400 réponses à ce sujet

[upsettingshorts]

mrcrusty wrote...

It really comes down to control. How much control you want to exert over your characters? Do you want to watch your characters develop (physically, in personality, morally, etc) with vague or non-specific prompts, or do you want to be the one deciding all that for your character in all of it's specifics?

It should come as no shock to you that I dispute your premise here.  I wouldn't categorize the choice, as presented, as resembling anything of the sort you describe.

The silent protagonist grants imagined control at the cost of a lack of reactivity.  I do not want to buy that for that price.

mrcrusty wrote...

It's not a matter of self insert (though it can happen) if you take on the role of your character. Roleplaying. Otherwise, we'd be opening the door to "games with silent protagonists don't allow for roleplay". Which is clearly nonsense.

They allow you to roleplay in your head, sure.  But if I decide I want the character to react angrily and the only options I have is a list of full text and a protagonist who stands there like a mannequin, that's not nearly as satisfying as selecting the Angry icon with a paraphrase that conveys said anger.  The former is still a roleplaying decision, obviously - but you have to imagine that anger and whether or not the game actually reacts (and by that I mean both your character and the character you're angry at) is a different matter.  Silent protagonists have shown - at least to me - a consistent inability to react in a satisfying way.  Hawke and Shepard do what I tell them to, because getting the gist of the action I want across is infinitely more important to me than the precise content of what he or she has to say.  The problem of a misleading paraphrase has happened to me personally about as often as the "none of the full text options convey what I want my character to say" problem, so it's not as if I think either approach has achieved perfect execution.  However:

Reactivity is the key to my enjoyment of cRPGs.  If I decide my character is angry or sarcastic I want to see and hear them being angry of sarcastic, or it simply didn't happen and therefore isn't content.

That I enjoyed previous games such as Jade Empire with a silent protagonist and voiced cast always struck me as a technological limitation - especially before coming to the BSN and hearing so many arguments in favor of the silent protagonist - and not some ideal cRPG feature that should be guarded and maintained.

ipgd wrote...

Savber100 wrote...

Multiple races all the way.

Screw being a talking human.

I'm tired of people thinking that a silent protagonist equals a boring character. What they never seem to get is that YOU'RE THE CHARACTER. The silent character doesn't react because you're the one responding. When Duncan died, I reacted more violently than any speaking avatar would. In being your character, you don't need the avatar's reaction as long as the scene evokes a reaction from YOU.

And honestly, origins was the reason why I was interested in DA the first place. Without it, I would have dismissed it as another generic RPG fantasy game.

What you described is exactly what I think is a boring character.

The Warden wasn't even really a character at all. He was an avatar. And for people, like myself, who are incapable of immersive self-insertion -- because I know I'm not in Thedas, and I can't make myself have a mindset of someone who is -- it becomes inextricable from the metagame and doesn't lend well to actual roleplaying.

And that was my problem with the Warden; he wasn't enough of a character (didn't have enough dialogue prompts that ask about how he thinks and feels, as a character, and give me chances to think about and establish that character) for me to organically build my conception of him through his reactions and available dialogue choices, but said dialogue choices were too restricted for me to actually impose a pre-conceived character onto him. I'd start with that character idea, eventually get to a prompt some minutes in where none of the responses would be something that character would do or say, and I'd just go 'meh' and return to detached metagaming.

Well put.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 03 août 2011 - 02:31 .

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

It should come as no shock to you that I dispute your premise here.  I wouldn't categorize the choice, as presented, as resembling anything of the sort you describe.

Perhaps not vague, but still non specific.

Upsettingshorts wrote...
They allow you to roleplay in your head, sure.  But if I decide I want the character to react angrily and the only options I have is a list of full text and a protagonist who stands there like a mannequin, that's not nearly as satisfying as selecting the Angry icon with a paraphrase that conveys said anger.  The former is still a roleplaying decision, sure - but you have to imagine that anger and whether or not the game actually reacts (and by that I mean both your character and the character you're angry at) is a different matter.  Silent protagonists have shown - at least to me - a consistent inability to react in a satisfying way.  Hawke and Shepard do what I tell them to, because getting the gist of the action I want across is infinitely more important to me than the precise content of what he or she has to say.

Reactivity is the key to my enjoyment of cRPGs.  If I decide my character is angry or sarcastic I want to see them being angry of sarcastic, or it simply didn't happen and therefore isn't content.

This is the key aspect, I think. One way is to roleplay through tone, regardless of the end speech. Direction, but not control. The other way is the opposite, ambiguous tone and specific content.

