767 réponses à ce sujet

[Dave of Canada]

Perhaps I'm talking out of my ass but the issue most of you tend to have with the voiced dialogue wouldn't be solved by a single line being presented, as the game would suffer under the same grievances which most had when playing Human Revolution.

The line being presented serves little purpose as voiced protagonists often have more to say in the conversation than one line. When you're meeting a couple and you mock them, the mockery might continue a bit more into the conversation and suddenly the line you've picked isn't what you desired anymore as you wanted only the initial bit.

Perhaps you'd prefer it over the paraphrase and tone icon, though you'd still be restricted and wouldn't know everything the protagonist says--which ultimately is an issue of control, something which you desire but still wouldn't achieve with the singular line.

It would essentially be identical to the DA2 system for most of you, you pick the tone and don't know most of what you're going to be saying.

Personally, this is the reason why I much prefer voiced protagonist (most of the time). I can "direct" the flow of the conversation, the intent and such. I have very little interest in the actual wording, just the way the conversation plays out.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 23 juin 2012 - 12:41 .

[PsychoBlonde]

DuskWarden wrote...

My response to this is that you should be able to choose your dialogue before you say it regardless of the voiced PC.

My response to this is to ask "why"?  No one has provided a why for this aside from "because I like it that way", and that's not a reason but a preference.  If you're going to say that something SHOULD be a certain way, you need FACTS to back it up, not PREFERENCE.

Otherwise, what you need to say is "I'd prefer it to be that way."  Which is 100% perfectly true and valid and I sympathize.  I prefer it, well, either way.  What ultimately matters is how Bioware prefers it, which is *just as true and valid as our preferences*.  I'm sorry if in this case, you didn't get your personal preference and I happened to get mine (sort of, since I don't exactly have one).  I'm sure there are other areas where the cases will be reversed or I'll get part of something I like but you'll get part of something you like or maybe a third person will get what they like instead.  If you dislike it SO MUCH that you don't want to play the game, oh well.  Have fun I guess.  Hope you find something you DO like.

Just stop acting like your preferences are stone-graven mile-high icons delivered from on high by flights of angels.  Because they're not, and this type of rationalizing is pointless and actually rather abusive toward people who disagree.

[PsychoBlonde]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Personally, this is the reason why I much prefer voiced protagonist (most of the time). I can "direct" the flow of the conversation, the intent and such. I have very little interest in the actual wording, just the way the conversation plays out.

Neato.  Another side benefit.

[Fallstar]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

DuskWarden wrote...

My response to this is that you should be able to choose your dialogue before you say it regardless of the voiced PC.

My response to this is to ask "why"?  No one has provided a why for this aside from "because I like it that way", and that's not a reason but a preference.  If you're going to say that something SHOULD be a certain way, you need FACTS to back it up, not PREFERENCE.

Otherwise, what you need to say is "I'd prefer it to be that way."  Which is 100% perfectly true and valid and I sympathize.  I prefer it, well, either way.  What ultimately matters is how Bioware prefers it, which is *just as true and valid as our preferences*.  I'm sorry if in this case, you didn't get your personal preference and I happened to get mine (sort of, since I don't exactly have one).  I'm sure there are other areas where the cases will be reversed or I'll get part of something I like but you'll get part of something you like or maybe a third person will get what they like instead.  If you dislike it SO MUCH that you don't want to play the game, oh well.  Have fun I guess.  Hope you find something you DO like.

Just stop acting like your preferences are stone-graven mile-high icons delivered from on high by flights of angels.  Because they're not, and this type of rationalizing is pointless and actually rather abusive toward people who disagree.

As I said previously, I'm going to buy the game regardless. And posting my preferences on a forum for discussion doesn't mean those preferences are "stone-graven mile-high icons delivered from on high by flights of angels" in my eyes. 

What I am asking for is a pop up box that shows the full dialogue. I know that paraphrasing is here to stay, I was just asking for the option. People who disagree can still play through with the paraphrases and wouldn't have to read a single line of the full dialogue if they didn't want to, so I fail to see how explaining why I think this is a good idea is abusive to the people who disagree and will get paraphrases either way. 

There is no why for why I think you should be able to choose your dialogue before you say it other than because I like it that way. I never claimed there was. At least not an objective reason. In my opinion I want my character to choose the response that best fits my character. I can do this better if I know the dialogue option before hand.

