130 réponses à ce sujet

[Plaintiff]

HanErlik wrote...

Of course, picking red, purple or blue lines provides a much deeper RPG experience than having twenty, long dialogue options.

Why is more options automatically "better" and "deeper"?

Also, the thread is about storytelling, not role-playing.

[Meris]

Plaintiff wrote...

HanErlik wrote...

Of course, picking red, purple or blue lines provides a much deeper RPG experience than having twenty, long dialogue options.

Why is more options automatically "better" and "deeper"?

Having more choices should allow for more varied characters, leading to deeper, more nuanced and more thought our roleplaying. And with increased player agency you further the player's voice as it contributes to the video game's storytelling, because roleplaying in a RPG is part of it.

If Voice acting does limit your options, as it did for full NPC voice acting, as well as limiting how far BioWare can increase player agency, then its the voice of shallower roleplaying and stagnation.

Modifié par Meris, 26 mars 2012 - 04:37 .

[LobselVith8]

Siansonea II wrote...

I prefer voiced protagonists. Regardless of the technical issues, I would rather have a voiced protagonist than an unnaturally silent protagonist. I do not play "me" in games, I'd rather the characters talk to each other than somehow have the player character be some avatar for myself in the game world. And before all the old-school gamers start telling me how little imagination I have, I play tabletop RPGs. I shape my characters COMPLETELY in those games, and I speak for them and determine everything they say. If you really want to use your imagination, to have "immersion" and have unlimited player choice, PLAY TABLETOP PEN AND PAPER RPGS.

I don't think having a silent protagonist is unnatural. The Fallout series, the Elder Scrolls games, and even Origins did it well enough that quite a few fans find the format preferrable to the sloppy paraphrasing found in Dragon Age II, where Hawke's dialogue often doesn't match the lines of dialogue that we chose. It's one of the reasons I dislike Dragon Age II.

Siansonea II wrote...

But thinking that you're somehow more imaginative because you like to speak the lines in your head rather than hear them in the game is absurd. Voiced protagonists enhance the cinematic nature of games for me, and I like that. But I get my unlimited choice and immersion fix at the gaming table.

Some people simply don't like having a voiced protagonist for this type of game. Dragon Age was advertised as an old school RPG in the vein of BG, the developers promoted a silent protagonist as being more effective for this type of game over a voiced protagonist, and hyped it as a "spiritual successor to BG." Changing the format entirely has turned some people off because the appeal of Origins is no longer avaliable to them with the change.

[Maria Caliban]

Joy Divison wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...

That's the sort of rigorous 'proof' that leads people to think aliens created Stonehenge.

...Didn't they?

.

.

.

No, they made the Egyptian and Mayan pyramids. Logic dictates that if you're going to fly lightyears to build a monument on a primitive world, you make something a bit more impressive than a couple stones in a circle.

[Meris]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Joy Divison wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...

That's the sort of rigorous 'proof' that leads people to think aliens created Stonehenge.

...Didn't they?

.

.

.

No, they made the Egyptian and Mayan pyramids. Logic dictates that if you're going to fly lightyears to build a monument on a primitive world, you make something a bit more impressive than a couple stones in a circle.

Obviously you're behind times. Stonehenge is part of a large alien puzzle of similar circles of stones, each placed on surface according to magnetic variations - its either a giant portal machine or a GPS system for the intergalactic traveller.

Not made up as I wrote it.

[Maria Caliban]

Meris wrote...

Obviously you're behind times. Stonehenge is part of a large alien puzzle of similar circles of stones, each placed on surface according to magnetic variations - its either a giant portal machine or a GPS system for the intergalactic traveller.

Not made up as I wrote it.

I'd argue that those weren't aliens but nephilim from Atlantis.

Aliens didn't build *everything* you know.

[Plaintiff]

Meris wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

HanErlik wrote...

Of course, picking red, purple or blue lines provides a much deeper RPG experience than having twenty, long dialogue options.

Why is more options automatically "better" and "deeper"?

Having more choices should allow for more varied characters, leading to deeper, more nuanced and more thought our roleplaying. And with increased player agency you further the player's voice as it contributes to the video game's storytelling, because roleplaying in a RPG is part of it.