I'd argue that better dialog responses is all it really takes. There's literally nothing stopping cRPGs from adding explicit tones to dialog responses, and it's already been done before with varying degrees of success.

What you're describing is disatisfaction in reactivity in regards to tone, not an inherent problem of the silent protagonist.

Hell, the content driven dialog responses of Witcher 2 suffers the same problems despite being voiced and paraphrased.

However, I'd also argue that having a voiced protagonist really takes away any opportunities for skills based dialog roleplaying options. Skill checks is an important aspect of RPGs imo as it's one way to make every aspect of your character matter at all times. Personally, I would've liked to see some talent/specialisation based skill checks in either Dragon Age game, but trying to add proficiency based dialog options, or even things like intelligence, cunning and attribute based dialog options/skill checks becomes ridiculously difficult with a voice.

Modifié par mrcrusty, 03 août 2011 - 02:40 .

[Rinji the Bearded]

Savber100 wrote...

Multiple races all the way.

Screw being a talking human.

I'm tired of people thinking that a silent protagonist equals a boring character. What they never seem to get is that YOU'RE THE CHARACTER. The silent character doesn't react because you're the one responding. When Duncan died, I reacted more violently than any speaking avatar would. In being your character, you don't need the avatar's reaction as long as the scene evokes a reaction from YOU.

And honestly, origins was the reason why I was interested in DA the first place. Without it, I would have dismissed it as another generic RPG fantasy game.

I, on the other hand, have no interest in playing myself as a character.  I think that defeats the entire purpose, as you're not supposed to be playing yourself in a story-based game.  It's not the story of you, it's the story of this character who you happen to be able to influence.  When you make this character an avatar of yourself, you effectively change the game from a RPG to a simulation, and that's just missing the point.

[upsettingshorts]

mrcrusty wrote...

This is the key aspect, I think. One way is to roleplay through tone, regardless of the end speech. Direction, but not control. The other way is the opposite, ambiguous tone and specific content.

It is the key, except I've always viewed the player's role in a cRPG as one of direction, not control - since all options are prescripted.  They already exist before the player ever comes in contact with them.  Playing otherwise is, in my mind, a form of denial.  

Of course I accept that not everyone agrees with me, but that goes to show you why some folks - like me - can say that voicing the protagonist is an evolution for cRPGs and other folks can view it as being in direct conflict with how and why they play these games.  Neither is delusional, it's a matter of preference and approach.

mrcrusty wrote...

What you're describing is disatisfaction in reactivity in regards to tone, not an inherent problem of the silent protagonist.

I have a different, more specific complaint regarding them.

Inconsistency in communication annoys the hell out of me.  If everyone else in the game is speaking, I want the protagonist to speak.  The fact he/she doesn't is jarring to me.  If the protagonist must be silent then I want everyone else to be silent, like in say Baldur's Gate.  

To me the experience of the silent protagonist would be like watching a movie in which all the characters act normally, except the main character stands there - blank and mute - and to discover what they have to say you have to look down in your lap at a script.  In a word; disorienting.  

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 03 août 2011 - 02:40 .

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

I have a different, more specific complaint regarding them.

Inconsistency in communication annoys the hell out of me.  If everyone else in the game is speaking, I want the protagonist to speak.  The fact he/she doesn't is jarring to me.  If the protagonist must be silent then I want everyone else to be silent, like in say Baldur's Gate.  

To me the experience of the silent protagonist would be like watching a movie in which all the characters act normally, except the main character stands there and to discover what they have to say you have to look down in your lap at a script.  In a word; disorienting.  

Oh that's fair enough, I agree but I'd say that the problem is in the presentation. Baldur's Gate wasn't fully silent, it had quite the amount of voice acting.

However, Baldur's Gate's conversation presentation wasn't made to be cinematic. It was abstract, removed, mostly text based and relatively simple.

I'd say that the reason it's jarring is because it's presented in a cinematic fashion, where the characters are depicted as actors. You take away the presentation and it becomes much less of a problem (if at all). Any of the Infinity Engine games can attest to that. All of them have voice acting. Or say, a Bethesda game. The lack of VA is much less jarring because it's presented differently.

Modifié par mrcrusty, 03 août 2011 - 02:41 .

[upsettingshorts]

mrcrusty wrote...

Oh that's fair enough, I agree but I'd say that the problem is in the presentation. Baldur's Gate wasn't fully silent, it had quite the amount of voice acting.

Yeah, it had some - you got to hear what people sounded like so when you read the majority of the dialogue in text your inhead voices were more or less accurate.

mrcrusty wrote...

However, Baldur's Gate's conversation presentation wasn't made to be cinematic. It was abstract, removed, mostly text based and relatively simple.

