57 réponses à ce sujet

[budzai]

It is just cost them money and work.
It kills the RPing. You play Shepard, Hawke you have no choice.
A bad voice actor totally ruins it.
They should use that money and time to make more dialog options and outcomes.
Anyone agrees?

[wsandista]

Yes, quite a bit of people on here agree.

[Sacred_Fantasy]

Cinematic action game with RPG elements doesn't work well without voiced protagonist and it'll cost more time to develop proper RPG with tons of variables like Skyrim plus it'll affect BioWare's storytelling too.

[zyntifox]

Well i agree on preferring the silent protagonist approach since it, for me at least, increases the role-playing experience. The community is however split on this. But wouldn't a nice middle-ground be a option in the menu to toggle the protagonist voice on and off? It would probably hurt the cinematic presentation quite a lot but i don't, and probably other fans as well, really care about that as long as i can role-play the character.

[EricHVela]

In Mass Effect, you played Shepard, a single character of either gender with different class abilities and occasional references. In Origins, you played many different characters. In the second Dragon Age, you played Hawke, a single character like Mass Effect with different class abilities and occasional references to it (which is possibly why some called it Dragon Effect).

If the next Dragon Age has many different characters like Origins, it makes more sense to keep the protagonist silent for resources. Even ignoring the many different voices and takes for it, It requires much more from the writers to author widely varying characters as well as the coders to accommodate each variation.

If the next Dragon Age is a single character that everyone plays, then it makes more cinematic sense to voice that one character. It costs much less when authoring a single protagonist and when voicing a single character with few variables.

It's difficult to roleplay "your own character" when the character is defined by the story and not by your choices, so it's no great loss IMHO.

For all we know, the next protagonist could be an established character that was an NPC in a previous game or a character in a book with no other variances other than the decisions the player made in the previous games. All your ability to roleplay would be highly restricted to the established criteria of that character if such happens.

Let's face it. We were spoiled by Origins. I would take a silent protagonist of many possibilities over a single, voiced protagonist, but the unvoiced ones would actually be more time and work to create. What allowances do you think EA will give BWE for this next installement?

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

tbh I don't mind the voiced protagonist nor do I mind one that is not voiced, but for Dragon Age 3 they really do need a strong plot and solid gameplay.

[JasonPogo]

This conversation is moot. Bioware has said all their games will now have a voiced PC. They are locked into makeing crap action/RPGs. You play their character not yours.

[zyntifox]

ReggarBlane wrote...

In Mass Effect, you played Shepard, a single character of either gender with different class abilities and occasional references. In Origins, you played many different characters. In the second Dragon Age, you played Hawke, a single character like Mass Effect with different class abilities and occasional references to it (which is possibly why some called it Dragon Effect).

If the next Dragon Age has many different characters like Origins, it makes more sense to keep the protagonist silent for resources. Even ignoring the many different voices and takes for it, It requires much more from the writers to author widely varying characters as well as the coders to accommodate each variation.

If the next Dragon Age is a single character that everyone plays, then it makes more cinematic sense to voice that one character. It costs much less when authoring a single protagonist and when voicing a single character with few variables.

It's difficult to roleplay "your own character" when the character is defined by the story and not by your choices, so it's no great loss IMHO.

For all we know, the next protagonist could be an established character that was an NPC in a previous game or a character in a book with no other variances other than the decisions the player made in the previous games. All your ability to roleplay would be highly restricted to the established criteria of that character if such happens.

Let's face it. We were spoiled by Origins. I would take a silent protagonist of many possibilities over a single, voiced protagonist, but the unvoiced ones would actually be more time and work to create. What allowances do you think EA will give BWE for this next installement?

I don't think the reason people call DA2 Dragon effect is that the character is more set than in Origins. I think it has to do with the dialogue wheel, paraphrasing, and even the animation. For example,  watch hawke or Isabela drink at the hanged man, then look at Shepard in ME2 drink at a bar. But i do agree that Hawke is as set of a character as Shepard. That was why i stopped playing DA2 as a RPG after a while and started playing it as Mass effect, a interactive action/adventure game.

[coles4971]

As long as I actually like the VA in DA3, I don't care. with DA2 though, well, it's hard to play a game where you don't even like the voice of your own character.

[hussey 92]

They want to make all their games like ME.

That was the point of Hawke, he was supposed to be the DA Commander Shepherd.

Modifié par hussey 92, 07 août 2012 - 05:41 .

[zyntifox]

coles4971 wrote...

As long as I actually like the VA in DA3, I don't care. with DA2 though, well, it's hard to play a game where you don't even like the voice of your own character.

That happend to me in DA2. Was trying to play a male mage but the voice was so awful i had to play with the dialogue volume at zero.

[Captain_Obvious]

Having played a few, I prefer voiced PCs now over silent PCs. It's just a personal preference. It would be nice if they gave people the option to turn it off, but I prefer voiced. DA:O seems really silent to me now, as does Skyrim (even though shouts are sort of a voice).

[Cutlasskiwi]

I disagree. As a 3rd person gamer the voice doesn't kill RPing for me, it enhances it.

[RogueWriter3201]

Why does BioWare *prefer* (not force; you don't have to buy/play the game if you don't want to) voiced protagonists? Because this isn't 1998 and DA2-DA3 aren't board games. If you want the "classic" hardcore RPG experience then there are some really fantastic table oriented Roleplay games out there that let you be as silent as you want.