If Voice acting does limit your options, as it did for full NPC voice acting, as well as limiting how far BioWare can increase player agency, then its the voice of shallower roleplaying and stagnation.

Given that player agency is limited from the get-go by the very medium of the videogame, since it is impossible to account for every choice that could potentially be made, why should RPGs constanty strive to be more "nuanced" and "varied'?

Is there no room in the market for a "shallow" RPG with less player agency? Why is such an RPG automatically bad? Why is your preferred method of roleplaying the only right one?

Modifié par Plaintiff, 26 mars 2012 - 05:03 .

[Meris]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Aliens didn't build *everything* you know.

I'm skeptical about that.

And that's ironic.

Plaintiff wrote...

Meris wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

HanErlik wrote...

Of course, picking red, purple or blue lines provides a much deeper RPG experience than having twenty, long dialogue options.

Why is more options automatically "better" and "deeper"?

Having more choices should allow for more varied characters, leading to deeper, more nuanced and more thought our roleplaying. And with increased player agency you further the player's voice as it contributes to the video game's storytelling, because roleplaying in a RPG is part of it.

If Voice acting does limit your options, as it did for full NPC voice acting, as well as limiting how far BioWare can increase player agency, then its the voice of shallower roleplaying and stagnation.

Given that player agency is limited from the get-go by the very medium of the videogame, why should RPGs constanty strive to be more "nuanced" and "varied'? Is there no room in the market for a "shallow" RPG with less player agency? Why is such an RPG automatically bad?

 

The medium of the video game provides experience according to three voices: that of the designer, that of the gameplay and the last, most important and most unique of them all is the voice of the player.

Why should RPGs try to give players more agency? Well, why should BioWare market their games as if there are choices with real consequence? What is wrong with Kirkwall totally not changing at all as you wade through the game and make choices? Why because it is through choices that you interact with the story and flesh out your character. It is through player agency that RPGs are a genre of their own and the only way for them to evolve is to further player agency, not limiting dialogue options and quest resolutions to conform to the expense of voice acting.

Its like when they decided it would be neat for companions to have unique bodies and then took out an entire gameplay feature to conform to that cinematic standard.

The Baldur's Gate series wasn't perfect. There were quests that could logically be approached in a number of ways but the devs couldn't include all possible variations, only go as far as they could.

Spending time giving us a talking pre-defined protagonist instead of letting us flesh out our characters through more diversity isn't a evolution of BG or Origins, its something else entirely. Its not walking forward its walking side-ways.

Modifié par Meris, 26 mars 2012 - 05:10 .

[Sutekh]

LobselVith8 wrote...

I don't think having a silent protagonist is unnatural. The Fallout series, the Elder Scrolls games, and even Origins did it well enough that quite a few fans find the format preferrable to the sloppy paraphrasing found in Dragon Age II, where Hawke's dialogue often doesn't match the lines of dialogue that we chose. It's one of the reasons I dislike Dragon Age II.

Well, to some of us, it very much feels so in plot-driven games where dialogs are shown in a 3rd person PoV, such as DA.

Elder Scrolls are a very different story, because they don't focus on characterization at all and are played in a 1st person PoV. This said, the minute they change that, such as the Truce Council scene in Skyrim, you get to feel how unnatural and awkward being silent and impassive is, while NPCs around you are so lively. That scene was painful to watch and play.

[batlin]

Sutekh wrote...

Elder Scrolls are a very different story, because they don't focus on characterization at all and are played in a 1st person PoV. This said, the minute they change that, such as the Truce Council scene in Skyrim, you get to feel how unnatural and awkward being silent and impassive is, while NPCs around you are so lively. That scene was painful to watch and play.

Did you ever play Neverwinter Nights 2? If so you probably remember the murder trial. It's easily one of the best parts in the game and you play a character who is no more animate than your character in Skyrim of DA:O. And of course in DA:O we have te Landsmeet, another great scene despite your character not being "animate". I'm actually really curious about what exactly makes the truce council quest in Skyrim bad, it didn't seem at all awkward to me...

