436 réponses à ce sujet

[The Sapien]

The problem with this survey is that it ignores how much we liked or dislike particular voice acting. For DA2, I prefer the female's acting voice over silent, however; would had preferred silent male over the male actor's voice.
Thus, for me, it depends entirely on something not included in the survey.

[Sylvius the Mad]

But for many of us, it doesn't matter who the voice actor is, because it's the structure of the dialogue options which is relevant.

I also very much preferred LadyHawke's voice-over, but I would still much rather not have one.

[The Sapien]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But for many of us, it doesn't matter who the voice actor is, because it's the structure of the dialogue options which is relevant.

I also very much preferred LadyHawke's voice-over, but I would still much rather not have one.

Right, so the survey works for you and was designed for people more like yourself. I get that already. I'm just saying why it doesn't work for people like me and actually may be settiing up a false dichotomy for many who don't even realize that maybe they just particularly loved or hated things like voice acting or the script of one game over another. It was only in really thinking about it myself, that I realized I'd been tricked by the framing of the question initially. I remember things like the silly combat banter of my character in DA:O and am glad I didn't have to hear more. Yet, I'm glad for LadyHawke's voice and wouldn't think to turn her volume off with subtitles. No way. Dude's acting annoyes the heck out of me though. Same with ME.

[Lynata]

Wozearly wrote...
On the other hand, if you value breadth of decision-making, greater player freedom and a larger game world that is populated by a significant number of NPCs, then you're realistically taking the non-voiced route. Again, the two naturally complement one another.

Of course, following that logic further will lead to a game where no-one is voiced, ever, simply because it'd be even better for the budget.

Personally, I think that voice-acting does much for the immersion, simply because the manner of speaking and the "style" of a voice brings even more personality and thus life to the characters than just a simple line of dialogue. It's not like this stuff is written in novel-form where additional descriptions may evoke a similar effect, after all.

Yes, voice-acting NPCs and PCs does cost more money. Does it have to impose limits on the scope? Depends. It's not like money-juggling is done between these two sectors only, and if the result sells better then a higher budget is quite justified (just look at how much money is pooled into games and movies now in relation to what was normal ten years ago).
And in the end, if I'd really have to choose, I honestly would rather have a slightly shorter but amazing journey than a longer but mediocre experience where the studio has cut corners rather than perfecting everything. It's all about the balance.

Modifié par Lynata, 15 novembre 2011 - 04:37 .

[The Sapien]

Lynata wrote...

Wozearly wrote...
On the other hand, if you value breadth of decision-making, greater player freedom and a larger game world that is populated by a significant number of NPCs, then you're realistically taking the non-voiced route. Again, the two naturally complement one another.

Of course, following that logic further will lead to a game where no-one is voiced, ever, simply because it'd be even better for the budget.

Personally, I think that voice-acting does much for the immersion, simply because the manner of speaking and the "style" of a voice brings even more personality and thus life to the characters than just a simple line of dialogue. It's not like this stuff is written in novel-form where additional descriptions may evoke a similar effect, after all.

Yes, voice-acting NPCs and PCs does cost more money. Does it have to impose limits on the scope? Depends. It's not like money-juggling is done between these two sectors only, and if the result sells better then a higher budget is quite justified (just look at how much money is pooled into games and movies now in relation to what was normal ten years ago).
And in the end, if I'd really have to choose, I honestly would rather have a slightly shorter but amazing journey than a longer but mediocre experience where the studio has cut corners rather than perfecting everything. It's all about the balance.

Plus, since BioWare sold up to EA, now I want them spending big super bucks, no expenses spared, no financial excuses. I not only want my main character talking I want at least half a dozen male and female voice actors to choose from. Yeah, get on that BioWare, and don't just spend that extra money on vacations.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Lynata wrote...

Of course, following that logic further will lead to a game where no-one is voiced, ever, simply because it'd be even better for the budget.

Yes.

Personally, I think that voice-acting does much for the immersion, simply because the manner of speaking and the "style" of a voice brings even more personality and thus life to the characters than just a simple line of dialogue. It's not like this stuff is written in novel-form where additional descriptions may evoke a similar effect, after all.

I'll admit I like hearing the NPC voices, because it helps give them personality, but I don't need to hear every line.

The NWN approach where only the opening line or two of each exchange was voiced worked just as well as the full VO we get now.

