130 réponses à ce sujet

[Silfren]

batlin wrote...

BanksHector wrote...

I really enjoyed DAO but I do not see what was so great about the story.

It was epic in scale, you explored widely different areas each with their own history and culture, and your enemy and goal were made clear from the beginning which lends a great deal of weight to the climax of the game.

DA2 on the other hand is just three mini-plots that have little to nothing to do with one another.

None of which has anything at all to do with a voiced or silent protagonist.  What, exactly, are you debating?

[Silfren]

HanErlik wrote...

Voiced Protagonists kill the depth of the game. To prove it:

1) Install Planescape Torment
2) Play Planescape Torment
3) Install DA2
4) Play DA2
5) Abandon your all hope for Video Game Industrry

Ever played either Witcher game?  Voiced protagonists are not inherently terrible and do not, on their own merit, kill the depth of a game.

[Big I]

batlin wrote...
Dragon Age Origins? Silent protagonist, great story.

Dragon Age II? Voiced protagonist, mediocre story.

Discuss.

You can't just pick two examples and say it's a trend. It works the other way too.


The Witcher games? Voiced.

Mass Effect trilogy? Voiced

Diablo 1 and 2? Silent.


Voiced or silent protagonists are only a small part of what makes a story good.

[Sutekh]

batlin wrote...
In DA:O you see your face constantly in the Landsmeet whereas with Skyrim you have control of the camera.

Exactly. In DAO, you constantly see your face. And in DAO, focus is on characterization and character development. Interaction with companions, romance and such. DAs are personal and subjective. TES are world-focused and objective.

The nature of DA - plot-driven, character focused - puts the player in a particular frame of mind where, for some, Voiced works better than silent. It's kinda 1st person PoV vs. 3rd person omniscient in literature. The problem with the Truce Council scene is that we suddenly shift from one PoV type to another (which, btw, is very often big no-no when you write), without the support of even a cinematicized ™ dialog. It was the very first time in a TES game that it felt as though cinematics should have been involved, due to the "theatrical" nature of the scene.

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?

Apples and oranges. One isn't related to the other. Hawke's inconsistencies, when there, break my immersion just as much, but for very different reasons. Hawke could be inconsistent and silent, or consistent and voiced.

Now, if you're talking about auto-dialog, that's another can of worm altogether. I don't like auto-dialog at all, for the record.

As for why it breaks my immersion? As I explained so many, many times: because it clashes with the environment, because it sometimes break my RPG line of thought by having to watch my PC Not-Reacting, because speech and body language are important too, characterization-wise. And when characterization is the main focus of a given game, yes, it annoys me. Without voice and expressions, and in a game that otherwise heavily rely on those (which DAO does), my PC is singled out. He loses substance and reality.

I'm not one to say he becomes "soulless", though. Because that, he doesn't.

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.

That's not true. You're still limited by the lines of dialog offered to you and the tone intended by the writers, as proven many times in DAO by NPCs reactions. You can still choose to believe that your tone was conveyed, but in some cases, that would be simply ignoring the reactions, ignoring the game. You wouldn't be playing DA anymore, but some version of it that only exists in your mind. The only way you can have an infinite number of possibilities is either PnP (and even then, you're limited by the settings) or if you write the Char yourself from scratch, which implies zero-characterization on the game part, or no game at all. Barring quantum programming, a cRPG can't give you total freedom.

But I understand that for some People-Who-Are-Not-Me, that illusion is important and crucial to their brand or roleplaying. That's in fact the only argument that would semi-convince me. If only because I don't consider their (your?) brand of roleplaying as inferior to mine, just different.

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.

The speech isn't about king business, but Warden business. I'd also have a lot to say about how witnessing the king/queen yelling "For Fereldeeeen" with the Warden staying there and silently approving is a problem for those Wardens who didn't give a damn about Ferelden (Dalish and Dwarves come to mind), which could have been avoided with a voiced PC and a lines choice. But that's another story 

Modifié par Sutekh, 26 mars 2012 - 08:46 .

[Addai]

Silfren wrote...
Ever played either Witcher game?  Voiced protagonists are not inherently terrible and do not, on their own merit, kill the depth of a game.

Geralt is a set character.  That's a big difference.  I don't expect to have control over his characterization- very little, anyway.