Fandango9641 wrote...

So (and forgive me if I misunderstand) are there going to be any changes to the way dialogue was handled in DA2?

 

The VP is here to stay, and paraphrases being used without the ability to see the full dialogue looks likely again too.

Modifié par DuskWarden, 23 juin 2012 - 01:06 .

[Jerrybnsn]

My whole purpose of this post was to discuss specifically about the merits of VO in the Dragon Age series because it was used as the main reason why we would not be able to have race options. As has been stated by Mr. Gaider, the existence of VO was not the reason we did not receive race options in DA2, race options were cut for presenting a stronger storyline.

Personally, I don't like the use of VO in my rpgs. The reason is once you use VO that hero is no longer you but someone you'll direct. You give the direction then the actor on the screen, through cinematics and VO, takes over from there as you sit, watch and listen. In DA2 I found this fun and entertaining, to be honest. Especially with the talented writers the DA staff has. They can write the best smartass remarks that had me laughing.

But here is why I enjoyed the Origins' silent protagonist better. An SP works the best if I want myself to be immersed as the hero of the story. I can role play Hawke, Shepard, Nathan Drake, Spider-Man, Geralt, and so on with games that are strong on VO personality and cinematics. But the games that let me role play as myself are the ones I truly enjoy. Games like Origins and TES allowed me to imagine I was born in another world, with a particular race, as a particular gender, and trained myself within a particular class, and it will always be me that will be interacting with the enviroment created for my hero story.

I would like to see Dragon Age return back to the formula that allowed me to be the hero; however, as Mr. Gaider has stated, they are not going to do that. I can accept that because, as I said before, it is still a fun and entertaing experience even though the hero will be someone else. But it can never be on the level that Origins gave me, which was a deeper more personal game as the hero of the story.

Modifié par Jerrybnsn, 23 juin 2012 - 01:20 .

[Elrith Galadon]

I personally don't have much gripes about voiced characters, apart from the replayability issue. It was rather odd to see my over-the-top masculine female Hawke speak in the same voice and tone with my gentle, loving Hawke, when they had different faces, different tones... but hence my proposed option to change timbre and pitch.

I did, however, had issues with wheelies, despite it clarifying some options for me. Someone here pointed out that we aren't writing fanfiction and therefore it's the dev team's characters we're playing, not our own, and I must disagree. With the Warden, we were not given the "reasoning" behind each dialogue choice, and therefore it was left to ourselves to construct the motives behind it. My Surana is, ultimately, mine, and has distinct personality that is not the same as others, despite making the same choices as the other F! Suranas I've seen. I'm not saying that DA2 didn't do this, but the degree of freedom with our imagination was distinctly less. When your option shows "I don't like you" and Hawke says "go away", the option is showing the motive for saying whatever Hawke said.

This, of course, can probably be overcome with well-written script; after all there are novels that allow us to feel extremely close to the characters that we see. But that would require lengthy planning and a lot of character exploration on the dev side. I'm hoping that DA3 would get a lot more time developing the plots and the characters, since that is the Bioware strength after all.

Modifié par Elrith Galadon, 23 juin 2012 - 01:08 .

[wsandista]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Perhaps I'm talking out of my ass but the issue most of you tend to have with the voiced dialogue wouldn't be solved by a single line being presented, as the game would suffer under the same grievances which most had when playing Human Revolution.

Solved, no. Mitigated, possibly. But if they include a voiced PC, they should go all the way and have a set PC.

Having a player-generated PC is seemingly incompatible with a VA. Geralt and Adam function much better as a voiced PC than Hawke because all lines they speak are written expressly for them. With Hawke, if the player is expecting a character that behaves how they envision, it doesn't work out for them. I disliked the dialogue systems in DA2 and ME, but It is easier to deal with if you don't think of Hawke or Shepard as your character but as Bioware's character.

TL;DR version: Voiced PC work for fixed PC, doesn't work for player-generated PC.

[Elrith Galadon]

Dave of Canada wrote...



Solved, no. Mitigated, possibly. But if they include a voiced PC, they should go all the way and have a set PC.

Having a player-generated PC is seemingly incompatible with a VA. Geralt and Adam function much better as a voiced PC than Hawke because all lines they speak are written expressly for them. With Hawke, if the player is expecting a character that behaves how they envision, it doesn't work out for them. I disliked the dialogue systems in DA2 and ME, but It is easier to deal with if you don't think of Hawke or Shepard as your character but as Bioware's character.

