557 réponses à ce sujet

[kirkonacid]

 Voiced!

As much as I love Origins, I find it creepy when my character just stares at everyone like a deer in headlights. Although considering the situations my character usually ended up I can't say I blame her.

Adding the voice to mmy character really improves the immersion factor and made me become more attached to her.

[Nighteye2]

Ross42899 wrote...

Nighteye2 wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...
Silent protagonist lacks immersion because it is unnatural.

Voiced protagonist breaks immersion by saying things in a way that contradicts what the player wants, or by doing things the player does not expect.

Disagree. It Is unatural to have a silent character. And I can decide what my character will say, no matter if he is voiced or not. So why would it break immersion  if he has a voice?

With the paraphrase system that seems to be tied to a voiced PC, you don't have that choice - except to a very limited extent. And even without the paraphrase system, you still have no control over how your PC will deliver the line, where the accents will be put.

[Morroian]

Nighteye2 wrote...

With the paraphrase system that seems to be tied to a voiced PC, you don't have that choice - except to a very limited extent. And even without the paraphrase system, you still have no control over how your PC will deliver the line, where the accents will be put.

I would actually say the players has more control over how the line is delivered especially with the tonal indicators. One of the issues some of us have with the silent protagonist is that occasionally the line is clearly delivered in a way that was not expected. Whilst I was sometimes surprised by exactly what Hawke said the line was delivered in the way that I wanted as per my conception of the character.

[Vit246]

As of current time, silent protagonists offer more flexibility, complexity, and control than a voiced protagonist can. In my experience, voicing means inevitably using some version of the awful limited dialogue wheel, which means less complex and less choices that are presented in vague paraphrases that a player will never be completely and utterly sure of what will be said.

What really cemented my utter dislike for voicing and killed the so-called immersion for me was when Hawke automatically told Cullen about templars being infiltrated by blood mages without my input.

Modifié par Vit246, 01 août 2011 - 02:16 .

[Deepo78]

It's a tough choice, a voiced protagonist really draws me into the story but limits character creation options. A happy medium would probably involve selective dialogue during key story cinematics in exchange for starting options.

[BLunted]

I prefer silent. I hated Hawke's voice and it kind of ruined the immersion for me

[cloud39472]

Vit246 wrote...

As of current time, silent protagonists offer more flexibility, complexity, and control than a voiced protagonist can. In my experience, voicing means inevitably using some version of the awful limited dialogue wheel, which means less complex and less choices that are presented in vague paraphrases that a player will never be completely and utterly sure of what will be said.

What really cemented my utter dislike for voicing and killed the so-called immersion for me was when Hawke automatically told Cullen about templars being infiltrated by blood mages without my input.

you never knew how the warden was saying it cos you couldnt hear him looool got ya and yeah theres no way of avoiding the blood mages and cullen but it didnt really bother me

[Sylvius the Mad]

Tirfan wrote...

That has been suggested before - it is an compromise, there are certain differences in writing voiced characters/un-voiced characters, there are people who can elaborate this better than I.

While there are writing differences in how BioWare has implemented the two systems so far, there's no reason why there needs to be writing differences.

They wrote around the restrictions of a silent protagonist before.  They could do it again.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Sutekh wrote...

And yes, whether you like it or not, the Warden looks like a telepathic emotionless mute in cinematics, to me.

The proper solution to that problem - the one that doesn't break roleplaying - is to scrap the cinematics.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Tirfan wrote...

I do not see why voiced protagonist is necessarily moving forward

This is important.

There is no justification at all for calling a voiced protagonist an advancement, or a silent protagonist as a step back.  They are simply two different designs, and neither one is intriniscally superior.

They should be judged on their merits.  They should be judged based on their effect on gameplay.

And in an RPG, I maintain that the core gameplay is and always will be roleplaying.  As such, that's how I judge the voiced protagonist, and by that standard the voiced protagonist fails completely.

[Sylvius the Mad]

cloud39472 wrote...
you never knew how the warden was saying it cos you couldnt hear him looool got ya

Actually, you just defeated the arguments in favour of the voice.

You couldn't hear the Warden speak, which meant that his speech was never made explicit.  As such, you were free to determine the Warden's speech as you saw fit.

Just as you could determine the eye colour of BG's Bhaalspawn, or nearly every detail of Ultima's Avatar.

Making all of the content explicit on the screen makes the game worse.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 02 août 2011 - 07:34 .

[cloud39472]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

cloud39472 wrote...
you never knew how the warden was saying it cos you couldnt hear him looool got ya

Actually, you just defeated the arguments in favour of the voice.

