557 réponses à ce sujet

[TheRealJayDee]

Morroian wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I think the clarity of the paraphrases suffered because the writers were aware that there would be icons.

I'm not sure but I think the issue of paraphrasing on DA2 may relate to the way they tried to implement it. From the dev feedback here the paraphrase was not written as a summary of the line but as the first phrase of the line but which Hawke doesn't say. I don't know why they would take this approach because its not really intuitive, the player expects the paraphrase to be a summary of what Hawke is going to say. If this was their approach they need to rethink it.

That would actually explain a lot. Besides this approach making no sense at all to me, some things in the game would start to make more sense. There was at least one instance of someone directly responding to the "paraphrase" I chose, not to what Hawke said in the end. If this is true, yeah, definitely need for reconsideration...

[PrinceLionheart]

I prefer a voiced protagonist, but I just wish there was a section of voices to choose from for both sexes like it was in games like Saints Row 2.

[FieryDove]

Eurhetemec wrote...

This is just nonsense, Fiery, I'm sorry it is.

I've finished ME2 with FemShep 4 times. In none of them has FemShep said anything wrong to Jacob. None.

Glad it didn't bother you. For a couple of hundred other gals it did. It is just one more nail in the coffin and no one will notice we aren't buying the games. (Females don't play video games anyhow its a known fact in marketing)

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

tfive24 wrote...

I don't think some of you get it. A mute button will not a solve a thing. If i could mute Hawke's voices, I would still be stuck with 3 options. So turning off the voice will not make a difference, the game design is the huge problem both sides are arguing about.

This thread isn't about the paraphrase system. If it was, I'd feel free to rant at length about how much I don't like it, and how it sucks that Bioware have said they're keeping it.

The number of options you get doesn't bother me. Having unexpected dialogue pop out of my character's mouth does (and did in DA2).

[Valthier]

I have... never been a big fan of the voiced protagonist. Sure, it was bearable in DA2, but that doesn't mean I'd take it if I had a choice. I just... find it a little harder to roleplay with. That voice, especially with the paraphrases, is a barrier between me and the conversation that I don't need, particularly since it limits me to trying to make a character that "suits the voice" rather than just making a character.

And it doesn't help when I'm playing a character the same gender as another playthrough that's meant to have a different personality, only to find all their transition lines seem to be delivered in the same tone. My butch warrior F!Hawke should not have the same poncy voice as my snarky mage F!Hawke. Without the voice? I could easily just not think that they have the same voice. But with it? I can't really ignore it.

And there's the aforementioned paraphrase issue... just earlier today the quest I was playing had two paraphrases, the diplomatic one saying they'd bring back a runaway mage and the aggressive one saying "I will stop him". Now, I was expecting that last one to just be a sort of gruff "I'll stop him from getting any further", that sort of thing. Instead Hawke said she was going to track them down and then when she did she might decide to kill him. For... no apparent reason. To the mage's family's face. Which is a big jump from the red fist icons sometimes just meaning "I will be reasonable but a little grumpy"

I do like the idea of the mute button that's been mentioned a few times in this thread already. If the VA really suits my character and the paraphrases are good I might give it a shot. If not, or if I'm replaying as the same gender... yeah, mute it.

[Chuvvy]

PrinceLionheart wrote...

I prefer a voiced protagonist, but I just wish there was a section of voices to choose from for both sexes like it was in games like Saints Row 2.

That was pretty badass, but bioware games have way more dialog than Saints Row 2 did.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

Edit: To elaborate, it's not the length but rather the use, and the paraphrase is better at giving you the gist of an answer that the character limit withs silent VO Bioware uses.

How can the paraphrase be better at providing the gist than the full text is?  The full text is the whole content - nothing can convey the meaning of that content better than it can itself.  The best possible representation of any text content is that very content.

The paraphrase offers no possible gameplay benefit.  The ideal paraphrase system minimises the distance between itself and the text it purports to represent.  But given that, the full text is automatically better.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

What do you mean? You can certainly work backwards from a paraphrase to the full line. The issue is how accurate you have to be... but if the only acceptable ratio is 100%, then that's like saying reality cannot be reverse engineering (and it certainly can; all of science works toward that). 

The full text gave us 100%, so obviously that has to be the standard.  Anything short of 100% is a decline of quality of understanding.

If the full text gives us 100%, then any paraphrase system that fails to reach 100% is demonstrably inferior at conveying meaning.

As for the length of the lines, I deny your claims.  There's no reason the full-text options can't be longer - they aren't, but that does not mean they cannot be - and the longer the spoken lne becomes the more difficult it becomes to represent its literal meaning with a paraphrase.