TL;DR version: Voiced PC work for fixed PC, doesn't work for player-generated PC.

My sentiments exactly. With DA2 we're stuck in a limbo zone where our characters aren't quite the devs, but aren't quite ours either, making it difficult to care at all. With the Warden they were distinctly ours, each Warden different from another. With Geralt... well, there's only one Geralt of Rivia, despite different choices, so we're his friends at best, but that doesn't mean we can't care about him.

I'd rather have Ezio than Hawke for the next game, if you know what I mean. Set PCs don't necessarily subtract from the game.

Modifié par Elrith Galadon, 23 juin 2012 - 01:10 .

[Xewaka]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

Xewaka wrote...
And since a dialogue UI should tell the player what his character will say, paraphrases, by design, fail as a dialogue UI.

Why should it?  Why is this mandatory?

Because otherwise character coherency goes down the drain. 

PsychoBlonde wrote...
Personally, I like being surprised.

I like surprises in the game too. In the plot, in exploring, in combat, from my companions, etc. But how can you play a coherent character when you want him/her to surprise you? What am I in the game for if I can't even know what will my character say?

PsychoBlonde wrote...
Besides, by this definition even when they completely spell out the line with a silent PC, it tells you NOTHING about the PC's tone in using that line.  There are many times in DA:O where I assumed a line was meant to be sarcastic, and by the way the NPC reacted I realized it was anything but.  And vice versa.  So clearly full lines ALSO fail as a dialog UI.

Death of author kicks in here. The tone is never spelled, hence you can assume whichever tone you like.

PsychoBlonde wrote...
The only failure here lies in the assumption that there is some way for the devs to convey omniscience upon the player so the player is NEVER EVER EVER confronted with ANYTHING that they didn't SPECIFICALLY ASK FOR.  Which is ridiculous.  Nothing and no one can achieve this.  Why would you even want to achieve this?

Yeah, why would I want to control my character? It's not as if I'm roleplaying or anything! Sarcasm aside, you fail to see the point. I don't mind having limited options. I really really mind having said options hidden from me. That's what paraphrases do. They hide the options from the player.

PsychoBlonde wrote...
You are playing a computer game, not writing your own personal fanfic.  Expecting the computer game to act like a blank screen on which you can compose any story you like yet it's somehow still magically reactive to you is a fundamental misunderstanding of what, precisely, computers can accomplish.  If it makes you unhappy, oh well, but wishing for the moon won't make it possible for you to pluck it from the sky and wear it on your forehead.

I am not asking for anything that hasn't been done. I'm just asking to know what my character will say. I knew it in Baldur's Gate, I knew it in KotOR, I knew it in Neverwinter Nights, I knew it in Jade Empire, I knew it in Origins. And suddenly they decided to hide it from me for **** and giggles.

Just so you better understand why paraphrases utterly fail, allow me to present you the Horizon challenge: In Mass Effect 2, in the conversation with the Virmire Survivor in Horizon, try to keep Shepard from revealing his current alliegance with Cerberus, based only in the information given by the paraphrases. When you tire of the trial and error, maybe then you'll understand why paraphrases fail.

EDIT: also, answering your question:

PsychoBlonde wrote...
My response to this is to ask "why"?  No one has provided a why for this aside from "because I like it that way", and that's not a reason but a preference.  If you're going to say that something SHOULD be a certain way, you need FACTS to back it up, not PREFERENCE.

Because otherwise character coherency is irreparably damaged. 

Modifié par Xewaka, 23 juin 2012 - 01:13 .

[Vormaerin]

Jerrybnsn wrote...
But the games that let me role play as myself are the ones I truly enjoy. Games like Origins and TES allowed me to imagine I was born in another world, with a particular race, as a particular gender, and trained myself within a particular class, and it will always be me that will be interacting with the enviroment created for my hero story.

Well, I'm me quite a lot of the time.  An occasional break doesn't bother me.   But, mostly, I find that this just doesn't work because the developers are still controlling everything.   They control what I can say, what I can do, where I can go.  How is that in any way "my character,"  much less 'me in an alternate reality'?