Modifié par batlin, 26 mars 2012 - 05:20 .

[LobselVith8]

Sutekh wrote...

LobselVith8 wrote...

I don't think having a silent protagonist is unnatural. The Fallout series, the Elder Scrolls games, and even Origins did it well enough that quite a few fans find the format preferrable to the sloppy paraphrasing found in Dragon Age II, where Hawke's dialogue often doesn't match the lines of dialogue that we chose. It's one of the reasons I dislike Dragon Age II.

Well, to some of us, it very much feels so in plot-driven games where dialogs are shown in a 3rd person PoV, such as DA.

Elder Scrolls are a very different story, because they don't focus on characterization at all and are played in a 1st person PoV. This said, the minute they change that, such as the Truce Council scene in Skyrim, you get to feel how unnatural and awkward being silent and impassive is, while NPCs around you are so lively. That scene was painful to watch and play.

The player is invited to basically develop his (or her) protagnist. It's no different than the Fallout series, where the player is invited to define who their protagonist is. It appeals to quite a few players. It's not like Dragon Age II, where Hawke is pre-defined to a certain point. As for the truce, I didn't think it was unnatural or awkward. The protagonist is trying to be a mediator between both sides. I think it's more painful to watch when I have Hawke tell Elthina, "You're useless," thinking he's going to address her failings as the Grand Cleric, and instead see him shout out loud, "Get out of my way!" That, for me, was painful to watch. That kind of disconnect between my choices, and what ultimately transpires on the scene because of the poor paraphrasing, ruins my enjoyment.

[batlin]

LobselVith8 wrote...
The player is invited to basically develop his (or her) protagnist. It's no different than the Fallout series, where the player is invited to define who their protagonist is. It appeals to quite a few players. It's not like Dragon Age II, where Hawke is pre-defined to a certain point. As for the truce, I didn't think it was unnatural or awkward. The protagonist is trying to be a mediator between both sides. I think it's more painful to watch when I have Hawke tell Elthina, "You're useless," thinking he's going to address her failings as the Grand Cleric, and instead see him shout out loud, "Get out of my way!" That, for me, was painful to watch. That kind of disconnect between my choices, and what ultimately transpires on the scene because of the poor paraphrasing, ruins my enjoyment.

Agreed. I'd much rather fill in my avatar's personality for myself than be duped by a paraphrased dialogue option and have my avatar do something that's nothing like how I imagine him.

[Sutekh]

batlin wrote...

Did you ever play Neverwinter Nights 2? If so you probably remember the murder trial. It's easily one of the best parts in the game and you play a character who is no more animate than your character in Skyrim of DA:O. I'm actually really curious about what exactly makes the truce council quest in Skyrim bad, it didn't seem at all awkward to me...

Nope, I don't think I have played NWN 2. Bought it from GoG, though, and intend to play it one day, when I've got time.

So, the Truce Council. You have all the NPCs arguing, bickering, compromising or being this close to get at each other's throat, all this being nicely conveyed by both the animations and, above all, the voice acting.

And you have poor Dovahkiin, sitting there, silent and impassive, staring away in a bordeline autistic display of "What am I doing here, I'd rather go back home and play with my Alchemy lab". Painful.

To take another example closer to us: The Landsmeet in DAO. The Warden's entrance was perfect. The way he looked around with so much assurance, how people cleared his way, Loghain's puppeteer line. Beautiful. And then, the actual confrontation started and it all went downhill because of the silence and impassiveness. It made the Warden look as though he simply didn't care. That goes against my RP satisfaction big time.

Idem with the motivational speech before the battle of Denerim, that due to silence had to be delivered by someone else, or the Joining in Awakening, where silence had the writers going against the lore and have the Joining performed by a non-Warden (because a silent Joining would have been really weird), robbing us of the feeling to be a true Warden-Commander.

[Meris]

Sutekh wrote...

And then, the actual confrontation started and it all went downhill because of the silence and impassiveness. It made the Warden look as though he simply didn't care. That goes against my RP satisfaction big time.