I don't know why these topics keep coming up since Bioware is not going to go back to a silent protag.

[Abispa]

I've said it before, but I feel that VA is not necessary for a good game. However, I HATED how the Warden had to allow other characters give the big speeches (drunkard Oghren and submissive Alistair) while s/he stood around like a dummy. I wouldn't mind an Icewind Dale style game set in the DA universe where ALL the characters use text.

Maybe on XBox Live. Maybe? Bioware...

Bioware said that Dragon Age games aren't about characters, but about the world of Thedas, I wouldn't mind seeing many different style RPGs set in that universe, just like D&D games have had different styles in the past. However, if the "main" game is to be a cinematic experience, I'd prefer a voiced protagonist.

[TEWR]

Side note (I'll reply to a few comments in a minute): I absolutely hated Anora's speech. That was the pinnacle of horrific voice acting for me.

[happy_daiz]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Side note (I'll reply to a few comments in a minute): I absolutely hated Anora's speech. That was the pinnacle of horrific voice acting for me.

Ugh, not just that speech. Anora's voice is like nails on a chalkboard for me.  And if you were unfortunate enough to choose her voice (aggressive, I think?) as the PC's grunt voice, yikes. I spent an entire playthrough wanting to punch someone.

Modifié par happy_daiz, 26 mars 2012 - 08:57 .

[Silfren]

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.

The thing is, though, that the paraphrasing issue does NOT go hand in hand with a voiced protagonist.  Yes, that's the way that Bioware did it for DA2, and it, well, sucked.  However, it failed because it was implemented badly, not because poor paraphrasing is part and parcel of a voiced protagonist.  An argument against the badly executed system set up by DA2 does not necessarily stand as an argument against voiced protagonists in general. 

Witcher 1 (don't know about Witcher 2, but I would guess it's the same) had a fully voiced protagonist, and none of his lines were paraphrased.  It CAN be done well. 

[Abispa]

I thought Anora's VA fit her character perfectly. Of course, I'm not a big Anora fan (but she's a more credible monarch than Alistair).

[Silfren]

Addai67 wrote...

Silfren wrote...
Ever played either Witcher game?  Voiced protagonists are not inherently terrible and do not, on their own merit, kill the depth of a game.

Geralt is a set character.  That's a big difference.  I don't expect to have control over his characterization- very little, anyway.

I don't know why these topics keep coming up since Bioware is not going to go back to a silent protag.

Perhaps, but the original argument is clearly laid out as "silent PC=great game/voiced PC=mediocre game.  The opening post is a one-trick pony, oversimplifying the strengths of Origins and the faults of DA2 down to a singular aspect. 

Also, the specific post I addressed had NOTHING to do with characterization, but claimed that voiced protagonists kill the depth of a game.  

I do wish people would focus on the arguments laid out and stop trying to refute counter-points with unrelated topics.

[Silfren]

Maria Caliban wrote...

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.

The Nephilim of Atlantis WERE aliens.  Where've you been?!

[Silfren]

happy_daiz wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Side note (I'll reply to a few comments in a minute): I absolutely hated Anora's speech. That was the pinnacle of horrific voice acting for me.

Ugh, not just that speech. Anora's voice is like nails on a chalkboard for me.  And if you were unfortunate enough to choose her voice (aggressive, I think?) as the PC's grunt voice, yikes. I spent an entire playthrough wanting to punch someone.

Oy.  I like Anora's voice, I think it fits her character extremely well.  And because I just generally like it, I chose it for my latest Warden's grunt voice, and if I have to hear "IT'S A MASSACRE, AND NO ONE GETS OUT ALIVE!!!!!!!" one more time, I'mma put a hammer through my laptop.

Modifié par Silfren, 26 mars 2012 - 09:05 .

[TEWR]

happy_daiz wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Side note (I'll reply to a few comments in a minute): I absolutely hated Anora's speech. That was the pinnacle of horrific voice acting for me.

Ugh, not just that speech. Anora's voice is like nails on a chalkboard for me.  And if you were unfortunate enough to choose her voice (aggressive, I think?) as the PC's grunt voice, yikes. I spent an entire playthrough wanting to punch someone.

Up until that speech, she had a good VA. The voicework was great IMO. Though I haven't picked her battle cry, as I generally don't play female Wardens -- the run always made me not want to play. It seemed... weird. I liked DAII's female run more.

