769 réponses à ce sujet

[Il Divo]

That's kind of the point, isn't it? In a fictional world where nothing is real, we get to decide how we interact with it.

 

Maybe a different approach will work better with this one: say we take your role-playing and human interaction approach seriously. Even if I was willing to endure npc's acting in completely bizarre ways, I'm not willing to endure my PC being unable to call people out on it. Your role-playing approach to this only works, provided I'm willing to throw away every opportunity to call other characters out on their bizarre behavior. Case in point: threatening to kill the servant, in DA:O. 

 

I'm going to take a shot and say that the kind of npc interaction you're willing to endure to maximize role-playing freedom would be so bland/uninteresting for most players that they'd rather deal with the contraints, for what might be regarded as more believable interactions. 

[In Exile]

Maybe a different approach will work better with this one: say we take your role-playing and human interaction approach seriously. Even if I was willing to endure npc's acting in completely bizarre ways, I'm not willing to endure my PC being unable to call people out on it. Your role-playing approach to this only works, provided I'm willing to throw away every opportunity to call other characters out on their bizarre behavior. Case in point: threatening to kill the servant, in DA:O. 

 

I'm going to take a shot and say that the kind of npc interaction you're willing to endure to maximize role-playing freedom would be so bland/uninteresting for most players that they'd rather deal with the contraints, for what might be regarded as more believable interactions. 

 

That's always been my objection. If we have to assume misunderstands, then we have to allow characters to correct them. This is why the IRL analogy to misunderstandings never works - sure, they happen, but people correct them. The only time they don't get fixed is when people don't realize they happen - but we're talking about situations where the reaction makes no sense based on the perceived delivery. That kind of incongruity cries out for a reaction.

 

And I think this is the real problem with silent VO - I think a lot of people who are fans of it, and who take this view that they can "project" tone, tend to have a pretty passive and non-intervention approach to conversations, and generally don't like to dominate conversations. So the natural limits to this dialogue style - and the incongruity and conceptual difficulties with their approach - don't stand out.

 

And the reverse applies to VO - VO allows the PC to dominate the conversation, and to be very active in dialogue. But rather than benefits, these can seem like cons since they're very constrained and if you don't act that way naturally, you see it as losing control rather than being given more options than you had before. 

 

I would not be shocked to see a breakdown along introvert/extrovert lines with VO/non-VO. 

[Cyonan]

You would never know that without testing them first. Neither would they.
No one's opinion should be held in high regard by anyone.

The people who need the accounting done should test the plan before they trust it. It doesn't matter who made it for them.

 

This is actually false.

 

I'm a programmer and I look at code all the time and know that it's going to either not work or be highly inefficient without actually having to test it. If somebody needs 1 million entries of data of a randomized order sorted and somebody shows up with a selection sort, I don't need to run a test to tell you that my merge sort is going to finish first.

 

As a programmer with professional experience, I'm more qualified to talk about coding than somebody who admits they don't know what they're talking about. My opinion should be more highly regarded in that case, because I do know what I'm talking about.

 

Which is why I explain my reasoning every step of the way so you can follow along with the thought experiment.

You have not offered me the same courtesy.

 

Your thought experiment fails when you claim it's my choice to feel as though Alistair is too inconsistent for normal Human behaviour.

 

You might as well tell me to choose to hate oranges for as much use as that's going to be. That's not how any of that works.

 

I don't offer you the "same courtesy" because my entire point relies on you understanding Human behaviour, which you admit to not understanding.

 

I'm just a random person on an internet forum, I'm not Google and I'm not your college professor. I have no interest in teaching you basic psychology. If you had the desire to learn it, you would seek out the information on the internet yourself.

 

I'm just here for amusement, because I already know there is a 99% likelihood that ME:A will feature a voiced protagonist and that nothing we say in this thread will change BioWare's mind on the subject. The forums aren't as influential as many people would like to believe even if we all agreed on a subject, which we never would.

[Lady Artifice]

 The forums aren't as influential as many people would like to believe even if we all agreed on a subject, which we never would.

 

"Not as influential as many would like to believe even if we all agreed, which we never will," should maybe be the new Bioware forum motto.

[Steelcan]

"Not as influential as many would like to believe even if we all agreed, which we never will," should maybe be the new Bioware forum motto.

well its better than "we're like a toxic significant other, nothing ever goes well, you hate yourself just because of proximity to it, and yet you can't leave"

[Sylvius the Mad]

Sylvius, at this point, you shouldn't be at all surprised at how little you understand other humans.

