436 réponses à ce sujet

[Zanallen]

tmp7704 wrote...

That's i believe usually referred to as "throwing the baby out with the bathwater".

The PC's voice can be skipped easier because the player knows what they're about to say from reading the list of dialogue choices -- the actual act of presenting how that line gets delivered thus becomes redundant. But you can't have that with the NPCs because you don't know in advance what they are about to say; so if you removed their voicework, you'd just have them stand there silently, while they wait for the player to read their dialogue text.

(i.e. the same thing that some claim their charater was doing in DAO and how annoying that was, even if it didn't happen. Now imagine it does actually happen, for every line you exchange with every NPC...)

Nah, most of my favorite games had no VO at all. I would enjoy it if more games followed that route.

[tmp7704]

I can't think of a single game from past 10 years or so which didn't have speaking NPCs. Maybe i don't play the right games or smth.

edit: wait, some 3DS games i guess. And the MMOs, but then it doesn't work out to well for them it seems.

Modifié par tmp7704, 02 décembre 2011 - 12:55 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

tmp7704 wrote...

I can't think of a single game from past 10 years or so which didn't have speaking NPCs.

But there were many such games before that.

[Zanallen]

tmp7704 wrote...

I can't think of a single game from past 10 years or so which didn't have speaking NPCs. Maybe i don't play the right games or smth.

edit: wait, some 3DS games i guess. And the MMOs, but then it doesn't work out to well for them it seems.

Most of my favorite games are SNES or PSOne games.

[tmp7704]

Zanallen wrote...

Most of my favorite games are SNES or PSOne games.

Ahh okay that'd explain it

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But there were many such games before that.

Sure, and there were many games which didn't have many other things we take for granted nowadays. I was just puzzled someone would have 'most of their favourites' date that far back since there's just as many good games released afterwards, imo. With voiced NPCs and all.

[Wulfram]

tmp7704 wrote...

The PC's voice can be skipped easier because the player knows what they're about to say from reading the list of dialogue choices -- the actual act of presenting how that line gets delivered thus becomes redundant. But you can't have that with the NPCs because you don't know in advance what they are about to say; so if you removed their voicework, you'd just have them stand there silently, while they wait for the player to read their dialogue text.

(i.e. the same thing that some claim their charater was doing in DAO and how annoying that was, even if it didn't happen. Now imagine it does actually happen, for every line you exchange with every NPC...)

Nah, if neither side has voice over then you don't zoom in to focus on the characters too much, and the conversation proceeds at the pace of the players reading and it works fine.

Like in NWN or BG2.

[MerinTB]

Some of my favorites -

Wasteland, Bard's Tale, Pool of Radiance, Knights of Legend. No voice in any of them.

But truly almost all cRPGs I can think of post 1990 or so have at least some voice for some NPCs. Daggerfall, Icewind Dale, BG2, and so on.

[tmp7704]

If you don't zoom in yeah, that works ok (the first Fallouts had that too. And well, the SNES games and whatnot). But since they make big deal out of 'cinematic presentation' nowadays...

[Sylvius the Mad]

tmp7704 wrote...

I was just puzzled someone would have 'most of their favourites' date that far back since there's just as many good games released afterwards, imo. With voiced NPCs and all.

My top 5 games of all time ranges from 1984 to 1998.

Nothing released in the 21st century has yet cracked the list.

[tmp7704]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

My top 5 games of all time ranges from 1984 to 1998.

Nothing released in the 21st century has yet cracked the list.

I admit i can't think of anything from back then that'd make me think it gave so much better experience than the more recent offerings. Granted, not being able to remember that many of them to begin with doesn't really help, but then the ones i can't remember definitely didn't pass the test of time.

[Xewaka]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...
I was just puzzled someone would have 'most of their favourites' date that far back since there's just as many good games released afterwards, imo. With voiced NPCs and all.

My top 5 games of all time ranges from 1984 to 1998.
Nothing released in the 21st century has yet cracked the list.

I thought I read you stating that Dragon Age: Origins slipped into the list. Might be wrong, though.

[Fallstar]

Having started out significantly in favour of voiced PC with paraphrasing, the percentages now show a 2% lead to the Origins system. Again, this difference is statistically meaningless. I also think that the best we can hope for now is voiced dialogue with full dialogue to choose from, although it's probably far more likely that we'll get a repeat of DA:2 or paraphrases with 'hover over' dialogue.

[Sylvius the Mad]

tmp7704 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

My top 5 games of all time ranges from 1984 to 1998.

Nothing released in the 21st century has yet cracked the list.

I admit i can't think of anything from back then that'd make me think it gave so much better experience than the more recent offerings. Granted, not being able to remember that many of them to begin with doesn't really help, but then the ones i can't remember definitely didn't pass the test of time.

Ultima IV is still, I think, the best CRPG ever made.

Ultima VII also warrants mention.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Xewaka wrote...

I thought I read you stating that Dragon Age: Origins slipped into the list. Might be wrong, though.

DAO might make my top 10.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 04 décembre 2011 - 03:26 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

DuskWarden wrote...

