208 réponses à ce sujet

[Allan Schumacher]

Maybe they all bought dao expecting voiced protagonist and then abandoned the franchise! Sarcasm aside i am skeptical that the voiced protagonist contributed as much as others aspects of the game.

Although i am sure there will be those that include it in their 1/10 scores because they are upset that we aren't making a game specifically for them.

[Sir George Parr]

g

DPSSOC wrote...

XM-417 wrote...
But the one advantage of the mute protagonist is that they are hard to get attached to unlike Lady Hawke and Fem Shep. In a game like Fallout 3, Skyrim or DA O your character has no voice or personality to speak of, so by the end of the story its easy to let go and move on.

I actually find it's the other way around for me.  A silent protagonist allows me to project whatever personality I want onto the character, it makes it mine and I get more attached.  I can't get attached to a voiced protagonist because it's someone else's character and I'm just driving.  It's the same reason I can't really get into JRPG's as much; aside from how they level up I have no input into any of the characters.

As for my "or no buy" requirement.  No last minute, tacked on, but inexplicably integral feature or no buy.  I'm looking at you ME3 multiplayer.

If you can do that with mute characters then you have my respect, its something i can never do because i always feel completely disconnected from them . But having being playing these kind of games from the late 1980s, i have grown up with mute characters in games and find the voiced protagonist a long overdue evolution. So finding that Lady Hawke could speak, opened up a treasure chest of such possibilities.I've never approached a game in the manor of its someone else's character and i just happen to be driving, What i do is regard each character as my on screen alter ego. I went from Origins into DA2 open minded about the shift to a voiced character and found my experience was enhanced because of it. Which was all because of Jo Wyatt's VA.With the male version of Hawke it felt very much like Game of Thrones meets Last of the Summer wine. Once this idea had took hold i started to imagine Varric as Compo, Sebastian as Cleggy,Aveline as Norah Batty and Isabela as Marina.If someone like felicia Day had voiced Hawke, i would have being instantly turned off from the idea of voiced protagonists in a Dragon Age game forever. But what happened was a VA who had done very minor characters in Origins got cast and the end result was for me worth it as i loved moment with Lady Hawke.So if Jo Wyatt has a place in the cast of DA i. Would have to say i would pre-order on that basis alone

[d4eaming]

When I got DA2, I actually didn't know a thing about it besides that it was a new protag, it was by Bioware, and it was an RPG. It took a little time for me to get into because of so much shift from DAO but once I did, I greatly enjoyed it, and perhaps even moreso than I enjoyed DAO. Some of my favorite games have been fully voiced, but they weren't RPGs. It was a nice change to see my character actually talk. DAO's silent protag was frustrating to me more than anything.

[In Exile]

BasilKarlo wrote...

ME didn't start with a silent protagonist and then switch. And I think the success of Origins and relative failure of DA2 comes down to the sum of the parts.

You're completely right. And seeing how poorly DA:A did, the obvious answer is that fans thought that DA:O was going to be a TES game, it wasn't. DA:A sales tanked to reflect it, but luckly PC VO saved DA2!

See? I can make up explanations with little/no hard data too!

[Mr Deathbot]

I just started DAO a couple days ago (and beat it yesterday) and I actually prefer the non-voiced PC, though it's not a big deal to me, I just think it's easier to immerse yourself because I can imagine my character reacting to a situation the way I WANT him to react rather than a voice actor reacting to a situation the way THEY WANT. Another plus for non-voiced PC,I think, is that there's room for more speech options which I think is more important than a fully voiced PC. But I understand that it's not for everyone for obvious reasons. Also Bioware is just making there game the way they think the fans will like best and even though I'd like a non-voiced PC I think I can overlook it as long as the game is good.

Modifié par Mr Deathbot, 25 décembre 2012 - 03:53 .

[Shadow Fox]

The Warden is voiced  in a sense*see voice sets*

I prefer the dynamic voiced Fem Hawke voiced over the soulless "silent" Warden just pity she couldn't be an elf...


Boring ass disclaimer: This is just my own personal opinion YMMV

Modifié par Arcane Warrior Mage Hawke, 25 décembre 2012 - 04:02 .

[chasemme]

Voiced PC in general is fine. I loved Mass Effect's voice acting, all around. DA2, however... I was not a fan of either Hawke's voice.

