Poll: Voiced protagonist or silent protagonist?
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Ive said this many times before but anyway I get a little sick of silent portagonists I don't like feeling like such a non-entity
Then theres charachters who don;t actually speak and have lines of text you choose as in Fallout 3 or dragon age would you call them silent? I wouldn't
One of my main problems with Oblivion was there were practically no dialoge options, you couldn;t really build any sense of charachter like in fallout 3 I mean sure your dialoge may only have a couple of out comes but being able to choose how you talk helps with immersion
Then theres charachters who don;t actually speak and have lines of text you choose as in Fallout 3 or dragon age would you call them silent? I wouldn't
One of my main problems with Oblivion was there were practically no dialoge options, you couldn;t really build any sense of charachter like in fallout 3 I mean sure your dialoge may only have a couple of out comes but being able to choose how you talk helps with immersion
can I ask how do you think fallout 3 did it badly? I wouldnt call your pc in that game silent, they have dialoge only its not voicedAmethyst Wind said:
its pretty hard to do silent protagonists "badly" though theres the example with F.E.A.R 2 when not talking created a plot hole/ wall banger situation when if you had just tlaked oyu could have saved your teammates
That would generally by why I consider it done badly. While the NPCs are talking at you, you are responding with a notepad. It was immersion-breaking. I'm not a great fan of most WRPGs for this reason, also the 1st person viewpoint, but mainly the fact that it never sucks me in because I'm constantly reminded that I'm playing an avatar in a videogame, rather than a character in a story.Vault101 said:
I prefer a silent protagonist - not in that they don't have dialogue, but in that their dialogue is written rather than spoken, such as the Warden from Dragon Age. I think that voice acting in games has done more to narrow down meaningful choice than any other convention. It used to be that since adding more dialogue and options was just a matter of writing it down and adding it in. Now you have to do that, and pay for someone to come in and say it, massively increasing the time and costs of additional dialogue. It's a huge mistake, in my opinion.
Obviously I'm only referring to RPG games however. In games with a fixed plot/significantly more linearity, I'm not fussed about whether the protagonist speaks or not. Halflife, System Shock, and Bioshock manage fine with silent protagonists, games like Max Payne excel at having speaking protagonists. There's space for both, and I like both, as long as they're done well
Obviously I'm only referring to RPG games however. In games with a fixed plot/significantly more linearity, I'm not fussed about whether the protagonist speaks or not. Halflife, System Shock, and Bioshock manage fine with silent protagonists, games like Max Payne excel at having speaking protagonists. There's space for both, and I like both, as long as they're done well
Silent.
I prefer not to have someone gawking cheesy punchlines and one-liners while I play. Unless it's Duke Nukem.
I prefer not to have someone gawking cheesy punchlines and one-liners while I play. Unless it's Duke Nukem.
I can understand the whole silent thing in a game like Dragon Age as opposed to Mass Effect. In Mass Effect you are Commander Shepard. You are never a different person he just has a different outlook on life with different choices. In Dragon Age they went for the feel of you being one of many people since in every story line you took the roll as one of the 6 characters since no matter which you chose the others still existed, they just died from not being saved by Duncan. If a stock voice was given to these characters it would kind of ruin the immersion of being these different people across several play throughs.
i already know Freeman's mind. That's kind of the reason I tried to make a quote like him.Knuckx117 said:
It depends on the voice actor as well. My first and second playthrough of Mass Effect was as a female Shepard. When I switched to male for my current playthrough, I discovered that Male Shepard sounds like a goddamned robot.LarenzoAOG said:
Yeah but the alternative is super lesbian butch lady Shepard, I didn't have a problem with it but after awhile I couldn't help but think they may have had a dude voice the female Shepard.MishiSings said:
This.TheProfesser said:
A voiced character is easier to develop, and is the most plausible reason for a voice. A silent character is a good way to throw the player into the story. So either one, really.
