572 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

I've been meaning to ask you, Sylvius... do you subscribe to Ron Edwards GNS Theory in RPG description? If so, I think this vein of conversation really lends itself to conflicts between Narrativists and Simulationists... although I'd say voice acting hurts both, it does by limiting options (Narrativists objection) while also pushing the character to possibly be at odds to the player's generated character mindset (Simulationists objection).

Then again, this may just come down to people being neither N or S... or even really G. Just interested in a story, which goes outside Edwards attempts to describe role playing as an activity.

I'm pretty clearly a Simulationist in Edwards's system.

I do think Narrativists would have less trouble with the paraphrase than I do (and the tone icons would be particularly helpful to them).

But what's important here is that BioWare is clearly heading in a Gamist direction. And that's a problem.

[Fast Jimmy]

I'm pretty clearly a Simulationist in Edwards's system.

I do think Narrativists would have less trouble with the paraphrase than I do (and the tone icons would be particularly helpful to them).

But what's important here is that BioWare is clearly heading in a Gamist direction. And that's a problem.

I have hopes that with the return of multiple choices and options for DA:I, this trend would be back pedaling. Although it may be an instance where the choice makes railroaded assumptions about why you made such a choice and predefined outcomes that may make it just as harmful to player agency as no choice at all... but I'm hoping that is a "worse-case-scenario" situation.

We are seeing a return of non-combat skills, multiple outcomes, multiple backgrounds for our character, multiple combat styles (although this might be seriously hampered by a pre-defined attribute system), which all seem to suggest a departure from a Gamist design.

[Gothfather]

I find some of the things players "rage" against (Not implying the OP is actually raging) in games funny. Take for example names and voice two thing people "raged" against and some actually raged against with ME.

 

I don't personally know of anyone who picked their name or voice. We get assigned both one from a parent or guardian, the other from the genetic lottery. Yet somehow I endure.

 

This technology of using voice for the protagonist is new (relatively speaking) and so Bioware is still refining this technique, We are seeing improvements in DA:I instead of 2 voice actors, one per sex we are getting 4. Having two voice actors per gender allows us choice and I think this is a  great improvement. It does increase production cost but it still within a reasonable level to give us choice and still be affordable.

 

I am happy to see this type of advancement in RPGs, it improved my level of investment into the character and I had no problem viewing Shepard or Hawke as myself.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I have hopes that with the return of multiple choices and options for DA:I, this trend would be back pedaling. Although it may be an instance where the choice makes railroaded assumptions about why you made such a choice and predefined outcomes that may make it just as harmful to player agency as no choice at all... but I'm hoping that is a "worse-case-scenario" situation.

We are seeing a return of non-combat skills, multiple outcomes, multiple backgrounds for our character, multiple combat styles (although this might be seriously hampered by a pre-defined attribute system), which all seem to suggest a departure from a Gamist design.

We're also seeing an increased design focus on class balance. That's Gamist.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I don't personally know of anyone who picked their name or voice. We get assigned both one from a parent or guardian, the other from the genetic lottery. Yet somehow I endure.

And if I only wanted to play the game once, that might matter.

Also, one of the advantages of a roleplaying game compared to real life is that you get to choose who you are.

[AlanC9]

Concerning GNS theory, I'm not sure the narrativist/simulationist distinction is coherent for all genres. The "aesthetically pleasing but statistically unlikely coincidences" are integral to many genres, including the ones Bio likes to play in. I'm not actually aware of a genre that wouldn't require the GM to fudge a die-roll from time to time, if the game's actually simulating that genre. (TORG got around this issue by integrating mechanics for this sort of thing into the lore itself.) But I suppose this depends on what we mean by the "genre" that we're "simulating."

It offers an interesting perspective on the final choices in ME3, though.

