49 réponses à ce sujet

[Fidite Nemini]

Never had a problem getting immersed with my silent Warden protagonists in DAO. And that is even after I came directly from ME1 who obviously came with a voiced one, so it's not like I was simply used to silent characters.

 

To be perfectly honest, I rather take a silent protagonist with a ton of well written dialogue options over a voiced one with only three options that amount to goody-two-shoes, I've-got-no-time-for-this and Ima-silly-herp-derp.

 

I've had more honest chuckles and outright laughter from reading the DAO responses than I had from my various Silly!Hawke playthroughs (and Silly!Hawke had pretty good delivery I might add).

 

That said, I won't judge on whether it detracts or adds to immersion. That is a pretty subjective point. What undubitably does add or detract is the quality of the writing.

[Xetykins]

It depends imo. I mean the female Hawke could deliver a really cool voice delivery, IF she says exactly what you thought she's going to say when you hit an option. Sometimes, she misses it totally and that breaks my immersion. Luckily for me, it did not happen too often. But, that's part and parcel of having a voiced protagonist imo. A hit and miss of what the writers and the players had in mind.

[Lunatic Lace]

I definitely prefer things voiced.

As much as people say "I like to decide how my character is going to deliver dialogue", from a gameplay standpoint, what you THINK they sound like doesn't actually matter. Other characters are going to respond to your character the way the writing was intended to deliver it, not always the way it sounds in your head. So even if you imagine your character saying something one way, that doesn't exactly mean the character you're talking to is going to take it that way. At least with a voiced main character you can hear exactly how it's being delivered, and the responses will make sense. Could it be implemented better? Absolutely, but I definitely wouldn't want to go back to a silent protagonist after this.

[Fidite Nemini]

I definitely prefer things voiced.

As much as people say "I like to decide how my character is going to deliver dialogue", from a gameplay standpoint, what you THINK they sound like doesn't actually matter. Other characters are going to respond to your character the way the writing was intended to deliver it, not always the way it sounds in your head. So even if you imagine your character saying something one way, that doesn't exactly mean the character you're talking to is going to take it that way. At least with a voiced main character you can hear exactly how it's being delivered, and the responses will make sense. Could it be implemented better? Absolutely, but I definitely wouldn't want to go back to a silent protagonist after this.

 

Considering the massive critique BioWare writing has faced over not accurately summarizing what's going to be said when going over the option blips and the fact that silent protagist responses are fully written out, making their intent transparent if you just read them, that's an argument that can be applied to both silent and voiced dialogue, because it all just comes down to how it's written/scripted.

 

A properly written silent response is just as crisp-clear as a properly written and delivered voiced response. The only difference is one's heard and one's read.

[bEVEsthda]

I, of course - it's hardly a secret -, vastly prefer silent protagonist. But I'm with S. t. Mad here: I'm not as bothered by the voiced protagonist in DA:I as I am by previous Bioware games with the hated dialogue wheel. And that little fact pretty much saves whole DA:I for me.

 

As for more or less immersion, I'd say the answer exposes your playing style.

 

'Silent' -> less immersion: Reveals you're disturbed by the lack of explicitly expressed reaction. You're waiting for a reaction from your protagonist. Expecting it and wanting to enjoy experiencing it. You're playing the game in what I want to call interactive-movie-mode.

 

'Voiced' -> less immersion: Reveals you're disturbed by the reaction from your protagonist, often because it clashes with the reaction you've already decided for your character, and are already playing out in your head. You're playing the game in what I want to call role-playing-mode.

[SACanuckin Oz]

When I played the Witcher 1, I actually felt it just wasted time to hear Geralt say (in his unique monotone cheese grating way) exactly the same words as I had already read. I just wanted to get on with the story.

 

In the Witcher 2, DA 2, and DA:I the protagonist sometimes says things in a tone which I did not expect (and wouldn't have used), or goes somewhere else with the conversation than seemed apparent, which breaks immersion for me.

 

Skyrim and DA:O remain my favourite cRPGs, while I also enjoyed Dark Souls (for somewhat different reasons of course), so I definitely prefer to BE the protagonist (in my role playing way). I prefer an unvoiced protagonist  

[craigdolphin]

For myself, I'm having a tough time making up my mind about the issue. I enjoyed DAO and did not miss the lack of a voice in conversations one bit. I also played DA2/DAI and didn't object to the voiced protag either. I definitely felt much more involved in the relationships with the party members in DAO but I'm hard pressed to know if that's down tovthe change in voiced vs silent, or other large changes (lacking the ability to initiate conversation on the road for example), or simply being less enthralled by the particular characters in the sequels. On balance, I feel like the voiced protag adds consistency to the experience, and improves on the production values of the game. But it also seems to detract from player agency (possibly mostly due to the dialog wheel/paraphrase system) by not accurately telegraphing the outcome of the selected option. And it limits the ability to add diversity in options since the VO budget must be a consideration at some point in the process.

