So, silent protagonist or voiced main character in an RPG? [Wall of text warning]

[repeating integers]

QUOTE BLOCK!

Calm down guys, It's just a thread.

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OT: I don't mind if my character is voiced or not, it just depends on the choices you get to use. I'd rather be able to choose what my character says, rather than just the gist of it. (Like Mass Effect for example. It only tells you the very basics of what your character is gonna say).

Honestly, I didn't mean to offend anyone. Sorry guys.

 

[sky14kemea]

QUOTE BLOCK!

Calm down guys, It's just a thread.

__________________________

OT: I don't mind if my character is voiced or not, it just depends on the choices you get to use. I'd rather be able to choose what my character says, rather than just the gist of it. (Like Mass Effect for example. It only tells you the very basics of what your character is gonna say).

Honestly, I didn't mean to offend anyone. Sorry guys.

N'awww, that's alright. It was just a misunderstanding. :0

Anyways, I should disappear before I derail this thread. *cloak swish* xD

 

[Rickyvantof]

I'd really prefer a silent protagonist. It's very easy to dislike things about a character when it has a voice and a predetermined personality.

 

[Slangeveld]

Dragon Age: Origins is superior to its sequel via the main character because you have control over them. You choose how they respond, whereas in Dragon Age 2 you choose 'in what way' they respond. A humongous difference.

Oh! Nicely worded.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Having a silent main character in a fully voiced game feels... jarring. Breaks the immersion.

Having a voiced main character in a fully voiced game feels... jarring. Breaks the immersion.

... Hooray, you have an opinion too?

I was just pointing that I feel the opposite way, through comparison.

No reason to be an arrogant jerk about it.

Arrogant jerk? Sorry if I came across that way.

I just... found your post a little odd and wasn't sure how to respond.

Well you could respond that way to any opinion, and the followed way is generally the only one it would come across as.

But never mind.

 

[Davey Woo]

I don't mind either way, but I don't like it when the character gets talked to a lot and never replies, which always ends up with the line "Oh, a quiet one eh Rookie?" It's just annoying.
Also in RPG's where you're allowed to choose what to say, I'd rather not be given the choice, I always think choosing from a list of options ranging from happy and nice to nasty and evil is a but unimmersive, I'd like to see an RPG where I can write in my character's lines, that way it'd feel more like me. But whatever.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I guess it's a preference thing, for me the silent protagonist feels more like I am him, with a fully voiced character it just seems like you are merely observing another NPC.
And with these new circle choices you really only choose what flavor the response will have, taking you even further from feeling as the protagonist.

It's just a different kind of immersion, when fully voiced you are merely observing the protagonist like you would in a movie, with a silent type you feel like you are the guy.

 

[Durgiun]

I don't give a crap if the protagonist doesn't speak (Fallout) or if he does (Mass Effect) as long as I get to interact with the world via dialogue and tell some doofus giving me a dangerous as Hell quest to stuff it.

 

[Byere]

Like many others have said, it depends on the game. In a JRPG style game, it's not bad. The rest of the characters can be voiced and the player character only gets certain choices to be made but no actual voice acting to them (see Suikoden 4 and 5 for examples of that). The same can be said about certain Western games. The Elder Scrolls/recent Fallout games are examples of that.

However, if you're in a game without choice-making, a more action-orientated one like say Gears of War or CoD, then having the main PC voiced would be almost necessary.

 

[Minky_man]

I'm a mixed bag on Voices or silent.

I like Silent, but when I'm given options and its simply assumed I said them when another character replies, it does irk me.

Voiced on the other hand I like also, but due to video game logic, you do end up sounding like a prick half the time when you ask the same questions or end every conversation with "I have no more questions to ask"

If I had to choose, I would prefer voice acting, I played games in the late 90's that were PURE text (FF8) and personally, even if it's done UBER badly, I prefer a character to have some form of personality through speech rather than being a silent Marionette with elipses next to their head.