[Brockololly]

Elrith Galadon wrote...
My sentiments exactly. With DA2 we're stuck in a limbo zone where our characters aren't quite the devs, but aren't quite ours either, making it difficult to care at all. With the Warden they were distinctly ours, each Warden different from another. With Geralt... well, there's only one Geralt of Rivia, despite different choices, so we're his friends at best, but that doesn't mean we can't care about him.

I'd rather have Ezio than Hawke for the next game, if you know what I mean. Set PCs don't necessarily subtract from the game.

That's more or less my stance when it comes to voiced PCs. I didn't mind Geralt, Adam Jensen or Mike Thorton in Alpha Protocol really. I didn't feel quite as engaged in terms of role playing a character with any of them but more like just guiding them along since they're more fixed characters with already existing personalities, physical looks and they exist without the player's input. They feel more established in their respective worlds but that makes it so I'm more accepting of a paraphrase system where I don't have detailed foresight in what they'll say. I'm ok if I'm a little surprised by their words.

But with Shepard and Hawke in BioWare games, its just in a No Man's Land where you're seemingly given some input into the identity of the character in crafting their look and background, but you're not given full control of them via dialogue choices like a proper silent PC. So you're left with a character that it feels like you've created but then you have that feeling of agency stripped once you get going with the paraphrases and autodialogue with auto tones being grafted on to responses. And neither Shepard or Hawke feel like actual characters that existed in the game world prior to the player taking control, so in comparison to the likes of Adam Jensen or Geralt, they end up again as weird in between characters with little personality or...character. Which to me, kind of defeats the purpose of voicing them in the first place. Or you end up with something like DA2 where going between the tones ends up with Schizophrenic Hawke where it ends up sounding like not one character talking in different tones but multiple characters talking with the same voice actor.


I just wish BioWare would try some radically different type of dialogue system. I'm just really sick of the paraphrases and the wheel as it does nothing to keep me engaged or enhance my experience compared to the dialogue systems they've employed in the past with silent PCs. Even if we're assuming the paraphrases are kept to enhance the "cinematic" flair of their games, then it still falls flat IMO, as Alpha Protocol's dialogue system and development of Thorton was infinitely more cinematic and engaging.

Its just disappointing as it seems like BioWare has very talented people yet the paraphrases/voiced PC/wheel is some Sacred Cow which cannot be touched. They keep trying to cram this square peg into a round hole instead of just trying something different.

Modifié par Brockololly, 23 juin 2012 - 02:04 .

[Vormaerin]

Elrith Galadon wrote...

My sentiments exactly. With DA2 we're stuck in a limbo zone where our characters aren't quite the devs, but aren't quite ours either, making it difficult to care at all. With the Warden they were distinctly ours, each Warden different from another. With Geralt... well, there's only one Geralt of Rivia, despite different choices, so we're his friends at best, but that doesn't mean we can't care about him.

I think this is purely a perception issue.  For whatever reason, it wasn't clear that you were playing "Hawke" rather than a character you created.   I don't think that having control over the character's physical appearance and gender invalidates the fixed character nature of the story.

Personally, I think the problem most folks have with Hawke is not that they are too detached from him/her, but that he's too detached from the story as it was presented.  Hawke ended up not being central to the story, so we weren't immersed in it like we should have been.

[Jerrybnsn]

Vormaerin wrote...

Jerrybnsn wrote...
But the games that let me role play as myself are the ones I truly enjoy. Games like Origins and TES allowed me to imagine I was born in another world, with a particular race, as a particular gender, and trained myself within a particular class, and it will always be me that will be interacting with the enviroment created for my hero story.

Well, I'm me quite a lot of the time.  An occasional break doesn't bother me.   But, mostly, I find that this just doesn't work because the developers are still controlling everything.   They control what I can say, what I can do, where I can go.  How is that in any way "my character,"  much less 'me in an alternate reality'?

I don't watch myself or listen to hear what is going to be said when I wish to speak.  That's the cinematics and VO taking over.  I remember many time in Origins where I was interacting in my own way and speaking in my own voice.  In DA2, it was all the actor Hawk.....not that there is anything wrong with that.  Geralt was a great character to play.

[mr_luga]

You guys need to check out Deus Ex Human revolution for how to do the "wheel" right.

[Vormaerin]

Jerrybnsn wrote...
  I remember many time in Origins where I was interacting in my own way and speaking in my own voice. 

