27 réponses à ce sujet

[Jerrybnsn]

No.  I've been playing the beejeezus out of Skyrim without a VO and feel no loss without it.

[Allan Schumacher]

I can honestly swear that through all my Friday or Saturday All-nighters of D&D, we never got together and said, "Okay, lets have predefined characters and judge each other on how we step into that role.

I think that there will always be fundamental differences between most pen and paper RPG experiences and CRPG experiences.

At best, the CRPG experience is like playing PnP with an exceptionally rigid DM that provides lists for what your character can say, and only allows the players to do specifically what he has allowed.

Based on my experiences with people that play a lot of PnP RPG games, a DM that mirrored what a CRPG does would be a DM that had no one playing with him anymore.

The level of freedom afforded by a human DM cannot be mimic'd by a computer (or even a human DM using something like NWN's Aurora toolset). Unless we get cracking on genuine AI that can respond appropriately to the infinite instructions that the players could input, it's always going to be a limitation.

[David Gaider]

CrustyBot wrote...
Lol. This is why BioWare should just stop trying to make RPGs. Wouldn't get academic arguments like these. I firmly feel as if BioWare's focus on NPC driven cinematic narratives would be better served by being in a different genre (like the Action-Adventure one) rather than the RPG genre.

That's only true if it bothers us that there are fans who like to argue about what an RPG should/must be. RPG's as a genre cover a lot more territory than some would like-- and that's fine insofar as it makes for a discussion on a forum-- but it causes no more misconceptions when compared to genre expectations than it would if we suddenly said we were an Action-Adventure game or whatever else. I think most people believe RPG's involve lots of story, talking and stats... and the nuances otherwise are meaningless to anyone who isn't an RPG grognard.

Personally, I'd say player VO isn't a must for an RPG. Silent protaganists work great, so long as there's not a lot of cinematics involved-- Fallout or Skyrim, for instance, use a first-person view where you don't see your own character and the dialogue is mostly talking heads. For their purposes, that works.

If you have cinematics, then it becomes problematic to also have a silent PC. Yes, I'm aware that some people liked it well enough in DAO (and it's no surprise you'd see a concentration of those people on the DA forums). We really did our best to work around it, so it's nice to see people who thought that was successful. We don't, however, think it works all that well for our purposes... so while player VO isn't a must for an RPG, it's a must for where we intend to take this RPG. That naturally leads to arguments over whether that makes it enough of an RPG, what an RPG is and whether we should do things like have a completely preset character or abandon the RPG genre label altogether... and while such discussions are great they're simply not what we're going to do.

We'd rather focus our efforts on how to make that better work for the kind of RPG we're trying to create than dwell on classifications of RPG's. I don't think we've any illusions that our solutions will work for everyone-- but, then again, they never do.

[David Gaider]

Dakota Strider wrote...
Mr. Gaider, I am not saying that you are saying those of us that wish for a more classic Role Playing game experience are stupid.  Not even trying to hint at that.  I just hope the DA team knows what they are doing.  Perhaps I am all wrong, but I consider the base of fans Bioware has built up through the BG games, NwN games, and DAO as your Golden Goose.   You got a gold egg out of us when most of us bought DA2 immediately on release or pre-order.  But don't kill the Golden Goose by starving us from what we keep coming to the feed trough for.

Understood. Things like our overall direction aren't really part of my purview, but when it comes to issues like this I do get a bit concerned when people imply that our fans (as in that group of people who are most invested in what we make) are all of the same opinion.

I remember quite clearly the fan rage just before and just after DAO came out-- it wasn't enough like Baldur's Gate (as promised), it was a dumbed-down RPG, it was indicative of a downturn in our adherence to RPG purity, etc. etc. Sound familiar? There was also a group of NWN fans upset that our tradition of releasing proper toolsets capable of creating persistent worlds had been abandoned (a tradition of exactly one game, but that was irrelevant to them). Naturally the tone has changed as well as the context (this being a series where expectations are arguably more justifiable), but it's always been a case of our fans being rather split in their opinions... and that's even true here on the DA forums where the group still remaining are rather self-selecting by their very nature.

