337 réponses à ce sujet

[Meris]

Mr Fixit wrote...

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.

In general I agree, there's no answer. Just as there's no best genre or even a best RPG type.

But I'd argue that of the differences between Origins/Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age II, how the protagonist is delievered is the biggest one. Unlike with combat, you can't really please both sides with a middle term so its up to BioWare to make a choice: In this respect Dragon Age III will be a sequel to either Origins or Dragon Age II. And it looks like Dragon Age II it is.

Though there's the third option of a toggle, I believe the voice would still be there, putting a strain in development and most likely removing race selection and other stuff.

Modifié par Meris, 28 février 2012 - 04:47 .

[AydinPaladin]

esper wrote...

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.

I disagree, but if that was your experience, then I can't argue with that.
That is an unusual response though. People are generally able to identify with the nonvoiced avatar better. This is known in social psychology as proteus theory or to a lesser extent social presence theory. I study this effect and am in the process of publishing a paper on proteus theory with avatars in computer mediated communication and online roleplaying. 
Obviously it is YMMV to some extent, but social psychological research backs up the avatar as being a more relatable medium for acclimation to a deindividuated virtual enviroment. 

[grregg]

JasonPogo wrote...

 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.

Well... I can only say after playing several games with a voiced protagonist, I'm having hard time going back to a silent one. For example, Fallout New Vegas is sitting on my shelf and I can't bring myself to play it.

[nightscrawl]

JasonPogo wrote...

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.

Since I am bored out of my skull waiting for some new Dragon Age content (a new bi-weekly comic isn't going to satisfy me), I decided to do a full run of DAO for a fresh import into DA2. All choices carefully planned out, all companions recruited with personal quests complete, with additional GoA and WH saves for the full four-part story line.

I have to say that after ~83 hours of gameplay, I miss the voiced PC from DA2. I like seeing my character have full interaction in the conversation. I noticed that in DAO conversations are mostly done from a first person perspective, with the camera looking over the shoulder of the PC at the individual I am speaking to. While this does lend itself to a more RP style of play, you also have the listener standing there like an idiot waiting for you to pick a response because the camera never moves. However, while this does facilitate RP, it is contrary to the style of the rest of the game which does not take place in first person. I found that I disliked both a first and third person PoV in a single game. DA2 at least, is consistent with that aspect.

As I see it, the major drawback to a voiced PC is that it's very hit-or-miss with the chosen actors. Unless they are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars more on actors and time investment on multiple actors for each gender (and possibly race), we are stuck with the same male and female no matter what we want to do with our character RP wise. I happen to like both the male and female Hawke actors, having played with Jo several times and Nicholas a couple I'm very used to them, their inflection, and general tone of voice. I also felt that I was still able to RP with these actors. That said, I can see a real problem for people who do not like these actors, and no matter how much they listen to them cannot feel any attachment to Hawke whatsoever because of the voice coming out of his or her mouth.

I don't really know what the solution is, other than to allow a toggle when hearing the voice. Unfortunately, you will still have the animation of seeing the person's mouth move, which is what we didn't have in DAO with the first person PoV. It's been said that the voiced PC is here to stay, so it's likely that the camera work and such will be designed with that in mind as well.

Modifié par nightscrawl, 28 février 2012 - 09:29 .

[MerinTB]

JohnEpler wrote...
On the other hand, I can't imagine a game like Alpha Protocol with a silent protagonist. Each offers its own advantages and disadvantages.

Yeah I ....

er....

I'm sure I would have still....

uhm....

alright, Thorton would lose some charm.  If he was still Thorton, that is.

But, yes, for Alpha Protocol, the voiced protagonist worked for me.

It's the one time I can't say definitively that I would have preferred no voice.

Any other RPG?  Even BioWare ones?  Yes, no voice please.

dang Alpha Protocol, always coming in and messing my stuff up

[Mr Fixit]

AydinPaladin wrote...