If one of the points is to get the main character to be easily related to, the voice acting needs to be done accordingly. There was something too... personalized about Hawke's, whereas Shepard's always felt more nondescript, easy for me to immerse myself into the game.

Though this could also just be because I'm not British, and the accent just felt too foreign for me to relate to. Either way, I support a voice-acted hero, but I can't guarantee I'll enjoy the voice actor that get's hired.

[sully.nathan]

voice acting shouldn't be a deal breaker for me as long as the voice acting is done right. Each dialogue choice should be different and not be the same choice but with different wording.Just add less auto-dialogue, and less paraphrasing and more dialogue choices then it will be much better. Bioware should pay more attention to Witcher 2 and Walking Dead.

[d4eaming]

Mr Deathbot wrote...

I just started DAO a couple days ago (and beat it yesterday) and I actually prefer the non-voiced PC, though it's not a big deal to me, I just think it's easier to immerse yourself because I can imagine my character reacting to a situation the way I WANT him to react rather than a voice actor reacting to a situation the way THEY WANT. Another plus for non-voiced PC,I think, is that there's room for more speech options which I think is more important than a fully voiced PC. But I understand that it's not for everyone for obvious reasons. Also Bioware is just making there game the way they think the fans will like best and even though I'd like a non-voiced PC I think I can overlook it as long as the game is good.

Yet, the NPCs are completely unreactive to what you're imagining, but with a voiced protag, they react to the tone as well as the words. All around, silent protag is just a manniquin, and not immersive for a lot of people. I can imagine my Warden as being a funny jokester all I want- the NPCs will never react to him that way, unlike Hawke's snarky lines, where they reacted appropriately to his jokes (laughing or insulted to varying degrees). My Warden made a joke at Alistair about being a "royal bastard." There was nothing to suggest that it was supposed to be a joke, only assumption, and I only chose it out of curiosity rather than "imagining" he was making a funny. The fact it was taken that way is really pure luck. Going solely with the words and no tone indicator, I expected it to be an insult, and Alistair's reaction to it as if it were intended to be a joke breaks my immersion. There are plenty of times where the tone cannot be assumed from the dialogue choice, and NPCs reacted in a way I didn't intend for them to because the lines were not designed to be intepreted in the way I thought they were.

No amount of imagining will make the NPCs understand the tone I imagine he is portraying. With voiced Hawke, it was clear what the intentions of each choice was, I could pick them appropriately to what I was building Hawke's personality to be, and the NPCs reacted to the tone in a realistic manner.

Unless you intend for us to imagine every character's reactions and tones and intentions; frankly, if I wanted that, I'd write fiction rather than play an RPG.

chasemme wrote...

Voiced PC in general is fine. I loved
Mass Effect's voice acting, all around. DA2, however... I was not a fan
of either Hawke's voice.

If one of the points is to get the main
character to be easily related to, the voice acting needs to be done
accordingly. There was something too... personalized about Hawke's,
whereas Shepard's always felt more nondescript, easy for me to immerse
myself into the game.

Though this could also just be because I'm
not British, and the accent just felt too foreign for me to relate to.
Either way, I support a voice-acted hero, but I can't guarantee I'll
enjoy the voice actor that get's hired.

Mark Meer, male Shepard's VO, is actually Canadian. I can hear it in his accent, though it is a bit subtle. I wouldn't call it nondescript myself.

For Hawke, the accent didn't bother me, and I found it very relatable. I'm an American, from the south, but I lived for 6 years in the English midlands (Notts, specifically). Their accents felt more comfortable to me, especially in a medieval setting, than an American accent of any flavor would have. In fact, having American accents in Medieval Britain based settings is extremely disruptive to my immersion (Kevin Costner in Robin Hood comes to mind )

Female Shepard's voice is like nails on chalkboard to me tho

[DeathScepter]

Arcane Warrior Mage Hawke wrote...

The Warden is voiced  in a sense*see voice sets*

I prefer the dynamic voiced Fem Hawke voiced over the soulless "silent" Warden just pity she couldn't be an elf...


Boring ass disclaimer: This is just my own personal opinion YMMV

Voiced Sets don't count as being voiced.   The problem with voiced PCs is that potential of being bad.

[DeathScepter]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Maybe they all bought dao expecting voiced protagonist and then abandoned the franchise! Sarcasm aside i am skeptical that the voiced protagonist contributed as much as others aspects of the game.

