572 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

How the PC sounds never mattered to me until I heard it, and then it was always wrong.

[(Disgusted noise.)]

I was always much more attached to Hawke than to the Warden because Hawke actually felt like a real person that I was navigating through the game, and the voice had a lot to do with that. 

 

So I'm totally against this to the degree that I don't know if I would buy a silent DA game at this point.

[DaProdigy205]

Even though I was more attached to the Warden than Hawke it had little do with the no voice. I feel that with a voiced Hero you feel a greater since of attachment to the character as the story unfolds.

[dekarserverbot]

I was always much more attached to Hawke than to the Warden because Hawke actually felt like a real useless person that I was navigating through the game, and the voice had a lot to do with that.

fixed

[AlanC9]

Aren't extraneous whines about DA2's plot a bit off-topic.

[LinksOcarina]

Aren't extraneous whines about DA2's plot a bit off-topic.

 

and overplayed at this point?

[go.apostate]

Personally, I've never had a problem with characters being voiced. It's never been "Oh, this is me as such and such, so it can't be voiced". 
To me, they are different ploys from my imagination. A voice merely breathes a life into them that they may have never had before. 

There's a natural interaction when a main character is voiced, rather than silent. I like that direction with these types of games. 

[phantomrachie]

I would much rather simply be able to imagine the emotional reaction that my character has than have them be assigned one by the game that I don't agree with, which happens all too often with the voiced PC. That is taking away the ability to roleplay your character as you choose, to make your character your character, and for what I consider relatively little benefit.
 

 

Generally I find that Hawke's and Shepard's emotional reactions line up with what I thought they would be, there are some exceptions but for the most part their reaction met my expectations.

 

Also, since the dialogue focuses on your characters face much less often without the voice, whether or not your character has a facial expression doesn't come up as much.
 

 

The fact in DA:O the cinematics rarely show the face of the warden only adds to my frustration. Video games are a visual medium, I want to see my character and their reactions, if I wanted to imagine them then I'd be playing a table top RPG or an RPG will little or no voice acting.

 

 

 That's interesting. I very definitely take the angle that my character is not me. All of my characters are quite different from me. I still want to be able to control what they are doing, and not have the game hijack them. If the game starts making my character do things I didn't want them to do, that is making it feel less like it's my character.
 

 

The issue with imagining the tone that you wanted to use in a game where all other characters are voiced, is that the other characters don't & can't react to your imagination properly.

 

This breaks my immersion, I might intend for a line to be sarcastic & the other character reacts with sympathy. 

 

I know that some people can just head canon that the other person took them up wrong, but it can happen too many times for me to do that.

 

While it's true that IRL people can take up a persons tone wrong, generally most of the time people get it right and only get it wrong when they themselves are in a certain mental or emotional state.

 

For example, if I'm already in a bad mood, then I can pick up a perfectly innocent statement as a slag or criticism.

 

In DA:O, however, depending on how you are imaging your Warden's tone, it's possible for your companions & other characters to pick it up wrong & react to it incorrectly almost every time. 

 

Proper reactivity from NPCs is something that I'm a huge fan of and I really glad to see that BioWare are striving to increase that reactivity in DA:I

[Declined_Misery]

I prefer a voiced protagonist over a voiceless one. I did enjoy DA:O but i eventually got tired of looking at all that text that i was presented with.

 

Giving the hero a voice makes the game come to life imo. Long may it continue.

[Medhia_Nox]

Never going to happen in a mainstream title - but Wasteland 2 and Shadowrun Returns are both very good RPGs that came out recently that don't have voiced protagonists and they don't suffer for it.  

[rprm1987]

Voice over voiceless anyday -: especially now when we have 2 choices per gender.

[Remmirath]

Generally I find that Hawke's and Shepard's emotional reactions line up with what I thought they would be, there are some exceptions but for the most part their reaction met my expectations.

It's cool that it's worked out for you, then. It hasn't for me.
 

The fact in DA:O the cinematics rarely show the face of the warden only adds to my frustration. Video games are a visual medium, I want to see my character and their reactions, if I wanted to imagine them then I'd be playing a table top RPG or an RPG will little or no voice acting.

Okay, fair enough. Tabletop RPGs will always be better in that respect, or at least until some advances in programming are made.

However, I disagree that one can't have a largely visual RPG with the main character unvoiced. I find that it works quite well for me. I would much rather have a slightly less visual experience than have less control of my character.
 