[Wozearly]

The Sapien wrote...

I'm just saying why it doesn't work for people like me and actually may be settiing up a false dichotomy for many who don't even realize that maybe they just particularly loved or hated things like voice acting or the script of one game over another.

In principle, you'd have to assume that the question was asking for preference with all other things being equal. Poor VA / scripting would be just as bad as having a monkey type out the options in a full dialogue situation. The only inherant difference is that people disliking the VA and therefore disliking the voiced PC is an additional risk that isn't present in a non-voiced model.

...and no, that wasn't clear in the initial question. But its fine for an informal temperature check of public opinion.

Lynata wrote...

Of course, following that logic further will lead to a game where no-one is voiced, ever, simply because it'd be even better for the budget.

Personally,
I think that voice-acting does much for the immersion, simply because
the manner of speaking and the "style" of a voice brings even more
personality and thus life to the characters than just a simple line of
dialogue. It's not like this stuff is written in novel-form where
additional descriptions may evoke a similar effect, after all.

Yes,
voice-acting NPCs and PCs does cost more money. Does it have to impose
limits on the scope? Depends. It's not like money-juggling is done
between these two sectors only, and if the result sells better then a
higher budget is quite justified (just look at how much money is pooled
into games and movies now in relation to what was normal ten years ago).
And
in the end, if I'd really have to choose, I honestly would rather have a
slightly shorter but amazing journey than a longer but mediocre
experience where the studio has cut corners rather than perfecting
everything. It's all about the balance.

Its wrong to consider removing voicing as a decision that's 'better' for the budget or automatically leads to cutting corners any more than the voiced PC model does (both approaches can definitely be guilty).

If the money is spent elsewhere, then it provides additional content as a trade-off (e.g. additional development time for more areas, fleshing out more potential routes for characters to solve problems, adding in sneak/steal/persuade mechanics, etc).

I completely agree that this is just one decision in the overall game design process - but going back to the specific trade-off, take Morrowind as an example. The size, scale and depth of the game world were impressive in its time and are still impressive now. It certainly isn't defined by corner cutting, and as one of the most popular RPGs of all time both by sales and continued raving by players, I don't believe it led to a mediocre experience.

Now, providing a full set of voices for all NPCs and for all 7 possible player races (plus genders) would have blown the budget out of all proportion. IMO, Morrowind as it is simply could not have been created on the fully voiced model - I don't believe that the additional cost would have generated enough extra customers to justify the expense. It could have been the death knell of the Elder Scrolls series if it failed to make profit at all.

If it had been fully voiced, it would have been a different game. Shorter, more cinematic, perhaps more story focus...could have made for a great game but, and this is the key thing, it was a great game despite not being fully voiced.

The trade-off is not what you described - its between a significantly (no slightly about it) shorter but amazing cinematic journey versus a much larger world with greater freedoms for interaction, depth, exploration and player agency.

Neither is necessarily right or wrong*, both still exist in major franchises, both have led to the creation of amazingly popular (and unpopular) RPGs.

The balance points in between full voicing (ie, everyone including PC) and no voicing at all have also produced both good and 'bad' RPGs.

The main point I was making is that decisions that have such a significant effect on budget (and therefore scope) tend to automatically lead towards other, complementary decisions...it just isn't possible to double-up the budget in the hope of achieving the best of both worlds and relying on this resulting in twice as many sales.


*Unless you agree with Sylvius that the damaging effects on roleplaying of a voiced PC as currently implemented in any game are so great that its impossible to create a good RPG with that approach.

Modifié par Wozearly, 15 novembre 2011 - 07:12 .

[The Sapien]

Wozearly wrote...

The Sapien wrote...

I'm just saying why it doesn't work for people like me and actually may be settiing up a false dichotomy for many who don't even realize that maybe they just particularly loved or hated things like voice acting or the script of one game over another.

In principle, you'd have to assume that the question was asking for preference with all other things being equal. Poor VA / scripting would be just as bad as having a monkey type out the options in a full dialogue situation. The only inherant difference is that people disliking the VA and therefore disliking the voiced PC is an additional risk that isn't present in a non-voiced model.

...and no, that wasn't clear in the initial question. But its fine for an informal temperature check of public opinion.

That's just it. All other things being equal means yes and no for me, as I already stated. For example, repeating myself, in DA2 I'd go for voiced for the female and scripted for the male.