 

When Bioware spoke about the shift in conversation systems after DAO, I recall them saying something about the change helping to reduce the 'jarring' experience of not having a voice, and not being able to fully stage the conversations to allow the characters to interact with their environment. I think adding a voice does help resolve that perception for some. But to the degree it succeeds, it also has the opposite effect for players who are more interested in roleplaying.

 

For myself, I consider it a wash. I want to get rid of the need for paraphrase as it it unquestionably the very worst part of the whole system IMO.

 

And if Bioware wants to reduce jarring experiences for players? How about starting by not radically changing the scene after a player initiates a conversation. I hated walking up to Cullen in his office only to suddenly be teleported to a chess scene with Dorian and Cullen in a totally different location. Or any number of analogous situations with other characters. If the next conversation requires the NPC's to be in different locations and in the company of other NPC's, then have them actually be at those locations when the protagonist encounters them.

[(Disgusted noise.)]

Voiced. The Warden was boring as hell and I never give a crap about him.

[o Ventus]

 

As for more or less immersion, I'd say the answer exposes your playing style.

 

'Silent' -> less immersion: Reveals you're disturbed by the lack of explicitly expressed reaction. You're waiting for a reaction from your protagonist. Expecting it and wanting to enjoy experiencing it. You're playing the game in what I want to call interactive-movie-mode.

 

'Voiced' -> less immersion: Reveals you're disturbed by the reaction from your protagonist, often because it clashes with the reaction you've already decided for your character, and are already playing out in your head. You're playing the game in what I want to call role-playing-mode.

Yeah, because being less immersed in a game where my character awkwardly stands around while someone is speaking to them, never emoting is "interactive movie mode". Yep. When something is happening on your screen (your PC talking to a companion), you shouldn't NEED to envision it in your head. It's a *video* game.

[bEVEsthda]

Yeah, because being less immersed in a game where my character awkwardly stands around while someone is speaking to them, never emoting is "interactive movie mode". Yep. When something is happening on your screen (your PC talking to a companion), you shouldn't NEED to envision it in your head. It's a *video* game.

 

If you're making any kind of argument here(?), it's a complete failure.

As I said, it's about two different modes of playing the game. What you call "need" can also be the entire point, for others.

Whatever you want to call a "video" game and the meaning of "video", is also irrelevant.

 

If the phrase "interactive movie mode" annoyed you - Okay, choose any label you want, I don't care. My point was that you relate to the protagonist in the same way as you relate to the protagonist in a movie you watch.

[dsl08002]

I still believe that VA to the main character is the future, but even with a good actor the dialouges has to be well written

[KaiserShep]

I guess my thing about the whole voiced or silent protagonist thing is that the latter just seems to clash with the whole dialogue system as a whole for me. You have all these audible NPC's, with this one mannequin that they all seem to respond to. Blah blah imagination something something, but it's a disconnect that always stands out to me, so I prefer that every character, including the PC, have a voice if characters are going to have fully-voiced dialogue at all.

[bEVEsthda]

I still believe that VA to the main character is the future, but even with a good actor the dialouges has to be well written

 

The future? In a general sense, rather than EA/Bioware's immediate?

 

You know, I highly doubt that. I'll try to give my reasons why.

Silent protagonist games sell better and continue to sell better.

Cut scene movies is a convenient way to help tell a story, introduce motives and meaning. But it's not a good way. It has a number of drawbacks from the gameplay perspective. Cut scene movies with interactive choices are as old as the CD record. And gamers have always been rather lukewarm. There's a tremendous amount of developers and publishers with vested personal interests. They're creative persons wanting to tell a story, tell it their way. And it's so easy to show off and market the product. So there will always be games like that.

 

But gamers haven't ever been particularly enthusiastic. Look no further than this thread for someone describing the sudden scene shift as jarring.

 

What if a cRPG game suddenly popped up, which keeps the gamer in first person always? And keeps the game in ambient mode always? And does its entire story evolution in ambient mode? And does it well? TES on stereoids.

There have already been games coming close to like that. Original Half Life, for instance. Maybe VTM:B.

[Eelectrica]

Doesn't bother me either way. A silent protag makes it easier to add me own lines of dialogue to my character.

Also non voiced means the conversations go faster. Means I'm not waiting for the VA to finish reading the lines on the page.

 

Shadowrun Dragonfall, without so much as one spoken word of dialogue from anyone was an outstanding RPG I thought, and I did care about the characters, even without voice actors.