Then you must be one of the lucky ones whose "own way" matched what the devs wrote.  That doesn't happen very often in my experience.

[jillabender]

Vormaerin wrote...

Jerrybnsn wrote...
But the games that let me role play as myself are the ones I truly enjoy. Games like Origins and TES allowed me to imagine I was born in another world, with a particular race, as a particular gender, and trained myself within a particular class, and it will always be me that will be interacting with the enviroment created for my hero story.

Well, I'm me quite a lot of the time.  An occasional break doesn't bother me.   But, mostly, I find that this just doesn't work because the developers are still controlling everything.   They control what I can say, what I can do, where I can go.  How is that in any way "my character,"  much less 'me in an alternate reality'?

Well, it's true in a sense that my Wardens aren't completely "my characters," in that I didn't write their dialogue. It's the Bioware writers, not me, who created their world, wrote their story, and gave them witty, moving, and thought-provoking things to say.

But in another sense, they do feel like my characters, because the writing and dialogue system in DA:O give me a lot of freedom to imagine my character's reaction to every situation and character interaction. In many cases, the same line of dialogue can take on a different nuance depending on the character I'm playing. For example, in a conversation with Wynne, choosing the option for my character to say "Sometimes I wish I could go back to my old life" takes on a different shade of meaning if I'm playing a proud character, for whom such an admission of feeling loss would be a rare moment of letting his or her guard down. It's those nuances that make each Warden feel unique and real to me.

Some people choose to approach their characters as extensions of themselves – personally, I like to imagine characters different enough from myself that getting inside their heads feels like, as you put it, an "occasional break" from being me.

It's not only being given a variety of background stories and dialogue options that gives me freedom to imagine my DA:O characters vividly – it's the fact that the situations they're placed in are so fascinating and feel so true to life that they make me want to fill in the details by imagining why they would react in a certain way. Many of the NPC's in the origin stories, for example, are very colourful characters who make me want to know more about their lives, and to imagine what kind of relationship my character had with them before the story began.

For example, when I played as Tirion, a male Dalish rogue, I imagined that he had a reputation with the rest of his clan for being smart-mouthed, mischievous, and more than a little cocky, but with a warm heart. And the fact that his dialogue wasn't voiced allowed me to imagine him delivering his lines in an alternately light-hearted and sarcastic tone befitting his character.

Obviously, there's no way that the writers could anticipate every reaction I might imagine my character having to a situation, and the situations themselves put some limits on how I can portray my character, but I don't see this as an obstacle to imagining my character vividly. In fact, the challenge of imagining a character who fits into the world and the story of Origins is part of the fun for me, and it's a testament to the phenomenal writing of the Bioware team that the story inspires me to keep creating new characters with their own stories to tell. To me, part of the brilliance of Origins is that it creates a story so immersive and involving that it seems to demand that the player use his or her imagination to give it a suitably engaging hero.

All of those things I've mentioned are, for me, a large part of what makes Dragon Age: Origins such a uniquely satisfying storytelling experience, and while I appreciate that there are people with different preferences, I can't help but feel that it's a shame that the Dragon Age series is abandoning so many aspects of that style of storytelling.

That being said, I have faith that even though DA3 might not provide the same kind of experience as Origins, the Bioware writers will find new styles of storytelling with a voiced protagonist that will provide a new kind of satisfying experience.

Modifié par jillabender, 24 juin 2012 - 12:48 .

[Cirram55]

PsychoBlonde wrote...
My response to this is to ask "why"?  No one has provided a why for this aside from "because I like it that way", and that's not a reason but a preference.  If you're going to say that something SHOULD be a certain way, you need FACTS to back it up, not PREFERENCE.