I disagree, but if that was your experience, then I can't argue with that.
That is an unusual response though. People are generally able to identify with the nonvoiced avatar better. This is known in social psychology as proteus theory or to a lesser extent social presence theory. I study this effect and am in the process of publishing a paper on proteus theory with avatars in computer mediated communication and online roleplaying. 
Obviously it is YMMV to some extent, but social psychological research backs up the avatar as being a more relatable medium for acclimation to a deindividuated virtual enviroment. 

As Phillipe Willaume would no doubt say: "Tres interessant".

Could you please elaborate on that. What specifically is the root cause of it?

Modifié par Mr Fixit, 28 février 2012 - 04:53 .

[Meris]

esper wrote...

I am using my imagination more with Hawke than I was with the warden.

I won't argue with that.

But I'm 100% sure that you aren't using more imagination with your Hawke than I did with my Warden.

And I'm not saying that I'm the best roleplayer, that would be pretentious of me and extremely arguable. I'm saying that because of simple and practical reasons.

You don't get to define the voice.
You don't get to define the accent or add any nuances to the delievery of lines.
You don't get to choose a race with different roles and backgrounds in the setting (because BioWare isn't hiring 10 different actors for a single character).
Think about every moment you chose a line and Hawke said something with similar meaning but differently, I get to define what that is, you don't.
For that matter, you didn't even get to see what Hawke was going to say, I knew what I was going to say all along.
Every line your Hawke says is said for reasons the writting team at BioWare made, after all your Hawke is truly theirs. There's not a shred of ambiguity or freedom in the name of roleplaying.
Your Hawke had to be foreseen by BioWare, my Warden never was.
You don't get a tenth of the liberty I've got.

On the other hand, your graphical experience with Hawke is better than mine with the Warden. So I guess we all get something. Wouldn't say so myself though.

Modifié par Meris, 28 février 2012 - 04:57 .

[Wulfram]

JohnEpler wrote...

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.

Why do you want to set the tone?  Why take that away from the player?

And how can the conversation feel natural when you're constantly fighting the game to get your character not to act totally out of character?

[zyntifox]

JohnEpler wrote...

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.

That's the difference between me and you (or BioWare), you focus on the upside of having a voiced protagonist such as a more cinematic feel, and don't get me wrong it certainly does bring that. But as an RPG-enthusiast i focus on the downside of what a voiced protagonist brings in terms of roleplayability.

(English is not my native language by the way so sorry for the poor grammar)

[AbsoluteApril]

AydinPaladin wrote...

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. 

You said it so much better than I could have.

I felt much more connected to my Wardens, Hawke felt like I was playing someone else's character.  Partly due to being voiced and partly due to the dialogue wheel/emotion icon responses. I preferred DA:Os system for my RPG experience. The wheel and voice work better in RPG/FPS hybrid like ME (all my opinion of course - console player if it matters).

Modifié par AbsoluteApril, 28 février 2012 - 05:00 .

[Cutlasskiwi]

esper wrote...

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.

This is how I feel too. I have nothing against a silent protagonist but if the rest of the characters are voiced then I want the PC to be voiced too. At least in story and character focused games like BioWare games.


Also agree with what Apollo Starflare wrote.  

[John Epler]

Wulfram wrote...

JohnEpler wrote...

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.

Why do you want to set the tone?  Why take that away from the player?

And how can the conversation feel natural when you're constantly fighting the game to get your character not to act totally out of character?

As to your first point, we've always set the tone. Unless you're building an entirely player-driven, emergent narrative, we are, at some point, setting the tone. I'm not really talking about the tone of the player's dialogue, by the way - it would work just as well if we had the player silently mouthing their lines but never speaking. It comes down to how conversations have 'beats', and you can use those natural beats to change the tone of the story.