The problem is the basis on which I grant them moral worth.

They keep failing to exhibit it.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Well, I don't think so. People have the freedom to come to whatever conclusions that they like, but that doesn't automatically give their conclusion some kind of legitimacy.

In a fictional world where there is no objective reality, no conclusions have legitimacy. Or, if they do, that legitimacy is determined solely by the standard set by the player. We might each have our own standard, so the same conclusion made by different players could have different levels of legitimacy.

The silent protagonist have us more freedom to do that sort of thing, but people here fail to understand my argument in favour of it because they weren't taking advantage of the freedom that was available to them.

So I'm trying to explain what they could have been doing, and thus highlight the oppotunity cost of the voiced protagonist, which it seems many players just haven't noticed.

Or they don't care. But I have no evidence that "players" is a homogenous geoup, so I won't just assume that's true of everyone.

[straykat]

I don't mind silent protagonists, but your premise is strange. I think you'd be better off writing your own stuff, with the amount of freedom you want.

 

I feel like I need to brush up on Wittgenstein or something to understand how words can be interpreted in so many ways.

[Sylvius the Mad]

But we're not god.

In a single-player CRPG, absolutely we are.

Our characters are not, but we as players absolutely are.

Our perspective is fundamentally anchored, and our ability to define the world is clearly limited.

We're not omnipotent, but that doesn't make us powerless.

Everything not impossible is possible.

As I understand P&P (never played it myself) this would be a good analogy to it - you can't just imagine away what other players say, or how the DM defines the environment or the encounters. You just control your own character, and your perspective is limited to what we IRL would be limited to - i.e., sight etc. You can decide how your character interpret stuff, and to some degree you have control over what that character expresses - but in a cRPG you have to account for the medium, which is why options are heavily, heavily constrained and we need e.g., tone indicators - but that's it. You don't get to control the other side of the conversation.

P&P is a multiplayer game, and thus different-in-kind. The need to accommodate actual human conciousness other than your own changes the game considerably.

That said, the GM can do exactly what you describe. Like in a single-player CRPG, there is no objective reality. The GM can change previously established facts about the game world at his whim (ideally before the players learn of the original state). From the players' perspective, this manifests exactly like Schrödinger's Lore, where no proposition about the world is true or false until discovered by the players (or better yet, the players' characters).

An NPC might have no backstory at all, or he might have a detailed backstory the GM wrote but you never learn, or you might inquire after the NPC's backstory and the GM rewrites it on the fly, even though he had preciously written a different one.

There are many roles to be filled by the participants in a tabletop RPG. Typically, each participant (save one) will act as player, controlling a single character. The final participant will act as referee (the GM or DM, as you prefer). When translating this to a single-player CRPG, there's no reason why the one player needs to fill the role of just one of the tabletop players, with the other players and GM being controlled by the computer. Instead, the player could fill all of the player roles simultaneously, controlling multiple characters. Or, he could fill the GM role, with the computer filling the player roles. Or he could fill one (or more) player role and the GM role, leaving only the balance of the player roles to be filled by the computer.

I lean toward this last arrangement. The actual CRPG then takes the form of a detailed sourcebook, like a published module (Tomb of Horrors, or the Temple of Elemental Evil) or a boxed set (Greyhawk Wars, or the Rod of Seven Parts).

[Sylvius the Mad]

I feel like I need to brush up on Wittgenstein or something to understand how words can be interpreted in so many ways.

Always a good idea. The Tractatus Logico Philosophicus is one of the greatest books ever written.

[straykat]

Always a good idea. The Tractatus Logico Philosophicus is one of the greatest books ever written.

 

I read that he distanced himself from it.

 

The Wittgenstein I'm referring to is the one that saw more language issues..which came later. This kind of reminded me of it. You don't seem to want to accept an understanding between yourself and the writers. It's like you want to read anything you want in the wording.

[Il Divo]

In a fictional world where there is no objective reality, no conclusions have legitimacy. Or, if they do, that legitimacy is determined solely by the standard set by the player. We might each have our own standard, so the same conclusion made by different players could have different levels of legitimacy.

The silent protagonist have us more freedom to do that sort of thing, but people here fail to understand my argument in favour of it because they weren't taking advantage of the freedom that was available to them.