Although i am sure there will be those that include it in their 1/10 scores because they are upset that we aren't making a game specifically for them.

Voiced Protagonist or Voiceless Protagonist is a side not for me. I rather have a good game regardless if the Protagonist is voiced or not. Kotor 1, Kotor 2, Half Life series and DAO/DAO:A are excellent games and they didn't need a voiced Protagonist to be good.

I am more fond of the Voiceless Protangonist.

[chasemme]

Yeah, you can pick out some bits where Meer's accent is obvious, but given how similar it is, overall, to an American accent, I never found it intrusive. I would still call nondescript, at least as someone in this country. His voice just isn't... unique, I guess? Like if Gilbert Gottfried voiced someone, I would never be able to relate, because it's just a distinct voice.

It's not that Hawke's felt out of place, I just enjoy immersion in RPG's, I tend to see it as the main point in playing. So if I, personally, can't relate to the VA, it becomes harder for me. It's one reason why I preferred the silent Warden.

Maybe there isn't a great solution for me, because having a Costner situation in DA would be almost as unwelcome. Personally I'd prefer a silent hero in this franchise, but I know that's incredibly unlikely, so I'll just have to wait and see.

[Mr Deathbot]

d4eaming wrote...

Mr Deathbot wrote...

I just started DAO a couple days ago (and beat it yesterday) and I actually prefer the non-voiced PC, though it's not a big deal to me, I just think it's easier to immerse yourself because I can imagine my character reacting to a situation the way I WANT him to react rather than a voice actor reacting to a situation the way THEY WANT. Another plus for non-voiced PC,I think, is that there's room for more speech options which I think is more important than a fully voiced PC. But I understand that it's not for everyone for obvious reasons. Also Bioware is just making there game the way they think the fans will like best and even though I'd like a non-voiced PC I think I can overlook it as long as the game is good.

Yet, the NPCs are completely unreactive to what you're imagining, but with a voiced protag, they react to the tone as well as the words. All around, silent protag is just a manniquin, and not immersive for a lot of people. I can imagine my Warden as being a funny jokester all I want- the NPCs will never react to him that way, unlike Hawke's snarky lines, where they reacted appropriately to his jokes (laughing or insulted to varying degrees). My Warden made a joke at Alistair about being a "royal bastard." There was nothing to suggest that it was supposed to be a joke, only assumption, and I only chose it out of curiosity rather than "imagining" he was making a funny. The fact it was taken that way is really pure luck. Going solely with the words and no tone indicator, I expected it to be an insult, and Alistair's reaction to it as if it were intended to be a joke breaks my immersion. There are plenty of times where the tone cannot be assumed from the dialogue choice, and NPCs reacted in a way I didn't intend for them to because the lines were not designed to be intepreted in the way I thought they were.

No amount of imagining will make the NPCs understand the tone I imagine he is portraying. With voiced Hawke, it was clear what the intentions of each choice was, I could pick them appropriately to what I was building Hawke's personality to be, and the NPCs reacted to the tone in a realistic manner.

Unless you intend for us to imagine every character's reactions and tones and intentions; frankly, if I wanted that, I'd write fiction rather than play an RPG.

I wasn't saying that un-voiced is better than voiced,I understand it's not the same for everyone I was just simply stating my opinion. I understand alot of people like voiced PCs and I know why, I was just saying I like non-voiced and giving my reasons why I think that way.

[Shadow Fox]

DeathScepter wrote...

Arcane Warrior Mage Hawke wrote...

The Warden is voiced  in a sense*see voice sets*

I prefer the dynamic voiced Fem Hawke voiced over the soulless "silent" Warden just pity she couldn't be an elf...


Boring ass disclaimer: This is just my own personal opinion YMMV

Voiced Sets don't count as being voiced.   The problem with voiced PCs is that potential of being bad.

Yes it does to me atleast

[Xeranx]

d4eaming wrote...
I've deleted every female Shepard I've made because I dispise her VO. And I can't seem to make a female Shepard that doesn't look extraordinarily pissed off all the time. But I love my male Shepard, his voice fits his appearance perfectly. I can tolerate DA2's female VO but I still haven't gotten to act3 with one yet, but I've had about a dozen male Hawkes. I also find the female face options very unsatisfying, whereas I can make a plethora of nice, distinct male faces.

