767 réponses à ce sujet

[GodWood]

Lenimph wrote...

GodWood wrote...
I apologize for prefferring a game mechanic that enhances roleplaying opportunities in a roleplaying game.

It doesn't enhance roleplaying opportunities.

Yes it does.

With a silent protaganist I am able to:

- Have a greater plethora of dialogue options as I am not limited to what was recorded by the VO.
- Have access to more "flavour" dialogue options. I.E options that have the same meaning and outcome but allow me to personalize my character. E.g. "Yeah", "Yes" and "Certainly" all mean the same thing but give a different impression of how the character interacts with others.
- Determine exactly how my character sounds thus further personalising him/her as my character and not Bioware's.
- Determine how a line of dialogue is delivered.

These are all features not allowed by the voiced PC. Yes the "fixed response" thing is an issue, but this is an issue for both silent and voiced protaganists so it's hardly a point against the silent protaganist or a point in favour of the voiced protaganist. 

[Vormaerin]

GodWood wrote...

- Have a greater plethora of dialogue options as I am not limited to what was recorded by the VO.
- Have access to more "flavour" dialogue options. I.E options that have the same meaning and outcome but allow me to personalize my character. E.g. "Yeah", "Yes" and "Certainly" all mean the same thing but give a different impression of how the character interacts with others.
- Determine exactly how my character sounds thus further personalising him/her as my character and not Bioware's.
- Determine how a line of dialogue is delivered.

These are all features not allowed by the voiced PC. Yes the "fixed response" thing is an issue, but this is an issue for both silent and voiced protaganists so it's hardly a point against the silent protaganist or a point in favour of the voiced protaganist. 

The first and second ones are only true if you assume the writers are going to produce more dialogue just because its text only.  That's possible, but its hardly a given.

The third one is true.

The fourth is only partially true.   It only works if your decision about the "tone" matches with how Bioware has the rest of the dialogue go.   Yes, you can blame those conflicts on the stupid NPCs misunderstanding you, but that gets old after a while.

We could go back to all silent PCs and NPCs.  That does work.  But I agree with the devs when they say that a silent PC in the middle of speaking NPCs is a problem.

Modifié par Vormaerin, 21 juin 2012 - 07:52 .

[GodWood]

Vormaerin wrote...
The first and second ones are only true if you assume the writers are going to produce more dialogue just because its text only.  That's possible, but its hardly a given.

True, but they'd be silly not to.

Besides, because with a silent protaganist they can essentially add these dialogue options at virtually any time in the game's development. With a voiced protaganist they could not unless they brought the VO back in.

The fourth is only partially true.   It only works if your decision about the "tone" matches with how Bioware has the rest of the dialogue go.   Yes, you can blame those conflicts on the stupid NPCs misunderstanding you, but that gets old after a while.

I never encountered the problem that often really. Whether it's because my tone matched up with Bioware's or because the dialogue was vague enough to be interpreted multiple ways, I am not certain.

We could go back to all silent PCs and NPCs.  That does work.

This would be lovely but it's not completely necessary for my roleplaying. 

But I agree with the devs when they say that a silent PC in the middle of speaking NPCs is a problem.

I never saw it as an issue. It wasn't until Bioware started bashing it in DA2's marketing that I even knew people had a problem with it.

[CuriousArtemis]

I think lovers of the silent PC just like to play pretend. I am not overly familiar with the "old school" form of role-playing, with the dice and such, but maybe they stem from that background.

[GodWood]

motomotogirl wrote...
I think lovers of the silent PC just like to play pretend. I am not overly familiar with the "old school" form of role-playing, with the dice and such, but maybe they stem from that background.

Those would be "pen and paper" RPGs; the very thing CRPGs should be trying to emulate.

[Vormaerin]

GodWood wrote...
I never saw it as an issue. It wasn't until Bioware started bashing it in DA2's marketing that I even knew people had a problem with it.

You never heard anyone complain about how the NPCs bantered with each other, but couldn't with the PC?   You never heard anyone complain about Anora giving the heroic speech instead of the Warden, because the Warden was silent?

The devs did start pointing out that it was hard for them, too because switching from speaking to non speaking parts in cinematics was annoying or something.  That's relatively new, since none of us would have had any reason to know that.

[Sylvius the Mad]

ashwind wrote...

Does anyone seriously think that DA2 would be much better if it had a silent PC and different races to select from??

The silent PC alone (with full text dialogue options) would have maed the game vastly better.  Then we could have played our characters without having them constantly behave differently from what we would have liked.

Race is the least of DA2's shortcoming and if VO must be sacrificed for something, it should not be for the sake of race.

There's no sacrifice.  Voice doesn't add anything to the roleplaying experience.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 21 juin 2012 - 08:53 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

motomotogirl wrote...