So I'm trying to explain what they could have been doing, and thus highlight the oppotunity cost of the voiced protagonist, which it seems many players just haven't noticed.

Or they don't care. But I have no evidence that "players" is a homogenous geoup, so I won't just assume that's true of everyone.

 

But how can you know that they failed to understand the argument, if you can't predict their behaviors in any capacity? 

[Sylvius the Mad]

Maybe a different approach will work better with this one: say we take your role-playing and human interaction approach seriously. Even if I was willing to endure npc's acting in completely bizarre ways, I'm not willing to endure my PC being unable to call people out on it. Your role-playing approach to this only works, provided I'm willing to throw away every opportunity to call other characters out on their bizarre behavior. Case in point: threatening to kill the servant, in DA:O.

I suppose you could headcanon that conversation and have it happen off-screen (like many other conversations that must be happening for these to be believable people).

The game wouldn't acknowledge it, granted, but the only material consequence of this would be that the NPC's future behaviour wouldn't change, but I expect you don't think we should have that level of control over the NPCs.

I'm going to take a shot and say that the kind of npc interaction you're willing to endure to maximize role-playing freedom would be so bland/uninteresting for most players that they'd rather deal with the contraints, for what might be regarded as more believable interactions.

Much as the sort of limited roleplaying you're willing to accept in order to maximize NPC interaction would be bland and uninteresting to me.

NPCs aren't ever as interesting to me as my characters (probably because I can never know them as well). But a character I don't get to fully control is effectively an NPC, so what Mass Effect ends up being (2 & 3 especially) is a largely non-interactive story featuring only NPCs, and all I get to do in it is act out the combat, which I gwnerally consider the least interesting part of an RPG.

Combat, on its own, isn't fun. But that's nearly all the gameplay the ME games offer.

Yes, I get that these games are supposed to be shooters, and I don't like shooters. I don't like action games ar all, for the most part. The pause-to-aim feature makes these games playable for me (in a way that The Witcher games aren't). But while I can get through the ME games, they're just boring.

[RoboticWater]

The problem is the basis on which I grant them moral worth.

They keep failing to exhibit it.

I don't know what you mean by this.

 

If no one is exhibiting the traits which make them "morally worthy," then that doesn't mean we're all unworthy, that just means your standards are invalid.
 

In a fictional world where there is no objective reality, no conclusions have legitimacy. Or, if they do, that legitimacy is determined solely by the standard set by the player. We might each have our own standard, so the same conclusion made by different players could have different levels of legitimacy.

The silent protagonist have us more freedom to do that sort of thing, but people here fail to understand my argument in favour of it because they weren't taking advantage of the freedom that was available to them.

We're fully aware of what could be done. We went over this earlier in the thread. Either we're not willing to compartmentalize to such an extent, or we believe that compartmentalization is disappointing compared to correcting our misunderstandings in dialog. A freedom that we're either unwilling or not able to use isn't much of a feature. 
 

So I'm trying to explain what they could have been doing, and thus highlight the oppotunity cost of the voiced protagonist, which it seems many players just haven't noticed.

We're also aware of that cost. I just doubt very many care. I can assure you that most of the players of Mass Effect, a game which never had a silent protagonist, probably don't share your views. Not only do we believe that voiced protagonists do not provide the level of freedom you insist that they do, but we actually enjoy the features of a voiced protagonist.
 

Or they don't care. But I have no evidence that "players" is a homogenous geoup, so I won't just assume that's true of everyone.

Of course it's not a homogeneous group, but that doesn't mean we can't talk in terms of "most" and "generally."

[Cyonan]

I don't mind silent protagonists, but your premise is strange. I think you'd be better off writing your own stuff, with the amount of freedom you want.

 

This would be the other issue once one got past the mental gymnastics.

 

It would feel too much like I should just be writing my own book at that point. I enjoy writing, but that's not what I play Dragon Age or Mass Effect or even RPGs in general for. I play them to control my character through a story in a universe both defined by the game itself.

 

In a pen and paper game the only thing I get direct control over is my character and the GM handles the rest. In a video game, the game itself is playing the role of GM which is why we accept certain limitations because of technology.

[sjsharp2011]

This would be the other issue once one got past the mental gymnastics.