The issue with imagining the tone that you wanted to use in a game where all other characters are voiced, is that the other characters don't & can't react to your imagination properly.
 
This breaks my immersion, I might intend for a line to be sarcastic & the other character reacts with sympathy. 
 
I know that some people can just head that the other person took them up wrong, but it can happen too many times for me to do that.
 
While it's true that IRL people can take up a persons tone wrong, generally most of the time people get it right and only get it wrong when they themselves are in a certain mental or emotional  state.
 
For example, if I'm already in a bad mood, then I can pick up a perfectly innocent statement as a slag or criticism.
 
In DA:O, however, depending on how you are imaging your Warden's tone, it's possible for your companions & other characters to pick it up wrong & react to it incorrectly almost every time. 
 
Proper reactivity from NPCs is something that I'm a huge fan of and I really glad to see that BioWare are striving to increase that reactivity in DA:I

I've never had more than one or two instances of them reacting oddly in DA:O, compared to numerous incidents of my character saying something almost entirely different than what I thought they were doing to say in Mass Effect or DA II. I can forgive and ignore some level of misinterpretation, even a greater level than I would expect out of an actual conversation. I can't do the same for my character doing unexpected things (well, I suppose I could decide that they're actually not fully in control of their actions and are in fact somewhat insane, but I'd rather not have to roleplay all my characters like that).

I'm sure that one method works better for some people, and one for others. There's no denying that. Again, I believe the best thing would be to have a choice. Given that they apparently aren't going to do that, I then believe that switching it up over the series would be the next best thing, since they already set a precedent for that by suddenly switching to a voiced PC with DA II.

There are other ways one could implement increased reactivity. For instance, if a character has a higher persuasion, you could get an indication of how the other characters are going to take things. I don't think the voice is at all the only way to go about that.

[AlanC9]

I find that it works quite well for me. I would much rather have a slightly less visual experience than have less control of my character. I've never had more than one or two instances of them reacting oddly in DA:O, compared to numerous incidents of my character saying something almost entirely different than what I thought they were doing to say in Mass Effect or DA II. I can forgive and ignore some level of misinterpretation, even a greater level than I would expect out of an actual conversation. I can't do the same for my character doing unexpected things (well, I suppose I could decide that they're actually not fully in control of their actions and are in fact somewhat insane, but I'd rather not have to roleplay all my characters like that).

Hmm. Looks like we approach this differently. Whether or not my PC's actions are unexpected isn't the criterion I use. The question for me is whether I was so wrong about the option I'd selected that I would have preferred one of the other available options. That almost never actually happens -- the one exception that comes to mind for me was confronting Merrill's tribe at the end of her DA2 plotline, since the paraphrase doesn't make clear what kind of responsibility Hawke will be talking about.

[Lady Luminous]

The main reason I like silent protagonists (beyond the fact that I give them a voice in my head, so they don't seem like a shell to me as they do to many others) is because their lines are always accurate.

 

I found a number of times in DA2 that Hawke said something entirely inappropriate because the summary text wasn't accurate. If the summary is correct then I have no issue with voice protagonists, and I especially enjoy British accents.

[acid_rain82]

NO

[Lady Luminous]

It's cool that it's worked out for you, then. It hasn't for me.
 

Okay, fair enough. Tabletop RPGs will always be better in that respect, or at least until some advances in programming are made.

However, I disagree that one can't have a largely visual RPG with the main character unvoiced. I find that it works quite well for me. I would much rather have a slightly less visual experience than have less control of my character.
 

I've never had more than one or two instances of them reacting oddly in DA:O, compared to numerous incidents of my character saying something almost entirely different than what I thought they were doing to say in Mass Effect or DA II. I can forgive and ignore some level of misinterpretation, even a greater level than I would expect out of an actual conversation. I can't do the same for my character doing unexpected things (well, I suppose I could decide that they're actually not fully in control of their actions and are in fact somewhat insane, but I'd rather not have to roleplay all my characters like that).

I'm sure that one method works better for some people, and one for others. There's no denying that. Again, I believe the best thing would be to have a choice. Given that they apparently aren't going to do that, I then believe that switching it up over the series would be the next best thing, since they already set a precedent for that by suddenly switching to a voiced PC with DA II.

There are other ways one could implement increased reactivity. For instance, if a character has a higher persuasion, you could get an indication of how the other characters are going to take things. I don't think the voice is at all the only way to go about that.

 

You're eating all my likes!

