335 réponses à ce sujet

[garrusfan1]

I prefer voiced very much

[Nightwriter]

I don't have a choice at this point. I probably couldn't go back to a silent protag if I tried, no matter how much I appreciated the extra dialogue. After playing animated protagonists for years, the silent ones just don't seem quite real to me now. Bit like playing a cardboard cutout of a person.

[rolson00]

personally i prefer silent as it means you put a little of yours own imagination into the voice but our views are mute as bioware thinks voice is the way to go.

[LunarSin]

I don't like the limitations that having a voiced protagonist usually brings, i.e lack of dialogue choices, and a voice that might not necessarily fit. Tends to make it harder to develop a unique personality for my character.

If It's done well however, I prefer a vocal PC over a silent one.

[MarchWaltz]

I'm tired of silent protagonists in games. Unless there is a reason, ie. Chell/Quiet

[Bleachrude]

If the rest of the cast/companions are silent, I'm down with a non-voiced hero.

It's when everyone else is talking up a storm and my PC is just silent...that's when I find myself thinking "ok, this is slgihtly weird"

Modifié par Bleachrude, 07 juillet 2013 - 09:04 .

[Neon Rising Winter]

Bleachrude wrote...

If the rest of the cast/companions are silent, I'm down with a voiced hero.

It's when everyone else is talking up a storm and my PC is just silent...that's when I find myself thinking "ok, this is slgihtly weird"

Yes, this. Pick one or the other and I'm good, mix the two up and it's odd.

[Amycus89]

I'm just gonna copy paste this post I made in an earlier thread on the subject:

Amycus89 wrote...

I'm against voiced protagonist, but my major concern with it isn't the voiceacting itself, but all the other changes that indirectly comes from it. - primarly the lack of actual lines and dialogue options. I know the below pic has been posted frequently here before, but I think it illustrates the problem pretty well:
Can you imagine the cost to do voiceovers for all the dialogue in Planescape:torment?


If my memory serves me correct, voice actors are paid not for the number of lines they say, but for a certain number of hours, as well as travel expenses and the like. Meaning, that if they later decide to change a line that needs to be voiced, the cost for that single line will be quite expensive, and the whole scene might be cut instead. With a voiced protagonist I imagine this kind of situation to be a lot more frequent.

If I'm wrong about this, that would be great, but all RPGs with a voiced protagonist that comes to mind for me right now has had a much smaller amount of dialogue options compared to non-voiced ones. Look at DA2 with its standard 3 options (ALWAYS only 3 options, except from the occasional "Investigate, but I barely count them since they never gives any real consequence, there is no reason NOT to choose all of them), or the ME series with Paragon and Renegade (and a whole lot autodialogue).

There are of course other concerns I have with a voiced protagonist, like the risk of me simply not being able to stand a certain voice (I know several people liked fHawke's voice, but personally I didn't like it, and felt forced to play a male one just because of that), or how odd it feels to make a second character and see him speak the same lines, with the same voice, as my previous character but with a different face, or the paraphrases, etc. Those are however all smaller issues that I can at least look past by without letting that influence my opinion of the game too much. The amount of dialogue options however, is something I can't look past. It's 99% of the experience for me.

I'm not expecting anything on the level of Planescape: Torment, but I AM expecting something like DA:O, as far as dialogue options go. Don't just decide beforehand "in this situation we are going to have 1 paragon, 1 sarcastic, and 1 renegade option. Now what kind of lines should they actually say for each one?" Write the lines first beforehand, and THEN you can categorize them by colour and put voiceovers for them if you want.

It's the written dialogue options that should influence how the voiceovers become, not the opposite.

EDIT: To make an example, if Bioware suddenly released a patch to DA:O that just added voiceovers to the warden, I wouldn't really bother to complain, heck I might even enjoy it, [/b][b]assuming that it ONLY added voiceovers and didn't change the dialogue and options already there.

[Urazz]

Narrow Margin wrote...

Bleachrude wrote...

If the rest of the cast/companions are silent, I'm down with a voiced hero.

It's when everyone else is talking up a storm and my PC is just silent...that's when I find myself thinking "ok, this is slgihtly weird"

Yes, this. Pick one or the other and I'm good, mix the two up and it's odd.

Yeah I think that's the big thing.  Not many people like the mix of the two unless it's handled well which is rare.  Otherwise, it's best to have one or the other.

[Tchos]

I prefer the voicing style as in Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, and the like. Dragon Age: Origins was still a good game despite having limitations on the length of possible replies (create a module and you'll know what I mean), but it was clearly advancing toward the Mass Effect style of all-voiced, all the time, movie-style.