 

It would feel too much like I should just be writing my own book at that point. I enjoy writing, but that's not what I play Dragon Age or Mass Effect or even RPGs in general for. I play them to control my character through a story in a universe both defined by the game itself.

 

In a pen and paper game the only thing I get direct control over is my character and the GM handles the rest. In a video game, the game itself is playing the role of GM which is why we accept certain limitations because of technology.

And that's exactly why I play these games as well.

[Sylvius the Mad]

This is actually false.

I'm a programmer and I look at code all the time and know that it's going to either not work or be highly inefficient without actually having to test it. If somebody needs 1 million entries of data of a randomized order sorted and somebody shows up with a selection sort, I don't need to run a test to tell you that my merge sort is going to finish first.

As a programmer with professional experience, I'm more qualified to talk about coding than somebody who admits they don't know what they're talking about. My opinion should be more highly regarded in that case, because I do know what I'm talking about.

You know that, but your clients don't. Look at it from a perspective outside your own head.

Your thought experiment fails when you claim it's my choice to feel as though Alistair is too inconsistent for normal Human behaviour.

You might as well tell me to choose to hate oranges for as much use as that's going to be. That's not how any of that works.

As a programmer, you should find this easier to understand. If you redefine an object or use the same regex syntax in a different language, you get different results.

This is the same.

I don't offer you the "same courtesy" because my entire point relies on you understanding Human behaviour, which you admit to not understanding.

I'm just a random person on an internet forum, I'm not Google and I'm not your college professor. I have no interest in teaching you basic psychology. If you had the desire to learn it, you would seek out the information on the internet yourself.

I've done that. The entire field of psychology lacks philosophical rigour.

I'm just here for amusement, because I already know there is a 99% likelihood that ME:A will feature a voiced protagonist and that nothing we say in this thread will change BioWare's mind on the subject. The forums aren't as influential as many people would like to believe even if we all agreed on a subject, which we never would.

I posit that your 99% estimate is low.

[Sylvius the Mad]

This would be the other issue once one got past the mental gymnastics.

It would feel too much like I should just be writing my own book at that point. I enjoy writing, but that's not what I play Dragon Age or Mass Effect or even RPGs in general for. I play them to control my character through a story in a universe both defined by the game itself.

In a pen and paper game the only thing I get direct control over is my character and the GM handles the rest. In a video game, the game itself is playing the role of GM which is why we accept certain limitations because of technology.

We also accept limitations because of the presentation, and I don’t think that's necessary.

Your description of why you play is very similar to mine. I want to play my character in their world. And I think voicing the protagonist interferes with that.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I read that he distanced himself from it.

The posthumously published Philosophical Investigations did, yes, but I happen to think that later work was a mistake.

Bertrand Russell held a similar opinion.

The Wittgenstein I'm referring to is the one that saw more language issues..which came later. This kind of reminded me of it. You don't seem to want to accept an understanding between yourself and the writers. It's like you want to read anything you want in the wording.

Yes.

[Sylvius the Mad]

But how can you know that they failed to understand the argument, if you can't predict their behaviors in any capacity?

I don't. It's possible they're just trolling me.

I'm responding as if they misunderstand because that's a situation that actually warrants a response from me. I am indifferent to the other.

[Sylvius the Mad]

That's always been my objection. If we have to assume misunderstands, then we have to allow characters to correct them. This is why the IRL analogy to misunderstandings never works - sure, they happen, but people correct them. The only time they don't get fixed is when people don't realize they happen - but we're talking about situations where the reaction makes no sense based on the perceived delivery. That kind of incongruity cries out for a reaction.

I would typically not react in that circumstance. Too often have I tried to correct misunderstandings only to discover that their wasn't one, or that the response had little or nothing to do with what I'd said.

And I think this is the real problem with silent VO - I think a lot of people who are fans of it, and who take this view that they can "project" tone, tend to have a pretty passive and non-intervention approach to conversations, and generally don't like to dominate conversations. So the natural limits to this dialogue style - and the incongruity and conceptual difficulties with their approach - don't stand out.

This seems accurate.

And the reverse applies to VO - VO allows the PC to dominate the conversation, and to be very active in dialogue. But rather than benefits, these can seem like cons since they're very constrained and if you don't act that way naturally, you see it as losing control rather than being given more options than you had before.

Indeed. I even view this conversational dominance as a form of bullying. Not only do I not want to do it, I dislike people who do.