No idea what you're talking about. Unlike Dovahkin in this truce council (My Dovahkin didn't get a lot of playtime because my decent computer is unusable >.<), the Warden got dialogue options that appealed (or not) directly to nobles of Ferelden, their expectations and what had happened to the country until then.

Difference is that you place more value on graphic experience than I or my side of the fanbase do.

Modifié par Meris, 26 mars 2012 - 05:42 .

[batlin]

Sutekh wrote...

So, the Truce Council. You have all the NPCs arguing, bickering, compromising or being this close to get at each other's throat, all this being nicely conveyed by both the animations and, above all, the voice acting.

And you have poor Dovahkiin, sitting there, silent and impassive, staring away in a bordeline autistic display of "What am I doing here, I'd rather go back home and play with my Alchemy lab". Painful.

What? The game is predominatly in first-person, whatever facial expressions your avatar is making is up to your imagination.

To take another example closer to us: The Landsmeet in DAO. The Warden's entrance was perfect. The way he looked around with so much assurance, how people cleared his way, Loghain's puppeteer line. Beautiful. And then, the actual confrontation started and it all went downhill because of the silence and impassiveness. It made the Warden look as though he simply didn't care. That goes against my RP satisfaction big time.

So you're unable to imagine the weight of the dialog options for yourself? You need to have a voice actor spell out what your avatar is feeling and how he says the lines? you must REALLY hate books.

Idem with the motivational speech before the battle of Denerim, that due to silence had to be delivered by someone else, or the Joining in Awakening, where silence had the writers going against the lore and have the Joining performed by a non-Warden (because a silent Joining would have been really weird), robbing us of the feeling to be a true Warden-Commander.

How would it have made sense if the Warden were the one to give the speech in Denerim as opposed to the king?

Modifié par batlin, 26 mars 2012 - 05:52 .

[Sutekh]

LobselVith8 wrote...

The player is invited to basically develop his (or her) protagnist. It's no different than the Fallout series, where the player is invited to define who their protagonist is. It appeals to quite a few players.

Hey, it appeals a lot to me too. I've been defending TES "blank slate" a lot in this very forum. But I simply don't approach the games the same way, and my expectations aren't the same.

And tbh, I don't know that the player is invited to do anything but enjoy what the world has to offer. Developping a char is what some of us do. It simply isn't the focus of the TES games, while it is crucial to DA ones.

<snip> That kind of disconnect between my choices, and what ultimately transpires on the scene because of the poor paraphrasing, ruins my enjoyment.

But the problem here is the paraphrasing, how the Voiced feature is implemented, not the feature in itself. 

--

 

batlin wrote...

What? The game is predominatly in first-person, whatever facial expressions your avatar is making is up to your imagination. 

Did you miss the part where I said I was perfectly OK with a silent PC in most of Skyrim because it's a 1st person game? And that I had a problem with that particular scene because, due to you being sitting, it's in 3rd person?

So you're unable to imagine the weight of the dialog options for yourself? You need to have a voice actor spell out what your avatar is feeling and how he says the lines? you must REALLY hate books.

OK. I was under the illusion that we could have a decent and mature conversation without resorting to "you don't have enough imagination" and "you hate book" antics. Those argument are really old, and quite baseless, because, guess what, you don't know me or my reading habits.

And you missed my point. I wasn't talking about that, but about how it feels unnatural to me, and why. How there was a dichotomy for me between what was said, and what was shown.

I can always close my eyes and picture it in my imagination (which is what I more or less did, btw), but it doesn't mean I have to like it. Tastes and opinions, they come in different flavors, get used to it.

How would it have made sense if the Warden were the one to give the speech in Denerim as opposed to the king?

Because they were going to fight darkspawn as opposed to Orlesians or whatever? Because everyone had been saying that you were the one in charge, the decision-maker (i.e. the Landsmeet), but all of a sudden you were put behind the very person you put on the throne? There can be many reasons for the Warden to give that speech instead of the king / queen, and many reasons for him not to. A technical one isn't a good one.

--

Meris wrote...

Difference is that you place more value on graphic experience than I or my side of the fanbase do.