When I say "it should" it's because DAII tries so hard to be something that, at the end of the day, it is not; and it's not very clear what DAII really is, as a game.
So what is DAII? Well, it tries to be both a first person RPG and a third person RPG.
Does it do it well? Absolutely not.
Is this an opinion or a fact? The latter. I do not have a preference for one type of RP or the other, and the "facts" you so desperatly crave are those I already pointed out, as well as many others in this thread.
Try to play Hawke choosing the "angel icon", then the "fist icon" and so on. You'll end up with some severe mental disorder for your PC. You can also choose either one of the red icons and then the investigate options. Bipolarism is not what I wanted for (my?) Hawke. I said this many times in other threads already.
Autodialogue (albeit it wasn't that much present) is another flaw in DAII (yes flaw, again this is not due to preference but genre).
In a game like DAII I expect to be in control of every line Hawke is about to say, because DAII is, other than 3rd person, a 1st person RPG as well. At the same time I can deal with (and still dislike) paraphrases and autodialogue, because it's also a 3rd person RPG.
Other games that stick with what they are (TW2, DE:HR and all the other you mentioned) are as successful as DAO, and guess why?, because they don't try to be what they're not.
1st person and 3rd person role-playing can't work together (at least not in the way DAII pulled off), do you see that?

Now, as long as Bioware is going for a merge of 1st person and 3rd person RP, I feel entitled to call it a fact that DAII fails to be both.
It seems hard for you to grasp this thought, since you keep repeating that I have some preferences of some kind while I really don't, so I'm gonna get this straight: I DO NOT have a preference for one or the other, but (and genre boundaries here are a sufficient justification) I want to point out that DAO worked better than DAII because it stuck with his genre. It was a 1st pers. RPG, and if you couldn't direct your character as you pleased, then you were not playing it the way it was intended to.
Nothing wrong with that, of course, but as you said, we can't get everything we want out of a cRPG, due to obvious media limitations. Still, it remained true to his genre, which its sequel didn't.
In DAII never did Hawke feel to me like s/he was part of the world. I had little to no control over her/him and her/his poor writing didn't help. As a result Hawke appeared as a puppet (when s/he shouldn't have right? DAII's dialogue system is all about personalities, but Hawke didn't have any), and when Bioware's PR said s/he was the most important character in Thedas I though they mispronounced impotent. And all this it due to our detachment from (again, our?) Hawke.
There was so much segregation in DAII, between story and gameplay, lore and plot, even combat felt like a comletely separate thing from the rest of the game (Tal-Vashoths yelling "Anaan esaam Qun", anyone?). Now add to it your detachment from Hawke, what you know and what s/he knows.

If I cannot have control over my character, then do not call it a role playing game, but and action/adventure game.
It would seem more appropriate for the game Bioware is trying to do, they'd be able to tell a story with coherence and choesion, and without the need to take into account player decisions.
There's nothing wrong in being an adventure game, just do not create expectations.

Modifié par Cirram55, 23 juin 2012 - 11:41 .

[ashwind]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

ashwind wrote...

There are generally 3 groups of players.

1. Players who prefer DAO style silent PC - text conversation.
2. Players who prefer VO
3. Players who dont really care about either.

Not a sacrifice to you does not mean that it is not a sacrifice for others. People who like VO does not see removing the silent PC as a sacrifice or a bad thing. Neither group can convince the other. Both are right.

You can never convince people who like VO that your preference is superior no matter how hard you try to present your case. People who like VO can never convince you otherwise. Neither are wrong.

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.

Yip, you are right. You can think that and you maybe right but until they themselves find that they need "more". You cant present any thing to make them see otherwise.

And I bet the these people you are talking about are accusing you of not really understanding your position because your preference is clouded by nostalgia and bias.

"They havent examined how they play and why...." common, you are complaning about Bioware not giving you enough freedom with a virtual character and at the same time accusing people that if they do not come to the same conclusion as you = "they have not examined how they play and why???" and "these games are the best place to do that???" That is very bias and judgemental.

You sounded like - Example: 
Chantry: Magic exsists to serve mankind and not to rule over them. Mages must is put on leash! How can you not see it this way! If you support the mages, you do not understand your own position, your own thoughts! No amount of history and logic will ever change your mind blasphemer so die!

There is no right or wrong reason to like or dislike a game or any of its elements. The only justification one ever need is "I dont like it - Period!"

[AkiKishi]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
If BioWare were to come out and tell us that's what they were doing - that they designed the game not to allow us to control what our character does or why - then I would happily not play their game.

You don't create Geralt, but you can control what he does. And you can create the motives for those actions. There is just enough there to make all choices viable.

[AkiKishi]

ashwind wrote...
There is no right or wrong reason to like or dislike a game or any of its elements. The only justification one ever need is "I dont like it - Period!"

If I dislike a game I don't bother with it.

[ianvillan]

David Gaider wrote...

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.