As to the second, well, I hate to use the line, but that's a matter of opinion. We seem to have at least as many fans who don't feel that they're fighting the conversation, who prefer the cinematic approach and feel that it is, overall, more natural. I'm not arguing that, for some people, a silent protagonist really is the only way they can feel in control of the conversation. What I will argue, however, is that it's a universal truth.

[Xilizhra]

You don't get to define the voice.

With you having like six scripted options to choose from? I'm not sure how advantageous that is.

You don't get to define the accent or add any nuances to the delievery of lines.

Nor do you. Every race has a set accent, and every line has a set nuance that the other character will respond to.

You don't get to choose a race with different roles and backgrounds in the setting (because BioWare isn't hiring 10 different actors for a single character).

Entirely given to you in the intro stories and has nothing to do with imagination.

Think about every moment you chose a line and Hawke said something with similar meaning but differently, I get to define what that is, you don't.

Absolutely never. I don't really know why other people have a problem with this. And your lines are just as scripted.

For that matter, you didn't even get to see what Hawke was going to say, I knew what I was going to say all along.

Multiple playthroughs are glorious. And what does this have to do with imagination in any case?

Your Hawke had to be foreseen by BioWare, my Warden never was.

Yes, and your Warden has so many variables that nothing will ever become of them in any future games, nor could there be. Probably Hawke will get dumped too, but it's a guarantee with the Warden. Not to mention that your Warden's actions had to be foreseen in any case.

You don't get a tenth of the liberty I've got.

I look at your liberty and see moving around a silent camera that can fight and spits out ticker-tape for responses. I see complete non-immersive, verisimilitude-destroying, unidentifiable crap, basically. So kindly don't cast aspersions on the imaginative capabilities of Hawke as compared to the Warden; it's less limited than you believe.

[AydinPaladin]

I think it works okay if the character says exactly what is written and available for the player to view. Deus Ex has always had amazing dialogue and I identified withe Jensen in HR 100%. I could not imagine that game, or the original, without a voiced protagonist.

It also depends on the extent to which a game is a role playing game. DA:O was clearly a roleplaying game. Having a voiced PC would not allow for most people to create a unique avatar for themselves. This is the same case in Bethesda RPGs. You would not have Fallout or the Elderscrolls with a voiced PC, or at least, I could not imagine such a game. This is not because they are cheap or lazy, it's because it vastly limits the options available to the player.

My character in my current play through of FO:NV is a reserved tribal who doesn't know how to use guns because of her simple, earthy background. In my first Skyrim run I was a Bosmer spy sent to Skyrim by the Aldmeri, only to change sides after falling in love with the country.
In DA:O I was (and have been actually in the like 5 full playthroughs Ive done) an intelligent but quiet and somewhat naive Daelish.

All these attributes, these backgrounds and adjectives, these are all thing I can tell you about my characters yet none of them were dictated me by the game itself. I created these characters using my imagination, not taking what is provided and adjusting it to relate to myself.
The silent protag allows you to totally create a character.

That doesn't mean the voiced protag is bad. Like I said, I just finished HR last night and it blew me away with how immersed I was.
The Silent PC just has a level of imagination and creativity that the voiced one can never posses.

[Wulfram]

Well, when you're talking to someone do you

1. Get possessed by a demonic entity which forces you to say something jerkish because you've said something jerkish to other people
2. Listen to their reply
3. Decide what to say
4. Listen to yourself say something totally different

Or do you

1. Listen to something people say
2. Say something as you think it.

edit: I'm probably a bit sensitive about this stuff lately because I've been playing the ME3 demo, which really might as well be a movie as far as the dialogue goes.

Modifié par Wulfram, 28 février 2012 - 05:09 .

[Xilizhra]

It also depends on the extent to which a game is a role playing game. DA:O was clearly a roleplaying game. Having a voiced PC would not allow for most people to create a unique avatar for themselves. This is the same case in Bethesda RPGs. You would not have Fallout or the Elderscrolls with a voiced PC, or at least, I could not imagine such a game. This is not because they are cheap or lazy, it's because it vastly limits the options available to the player.