[Gothfather]

Both have ups and downs. The silent protagonist provide more writing freedom nad let those who use their inner voixe exprss themselve but it often comes with no animations and players who don't like much to roleplay find it boring. Voiced protagonist gives more expression for the character with a huge cost in writing freedom because it is way more costly. On the other the more scripted dialogue allow for more animations and it gives the writer the ability to surprise us with the character (at the cost of some player feeling robbee of control).

I like both but I do regret the small things, like having the npcs actually using your chosen name rather than using an economically sound yet generic nickname.

Can you provide any evidence that voice acting has a huge cost towards the writing of a story?

 

You can't voice act untii you have dialogue and you can't have dialogue until you write the story. So how does voice acting impede story? Cost? What evidence do you have that the story and Voice acting portions of the budget are grouped together so that the more you invest in the writers directly shinks the voice acting budget? It seems to me that voice acting is its own budget just like art design is or level design.

 

You can say that because budgets are finite that any feature impacts on the other, but thats a rather weak argument, by that logic animation has ruined RPGs because the animation department is "stealing" money from the story. These kinds of projects are funded based on a projection of what each will cost, its not quite the zero sum game of every dollar in voice acting takes a dollar away from story, as you imply.

 

As new features are added to games the budget for games increases. It is one of the reasons why AAA games have movie budgets today. The bugets haven't remain static so if you add a feature 'here' you must prune a feature 'there'. Voice acting in games have resulted in companies having to expand their budgets to include these new costs.

 

By your logic voice acting period should result in games being worse off storywise. When I compare the eldar scrolls Arena to Skyrim I see huge improvements. In all aspects Skyrim is a superior game including the story. By your logic because Skyrim has all therse new feature the cost to produce these new features should mean Skyrims story is worse than arena's, its not. And if we just look at voice acting then again we see that adding voice acting to NPCs has NOT resulted in a poorer story.

 

Voice acting is simply a tool for storytelling, if individual people find they can't identify with a character because of the voice that is their own personal failing not the failing of the feature because other people can do so just fine.

 

I also have noted that people are equating voice acting with causing an inherant limitation of RPG storytelling in games. The limited responses and assumptions made by the writer as to why the character made a given choice. Any choice a game gives will be limited, simply because you can't antisipate exactly WHY a person makes a choice and you cant antisipate EVERY possible choice someone will take to a situation. Games approach this by simply providing SOME choice based on SOME assumptions so that the players has SOME influence/impact on the story. This kind of limitation has been around since era of ZORK texted based games. It is not something that has been caused by or exaserbated by voice acting it has always been an inherent limitation of interactive storytelling.

[Remmirath]

I will say that having two options to choose from per gender as opposed to no options at all is a step in the right direction, if they must continue to voice the PC. No matter how strongly I dislike having a PC voice at all, I admit that some small amount of choice is better than no choice at all.

However, it would've provided almost infinitely more choice and replayability and been far less resource-intensive to either not voice the PC or to allow the option of having the PC not voiced.

Edit: With regards to the Arena/Skyrim comparison, I think a more reasonable comparison would be Morrowind and Skyrim. Personally, I'd say that between the two, Morrowind is the better game.

And why would people failing to identify with an unvoiced character not be their own personal failing then? Either it is a personal failing in both cases, or it is not one in either. I say it's a matter of preference, but that in a roleplaying game greater choice for and control of the character should win out against a more cinematic experience. One should not ever be surprised by something one's own character does in an RPG.

The voiced PC doesn't cause any limitation in story, or at least not a significant one. It causes a very significant problem to roleplaying the character, which is the problem with it.
 

Personally I wouldn't like this at all. While i loved DA:O dramatic scenes like the Landsmeets felt really flat to me due to the lack of voice.

They seemed fine to me, but they could perhaps have been tweaked such that it would have been less of a problem for some people.

I'll take being able to control my character over added drama any day. I'm not watching a film, I'm playing a roleplaying game.
 