Anyway, then.... that speech came along and my brain started to ooze out of my ears as I started to lose what little remained of my sanity.

And uh... not really much I can say right now other then I agree with other posters like Silfren and Sutekh .

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 26 mars 2012 - 09:08 .

[Addai]

Silfren wrote...
Perhaps, but the original argument is clearly laid out as "silent PC=great game/voiced PC=mediocre game. 

Not according to the thread title.

Also, the specific post I addressed had NOTHING to do with characterization, but claimed that voiced protagonists kill the depth of a game.  

It hangs together.  When you're trying to allow for the PC to be a player avatar as opposed to a set character, you have to try to find a mealy, mass appeal compromise on your main hero, and you also have less resources to go around.  I think that's a pretty good recipe for a mediocre game.

Modifié par Addai67, 26 mars 2012 - 09:07 .

[Addai]

Abispa wrote...

I've said it before, but I feel that VA is not necessary for a good game. However, I HATED how the Warden had to allow other characters give the big speeches (drunkard Oghren and submissive Alistair) while s/he stood around like a dummy.

And I hated Shepard's and Hawke's pep speeches.  Gah.  At least with Shepard in ME2, I think there was an option to tell her to shut up and get on with it.

[Wulfram]

I liked Shepard's speeches, but disliked Hawke's because it allowed no player input. While the Anora/Alistair speech's main problem was that they were more devoted to puffing the PC's ego than inspiring the troops for battle

Though really, I don't think these sort of speeches are obligatory.

Modifié par Wulfram, 26 mars 2012 - 09:16 .

[Silfren]

Addai67 wrote...

Silfren wrote...
Perhaps, but the original argument is clearly laid out as "silent PC=great game/voiced PC=mediocre game. 

Not according to the thread title.

Also, the specific post I addressed had NOTHING to do with characterization, but claimed that voiced protagonists kill the depth of a game.  

It hangs together.  When you're trying to allow for the PC to be a player avatar as opposed to a set character, you have to try to find a mealy, mass appeal compromise on your main hero, and you also have less resources to go around.  I think that's a pretty good recipe for a mediocre game.

I don't go by thread titles, but by the content posted in the OP, which arguably should actually be summarized by the title,but that's neither here nor there.  

No, they don't hang together.  The quote I referenced said that voiced protagonists kill the depth of a game.  That's it, period, no context, no details, just "voiced protagonists kill a game's depth."  So your larger point about Geralt of Witcher being a defined PC is irrelevant to the question I was responding to.  The Witcher is a very deep and rich game, not in the least bit limited by the voiced protagonist. 

Voiced protagonists do not automatically make a game mediocre.  They do not automatically limit characterization any moreso than silent PCs do. 

[Chun Hei]

Addai67 wrote...

Abispa wrote...

I've said it before, but I feel that VA is not necessary for a good game. However, I HATED how the Warden had to allow other characters give the big speeches (drunkard Oghren and submissive Alistair) while s/he stood around like a dummy.

And I hated Shepard's and Hawke's pep speeches.  Gah.  At least with Shepard in ME2, I think there was an option to tell her to shut up and get on with it.

But Kirahee's "Hold the line" speech was AWESOME. The fault lies with the writer and/or the actor not with the concept of a voice protagonist.

[Merci357]

Silfren wrote...

Voiced protagonists do not automatically make a game mediocre.  They do not automatically limit characterization any moreso than silent PCs do. 

This. I've seen great games with a voiced protagonist, and terrible with a silent one. And obviously vice versa.
Now, I like both styles, depending on the game, but I don't understand the fascination of beating a dead horse. We know little to nothing about DA3, only that the voiced PC is non negotionable.

And, honestly, if there isn't a single game with a voiced PC that you liked so far (TW 1+2, DE:HR, AP, ME Trilogy, DA2, ...), maybe you should move on, there are plenty of companies, both large and indie, that cater to you, and likely won't go away. And that's a good thing.

[Addai]

Chun Hei wrote...
But Kirahee's "Hold the line" speech was AWESOME. The fault lies with the writer and/or the actor not with the concept of a voice protagonist.

Kirrahe is not the PC.  And he's a bit of a cloaca. 