[Lynata]

Wozearly wrote...
If the money is spent elsewhere, then it provides additional content as a trade-off (e.g. additional development time for more areas, fleshing out more potential routes for characters to solve problems, adding in sneak/steal/persuade mechanics, etc).

I would not take this for granted. The money may as well be spent on something you don't care about at all, such as marketing. Or this money may not be spent anywhere at all, because the budget in its entirety is smaller - these days, a game without voice-acting will inevitably be regarded as "less aspiring" than one that has it included, especially given the standards that Bioware has established in this regard.

There's a reason the cast for Dragon Age and Mass Effect includes a surprisingly large number of big names from Hollywood. I'm sure that BW/EA, if they just wanted to, would have been able to find "cheaper" actors who would be able to deliver quality performance as well. All of this ties into what I interpret as the studio's attempt to deliver an excellent and immersing narration - a "cinematic experience", so to say - which happens to tie into Bioware's greatest strength: telling stories. This was already the case for DA:O, so DA2 did not go a different route here, it refined an already taken path. Whether one likes it or not is simply a matter of personal preferences, and whilst I do not deem it necessary for MMOs like TOR (where the focus should be on the social interaction between the players - which by its very nature cannot be voiced), I do appreciate it a lot for RPGs that follow scripted dialogues.

The Elder Scrolls franchise simply focuses on another aspect to attract its players - the openness and size of its world. Both paths are viable, and I will admit I would find it hard to decide which I would favour (I love sandbox games and enjoyed Oblivion a lot). But whilst I agree that a complete merger seems undoable (at least until someone invents a software that can generate artificial voices undistinguishable from a human), I do believe that a balance is perfectly in the realm of what's possible. After all, you would not need to "double up" the entire budget of DA:O just to give the Warden a voice. Voice actors are expensive, but they're not that expensive. And in this case the game does not have to sell twice as good - just good enough to bring back the additional investments (and ideally some additional profits). Which is true for any new development in the gaming industry, such as next generation graphics. If you want to play in the AAA league, voice acting is a big factor of getting there. Oblivion and Skyrim understood this as well, though they did not do it to the same extent.

Wozearly wrote...
Now, providing a full set of voices for all NPCs and for all 7 possible player races (plus genders) would have blown the budget out of all proportion.

I'd say that's because back in the days, much like with Hollywood movies, the budget for major computer game development was much, much lower than what is spent nowadays. Games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect (and even newer titles of the Elder Scrolls franchise itself) simply upped the ante in that regard, and contemporary titles will have to follow suit or risk falling short in comparisons.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Lynata wrote...

Wozearly wrote...
If the money is spent elsewhere, then it provides additional content as a trade-off (e.g. additional development time for more areas, fleshing out more potential routes for characters to solve problems, adding in sneak/steal/persuade mechanics, etc).

I would not take this for granted. The money may as well be spent on something you don't care about at all, such as marketing. Or this money may not be spent anywhere at all, because the budget in its entirety is smaller - these days, a game without voice-acting will inevitably be regarded as "less aspiring" than one that has it included, especially given the standards that Bioware has established in this regard.

I would have no problem with that at all.  I think a game like DA2 would become vastly better simply by removing the PC voice.  That's enough benefit for me.

I think BioWare should investigate making smaller titles for smaller market segments, because I expect they'd see a comparable ROI.  But with more, smaller projects, each project would carry less risk.

Less risk with no loss in return?  Every business should jump at that chance.

[MerinTB]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I think BioWare should investigate making smaller titles for smaller market segments, because I expect they'd see a comparable ROI.  But with more, smaller projects, each project would carry less risk.

Less risk with no loss in return?  Every business should jump at that chance.

I've been saying this about movies for YEARS.  Same should go for games.

[Lynata]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I would have no problem with that at all.  I think a game like DA2 would become vastly better simply by removing the PC voice.  That's enough benefit for me.

Well, half the people who voted think otherwise. Which is why I was suggesting the compromise of simply making it optional, so that everyone gets what he wants.

There's nothing wrong with catering to a niche (in fact I very much approve of this, because I am convinced that the current trend of pandering to the "smallest common denominator" is seriously limiting the evolution of the industry), but there's no reason not to appeal to more than one target demographic when you can do so without upsetting the other.

