337 réponses à ce sujet

[JasonPogo]

 I just don't get this new attiude that  main character must be voice acted.  In an RPG like DA i feel the main character has to be silent.  I mean we are makeing our own Hawke.  Yet when you voice them they are not ours anymore they are whatever the voice actor made them.  I don't know i guess i am just a butthurt oldschool gamer but I feel that the voiced protaganist has a place. Just not in these kinds of games.  A good game is more important then a cool markating image.

Modifié par JasonPogo, 28 février 2012 - 01:01 .

[Fast Jimmy]

EA believes that every man, woman and child can be a gamer, if they were given proper motivation.

While I am not opposed to this idea, they have taken the idea that games that sell well with hardcore gamer fans would obviously sell well with casual gamers, if they were just exposed or marketed towards the masses, like a summer blockbuster film.

Unfortunately, it has been shown by Nintendo and others that making complex game franchises simple does not attract casual gamers. Rather, games that are intuitive (don't use a complex, eight button controller, but rather a point-and-click interface), involve novel interaction between the game and player (such as the Wii or the Kinect) and have simple but fun and rewarding gameplay (such as party games or Wii Play) is the way to bring in this crowd.

"Casual gamers," for the most part, have no previous experience with video games and find even simple systems like what is seen with the Wii a little difficult to learn at times. I have had personal experience with this, seeing my 80+ year old grandmother have trouble navigating her Wii at first.

Point being, EA's idea that if you turn every IP into a summer blockbuster-esque type marketing job would equate to those who watch those movies would buy said game, if it was designed and marketed effectively, is a good one on paper, hence why every game now must have a voiced character that they can show in trailers. However, its about as logical as saying "Wow, lots of people love Fast and the Furious movies... those cars all are high-octane, manual transmission cars. That must mean people are going to start buying stick shift race cars in DROVES! Let's make race cars for every person who saw that movie in theaters!"

This example is ludicrous, because people are more interested in safe vehicles that offer low gas mileage (try and to find and buy a Prius that isn't out of stock right now and you'll see what I mean) than they are gas guzzling sports cars that are not practical to own and involve using a stick shift, which is becoming a lost art to most drivers.

That's what EA is trying to do - sell racecars to Prius owners. And they think they need a voiced PC for every game to do that.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Because it allows them to use more elaborate cinematics, which is what BioWare has always been angling for. I'm sure there's some sort of push by EA/BioWare to go for casual or console games (dialog wheel, very few word paraphrases) but the main factor is that silent dialog responses causes a disconnection and presents a hard limitation when it comes doing things with cinematics. The entire point of interactive cinematics is to "make it like a movie", with the characters playing the role of actors.

Unless the PC is Marcel Marceau, a silent protagonist doesn't exactly sit well with such a style.

When cinematic character interaction isn't an important aspect of the game, silent protagonist isn't such an issue (Skyrim or to use better examples, F:NV or Bloodlines).

Granted, I am of the opinion that cinematics as a tool to employ as the primary storytelling device (as opposed to using them sparingly to present certain plot points or themes) is a mixed proposition at best, since developers often feel like the cinematic interactions are enough to tell the story, promoting style over substance and quantity over quality. However, it's not an iron clad rule and not everyone agrees.

So YMMV.

Modifié par CrustyBot, 28 février 2012 - 01:46 .

[rammsoldat]

alot of what i disliked about DA2 was the lack of personal choice that you could make in the game there were far less options for what to say aswell. Not that it all mattered in the end.

[JasonPogo]

CrustyBot wrote...

Because it allows them to use more elaborate cinematics, which is what BioWare has always been angling for. I'm sure there's some sort of push by EA/BioWare to go for casual or console games (dialog wheel, very few word paraphrases) but the main factor is that silent dialog responses causes a disconnection and presents a hard limitation when it comes doing things with cinematics. The entire point of interactive cinematics is to "make it like a movie", with the characters playing the role of actors.

Unless the PC is Marcel Marceau, a silent protagonist doesn't exactly sit well with such a style.

When cinematic character interaction isn't an important aspect of the game, silent protagonist isn't such an issue (Skyrim or to use better examples, F:NV or Bloodlines).

Granted, I am of the opinion that cinematics as a tool to employ as the primary storytelling device (as opposed to using them sparingly to present certain plot points or themes) is a mixed proposition at best, since developers often feel like the cinematic interactions are enough to tell the story, promoting style over substance and quantity over quality. However, it's not an iron clad rule and not everyone agrees.