Maybe. Or maybe not. I've no idea what "your side of the fanbase" really is, since I've read it's made of PnP players and hard-core RPG gamers, people who've been playing cRPG for a long time etc... which, as surprising as it may be, is also me.

And yes, I admit, graphic experience has an importance in a cRPG, because it's what the medium is also made of. It's a complex thing made of many aspects, "graphic experience" being one of them. 

Modifié par Sutekh, 26 mars 2012 - 06:31 .

[Ryllen Laerth Kriel]

Having a silent protagonist enables more freedoms for the players. The concept of diverse Origins in DA:O wouldn't of been possible for game production if the characters had to be voiced since it limits the race/personality of the character based on accent, gender and diction of the voice actor.

To me, creative restrictions in a RPG hamper replay value since most of the fun comes through my interaction with the software and it allowing me to make characters more unique. Voiced protagonists limit this greatly since game studios can't afford to have twelve or more voice actors of either gender, varying accents and different tones to create sound sets and extensive dialogue trees needed for deep character customization. That's why I'm still a fan of silent protagonists. I can easily add my own voice when I read the lines so my character has a perfect voice and it doesn't stifle my interaction one bit.

While having the lines read to me by an actor is convenient, I would rather have extensive dialogue trees and a silent protagonist with a greater amount of customization options. Afterall, these are video games, not movies. If I wanted to take a jaunt into a world and watch a totally pre-fabricated character fumble their way through a plot, I'd watch a movie.

Video games are nothing without a player to create the experience, and RPGs traditionally engage the player more than most styles of games. That history of pen and paper is restrained by a number of factors in a video game, but it's a pain when cRPGs drop the few creative player freedoms they can muster in favor of a movie-like approach. I'm really tired of video game makers trying to make "cinema" when they should be making video games.

[batlin]

Sutekh wrote...

Did you miss the part where I said I was perfectly OK with a silent PC in most of Skyrim because it's a 1st person game? And that I had a problem with that particular scene because, due to you being sitting, it's in 3rd person?

I'm not seeing how that changes anything. In DA:O you see your face constantly in the Landsmeet whereas with Skyrim you have control of the camera.

OK. I was under the illusion that we could have a decent and mature conversation without resorting to "you don't have enough imagination" and "you hate book" antics. Those argument are really old, and quite baseless, because, guess what, you don't know me or my reading habits.

And you missed my point. I wasn't talking about that, but about how it feels unnatural to me, and why. How there was a dichotomy for me between what was said, and what was shown.

I'm not denying that you don't like it, what I'm curious about is why. What difference does it make if you can hear people react to your silent dialog choices? How does that serve to break your immersion any more than inconsistent personalities and reactions by Hawke? I do understand how it can be troubling for someone to have every NPC be emotive but not your avatar. But what about in the case of Hawke when his personality is very often inconsistene with him/her self? Hawke only has three possible personalites thanks to the voice acting; nice, mean, and "humorous". If you want Hawke to be a nice guy but for whatever reason have to decline helping a child find her mother or some such, are you ok with your good-guy Hawke saying something like "Get out of my way, you snot-nosed brat"?

See, voice acting only allows for as many personalities as the actor interprets. With a silent protagonist, there's an infinite number of possible personalities.

Because they were going to fight darkspawn as opposed to Orlesians or whatever? Because everyone had been saying that you were the one in charge, the decision-maker (i.e. the Landsmeet), but all of a sudden you were put behind the very person you put on the throne? There can be many reasons for the Warden to give that speech instead of the king / queen, and many reasons for him not to. A technical one isn't a good one.

the person who puts the king on the throne isn't of a higher power than the king. The Warden was just an arbiter. You may as well make the argument that a supreme court judge is more important than the president. The Warden addressing the soldiers fighting for the king would have made Alistair/Arnora look like a chump.

[Silfren]

batlin wrote...

See, voice acting only allows for as many personalities as the actor interprets. With a silent protagonist, there's an infinite number of possible personalities.

People keep repeating this over and over, but I don't see any actual basis for it.  With a silent PC, you are still limited to the dialogue options provided by the game, and it isn't enough to claim that the silent aspect allows for myriad interpretations of those lines, because the NPCs you are talking to will always react to the line you choose in a very specific manner. 