That doesn't make them irrelevant by any means-- and certainly DAO proved there's a market for the kind of game it is/was-- but at the end of the day that Golden Goose has laid a lot of different eggs. There's a lot of interests to keep in mind, including our own. From my personal perspective, and with all due respect, I think making the game as good as it can possibly be is what will serve our overall fan base best.

Modifié par David Gaider, 20 juin 2012 - 07:52 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Dakota Strider wrote...

This reminds me so much of certain movies, that go to Cannes Film Festival, and other such venues, and get awards there, and all the "right" artsy-fartsy movie critics fawn over them.  Then the movie is released, and nobody wants to go watch it.  Then the movie fans are called "stupid" for not understanding the "artistic direction" the movie was trying to portray.

These people forget, that if they want paychecks, they need to cater to the consumer.  If they want to make art, for the sake of making art, they should do so, but not complain if nobody else likes it. 

Mr. Gaider, I am not saying that you are saying those of us that wish for a more classic Role Playing game experience are stupid.  Not even trying to hint at that.  I just hope the DA team knows what they are doing.  Perhaps I am all wrong, but I consider the base of fans Bioware has built up through the BG games, NwN games, and DAO as your Golden Goose.   You got a gold egg out of us when most of us bought DA2 immediately on release or pre-order.  But don't kill the Golden Goose by starving us from what we keep coming to the feed trough for.

I found it interesting that you can interpret this post in two ways:

1) The devs are "calling people stupid" (I know you're not actually saying that, I'm just using your analogy) for not liking the game that they made.
2) Fans of the RPGs like Baldur's Gate are "calling other gamers stupid" for not liking the game that they love.

[David Gaider]

While we haven't yet discussed the inclusion of player race options, I will point out that if the assumption is that race options are primarily limited by VO that's incorrect. It plays a part, certainly, particularly with the already-established accents, but the difficulty with player races primarily relates to the amount of model variations required and to cinematics (height differences between the races).

None of these are impossible to overcome, provided we believe the expense is worth the pay-off. Obviously there are those among you who feel this is so (and since the expense is the same for you, it must seem like a no-brainer from your side of things), so we'll see.

[David Gaider]

brushyourteeth wrote...
As far as the expense being worth the pay-off, you already know that this is your story to tell. That's the pay-off. Of course we love options, options, options - we're RPG fans. But if you have a story to tell that wouldn't be served by giving us those, we have to believe that it wouldn't be worth it in the end.

But we also know that the real star of the show is Thedas, and Thedas isn't comprised of only notable humans. Having a human protagonist in DAII is one thing - being stuck with them forever is completely another. I hope you feel kind of proud that we love your elves, dwarves, and kossith so much.

Yes-- if we didn't end up going with additional player race options in the next installment, I doubt that should be taken as "we will never have them again". They add a great deal, even to the people who don't play them (I think the idea of alternatives has intrinsic value by virtue of their existence). I don't know if I buy the argument that they're required for an RPG, but at least in terms of the comparison to DAO I think part of the reaction from some fans is that they felt a lot of options were "taken away" without getting enough to replace what was lost. It's an emotional perspective, sure, since features don't belong to anyone and are assigned to a project on a case-by-case basis, but emotions don't need to be validated that way. They exist whether we like them or not.

I don't think being "stuck" as a human is overly limiting, so long as we get some additional options for players to tinker with (as y'all do like to tinker), but having additional races again would be awesome. No question. Who doesn't like additional options?

[David Gaider]

dunstan1993 wrote...
Will we have a VP in DA3?
Yes.

Do you have proof to back that answer up?
Nope, I just have a hunch that Bioware won't go back to SP (Silent Protagonist) let alone drop the conversation wheel. It's just a hunch, but I'm pretty convinced I'm right.

