208 réponses à ce sujet

[Allan Schumacher]

I think The Witcher 2 is also a good example (just played it and really enjoyed the narrative and cinematic quality of the game).

[Maria Caliban]

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

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

How will you know it totally sucks until you buy it?

[In Exile]

Twisted Path wrote...

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

I disagree.

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.

Until you get to the reaction by the NPC, and then your nuance is either irrelevant or outright incorrect, unless you think the NPC is socially incompetent or the PC is incapable of correcting misunderstandings. 

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.

Except when the dialogue fails to telegraph what the content of the line is. DA:O did this quite often. A great example is the following exchange with Morrigain: 

Warden: Were you upset by all the bad touching?

That line, based on the context of the conversation, to me was mockery, as in "Oh, noes! Poor Morrigan, how could she be subject to the horrors of a handshake! <_<"

But that's not how the game played it. 

Morrigan: At least with that sort of touching I might be able to gather the intent (note - I am paraphrasing here, but that is the gist of what she said: she took the statement to mean sexual content, and matter of factly, if plainfully, pointed out that she could figure that out). 

So "bad" touching was clearly taken by the writers - and played off by M - as being nothing more than sexual banter (whether flirting or otherwise). 

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

Which only means something if you value this extra dialogue more than the PC dialogue being voiced. And that's not a given - it's a design choice. 

[Steppenwolf]

Conduit0 wrote...
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.

I said the sales of the games was due to the sum of their parts. The voiced PC being one part of DA2.

In Exile wrote...

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.

What the hell are you talking about? Who brought up TES? Do you even know what you're talking about at this point?

Conduit0 wrote...

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?

First of all, you can't do math apparently. Second, the actual sales of Awakening are on par with most RPG expansions over the last 5 or so years.

[Allan Schumacher]

I said the sales of the games was due to the sum of their parts. The voiced PC being one part of DA2.

Without knowing how it broke down, it doesn't say much. There's a lot of logical deductions that can be made, but that doesn't mean they reflect reality. As such, I'd really like to see this tangent die with me saying:

I don't think it's as big of a factor as other aspects of DA2, especially since lack of voice protagonist was not a trivial component of the feedback for DAO. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm not. It's the decision that we're going with for DA3 so I guess we'll find out.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 25 décembre 2012 - 09:01 .

[Steppenwolf]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I said the sales of the games was due to the sum of their parts. The voiced PC being one part of DA2.

Without knowing how it broke down, it doesn't say much. There's a lot of logical deductions that can be made, but that doesn't mean they reflect reality. As such, I'd really like to see this tangent die with me saying:

I don't think it's as big of a factor as other aspects of DA2, especially since lack of voice protagonist was not a trivial component of the feedback for DAO. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm not. It's the decision that we're going with for DA3 so I guess we'll find out.

That assumes the voiced protagonist of DA3 will be judged simply for being voiced and not judged for having a less-than-stellar voice like Sheploo or something. The fans and critics alike are quite fickle. I was never fond of FemShep's but everyone raved about how awesome she sounded compared to Sheploo, who I always found to be just fine. I personally think the voiced PC in DA2 was overlooked in and of itself by a lot of critics and fans because the abbreviation system was a big complaint. Mass Effect always had the problem of abbreviations not reflecting the tone of what was said by Shepard, but DA2 had the problem of the abbreviations not reflecting what Hawke said at all. It takes attention away from the fact that the PC is voiced and puts focus on the fact that the spoken dialogue and our dialogue options were not at all in sync. And that also sort of disconnects us(or me at least) from the character, making the voice less of an issue since it doesn't feel like us in the game anyway.

[wwwwowwww]

I like voiced myself, but I do wish there could be a bit more emotion behind them. Now I didn't get to play much of DA:2 as all 3 copies I got continually errored out on my x-box so I gave up, but what I did play it didn't seem to matter what emotion you chose they all pretty much had the same tone. I could be wrong.