But this is impossible. Uniqueness is an illusion. There's no such thing as a character who's truly your own because you have to take what the game gives you, regardless of how much there is. Not to mention the fact that Hawke's background is vague enough that you can put a lot in there.

All these attributes, these backgrounds and adjectives, these are all thing I can tell you about my characters yet none of them were dictated me by the game itself.

No they weren't. You're still choosing from a range of possible options, just a (I would argue illusively) wider one. There are many things you can't be, because ultimately a video game's strengths can never lie in creating a fully customizable character or options. I wanted to use Soldier's Peak as a secret lab to create new blood magic techniques to use against darkspawn and suchlike, but was I allowed to? No.

The Silent PC just has a level of imagination and creativity that the voiced one can never posses.

I strenuously disagree. Imagination and creativity are up to the player.

Well, when you're talking to someone do you

1. Get possessed by a demonic entity which forces you to say something jerkish because you've said something jerkish to other people
2. Listen to their reply
3. Decide what to say
4. Listen to yourself say something totally different

Or do you

1. Listen to something people say
2. Say something as you think it.

Step one: play the game more than once. Step two: console command if it's still so wholly necessary.

Modifié par Xilizhra, 28 février 2012 - 05:11 .

[Meris]

Xilizhra wrote...

You don't get to define the voice.

With you having like six scripted options to choose from? I'm not sure how advantageous that is.
No idea what you're talking about. Never seen my character speaking on a set voice during conversations. Though if you must include this tidbits of in-combat lines, then I still have 3 choices per race, three times more than a Hawke of a given sex ever did if you limit yourself to a race.

You don't get to define the accent or add any nuances to the delievery of lines.

Nor do you. Every race has a set accent, and every line has a set nuance that the other character will respond to.
That's up to the player to decide.

You don't get to choose a race with different roles and backgrounds in the setting (because BioWare isn't hiring 10 different actors for a single character).

Entirely given to you in the intro stories and has nothing to do with imagination.
That's nothing to do with imagination, at least directly. I'm mostly sure that BioWare isn't going to hire a different voice actor for every race and sex so there can be origin stories. With less races, you've got a more limited story and, on top of that, a limited spectrum of interpretations of the story.

Think about every moment you chose a line and Hawke said something with similar meaning but differently, I get to define what that is, you don't.

Absolutely never. I don't really know why other people have a problem with this. And your lines are just as scripted.
You're saying that Hawke absolutely never said anything that wasn't written in the wheel?

For that matter, you didn't even get to see what Hawke was going to say, I knew what I was going to say all along.

Multiple playthroughs are glorious. And what does this have to do with imagination in any case?
Again, nothing to do with imagination, at least directly. The character was never truly yours because you didn't pick the line, you just thought the situation required you to be a nice guy and someone else spoke an unknown line. While I got to read a line, understand its content and, through co authorship add my touch, my interpretation of the character on the delieverance, all you picked was a tone icon and BioWare's Hawke spoke.

Your Hawke had to be foreseen by BioWare, my Warden never was.

Yes, and your Warden has so many variables that nothing will ever become of them in any future games, nor could there be. Probably Hawke will get dumped too, but it's a guarantee with the Warden. Not to mention that your Warden's actions had to be foreseen in any case.
A same historical fact can have a number of interpretations. My Wardens actions were foreseen, my take in his story, something that BioWare asked of us in early Origins market if I remember right, wasn't.

You don't get a tenth of the liberty I've got.

I look at your liberty and see moving around a silent camera that can fight and spits out ticker-tape for responses. I see complete non-immersive, verisimilitude-destroying, unidentifiable crap, basically. So kindly don't cast aspersions on the imaginative capabilities of Hawke as compared to the Warden; it's less limited than you believe.
You mean which Hawke purple or red? Blue is kind of bland sometimes.

Modifié par Meris, 28 février 2012 - 05:15 .

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

JohnEpler wrote...