It really doesn't matter that you, the player behind the PC, thinks you're picking a line and intend it to be diplomatic, or amusing, or compassionate, if the NPC receives it as something else entirely.  There's a few examples of this within Origins, especially with Alistair, where I thought a line was gentle and encouraging, only to discover that Alistair took it as a hostile put down.   The game really doesn't allow for much in the way of "oh, that's how I meant it, so I'll just roleplay that Alistair completely misunderstood me!"  You are choosing a tone just as much with a silent PC as with a voiced one; the limitation with the silent is that you simply have no clue what the tone is going to be until the NPC reacts to it.  (Obviously DA2 had a similar problem, but this was the result of a flawed paraphrasing system).

Both games are limited to a specific, finite number of dialogue options, and both require imaginative leg-work on the part of the player. 

I totally agree that the voiced PC as presented in DA2 had problems, but because of its poor implementation within DA2, not because there's anything inherently broken about it.

Modifié par Silfren, 26 mars 2012 - 07:12 .

[LobselVith8]

Silfren wrote...

I totally agree that the voiced PC as presented in DA2 had problems, but because of its poor implementation within DA2, not because there's anything inherently broken about it.

I think part of the argument steams from how it's implemented, particularly with the paraphrasing. I understand that Deus Ex actually allowed players to read what the protagonist was going to say. The fact that Gaider has admitted that the paraphrasing will continue into Dragon Age III doesn't give me much hope in the developers rectifying the issue that fans had with how it was implemented. As long as the dialogue options are paraphrased, it's going to run the risk of the voiced protagonist saying lines of dialogue that doesn't match what the player intended.

[DeadPoolX]

Silfren wrote...

batlin wrote...

See, voice acting only allows for as many personalities as the actor interprets. With a silent protagonist, there's an infinite number of possible personalities.

People keep repeating this over and over, but I don't see any actual basis for it.  With a silent PC, you are still limited to the dialogue options provided by the game, and it isn't enough to claim that the silent aspect allows for myriad interpretations of those lines, because the NPCs you are talking to will always react to the line you choose in a very specific manner. 

It really doesn't matter that you, the player behind the PC, thinks you're picking a line and intend it to be diplomatic, or amusing, or compassionate, if the NPC receives it as something else entirely.  There's a few examples of this within Origins, especially with Alistair, where I thought a line was gentle and encouraging, only to discover that Alistair took it as a hostile put down.   The game really doesn't allow for much in the way of "oh, that's how I meant it, so I'll just roleplay that Alistair completely misunderstood me!"  You are choosing a tone just as much with a silent PC as with a voiced one; the limitation with the silent is that you simply have no clue what the tone is going to be until the NPC reacts to it.  (Obviously DA2 had a similar problem, but this was the result of a flawed paraphrasing system).

Both games are limited to a specific, finite number of dialogue options, and both require imaginative leg-work on the part of the player. 

I totally agree that the voiced PC as presented in DA2 had problems, but because of its poor implementation within DA2, not because there's anything inherently broken about it.

I've tried explaining this before and the silent protagonist crowd doesn't seem to understand it.  It's almost as if they discard any unwanted external stimuli they receive in the game and replace it with whatever they imagine. 

[batlin]

Silfren wrote...

People keep repeating this over and over, but I don't see any actual basis for it.  With a silent PC, you are still limited to the dialogue options provided by the game, and it isn't enough to claim that the silent aspect allows for myriad interpretations of those lines, because the NPCs you are talking to will always react to the line you choose in a very specific manner. 

You would be really surprised at how much information is conveyed in tonality alone. Playing Dragon Age 2 is a really good example of this; try selecting a good dialogue option and an evil option back to back. The same voice actor is reading both lines, but the way he or she says them is vastly different and convey completely different personality types. this is what makes it awkward to play as a character who isn't completely good, evil or neutral in DA2.

Modifié par batlin, 26 mars 2012 - 07:56 .

[Silfren]

LobselVith8 wrote...

