55 réponses à ce sujet

[Zanallen]

nightscrawl wrote...

Well here is one thing about that... it can get tedious reading a lot of dialogue after a time. I am the type of person who wants to know all of the lore and also make my role-play decisions based on conversations with NPCs. I recently installed Neverwinter Nights to play it again after many years, in that game only less than a handful of the main NPCs you interact with are fully voiced (Aribeth and Aarin Gend are the only ones I can recall now). It does get tedious reading all of that material after a while. Also, it eventually feels like it's a reading game, rather than a game, sprinkled with bouts of combat. One clear benefit of the voiced NPC as in Origins is that you feel a stronger sense of interaction with the NPC.

There were a few NWN modules (fan made) that had full voice acting, and the difference from the main campaign was remarkable. I felt more sympathy with those NPCs, as well as a greater sense of them actually talking to me, rather than my just passively reading dialogue.

If reading the written text gets tedious, then it wasn't that exciting to begin with.

[Thiefy]

i dont see why they would use a lot of their resources on voices only to shut off the option.

anyway, on topic, if implemented, maybe it would be better for the npcs to look at you, the player, in stead of the warden/champion/pc would always remains silent and never responds with their own voice. it would make it look less like the npc in question was speaking with a doll, and more like they are just standing next to you, talking.

either way, w/e. both dao and da2 were fun and i'd still buy the next game in the series, voice or no.

[freche]

Zanallen wrote...

nightscrawl wrote...

Well here is one thing about that... it can get tedious reading a lot of dialogue after a time. I am the type of person who wants to know all of the lore and also make my role-play decisions based on conversations with NPCs. I recently installed Neverwinter Nights to play it again after many years, in that game only less than a handful of the main NPCs you interact with are fully voiced (Aribeth and Aarin Gend are the only ones I can recall now). It does get tedious reading all of that material after a while. Also, it eventually feels like it's a reading game, rather than a game, sprinkled with bouts of combat. One clear benefit of the voiced NPC as in Origins is that you feel a stronger sense of interaction with the NPC.

There were a few NWN modules (fan made) that had full voice acting, and the difference from the main campaign was remarkable. I felt more sympathy with those NPCs, as well as a greater sense of them actually talking to me, rather than my just passively reading dialogue.

If reading the written text gets tedious, then it wasn't that exciting to begin with.

Thing is both DA games lack enough interesting story to be able to go the full text route. Also the fact that voice is expected in a modern game, you can't have all the nice graphics and then mute characteres. A mute PC is still ok for most games.
But after recently playing through DA2, Skyrim and currently playing SWTOR I must say personally I think a voiced PC really helps with immersion. It feels more like you are part of the world then just a bystander listening to other people.

[Pedrak]

Several times RPG developers (even on this forum) have admitted that fully voiced games are so expensive that they necessarily imply much less content.

For me, that's a lousy trade-off.

And I admit that I'm always a bit perplexed by people who complain about voiced protagonists exclusively for role-playing reasons, because it becomes more difficult to identify with the character - not that I disagree, but then many never mention the tragic reduction of game length, the awful simplification of the quests and dialogues, etc.  I mean, I believe it's like being anti-war because guns make a lot of unpleasant noise - a perfectly fair point, I guess, but not exactly the key one for me. You come to page 15 of a thread about silent versus voiced PC and nobody has mentioned the fact that a voiced PC means a shorter and less deep game.

Give me semi-voiced NPCs (they are dubbed, but not every line - see Torment) and a semi-voiced or even mute PC with a huge game and multiple ways to solve quests, and I'll be a happy man.

"But Pedrak, you old curmudgeon, that's not going to happen because today people want fully-voiced characters and yada yada yada"

Incidentally, one of the thing that pleases me most about Skyrim's success is that it was achieved with a silent protagonist. Yeah, different kind of RPGs and all that, but apparently the "Wait, the main character is mute?! In 2011??? I'm not buying this crap!" scenario is something of an urban legend.