You don't need to rely on a hunch. We've stated outright that we're sticking with a voiced protaganist as well as the conversation wheel-- at least for the forseeable future. Discussing how we can improve our use of these is one thing, but if one's of the opinion that improvement simply isn't possible and that they must be removed outright there's really no place for that discussion to go. Some people like to talk about it anyway, but removing those features is not really on the table.

Modifié par David Gaider, 22 juin 2012 - 05:31 .

[David Gaider]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
To that end, I'd like to ask that you give us as much detail as you have about what it is the PC is going to say and do based on our wheel selection.

Based on the amount of "control" you've repeatedly espoused absolutely needing in order to have your particular playstyle catered to, I would say no-- that is simply not going to happen.

We have a voiced PC. We must write for a voiced PC. If we had a silent PC we would write for a silent PC. They are not written the same way, and this goes beyond the paraphrases. Simply displaying the voiced PC's next line and/or turning off the voiced PC's dialogue does not turn it into a silent PC. We're not going to offer an option for someone to do what they think will turn it into a silent PC which will in fact improve nothing for them and most probably would make things worse.

I realize you prefer the silent PC, and you can keep preferring that if you wish. I sympathize with you not getting the same thing out of a voiced PC with paraphrases, and there are clearly others with the same preference, but this is what we are doing. There are things we can do to make the paraphrase system better, but any efforts we expend will be to make it better... not to subvert it.

And that's as clear as I can be at this point.

Modifié par David Gaider, 22 juin 2012 - 10:27 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I think many of the pro VO people don't really understand their own position.  They haven't examined how they play and why, and whether these games are the best place to do that.

I think that this is a bit of a pretentious statement.

You've effectively dismissed the position that some fans like VO for their characters in RPGs as them "not really understanding what they want out of gaming."

No need for that.  RPGs have always had a diverse player base and I think it's what makes the community so interesting.

[David Gaider]

DuskWarden wrote...
If you can please explain what the paraphrases add that'd be great.

I've done this before. Considering most of the same people are here who were there when I explained it last, arguing the same points, I don't imagine there's much point repeating myself. Considering it's not a change we're considering, it's not really a useful conversation to have again. Perhaps someone can dig up a link for you.

If this paraphrase system is so important, could you at least add a popop when we hover over or highlight a paraphrase that shows the dialogue so that we can also read the actual dialogue.

No, we looked at that. Extensively, actually, as it was an idea brought up on the forums and it bore investigation. Considering the way we write for the voiced PC, showing you the following line doesn't always give you the information you think it would. Often it does, sure, but with paraphrases we're talking about frequency of disconnect... and the frequency is no less when we show the following lines unless we change how we write the voiced PC to make it the same as the silent PC (and thus lose the advantages of such). There is no improvement.

Modifié par David Gaider, 23 juin 2012 - 12:24 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I think approval points are only added after a cinematic/dialog. That's the impression I got from the UI in both DA games. So if they only offer rewind during cinematics and they are careful with their scripting, it should be impossible to farm approval points.

GUI updates occur after the conversation, but the scripts are still attached to particular dialogue lines.

I may be mistaken, but based on the nature of the scripting system I'm pretty sure that behind the scenes the approval changes are taken into account when the line is reached.

Having said that, within the context of a rewind feature, keeping track of what lines were spoken wouldn't actually be that difficult.

I'm not sure this feature would be worth the time however, and frankly it is one that I (as a member of QA) would speak out against because it'd create nightmares for ensuring valid game states don't end up broken. A feature like this is meaningless if plot decisions and other choices aren't properly reverted 100% of the time.  My two cents on the topic.

If this is often an issue for someone, my advice to that person would be to quick save often.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 25 juin 2012 - 07:07 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Oooooh yes! I like this idea. I really miss games where I could save during dialogue, mostly because I like to choose the "best" dialogue. And besides if I'm really not satisfied I'd just load an earlier save, same thing but this would make it way easier.

It all depends on whether or not the cost of adding saving functionality to conversations (which behind the scenes were actually cutscenes) would actually justify the cost. It's not as simple as just flipping a switch that lets you save unfortunately.