I find it amusing how people in general rail on the voiced character as if theirs is the only right opinion, ignoring that there are people who can't connect with a mute, expressionless manniquin such as from DAO.

I would probably still get it if it was unvoiced, but I would not be able to connect with an "own" the character if it's silent. Yes, I do consider Hawke and Shepard (and the Warden) "mine," not at all like I'm driving someone else's character, like was suggested by someone else. Hawke and Shepard are no less my creations than the Warden is, and at least now I can see them react to things, and hear the inflections in their voices.

Admittedly, it's not perfect, and sometimes I feel it could have used a little more oomph behind it, and the wheel-to-dialogue isn't always exactly what I was expecting, but I accept that as a trade-off to have a character that isn't made out of plastic, and I enjoy it.

When I was a kid I would come up with little skits just for myself.  I'd always imagine someone talking to me, but I'd always hear the conversation in my head.  The sounds of the person I'd be talking to would have whatever emotion I desired so I have no problem connecting with a silent protagonist.  Sometimes it actually gets in the way and it did playing Mass Effect 2 in many scenes with my female Shepard.  The disconnect would happen when something happened and I didn't think that was inline with her behavior.  Case in point was the Afterlife area when talking to the Mercenary.  I was playing my female Colonist.  After he makes a comment referring to her gender (don't know why a Batarian would hold the same sexist views as humans, but oh well), Shepard narrows her eyes and the renegade response is so full of machismo that I can't help but facepalm.

In DA:O, I was able to pick any response and apply my own intent to what those words actually meant.  I loved it.  When I play an interactive game, I like if I'm given some kind of method to (at least) try to understand where the protagonist is coming from.  This is why I generally stay away from fps games because I'm just given tasks to do, but I as the player feel no real point to it.  So it goes with Bioware going down the fully voiced route.  More and more I'm getting into the habit of watching "let's play" videos on youtube because I'd be essentially watching a movie that requires just a bit more input from me than my television requires of me when I decide I want to watch a particular show over the one that's currently on.

By the way, I don't mean anything by what I've said here.  I'm just explaining how I approach these types of games.  Also, the above explanation explains why I loved the first Mass Effect despite Shepard being fully voiced.

[Steppenwolf]

In Exile wrote...

BasilKarlo wrote...

ME didn't start with a silent protagonist and then switch. And I think the success of Origins and relative failure of DA2 comes down to the sum of the parts.

You're completely right. And seeing how poorly DA:A did, the obvious answer is that fans thought that DA:O was going to be a TES game, it wasn't. DA:A sales tanked to reflect it, but luckly PC VO saved DA2!

See? I can make up explanations with little/no hard data too!

You seem to have ignored the second part of my post there. And logic. Awakening sold about as well as RPG expansions do nowadays.

[Todd23]

The only way I'll accept voiced pc would be if it's done like The Walking Dead. Where when you choose to say something, rather than do his own thing, your pc says your choice.

[Fredward]

As long as it doesn't totally suck I'll buy it.

[DPSSOC]

XM-417 wrote...

DPSSOC wrote...
I actually find it's the other way around for me.  A silent protagonist allows me to project whatever personality I want onto the character, it makes it mine and I get more attached.  I can't get attached to a voiced protagonist because it's someone else's character and I'm just driving.  It's the same reason I can't really get into JRPG's as much; aside from how they level up I have no input into any of the characters.

As for my "or no buy" requirement.  No last minute, tacked on, but inexplicably integral feature or no buy.  I'm looking at you ME3 multiplayer.

If you can do that with mute characters then you have my respect, its something i can never do because i always feel completely disconnected from them . But having being playing these kind of games from the late 1980s, i have grown up with mute characters in games and find the voiced protagonist a long overdue evolution.

 
I started with PnP RPG's so I'm used to being given massive amounts of blank space to fill in myself, crafting a character is a good portion of the fun for me.  It's really effected how I play computer/console RPG's because I view the devs as the DM, and the more the DM dictates to me about my character the less fun I have playing them.  ME and DA2 really push what I'm willing to consider an RPG because so much of the character is taken away from us.

XM-417 wrote...
I've never approached a game in the manor of its someone else's character and i just happen to be driving, What i do is regard each character as my on screen alter ego.

 
Which is really my problem they aren't my alter ego, I get to choose between one of three alter egos that someone else has come up with.  I'm not saying it's not fun, I greatly enjoy a number of games that have me control someone elses character (God of War for example), but it makes it harder for me to get invested in the character, though not impossible.