Modifié par Pedrak, 27 décembre 2011 - 01:35 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Pedrak wrote...

"But Pedrak, you old curmudgeon, that's not going to happen because today people want fully-voiced characters and yada yada yada"

Incidentally, one of the thing that pleases me most about Skyrim's success is that it was achieved with a silent protagonist. Yeah, different kind of RPGs and all that, but apparently the "Wait, the main character is mute?! In 2011??? I'm not buying this crap!" scenario is something of an urban legend.

Indeed. A voiced PC (or even voiced NPCs) are not a requirement for gaming in today's market, despite what most developers learn in their Game Design 101 classes. Never have been, never will be.

Until the day comes when people won't say phrases like"the book was better than the movie" whenever a blockbuster comes out, then we will be living in a world where text dialogue is still viable. Books, one of the least visual forms of medium in the history of man, are still making billions every year. Meanwhile, the movie industry, which costs exponentially more to voice, act, special-effect and produce, is suffering, especially in this lean economy.

Video games are in the cracks between movie and book, as far as its strengths and drawbacks. But more and more, video game companies are trying to turn their games into interactive movies... but are running into the budget constraints of a big movie production. The JRPG genre is a perfect example.  When every game needs to involve a fifteen minute long CG cutscene with the two love interests swimming among magical butterflies or sword fighting with nine-foot long swords, then you are going to start burning into content for the actual GAME portion of the game.

If developers were smart, they would realize which side of the formula their target audience lies - on the movie side of video games, which would be like your shooter, action based crowd, or on the book side of video games, which would be most of your WRPG fans. Picking out elements of both and mashing them together is a lot less cohesive than just staying with one end of the formula or the other.

[Dormiglione]

simfamSP wrote...

Since it's 7:30am here and I've barely had a wink of sleep (thanks to my pre-christmas present 'A game of Thrones' (brilliant novel) and other things like...gaming and...gaming. I'm in no state of mind to start thinking that hard. But it would be cool to spill out good ideas, and maybe Bioware would say "hey, that's cool" and use it...one can hope no?

I don't mind Voice protagonists per se, but I know all the downsides they bring to roleplaying characters. I don't think ti's a required thing for an AAA game - Skyrim is a good example - I don't really see the point in putting them in there to begin with, but oh well...atleast I get to hear Hawke say her/his funnies.

So what do you think BSN? How could Bioware do this without making it look stupid?

I think that both ways "voiced pc" and "silent pc" work in a rpg. Immersion is something very subjective, everyone needs other factors to reach immersion in a game. I think, as long that you can "roleplay" your character in the RPG you remain "immersed" in the RPG world. It really depends upon your personal prefence if you get the feeling that you can roleplay the way you want.

[FaWa]

[quote]hideo_sakaguchi wrote...


Hawke and Shepard made pretty kick ass poster boys honestly. [quote]






The Default ManHawke is absolutely disgusting looking. 

Modifié par FaWa, 27 décembre 2011 - 10:24 .

[FaWa]

hideo_sakaguchi wrote...
Hawke and Shepard made pretty kick ass poster boys honestly.

The Default ManHawke is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. 

[Realmzmaster]

simfamSP wrote...

simfamSP wrote...

Since it's 7:30am here and I've barely had a wink of sleep (thanks to my pre-christmas present 'A game of Thrones' (brilliant novel) and other things like...gaming and...gaming. I'm in no state of mind to start thinking that hard. But it would be cool to spill out good ideas, and maybe Bioware would say "hey, that's cool" and use it...one can hope no?

I don't mind Voice protagonists per se, but I know all the downsides they bring to roleplaying characters. I don't think ti's a required thing for an AAA game - Skyrim is a good example - I don't really see the point in putting them in there to begin with, but oh well...atleast I get to hear Hawke say her/his funnies.

So what do you think BSN? How could Bioware do this without making it look stupid?