You couldn't hear the Warden speak, which meant that his speech was never made explicit.  As such, you were free to determine the Warden's speech as you saw fit.

Just as you could determine the eye colour of BG's Bhaalspawn, or nearly every detail of Ultima's Avatar.

Making all of the content explicit on the screen makes the game worse.

god damn you and your undefeatable wisdomyou just pissed on my parade

[T764]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

You couldn't hear the Warden speak, which meant that his speech was never made explicit.  As such, you were free to determine the Warden's speech as you saw fit.

But you did hear the warden speak, during combat he/she would say the same things over and over again, things that could have been out of character and capable of destroying any immersion or in your head roleplaying you may have done.

[Aimi]

T764 wrote...

But you did hear the warden speak, during combat he/she would say the same things over and over again, things that could have been out of character and capable of destroying any immersion or in your head roleplaying you may have done.

He probably wasn't a fan of those things, either.  You did notice his sig, right? 

[Xewaka]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Tirfan wrote...
I do not see why voiced protagonist is necessarily moving forward

This is important.
There is no justification at all for calling a voiced protagonist an advancement, or a silent protagonist as a step back.

Actually, there is a justification. The technology that allows to implement a voiced protagonist in a videogame is more recent than the one which allows for a silent protagonist. Thus from a technological standpoint, the labels are correct.
Mind you, this does not reflect my opinion on how appropriate each method is.

Modifié par Xewaka, 02 août 2011 - 10:53 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

T764 wrote...

But you did hear the warden speak, during combat he/she would say the same things over and over again, things that could have been out of character and capable of destroying any immersion or in your head roleplaying you may have done.

While this is partly true, those lines are predictable; once you've heard them, you know what they are and can design your cgaracter around them.  Isn't that why we get to hear them during character creation?

Also, I rarely noticed them in DAO because I tend to have my volume fairly low.

[Wozearly]

T764 wrote...

But you did hear the warden speak, during combat he/she would say the same things over and over again, things that could have been out of character and capable of destroying any immersion or in your head roleplaying you may have done.

But the solution to that is surely to add more variety to the things spoken during combat and a clearer choice of identities to select at character startup?

In any case, you were able to hear a selection of things that the Warden would say, and the tone of voice in which they would be said, which meant you could select the most appropriate voice and/or steer your character accordingly. That's much harder with a voiced protagonist where the risk of saying something in an immersion breaking way happens every time they open their mouth and, by necessity, limits the options available for different voice types and/or breadth of dialogue.

To my eyes, fixing issues with repetitiveness and/or inappropriateness of voiced comments by making everything voiced and more railroaded is along the same lines as fixing the slow combat attacks for certain weapon types in Origins by putting everything up to double speed...it addresses the visible symptoms rather than solving the underlying problem - and, as a result, creates a new (arguably worse) problem in its place.

[T764]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

T764 wrote...

But you did hear the warden speak, during combat he/she would say the same things over and over again, things that could have been out of character and capable of destroying any immersion or in your head roleplaying you may have done.

While this is partly true, those lines are predictable; once you've heard them, you know what they are and can design your cgaracter around them.  Isn't that why we get to hear them during character creation?

Also, I rarely noticed them in DAO because I tend to have my volume fairly low.

Quite possibly, however it does still restrict your roleplaying freedom (mind you so do the combat animations and the armour/clothing options and the origins themselves), it also doesn't change the fact that the warden is actually not silent at all.

And like yourself i too have a mastery over the volume control and i would only listen to the game on the first playthrough after that it would be muted, which could be why i found Hawke having a voice less of a problem.

Edit: @Wozearly, I was pointing out that the warden was not a silent protagonist and perhaps should not be held up as beacon of all that is right (as some people appear intent on doing), I have no real opinion on this beyond what i mentioned a few pages back, it is easier for me to accept out of character behaviour in a voiced PC.

 

Modifié par T764, 02 août 2011 - 05:33 .

[thegoldfinch]

vallore wrote...

Imo, it actually worked, quite well, with Origins, and apparently many would agree, considering how successfully the game was, and how little negative reactions it created, (specially compared with DA2).

Thank you for being polite.

I don't think you can attribute the success of the game solely to the fact that it had no voice acting for the PC, barring the battle grunts. People praised the writing - not the fact that the character was a mute. I have no doubt that it made lots of people happy, but it was not the main reason Dragon Age Origins was successful.

As such, while apparently targeting grater audiences, Bioware is actually willingly eroding the fringes of their core audience, imo.

I would agree. It would be ideal to find a middle ground but, at this point, I wonder if there even is one.