Now I'm not against voiced protagonists, I actually thought all the PC VA's in Biowares recent games have done fantastic jobs, I just prefer silent.  The game loses something for me when the character (supposedly my character) is given a voice.

[Conduit0]

BasilKarlo wrote...

In Exile wrote...

BasilKarlo wrote...

ME didn't start with a silent protagonist and then switch. And I think the success of Origins and relative failure of DA2 comes down to the sum of the parts.

You're completely right. And seeing how poorly DA:A did, the obvious answer is that fans thought that DA:O was going to be a TES game, it wasn't. DA:A sales tanked to reflect it, but luckly PC VO saved DA2!

See? I can make up explanations with little/no hard data too!

You seem to have ignored the second part of my post there. And logic. Awakening sold about as well as RPG expansions do nowadays.

No, he's completely right, you implied that having a voiced protaganist was detrimental to DA2's sales, a claim to which there is zero evidence to support it.

[Allen Spellwaver]

First of all, no framerate drop for console versions, both for PS3 and XBOX360. It's frostbite but I know you guys can do it.
Although I play DA on PC LOL

[Allan Schumacher]

No, he's completely right, you implied that having a voiced protaganist was detrimental to DA2's sales, a claim to which there is zero evidence to support it.

The issue is more that it's tough to disassociate. There's a lot of people that really enjoy voiced protagonists, while a lot that don't really care for it. It's tough to say "DA2 did poorly, and DA2 didn't have <feature Y>, so <feature Y> is a cause for the poor performance."

There are some things that are pretty uniform in the critiques (reused areas), and some that I find are much more common (issues with Mage Hawke, lack of a clear motivation for why Hawke should care about certain things, including the primary plots) that even if there are supporters, I still think that those are still issues that trip up more people than otherwise and could be improved upon. Especially with competition providing some good alternatives (exploration wise: Skyrim, narratively: The Witcher 2)

[In Exile]

BasilKarlo wrote...
You seem to have ignored the second part of my post there.

Nope. Sum of its parts. That sum was inferior to a TES game, so DA:O sold well but alienated most of the people who purachased, but luckly, DA2 had just the right sum to save the franchise from ever lower sales! Yay inventing scenarios to fit our pre-existing world views. I could go on all day inventing scenarios without any data to back it up, other than some numbers I'm making up explanations for ex-post. 

And logic.

No, that part was missing from the start.

Awakening sold about as well as RPG expansions do nowadays.

You mean, less than 1/10th of the sales of the original? Man, it must have been that the PC isn't silent enough! Because how could it be possible that such an incredible game that gamers fell in love with would have sold so poorly otherwise?

Modifié par In Exile, 25 décembre 2012 - 07:57 .

[Allan Schumacher]

In any case I'd prefer this tangent to die down.

I agree it's the sum of the parts. Personally I don't consider the voiced protagonist to be as significant of an issue with our game as other parts of it. It may be. We'll find out I guess.

[Twisted Path]

An unvoiced protagonist works a lot better in a roleplaying game because:

a.) The player can imagine the tone their character takes for each line of dialogue and create a more complicated and nuanced character in their heads than a voice actor could ever create.

b.) Knowing the exact text of each dialogue option means the player will never click on a dialogue option and then hear the PC say something the player never meant for them to say. There were so many times in Mass Effect where I slapped my forehead and reloaded a conversation after I clicked a line where the paraphrase had nothing to do with space-racism and Commander Shepard suddenly said something about how yoomanity was superior to all those alien scum.

Dragon Age 2 was full of moments like that too, if for instance you were trying to play an aggressive but non-selfish Hawke. Sometimes you'd click the paraphrase and just say something gruff, sometimes the paraphrase would say "What's in it for me?" and I could avoid it, other times I would click an aggressive but innocuous-seeming paraphrase and Hawke would shout "What's in it for ME?"

and C.) Not having voice acting for the PC frees up room for more dialogue elsewhere.

That being said having a voiced protagonist in a big branching RPG with lots of choices can work great and give the player a sense of ownership of their character and all that. It worked fine in Alpha Protocal and Mass Effect 2, so it can be done. Those are the only two RPGs I've played where I really think a voiced protagonist did work though, so with that track record I much prefer a silent protagonist.