I think it would be cool to be given a list of names to choose from for your character to be called. Take DA:O for instance if you chose Human Noble, given the choice of (1) Warden (2) Cousland (3) Sir/Ma'am (4) Mr./Ms. Badass........well you get the point

[Hillbillyhat]

In Exile wrote...
Until you get to the reaction by the NPC, and then your nuance is either irrelevant or outright incorrect, unless you think the NPC is socially incompetent or the PC is incapable of correcting misunderstandings. 

This is one of the few things about DAO that I did not like. At least with DA2 they tell you the tone quite blatantly and no one can really complain too much about accidentally getting into a romance with someone.  The paraphrasing could have used some work, but I didn't hate it.

Now in relation to the topic I probably wouldn't by DA3 if it was a MMO. Its not that I don't think Bioware can't do MMOs, but the entire time I was playing SWTOR I felt that it should have been singleplayer.

Edit: I would pay 60 dollars to be able to play a more detailed and fleshed out story line from SWTOR. At least the Imperial Agent or Sith Warrior storyline.

Modifié par Hillbillyhat, 25 décembre 2012 - 09:21 .

[Allan Schumacher]

That assumes the voiced protagonist of DA3 will be judged simply for being voiced and not judged for having a less-than-stellar voice like Sheploo or something. The fans and critics alike are quite fickle. I was never fond of FemShep's but everyone raved about how awesome she sounded compared to Sheploo, who I always found to be just fine. I personally think the voiced PC in DA2 was overlooked in and of itself by a lot of critics and fans because the abbreviation system was a big complaint. Mass Effect always had the problem of abbreviations not reflecting the tone of what was said by Shepard, but DA2 had the problem of the abbreviations not reflecting what Hawke said at all. It takes attention away from the fact that the PC is voiced and puts focus on the fact that the spoken dialogue and our dialogue options were not at all in sync. And that also sort of disconnects us(or me at least) from the character, making the voice less of an issue since it doesn't feel like us in the game anyway.

As stated, I'd like to see this tangent die. It's filled with suppositions that can't really be proven or disproven.

I disagree with your assessment, and we're going with voice in DA3. So lets agree to disagree since we are obviously on other sides of the fence in terms of how much impact it has among those that like it compared to those that prefer it.


If people want to use their thread to discuss why the like/hate voiced protagonists, that's fine.  Using the relative success of DAO/DA2 as evidence of one system being innately superior is something that can't be shown.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 25 décembre 2012 - 09:22 .

[Hillbillyhat]

wwwwowwww wrote...

I like voiced myself, but I do wish there could be a bit more emotion behind them. Now I didn't get to play much of DA:2 as all 3 copies I got continually errored out on my x-box so I gave up, but what I did play it didn't seem to matter what emotion you chose they all pretty much had the same tone. I could be wrong.

I think it would be cool to be given a list of names to choose from for your character to be called. Take DA:O for instance if you chose Human Noble, given the choice of (1) Warden (2) Cousland (3) Sir/Ma'am (4) Mr./Ms. Badass........well you get the point

Now that is weird since I felt the tone definitely did differ. A Sarcastic hawke would always say something jokingly with a **** eating grin. Friendly Hawke always had a softer, but still rather firm voice that showed that she cared.  Renegade hawke sounded tougher, rude, pissed, and dangerous. The more you chose a certain tone of voice Hawke started to sound a lot more sarcastic or rude whenever Hawke said something that the player couldn't control. I felt that was a good idea, and it made it seem that Hawke was really that ****, or smartass. What made it better is that you could change over time from differnt tones.

The main thing I felt was lacking from it was that no one would comment about how much Hawke would change. For example, all the way up to the second act my Hawke was a pretty nice person who always tried to make friends when she could. By Act 3 she turned into a rather cynical and snide person since losing most of her family and watching Kirkwall fall apart around her. It would be nice if Varric or Isabella noticed the change.

[bEVEsthda]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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)

Well, i think the voiced protagonist + dialog wheel simply broke a lot of things, which many longterm Bioware gamers mainly played Bioware games for (yes, the old role-play).