[Rawgrim]

They way it is done in DA:I, it detracts. Due to the game taking a lot of liberties with the character's personality and behavior in cut-scenes. Watching my dwarven inquisitor giggle like a little girl in a conversation with Cassandra, was arguably the most cringe-worthy sequence in the entire game.

[Digger1967]

In my opinion it definitely adds, so much so that I find it hard to play a game without a voiced protagonist. However, in my opinion the variety of response in DA:I was missing, certainly in comparison to DA2.

 

I think in most cases it adds, but I have to admit in some cases the dialog options can be dissapointing.  I think the worst example is when you confront Cory at Haven, and the toughest thing you can think to say is "You'll... You'll get nothing out of me".  Wow.  Not exactly a John Wayne moment there, that's for sure.  My other options, I Wan't To Understand You.  Seriously?  I'm giving the Darkspawn Magister a counselling session?

 

Gosh Cory, I know you went to the Black City and found it deserted.  This has obviously left you with abandonment issues, and as a result it's only natural for you be acting out with this whole demon army human sacrifice thing.  But it's ok, I'm not judging you.  But we really need to dialogue about this....

 

Lol

 

So yes, I do like the voice for the PC character for the most part, but there are a couple of places where the dialog options really need to be rethought.

 

Just my humble opinion of course, YMMV

[b10d1v]

By far the best option from a technology standpoint is simply voice recognition for all dialog selections - from an immersion standpoint you are actually talking with the characters.  Then focus on getting the dialog selections correct and more engaging discussions.

[KaiserShep]

They way it is done in DA:I, it detracts. Due to the game taking a lot of liberties with the character's personality and behavior in cut-scenes. Watching my dwarven inquisitor giggle like a little girl in a conversation with Cassandra, was arguably the most cringe-worthy sequence in the entire game.

 

Man, you really hate that laughing bit

[KaiserShep]

The future? In a general sense, rather than EA/Bioware's immediate?

 

You know, I highly doubt that. I'll try to give my reasons why.

Silent protagonist games sell better and continue to sell better.

Cut scene movies is a convenient way to help tell a story, introduce motives and meaning. But it's not a good way. It has a number of drawbacks from the gameplay perspective. Cut scene movies with interactive choices are as old as the CD record. And gamers have always been rather lukewarm. There's a tremendous amount of developers and publishers with vested personal interests. They're creative persons wanting to tell a story, tell it their way. And it's so easy to show off and market the product. So there will always be games like that.

 

But gamers haven't ever been particularly enthusiastic. Look no further than this thread for someone describing the sudden scene shift as jarring.

 

What if a cRPG game suddenly popped up, which keeps the gamer in first person always? And keeps the game in ambient mode always? And does its entire story evolution in ambient mode? And does it well? TES on stereoids.

There have already been games coming close to like that. Original Half Life, for instance. Maybe VTM:B.

 

While I think that the voiced protagonist is pretty much here to stay for BioWare, I do agree that outside of that, the silent protagonists are not going to go extinct anytime soon, even if for the simple fact that silent protagonists are far less expensive to implement.

[BraveVesperia]

For me, it adds to it. There are occasions where they say a line in a way I wasn't expecting, or say something different to the paraphrase, but even DAO wasn't safe from that. Alistair in particular interpretted some lines very differently to what I thought they meant. It also leads to situations like Seneschal Varel performing the Joining when obviously the Warden should be.

 

Voiced dialogue feels more fitting to me, because it comes with facial expressions, body language, tone and other things that make the PC feel more alive. Plus, it always feels a bit jarring to me if everyone is talking and then suddenly silence when your character picks a dialogue. Like you've fallen asleep and keep missing parts of a conversation.

[roselavellan]

I like them both well enough, having a silent protagonist was slightly more immersive to me because I can try to imagine myself as the Warden. I'm using the British female voice in DAI and I'm very happy with her. It's definitely more entertaining to have a voiced protagonist, and as long as it's done well it should be fairly immersive as well. Some may criticise the voice acting as bland (I haven't experienced the male voices or the American female so I can't comment on that) but I think the real danger is when dialogue gets overacted, which is when immersion is broken for me.

[Rawgrim]

Man, you really hate that laughing bit

 

I do. I despise it. It turned my character into an NPC.

 

Another thing I hate is the fact that my inquisitor promoted that Templar (if you side with the templars) without my input. What the heck was that about?

[MyKingdomCold]

Well, they do need someone to lead them and if you aren't in charge yet why would they ask you?

[SofaJockey]

Voiced is more involving in my opinion and frankly, whilst it's amusing to discuss it, we know that the use of voiced protagonists will not change.

[Rawgrim]

Well, they do need someone to lead them and if you aren't in charge yet why would they ask you?

 

My inquisitor took charge. And during the cutscene he promoted that templar fellow. Said he was the best man for the job etc. The player\I had zero input in the matter.