Guest_Corvus I_*
This makes me want to fire up Origins just to do a real comparison between the two to see just how many more options you really have.
I preferred the Warden's approach, and the Warden, much more than the other two protagonists so far, but they might as well stick with this formula now that they've started it.
The Inquisitor was starting to strike a middle ground between the more flexible Warden and the more expressive Hawke, but...it ended with them being kind of boring. If they can find a way to make it work, I'll be impressed. I still feel pretty disconnected from my voiced protagonists so far.
Give it up, op.
I played through it again last summer as preparation for Inquisition, and I was actually surprised by how few options there typically were. Four was usually the max.This makes me want to fire up Origins just to do a real comparison between the two to see just how many more options you really have.
I played through it again last summer as preparation for Inquisition, and I was actually surprised by how few options there typically were. Four was usually the max.
Yep. It's like me1 dialogue vs me2/3 dialogue arguments all over again. Nostalgia supper seeds logic all the time with people.
Since Voiced seems to automatically come with the dialogue wheel and the subsequent paraphrasing, I have to go with Silent.
I cannot stand the dialogue wheel and the paraphrasing anymore. I cannot roleplay with it. I want to know exactly everything I am about to say in Full Text because the dialogue wheel is never going to be good enough. By definition it cannot become good enough. If players know exactly what is gonna be said, then they cannot tolerate it if the Voice essentially repeats the line word-for-word. If players don't know exactly what is gonna be said, then there are ALWAYS going to be those dialogues that throw you off by surprise. A paraphrase that ended with a question mark but the actual line is not really that much of a question. Another paraphrase that is just really vague and it says something you were not expecting.
And one last thing, Voiced (audio) takes up more space than Silent Full Text, which means the length and depth of dialogue choices are always gonna be limited in potential compared to Silent.
If I get a tone indicator with a silent protagonist, I would be fine. In DAO, all choices had tones assigned to them and my warden always managed to offend people instead of being sarcastic or the other way round. One time I thought I had said something nice, and well, it wasn't.... It was very confusing at times.
I thought DA2's approach with personalities was a little bit more interesting, because the tones were stronger, but DAI was okay. And I am generally fine with the dialogue wheel and if I recall correctly, the amount of choices ends up being similar, due to the "Investigate"-choices.
This makes me want to fire up Origins just to do a real comparison between the two to see just how many more options you really have.
At maximum six. This is actually something the developers have pointed out several times in response to the arguments about the multitude of complaints how you had so many choices in DAO. It was hard coded in the to the game that there could be at max six options, which made the investigation trees somewhat awkward at times. The best thing is that due to the structure, the dialogue wheel does actual provide theoretically more options and also made it easier for them to include optional choices specific to classes or races.
It's not gonna happen.
The best you can hope for is that their get better with the dialogue wheel.
A part of me actually likes not knowing exactly what my character is going to say when I make my dialogue choice. There's usually enough information for me to conduct the conversation in a way that I choose, but it still allows my character to feel like their own entity. I can definitely see how that would be problematic for people who want to assume more direct control over their roleplaying though.
Considering the number of years I have been gaming, a voiced protagonist is still relatively a new thing. I don't think many AAA games will ever go back to a non-voiced protagonist.
It sort of mirrors the evolution of games in general. Games have become overall more simplified and 'pretty'. Graphics and sound carry greater weight than depth and flexibility.
In the grand scheme of things, I like the voiced protagonist, but realize that it comes with a cost. I just hope developers strive to put depth back into conversations once the new standard of voiced protagonist is set in stone.
I prefer the Silent protagonist and seeing the full body of text as to what my character is saying. But I don't think we'll ever see that in another BW game. Voiced isn't horrible. The paraphrases in DA2 were at times atrocious, at least they cleaned that up for DAI.
Which will we get? Voiced protagonist. End of.
Which do I want? I don't care either way.
Voiced because I can barley remember any of the warden's lines.
I do enjoy silent protagonists though just not in dragon age.
Eh, I prefer having a voiced protagonist, but I wouldn't mind if they went to having a silent protagonist.