WTF was I on?

This is what happens when you are existing on fumes and burned all the gas in the tank!

[Cyberstrike nTo]

simfamSP wrote...

Since it's 7:30am here and I've barely had a wink of sleep (thanks to my pre-christmas present 'A game of Thrones' (brilliant novel) and other things like...gaming and...gaming. I'm in no state of mind to start thinking that hard. But it would be cool to spill out good ideas, and maybe Bioware would say "hey, that's cool" and use it...one can hope no?

I don't mind Voice protagonists per se, but I know all the downsides they bring to roleplaying characters. I don't think ti's a required thing for an AAA game - Skyrim is a good example - I don't really see the point in putting them in there to begin with, but oh well...atleast I get to hear Hawke say her/his funnies.

So what do you think BSN? How could Bioware do this without making it look stupid?

1) The character is born mute.

2) In backstory/origin the character is injured in an attack by the villain and gets their throat slit and is left for dead, the character survives but loses his/her voice.

3) The character's voice can kill others. Like Marvel Comics' Black Bolt, the leader of the Inhumans.

4) The character is a Silent Sister, a group of female dwarven warriors who cut out their own tongues as a rite of passage, who has been exiled for some crime.
 
5) The character takes a vow of silence.

[Fast Jimmy]

Cyberstrike nTo wrote...

1) The character is born mute.

2) In backstory/origin the character is injured in an attack by the villain and gets their throat slit and is left for dead, the character survives but loses his/her voice.

3) The character's voice can kill others. Like Marvel Comics' Black Bolt, the leader of the Inhumans.

4) The character is a Silent Sister, a group of female dwarven warriors who cut out their own tongues as a rite of passage, who has been exiled for some crime.
 
5) The character takes a vow of silence.

Actually, I'm not sure if the OP was looking for ways to make the protagonist never talk, I think he was just trying to bring up the topic of how to do it from a gameplay mechanics POV.

Those would be.. interesting, though. Having a plot reason for a non-voiced PC would be a new twist for games, I think.

[PinkShoes]

i have always said it since we got the voice. It should be a choice! A choice of more than just one generic voice or no voice at all.

[Fast Jimmy]

PinkShoes wrote...

i have always said it since we got the voice. It should be a choice! A choice of more than just one generic voice or no voice at all.

While I agree, making the voice an option still means there needs to be a voice recorded, which means the dialogue options will still be limited on how much budget there is for a Voice Actor to read all of those lines (and for things like sound studio time, editting, disc compression and space, etc.,etc.).

So offering a mute option doesn't really make any of the problems with having a voiced PC go away, it just lets you avoid a voice that was a significant percentage of the sticker price.

[KylieDog]

If they are voiced they will never be 'your' character and instead Biowares (like Hawke), so no voices I say.

I want to play an RPG, so please let me make my own PC and keep them silent* so they are MY character. Everyone else can talk until the sun goes down, is fine because they are not MY character, it is better if NPCs and companions talk because I can listen to emotion in the voice and so forth and better bring those characters to life. If my character speaks aloud it can very easy not use the emotion I want/imagine for it and just like that, no longer is it my character I am playing as.

From a gameplay perspective I should imagine keeping the PC silent should allow for more varied responses since not limited to recorded dialogue, better making the PC my character and not Biowares.

*Grunts in battle always welcomed.

[Alozaps]

Until Dragon Age 2 came along, I'm fairy certain that I had never played an RPG with a voiced PC; and I have played tons of RPGs. I used to question why PCs were silent.

However, after being witness to the voiced protagonist of DA2, I realize that silent protagonists add to my immersion. I can associate MY voice with these characters; I can associate any voice I want with the detailed dialogue that is provided. This is what I want my RPG experience to be like. Evidently, not everyone wants this same experience, so naturally there are always going to be people on both sides of the fence.

