55 réponses à ce sujet

[ninnisinni97]

I think this comes down to the rather modern idea that every game has to be as "cinematic" as possible. And when the developers try to make their games as much like interactive movies as possible, they naturally sacrifice the silent protagonist.
I think this works really well in Mass Effect, because that series was always marketed as a more "casual" RPG, but  DA on the other hand was marketed as a return to more "hardcore" RPGs. This is why it, IMO, feels rather weird to have the whole voiced protagonist-idea shoved up my face in the sequel.

[Cyberstrike nTo]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

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.

This isn't the first time i suggested this.

Frankly I perfer a voiced protaganist in a voiced world it is IMHO more immersive. A silent protagianst in a voice world leaves me detatched from the world and hurts the immersion for me and IMHO it looks stupid having an NPC one-sided conversation with the PC.  I don't connect to my PCs in Dragon Age: Origins, Oblivion, and Skyrim like I do to Shepard and Hawke. Now before you say: "you can imagine the voice or use your own" I am a man but I perfer to play as a female characters and I can't do a female voice to save my life and I suck at doing accents. I have a very good immgation but I can't imagine a female voice that I like and believe me I have tried. Now with Jennifer Hale and Jo Wyatt I can imagine what they would say if I'm thinking up my own stories, Doing that with the Grey Warden, for me, is next to impossible because s/he is an emotionless mute to me.

However I might (and the keyword here is: MIGHT) be able to accept a plot-based reason for the PC to be silent in a voiced world depending on how it's done and how the PC communticates with party members and NPCs.

Modifié par Cyberstrike nTo, 04 janvier 2012 - 10:46 .

[SkittlesKat96]

Skyrim probably isn't the best example for a mainstream/AAA game with a silent protagonist, cause Skyrim and other Bethesda games have other benefits (mostly its casual/accessibleness) that give it a massive playerbase, whereas Bioware games are more linear and harder to get into (but that has its own benefits.)

Also what Zanallen said on the first page.

Not at all saying they shouldn't bring back a silent protagonist and that Bioware games can't do as successful without a voiced protagonist though.

Still though I think Bioware may be right that having a voiced protagonist will let them tell their stories better and that it won't estrict role playing, I think they have just had trouble showing that and DA 2 wasn't the best start

[maxernst]

ninnisinni97 wrote...

I think this comes down to the rather modern idea that every game has to be as "cinematic" as possible.

Amen.  I hate the rush to be cinematic.  Although it bugs me that this is seen as being terribly modern, as there was a great rush to cut scene-heavy games in the mid-90's.  It's hardly innovative.  I want to be immersed in another world when I play an RPG and even at their worst, the Bethesda games are more immersive than any movie.  I've never had a movie make me feel like I was in it.  The closest would probably be some films where they use camera tricks to make you feel like you're seeing the world through the character's eyes (Darren Arenofsky is especially fond of these), but I can't say I've ever had that "I'm there" feeling from a film.  Although it isn't just the voiced character but also the change from the typical DA:O style dialogue scene (fixed camera from behind the PC so you don't see the Warden's face), to dialogue scenes that often have multiple camera viewpoints.  They may be more interesting to watch, but they're completely immersion-breaking.

[nightscrawl]

Plaintiff wrote...

They may genuinely feel that a silent protagonist allows them to interpret the dialogue in their own way, but this is false, because authorial intent will come through in the way other characters respond.

I think this is only partly true. The reason for this is that we can see this working in DA2 with our male and female Hawke actors. For the most part, they say things in a similar way. They are saying the exact same words certainly. And of course, the constant remains that the person he or she is talking to will always respond in exactly the same way, no matter which Hawke you're playing with.

However, there are occasions where the inflection, or emphasis on a certain word will be different between the actors. It tends to have the feeling of altering the conversation a bit, but only a very small amount. I only even notice because I've played DA2 so many times initially as femHawke, so when I heard the same lines from manHawke sometimes said with a different word emphasis, the difference was noticeable immediately.

So, there is something to be said for the way in which words are read. Sometimes it matches with the way a player thinks, and sometimes not.

I do love the voiced PC though... I'm rather spoiled by it now, and playing DAO again takes a bit getting used to.

Modifié par nightscrawl, 06 janvier 2012 - 07:54 .

[jlb524]

nightscrawl wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

They may genuinely feel that a silent protagonist allows them to interpret the dialogue in their own way, but this is false, because authorial intent will come through in the way other characters respond.

I think this is only partly true. The reason for this is that we can see this working in DA2 with our male and female Hawke actors. For the most part, they say things in a similar way. They are saying the exact same words certainly. And of course, the constant remains that the person he or she is talking to will always respond in exactly the same way, no matter which Hawke you're playing with.

However, there are occasions where the inflection, or emphasis on a certain word will be different between the actors. It tends to have the feeling of altering the conversation a bit, but only a very small amount. I only even notice because I've played DA2 so many times initially as femHawke, so when I heard the same lines from manHawke sometimes said with a different word emphasis, the difference was noticeable immediately.

So, there is something to be said for the way in which words are read. Sometimes it matches with the way a player thinks, and sometimes not.

I do love the voiced PC though... I'm rather spoiled by it now, and playing DAO again takes a bit getting used to.

The character you are talking to still responds in a certain way regardless of how the different VA says the line and regardless if the line is voiced at all.

Thus, you cannot escape the intent of the author in both cases because of the way the character you are speaking to reacts in a specific way to whatever dialog option you clicked.

The PC's line and intent (if it's voiced, unvoiced) will always be at the mercy of how the NPC is coded to interpret it.

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.

I agree with this.

If they want to make a more 'cinematic movie like game' then I don't want the protagonist (the most important character in the story) standing there blank faced like a mute.  That ruins immersion for me a bit.

If they want the game to feel like 'reading a book' then cut out VA for everyone (it's easier to include more dialog that way since it doesn't have to be voiced).

I prefer the 'reading a book' method myself (I like to read and more dialog = win), but I know that's not the direction that they are going it and I'm fine with that as long as if they go for it all to be cinematic then have the protagonist voiced.

Modifié par jlb524, 06 janvier 2012 - 08:19 .