Indeed.  Baldur's Gate and mostly-silent games were like books.  Fully voiced games are like movies.  Mixing them by making everyone except the protagonist silent is jarring to me.  It's pretty simple.  

I'm fine with a game being a book or a movie, not trying to awkwardly straddle the line between both. 

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Indeed.  Baldur's Gate and mostly-silent games were like books.  Fully voiced games are like movies.  Mixing them by making everyone except the protagonist silent is jarring to me.  It's pretty simple.  

I'm fine with a game being a book or a movie, not trying to awkwardly straddle the line between both. 

Well, I'm pretty dissatisfied with BioWare's direction into cinematics as the only way to tell a story to begin with anyway, so it's easy to see where I come from here.

[dheer]

Listening to what is supposed to be my character blabber on with something that I didn't choose annoys the hell out of me. This is a game, not an interactive movie. I want to see the important part of the conversation, the response to my choice of dialoge by my chat partner.

Having to save before every conversation because of the conversation roulette paraphrases doesn't help either.

[upsettingshorts]

dheer wrote...

Listening to what is supposed to be my character blabber on with something that I didn't choose annoys the hell out of me. This is a game, not an interactive movie. I want to see the important part of the conversation, the response to my choice of dialoge by my chat partner.

BioWare games have always been either interactive books, interactive movies, or something inbetween.  They're all games. 

The presentation is what has changed.

mrcrusty wrote...

Well, I'm pretty dissatisfied with BioWare's direction into cinematics as the only way to tell a story to begin with anyway, so it's easy to see where I come from here.

Sure, but seeing as I think expecting them to go back to a mostly-unvoiced "interactive book" game like Baldur's Gate is pretty much a pipe dream - I'd prefer it if they worked on getting the "interactive movie" game right as opposed to continuing to try and be both at the same time, because the hybrid approach just doesn't appeal to me.

If a (mostly) full-text game was actually a reasonable possibility my position would change, I just don't think it is. The new position would be something like, "Ok, what can a fully text game do that a fully voiced one can't, and vice versa, let's discuss the pros and cons of each."  But that's not really the argument, not today.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 03 août 2011 - 02:53 .

[ipgd]

dheer wrote...

Having to save before every conversation because of the conversation roulette paraphrases doesn't help either.

People didn't also do this in DAO? I know I saved and reloaded compulsively.

[DragonRageGT]

The only thing that prevents a fully voiced character with 10 lines to chose from is if a game has multiple possible protagonists, with different races and gender.

Gothic 1 and 2 already had multiple voiced lines to chose from and it worked very well. TW1 also had plenty lines for us to chose. I say get rid of the paraphrase system and make it like Origins b ut with fully voiced character if we can play only one defined character in perhaps both sex.

DX:HR also has it and Adams says exactly what we choose him to say, sometimes with a few more words completing it but it beats the hell of any paraphrase system.

Now, if we can choose multiple races and stuff, I couldn't care less for voiced protagonist unless devs are willing to voice them all!

[LilyasAvalon]

Dragon Age is about the world, not the focus of a singular character. That's why Origins was a hit and DA2 bombed after barely the 2nd week.

There's supposed to be a lot more diversity in Dragon Age, hence why in Origins, you had the option of choosing from 3 different races and 6 different backgrounds and it also affected the way people responded to you a lot more than in the Mass Effect series or DA2 again for Diversity.

Putting in a fully voice character was nice, but limits what can be done with said character because of things like data limits, storyline/plot, character interaction, etc. If we could have both, it'd be nice, but again, with such limitations, we can barely get anything good out of ONE background, let alone six.

So I'm going with multiple race option.

Modifié par LilyasAvalon, 03 août 2011 - 03:08 .

[upsettingshorts]

RageGT wrote...

I say get rid of the paraphrase system and make it like Origins b ut with fully voiced character if we can play only one defined character in perhaps both sex.

Hated that in TW1.

That said, it's dancing around one of the better compromise proposals the forum has kicked around.  My particular favorite is that if you highlight the paraphrase (for say, 2+ seconds) a subtitle comes up on screen with the full line.  That way, if you want to be sure the option says what you want it to, you can wait and check.  If you'd rather not experience repetition - I know i wouldn't - or want to keep up the flow of the conversation, you can just pick the paraphrase and skip the subtitle.

RageGT wrote...

DX:HR also has it and Adams says exactly what we choose him to say, sometimes with a few more words completing it but it beats the hell of any paraphrase system.

I am interested to see how DX:HR does it when I play it.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 03 août 2011 - 03:08 .