Unfortunately it's tough to accurately gauge how much value a feature like this can be when considering all users.

[Allan Schumacher]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

That's a narrow view. For some, it's quite relevant on the first playthrough.

....

I think you're underestimating the influence foreknowledge has on how some people play. I'm impressed that you can pick a line and stick to it no matter what you know of the NPC responses, but that's not so for everyone.

You can only speak for yourself, and I for myself.

A rewind button wouldn't work for me. Not that I'd be against it if I could simply not use it, but it's hardly the solution to all my paraphrase woes even if it is for yours.

I agree strongly.  For myself, the first playthrough is always the most significant.  The fact that I couldn't side with UNATCO in Deus Ex was disappointing, but the fact that I strongly believed that I could made my first playthrough so memorable and entrenched the game among my favourites of all time.  Nothing can replace that.

I also know that many people (myself too) replay their characters with metaknowledge.  They go into games going "I'm going to go darkside this time and kill the Wookiees" or "I'm going to side with Caesar's Legion this playthrough"

I feel it's impossible to fully disassociate prior knowledge from subsequent playthroughs because the player will use that prior knowledge to understand what levels of choice he can make in the game.  It's why someone will replay Dragon Age Origins expecting to make different choices in the game, while someone replaying Final Fantasy 7 is not going to have that expectation.  It's an observer bias that can only be completely removed if you were able to literally delete everything relevant from your mind.  I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

Replayability is awesome from the standpoint of "Cool this game reacts differently based on this choice and that's awesome!"

I never reload except due to death on my first playthrough of any RPG, because doing so I taint my experience and allow the knowledge of future events change alter my perspective.  Even if things all go to crap and the world is falling apart all around me, I deal with it and move on.  I find it so much more fun.  I can't get this on my subsequent playthrough because I already have an expectation of what the consequences are of my actions.  I make the different choices just to see how the game can play out differently because that's interesting and fun in a different, more metagaming sort of way.  Seeing if I can save person X, or seeing if I can avoid such and such.  Stuff like that.

[Allan Schumacher]

I think that's just a value added of it being a good game. I'm not saying that replaying to make different decisions isn't fun. It is!

I think it still often comes back to the experience you had with the first playthrough though. You go into subsequent playthroughs thinking "Okay, I'm going to make a different choice at this plot point, and then another from that plot point. I am curious if the game will react well to it!"

At it's core though, I think people only set up ME1 and ME2 because they loved the game so much (part of it motivated by the choices that could be made. People didn't even care about the consequences of them especially in ME1, which didn't have many consequences). If people didn't like ME1 or ME2 on their first playthrough, my guess is that those people would be less inclined to replay the game.

A poor game with lots of different choices and consequences is still a poor game, is it not? Or does the replayability of it accent it in some way?

[Allan Schumacher]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

@Dakota Strider

You're making the all-too-common assumption that everyone plays the same way you do.

There's another reason than stubbornness.  People who play differently than you like it.

Acknowledging that they exist, and do not subscribe to your interpretation at all, is the first step towards genuinely productive discussion.

Consistent critics of the VO and paraphrase such as Xewaka and Sylvius acknowledge this, for example, though the latter still likes to waste effort trying to convince us how we're misinterpreting our own experiences.

Just as reference, a friend of mine actually asked me why DAO didn't have the dialogue wheel, because they preferred it.

/shrug

[Allan Schumacher]

Anyone who says this has never played Deus Ex HR

I played DEHR and typically relied on just the couple of words. I didn't bother mousing over to enable the full subtitle (I don't even know if I had the full subtitle even enabled. For some reason I thought it just showed the first part of the line).

In a game like Deus Ex though, I rarely bothered to let JC finish playing his line. In games like Mass Effect and DA2, I actually don't even play with subtitles on.

In what way? A game can't be cinematic if you have the dialogue options in a list?

I do agree with the notion that cinematics are compromised with a silent protagonist. Doing a speech like Alistair's in DAO is a bit cumbersome when done with a silent protagonist (in fact I'm willing to bet it's why the Warden doesn't make the speech).