Please there was not one spot in the game where Hawke said something that could not have just been a cut back to the other person.  There was nothing more synamic about the conversations in DA2.  It was still just two people standing next to each other.  Having Hawke say a dif line then what i picked added very little IMO.
So YMMV.

[zyntifox]

CrustyBot wrote...

Because it allows them to use more elaborate cinematics, which is what BioWare has always been angling for. I'm sure there's some sort of push by EA/BioWare to go for casual or console games (dialog wheel, very few word paraphrases) but the main factor is that silent dialog responses causes a disconnection and presents a hard limitation when it comes doing things with cinematics. The entire point of interactive cinematics is to "make it like a movie", with the characters playing the role of actors.

Unless the PC is Marcel Marceau, a silent protagonist doesn't exactly sit well with such a style.

When cinematic character interaction isn't an important aspect of the game, silent protagonist isn't such an issue (Skyrim or to use better examples, F:NV or Bloodlines).

Granted, I am of the opinion that cinematics as a tool to employ as the primary storytelling device (as opposed to using them sparingly to present certain plot points or themes) is a mixed proposition at best, since developers often feel like the cinematic interactions are enough to tell the story, promoting style over substance and quantity over quality. However, it's not an iron clad rule and not everyone agrees.

So YMMV.

I agree. Except the last part "So YMMV", since i have no idea what that means .

[Meris]

YMMV stands for 'Your mileage may vary'

So yes, BioWare themselves said that they were going for a more cinematic look so the voiced protagonist is a natural change to that. Unfortunately that sacrifices roleplaying and personal storytelling, as far as I'm concerned.

[cephasjames]

CrustyBot wrote...

Because it allows them to use more elaborate cinematics, which is what BioWare has always been angling for. I'm sure there's some sort of push by EA/BioWare to go for casual or console games (dialog wheel, very few word paraphrases) but the main factor is that silent dialog responses causes a disconnection and presents a hard limitation when it comes doing things with cinematics. The entire point of interactive cinematics is to "make it like a movie", with the characters playing the role of actors.

Unless the PC is Marcel Marceau, a silent protagonist doesn't exactly sit well with such a style.

When cinematic character interaction isn't an important aspect of the game, silent protagonist isn't such an issue (Skyrim or to use better examples, F:NV or Bloodlines).

Granted, I am of the opinion that cinematics as a tool to employ as the primary storytelling device (as opposed to using them sparingly to present certain plot points or themes) is a mixed proposition at best, since developers often feel like the cinematic interactions are enough to tell the story, promoting style over substance and quantity over quality. However, it's not an iron clad rule and not everyone agrees.

So YMMV.

This. And specifically the bold. I think there is a balance between so much cinematics that it takes away from the gameplay and so little that it takes away from the storytelling. But as for the OP, cinematics, with the protagonist involved, don't look as good, imo, when the protagonist is silent. I'm fine with the silent portagonist in Kingdoms of Amalur, but I think it'd be much better if she/he spoke.

[zyntifox]

Meris wrote...

YMMV stands for 'Your mileage may vary'

So yes, BioWare themselves said that they were going for a more cinematic look so the voiced protagonist is a natural change to that. Unfortunately that sacrifices roleplaying and personal storytelling, as far as I'm concerned.

Ah thanks for clarifying that. Hmm, have BioWare really said that they want to go for the more cinematic approach for the series?

[Yrkoon]

Cstaf wrote...
 Hmm, have BioWare really said that they want to go for the more cinematic approach for the series?

Yep.   They did.       They really wanna make movies/cartoons, instead of games.  But they can't come out and just say that, since  the products they're cinematizing  are supposed to be... you know....Games.  Not Movies.

[Meris]

Yrkoon wrote...

Cstaf wrote...
 Hmm, have BioWare really said that they want to go for the more cinematic approach for the series?

Yep.   They did.       They really wanna make movies/cartoons, instead of games.  But they can't come out and just say that, since  the products they're cinematizing  are supposed to be... you know....Games.  Not Movies.

They are still not on Square enix level.

More cinematics doesn't equal less interactivity, how you apply those cinematics, however, do.

Modifié par Meris, 28 février 2012 - 04:09 .

[John Epler]

Yrkoon wrote...

Cstaf wrote...
 Hmm, have BioWare really said that they want to go for the more cinematic approach for the series?

Yep.   They did.       They really wanna make movies/cartoons, instead of games.  But they can't come out and just say that, since  the products they're cinematizing  are supposed to be... you know....Games.  Not Movies.