Speaking only for myself: TW2 is absolutely NOT the kind of game I'm looking for. The ONE SINGLE feature of the game that was a fresh breeze of relief, after "fun" DA2, was the way TW2 took itself seriously.

And what makes Skyrim special, is not directly the exploration. I think it might be a mistake to focus on that assumption. For me, again, it's the roleplay. The exploration AND freedom, that Skyrim offers, greatly supports some aspects of role-play.

The last thing I'm looking for is a sequence of set game-violence, breaking up a story/movie. Actually, I totally loathe this type of game. And guess what, - this is seemingly all the singleplayer experience that multiplatform games offer this day. Even FPS. Max Payne 3, for instance, is just a movie, which stops at intervals where you're supposed to do some shooting. Disgusting!
DA2 just dropped straight into this format, so I guess it's a big quasi-religious thing with game designers and consultants these days. They must believe they have found the ultimate formula for making a game. They're so wrong. And exactly that is the cause of the problems of the industry, and the cause of the success of the likes of Skyrim and Minecraft.

Modifié par bEVEsthda, 25 décembre 2012 - 12:18 .

[CaisLaochach]

I much preferred having a voiced character tbh.

Currently replaying Skyrim again, and you're more invested in a story with a good VA for the main character. Laconic killers aren't as much fun.

[Arppis]

Hm, well they could always add option "mute main character". XD

[Uccio]

Allan Schumacher wrote...


... 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...

This was a major breaking point for me when I played DA2 for the first time. After Carver and Mom died I had a really hard to understand why my mage Hawke was still staying in Kirkwall. He had no connection to the city since those who could offer it were dead. He was in constant danger of being captured by himself by the templars. Yet for some odd reason he stayed doing odd jobs for people who he could not care a rats ass about. I was actually playing in my mind with a option where Hawke would give the deeds of the manor to that ex slave elven girl he saved, took Merrill with him and ran out of the city never looking back. Only cursing the day when they decided to go there.

Modifié par Ukki, 25 décembre 2012 - 01:03 .

[gisle]

Why not a compromise? For example, These three options for dialogue.
- Voice with abbrieviations
- Voice with full line.
- No voice, full line.

It still gets many of the disadvantages, like limitations due to increased VA costs and so on, but as said, it's a compromize.

[In Exile]

BasilKarlo wrote...
What the hell are you talking about? Who brought up TES? Do you even know what you're talking about at this point?

I'm mocking you. Since you seem so very convinced that you can evaluate which features of a game are financially succesful based on ... well, what, exactly? I gave you an counter-narrative. Because what you're doing is making up an explanation that suits your pre-existing view. 

bEVEsthda wrote...
Well, i think the voiced protagonist + dialog wheel simply broke a lot of things, which many longterm Bioware gamers mainly played Bioware games for (yes, the old role-play).

Are these the long-term fans that refused to play DA:O because the regenerating mana/HP system was dumbed down or the origins broke roleplay? Or are these fans like myself, who have been here since NWN/KoTOR? 

[d4eaming]

Bioware isn't going to invest in voice actors just to give you an option to mute them.

[Uccio]

bEVEsthda wrote...


The last thing I'm looking for is a sequence of set game-violence, breaking up a story/movie. Actually, I totally loathe this type of game. And guess what, - this is seemingly all the singleplayer experience that multiplatform games offer this day. Even FPS. Max Payne 3, for instance, is just a movie, which stops at intervals where you're supposed to do some shooting. Disgusting!
DA2 just dropped straight into this format, so I guess it's a big quasi-religious thing with game designers and consultants these days. They must believe they have found the ultimate formula for making a game. They're so wrong. And exactly that is the cause of the problems of the industry, and the cause of the success of the likes of Skyrim and Minecraft.

I have to heavily second this.

[7Nemesis]

Screw that! A playable character that just shuts the f*ck up and stares like an idiot cuts the enjoyment of the game. DA:O was good, but it could've been awesome if the character actually talked. A talking character (with a good voice actor) turns a good game into an awesome game (see Mass Effect and The Witcher).

[d4eaming]

7Nemesis wrote...