So far, in their three attempts to write accurate paraphrases, BioWare has failed horribly each and every time.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

Well, my success rate is much better than that, so I have to ask, what do you look for in trying to predict the paraphrase?

With a silent protagonist like DAO, all I need to find in the dialogue options is a line that, if appropriately delivered, won't contradict my character's personality as I've previously established.  Any line that is guaranteed to contradict my character is something I cannot choose, so I select the option I want from the set of those which don't contradict me.

In DA2, because the lines are voiced and the deliveries are fixed, there are fewer things each line - as spoken - can mean.  And I can't know in advance exactly what the content of each line is.  Therefore, in DA2 I select the paraphrase for which there is no possible corresponding line that could contradict my character.

Unfortunately, there often is no such option.  DA2 routinely offers me no paraphrase option I can select with any confidence that it will not contradict my character.  I reload constantly.

Granted, I took some time off from DA2 because I wasn't enjoying it, but I have yet to see Act II.  The game says I've played my character for 19 hours.  I'm on Save #234.

The paraphrase system, as implemented in DA2, is a huge barrier to my enjoyment.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

You were stuck with 3 options in DA:O too + questions, which in DA2 are the investigate options. That the DA2 dialogue wheel is more logical doesn't mean you have only 3 options.

I think the mute button would solve most of the paraphrase problems, but the conversations would probably become really hard to follow in those sequences where Hawke speaks without player input.  Then I wouldn't know what he was saying.

For a mute button to work, they would need to eliminate all of those back-and-forth sequences.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Morroian wrote...

I'm not sure but I think the issue of paraphrasing on DA2 may relate to the way they tried to implement it. From the dev feedback here the paraphrase was not written as a summary of the line but as the first phrase of the line but which Hawke doesn't say. I don't know why they would take this approach because its not really intuitive, the player expects the paraphrase to be a summary of what Hawke is going to say. If this was their approach they need to rethink it.

One of the designers (Brent?) said that that was how he found they worked best, but we've had no indication that this was how they were written.

I'd dig up the quote if the old BioBoards hadn't been taken down.

[filetemo]

I've come to like the voiced PC, but I can't get over the paraphrases. Can't they at least make them three or four words longer and provide an EXACT description of what we are going to say?

And, for me, the three personalities wheel with icons didn't really work. Three times the voiceover acting and budget, to end up choosing always peaceful with bits of sarcastic. I'd prefer to have three diferent things to say rather than one thing with three tones.And to have the occasional sarcastic comment depending on previous answers or choices.
Oh, and the aggresive option should always lead to combat. It felt weird to talk aggresively only to be responded peacefully, it felt like they ignored your stance or that they chickened out.

[Morroian]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Morroian wrote...

I'm not sure but I think the issue of paraphrasing on DA2 may relate to the way they tried to implement it. From the dev feedback here the paraphrase was not written as a summary of the line but as the first phrase of the line but which Hawke doesn't say. I don't know why they would take this approach because its not really intuitive, the player expects the paraphrase to be a summary of what Hawke is going to say. If this was their approach they need to rethink it.

One of the designers (Brent?) said that that was how he found they worked best, but we've had no indication that this was how they were written.

I'd dig up the quote if the old BioBoards hadn't been taken down.

No I'm talking about a quote on BSN just prior to DA2 release it may have been from Pete Thomas.

[ArcanistLibram]

With the personality tracking, I'm fine with a voiced protagonist. It makes conversations and cutscenes more exciting. There's just something weird about how party members sometimes have to talk in the PC's place in order to get a cinematic cutscene when the PC is the one who should be doing the talking.

[Tirfan]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

With a silent protagonist like DAO, all I need to find in the dialogue options is a line that, if appropriately delivered, won't contradict my character's personality as I've previously established.  Any line that is guaranteed to contradict my character is something I cannot choose, so I select the option I want from the set of those which don't contradict me.

In DA2, because the lines are voiced and the deliveries are fixed, there are fewer things each line - as spoken - can mean.  And I can't know in advance exactly what the content of each line is.  Therefore, in DA2 I select the paraphrase for which there is no possible corresponding line that could contradict my character.

Unfortunately, there often is no such option.  DA2 routinely offers me no paraphrase option I can select with any confidence that it will not contradict my character.  I reload constantly.

Granted, I took some time off from DA2 because I wasn't enjoying it, but I have yet to see Act II.  The game says I've played my character for 19 hours.  I'm on Save #234.

The paraphrase system, as implemented in DA2, is a huge barrier to my enjoyment.