[In Exile]

I've never had more than one or two instances of them reacting oddly in DA:O, compared to numerous incidents of my character saying something almost entirely different than what I thought they were doing to say in Mass Effect or DA II. I can forgive and ignore some level of misinterpretation, even a greater level than I would expect out of an actual conversation. I can't do the same for my character doing unexpected things (well, I suppose I could decide that they're actually not fully in control of their actions and are in fact somewhat insane, but I'd rather not have to roleplay all my characters like that).

 

That doesn't have anything to do with VO - it has to do with the fact that Bioware seems to think that actions should be tied to dialogue options in some nonsensical way. DA:O did this with the way conversations advanced - some answers moved forward the dialogue tree without any sensible reason as to why the other options are no longer available. 

 

There's a fundamental conceptual/logical problem with your characterization, namely, that you think that there's a difference between seeing an action that appears out of character and seeing the nonsensical reactions that could not possibly follow except for one-two unexpected interpretations of the silent VO.

 

The absence of VO does not remove the problem of unpredictable conduct - it just attacks the very idea of control more directly by denying you the most basic information necessary to determine whether your PC just went off the rails with an insane or gibbering rant or the NPC has lost contact with reality instead. 

 

Let's use an example. In ME1 Shepard automatically froths at the mouth in front of the Council and Saren. If there was silent VO, Bioware would still write the scene as if Shepard was frothing at the mouth. The difference is that the dialogue option wouldn't indicate that Shepard is a loon. So you'd have the Council lash out at you, Udina tell you to calm yourself, etc. making them all look completely unbalanced. 

[Remmirath]

That doesn't have anything to do with VO - it has to do with the fact that Bioware seems to think that actions should be tied to dialogue options in some nonsensical way. DA:O did this with the way conversations advanced - some answers moved forward the dialogue tree without any sensible reason as to why the other options are no longer available.

I certainly agree that this is also a problem that exists and will hopefully be dealt with at some point, but I don't think they're exactly one and a same, just closely tied together.
 

There's a fundamental conceptual/logical problem with your characterization, namely, that you think that there's a difference between seeing an action that appears out of character and seeing the nonsensical reactions that could not possibly follow except for one-two unexpected interpretations of the silent VO.

There is a difference to me. If I see an action that appears out of character, I see that the game is making my character take that action. There is no other way to interpret it. If I see an NPC react in a way I consider nonsensical, there is more than one thing that could have been going on, thus leaving room for interpretation. I concede that it is likely not an important difference to you, indeed not important enough for you consider it a difference since the second appears to bother you at least as much as the first, but it is not wholly the same.

I can't think of any case where a given line elicited a nonsensical response rather than a slightly different response than one might've expected, but there could be more than one reason for that. I might have never picked a line that would've done that, I suppose, or I might be less inclined to trying to predict the responses of NPCs. I don't know. I know that I never do pick a line with any notion of what the NPC is going to do because of it -- I always assume I'll just find out -- so that could potentially be a difference. I also am under the strong impression that people often misinterpret each other in ordinary conversation, which you don't seem to think happens as much, so it could be that you're used to being able to predict people's reactions and then can't in the game, whereas I'm used to not being able to predict people's reactions and am therefore not at all surprised when they do something that I hadn't seen coming.
 

The absence of VO does not remove the problem of unpredictable conduct - it just attacks the very idea of control more directly by denying you the most basic information necessary to determine whether your PC just went off the rails with an insane or gibbering rant or the NPC has lost contact with reality instead.

No, it doesn't remove the problem entirely. It shifts it onto a source where I personally have a much easier time dealing with it. There are two reasons for this, the first being that I would rather assume that an NPC misinterpreted something my character said (even if it would have to be a bizarre misinterpretation) than know that my character did or said something I wasn't intending them to do or say, and the second being that -- if I realise there's no other way it could've happened -- I can then decide on my own what my character said or did to make the NPC react like that.

What it all boils down to, though, is that I'm always going to be more okay with an NPC seeming to have lost contact with reality than with my character doing something I didn't want them to do. Ideally this problem wouldn't come up either way, but if it is going to come up, I prefer the way in which it will come up without the voice (or at least, without the paraphrase, which is admittedly the main culprit in this instance).
 

Let's use an example. In ME1 Shepard automatically froths at the mouth in front of the Council and Saren. If there was silent VO, Bioware would still write the scene as if Shepard was frothing at the mouth. The difference is that the dialogue option wouldn't indicate that Shepard is a loon. So you'd have the Council lash out at you, Udina tell you to calm yourself, etc. making them all look completely unbalanced.