Voiced because I can barley remember any of the warden's lines.
Come to think of it, the Warden doesn't have a whole lot of memorable things to say. The ones I do remember the most are the funny evil murder options, but I suppose the fact that it's punctuated by the brutal murder of some defenseless person makes for a handy mnemonic device. By far my favorite one though is the snarky one-liner the Warden says to the First in Awakening.
In fairness though, this doesn't have as much to do with the voice or lack thereof so much as the actual writing of the Warden's lines, which are mostly basic single sentences.
I'll always go for silent. I feel more engaged with a silent PC because I feel I'm the one in that role and the dialogues tend to give you more varied options to fit a characters intelligence, personality and motivation. That said, the majority of Bioware fans love Mass Effects and their voice acting PC way more than traditional silent RPG main characters so I'll never get that again.
Come to think of it, the Warden doesn't have a whole lot of memorable things to say. The ones I do remember the most are the funny evil murder options, but I suppose the fact that it's punctuated by the brutal murder of some defenseless person makes for a handy mnemonic device. By far my favorite one though is the snarky one-liner the Warden says to the First in Awakening.
Was it... "You weren't the first of your class" or something. I laughed.
Still it honestly felt weird to use it, given that most of the protagonists were never really students in a classroom. The only one I can believe saying that line is a City or Dalish elf. It seemed that it and most of the other insane jokes were meant for the player more than the character. It's as much a caricature as insane humorous Hawke was.
Was it... "You weren't the first of your class" or something. I laughed.
Still it honestly felt weird to use it, given that most of the protagonists were never really students in a classroom. The only one I can believe saying that line is a City or Dalish elf. It seemed that it and most of the other insane jokes were meant for the player more than the character. It's as much a caricature as insane humorous Hawke was.
Yeah, I got a kick out of that line, but you're right. It always felt a bit weird to me after putting more thought into it. Even my human noble Warden probably didn't spend any time in any kind of classroom, so much as she would have been lectured by that old dude that was like Irving's long lost boring brother.
Simple, Voiced. I wanna play not read.
I'm not really a big fan of silent protagonists in general but in DA's case its different:
The Warden had no voice but a lot of interesting RP possibilities and thats why I never really minded that he/she had no voice because there was so much freedom on how to play the character
I liked Hawke too he/she had the most depth but even though you could determine Hawke's personality there was not much room for RP, Hawke was more of a pre defined protagonist
With the Inquisitor it seems that they tried to combine them both (voice + creating your own character) and sadly they failed
There are no interesting RP possibilities and even though the Inquisitor is voiced he has no personality or depth but is rather bland like I mentioned in another thread (but lets focus on voice or no voice here)
With a possible DA4 I think its clear that races will return and the approach will be similiar to DA:I where you can make your own character instead of someone like Hawke
Thats why I vote for no voice! Anyone agree?
I still want a voiced protagonist. But I think they need to reduce the scale of the environments down to what they did in DAO so the side quests can be actual stories. If they scatter some fetch quests in there that is fine but we need more story with various outcomes that can be resolved within the game. I also don't think they should have spent so much resources on four main VAs but if they are going to do that then they need to have various ranges, not just neutral tones. Another mistake made is having an expansive dialogue wheel where all the options were basically the same thing. Why spend money on four VAs only to give them multiple lines that are all the same?? Bring back the rivalry system but improve it so we can have various types of relationships with our companions. Give us the freedom to tell them to take a hike, betray them, or kill them if needed. And for the love of video games gods, give us a personal storyline!
If they're going to do voices, I just wouldn't mind a saints row style pitch setting so we can heighten or lower the voice a bit to taste if we are only going to have a couple of general options for the voice.
in mass effect you play shepard, in da2 you play hawke and DAI is the quizzy, none of those characters are actually the players, you play them but that is all, so the voice is okay.
The paraphrasing is still a issue but since its not the players story, it matter little.
I highly doubt that a silent protagonist will come back, or having a protagonist that is fully created by the player.
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