Now that we know that the VO is staying and you are keeping the dialogue wheel, where do we stand on auto-dialogue because there was too much in DA2 and the amount in ME3 was past a joke.

Now I know you are seperate teams but it seems that whatever the ME team introduces the DA team follows, and I am not looking forward to a game with only two chooses and sitting through auto-dialogue for minutes at a time.

[Cirram55]

ianvillan wrote...
Now that we know that the VO is staying and you are keeping the dialogue wheel, where do we stand on auto-dialogue because there was too much in DA2 and the amount in ME3 was past a joke.

Actually, auto-dialogue was not very intrusive in DAII, and whenever we had it, it didn't feel that much annoying.
When meeting Flemeth in Sundermount you can investigate and pick the "Who is Morrigan?" option. Hawke says something like this:
H:"Is that someone I should know?"
F:"Blahblahblah she's my hot daughter blahblahblah"
H:"I'm not sure whether she's your daughter or your enemy"
Didn't break my character, and this I can accept. ME3, on the other hand, sucked hard on autodialogue, I'd rather watch a movie.

Autodialogue at the end of fetch quests wasn't really important, since fecth quests are an abomination anyways.
This is strictly my opinion, of course.

Modifié par Cirram55, 23 juin 2012 - 10:26 .

[bEVEsthda]

"tldr" version: The question, this thread asks, is from my perspective all wrong. It should be "is SP a must"? That is what Bioware have chosen to challenge. We already know that VO is NOT a must, it's just a WILL be for DA3.


*******



An interchange can be a case of curiosity, learning, communication: Why do people want full dialogue lines?

That communication would break down though, if you're going to argue against the presented reasons, or denying that they can be real, or important, rather than asking about them, or discussing them. Those reasons are perfectly real, for those who present them. Which is why there is often a complete miscommunication:

(- Why are you loading so much provisions?
- I'm going to sail around the world, do a circumnavigation.
- Why would you want to do that? Why don't you just sail around in circles in the ocean?
- ??  I want to do a circumnavigation.
- Yes, but it's dangerous to sail by the edge. You could fall over. And sailing in circles well inside the ocean is exactly the same. I cannot see why any sane person would think there's a difference.
- ?? Edge? But the world is round!
- You cannot know that. You cannot know that the world is a circle. It might as well be a triangle or a square, or, as is most likely, irregular shape.
- ?? The world is a globe.
- Of course the world is inside a globe. Do you think I'm completely daft? What else would the stars be fixed at? It still doesn't explain why you would want to follow the edge around, when sailing in circles provide the EXACT same experience!
- ?? The world is not inside a globe. Look, I want to do a circumnavigation. Sail west all the way, until I get back to the starting point.
- You can't sail west all the way. Why do you even want to try something that is not possible? You must sail in a circle. And then, CLEARLY, there is no difference from doing it inside the ocean.
- Of course I cannot sail straight west, all the time. I need to go around continents. But it's the general direction.
- Lol, how can you even speak about "general direction" when you go around in a circle?
- But I don't! I have zero interest in sailing a circle. I wouldn't go sailing at all, just for going in a circle. I'd rather do something else.
- Lol! Then clearly you should go do something else. You just contradict yourself. I clearly remember you saying you were going to sail around the world. "Around" may not always mean exactly a circle, but it does mean equally much in all directions.
- ??  Look, it is a circle. But it's not a horizontal circle. It's around the globe.
- Lol. See, you just keep contradicting yourself. You just said you had no interest in sailing in a circle.
...)

I don't play RPGs to discover about Hawke, as Psychoblonde clearly does ("I quite like being surprised"). I wouldn't choose to play either DA2 or TW2, or any RPG like that. That I did, was the outcome of a chain of events. I have no interest in playing Hawke or Geralt. I'd rather play Max Payne. I'd rather do something else.

Some people like to characterize the difference in playing styles as "first person" or "third person". I don't like those labels, even if those people mean the same thing. It's too prone to misunderstandings, since those terms are already used for something else. The temptation to assume analogies, for those who don't understand, is too great.
I also don't like it, because first or third person have absolutely nothing to do with the heart of the matter. I would like to regard most of my protagonists as being "third person", but they absolutely aren't, by the above characterization.

The heart of the matter, is if you 1: define the protagonist, or 2: explore the protagonist.