And why should Bioware make smaller titles? When you're on the top it would seem a little odd to voluntarily vacate this position and transform into an assembly line developer - especially given that developer pressure would only increase as the execs would press for maximizing profits with less time. This kind of thinking is what made NWN2 and KotOR2 less enjoyable than their predecessors. Heck, this is what made DA2 less enjoyable. At least I think we all agree that it wasn't just because of a voiced PC but exactly because Dragon Age 2 was a "smaller title", created with a smaller budget and with notably less time in development.

Modifié par Lynata, 16 novembre 2011 - 03:52 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Lynata wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I would have no problem with that at all.  I think a game like DA2 would become vastly better simply by removing the PC voice.  That's enough benefit for me.

Well, half the people who voted think otherwise. Which is why I was suggesting the compromise of simply making it optional, so that everyone gets what he wants.

That's my point.  While it's true that those of us who dislike the voice might get more game if the voice were removed from the zot equation, the fact is that the game gets better even without recovering those zots, so simply turning the voice off is a huge victory.

An optional voice does exactly that.

And why should Bioware make smaller titles?

Why shouldn't they?  If the goal is to maximise revenue over time, then maintaining ROI while reducing risk does exactly that.  The only loss is upside, but BioWare hasn't ever realised that upside.  Not every developer can make Call of Duty.

When you're on the top it would seem a little odd to voluntarily vacate this position and transform into an assembly line developer - especially given that developer pressure would only increase as the execs would press for maximizing profits with less time.  This kind of thinking is what made NWN2 and KotOR2 less enjoyable than their predecessors.

I disagree.  KotOR2, in particular, targetted a smaller market and that market found the game superior (I am not part of that market - I didn't like KotOR2).

Heck, this is what made DA2 less enjoyable.

No, DA2's problem was the opposite.  DA2, despite its shorter development time, targeted a broader audience.  DA2 was a long-shot gamble: low-risk, high-reward.  Those almost never pay off.

[Fallstar]

The question I asked is completely independent of the actual quality of the dialogue. It was basically asking whether people prefer the framework in which dialogue takes place in Origins or DA:2, not whether you preferred the content that went into that framework.

[Wozearly]

Lynata wrote...

Wozearly wrote...
If the money is spent elsewhere, then it provides additional content as a trade-off (e.g. additional development time for more areas, fleshing out more potential routes for characters to solve problems, adding in sneak/steal/persuade mechanics, etc).

I would not take this for granted. The money may as well be spent on something you don't care about at all, such as marketing. Or this money may not be spent anywhere at all, because the budget in its entirety is smaller - these days, a game without voice-acting will inevitably be regarded as "less aspiring" than one that has it included, especially given the standards that Bioware has established in this regard.

You could make the same point about any budgetary decision if we assume the overall budget is fixed or can only go down. Plonking 30% of it into voice acting might mean the graphics, or the story-writing, suffer considerably to protect the audio spend. Deciding to cut voice acting to spend less is a completely different decision to deciding to cut voice acting to prioritise investment in other areas.

Lynata wrote...

All of this ties into what I interpret as the studio's attempt to deliver an excellent and immersing narration - a "cinematic experience", so to say - which happens to tie into Bioware's greatest strength: telling stories. This was already the case for DA:O, so DA2 did not go a different route here, it refined an already taken path. Whether one likes it or not is simply a matter of personal preferences...

My point exactly. However, its worth noting that some of the changes from DA:O to DA2 reflect that fully voicing the player character adds additional cost and amplifies restrictions around flexibility with dialogue.

This is the tricky part, because asking "voiced or not voiced" looks at a glance to be a question about "better quality vs worse quality", or down to whether players have strong opinions about the specific actor used and/or the use of their own internal character voice.

In reality, the impact of full voicing goes beyond that because it imposes additional restrictions and shapes the game further towards the cinematic route as the only viable way to get benefits from a fully voiced PC. Not all respondents may have thought that angle through.

However, even though the "cinematic experience vs open world and freeform gameplay" trade-off wasn't raised in the poll, there was still a 50/50 split on whether voiced PC was preferable to non-voiced PC. That suggests it will continue to be a highly divisive decision with the current Bioware fan base.

Lynata wrote...

...I do believe that a balance is perfectly in the realm of what's possible. After all, you would not need to "double up" the entire budget of DA:O just to give the Warden a voice.