True, but I'm okay with that. You're not. I would also rather that neither one would happen, of course, that we could both choose the exact and voiceless lines of dialogue and not get what some would consider a jarring response -- but for whatever reason, I cannot think of a single case where in DA:O or any previous game with an unvoiced PC an NPC reacted strangely enough that I thought of it as more than just a slight misunderstanding, or the NPC probably being on a hair trigger already. I can think of a very large number of times that my character has said or done unintended things due to the paraphrasing or the cinematics.

[ZaroktheImmortal]

I don't have a problem with a voiced character more of the lack of dialogue options that seems to follow. I hated how Dragon Age 2 put most conversations down to either friendly, sarcastic or aggressive. If the new one can do voiced with more varied options of speech I'll be fine with it.

[phantomrachie]

However, I disagree that one can't have a largely visual RPG with the main character unvoiced. I find that it works quite well for me. I would much rather have a slightly less visual experience than have less control of my character.
 

 

I'm not saying that it can never work, but it depends on the type of game.

 

Wasteland 2 has very little voice acting and I'm enjoying it alot.

 

Wasteland 2 doesn't have the same type of cinematics that Dragon Age does, so it doesn't matter that I'm not visually seeing my characters react, pretty much the whole experience is viewed from above with an Isometric camera, I couldn't see my characters react if I wanted even if I wanted to with a view like that.

 

Because its a different style of RPG then Dragon Age, I don't have the same issues with the silent protagonists that I did when I played DA:O.

 

IMO in a more cinematic RPG, with a 3rd person view and fully voiced NPCs a voiced protagonist is better, where as in an RPG with an Isometric camera and little to no voiced NPCs, then a silent protagonist works best.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Let's use an example. In ME1 Shepard automatically froths at the mouth in front of the Council and Saren. If there was silent VO, Bioware would still write the scene as if Shepard was frothing at the mouth. The difference is that the dialogue option wouldn't indicate that Shepard is a loon. So you'd have the Council lash out at you, Udina tell you to calm yourself, etc. making them all look completely unbalanced. 

And that's better.  Some people are unbalanced.  Some people have motives or preferences that I don't understand.  Lots of them, in fact.

 

Earlier this year, I left a job I'd had for 13+ years.  During the exit interview, I learned that I'd been promoted four years earlier.  This was news to me, doubly so because the HR person conducting the interview kept referring to consequences that I'd never seen.  She'd repeatedly ask how I couldn't have known I'd been promoted given some piece of evidence of which I was either entirely unaware, or that I knew for sure didn't actually happen, or that I couldn't possibly describe as relevant.

 

People don't make sense.  Characters in games who don't make sense are more believable characters.

[skulldogx]

I personally think there should be a option to either turn on or turn off voice acting for your main hero.

[phantomrachie]

People don't make sense.  Characters in games who don't make sense are more believable characters.

 

People do make some sort of sense, we can make certain assumptions about a person's behaviour, this is how we first start to form bonds with other people.

 

Equally, characters have to make some sort of sense, we need to be able to get a good grasp of the type of person they are and how they might react, to be able to make either a positive or negative connection with them.  

 

For example, I hate Kai Leng, quite possibly more than I've ever hated a fictional character before. This is a negative connection with a character and one that I was able to form based on seeing his actions, judging them, and making assumptions on his character, just like I do with people I meet in real life.

 

Of course these assumptions can be challenged, a writer could subvert your assumptions by making a character a spy who has been lying to you, giving them relatable backstory, or allowing the protagonist to help them venture down a different path.

 

In real life, my assumption might simply be wrong, because I met the person when they were in a bad mood or in a hurry and my opinion of the person changes with subsequent meetings.

 

Some of the characters in a game turning out to be different than you first thought makes them feel deeper or more complex, like Morrigan, my canon Warden thought she was a ****** at first and then they become bffs, but if no character in the game makes any sense, then they feel badly written & hollow, and thats not just games, its any media.

[CasbynessPC]

I don't mind a voice so long as it's good and adds to the gaming experience.

 

What I did hate was when ME3 Shepard jumped the shark and started making lots of auto-statements without my input. That was one of the many deal breakers that ME3 brought forth, contributing to its backlash and failure. 

[Commander Michael]

"Can I get you a ladder, so you can get off my back?"

 

Oh, how I miss my warden...