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Sure, but seeing as I think expecting them to go back to a mostly-unvoiced "interactive book" game like Baldur's Gate is pretty much a pipe dream - I'd prefer it if they worked on getting the "interactive movie" game right as opposed to continuing to try and be both at the same time, because the hybrid approach just doesn't appeal to me.

If a (mostly) full-text game was actually a reasonable possibility my position would change, I just don't think it is. The new position would be something like, "Ok, what can a fully text game do that a fully voiced one can't, and vice versa, let's discuss the pros and cons of each."  But that's not really the argument, not today.

I agree, except we are on a forum, not making actual business decisions. On a topic that's debating exactly the point of the things that silent protagonists can do but voiced ones can't, namely races.

But I'd also like to add, profiency based roleplaying is much more difficult with a voice. Namely skills and skill checks. While Origins didn't exactly have it, I do think that profiency based roleplaying is incredibly important, as important as tonal roleplaying since it directly correlates to your choices in the character build and can often get to the core of various character concepts.

Profiency meaning attribute, skills, talents, perks, etc.

Modifié par mrcrusty, 03 août 2011 - 03:18 .

[CroGamer002]

Why not just have voice Protagonist and choice to play with any race?

You can have same VA to do all 3 and hell, I don't think they need to do any major difference in VA.

[LilyasAvalon]

ipgd wrote...

Savber100 wrote...

Multiple races all the way.

Screw being a talking human.

I'm tired of people thinking that a silent protagonist equals a boring character. What they never seem to get is that YOU'RE THE CHARACTER. The silent character doesn't react because you're the one responding. When Duncan died, I reacted more violently than any speaking avatar would. In being your character, you don't need the avatar's reaction as long as the scene evokes a reaction from YOU.

And honestly, origins was the reason why I was interested in DA the first place. Without it, I would have dismissed it as another generic RPG fantasy game.

What you described is exactly what I think is a boring character.

The Warden wasn't even really a character at all. He was an avatar. And for people, like myself, who are incapable of immersive self-insertion -- because I know I'm not in Thedas, and I can't make myself have a mindset of someone who is -- it becomes inextricable from the metagame and doesn't lend well to actual roleplaying.

And that was my problem with the Warden; he wasn't enough of a character (didn't have enough dialogue prompts that ask about how he thinks and feels, as a character, and give me chances to think about and establish that character) for me to organically build my conception of him through his reactions and available dialogue choices, but said dialogue choices were too restricted for me to actually impose a pre-conceived character onto him. I'd start with that character idea, eventually get to a prompt some minutes in where none of the responses would be something that character would do or say, and I'd just go 'meh' and return to detached metagaming.

I feel sorry for people who can't do that. It really blows you have to have other people shape the character for you in a game that's supposed to be about your choices.

I mean, it's cool if you're playing a game like Assassin's Creed or that, where the character HAS been set out for you and you can't change/affect how they are. But in a game like Dragon Age?

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Mesina2 wrote...

Why not just have voice Protagonist and choice to play with any race?

You can have same VA to do all 3 and hell, I don't think they need to do any major difference in VA.

No, that would be the worst of both worlds. The allure of a voice is lost, and the variety of races is tarnished. Because no matter what, it's all the same.

[LilyasAvalon]

Mesina2 wrote...

Why not just have voice Protagonist and choice to play with any race?

You can have same VA to do all 3 and hell, I don't think they need to do any major difference in VA.

BIG DATA FILES. Limitations. They only get a certain amount of room and as it turns out, voice files take up a LOT of space when you get em' all together.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

That too.

Besides, we saw the "same VA, but use the voice a little differently" approach before it was really technologically feasible already.

Oblivion.

Modifié par mrcrusty, 03 août 2011 - 03:16 .

[upsettingshorts]

LilyasAvalon wrote...

I feel sorry for people who can't do that. It really blows you have to have other people shape the character for you in a game that's supposed to be about your choices.

It really blows that I have to explain to people that don't understand that other people have always shaped your character because the options are all predetermined by the writers months before you even get the game.  Or worse, can't accept that other people will never willingly get beyond the fact that crafting a character in a cRPG is and always will be a collaborative effort between the player and the writers. 

It's not PnP, real freedom to make choices in a prescripted game is impossible.  It's not PnP, there is no living, breathing gamemaster there to react to your choices dynamically.  The game either has an option to do something with a pre-programmed reaction, or it doesn't.  

That said, I get that people are going to disagree with me about the fundamental nature of cRPGs.  However, I'd prefer if people disagreeing understand what my position - and the position of those like me - actually is, and not condescendingly feel sorry for us based on a mischaracterization of our approach.

mrcrusty wrote...