Yes, that's exactly it. Not that we're looking at how another highly visual medium, films, tell stories and trying to adapt some of their techniques to gaming, as they've been developed over a century and have a lot to say about using visuals to convey emotion, tone, that sort of thing. Nope, it's because we want to make movies and cartoons. Congratulations, you've cracked the code.

As to the OP - I don't think silent protagonist is a bad word at all. Bethesda still has a silent protagonist, and, of course, there's the Half-Life series. It's just not a direction we're choosing to go with our own games. Could that change? Maybe, although I think you're more likely to see a refinement of our voiced protagonist and the systems surrounding that, rather than a return to a silent protagonist. But it's certainly not something I'd argue has to be in every game - we just feel that it fits with our goals in terms of how we want to use the gaming medium to tell stories.

[Mr Fixit]

There is an old theory on RPG players that categorizes them in different groups depending on the experience they want the most from role-playing games. I will summarise those groups using a very interesting book by Robin Laws as a blueprint :

* storytellers are interested in seeing where the story goes. They primarily want a fun narrative that feels like a book or a movie, moreso than strictly identifying with a character. They are quick to compromise if it moves the story forward.

* roleplayers identify strongly with the character he or she plays. He may believe it's important to establish a different character each time. He bases his decisions on his understanding of his character's psychology.

*powergamer wants to make his character bigger, tougher and richer. However success is defined by the rules system you're using, he wants more of it. He tends to see his PC as an abstraction, a collection of powers optimized for the acquisition of even more powers

According to Robin, there are additional groups, but I'll disregard them here. How does this pertain to the discussion of silent vs voiced protagonist? Well, I think there is no right or wrong answer, nor can you really convince people on the opposite side of RP spectrum in the "truth" of your position.

My theory is: roleplayers probably favor silent protagonists because it allows them to roleplay their character more fully, without interference form Bioware's vision what their character should sound like. Storytellers lean more to the voiced side, beacuse of the cinematic qualities the voice gives. Powergamers probably don't care as long as there's enough things to smash and rules to exploit.

Modifié par Mr Fixit, 28 février 2012 - 04:19 .

[Wulfram]

JohnEpler wrote...

Yes, that's exactly it. Not that we're looking at how another highly visual medium, films, tell stories and trying to adapt some of their techniques to gaming, as they've been developed over a century and have a lot to say about using visuals to convey emotion, tone, that sort of thing. Nope, it's because we want to make movies and cartoons. Congratulations, you've cracked the code.

Well, when every move you make seems to be designed to cut that pesky player out of the equation, that seems distinctly accurate..

I mean, what's the main innovation in the DLCs?  Having Hawke rabbit on without any reference to the player at all, apparently.

[AydinPaladin]

If you want to make movies, just make movies.
Honestly,at this point I think that's what Square should do because they clearly don't want to make games anymore. Their cinematic work is beautiful though. Deus Ex HR looked amazing.

The silent protagonist allows the player to role play, hence role playing game. A silent protagonist can be as wise or deep or silly or cynical or angry as the player desires. They are allowed to use their imagination, something that is quickly dying in this day and age, to supplant their view of the characters personality into the game itself.
This creates more immersion and allows for a dynamic experience for the player.

If BioWare's new primary interest is in making "cinematic experiences" then they should make cartoons and movies. They're fast entering Square Enix territory.

[Apollo Starflare]

Judging by these boards asking "Why is 'voiced protagonist' a bad word these days" may have been more accurate.

At the end of the day, YMMV. Both bring different things to the table, both take other things away, both are equally relevant approaches to RPG protagonists.

Edit: A silent protagonist really doesn't do the whole 'wise, silly, cocky, nastyman - your choice!' thing half as well as some people claim either. A huge percentage of the dialogue, and the NPCs voiced replies, still tell the player it was spoken in a certain way. It can result in your picking a dialogue option thinking your character would say it in a hilariously dry and witty way, only for everyone to react as if you had said it in a completely different way. It's a similar problem to the confusions with certain paraphrases actually.

Modifié par Apollo Starflare, 28 février 2012 - 04:31 .

[esper]

AydinPaladin wrote...

If you want to make movies, just make movies.
Honestly,at this point I think that's what Square should do because they clearly don't want to make games anymore. Their cinematic work is beautiful though. Deus Ex HR looked amazing.

The silent protagonist allows the player to role play, hence role playing game. A silent protagonist can be as wise or deep or silly or cynical or angry as the player desires. They are allowed to use their imagination, something that is quickly dying in this day and age, to supplant their view of the characters personality into the game itself.
This creates more immersion and allows for a dynamic experience for the player.