I played the demo for DA2. The voiced protagonist and numerous other factors in the DA2 demo and in their other later games such as SW:TOR and Mass Effect 3 showed that the series was going off into a direction I would not enjoy, and I don't believe they're going to make any more of the kind I'm looking for, so I'm playing other games instead.

[In Exile]

I find that the silent PC makes a lot of personalities that are the core of what I would like to RP impossible, and moreover, makes re-activity very difficult. Generally, I would say that a silent PC not only makes crafting a character that's mine impossible, but it makes choices much harder to portray in-game in a way that matters.

[PsychoBlonde]

In Exile wrote...

I find that the silent PC makes a lot of personalities that are the core of what I would like to RP impossible, and moreover, makes re-activity very difficult. Generally, I would say that a silent PC not only makes crafting a character that's mine impossible, but it makes choices much harder to portray in-game in a way that matters.

Some of my favorite moments from DA2 would be flat-out impossible to do with a silent PC.  I do wish they'd do MORE options in DA:I than there were in DA2, but I understand there is a budget.

I do miss the persuasion-type options from Origins, though, I hope they bring something like that back for DA2.  I like to play a skilled talker when I can and I DETEST playing an ignoramus.  Part of the reason why I didn't like Mass Effect because GAWD Shepard knew NOTHING about ANYTHING.  If they could just give me a freakin' switch for the Investigate options that if you were a certain class/race or had a relevant skill, the PC would deliver the exposition line rather than ASKING AN NPC for it, I would be DELIGHTED.  That would do SO MUCH for letting me play the character I want to play.  It wouldn't have to be that different than the NPC lines.  When the NPC would say "here's our tactical situation" let the PC say "this is what I see as your tactical situation".  Then have the NPC add the last line of what they would have said anyway.  There's basically no duplication in writing, MINIMAL duplication in voice files, and you've DRAMATICALLY increased your dialog options as well as getting extra value out of your Investigate lines!  HOW IS THIS A BAD PLAN?!?!?

[The Velveteen Rabbit]

The main problem I have with voiced player characters, besides the voice not being what you imagine or would prefer for the character, is that it restricts your dialogue options.

In Origins, because the dialogue wasn't voiced, you could have five or more possible responses. But in DA2, you normally just get three.

Of course, there are also some advantages to the dialogue not being silent. But I think, over all, Hawke having voiced dialogue, and I never was really sure exactly what she was going to say, made it harder to connect with the character.

I wouldn't mind if future DA games went back to the silent protagonist, but I know DA3 isn't going to. Hopefully there will be improvements.

[Mykel54]

I prefer a voiced protagonist, but i really dislike the paraphrases that ME and DA2 uses in the dialogue wheel. I want to see the full lines of dialogue (or at least the first sentence) before picking the option, like in the Witcher series. I just find annoying how i have to reload constantly just to make sure that my character says what i want, or at least is close.

The paraphrases often asume the reasoning behind player´s actions, thought there can be many, one example: mage hawke stops blood mages, because: 1) bloodmagic is too dangerous: they´re evil, 2) the chantry is right: they´re evil. So maybe my mage hawke wants to stop the bloodmages because like Anders he believes bloodmagic is bad, but he doesn´t like the chantry. When you pick the dialogue to bring them in it says "You should go the Circle". That makes no sense. At least with the actualy written lines you would be warned beforehand of what the line actually said.

[Seon]

voiced...always voiced...always

[Ananka]

Realmzmaster wrote...

The problem with the silent protagonist for some comes when the protagonist is suppose to give a speech. Take DAO for example the warden is the commander of the troops, but Alistair or Anora given the speech. I found it far more interesting when Hawke gave the speech when talking to his companions as oppose to when the warden gave the same farewells with his companions.

Maybe it is because I have put up with 40+ years of silent protagonists that hearing my character speak is refreshing.

Personally, I find most of the speeches cringeworthy anyway, so not having to hear them voiced is something I consider a good thing

[In Exile]

PsychoBlonde wrote...
 Part of the reason why I didn't like Mass Effect because GAWD Shepard knew NOTHING about ANYTHING.

The weird thing is that sometimes Shepard did, and the dialogue showcased the potential not to be an ignorant moron but never followed up. A great example is the initial conversation with Nihilus, where Shepard offers information about the Terminus Systems of an investigation option for the player, and then Anderson fills in context.