There's definitely room for balance, but you have to sacrifice depth and choice. There were 6 potential warden race/genders and (IIRC) five different voice styles in DA:O. To replicate that with a fully voiced PC, that would have been 30 voice actors to fully voice all of the dialogue options. Quite honestly not going to happen.

What would have been done to voice the PC would be something like cutting out the different voice styles and limiting it to a single racial origin - that would mean two voice actors; one male, one female. That's more doable, and I don't think its entirely accidental that this is where DA2 ended up.

So the question is how much you value the choice of races, voice styles, dialogue options, etc. over having a much smaller choice being fully voiced. Its simply not possible with current budgets / technology / game design approaches to create a game that meets the best of both worlds (assuming that a voiced PC is actually 'best' in any case).

Which is going to be down to personal preference - and the indications are that both sides have a broadly equal following. So to me, that would suggest pursuing different routes with different franchises - ME as the highly cinematic, choice-light approach. DA as the more choice-focused game with greater potential for player agency and freedom.

It looked like Bioware had reached the same conclusion, until DA2 hit the stores...

Modifié par Wozearly, 16 novembre 2011 - 01:51 .

[Lynata]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I disagree.  KotOR2, in particular,
targetted a smaller market and that market found the game superior (I am
not part of that market - I didn't like KotOR2).

I don't think KotOR2 targeted a smaller market - it was just a rushed product that was pushed on the market before it was fully done.

Perhaps I should clarify: I don't just see "smaller title" as something targeting a smaller audience, but also a title for a broad  audience that just doesn't have a big budget and is generally shorter - such as episodic games. This wasn't actually intended for KotOR2, but the game did end up with a lot of content half-done or omitted because the studio wasn't given sufficient time to finish what they started.

And for the record, I enjoyed KotOR2 as well (I liked some of the new ideas they added) - but the bugs were really annoying at times and the omitted content did screw up the plot logic.

Wozearly wrote...
You could make the same point about any budgetary decision if we assume the overall budget is fixed or can only go down. Plonking 30% of it into voice acting might mean the graphics, or the story-writing, suffer considerably to protect the audio spend.

See - you are reaching. 10 million dollars, really? Voice-acting is not that expensive. Even if you get six different voice actors for the character (we don't need "voice styles" - that's luxury) instead of just two this is perfectly in the realm of the doable. Quite frankly, by now it looks as if the assumption that adding voices to the player character would automatically result in less content seems based on personal preferences, especially with the numbers you're pulling - you don't like it, so you're looking for a reason why everyone should agree it needs to go away. Let's stick to the facts.

For a company that is currently working on a $100 million dollar MMO and has consistently produced hit after hit in the past years, it would have been no problem at all to assign a bigger budget to DA2, so to assume that its shortcomings are due to the additional cost of two(!) voice actors would seem like a fallacy.

No, I see the true cause of it in the notably shorter development time (note that voice-acting can be done much quicker than animations or writing, simply because it's a different team and as such can be done parallel to the other tasks) and the perceived need to tailor it more to a target audience not consisting of the core fans "tapped" by DA:O (console focus, greater simplicity by dumbing down classic RPG mechanics, "exaggerated awesomeness" in combat animation, et cetera).

Modifié par Lynata, 16 novembre 2011 - 02:52 .

[Wozearly]

Lynata wrote...

See - you are reaching. 10 million dollars, really? Voice-acting is not that expensive. Even if you get six different voice actors for the character (we don't need "voice styles" - that's luxury) instead of just two this is perfectly in the realm of the doable. Quite frankly, by now it looks as if the assumption that adding voices to the player character would automatically result in less content seems based on personal preferences, especially with the numbers you're pulling - you don't like it, so you're looking for a reason why everyone should agree it needs to go away.

I'm not reaching intentionally - the 30% example was purely hypothetical and not intended to be an accurate estimate of the actual cost of the entire budget. Although I would also argue that using the overall budget is equally misleading, because sunk costs in staffing, engine development, etc. will happen wherever you place budgetary focus. So the amount that can be intentionally shifted between different areas is going to be a fair bit less than the headline figures quoted.

Returning to VAs specifically, I'm not close enough to the industry to know actual figures for VA costs, particularly 'famous' VAs. But going by comments from several companies, its clear that they perceive voice acting to be a significant expense. 