As a (almost) final note, I would remember that people miss “those old conventions” you speak of, not because they were some kind of tradition,
easily dismissed as sutch, but because they allowed them greater enjoyment than the new and modern way of doing things. By discarding it, without finding solutions to mitigate their absence, customers that enjoyed them are being discouraged of buying the new products.

Other than having a voiced player character, I'm not sure what you're referring to.

I’m glad it worked for you, but I would point that the result was far from universal:

This new freedom of the creators resulted, in part, by taking freedom from the player.The new added drama may have made the game more movie like, but also reduced the player’s participation in the development of his own character, and that is not a good thing, imo. The result, as we can see by numerous threads here, is that a significant number of players became frustrated by the experience; their enjoyment was diminished, not increased.

I am under no illusion that my opinion is the only valid one. But, I mean, it is my opinion so obviously it is the best opinion.

I think the only way to have a truly "free" RPG experience is to play a tabletop game. You're free to choose what a character looks like, what their vocal inflections are, what tragic things happened to them in their past. But even then, you're still bound by the GM and his setting, his rules, his boundaries. A tabletop game is also very social where you feed off the energy and humor of others. You don't get that in a game. All you have are the pixels, so you  need other ways of engaging yourself within the story (or at least players like me need it). A voice works for me because having a mute character doesn't feel as natural as, say, three participants in a tabletop game bouncing in-character remarks and comments and actions off of one another.

I am personally willing to lose a bit of freedom, as I would lose a bit of freedom in a tabletop game due to the GM, in order to create an experience that feels more natural and alive to me. And unless the voice acting is really, really bad (*coughsheploocough*), I can ignore the little things I don't like.  Don't get me wrong, I am not willing to lose every ounce of player agency for a cutscene - but that feeling of the character exchanges being fluid and real is still a higher priority than controlling every last detail of my character.

Another way of putting it - Do you write? Whenever I come up with a character and go with it, most of the time the character writes herself. She takes the story I thought I had and runs away into strange and weird places. She has all the control whereas I am just a tool to record her mischeviousness. I don't think it's that different when I play a video game character. She builds herself and I'm just the one clicking the buttons. Voice, therefore, does not matter much to me in regards to limiting role playing.

Modifié par pixieface, 02 août 2011 - 05:29 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

The troubt with Hawke is that muting the cound doesn't solve the paraphrase problem (which only exists because of the voice) unless we also disable the subtitles. But with no sound or subtitles, it's impossible to know what the NPCs are saying, so none of the conversations make any sense.

[RinpocheSchnozberry]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But with no sound or subtitles, it's impossible to know what the NPCs are saying, so none of the conversations make any sense.

This is most hilarious criticism of all time. 

"If I turn off the sound, I can't hear what people are saying."

Damn you, BioWare!

:lol:

[Sylvius the Mad]

RinpocheSchnozberry wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But with no sound or subtitles, it's impossible to know what the NPCs are saying, so none of the conversations make any sense.

This is most hilarious criticism of all time. 

"If I turn off the sound, I can't hear what people are saying."

Damn you, BioWare!

:lol:

It makes perfect sense.  The only way to avoid the harmful content is to miss ALL of the content, because BioWare has tied the two together such that you cannot have any of it without accepting all of it.

It's borderline malicious behaviour, on their part.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 02 août 2011 - 09:49 .

[LostInReverie19]

I definitely prefer the voiced protagonist. However, I sometimes miss the dialogue tree system of Origins rather than the wheel in DA2. It gave so many more options, but obviously that is not feasible for a voiced character. In Origins, the lack of a voice actually made me feel a lot less attached to my characters than the ones I have in DA2. The creepy silence and apathetic stare of the Warden in Origins was immersion-breaking to me.

[Phantom_Demon]

A balanced mind, is a prefect mind. The talking is all good and fun, but what about the times when there is no need for words or words that can't describe the setting of how the character feels at the time? If he's angry, he yells, if he's sad, he has a broken voice that is ready to cry, if he's playful, he's a playful mind, etc. etc. etc. There are times when he must be a strong person, but then there are times when he needs to speak his mind. This, is what the main character of a story is meant for. Silent action and quick whit. Nothing more, and nothing less.

So, summing it all up: "Balance it to where he speaks his mind at times, and times where action is more needed than that of talking."

[Sylvius the Mad]

Requiem1289 wrote...

The creepy silence and apathetic stare of the Warden in Origins was immersion-breaking to me.

But surely you can imagine that Hawke's (or Shepard's) overwrought histrionics might be immersion-breaking for others.