Screw that! A playable character that just shuts the f*ck up and stares like an idiot cuts the enjoyment of the game. DA:O was good, but it could've been awesome if the character actually talked. A talking character (with a good voice actor) turns a good game into an awesome game (see Mass Effect and The Witcher).

Agreed with Mass Effect. My laptop hates the Witcher, so I can't compare yet.

I loved DAO for sure, it's the first game in years that got me to play nonstop for hours at a time, but the silent, emotionless PC seriously broke my own immersion. It is weird to see him not react, at all, to anything, ever.

And once again, since every anti-voiced protag poster keeps ignoring it- THE NPCS DO NOT REACT TO YOUR IMAGINARY TONE. Do you understand that? Because all of you keep completely glossing over that fact and reasserting that you can imagine tone over a statue. Imagine all you want, but it does nothing at all when the NPCs do not react to your intended, imaginary tone.

Back to Alistair. My Warden, a human hating Dalish elf rogue, said to him "so, you're a royal bastard then?" and intended it as an insult. Alistair reacted as if he intended it as a joke. My Warden was a jerk to all the humans he met, saying over and over that he hated being a Grey Warden and he didn't care diddly squat about their problems. He didn't care about Alistair, he didn't care about the Blight. He wanted to go back to his clan. His whole motivation was going back to his clan.

So I chose something that I thought was an insult, and Alistair, the NPC, did not react to an insult, he reacted to a joke.

So, unless I am supposed to ignoring the NPC's actual reactions to what my PC says, explain to me again how "imagining his tone and inflection however I want" is supposed to be superior to a voiced protag who's tone and intent are clear and who NPCs react to properly.

Voiced protag is wholly superior, for these specific reasons, over a non-voiced protag. It is game breaking for me to have NPCs react extremely differently to my PC's tone because it doesn't match up with what I intended to convey.

With Shepard and Hawke, when I make a dialogue choice, it is clear exactly what tone and inflection is intended, and NPCs react accordingly to it.

[Zubie]

Not sure what the point of this thread is since they have already confirmed going the voiced route unfortunately. I definitely prefer a silent protagonist but I can go with a voiced one if it's really well done and fits the character I am trying to make. The major problem with voice protagonists is if you hate the voice it really kills a lot of the enjoyment.

[J.C. Blade]

d4eaming wrote...

Agreed with Mass Effect. My laptop hates the Witcher, so I can't compare yet.

I loved DAO for sure, it's the first game in years that got me to play nonstop for hours at a time, but the silent, emotionless PC seriously broke my own immersion. It is weird to see him not react, at all, to anything, ever.

And once again, since every anti-voiced protag poster keeps ignoring it- THE NPCS DO NOT REACT TO YOUR IMAGINARY TONE. Do you understand that? Because all of you keep completely glossing over that fact and reasserting that you can imagine tone over a statue. Imagine all you want, but it does nothing at all when the NPCs do not react to your intended, imaginary tone.

Back to Alistair. My Warden, a human hating Dalish elf rogue, said to him "so, you're a royal bastard then?" and intended it as an insult. Alistair reacted as if he intended it as a joke. My Warden was a jerk to all the humans he met, saying over and over that he hated being a Grey Warden and he didn't care diddly squat about their problems. He didn't care about Alistair, he didn't care about the Blight. He wanted to go back to his clan. His whole motivation was going back to his clan.

So I chose something that I thought was an insult, and Alistair, the NPC, did not react to an insult, he reacted to a joke.

So, unless I am supposed to ignoring the NPC's actual reactions to what my PC says, explain to me again how "imagining his tone and inflection however I want" is supposed to be superior to a voiced protag who's tone and intent are clear and who NPCs react to properly.

Voiced protag is wholly superior, for these specific reasons, over a non-voiced protag. It is game breaking for me to have NPCs react extremely differently to my PC's tone because it doesn't match up with what I intended to convey.

With Shepard and Hawke, when I make a dialogue choice, it is clear exactly what tone and inflection is intended, and NPCs react accordingly to it.