I agree with you that extending the use of VAs is not beyond the realms of budgetary possibility. Nor is extending game length, pushing graphical quality up to the maximum ,etc.

However, extending VA work would be expected to impact on other development areas unless spending on those were protected and budgets increased purely for the purpose of adding in the voice acting. That doesn't seem to be what the industry is doing if you look at the differences in size / scale / freedom of fully voiced games versus non-fully voiced games - even if you go back several years to games which, presumably, had much smaller budgets in real terms.

Just to be clear about this, one of Bioware's developers made a broad statement that DA:O would have been shorter by (x%) if it had used voiced PCs. I forget the exact figure, but it was a significant reduction. Stating that VA work is considered expensive is not a personal attempt to distort the facts to justify my preferences.

As for DA2, the majority of shortcomings raised by the community are not linked to the use of a voiced PC specifically. Some were strategic changes that people didn't like, concepts that were good in principle but poorly executed, and there was an overall downer due to the short development time.

However, that's not to say that the impact of voicing a PC is negligible. Some shortcomings relate to it specifically, some indirectly, but either way it can be expected to have an impact on game budget and, as a result, game design decisions.

Since you implied my personal preferences are against voiced PCs, let me just clarify that they're not. I do have an issue with some of the dialogue side effects (e.g. "Wait a minute, that's not what I was trying to get my character to say!"), but ME is a great series and it has a voiced PC. I'm not arguing for its removal.

What I am is very cautious about the inclusion of voiced PCs for the impacts they have outside of the dialogue side-effects (listed ad nauseum in my previous posts). These are all potentially avoidable, I agree with you, but looking around at games on the market at the moment I'm struggling to spot any that have actually managed to avoid them.

I do, personally, feel the the Dragon Age series did better with the VA balance used in Origins than the VA balance used in DA2. But its not my major gripe with DA2. It only barely scrapes into the top 10.

Modifié par Wozearly, 16 novembre 2011 - 07:03 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Lynata wrote...

Perhaps I should clarify: I don't just see "smaller title" as something targeting a smaller audience, but also a title for a broad  audience that just doesn't have a big budget and is generally shorter - such as episodic games. This wasn't actually intended for KotOR2, but the game did end up with a lot of content half-done or omitted because the studio wasn't given sufficient time to finish what they started.

I was talking about products that target a smaller market.  By being fewer things for fewer people, a game can still have an adequate finish quality while maintaining a smaller budget.

Trying to be all things to all people requires either poor finish quality (KotOR2) or a huge budget.

And for the record, I enjoyed KotOR2 as well (I liked some of the new ideas they added) - but the bugs were really annoying at times and the omitted content did screw up the plot logic.

The bugs were not my problem with KotOR2.  I think KotOR2 was targetting a smaller market, because it was actively excluding players who want to create their own character and implement his personality in the game world.  By revealing the Exile's past and personality to the player over time, Obsidian took away considerable roleplaying control from the player.

KotOR2 and DA2, I think, fail in very similar ways - though for different reasons.  While KotOR2 withheld RP control from the player as part of a core design goal, DA2 did it as a side-effect of implementing a voiced protagonist.

[Vaeliorin]

Lynata wrote...
And why should Bioware make smaller titles? When you're on the top it would seem a little odd to voluntarily vacate this position and transform into an assembly line developer - especially given that developer pressure would only increase as the execs would press for maximizing profits with less time. This kind of thinking is what made NWN2 and KotOR2 less enjoyable than their predecessors.

Of course, then there are people like me who think that KOTOR2 and NWN2 (the single-player, not the multi-player) were far superior to their predecessors.

You're also making the assumption that Bioware is still on top, which I think some people would dispute.

[Wozearly]

Vaeliorin wrote...

Of course, then there are people like me who think that KOTOR2 and NWN2 (the single-player, not the multi-player) were far superior to their predecessors.

You're also making the assumption that Bioware is still on top, which I think some people would dispute.

KOTOR2 had a plethora of great ideas, but by the closing stages of the game had a distinctly unfinished feel.

Some of the things that were mentioned as having been planned for inclusion would have really rounded it off - e.g. Darth Traya could potentially have come from a different in-game character for LS characters that chose to save the original Traya, the schismatic struggles of companions in the closing stages allowing the player to alter how part of the game finishes, the missing personal quest for a certain evil droid, companions fighting each other in the event of dual romances, a more fleshed out set of differences in sequence and outcomes once the "big threat" reveals itself.