If BioWare's new primary interest is in making "cinematic experiences" then they should make cartoons and movies. They're fast entering Square Enix territory.

I am using my imagination more with Hawke than I was with the warden. Why, simply because hawke was at the same emotional level as the rest of the world and then felt real. The warden felt like a cheap piece of avatar and I never felt like roleplaying her. I roleplay mý Hawkes, my wardens not so much.

If the protagonist is silent the rest of the world has to be so too or it feels like the protagonist is not a part of the world.

[zyntifox]

JohnEpler wrote...

Yrkoon wrote...

Cstaf wrote...
 Hmm, have BioWare really said that they want to go for the more cinematic approach for the series?

Yep.   They did.       They really wanna make movies/cartoons, instead of games.  But they can't come out and just say that, since  the products they're cinematizing  are supposed to be... you know....Games.  Not Movies.

Yes, that's exactly it. Not that we're looking at how another highly visual medium, films, tell stories and trying to adapt some of their techniques to gaming, as they've been developed over a century and have a lot to say about using visuals to convey emotion, tone, that sort of thing. Nope, it's because we want to make movies and cartoons. Congratulations, you've cracked the code.

As to the OP - I don't think silent protagonist is a bad word at all. Bethesda still has a silent protagonist, and, of course, there's the Half-Life series. It's just not a direction we're choosing to go with our own games. Could that change? Maybe, although I think you're more likely to see a refinement of our voiced protagonist and the systems surrounding that, rather than a return to a silent protagonist. But it's certainly not something I'd argue has to be in every game - we just feel that it fits with our goals in terms of how we want to use the gaming medium to tell stories.

Now im depressed.. I just can't imagine being able to create a good cRPG (not even BioWare) with all the limitations a voiced protagonist brings. For me the most exciting part of playing an cRPG is to create a character which is a reflection of your own imagination. This was impossible in DA2 (just my opinion) since the voice that my customized character was forced to have really did not fit. So i ended up playing the pre-made toon and i quickly got tired of the game because it felt like i was just playing some guy in an adventure instead of being apart of the adventure.

[Meris]

Mr Fixit wrote...

Storytellers lean more to the voiced side, beacuse of the cinematic qualities the voice gives.

As someone who's a little bit power story and role gamer, that sounds like a generalization. Silence and Voice condition different types of storytelling, so if there is really a turf of 'story mongers' then they should be split evenly between silence and voice, much like the bsn itself seems to be.

JohnEpler wrote...
Could that change?

Please do. I'd like to play my character.

Modifié par Meris, 28 février 2012 - 04:33 .

[Yrkoon]

JohnEpler wrote...

Yes, that's exactly it. Not that we're looking at how another highly visual medium, films, tell stories and trying to adapt some of their techniques to gaming, as they've been developed over a century and have a lot to say about using visuals to convey emotion, tone, that sort of thing. Nope, it's because we want to make movies and cartoons. Congratulations, you've cracked the code.

There's a Huge difference between merging cinema techniques to games and.... interrupting the player's gameplay every 3 minutes to give them a cutscene.


My only gripe is that you guys are taking these  techniques  a little too far,  to the point that they begin to infringe upon  gameplay,  instead of enriching it.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 28 février 2012 - 04:45 .

[zyntifox]

Mr Fixit wrote...

There is an old theory on RPG players that categorizes them in different groups depending on the experience they want the most from role-playing games. I will summarise those groups using a very interesting book by Robin Laws as a blueprint :

* storytellers are interested in seeing where the story goes. They primarily want a fun narrative that feels like a book or a movie, moreso than strictly identifying with a character. They are quick to compromise if it moves the story forward.

* roleplayers identify strongly with the character he or she plays. He may believe it's important to establish a different character each time. He bases his decisions on his understanding of his character's psychology.

*powergamer wants to make his character bigger, tougher and richer. However success is defined by the rules system you're using, he wants more of it. He tends to see his PC as an abstraction, a collection of powers optimized for the acquisition of even more powers

According to Robin, there are additional groups, but I'll disregard them here. How does this pertain to the discussion of silent vs voiced protagonist? Well, I think there is no right or wrong answer, nor can you really convince people on the opposite side of RP spectrum in the "truth" of your position.

My theory is: roleplayers probably favor silent protagonists because it allows them to roleplay their character more fully, without interference form Bioware's vision what their character should sound like. Storytellers lean more to the voiced side, beacuse of the cinematic qualities the voice gives. Powergamers probably don't care as long as there's enough things to smash and rules to exploit.