 I also think that the best we can hope for now is voiced dialogue with full dialogue to choose from, although it's probably far more likely that we'll get a repeat of DA:2 or paraphrases with 'hover over' dialogue.

The best we can hope for is that the voice will be optional - that we'll be able to turn it off somehow.

[ioannisdenton]

oh come on!!! this is not mass effect!!
Kotor and DAO worked wonders with MUTE protagonist.
also mute protagonist = less expenses = money spent elsewhere BETTER that pure cosmetics aesthetics like voice acting.
also DA is not MEANT TO BE CINEMATIC.
go and play mass effect (nothing wrong in ME , it is great) please and alpha protocol, leave DA in the way it was adn it meant to be.
PURE RPG

[Marvin_Arnold]

I'd say EITHER full voiced PC with paraphrasing for a "historically named personality" like Hawke the Champion or Shepard the Spectre OR silent protagonist with full text for an "everyman" character like Qwerty the Warden.

I think reading the full dialogue line and THEN having to listen to the voiced protagonist repeating this line again like a parrot would be most frustrating.

I'm on the fence about voiced vs. silent.

With fully voiced, you have a "cinematic experience". You are the director and the protagonist is an actor.
With silent protagonist, you have a "proper" RPG. The protagonist is "you". IMNSHO.

For DA:O, I'd choose the latter.

Modifié par Marvin_Arnold, 05 décembre 2011 - 11:18 .

[PinkShoes]

at first i was like yay voice but tbh i gotta go back to silent. Its annoying cause every character sounds the same. Would be nice to have some options of different voices or at least the option to have a silent character.

[BLunted]

Voted silent. Absolutely hated the voiced paraphrasing of DA II

[Hoogies123]

I want Bioware to split their games up in this regard. Keep DA as silent PC with lots of dialogue options and Mass Effect or any number of future games with Fully Voiced. I think the fan base is definitely there for silent PC, whoever thinks Silent PC's cant portray any real feelings or emotions needs to just think of Gordon Freeman. I love that man.

[bleetman]

I'm not sure Gordon Freeman is the best example. He never expresses or portrays anything, ever.

[Atakuma]

bleetman wrote...

I'm not sure Gordon Freeman is the best example. He never expresses or portrays anything, ever.

He does grunt when he takes damage, so that's something.

[jlb524]

tmp7704 wrote...

If you don't zoom in yeah, that works ok (the first Fallouts had that too. And well, the SNES games and whatnot). But since they make big deal out of 'cinematic presentation' nowadays...

To me, having 'cinematic presentation' with a mute lifeless protagonist is something akin to the "uncanny valley" affect.  I think of it as a spectrum with 'like reading a book' on one end and 'like watching a movie' on the other.  A game like DA:O got even closer to having this 'like watching a movie' quality but there was just one thing that was completely off that reminded me that I wasn't quite watching a movie...and it was the accursed "blank stare" silent protagonist.

I think older games like KotOR were okay because the cinematic presentation wasn't all that great.

[Hoogies123]

bleetman wrote...

I'm not sure Gordon Freeman is the best example. He never expresses or portrays anything, ever.

I'm basing this on how NPC's react to gordon freeman, with all the killing and winning you do as Freeman I feel an amazing sense of accomplishment for Freeman when everyone cheers his name. Because you know everyone is thinking the same thing when they see you/freeman "Oh man its freeman, I'm saved, this guys gonna make everything better now". So unlike some silent protagonist games I do feel attached to Gordon Freeman because of how people react to his meer presence, regardless of what he doesn't say because he really doesn't need to say anything at all. If ever it was possible for someone to be overwhelmingly charismatic when they don't even open their mouth then I think Gordon Freeman would be that man.

I'll give you a good example, or at least one I hope is good.

In Skyrim I've seen many videos on youtube of people running around and chopping the heads off innocent people but I've never seen a singe playthrough of Half-Life 2 where someone actively and intentionally killed survivors or freedom fighters. I hope that has some relevance to my point and the actualy demeanor Freeman portraits to people through his voiceless actions. Because I'm sure most people when contemplating killing everyone with a bazooka would think "Nawww Freeman wouldn't do that", even though Freeman hasn't said a single word, kinda like the Master Chief but I'm not gonna go there.

[bleetman]

See, I found everyone's seeming adoration for someone whose only avenue of expression involves shooting at things to be entirely hilarious. Especially when Alyx starts clumsily flirting with him. Maybe it's the glasses?

I still wouldn't really consider him an example of how silent protagonists can somehow make for better characters than voiced ones. He barely even qualified as a character to me, being little more than a suit with a beard. The examples you're giving are all based on how other characters react, with anything he does in response (nothing, in this case) not really coming into it. I mean, if Freeman spoke, and everyone reacted in exactly the same way they do now, would everything you describe become untrue?

Urgh. 3am. Brain tired.

(Oh, incidentally, I frequently shot my freedom fighter allies. To begin with by accident, when they'd mistake my high powered automatic gunfire with, I don't know, free candy. Eventually I just got sick of them getting in the way of my gunfire, blocking off doorways and generally being counter-productive pains in the arse.)

Modifié par bleetman, 08 décembre 2011 - 03:35 .