By themselves, not huge. But put together, that would have added a lot to the sense that the choices you made really did shape events in a meaningful way - and that would leave you cheering or deeply regretting the consequences.

That said, although KOTOR2 lacked the smack-to-the-face twist of KOTOR, it had some amazing moments (what happens when the jedi council reforms as LS, for example) and a genuinely different feel to LS and DS, even if the main quest lines were still 80% the same.

In many ways it was superior to KOTOR, but fizzling out in the final stages was such a criminal shame given how climactic KOTOR's final segment turned out to be.

As for Bioware being on top, in my eyes they still are for the type of games they make - just as Bethesda are for theirs. Ultimately, any studio capable of producing something like DA:O clearly has a lot of magic left in it - and provided we still get games that are that great, I'm willing to put up with the occasional DA2.

[Sylvius the Mad]

KotOR2 had some great parts, certainly. That you could play a full squad that didn't include the Exile was a really nice touch. But I don't think it did as good a job of allowing a non-combat build as KotOR did (Malak could be defeated using nothing but mines).

[Lord_Saulot]

Personally I prefer the full lines to be written out. Voice acting does not bother me particularly, but I don't feel it adds much to the game and can be deterimental at times. I don't feel that games like New Vegas or Skyrim are less immersive for not having voice acting - often quite the opposite.

[The_11thDoctor]

I guess almost half the audience grew up on nintendo games where no one is allowed to talk? It's sad... Who in their right minds wants a silent character that just sits there and doesnt speak? I mean to have the world blowing up around them and just sit there silently then have the person talking to you pretend that you responded dramatically? Never understood it, never will. I loved DA2 having voices like it should have the first game. Sacastic female Hawke is my fav character in a long time. In fact, before hearing her voice and her getting a sexy walk, I NEVER played as a female lead in a RPG. I would always be male. Her Voice Actress made me consider and change my thoughts on it. Her voice was too sexy not to give her a chance.

[Wozearly]

aang001 wrote...

I guess almost half the audience grew up on nintendo games where no one is allowed to talk? It's sad... Who in their right minds wants a silent character that just sits there and doesnt speak? I mean to have the world blowing up around them and just sit there silently then have the person talking to you pretend that you responded dramatically? Never understood it, never will. I loved DA2 having voices like it should have the first game. Sacastic female Hawke is my fav character in a long time. In fact, before hearing her voice and her getting a sexy walk, I NEVER played as a female lead in a RPG. I would always be male. Her Voice Actress made me consider and change my thoughts on it. Her voice was too sexy not to give her a chance.

Err, no - that's a rather striking assumption.

If it was absolutely clear that a voiced PC was in every way better, then no-one would be voting for a silent one. Preferences are very clearly divided - for example, you clearly value the added immersion factor of having your character speak and react to the world as if it was an interactive movie, with their tone of voice spoken for you.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this point of view.

However, a number of people on the other side prefer to 'own' their character, and project the character's voice onto them using their own imagination. On paper, this looks inferior to fully voiced, but there are clear advantages. For example, your character never says something in a way that you didn't expect, so you don't have a sudden disconnect from it being 'your' character to 'Bioware's' character that you happen to control in combat.

As a general rule, avoiding player VAs means that its easier to include a greater variety of dialogue options and, in particular, variety of player races. That can be done with voiced PCs in principle, but so far Bioware has yet to do so.

Equally, limiting VA work can potentially increase the amount that can be included in the game both by reassigning the budget and because having to voice everything that a character does can be problematic when it comes to giving the player a huge variety of choices, because ALL options and potential outcomes need voicing - completely different from a dialogue writer just scripting it as text on screen, which is much quicker and cheaper. Hence, like it or not, VA heavy games have less freedom of choice and more of a linear structure than a sandbox one with multiple ways to resolve encounters.

The benefits and drawbacks of both sides have been argued strongly by both sides and the poll suggests a broadly even division. Personally, I'm in favour of voiced NPCs but not a fully voiced PC. And that's not because of any nostalgia for NES / SNES games - nor do I think that's the reason for many (if any?) other people voting against a voiced protagonist.

Modifié par Wozearly, 22 novembre 2011 - 07:46 .