When the NPC would say "here's our tactical situation" let the PC say "this is what I see as your tactical situation".  Then have the NPC add the last line of what they would have said anyway.  There's basically no duplication in writing, MINIMAL duplication in voice files, and you've DRAMATICALLY increased your dialog options as well as getting extra value out of your Investigate lines!  HOW IS THIS A BAD PLAN?!?!?

I agree completely. It's far more in-line with how I would want my characters to be, and allows Bioware to take advantage of the strength of a voiced PC. But they should also gate it by skils/abilities. 

So using tactical assesment, for exmaple, the option should only be available if the PC has the requisite skill to offer one. 

[In Exile]

The Velveteen Rabbit wrote...
In Origins, because the dialogue wasn't voiced, you could have five or more possible responses. But in DA2, you normally just get three.

That's not true. Often you would have 3 in DA:O, sometimes you would have 4 where 1-2 where basically saying the same thing. In DA2, you actually had more optiosn whenever the (*) choice icon would pop up w/o a tone because the line Hawke used turned on the default tone. So a choice to say yes/no actually had 6 options based on your default tone sometimes. 


For example (my images always freak out, hence why I'm adding links): 

http://guides.gamepr...ord/7531359.jpg
http://www.gamerroad...01042212811.jpg
http://guides.gamepr...d/387328531.jpg
http://www.thereview...ge_origins5.jpg
http://guidesmedia.i...0/Image_194.jpg

[Cyberstrike nTo]

I perfer a Voiced protagonist for a voiced world. A silent protagonist in a voiced world doesn't work for me anymore, it takes me out of the game and looks and sounds stupid. The only way I could see myself playing a silent protagonist in a voiced world if the PC is mute because it's central to PC backstory (injured by the villain or something) and/or game's overall storyline.  

[NUM13ER]

I have always preferred a voiced character as I feel it makes the protagonist feel a greater part of the world. Actually seeing them converse, emote and actually react more realistically to the world around them.

unlike that constant "glazed eyed look" (regardless of the scenario) we get with no voice.

As others have said, the silent protagonist is something of a cliche after all these years. And to be honest it was hard to go back to such a style once I'd played a handful of voiced protagonists in RPGs.

Modifié par NUM13ER, 07 juillet 2013 - 11:32 .

[b09boy]

Sutekh wrote...

b09boy wrote...

Silent. Voiced poses far too many limitations.

More than that, though, voiced is not the future of RPGs and every time it continues to be used when it doesn't need to be is a step back for the genre. It was cute while it lasted, but voice recognition software is already good enough that WE can begin speaking to games. As soon as developers begin realizing this and successfully tailoring games toward this, there will begin being questions about whether games with voiced protagonists even classify any longer as RPGs. ME3 already included this to an extent.

I would hate that with a passion. I'm rarely alone in the room I play in, and I like what happens in the game to remain between the game and me (any heated scene would be atrocious in that regard). Not mentioning how awkward and wrong it would feel talking in my PC's stead, considering I'm female and I mostly play males. Immersionzz and RPGing would die just there and then.

You play SP RPGs in a room with others?  Even during the scenes such as you describe? 

Anyway, there's gonna be bumps in the road (as there is whenever something new is introduced), but that is the future of immersion in gaming like it or not.  Early on we'll probably get people buying noise canceling headsets for gender swaps or just sticking to their own gender.  Eventually down the road there'll likely be voice alterations.

I would be very surprised if it takes long for a developer to combine the oculus rift wih such tech.

[MarchoftheVolus]

DemonHunter92 wrote...

Hey! So im brand new here and i was wonderding something of the BSN!

With all the speculation about DA:I what do you prefer? A silent Warden or a vocal Hawke?

From a Role Playing side im very character driven so my favourite thing about DA2 was that Hawke had a voice, it completed the character for me actually getting to hear the character speak the dialouge you chose (although it was often very different from what the written options said) but on the flip side the Warden had so much more to say and way more interaction and control. I really hope The Inquisitor has a voice though

So i dunno, just putting it out there! what do you prefer?

(apologies if there is something like this already)

Silent PC. I don't want a voiced PC if I have to lose half of my diologue options (look at the amout of options you had in DA:O with a silet PC then look at how may options you get in DA:II with a voiced PC) to get it. 

[Gotholhorakh]

The voiced PC is all very well, but it isn't as good as:
Having loads of dialogue options
Being able to see what I say, before I say it
The sense that I am in the game world in some way


If voiced protagonists could be done without those^ I'd be all for it, and indeed it's not the world's biggest problem, it's just the immersion is gone.

You're with this person Hawke, they are just not you - less BG2 or Skyrim, and a bit more book or movie.

[Moirin]

Voiced Protagonist. I would have loved for my Warden to be voiced.