No, that would be the worst of both worlds. The allure of a voice is lost, and the variety of races is tarnished. Because no matter what, it's all the same.

Well, it'd be fine if BioWare ditched linking accents to races, since that doesn't make any sense at all.

It should be linked to location.  So if your options for DA3 are say, surface dwarf, city elf, human all from the same city - it would make perfectly logical sense for all three of them to have the same accent if that approach was taken. 

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 03 août 2011 - 03:22 .

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

You'd have to ditch multiple Origins for races though. A noble and common from the same city is not going to sound the same.

[upsettingshorts]

mrcrusty wrote...

You'd have to ditch multiple Origins for races though.

No, you'd have to ditch experiencing the origins.  Just don't talk about it, and the player can figure it out for themselves.  Kinda like they might in any given non-DA:O game. 

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Meh. The Origins themselves were the best part of DA:O imo. How many games actually let you choose from multiple, tangible backstories, then let you play them?

While it wasn't perfect, it's an aspect that should be brought back and expanded upon, not ditched.

It was innovative, if I may say so.

[upsettingshorts]

The origins were fun, but the fact they were mostly ignored once reaching Ostagar beyond aesthetics demonstrated a fundamental flaw with them - they can't be supported in a satisfying way without making the game tremendously short or narrowly focused.

Any major choice - origin or plot - placed that early in the narrative is going to alter the amount of branching content later in the game, and shorten the experience. Zots aren't unlimited.

I'd rather the choices be placed in the middle, such as in The Witcher 2.  If they're at the beginning and they matter, the game is shortened, if they don't matter, then there's no point.  If they're at the end, they don't matter because you don't experience the consequences, and the sequel will either have to pick a canon or ignore them entirely.  The middle is the best place to put them, I think.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 03 août 2011 - 03:31 .

[ipgd]

LilyasAvalon wrote...

I feel sorry for people who can't do that. It really blows you have to have other people shape the character for you in a game that's supposed to be about your choices.

I mean, it's cool if you're playing a game like Assassin's Creed or that, where the character HAS been set out for you and you can't change/affect how they are. But in a game like Dragon Age?

But you can't impose a preconceived character into Dragon Age. All of the choices are predetermined and set by the writers. You can only play a character that the writers of the game allow for:

David Gaider wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Voicing the protagonist ties us to the delivery the writers intended. This is bad.

You've always been limited to the delivery we writers intended, as even in DAO the world reacted to that intention and not whatever you made up in your head. We select the possible responses and that's all you get.

And, yes, I know you like to imagine your own delivery, and resign any failure of the world to heed that as their misunderstanding, as if they are incapable of understanding communication. So, yes, we no longer allow you to play a character with Asperger's.

Are there drawbacks for that limitation? Sure, just as there are drawbacks for the unvoiced protaganist (see the Landsmeet, for instance, and the address of the soldiers at Denerim as two places in DAO where having a protaganist able to speak would have been a real plus on the design side). If having an unvoiced protaganist is the only way for you to believe you're roleplaying, then this isn't the game for you-- but that doesn't make it not a roleplaying game, or any worse of a design, as there are many people indeed who don't see that as a limitation on their ability to get into character.

And those are the limitations we've chosen to live with this time around. In this case, the benefits are worth the limitations we've given up. And that's all there is to say about it. If the demo didn't convince you that the writers can deliver, then that's all you really need to know, isn't it?

Which is, again, why I dislike the Warden as a roleplaying character. I cannot play him as my own, because any character concept I envision cannot be realized through the limitations of the set dialogue because he can only say things the writers thought of. I am unable to fit that character into the shell of the Warden, because he is "written" in my voice, whereas the dialogue options may only realize a character written with the voice of the writers. It is unavoidably incongruous.

At the same time, I am unable to build a character through those options, because Origins provides a very poor framework with which to build characters -- the game simply does not care what the Warden thinks or feels about anything, only what he does, and the game does not provide prompts that ask about him as a person. I can develop those thoughts and feelings on my own, but then that inevitably leads to conflict with the writers' intent -- they cannot account for those motivations that I have created outside of the game, and when I reach a point where I would like to express those sentiments but cannot because I have created a character that does not mesh with the writers' voice, I am taken out of immersion in that character.

For me, Hawke does not have that problem. I begin with only the loosest of character concepts, and allow the dialogue options as presented to shape my conception of that character. The game is constantly providing opportunities for me to establish him in my mind on a personal level. So while he is not wholly my character -- and neither could a Warden be -- he is a character, one I fully understand, and one which organically fits into the writers' voice because I "created" him through their voice.

Modifié par ipgd, 03 août 2011 - 03:32 .