However, BioWare are, first and foremost, storytellers, and, as seen in Dragon Age Origins (i.e. Warden stands and stares blankly as such and such character pours heart out) it can be difficult to relay the emotion of a scene when one character has the reaction of a cardboard cut out to what's happening in said moment.

When animation in games were limited by the tech/software of the time (see: Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate and even KOTOR -limited character movement- ) having silent characters/dialogue only was something you could get away with. Now, in this cinematic era, having any character just stand there while dialogue pops up is wholly laughable.

I will recognize, however, that others completely disagree with my observation, and that's fine. Regardless, these are the reasons BioWare has taken the direction they have and I, for one, applaud it and am wholly grateful that they've confirmed that, outside of, perhaps, Facebook games, the days of silent characters are over.

[Maria Caliban]

budzai wrote...

They should use that money and time to make more dialog options and outcomes.

Are you under the impression that voice actors, sound technicians, and whomever is directing would be writing these dialog options?

Because, you know, the writers write out the PC's words whether the PC is voiced or not.

[Beerfish]

Going back to an unvoiced protag would be a step backwards and feel like a step backwards.

[wsandista]

Maria Caliban wrote...

budzai wrote...

They should use that money and time to make more dialog options and outcomes.

Are you under the impression that voice actors, sound technicians, and whomever is directing would be writing these dialog options?

Because, you know, the writers write out the PC's words whether the PC is voiced or not.

I think he was referring to the cost of hiring/using those voice actors, sound technicians, and director for PC VA.

[hussey 92]

Beerfish wrote...

Going back to an unvoiced protag would be a step backwards and feel like a step backwards.

you forgot to write "in my opinion":whistle:

[The Edge]

I agree. Of course, I prefer an all-out RPG over a slight RPG/mostly "Cinematic" experience.

[zyntifox]

glenboy24 wrote...

Why does BioWare *prefer* (not force; you don't have to buy/play the game if you don't want to) voiced protagonists? Because this isn't 1998 and DA2-DA3 aren't board games. If you want the "classic" hardcore RPG experience then there are some really fantastic table oriented Roleplay games out there that let you be as silent as you want.

However, BioWare are, first and foremost, storytellers, and, as seen in Dragon Age Origins (i.e. Warden stands and stares blankly as such and such character pours heart out) it can be difficult to relay the emotion of a scene when one character has the reaction of a cardboard cut out to what's happening in said moment.

When animation in games were limited by the tech/software of the time (see: Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate and even KOTOR -limited character movement- ) having silent characters/dialogue only was something you could get away with. Now, in this cinematic era, having any character just stand there while dialogue pops up is wholly laughable.

I will recognize, however, that others completely disagree with my observation, and that's fine. Regardless, these are the reasons BioWare has taken the direction they have and I, for one, applaud it and am wholly grateful that they've confirmed that, outside of, perhaps, Facebook games, the days of silent characters are over.

So by that logic, 2009 is 1998 and DA:O is a board game? Skyrim as well? I think you can tell just as good a story whether the protagonist is voiced or not. I think it depends on whether you want convey the story through cinematic means or having the player active participate in the story.
I enjoy both but favor the silent one in the latter given that the game is a RPG. The reason why i enjoy silent a bit more is that if i will participate in the story i want the character to be mine. And unfortunatly, for me anyhow, a voiced protagonist never feels like mine.

Now, i love Mass effect. It is one of the best game franschises i have ever played and i wouldn't want to play it without a voiced Shepard. But i neither play nor consider it a RPG. I think it's a bit of a shame that Bioware does not seem to think that there are room for both types of storytelling. I might be wrong though, never know what the future holds.

[Olmerto]

I've somewhat reluctantly concluded that it's like silent movies once "talkies" came out. There might be some who really liked the silent ones, but there was no going back.

Truth is, CRPGs never allowed you to roleplay like you do in PnP. You always followed a script. Silent protagonists only allowed you to pretend better that you were actually guiding your character. The outcome was always prearranged. With a voiced character, now you can't ignore the emotion exhibited by the voice actor. You don't supply that anymore, and it's harder to pretend.

I think of it as a new type of experience. I try to choose which responses will lead to a result I want, and see how well my expectations match up with what Bioware allows. A lot of that depends on how logically Bioware writes the script -- it always did, really -- but that goes for any written product. My judgment of the game depends on whether Bioware writes a compelling story that contained enough suspense while still allowing me to make reasonably important decisions throughout the game.

Bioware can go too far, by including too much auto-dialog (demo of ME3 comes to mind) and taking too many matters out of my hands. So far they're still within my comfort zone, at least with Dragon Age.

[Ianamus]

I prefer a voiced protagonist personally. The romantic and dramatic scenes just feel a lot more intense when your character is actually speaking rather than staring blankly at the other characters.

Modifié par EJ107, 07 août 2012 - 10:26 .

[Realmzmaster]

There you have it. The fan base is split on voice versus non-voiced. Also the voice protagonist is not forced upon the gamer. The gamer has the right to not buy the game. Bioware made no secret of DA2 having a voiced PC. The demo clearly showed a voiced Hawke. You could equally say why did Bioware force a silent PC on the gamer in DAO

[seraphis01]

EJ107 wrote...

I prefer a voiced protagonist personally. The romantic and dramatic scenes just feel a lot more intense when your character is actually speaking rather than staring blankly at the other characters.

Agreed 100 % loveeeeeeeeeeeeeee voice characters. You dont like it ? mute sound  and done