You are not the only one who did constant reloads because what was spoken so often conradicted the character I wanted to play - in the end I just gave up and played with Biowares purple Garret Hawke that didn't care about anything, liked killing and had no emotions. It just was the only way that the character made any sense - it wasn't very satisfying but meh, Act II was nice enough even if I had no clue why would BW:s purple Hawke do anything about the situation but.

[Annarl]

FieryDove wrote...

Eurhetemec wrote...

This is just nonsense, Fiery, I'm sorry it is.

I've finished ME2 with FemShep 4 times. In none of them has FemShep said anything wrong to Jacob. None.

Glad it didn't bother you. For a couple of hundred other gals it did. It is just one more nail in the coffin and no one will notice we aren't buying the games. (Females don't play video games anyhow its a known fact in marketing)

As someone who wanted to romance Jacob with my FemShep, it wasn't that what she said was wrong, it was just poorily written.  The lines sound bad and cheesy.  I felt sorry for Jacob.  His romance was not well done.  

I do think that clearer paraphrasing would help.  Why can't they give us the first line of spoken dialogue?  

[Nighteye2]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

tfive24 wrote...

I don't think some of you get it. A mute button will not a solve a thing. If i could mute Hawke's voices, I would still be stuck with 3 options. So turning off the voice will not make a difference, the game design is the huge problem both sides are arguing about.

This thread isn't about the paraphrase system. If it was, I'd feel free to rant at length about how much I don't like it, and how it sucks that Bioware have said they're keeping it.

The number of options you get doesn't bother me. Having unexpected dialogue pop out of my character's mouth does (and did in DA2).

Actually, they're both related. The paraphrase system was introduced because of the voiced protagonist. They didn't want players to hear the same words they read just before.

So you get a double negative effect - not only does the voice of the protagonist take away part of your ability to identify with your own character, but on top of that you get stuck with the inferior paraphrase system as well - which leads to the PC surprising the player with lines and actions, which further reduces the player's feeling of being in control of the PC.

The warden felt like my own character. Hawke was Bioware's character, no matter what I did in the game. I was the warden, I gave Hawke instructions what to do - big difference.

[Wozearly]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

With a silent protagonist like DAO, all I need to find in the dialogue options is a line that, if appropriately delivered, won't contradict my character's personality as I've previously established.  Any line that is guaranteed to contradict my character is something I cannot choose, so I select the option I want from the set of those which don't contradict me.

In DA2, because the lines are voiced and the deliveries are fixed, there are fewer things each line - as spoken - can mean.  And I can't know in advance exactly what the content of each line is.  Therefore, in DA2 I select the paraphrase for which there is no possible corresponding line that could contradict my character.

The paraphrase system, as implemented in DA2, is a huge barrier to my enjoyment.

Couldn't agree more. I also do reloads if something is wildly out of character, even if nothing is saved after it. Just...feels wrong otherwise.

If playing a voiced protagonist, I kinda accept that I'm guiding their story and let them make what he will of it with a few nudges in the paragon/renegade/snarky style direction to get them started. If they sound like a vicious, angry murderer then I'll endeavour to make them act like that. If they sound like a preachy do-gooder.

So ironically, I find the character leads the characterisation. I might enjoy their story, but I don't feel like they're really 'my' character. Shepard was a good example of this.

DA:O and KOTOR were the reverse. The characters I created in there were definitely my own, with their actions and motivations dancing to my tune rather than to the sound of their voice.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Morroian wrote...

No I'm talking about a quote on BSN just prior to DA2 release

You're absolutely correct.

Nighteye2 wrote...

Actually, they're both related. The paraphrase system was introduced because of the voiced protagonist. They didn't want players to hear the same words they read just before.

So you get a double negative effect - not only does the voice of the protagonist take away part of your ability to identify with your own character, but on top of that you get stuck with the inferior paraphrase system as well - which leads to the PC surprising the player with lines and actions, which further reduces the player's feeling of being in control of the PC.

The warden felt like my own character. Hawke was Bioware's character, no matter what I did in the game. I was the warden, I gave Hawke instructions what to do - big difference.

The trouble is, if Hawke isn't my character then I just don't play the game.  Hawke needs to be my character for to have any interest in him.

As such, I reload a lot.  A LOT.  Because that's the only way to minimise contradictions.

With a full-text system like DAO, I could minimise contradictions with only a handful of reloads across the entire game.  But DA2 requires several reloads per hour of gameplay, and that can't be something BioWare thinks is acceptable.