I've been meaning to ask you, Sylvius... do you subscribe to Ron Edwards GNS Theory in RPG description? If so, I think this vein of conversation really lends itself to conflicts between Narrativists and Simulationists... although I'd say voice acting hurts both, it does by limiting options (Narrativists objection) while also pushing the character to possibly be at odds to the player's generated character mindset (Simulationists objection).

Then again, this may just come down to people being neither N or S... or even really G. Just interested in a story, which goes outside Edwards attempts to describe role playing as an activity.

Reading that description, I'd definitely say I fall most into the Simulationist category. I do enjoy story, and I do certainly enjoy combat -- and in other types of games, I'm very much focused on winning -- but in roleplaying games, those things take a back seat (although I consider good combat to also fall into generally roleplaying your character, and I do like sufficiently complex mechanics to back that up).

BioWare has fairly obviously been trending in a Narrativist direction for a while now, but I'd say it's only the most recent batch of games where it's also been trending more towards Gamism. Since that tends to run entirely counter to what I like out of things such as combat, I definitely consider that a problem.
 

We're still asking. Maybe one day we'll see a character we can properly control again.

I'm certainly not going to stop asking.
 

We are seeing a return of non-combat skills, multiple outcomes, multiple backgrounds for our character, multiple combat styles (although this might be seriously hampered by a pre-defined attribute system), which all seem to suggest a departure from a Gamist design.

All of those are good things, but there are also several other things that are still present: class-based armour and weapon restrictions, obviously the voice and dialogue wheel, and it seems increasingly little mechanical difference between classes. I do believe that the lack of choice with regards to attributes will be a problem with building significantly different character in the same class, and relying on stat bonuses from items is to me not a good sign at all.

But yes, we should be glad of the things that are at least better than they were in DA II or the second two Mass Effect games.

[Mirrman70]

is there a reason why a game can't have qualities of all 3?

[Fast Jimmy]

I find some of the things players "rage" against (Not implying the OP is actually raging) in games funny. Take for example names and voice two thing people "raged" against and some actually raged against with ME.

I don't personally know of anyone who picked their name or voice. We get assigned both one from a parent or guardian, the other from the genetic lottery. Yet somehow I endure.

This technology of using voice for the protagonist is new (relatively speaking) and so Bioware is still refining this technique, We are seeing improvements in DA:I instead of 2 voice actors, one per sex we are getting 4. Having two voice actors per gender allows us choice and I think this is a great improvement. It does increase production cost but it still within a reasonable level to give us choice and still be affordable.

I am happy to see this type of advancement in RPGs, it improved my level of investment into the character and I had no problem viewing Shepard or Hawke as myself.

Did you ever try viewing Shephard or your Hawke as someone else? Someone you created that wasn't yourself? Someone with their own visions, motives and desires? That's where the strength of a silent protagonist lies and where a voiced protagonist infringes.

[Fast Jimmy]

Concerning GNS theory, I'm not sure the narrativist/simulationist distinction is coherent for all genres. The "aesthetically pleasing but statistically unlikely coincidences" are integral to many genres, including the ones Bio likes to play in. I'm not actually aware of a genre that wouldn't require the GM to fudge a die-roll from time to time, if the game's actually simulating that genre. (TORG got around this issue by integrating mechanics for this sort of thing into the lore itself.) But I suppose this depends on what we mean by the "genre" that we're "simulating."

It offers an interesting perspective on the final choices in ME3, though.

When you say genres, do you mean video game genres, such as shooter, strategy or minesweeper? Or do you mean fictional genres, like sci-fi or fantasy?

[AlanC9]

@Mirrman70: I think the question is what happens when they're in conflict.

[AlanC9]

When you say genres, do you mean video game genres, such as shooter, strategy or minesweeper? Or do you mean fictional genres, like sci-fi or fantasy?

Fictional genres. I don't see how other game genres are relevant except for maybe some of the shooters.

