make Hawke be would say, after act1 I gave up trying to do that - I had no idea what the character thought, I had no idea what the character would say, I only knew what kind of voice he had and what he would say was either Stupid, Unfunny or Angry. This does not really work for me, I see no control in this.

[FieryDove]

Tirfan wrote...

It got worse in DA2, perhaps I notice the moments far more easily, perhaps I take greater notice of the restrictions and perhaps I have an inherent dislike for playing a character that doesn't care about anything, likes killing, is an moderate andrastian and has no emotions.

Most of the game I truly felt I had no control over Hawke - he really isn't my character, he is some random killing-machine, I did those horrible reload-fests in act1 during every conversation to determine the least bad dialogue-options, trying out which of them was the closest to what the character I thought I could make Hawke be would say, after act1 I gave up trying to do that - I had no idea what the character thought, I had no idea what the character would say, I only knew what kind of voice he had and what he would say was either Stupid, Unfunny or Angry. This does not really work for me, I see no control in this.

You bring up some great points.

Another thing is the personailty tracking doesn't seem to follow the wheel left side. I could be angry/snarky hawke and sound diplomatic every time I asked something.

[LilyasAvalon]

Having a voiced customisable characters limited the ways I felt I could alter or shape who or what they were. The smallest example for me is creating unique looks and names for each character becomes harder for me to visualize different faces for a character who only has one voice.

The other problem I have of course is that I've noticed that it tends to lack interaction with other characters. For someone who plays video games majoritly for plot or characterisation, this is an extreme hinderance. One of the major problems I had with ME1, ME2 and DA2, was not being able to converse with characters on a personal level due to lack of dialogue.

I loved being able to walk up to Alistair or Wynne in Origins and just chat to find out that Alistair has a love of cheese or asking Wynne if her story had griffons in it. I was EXTREMELY disappointed that DA2 when this feature was limited to two or three conversations with characters in one arc and it became very hard for me to feel any love for these characters and also for Hawke.

I also have a very difficult time connecting with a voiced character, again through lack of dialogue. I had a total of 3 different ways to say something as Hawke, that's not a lot of ways.

Modifié par LilyasAvalon, 28 juillet 2011 - 03:56 .

[Alex Kershaw]

SILENT but both can be done well. I just think voiced is a humungous waste of resources when it has been proven that you can make fantastic RPGs with a silent player character.

[Willybot]

Alex Kershaw wrote...

SILENT but both can be done well. I just think voiced is a humungous waste of resources when it has been proven that you can make fantastic RPGs with a silent player character.

I feel it only becomes a waste when said resources are limited. DA2's evolving dialogue depending on the consistancy of your answers' "tone" is a good step in the right direction. Given the budget and time limitations of writing and paying the voice actors, the system is a good compomise between the silent and voiced PC.

It all comes down to how much time/money they are willing to devote to this aspect of the game. With things as they are, I would prefer 6 lines of silient dialogue over 3 voiced. I suppose this may come across as WANT MOAR!!!11!!, but I feel that sometimes you need to devote more in order to make the best of a particular feature. In a perfect gaming world, I'd love to see a voiced PC react and evolve to every event and feedback given by the player. Since I do not believe it feasable in their budget to make this a reality, I'd prefer the greater number of options inherent in the silent protagonist.

[In Exile]

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.

I'm not trying to win... I just wanted to point out the design difficulty. If you're like me and you speak to get something across, the two conversations "working" toghether is really important. And since that's important, I'm just showing you the opposite side of the VO debate - that for a player like me, the silent VO doesn't offer that choice that you feel it offers you.

You know I like you. 

[Teddie Sage]

Fleapants wrote...

I'm guessing the Orlesian will sound "normal" and everyone else will have exaggerated, silly accents :>

I have a feeling that this Seeker or whatever it will be, will be from Ferelden which use a more common english.

[In Exile]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...
This conversation lacks context, thus I could interpret the conversation with a variety of tones.

You didn't say you needed context. You said you could read the tone of writing.

Roleplaying could put a number of tones in there, but again, more context on the participants would be useful. Have P1 and P2 met before? Are they friends? People who just bumped into each other at the bus stop? *shrug*

Sure, but that's not the point you made.

People regularly misinterpret delivery even in the real world, you know. Just because P1 thinks he's being cheerful and sincere doesn't mean P2 won't respond as though he's a patronizing idiot. And even then P1 might not understand what he said wrong.

But in the real world, we can hash out misunderstandings. Conversation is not static - you don't "exit' the dialogue screen if things suddenly get wonky (e.g. P2 takes offence, P1 tries to fix it). Conversation is very dynamic.

[In Exile]

Gotholhorakh wrote...
If you think there is only one way a man's gruff voice could sound exclaiming "Damn you!" angrily, you do not live on planet Earth, or lack observational skills to the point of a borderline problem.

There are billions of voices even in reality, let alone the imagination. I don't expect you really think all voices sound identical.

No. But you can't pick what's being said. That person couldn't have said that sarcastically, or diplomatically, or jokingly, or calmy... or any of these things.

If you object to VO because you want to imagine the exact same thing with a different sound I will happily admit that VO can't ever achieve this, and I'm sorry for your loss. But that's not what the debate on "choosing" your own tone is about. 

[In Exile]

Blastback wrote...
In that case no.  But not all dialoge is written so descriptivly.  And that's how I view silent PC dialoge.  Yes, I know what it is that I say and I know how the other characters respond.  So then I can take what room for interpretaion that leaves, which sometimes is a fair bit, other times is miniscual. 

The dialigue isn't written to be descriptive... but (as another poster said) we have context to disambiguate the relationship. That context is what tells us the description.