Very nice post. I am definitely in the "roleplayers" group. But that might just be the 15 year old younger D&D nerd self talking. :happy:

Edit: Make that 20 year old younger self.. Damn im old....

Modifié par Cstaf, 28 février 2012 - 04:37 .

[Meris]

Cstaf wrote...

Very nice post. I am definitely in the "roleplayers" group. But that might just be the 15 year old younger D&D nerd self talking. :happy:

Edit: Make that 20 year old younger self.. Damn im old....

If the cool kid is talking, then you got to listen.

[Mr Fixit]

Meris wrote...

Mr Fixit wrote...

Storytellers lean more to the voiced side, beacuse of the cinematic qualities the voice gives.

As someone who's a little bit power story and role gamer, that sounds like a generalization. Silence and Voice condition different types of storytelling, so if there is really a turf of 'story mongers' then they should be split evenly between silence and voice, much like the bsn itself seems to be.

Of course it's a generalisation I was just trying to say that there are players who approach role-playing from vastly different perspectives and have very different expectations. Therefore, silent or voices...well, the answer is there is no answer.

[Mr Fixit]

Cstaf wrote...

Mr Fixit wrote...

There is an old theory on RPG players that categorizes them in different groups depending on the experience they want the most from role-playing games. I will summarise those groups using a very interesting book by Robin Laws as a blueprint :

* storytellers are interested in seeing where the story goes. They primarily want a fun narrative that feels like a book or a movie, moreso than strictly identifying with a character. They are quick to compromise if it moves the story forward.

* roleplayers identify strongly with the character he or she plays. He may believe it's important to establish a different character each time. He bases his decisions on his understanding of his character's psychology.

*powergamer wants to make his character bigger, tougher and richer. However success is defined by the rules system you're using, he wants more of it. He tends to see his PC as an abstraction, a collection of powers optimized for the acquisition of even more powers

According to Robin, there are additional groups, but I'll disregard them here. How does this pertain to the discussion of silent vs voiced protagonist? Well, I think there is no right or wrong answer, nor can you really convince people on the opposite side of RP spectrum in the "truth" of your position.

My theory is: roleplayers probably favor silent protagonists because it allows them to roleplay their character more fully, without interference form Bioware's vision what their character should sound like. Storytellers lean more to the voiced side, beacuse of the cinematic qualities the voice gives. Powergamers probably don't care as long as there's enough things to smash and rules to exploit.

Very nice post. I am definitely in the "roleplayers" group. But that might just be the 15 year old younger D&D nerd self talking. :happy:

Edit: Make that 20 year old younger self.. Damn im old....

Second edition oldschooler then? Me too.

[John Epler]

Yrkoon wrote...

JohnEpler wrote...

Yes, that's exactly it. Not that we're looking at how another highly visual medium, films, tell stories and trying to adapt some of their techniques to gaming, as they've been developed over a century and have a lot to say about using visuals to convey emotion, tone, that sort of thing. Nope, it's because we want to make movies and cartoons. Congratulations, you've cracked the code.

Right.  Sarcasm.  Got it.    

There's a Huge difference between merging cinema techniques to games and.... interrupting the player's gameplay every 3 minutes to give them a cutscene.

When you loftily proclaim that we don't want to make games because of a particular stylistic and presentation choice we've made, well, I get a little sarcastic. It's a character flaw.

As to the rest - I don't think we've ever interrupted the game every three minutes to give a cutscene. Although I'd argue that, if we did, that isn't a problem inherent to the silent protagonist versus voiced protagonist. Hell, if we wanted to, we could just as easily do it with a silent protagonist as with a voiced one.

What a voiced protagonist gives us, otoh, is the ability to set pace and tone. It, in its best form (and I'll willingly admit that we weren't able to pull this off nearly as well as we would've liked in DA2), gives us conversations that look and feel natural. DA2 made some steps towards this, but we didn't really have the engine support necessary to handle a lot of what makes a conversation feel 'real'. Characters were limited as to where they could go, what they could do, how they could interact. This is a technical problem, and one we're working on.

Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with a silent protagonist. A game like Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines wouldn't have been the same experience with a voiced protagonist. Could it have worked? Sure, but I think it wouldn't have been the same game. On the other hand, I can't imagine a game like Alpha Protocol with a silent protagonist. Each offers its own advantages and disadvantages. Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses, and I think you can argue for one or the other.

Modifié par JohnEpler, 28 février 2012 - 04:46 .