[AlanC9]

Did you ever try viewing Shephard or your Hawke as someone else? Someone you created that wasn't yourself? Someone with their own visions, motives and desires? That's where the strength of a silent protagonist lies and where a voiced protagonist infringes.

I don't think "someone else" is relevant there. Surely a voiced protagonist is always "not yourself."

[Fast Jimmy]

Can you provide any evidence that voice acting has a huge cost towards the writing of a story?

You can't voice act untii you have dialogue and you can't have dialogue until you write the story. So how does voice acting impede story? Cost? What evidence do you have that the story and Voice acting portions of the budget are grouped together so that the more you invest in the writers directly shinks the voice acting budget? It seems to me that voice acting is its own budget just like art design is or level design.

You can say that because budgets are finite that any feature impacts on the other, but thats a rather weak argument, by that logic animation has ruined RPGs because the animation department is "stealing" money from the story. These kinds of projects are funded based on a projection of what each will cost, its not quite the zero sum game of every dollar in voice acting takes a dollar away from story, as you imply.

As new features are added to games the budget for games increases. It is one of the reasons why AAA games have movie budgets today. The bugets haven't remain static so if you add a feature 'here' you must prune a feature 'there'. Voice acting in games have resulted in companies having to expand their budgets to include these new costs.

By your logic voice acting period should result in games being worse off storywise. When I compare the eldar scrolls Arena to Skyrim I see huge improvements. In all aspects Skyrim is a superior game including the story. By your logic because Skyrim has all therse new feature the cost to produce these new features should mean Skyrims story is worse than arena's, its not. And if we just look at voice acting then again we see that adding voice acting to NPCs has NOT resulted in a poorer story.

Voice acting is simply a tool for storytelling, if individual people find they can't identify with a character because of the voice that is their own personal failing not the failing of the feature because other people can do so just fine.

I also have noted that people are equating voice acting with causing an inherant limitation of RPG storytelling in games. The limited responses and assumptions made by the writer as to why the character made a given choice. Any choice a game gives will be limited, simply because you can't antisipate exactly WHY a person makes a choice and you cant antisipate EVERY possible choice someone will take to a situation. Games approach this by simply providing SOME choice based on SOME assumptions so that the players has SOME influence/impact on the story. This kind of limitation has been around since era of ZORK texted based games. It is not something that has been caused by or exaserbated by voice acting it has always been an inherent limitation of interactive storytelling.

Let me demonstrate.

"Your response is really a pleasure to read. You should post every day."

If my character is voiced, you have a VERY clear idea of my tone, inflection and concept. With a silent protagonist, I can read it a multitude of different ways. I can express my character in a multitude of different ways, even those outside the original intent of the writer's line, because of this freedom.

The NPC's response to this line may indicate how the writer intended the NPC to perceive it, but it does not mean my character could not have meant it in the way I intended it.

Of course, the biggest danger lies not in inflection or tone, but in paraphrasing, where we don't even know the real words until our character is saying them, possibly breaking character concepts because the player didn't know enough.

That's the cost. It may be zero cost to you if you don't seek to Roleplay in this fashion, but it can actually make the game unplayable for someone who does.

[Fast Jimmy]

Fictional genres. I don't see how other game genres are relevant except for maybe some of the shooters.

Hmmm. As long as you are still role playing, I'm not sure how GNS breaks down in space any more than it would it a fantasy medieval setting? I guess that's my disconnect.

[Fast Jimmy]

I don't think "someone else" is relevant there. Surely a voiced protagonist is always "not yourself."

I've heard people refer to their Hawke and Shephard as "them" and "me" multiple times. Just like when you play NBA2K as Lebron James and you get your shot blocked, you could cry "that guy fouled me!" Insertion in video games is quite easily done, regardless of persistent evidence that you are not the character you control.

[Fast Jimmy]

is there a reason why a game can't have qualities of all 3?