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.

With all due respect Mr. Epler, what a voice protagonist gives you guys is a out to shoehorn one set outcome regardless of player choice. Anders being a prime example in DA2 where regardless if you warn the templars or not, the same outcome happens. Same thing siding with the templars or mages, it doesn't matter because the game plays out the exact same way.

It used to be Bioware titles at least gave an illusion of your choices actually mattering, this is no longer the case and the voiced protagonist makes this even more a narrow situation imo at least.

[Wulfram]

Basic example of what Voiced protagonist takes away.  Hawke has to be a totally confident super-badass from the start.  The voice acting forces it.  There's no room for them to have some character developement, to grow into their heroic status, because they're set from the start.

Xilizhra wrote...

Step one: play the game more than once. Step two: console command if it's still so wholly necessary.

The first playthrough is the most important.  And messing around with console commands is hardly natural.

Modifié par Wulfram, 28 février 2012 - 05:17 .

[esper]

Meris wrote...

esper wrote...

I am using my imagination more with Hawke than I was with the warden.

I won't argue with that.

But I'm 100% sure that you aren't using more imagination with your Hawke than I did with my Warden.

And I'm not saying that I'm the best roleplayer, that would be pretentious of me and extremely arguable. I'm saying that because of simple and practical reasons.

You don't get to define the voice.
You don't get to define the accent or add any nuances to the delievery of lines.
You don't get to choose a race with different roles and backgrounds in the setting (because BioWare isn't hiring 10 different actors for a single character).
Think about every moment you chose a line and Hawke said something with similar meaning but differently, I get to define what that is, you don't.
For that matter, you didn't even get to see what Hawke was going to say, I knew what I was going to say all along.
Every line your Hawke says is said for reasons the writting team at BioWare made, after all your Hawke is truly theirs. There's not a shred of ambiguity or freedom in the name of roleplaying.
Your Hawke had to be foreseen by BioWare, my Warden never was.
You don't get a tenth of the liberty I've got.

On the other hand, your graphical experience with Hawke is better than mine with the Warden. So I guess we all get something. Wouldn't say so myself though.

Nope Hawke is mine as much as the warden was, and I honestly doesn't care for race choice since the race was all but pointless once you were a warden. No matter what you imagine with the warden, the companions or whoever else you were talking too always give away the tone your warden had. I had the exact same amount of freedom with Hawke as with my warden. Every line the warden said was also said with an intent and the world acted according to that intent, and I know what my Hawke means to say, the warden I was not always sure what the meaning behind the words were.

Also note the difference in our argument. I keep saying how I feel, and funnily enough you keep saying how I feel too. I get that you don't feel that you had as much roleplaying feeling with Hawke as you had with the warden, but stop saying how I feel, that is patronizing and just wrong. For me there was much less freedom with the warden because some of the lines seriously had me wonder what is the meaning behind these words, and there was a meaning because the npc I spoke too acted according to it.

[CarlSpackler]

JohnEpler wrote...

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.

  I saw Mike Laidlaw mention something similar to this a while back about not looking at the silent protagonist anymore (at least for the forseeable future as you mention.)  This really makes me sad. I do realize that many folks enjoy the voiced prot, but I cannot imagine enjoying DAO as much as I did with a vp.  Its been a barrier for me with both the ME games and DA2.  Not that I didn't/don't enjoy those games because I do, but I do feel those games hold me at arms length. Its a shame really since I don't have any AAA game development that really does the exact kind of games I enjoy (a la DAO).  Even with the vp of ME and DA2, I still enjoy those games more than anything else out there.  Skyrim is impressive, but I admire the game a whole lot more than I enjoy playing it.  DAO was a remarkable game for many reasons not just that it had an sp, but that was certainly something that engaged me.  I enjoyed the cinematic voice acting from the npcs addressing my player.  And by virtue of the silent selection of responses, I could interpet the tone of the responses anyway I choose and this created a great connection between me and the narrative. 