I didn't think she sounded especially butch. Even if she did, I'd take that over sounding completely apathetic and uninterested in anything that happens (except when you go renegade and then you're a towering bully, which is a completely different issue.)LarenzoAOG said:
The best way to do a silent protagonist is to keep them free from any external characterization. The aforementioned Gordon Freeman is becoming something of a running gag specifically because he gets all this characterization and face-to-face interaction with other characters, and somehow has never said a word.
Fallout has the right idea, where the only characterization comes from the dialogue options that YOU choose, but this idea finds its logical conclusion with MYST. Myst has no characterization whatsoever, and therefore you can fully project yourself into the person who's been thrust into that strange adventure.
Fallout has the right idea, where the only characterization comes from the dialogue options that YOU choose, but this idea finds its logical conclusion with MYST. Myst has no characterization whatsoever, and therefore you can fully project yourself into the person who's been thrust into that strange adventure.
Sometimes the protagonist blurts out something short-sighted and ethnocentric that you wish he wouldn't say. Perhaps at times it is better for the protagonist to be silent rather than speak words that in 200 years will be frowned upon. This has happened to me in a few games with voiced protagonists.
Voiced - a silent protagonist just feels very insignificant in comparison and the dialogue is always less stimulating to me because... well it's not a dialogue, it's a options/choice monologue.
I do understand the people who like a silent protagonist often do so because it ties them closer to the character (instead of casting it off like another NPC that you merely control), but it's simply not the way I feel/prefer it.
I do understand the people who like a silent protagonist often do so because it ties them closer to the character (instead of casting it off like another NPC that you merely control), but it's simply not the way I feel/prefer it.
Depends entirely on the game.
Oblivion would have been worse with a spoken protagonist. The joy is in the immersion, not the narrative.
Dragon Age I felt would have been better with a spoken protagonist, the dialogue choices were there and it worked so well for Mass Effect. I feel they should have gone in that direction.
Oblivion would have been worse with a spoken protagonist. The joy is in the immersion, not the narrative.
Dragon Age I felt would have been better with a spoken protagonist, the dialogue choices were there and it worked so well for Mass Effect. I feel they should have gone in that direction.
What I've realied I like about voice-acted protagonists is that it actually allows for acting on their part - moving dynamically through conversations, making gestures, facial expressions and the like - they can talk without saying anything.
Curiously, this doesn't seem to apply for silent protagonist games - they seem to revert to the stiff 'talking heads' approach, presumably because it may look silly to have a character pacing around, gesturing etc without their mouth moving.
For what I think is a great example see Lair of the Shadow Broker dlc from ME2. Not so good - Dragon Age. I love Dragon Age and it's characters, but going from ME to that, I found the talking heads style with the camera occasionally flitting to my blank-faced PC really quite jarring..it just seemed rather wooden. While with silent protagonists it's true that you can imagine the voice of your character, you also imagine HOW they say it, an effect rather betrayed by the fact the on-screen avatar is standing there like a plank .
To cut all that short - It's not necessarily the voicing of a character itself I prefer, it's the fact it frees them up to be much more dynamic and expressive in other ways
Curiously, this doesn't seem to apply for silent protagonist games - they seem to revert to the stiff 'talking heads' approach, presumably because it may look silly to have a character pacing around, gesturing etc without their mouth moving.
For what I think is a great example see Lair of the Shadow Broker dlc from ME2. Not so good - Dragon Age. I love Dragon Age and it's characters, but going from ME to that, I found the talking heads style with the camera occasionally flitting to my blank-faced PC really quite jarring..it just seemed rather wooden. While with silent protagonists it's true that you can imagine the voice of your character, you also imagine HOW they say it, an effect rather betrayed by the fact the on-screen avatar is standing there like a plank .
To cut all that short - It's not necessarily the voicing of a character itself I prefer, it's the fact it frees them up to be much more dynamic and expressive in other ways