I think lovers of the silent PC just like to play pretend.

That's all roleplaying is.

And that's what I want.

[Vormaerin]

GodWood wrote...


; the very thing CRPGs should be trying to emulate.

That's a rather disingenuous statement.  That's like saying turn based strategy games are trying to emulate board games.   They are.... sort of.   But Civilization the board game and Civlization the computer game don't play the same.

No CRPG, other than NWN, has tried to duplicate the p&p experience (and it didn't actually use any of that stuff in the professional released content).  You are basically asking the Devs not to use the strengths of the computer gaming medium just so you can continue to badly imitate actual p&p gaming.

Modifié par Vormaerin, 21 juin 2012 - 09:00 .

[JamieCOTC]

It's the direction BW is going to go with, so the question is academic. BW's strongest asset has always been their ability to tell a good story and a voiced PC will only enhances that. However if there is a concern it is how predefined the hero will be in DA3. Hawke was much more predefined than the Warden and Shepard even more so in Mass Effect 3. With games becoming more and more cinematic, the temptation to define the PC even more so is potentially pretty high.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Lenimph wrote...

There are still people butthurt about how they can't read their pc's lines to themselves in their silly roleplay voices?
How many months ago did Bioware say silent protagonists were dead to them? Can we get over this already? Besides the only game I felt a silent protagonist truely worked for without feeling awkward at all was Okami and do you know why? Because I was playing as a freaking wolf, and even she barked up a hellstorm! I'm so glad Bioware is going to stick to a VO protagonist, and I feel that if they brought back race choice no one would be complaining right now. Unless you know you're really upset about not being able to read those lines to yourself, regardless of the fact that you can present them to yourself wrong and the fixed character reactions ruin that anyway.

Fixed character reactions never ruined roleplaying.  The only way that could be true is if you could read the NPC's mind to know why he was reacting the way he was.  You can't.  As such, there was no problem.

When someone replies to a think you've said, you don't know why they'd replied in that way.  You don't know everything that might have influenced that reaction.  So why would you want NPCs to be predictable when real people are not?

[Zubie]

motomotogirl wrote...

I think lovers of the silent PC just like to play pretend.

Yeah, you know, role-play. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

BobSmith101 wrote...

You can't do first person roleplaying when you don't know what the character is going to say before they say it. That seems to be the objection.

Exactly.

I would ever go so far as to argue that the paraphrase was a bigger problem than the voice in DA2, but without isolating the two features I can't be certain.

[ianvillan]

I do not like the main character being voiced and would prefer a silent protaganist. It could be something I will acept as being in the game, but as long as their is paraphrasing it will be impossible to enjoy the game.

I believe that paraphrasing and voice do not and cannot work together the the game, there is just too much of a disconect from the paraphrase to what you hear and it takes me out of the character.

As long as voice remains time and resources that could of been used somewere else will have to be used on voice and you will have less of a game as a result.

[LobselVith8]

motomotogirl wrote...

I think lovers of the silent PC just like to play pretend. I am not overly familiar with the "old school" form of role-playing, with the dice and such, but maybe they stem from that background.

There are problems with how Bioware implemented a voiced protagonist (for some of us).

I don't find anything satisfying about a protagonist I'm supposed to create, who I have little control over. Hawke speaks entirely different lines than the ones I chose for him to speak, there's automatic dialogue outside if my control, and he makes facial expressions that run contrary to what I would prefer. I don't see the benefit in seeing this repeat in Dragon Age III.

[Sylvius the Mad]

David Gaider wrote...

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).

This is yet another way in which the move toward cinematic presentation is limiting or eliminating the player's ability to create and play a character of his own design.

If the player's primary objective in playing these games is to create and control a character of his own design, then nearly every aspect of BioWare's move toward cinematics has been a move in the wrong direction.

Who is making a game where we get to create and control a character of our own design?  I'd like to play that game.

David Gaider wrote...

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".

That's my stance on the silent protagonist, as well.

Just because you're not doing one now doesn't mean you never will.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 21 juin 2012 - 09:26 .

[ianvillan]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

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).

This is yet another way in which the move toward cinematic presentation is limiting or eliminating the player's ability to create and play a character of his own design.

If the player's primary objective in playing these games is to create and control a character of his own design, then nearly every aspect of BioWare's move toward cinematics has been a move in the wrong direction.

Who is making a game where we get to create and control a character of our own design?  I'd like to play that game.

Cinematic presentation and voice also encourages the writers to put more and more auto-dialogue in to the games which eliminate more player freedoms to play the character they have created.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Vormaerin wrote...

We could go back to all silent PCs and NPCs.  That does work.  But I agree with the devs when they say that a silent PC in the middle of speaking NPCs is a problem.

Even accepting their argument on that front (which I don't - I have no problem with a silent PC amidst voiced NPCs), they've only claimed the incongruitiy is a problem in a cinematic game.