[Fishy]

I have no problem with silent protagonist in a game like fallout or The Elder scroll .. But in game with tons of cinematic and a strong narrative ? It's because your character end up often in cinematic and tell me  what look dumber than a protagonist in a cinematic/cutscene making weird face when he never speak?

I have quite a photogenic memory and i remember the weird face my cousland was making upon finding his parent . i laughed more than cryed.

If Bioware could find a way to mix both the 'silent' type of a first person view like The Elder Scroll and give us the cinematic experience of Mass Effect it's would be the perfect RPG experience.

With a voiced protagonist you end up missing the 'liberty' you have with a silent but it's give you the advantage of enjoying more the cinematic/cutscene aspect of the game.

I think bioware had some difficulties making the transition to the next gen. It's not BG2 anymore . You can't make a cinematic with a silent protagonist without him looking like an idiot. Why do you think Freeman don't have a face?Because you're supposed to be the character . If you saw Freeman face looking like an idiot while the female lead hugged you it's would probably break the moment immersion!

Geez so mistake .. BG2 it's worked well because it's was the era of sprites. Now with the face of character being so detailed it's can break the immersion.You don't want to see your character crying when you impersonate him . That the problem with DA:O . But you don't want to see him not crying either.So it's better to not see him at all .

Modifié par Suprez30, 31 juillet 2011 - 02:25 .

[Teddie Sage]

I made a poll about this. Feel free to check in my signature. Usually, numbers speak from themselves. I'm honestly against silent type protagonists. They lack the emotion and the lively things from well voiced characters. I feel more attached to lively characters than blank slate ones with nothing to say but grunts or a few words in a battle.

[thegoldfinch]

Good discussion.

ArcanistLibram wrote...

With the personality tracking, I'm fine with a voiced protagonist. It makes conversations and cutscenes more exciting. There's just something weird about how party members sometimes have to talk in the PC's place in order to get a cinematic cutscene when the PC is the one who should be doing the talking.

I agree. This was my biggest issue with the silent protagonist, as petty as it may seem. Having a character I imagined to be boisterious with the face on the entire game was a let down. For example, the scene before the final level in Denerim when Alistair is making his speech - I wanted to get up there and say something dramatic, but once again the player sort of stares out into nothingness while an NPC gets to take the players place. It's not game breaking, by any means, but it is very disappointing. 

I can understand how having a voice would hinder someone's ability to role play. I get that. But given both options, I would still pick a voiced protagonist. Every one of my Hawke characters felt like they had at least more soul than my Wardens (though I am still very fond of my Wardens, don't get me wrong), even if the voice was not perfectly what I imagined it to be. The scene after the final serial killer quest where Hawke is sitting by the fire would not have nearly as much emotional weight without that voice to carry the feeling. And I loved that scene. The game would be less without it.

A major critcism I have with the voiced protagonist is the very limited flirt options. If I am playing a quiet and restrained character and my only flirt line comes out saucy... Well, it just doesn't feel good. I would ideally like to see flirt lines that mimicked the diplomatic/sarcastic/aggressive paths. That was the reason why I couldn't persue the Sebastian romance, even
though I thought he was a fantastically written character. I would like to at least throw a demure compliment out there without first jumping to sexual innuendo.  

[Huntress]

I really hope bioware do not go back to take screenshot on the back of the main character..
Thats what happen with a mute main character, there is no reason to take shot of the main character because 90% of the time the camera is focus on some one also doing the talking.

I like DA2 the way it is, the dlc is even better, lots of talking, great banter from all the members in the party including Hawke.

Of course when people don't like one thing they add more to it, to have weight on their side, like the voice to start with, they strech it to the infinite and make up things like it doesn't fit my style.. or add a mute bottom or the voices in my head sounds better.. in reality am 199% sure every single one of this players that want mute, different voices, whatever they use the same %#% voice over and over in DAO with different characters builds.
I did that, one voice for every single character I made it didn't ruin sh......

And making parragraph ain't gonna help ^%^*, people have trouble with DAO dialog options and if bioware remove the heart.. think... if they remove that heart, there be murder!

the truth is the voices are fine since DA2 was announce and everyone like them, I was suprise how good the female voice was and pleased by it, I was more worried about the way the character was running, walking or idle.. in the demo running didn't look good at all.
I hope they keep fhawke voice is very femenine.
I'll be waiting impatiently for more news of any new dlc, xpantions and games.

[Cathey]

I prefer silent considering it's a game where we can choose how we look. I have a fair few Hawkes with faces that don't match their voice at all, but I have a few where it matches perfectly.

I like Hawke's voice but Origins was easier because then I could imagine them saying the line however I wanted.

It won't bother me too much either way though in future.