The main thing I hate about them is that your character is off gabbing while you sit on your thumbs.  If I'm going to play a voiced PC, at least let it only be a line or two where I can kind of forget that it's not my character.

@ Silfren:  The thread title says voiced protagonists don't necessarily make for better storytelling, you're arguing that voiced protagonists don't necessarily make for bad games.  It sounds to me like you and the OP are saying the same thing.  But I guess you just want to argue.

BTW did anyone play the Mass Effect 3 autoplay where you let Shepard do his thing without any player input?  I'm wondering whether default Shepard is a renegade or paragon.

Modifié par Addai67, 26 mars 2012 - 09:39 .

[Chun Hei]

Addai67 wrote...

Chun Hei wrote...
But Kirahee's "Hold the line" speech was AWESOME. The fault lies with the writer and/or the actor not with the concept of a voice protagonist.

Kirrahe is not the PC.  And he's a bit of a cloaca. 

The main thing I hate about them is that your character is off gabbing while you sit on your thumbs.  If I'm going to play a voiced PC, at least let it only be a line or two where I can kind of forget that it's not my character.

@ Silfren:  The thread title says voiced protagonists don't necessarily make for better storytelling, you're arguing that voiced protagonists don't necessarily make for bad games.  It sounds to me like you and the OP are saying the same thing.  But I guess you just want to argue.

BTW did anyone play the Mass Effect 3 autoplay where you let Shepard do his thing without any player input?  I'm wondering whether default Shepard is a renegade or paragon.

SOME of the dialog in ME3 seems to reflect how you play the character (Paragon or Renegade autodialog) but most is in the middle.

[Nathan Redgrave]

batlin wrote...

Dragon Age Origins? Silent protagonist, great story.

Two wholly unrelated aspects of the game. The story wouldn't have suffered for the inclusion of voices for protagonists; if anything, it might have been more engaging for some people.

Dragon Age II? Voiced protagonist, mediocre story.

Two wholly unrelated aspects of the game. I point to a vast array of games with fantastic stories that also have voiced protagonists, and rest my case.

...I also remind everyone reading this that "plot" and "storytelling" aren't the same thing. "Plot" is the sequence of events. "Storytelling" is the presentation method. A game can fail massively in one and still pull the other off with distinction and grace. Thank you for acknowledging the distinction.

[LobselVith8]

Silfren 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.

The thing is, though, that the paraphrasing issue does NOT go hand in hand with a voiced protagonist.  Yes, that's the way that Bioware did it for DA2, and it, well, sucked.  However, it failed because it was implemented badly, not because poor paraphrasing is part and parcel of a voiced protagonist.  An argument against the badly executed system set up by DA2 does not necessarily stand as an argument against voiced protagonists in general. 

Witcher 1 (don't know about Witcher 2, but I would guess it's the same) had a fully voiced protagonist, and none of his lines were paraphrased.  It CAN be done well. 

Which is why I addressed the "sloppy paraphrasing" of Dragon Age II, rather than addressing an argument against voiced protagonists in general. I think the arguments tend to focus on Bioware's implementation of a voiced protagonist, rather than voiced protagonists in general.

I'm not against games where a voiced protagonist is part of the story (like Silent Hill or Forbidden Siren), but I prefer not having a voiced protagonist when I am being asked to create my own protagonist. It's simply a personal preference. The Courier, the Dragonborn, and even The Warden feel more personal to me for these type of games, but that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate different types of games that provide a voiced protagonist. It's simply that I prefer how it was done in Origins, where the developers promoted a silent protagonist over a voiced protagonist for this type of game, and I don't see why they changed this. I like the voiced protagonists in Forbidden Siren, but that doesn't mean that every single game needs to have a voiced protagonist - I appreciate the silent protagonists that I'm invited to create in the Fallout series, the Elder Scrolls games, and even the first Dragon Age.

Earlier, I cited Deus Ex as an example of a game where fans have addressed that they could see the entire lines of dialogue that the protagonist would speak - and it's something that Gaider has said won't be done. We saw bad paraphrasing in Leliana's Song, Dragon Age II, the two story DLCs that were released for Dragon Age II - and Gaider has acknowledged that entire lines of dialogue won't be avaliable for fans, in the way that it's avaliable in Deus Ex. Why should I have to deal with this type of paraphrasing in Dragon Age III when it disconnects me for the protagonist?