Silent protagonist works better with talking heads IMO. I don't find myself caring about the lack of VO in Fallout New Vegas.

[Allan Schumacher]

So you prefer being unsure of what your PC will say than knowing for sure what your PC will say and having the option to skip through the voice dialogue?

Or are you going to deny that the paraphrasing is often deceptive

I typically find full written lines to be insufficient in what I want my character to say. The transition to the dialogue wheel was not a big one for me because I already picked the full text dialogue that was closest to what I wanted to say, since I was already restricted to only being able to say what the game designers allowed me to say.

Then again, I also come from a history of playing RPGs where the most commonly used conversations I made were "Name" "Job" and "Goodbye."


Given I already find full text lines more restrictive than any of you do you're likely going to dismiss anything I say on the subject outright.

I find the wheel and full text to effectively be a wash. They each have their advantages and disadvantages but ultimately I am indifferent to them and I find my ability to enjoy RPGs not really affected by whether one system is in or not.

My favourite conversation system of all time is Alpha Protocol's, and the only thing I can choose is is a keyword typically denoting the emotion behind it.

I do occasionally find myself surprised by the actual spoken line compared to what I expected, but most of the time this happens I actually find it entertaining (usually funny), but I have a feeling I find myself "burned' by this much less than those that adamantly speak out against the system.

As I already said, given I already make the same concessions with full text dialogue (I pick the line of dialogue that best fits how I want to react), it's less of an issue. In fact, coupled with the icons I don't think I ever found myself going "ooo, that wasn't really what I wanted to say." I've always chosen lines based on what I feel their intent was.

I don't. See the list of RPG series' I made that are both epic and cinematic with a silent protagonist.

I must have missed that. Can you link me to it?

Why would the Warden make that speech instead of the king?

The question is more: "Could the Warden have delivered the scene as well with silent dialogue?"

Besides, it is possible for a speech to be done effectively by a silent protagonist. KotOR 1 did this very well. Was the guy who wrote a lot of KotOR's dialogue let go or something?

Remind me of the speech.

[Allan Schumacher]

That's not really fair. I'm just trying to understand why Bioware prefers this style when their reasoning doesn't mesh with what we've seen in previous RPGs.

You're right it's not fair. I have gotten that impression with other posters (not even necessarily on this board) so it can be difficult to disassociate. I apologize!

I can get that some people would find that sort of thing funny, but is that kind of dissonance between the player and their PC what you would call an ideal feature in an RPG?

No. In fact I do actually consider it a slight negative. But for me it's a wash because it's a slight positive to have fully dialogued lines. For me it tends to be a bit of a wash depending on the circumstances. For instance, I'd find full voice over in Fallout New Vegas to be a bit of a waste. Conversations are just talking heads and I don't even see my own (I play exclusively first person). I'm not going to emote during the conversation at all, or otherwise display any other sort of emotion.

If you read the first post I made in this thread (page 20) I explain why paraphrased dialogue works better in RPGs like Mass Effect where Shepard is a consistent character, much like Michael is in AP. In a nutshell, you don;t have a choice between personalities in those games, only in how you react. In DA:O, you do have a plethora of personalities to explore and when you try to voice it you get a Hawke that sounds like he has MPD.

Hmmm, I see your point. Although I didn't feel that Thorton was tied to a particular type of personality though. I think professional Mike is a different character than suave Mike. It might be more a reflection of the voice acting not going as extreme, however. I'll concede that if the voice acting isn't as consistent, it does become more jarring.

In what way? A game can't be cinematic if you have the dialogue options
in a list? It can't be epic if the PC is silent? There's a plethoa of
games that came before ME1 that proves this false. Ultima, BG, NWN,
KotOR, hell, even the FFs pre-FFX.

Well, I'll just up and state that with my history of games like Ultima (I'm assuming you're a fan, given your name, and you know I am based on my "Name" "Job" "Bye" reference) I do not at all consider them to be cinematic experiences. Epic? Sure. Epic has more to do with the scope rather than the style. Same goes for games like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, though I do think that KOTOR was a start of a more cinematic focused RPG from BioWare.