This is what matters. Some people are fine with exploring the protagonist. They take delight in listening to dialogue, to see reactions, to see personality. They relate to the protagonist in exactly the same way they relate to the protagonist in a novel or movie. They identify through empathy and embracing a personal hero. Then they also experience the story, npc relations, and the combat. Hopefully experiencing the world and culture should also have important meaning to them (But frankly, I have to say that DA2 doesn't provide that, except at an abyssmal level, and I am talking about typical DA2 fans here. TW2 is on a completely different level).
There's no longer any point in bringing the word "roleplay" into this discussion. It has lost any meaning it ever had. Those who like to explore their protagonist, use the word for describing their relationship as much as any others.

What differs, is that a good deal of us don't turn to RPGs to consume a story and a protagonist. A cRPG is for us a tool for doing something different. A toy for us to create a make believe-person, and build that person's personal story. We need to define that person. And while the game-world, and events around that person, of course will guide and shape that story, we also want to define the experience of that broadline story. Making just a few interactive choices in a movie, here and there, is not enough. Any choices and expressions need to be anchored in a personality we define.
We take no delight in hearing cleverness or expressions of Bioware's Hawke's personality. We are repulsed and sickened.
 
What full dialogue lines help with here, is that they provide enough time, enough consideration, enough choice, to make those lines our protagonist's own, personal.
What silent protagonist help with here, is that they let our protagonist keep her/his 'own' voice.

We have circumnavigated the world before. We know it can be done. We know the world is a globe. We know we can do it again. Given enough provisions.
Spending huge amounts of energy and time, trying to argue that our requirements are meaningless, that our reasoning and explanations are wrong, "because it cannot be anyway because...", or that they are "just" opinion, or "just" personal preferences, is pointless.
We have played games our way before. We can still play some games our way. So we know it can be done.
And while it's certainly personal prefs, it's not "just", because it's completely game-breaking.

Given enough provisions. Is the key phrase. "Enough", because clearly game models have always been limited in what they can provide. That, however, is a very poor argument for providing nothing at all. Can Bioware provide enough with dialogue wheel and voiced protagonist? I don't know. That's why I'm still here. They sure couldn't with DA2. We'll just have to see, won't we?

Silent protagonist and full lines are pointless to advocate for. We've been clearly told those things are not on the table. But if Bioware have any interest at all, in providing for us, then these questions, about how we play and experience the game are important. And it's important that they are accurately represented. If they don't give a dam, then S.t Mad, I and the few others who are still here, are clearly wasting our time. But they have expressed a desire to improve the dialogue wheel. They have expressed a desire to accomodate "old fans".

I hold it for possible that they can make enough provisions, even with dialogue wheel, with VP, with paraphrase. I don't know how, but I'd rather not rule out the possibility. The question, this thread asks, is from my perspective all wrong. It should be "is SP a must"? That is what Bioware have chosen to challenge. We already know that VO is NOT a must, it's just a WILL be for DA3.

Modifié par bEVEsthda, 23 juin 2012 - 11:37 .

[AkiKishi]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Perhaps I'm talking out of my ass but the issue most of you tend to have with the voiced dialogue wouldn't be solved by a single line being presented, as the game would suffer under the same grievances which most had when playing Human Revolution.

The line being presented serves little purpose as voiced protagonists often have more to say in the conversation than one line. When you're meeting a couple and you mock them, the mockery might continue a bit more into the conversation and suddenly the line you've picked isn't what you desired anymore as you wanted only the initial bit.

Perhaps you'd prefer it over the paraphrase and tone icon, though you'd still be restricted and wouldn't know everything the protagonist says--which ultimately is an issue of control, something which you desire but still wouldn't achieve with the singular line.

It would essentially be identical to the DA2 system for most of you, you pick the tone and don't know most of what you're going to be saying.

Personally, this is the reason why I much prefer voiced protagonist (most of the time). I can "direct" the flow of the conversation, the intent and such. I have very little interest in the actual wording, just the way the conversation plays out.

When the protagonist is pre-generated I care more about what the point of what they will say will be, more than I care about the words they use.
I need to know things like Aggresive -Placate etc. But I don't need to know the lines Adam will use to get that across.
I prefer the intent word because it comes across as more solid than a "tone" which is subjective.

Intent is also more focused than paraphrasing even when combined with a tone icon.