Poll: Voiced protagonist or silent protagonist?

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legion431

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Mar 14, 2010
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Voiced, but not speaking too often.

I like Master chief, he didn't speak as much as the rest of the other characters but his voice was just so brilliantly adjusted to fit him.
 

Broderick

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May 25, 2010
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IBlackKiteI said:
skywalkerlion said:
Sanguinius- The Angel said:
I prefer voiced, so there's some actual characterization. That's why I don't like Gordon Freeman, he's literally a cardboard box with guns.
And not the good kind. [http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://media.gamerevolution.com/images/misc/solid_snake_box.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.gamerevolution.com/static/index.php%3Fsection%3Dsponsors%26sub%3Dbox_o_games%26page%3Dsolid_snake&usg=__rjSEzrAUPVDyZMOW3pfUFfeFodU=&h=320&w=449&sz=502&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=pBvdxveFoPIvqM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=160&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsnake%2Bin%2Bbox%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1152%26bih%3D683%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=595&vpy=73&dur=522&hovh=189&hovw=266&tx=129&ty=85&ei=p4zITKn8EIL6sAPX-4S4CA&oei=p4zITKn8EIL6sAPX-4S4CA&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0]
Yeah, people complain about Master Chief's characterization..but compared to Gordon Freeman? *sigh*
Gordon Freeman is characterised by his actions and the world around him that he shapes.
Master Chief is characterised by being that big quiet dude with all the guns who kills aliens.
Except that the statement could be said for either MC or Freeman =P (the second one). Difference between the 2 is that in half life you actually feel like your achieving something. You go back to areas you have been before and see radical changes. In Halo, while killing aliens is fun, it doesnt seem to affect anything...at all. and with halo the alien killing doesnt seem to help the characterization when its the guy's JOB to kill the aliens. Freeman didnt have to do anything, but I suppose, through the control of the player, he chose to.
 

tharglet

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Jul 21, 2010
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Both can work - depends on the game.

Though if I'm choosing dialog options, and I'm supposed to be RPing the character, it makes more sense for them to say what you clicked. It feels a little odd and one-sided if only one character is speaking.
 

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
Sep 26, 2010
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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
 

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
Sep 26, 2010
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Amethyst Wind said:
Voiced protagonist so long as you don't get to name him, or else it just starts to grate with the 'creative' ways they get around saying the name (looking at you, Final Fantasy X).

Mass Effect did it right where you did the first name but it ended up not being even slightly relevant.

Silent protagonists can be done badly too (Fallout 3), but for the most part they work (Half Life 2/Grand Theft Auto 3)
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 voiced

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
 

Amethyst Wind

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Vault101 said:
Amethyst Wind said:
Voiced protagonist so long as you don't get to name him, or else it just starts to grate with the 'creative' ways they get around saying the name (looking at you, Final Fantasy X).

Mass Effect did it right where you did the first name but it ended up not being even slightly relevant.

Silent protagonists can be done badly too (Fallout 3), but for the most part they work (Half Life 2/Grand Theft Auto 3)
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 voiced

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.
 

Serenegoose

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Mar 17, 2009
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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
 

MazeMinion

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Mar 7, 2010
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Silent.

I prefer not to have someone gawking cheesy punchlines and one-liners while I play. Unless it's Duke Nukem.
 

Manchubot

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Sep 9, 2010
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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.
 

satanic kitty

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Jul 19, 2010
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Knuckx117 said:
satanic kitty said:
silent protagonist. lets you make up what he is thinking. example: (half-life-gonarch battle)WHY THE FUCK DOES AN ALIEN HAVE A GIANT TESTICLE?
I direct you to the machinima "Mind of Freeman" or "Freeman's Mind" (can't remember which one)

Hilarious stuff...
i already know Freeman's mind. That's kind of the reason I tried to make a quote like him.
 

MishiSings

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Nov 1, 2010
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LarenzoAOG said:
Both are fine, Shepard in Mass Effect could talk and it made the conversation more streamlined, plus voiced charecters are easier to like because they (usually) have personalities and whatnot, silent protagonists are less relatable but let you define your charecter through actions rather than words, "walking your talk" as it were, you decide what your charecter will be like and act accordingly.
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

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MishiSings said:
LarenzoAOG said:
Both are fine, Shepard in Mass Effect could talk and it made the conversation more streamlined, plus voiced charecters are easier to like because they (usually) have personalities and whatnot, silent protagonists are less relatable but let you define your charecter through actions rather than words, "walking your talk" as it were, you decide what your charecter will be like and act accordingly.
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.
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.
 

Raziel_Likes_Souls

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TheProfesser said:
Voiced develops the character, silent makes YOU the character.
This.

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.
 

MishiSings

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Nov 1, 2010
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LarenzoAOG said:
MishiSings said:
LarenzoAOG said:
Both are fine, Shepard in Mass Effect could talk and it made the conversation more streamlined, plus voiced charecters are easier to like because they (usually) have personalities and whatnot, silent protagonists are less relatable but let you define your charecter through actions rather than words, "walking your talk" as it were, you decide what your charecter will be like and act accordingly.
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.
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.
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.)
 

saintchristopher

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Aug 14, 2009
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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.
 

Kair

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Sep 14, 2008
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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.
 

Vrach

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Jun 17, 2010
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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.
 

Void(null)

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Dec 10, 2008
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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.