I would not be shocked to see a breakdown along introvert/extrovert lines with VO/non-VO.

All the more reason to give us a silent option.

The only way a voice is going to satisfy both groups would be to allow the line and tone to be selected separately, which would dramatically increase production costs (until they can generate the voice procedurally, I suppose).

You and I previously worked out a model for the interrupts which we think would satisfy both groups, but that's actually easier because one of the options is always not to do it. But not responding at all isn't typically permitted during dialogue.

Perhaps it should be. If we were routinely given a non-response option with a voiced protagonist, perhaps that would solve most of the problem.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I don't know what you mean by this.

If no one is exhibiting the traits which make them "morally worthy," then that doesn't mean we're all unworthy, that just means your standards are invalid.

It depends what your assumptions are.

If humans have more moral worth than plants or rocks, there needs to be some reason for that. I'm inclined to value reasoning, cognition, and sapience.

But then people seem not to exhibit the level of reasoning I expect of them. The natural consequence of this is that they lose moral worth in my eyes.

We're fully aware of what could be done. We went over this earlier in the thread. Either we're not willing to compartmentalize to such an extent, or we believe that compartmentalization is disappointing compared to correcting our misunderstandings in dialog. A freedom that we're either unwilling or not able to use isn't much of a feature.

We're also aware of that cost. I just doubt very many care. I can assure you that most of the players of Mass Effect, a game which never had a silent protagonist, probably don't share your views. Not only do we believe that voiced protagonists do not provide the level of freedom you insist that they do, but we actually enjoy the features of a voiced protagonist.

Of course it's not a homogeneous group, but that doesn't mean we can't talk in terms of "most" and "generally."

As long as there are any people here I can persuade, my efforts are not wasted.

[Il Divo]

I suppose you could headcanon that conversation and have it happen off-screen (like many other conversations that must be happening for these to be believable people).

 

The game wouldn't acknowledge it, granted, but the only material consequence of this would be that the NPC's future behaviour wouldn't change, but I expect you don't think we should have that level of control over the NPCs.
Much as the sort of limited roleplaying you're willing to accept in order to maximize NPC interaction would be bland and uninteresting to me.

 

 

 

 

The issue with that would be if it was significant enough to warrant a response, that shouldn't be happening off-screen. That's just a consequence of any kind of story-telling: writers try to minimize or downplay narrative-significant events happening off-screen, to prevent a sense of vertigo in their audience. 

 

In terms of your argument, if I'm understanding you correctly, say I make a game called Dragon Age: Origins. I populate it with characters named Alistair, Morrigan, Sten, etc. Now instead of hiring a writer, say I pick up a computer and have it produce completely randomized sentences, in response to a set of inputs, which would be the PC's dialogue. That's the logical consequences of being completely unable to predict any kind of human behavior. This isn't even a standard which would apply to just role-playing games; it would apply across the spectrum to any story being written, ever. While you might be content with that, if your goal is to try to sell other gamers on the benefits of the silent protagonist, that's probably going to fall a bit flat. 

 

[Il Divo]

I don't. It's possible they're just trolling me.

I'm responding as if they misunderstand because that's a situation that actually warrants a response from me. I am indifferent to the other.

 

But why did you choose that particular response? There are literally an infinite number of possible responses/motives someone could have for their statements. Given your stance regarding your ability to predict motive and behavior, it seems pointless to respond, if your effort is to convince them of your position - you can't predict with any reliability that there is even the slightest hint that their motives are authentic. 

 

You're responding with a single motive assumed when there are near infinite. 

[RoboticWater]

I've done that. The entire field of psychology lacks philosophical rigour.

Does that matter if psychology offers practical results? You can proclaim that psychology lacks rigour and flounder about as if there's no way we'll ever understand the mind of another, but that won't change the fact that there has been quantifiable progress consistently founded upon psychological research.
 

It depends what your assumptions are.

If humans have more moral worth than plants or rocks, there needs to be some reason for that. I'm inclined to value reasoning, cognition, and sapience.

But then people seem not to exhibit the level of reasoning I expect of them. The natural consequence of this is that they lose moral worth in my eyes.

I don't care what your whole philosophical metric of worth is. No one needs your approval.
 

As long as there are any people here I can persuade, my efforts are not wasted.

Opportunity cost. Why waste your time here trying to convince one or two people on the Mass Effect forums when you could likely have a far greater impact elsewhere?