Is a voiced PC a deal-breaker for me? It depends. I just think that the time, effort and money associated with voicing PCs would be better spent on other aspects of the development process.  Let us see the brilliant detailed dialogue that the writers have put down on paper.

Modifié par Alozaps, 29 décembre 2011 - 03:52 .

[Addai]

It's a pointless exercise to answer the question, because Bioware has said they're making all their games voiced protag games.

[tmp7704]

simfamSP wrote...

How could Bioware do this without making it look stupid?

I don't think it's something they intend to switch back to, so it's probably more practical to wish they focused on maybe providing more dialogue options for the voiced protagonist (so there's better chance of finding a line which happens to match what you want) and, especially, on relaxing that ridiculous stance on the paraphrasing being mandatory.

And i really don't care how many kittens would wind up punted through the glass to get me that option.

[SeanMurphy2]

I don't like voiced protagonist because it means less content. Mass Effect series always seemed to be shallower and have less companion dialogue compared to DA:O.

I also don't like the dialogue wheel. You are basically just selecting a tone icon. Rather than choosing from  full sentence responses.

But once they have gone full voiced I can't see them going back to silent protagonist in the next game.

Modifié par SeanMurphy2, 02 janvier 2012 - 05:00 .

[Cutlasskiwi]

Zanallen wrote...

If the PC is going to be silent, I would prefer if everyone was silent. Then you have plenty of spare resources for other stuff.

But really, I prefer a voiced protagonist. Silent worked in Skyrim because the PC isn't really a character to begin with. The Dragonborn is just an avatar for the player to screw around with. Bioware tends to use much more established PCs.

This is excatly my opinion on the subject, to the word. 

I found the silent warden extremely jarring at times when everyone else had voices.  

[ScotGaymer]

I do not dislike VA PCs. In some games and places they work just fine and in other places they do not work at all.

For example Shepard works great as a Voiced PC because he/she is a much more predefined character and he/she exists in an Action RPG and not a "pure" RPG.

My only arguement that I feel is "valid" against Voice Acted Player Characters is that one of the fundamental things in an RPG is that to be a real proper RPG you need to give the player as much choice (and consequence) and control over the PC, NPCs, and universe as you possibly can within the context of said universe and game engine.
To that end Voice Acting takes away from that control from the player and thus detracts from the Role Playing aspect of the game; it can be made to work if you commit significant resources to it but I question if it is worth expending the resources on.

The only thing I can think of anyway.

[alex90c]

Alozaps wrote...

Until Dragon Age 2 came along, I'm fairy certain that I had never played an RPG with a voiced PC; and I have played tons of RPGs. I used to question why PCs were silent.

However, after being witness to the voiced protagonist of DA2, I realize that silent protagonists add to my immersion. I can associate MY voice with these characters; I can associate any voice I want with the detailed dialogue that is provided. This is what I want my RPG experience to be like. Evidently, not everyone wants this same experience, so naturally there are always going to be people on both sides of the fence.

Is a voiced PC a deal-breaker for me? It depends. I just think that the time, effort and money associated with voicing PCs would be better spent on other aspects of the development process.  Let us see the brilliant detailed dialogue that the writers have put down on paper.

As long as it's a more defined character like Shepard, then I don't have so much of a problem with it. But when you get Hawke, not very defined, but defined enough to make it more challenging to roleplay the very character you want, I don't like a VO for them. What I love about DA:O, is that even now because of the lack of voice, I can start up a playthrough and just start imagining what this character's going to be like. Brave? Confident? Shy? Naive? Arrogant? At the moment I've got a character who's quite naive about the world around them, but as I go on in my playthrough that get more "hardened" to the events around them and go from "herpderp whuts a blight" to "we must defeat the blight this is srs business". Whereas with DA2, you're forced down "diplomatic", "sarcastic" or "aggressive", you're forced in to some rivalry with Carver, you're forced to like Bethany, forced to hate slavers, forced to hate blood mages and so forth.