To that:
A) There are lovers of non-voiced PC who don't give a damn that the NPC doesn't react to imaginary tone
(I don't correct people half the time in real life when they think I'm joking or being serious, why should I do it in game). In fact, it improves our immersion. Something we are not getting that anymore, are we?

And
If they want a voiced PC, with full PC-to-NPC cinematic dynamic banter incorporated, then they should do a fully pre-defined character whose personality can only be stirred a bit (much like Geralt or Adam Jensen); so no misunderstandings, scrapping of a created character and surprises explode to player's face two thirds of the in the game and make you want to pull your hair out at the wasted time.

Modifié par J.C. Blade, 25 décembre 2012 - 09:45 .

[d4eaming]

J.C. Blade wrote...

To that:
A) There are lovers of non-voiced PC who don't give a damn that the NPC doesn't react to imaginary tone
(I don't correct people half the time in real life when they think I'm joking or being serious, why should I do it in game). In fact, it improves our immersion. Something we are not getting that anymore, are we?

And
If they want a voiced PC, with full PC-to-NPC cinematic dynamic banter incorporated, then they should do a fully pre-defined character whose personality can only be stirred a bit (much like Geralt or Adam Jensen); so no misunderstandings, scrapping of a created character and surprises explode to player's face two thirds of the in the game and make you want to pull your hair out at the wasted time.

Well, that's just plain silly to not care how the NPCs react. How do you build friendship with them when they are constantly reacting in a stupid way to what you actually intended? I'm sure there's just as many people who need clarity of intent as you say don't care about intent. It's not like you can actually make it clear to them when they "misunderstand". In my every day interactions with people, I prefer clarity, and if someone misunderstands, then I explain. There's not a thousand different dialogue choices that can be made in an RPG to get that. I have no problem with the preset design of diplomatic/charming/aggressive like DA2 had, or the Paragon/neutral/Renegade of ME. I still have choices, and I get to see the NPCs react appropriately to those choices.

I find it pretty rediculous to not care about NPC reaction. It would be game breaking for me to have my PC intend an insult and the NPC think I just complimented them. There may be real people in real life who are that utterly dim that they can't tell, but that would be an incredibly frustrating playing experience, because then I have to force my PC into something I didn't want in order for reactions to make any sense at all.

To point B, I honestly have never once experienced anything of the sort in my game plays. What is there to misunderstand when the intent, via dialogue wheel, is actually clear? I always know that top is diplomatic/paragon and bottom is aggressive/renegade. What shocking revolations come to light when you have a clear indication of what personality you are building in your character when it's all laid out clear as day? I've played all three options in DA2 and seen nothing of the sort. That is what I found to be a problem with unvoiced. There is no clarity, therefore there is suprise, because my intent does not match what the assumed intent was when creating the NPC response.

It doesn't need to be an utterly predefined character, and if that's your argument, there's no point in having options at all, because it's already defined. Hawke/Shepard aren't already defined just because their options are voiced and the dialogue wheel makes it clear what the tone will be.

The arguments otherwise are just completely nonnsensical to me. Clarity means surprises? Maybe in backwards world it does.

Modifié par d4eaming, 25 décembre 2012 - 10:03 .

[upsettingshorts]

J.C. Blade wrote...

If they want a voiced PC, with full PC-to-NPC cinematic dynamic banter incorporated, then they should do a fully pre-defined character whose personality can only be stirred a bit (much like Geralt or Adam Jensen); so no misunderstandings, scrapping of a created character and surprises explode to player's face two thirds of the in the game and make you want to pull your hair out at the wasted time.

If I like where BioWare is going now with its level of customization and level of fixed elements - Mass Effect, Dragon Age 2 - why should I endorse more static elements (like Geralt or Jensen) or more  vague ambiguity (like The Warden) when I don't like those as much?

This isn't an either/or, polar distinction. I don't have the problems you describe.  Lots of people don't have the problems you describe.  It's a continuum, and people have their preferences at a lot of points along the way.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 25 décembre 2012 - 10:08 .