In a non-cinematic game, voicing the NPCs doesn't leave the PC staring blankly at anyone, because we're never actually that close to the PC.  NWN doesn't have that problem.

Prior to BioWare moving completely into cinematic presentation, the whole of the dialogue system save the NPC responses was an abstraction.  The dialogue options were an abstraction.  The pacing was an abstraction.  The dialogue system no more resembled what was really happening in the world than did a turn-based combat system.  It's just an abstract way of presenting information to the player.

And that's all we need.

[Sylvius the Mad]

JamieCOTC wrote...

BW's strongest asset has always been their ability to tell a good story

I flatly deny this.  The way BioWare fleshes out their settings by telling stories is terrific, I'll grant, but the most importnat story told in a roleplaying game is the one created by the gameplay itself.  The story of your PC is very different from the story of mine, even though they're both living in settings written by the same team with the same background events going on around them.

But BioWare's story is merely a background event.  The story of DAO isn't the Warden defeating the Blight.  The story of DAO is the struggles of the Warden amidst the Blight.  Whether he ultimately defeats it is determined by the player, not by BioWare.  What the Warden's goals are is determined by the player, not by BioWare.

[Vormaerin]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

And that's all we need.

That's all you want perhaps.  That's not what others want.   If that's all I wanted, I might actually like TES despite the dopey game mechanics.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...


But BioWare's story is merely
a background event.  The story of DAO isn't the Warden defeating the
Blight.  The story of DAO is the struggles of the Warden amidst the
Blight.  Whether he ultimately defeats it is determined by the player,
not by BioWare.  What the Warden's goals are is determined by the
player, not by BioWare.

I know you are trying to replace the p&p game play you can't have, but sorry.  I'm not spending $60 for a tool to write fanfiction.

Modifié par Vormaerin, 21 juin 2012 - 09:57 .

[robertthebard]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

JamieCOTC wrote...

BW's strongest asset has always been their ability to tell a good story

I flatly deny this.  The way BioWare fleshes out their settings by telling stories is terrific, I'll grant, but the most importnat story told in a roleplaying game is the one created by the gameplay itself.  The story of your PC is very different from the story of mine, even though they're both living in settings written by the same team with the same background events going on around them.

But BioWare's story is merely a background event.  The story of DAO isn't the Warden defeating the Blight.  The story of DAO is the struggles of the Warden amidst the Blight.  Whether he ultimately defeats it is determined by the player, not by BioWare.  What the Warden's goals are is determined by the player, not by BioWare.

Actually, there is no ending to Origins where the Blight isn't defeated.  If there were, my City Elf, and possibly my Dalish Elf, after seeing the Alienage, with all the little posters about elves with swords will die on them, would have just let the Archdemon have Denerim.  It's not possible though, even if you never finish the game.  It just means that you didn't do it.

[robertthebard]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

You can't do first person roleplaying when you don't know what the character is going to say before they say it. That seems to be the objection.

Exactly.

I would ever go so far as to argue that the paraphrase was a bigger problem than the voice in DA2, but without isolating the two features I can't be certain.

The paraphrase was problematic at times, as I took what it said to mean pretty close to what I was going to mean, and sometimes, it missed.  Since I started playing around with ME, I'm starting to get a better feel for it now, but it's still hit and miss with what it says, and what I thought it was going to say, or how I was going to say it.

[Jerrybnsn]

Vormaerin wrote...

GodWood wrote...


; the very thing CRPGs should be trying to emulate.

That's a rather disingenuous statement.  That's like saying turn based strategy games are trying to emulate board games.   They are.... sort of.   But Civilization the board game and Civlization the computer game don't play the same.

No CRPG, other than NWN, has tried to duplicate the p&p experience (and it didn't actually use any of that stuff in the professional released content).  You are basically asking the Devs not to use the strengths of the computer gaming medium just so you can continue to badly imitate actual p&p gaming.

There are many examples of games that allow you to customize your character to other races.  Technology isn't to blame for lack of race option.  And yes, I believe crpgs should strive to the pnp rpg experience. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

robertthebard wrote...

Actually, there is no ending to Origins where the Blight isn't defeated.

Sure there is.  One of my Wardens was killed by Shale.  Another was killed by Sten.  Another by Loghain.  Their stories ended there.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Vormaerin wrote...

I know you are trying to replace the p&p game play you can't have, but sorry.  I'm not spending $60 for a tool to write fanfiction.

For a good one, I'd happily pay more than that.  In 2010 dollars, I paid $160 for new games in 1986.  That seems a fair price.

This even works in DA2 (though it isn't fun getting there).  My Hawke was a serial killer, murdered his own mother for his magical research, and blew up the Chantry himself (Varric pinned the blame on Anders).