There's not only one, but one early in the game is where you're settling a Romeo+Juliet-esque dispute on Dantooine, another is the courtroom scene on Manaan.

Hmmm, I think they're well written scenes. Not as big of a fan of the Romeo and Juliet homage, but I did really enjoy the courtroom scene. I disagree that they are great examples of speeches though. Fun and well written, but Alistair's talk takes the cake IMO. I wanted to kick darkspawn myself. He gets to add all of the emotes and body language into the speech. It's a bit like Shepard's speeches too (the Hale versions in particular are so well done because I think Hale just makes the character come alive so well).

Isn't it ironic how the mood icons are often more honest to the tone of the dialogue option than the words are? But even so, the mood icons too can be deceptive. For example:

*Aggresive* "Your mom was a b****"

Hawke: I'm glad I never had to meet any of your family.

That's not exactly an aggressive statement now, is it?

Yes, this can happen, and I do agree it's an issue. But I get burned with full line dialogues in similar ways, probably with a similar frequency (which isn't all that often in either case) often because I think a line of dialogue is sarcastic (I have a tendency to do that) but evidently based on the character response it's not.

I've been told that that is just the fault of the character I'm talking to, which I suppose in some cases is true, but in my own interactions in life I find I am usually pretty decent at reading someone and knowing whether or not they'll appreciate my sass, and I can often accent it by maintaining eye contact with a little smile after I deliver the line. I find it uncommon for me to outright insult someone, even if I have just met them. In gaming, that is less common in my experience. In fact I think I even got burned with this when I first met Wynne.

Of course. You may as well ask if awesome speeches can be done well in books.

I think if Dragon Age: Origins was a game like Zork the analogy would work better. In a book, not only do I have words but I also have descriptors used by the author to clarify how a line is being delivered. The text will state that the character is flustered, or impassioned. The lines of dialogue in a CRPG are typically devoid of all that. Occasionally a game may have extra information like (Attack) or (Lie) which can help. But given the visual nature of the medium, I'm not just reading about Alistair giving an impassioned speech, imagining the details in my mind. I'm seeing him actually do it, and it can be quite an experience.

I'm not saying it's directly required (I still enjoyed DAO and prefer it over DA2 myself, though for reasons that don't really include the conversation system haha), but unless the scene itself is static (like Fallout and presumably a game like Skyrim), sometiems I just prefer the more cinematic nature, and I think that voice adds to it especially if there are set pieces with active players moving around.


EDIT:  Sorry for obviously missing some details of your earlier posts.  Often I quickly read these while I am waiting for my machine to do something at work, and I can skim over them quickly!

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 28 juin 2012 - 05:55 .

[Allan Schumacher]

You weren't, though. Just as "Name", "Job", and "Goodbye" were abstractions of what your PC actually said 9unless you wanted him to go around barking single words at people), the full text options in a silent PC game can also be viewed as abstractions.

Which is why paraphrases typically work just fine for me too.

With "Name", your character asked for a name, but how he did that was up to you

No it wasn't. Based on the NPC response, I clearly didn't ask "WHAT THE HECK IS YOUR DAMN NAME!?" Nor did I say "Heh... what's your name? Like I care..."

In fact, I didn't actually care what the PC may have said. I didn't actually conjure up any imaginary lines (I tried doing this once, but I realized it wasn't worknig as it required me to see the response in order to make up something that was appropriate). I simply understood that the character is asking for the name. How he did it was irrelevant.

Okay, I clearly don't understand what this means. What is the "intent" of a line, exactly? How is that different from the content of that line?

I make a reasonable assumption, based on the abstraction (to use your word) for what I feel the designer has put as the result of the line. The same thing that I do with the paraphrased lines, with pretty much the same (very high) degree of success. Sometimes the game responds inappropriately to the full line. Sometimes the game responds inappropriately to the paraphrased line.