Silfren wrote...

I totally agree that the voiced PC as presented in DA2 had problems, but because of its poor implementation within DA2, not because there's anything inherently broken about it.

I think part of the argument steams from how it's implemented, particularly with the paraphrasing. I understand that Deus Ex actually allowed players to read what the protagonist was going to say. The fact that Gaider has admitted that the paraphrasing will continue into Dragon Age III doesn't give me much hope in the developers rectifying the issue that fans had with how it was implemented. As long as the dialogue options are paraphrased, it's going to run the risk of the voiced protagonist saying lines of dialogue that doesn't match what the player intended.

I agree that DA2's paraphrasing was sorely lacking.  Not to mention that a lot of what DA2 called humorous or sarcastic, I called belligerant and hostile, and so on. 

I don't know how I feel, really, about the paraphrasing.  I think it COULD be done well enough to give the player an accurate idea of what the line would be.  No surprises, at least so far as picking an aggressive option, where you mean to be a jerkwad, but don't really mean to instigate a knife fight. 

I'm more annoyed by the limitations of the tone system than anything else.  I understand that Bioware doesn't have the resources to provide a PC with a dozen different personality options, but why now just give the PC a half-dozen options, as with Origins, and instead of focusing on three specific tones, just have the overall personality develop based on the sum total of all the dialogue options?  Or have the typical 4-6 lines available, with three or so specific to a given tone, and the others being more neutral.  There are several ways in which the entire thing could be vastly improved.  The problem of course being that it all requires extra resources, which in turn translates to extra time and money.  

[Silfren]

batlin wrote...

Silfren wrote...

People keep repeating this over and over, but I don't see any actual basis for it.  With a silent PC, you are still limited to the dialogue options provided by the game, and it isn't enough to claim that the silent aspect allows for myriad interpretations of those lines, because the NPCs you are talking to will always react to the line you choose in a very specific manner. 

You would be really surprised at how much information is conveyed in tonality alone. Playing Dragon Age 2 is a really good example of this; try selecting a good dialogue option and an evil option back to back. The same voice actor is reading both lines, but the way he or she says them is vastly different and convey completely different personality types. this is what makes it awkward to play as a character who isn't completely good, evil or neutral in DA2.

Which doesn't do a thing at all to refute my point, so I'm rather unsure as to what your own point is.  Is it a habit of yours to make arguments that have nothing to do with the actual subject? 

This is mostly an aside, but I feel it's worth pointing out that the lines are patently not good/evil/neutral.  They are diplomatic, humorous, and aggressive.  This, though, is, again, not an indicator that there is anything inherently flawed with a voiced protagonist.  It simply means that Bioware limited its voice actors to three specific tones. 

The lines in Origins were just as limiting.  There is zero difference beyond one being silent and one being voiced.  The NPCs are all programmed to respond in specific ways to specific tones imagined not by the PC, but by the developers.  

It doesn't do any good to imagine that you said something in a compassionate tone, when the NPC receives it as a nasty remark, or vice versa.  You the player can imagine things however you like, but the game is still going to operate under the assumptions coded in by the developers. 

In point of fact, the only way to escape this at all is to re-write the entire game as a fanfic. 

Modifié par Silfren, 26 mars 2012 - 08:42 .

[Silfren]

batlin wrote...

Dragon Age Origins? Silent protagonist, great story.

Dragon Age II? Voiced protagonist, mediocre story.

Discuss.

Can we discuss the fact that you're deliberately oversimplifying the issue?  Your entire premise here assumes that Origins succeeded by virtue of having a silent protagonist, and that DA2 failed specifically for having a voiced one.  

There's already been endless threads on silent vs. voiced PCs, but really, right now you're not even doing that, you're mis-framing the issue.

People have complained about the lack of choices, map recycling, a poorly executed story, immersion-shattering problems of gameplay/story segregation, and waves of parachuting enemies.  Not a single one of these problems is in any way connected to a voiced protagonist.  Likewise, the many strengths of Origins had nothing whatsoever to do with its silent protagonist. 

If you want to have an honest discussion, you're not going to get one by opening the debate with a false premise.