All three GNS? No, I don't think so. Gamist implies linearity - one outcome, most quickly and effectively achieved, someone playing to "win." It is often actively divorced from role playing itself, viewing the obstacles not as challenges to be overcome as a character, but as a player, showing your expertise of game mechanics.

Narrativist and Simulationists could okay together in the same sandbox in a table top RPG, due to the ability of the DM to craft a personal story that perfectly meshes wih the method acting, so to speak, of a simulationst. But that flexibility is nearly impossible to recreate in a video game, unless nearly every possible permutation is taken into account, which is highly unlikely.

[Mirrman70]

All three GNS? No, I don't think so. Gamist implies linearity - one outcome, most quickly and effectively achieved, someone playing to "win." It is often actively divorced from role playing itself, viewing the obstacles not as challenges to be overcome as a character, but as a player, showing your expertise of game mechanics.

Narrativist and Simulationists could okay together in the same sandbox in a table top RPG, due to the ability of the DM to craft a personal story that perfectly meshes wih the method acting, so to speak, of a simulationst. But that flexibility is nearly impossible to recreate in a video game, unless nearly every possible permutation is taken into account, which is highly unlikely.

 

If a game is "Gamist" by having an ultimate goal to work towards aren't all the Dragon Age games "Gamist"? DA:O you have to stop the blight to beat the game... DA2 you always end up fighting the same boss characters no matter what...

 

The way I see it Simulationist is the most constricting of all three.

[Fast Jimmy]

If a game is "Gamist" by having an ultimate goal to work towards aren't all the Dragon Age games "Gamist"? DA:O you have to stop the blight to beat the game... DA2 you always end up fighting the same boss characters no matter what...

The way I see it Simulationist is the most constricting of all three.

It's not a matter of having an ultimate goal, but a design (or a playstyle, depending on which side of the fence you are on) where singular pursuit of that goal is more important than offering divergent choices.

For instance, I'd say your average Final Fantasy game is somewhere between Gamist and Narrativist. It has a fairly linear plot with pre-established characters that offer little choice for player input (Gamist), but works to tell stories about those characters that speak to their history and personality (Narrativist).

And, from a video game design perspective, Simulationist can be extremely easy - just make your design and story choices ambiguous. One could easily say the Ultima series was rather Simulationist, as the route your character took was very open ended and dialogue was rather ambiguous in its delivery. If detail is given, though, it can be easily the hardest, yes.

Ironically enough, for a good DM, Simulationist is the easiest to design for, as it allows the player to create large segments of the story, leaving them to worry about the more "mundane" details of campaign design instead of plot as well. So it is a matter of perspective. Many early video games made it their goal to mirror PnP experiences and freedom, which we have now seen a reverse in trend towards more cinematic and story-telling models.

[Sylvius the Mad]

is there a reason why a game can't have qualities of all 3?

It is said that they are mutually exclusive.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Many early video games made it their goal to mirror PnP experiences and freedom...

They should still be doing this.

[Fast Jimmy]

They should still be doing this.

I know of few who are, though, even on the indie scene. As much as I love Wasteland 2, for example, it suffers from a silent protagonist paraphrase, as well as a lack of dialogue choices. And while it does give the player some good choices that offer nice consequence and outcomes, along with a wide array of skills that do not make combat a TOTALLY foregone conclusion, it does not give the player much to work with in terms of expressing the character they create.

[Fast Jimmy]

It is said that they are mutually exclusive.

Indeed, although I don't believe things are ever that cut and dry. I can see two styles mingled, but have trouble conceptualizing a design that embraces all three.

Interestingly, I find The Big Theory to not be as applicable to video game design.

[Sylvius the Mad]

As much as I love Wasteland 2, for example, it suffers from a silent protagonist paraphrase, as well as a lack of dialogue choices.

Does Wasteland 2 even show a full line based on the keywords? I haven't noticed.

If it doesn't, then it doesn't suffer at all. And if it does, it convinces me that the voice really is a bigger problem for me than the paraphrase is (a surprising revelation, if true).