This sounds like just about the worst dialogue system ever. How I feel doesn't drive how I speak. What information I want to convey (or conceal) drives how I speak.

I'm sure there are many other differences between you and I, going even beyond what it is we look for in RPG experiences.


In the future though, I'd hesitate telling me how I am feeling about something though. To be perfectly frank I find your attempts to read my mind and to rationalize my own decisions start to cross the line of what I consider constructive conversation.

[Allan Schumacher]

Lol, so the solution could maybe be to have mood icons AND fully written-out dialogue options?

I've considered suggesting this, but have been assured by many on these boards that icons have no place whatsoever haha.

And it worked great despite having a silent protagonist. Again, I'd be surprised if anyone actually complained about that in KotOR. Voiced protagonists weren't exactly an unheard of thing back in 2003.

You know what's interesting though? KOTOR literally was the game that changed how I played RPGs. But I don't actually remember Revan's speech. I do remember Shepard's speech. I remember Thorton stating "Leland... I'm going to kill you." I remember JC Denton saying "Surrrre" when trying to smooth talk a girl (I actually remember a lot of JC lines but probably for more the "wrong" reasons lol). I probably remember more lines that Minsc said as opposed to lines that the Bhaalspawn said.

My memories from the text only RPGs tend to be more along the lines of the actions and accomplishments that I did, not with the lines of dialogue that I spoke. Heck, in replaying Fallout 1 recently I realized I didn't remember how simplistic their conversations actually tended to be. It's still one of my favourite games of all time. The only two lines that ever left an impression on me are "Wubba" and the line where the player tells Gizmo to repeat what he just said, but this time speak closer to the lapel.

My memories in games that have quality (or in the case of the original Deus Ex, even dubious... lol) voice acting lines not only allow me to have fond memories of the actions and accomplishments that I've said, but also of the lines that were spoken by me. I often associate memories with emotional context (and when I do I tend to remember them quite well), and I also enjoy when a game illicits an emotional response from me. This is probably why I find myself enjoying full VO even if it ends up placing restrictions on the the variability of the PC. Yes, I have to accept that Hawke has a specific voice, but I also easily remember how cold it felt when he turned to his grieving mother and said "I'm sorry I'll come back when you're less maudlin" (cementing him as JerkHawke in my mind).

Maybe it has more to me being an audio/visual person? I actually don't read many books, though that didn't mean I didn't read a lot... I just did the reading in video games.

[Allan Schumacher]

I find the RPG segment to be among the most versatile, which is why I like it so much. A lot of things for a lot of different people with a variety of tastes.

[Allan Schumacher]

Well yeah, spoken words stick with you longer than written words. It's just how our minds work.

Is this actually true? It's been a looooooong time but I thought studies showed that people had better retention rates when reading something compared to listening to something.

But I don't see what that has to do with the experience of the words then and there, nor why again elements unique to video games must be sacrificed to make them more like movies.

The easy and boring is answer maybe just that I enjoy it more? I don't consider having a lack of VO to be an essential part of a video game that makes it unique, but I infinitely prefer playing an RPG to watching pretty much any movie. My favourite story in any medium is Planescape: Torment.

Likely depends on our motivations for playing games in general.

[Allan Schumacher]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Agreed. 

As awesome as Planescape Torment was, I did NOT like the fact that it gave me the option to say the same line twice, one as a lie option, one unmarked (insinuating truth). 

I should not ba e to tell the game if my character is lying or not. The game shouldn't be making that decision for my character. 

It was a requirement based on the way TNO's alignments would shift.  Sometimes you didn't have the opportunity to demonstrate that you were lying, and all that was behind it was the intent.  One off line of dialogue where the player decides if he wants to be honest or not.

[Allan Schumacher]

I can understand your disappointment with Diana Allers, but even if Shepard was a silent protagonist it wouldn't have prevented Chobot from voicing Allers.

I don't quite follow. Are you saying you're hesitant for voiced protagonists because there was a voice actor you were not happy with, so it makes you concerned we'd make similar mistakes with the protagonist's voice?