I have little doubt I will continue to enjoy Bioware's output, but sadly that enjoyment has been dimishing and the vp is one of those reasons. 

[zyntifox]

Ah damnit, i knew i shouldn't have gone into this forum. Got all my origins juice flowing from reading all this and now feel the urge to start on my fifth playthrough. And i have an exam on thursday, damn you guys!

[Xilizhra]

No idea what you're talking about. Never seen my character speaking on a set voice during conversations.

During combat. There's the set voice.

That's nothing to do with imagination, at least directly. I'm mostly sure that BioWare isn't going to hire a different voice actor for every race and sex so there can be origin stories. With less races, you've got a more limited story and, on top of that, a limited spectrum of interpretations of the story.

The story itself changes extremely little with origin, aside from the ending boon and a few conversational differences; when I can't talk myself, such isn't nearly enough. As for spectra of interpretations, such is the virtue of a diverse cast of companions, something which I believe 2 was far, far better at implementing. Leagues better.

You're saying that Hawke absolutely never said anything that wasn't written in the wheel?

Never said anything different in meaning. And when you know what the line is anyway, how is there less control?
Oh, also, I can be fairly sure that asking one line of questions won't cut me off from asking others, something Origins was very bad with.

Again, nothing to do with imagination, at least directly. The character was never truly yours because you didn't pick the line, you just thought the situation required you to be a nice guy and someone else spoke an unknown line. While I got to read a line, understand its content and, through co authorship add my touch, my interpretation of the character on the delieverance, all you picked was a tone icon and BioWare's Hawke spoke.

Only on my first playthrough. Every time thereafter, I did read/understand my line, and could easily add my own interpretation of the character to everything with little difficulty. You grievously underestimate what we can do with Hawke.

A same historical fact can have a number of interpretations. My Wardens actions were foreseen, my take in his story, something that BioWare asked of us in early Origins market if I remember right, wasn't.

It's no less foreseen than Hawke's take, so far as I can tell.

You mean which Hawke purple or red? Blue is kind of bland sometimes.

I'm very fond of blue.

[Yrkoon]

Xilizhra wrote...
 Not to mention the fact that Hawke's background is vague enough that you can put a lot in there.

Nonsense.

He's a Human,   With  One defined village of birth,     One defined  family and  one pre-defined voice.   Nothing is vague, and the only choice the player has  is to determine whether  or not he's   an apostate mage  {gag}

Now lets compare that to.... the warden... who has a choice of races, a choice of origins, and  no predetermined voice to halt the player's ability to  speak via their character.

Yeah, I'll take the latter.   More player agency.     Again, if I want the former, I'll just rent a good movie  and live vicariously through its protagonist.  Movies do that kind of thing  a hell of  a lot better.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 28 février 2012 - 05:26 .

[John Epler]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

With all due respect Mr. Epler, what a voice protagonist gives you guys is a out to shoehorn one set outcome regardless of player choice. Anders being a prime example in DA2 where regardless if you warn the templars or not, the same outcome happens. Same thing siding with the templars or mages, it doesn't matter because the game plays out the exact same way.

It used to be Bioware titles at least gave an illusion of your choices actually mattering, this is no longer the case and the voiced protagonist makes this even more a narrow situation imo at least.

And I think you're conflating two separate things. Voiced protagonist and choice (or lack thereof) have very little to do with each other. The stumbling block to presenting wildly different outcomes is rarely, if ever, the voice acting. Even in DA:O, you had the choice of becoming a Grey Warden.. or becoming a Grey Warden, but reluctantly. We've always presented bottlenecks where, regardless of your choice, X happens. Were they perhaps more noticeable in DA2? I don't think you'll see much disagreement on this side. But they've always existed. The voiced protagonist has little to do with it - just that, by virtue of being in one of our games where these bottlenecks are most common and noticeable, people tend to associate the two. I can see why, but it's not really an accurate assumption.