 

[hazabaza1]

I'm fine with either, I like the choice silent gives you, but I feel that adding the voice makes me enjoy the character a bit more, so long as I like the voice acting.
Which is why I will never play a FemShep.

 

[StormShaun]

Frankly

My own created characters that are silent are the best

Voiced Main characters like Hawke are....meh in my opinion

But the bestest are fully voice player created character like your main character in saints row 2....sorry for the non rpg game refernce but im just tryin to make my point..

 

[Ranorak]

I prefer execution over any of the sides.
If a silent protagonist is done well, good for you! [Fallout 3, Dragon Age: Origins]

If a text based protagonist is done well, good for you! [Final Fantasy pre-X]

If a fully voiced protagonist is done well, but leaves no choice to the player, good for you! [Tales of Vesperia, Final Fantasy post-X]

If a fully voiced protagonist is done well, and has several dialoge options, good for you! [Mass Effect, Dragon Age 2]

I don't care, as long as it fits the game, and it's done well.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

as long as you have some means of "talking" so to speak, via voice or text dialogue, i'm usually fine with it

personally i have liked all the voices from bioware games and even alpha protocol, i realize his voice was more of a smartass dickhead, but that was mostly the character they were going for when they did "Mike thornton" so if he had a different voice i think it would have been really odd..it matched the character pretty good i thought.

regardless, like i said, as long as it has some input into the game, then i'll probably like it


although like people have mentioned, any kind of epic speech or lines..do not translate well on text, MALE SHEPHERD (sorry female has never been as good for me pump up wise) has given me some chills with a few of the speeches on the mass effect games, while without that voice it would have been just..average

 

[valleyshrew]

Silent protagonists are lazy and boring. Yes a voiced protagonist can be more annoying but to recommend cutting out features because they're often flawed instead of making them not flawed is one of the biggest problems in the game industry today. Every genre is getting dumbed down. Imagine GTAIV or Red Dead Redemption with a silent protagonist. They would be exponentially more boring. It's one of the biggest problems with the fallout series, there's so little character personality in the protagonist and NPCs compared to Rockstar games where every character has unique vernacular and culture and mannerisms.

Think of in Red Dead Redemption how different Nigel West Dickens and Seth Briars are in terms of the words they use and way they speak, the way they move about and gesticulate and their motivations, humour and personality. Now think about Fallout and how every character just stands still and speaks in monotone and they don't really have any personality.

Think of how different Nico Bellic, Johnny Klebitz and Luis Fernando Lopez are, and those are just protagonists from DLC. But in fallout the protagonists are not really silent! They have dialogue options that you give them. Now how different are real silent protagonists like Gordon Freeman and Chell where you have no input in them at all? They may as well be the same person. There's no justification at all for a silent protagonist in a linear game. It's simply a lack of character design talent on Valve's part and anyone who says anything different is deluded. That ico/sotc have no dialogue at all is not a choice borne out of artistic integrity. The designers simply aren't capable of creating engaging dialogue, or are too lazy to do so.

These are the sorts of games that appeal to 4chan level maturity. Have you ever noticed how 90% of game related memes on the internet involve mario, zelda, pokemon and portal? It's because these games have no character and appeal to the sort of people who enjoy Michael Bay films and thought The Wire was boring. Memes are all they can resort to because the actual games themselves have little to no depth for discussion.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Dragon Age: Origins is superior to its sequel via the main character because you have control over them. You choose how they respond, whereas in Dragon Age 2 you choose 'in what way' they respond. A humongous difference.

Exactly.

I always prefer a silent protagonist. Ables you to relate better. Gordon Freeman for the inevitable win. I'd choose Niko Bellic for the voiced camp.

Having a silent main character in a fully voiced game feels... jarring. Breaks the immersion.

Having a voiced main character in a fully voiced game feels... jarring. Breaks the immersion.

You have to quit having the same opinion as me. I need to stop quoting you.

 

[Zaik]

I think it depends on whether or not the rest of the game has voiced characters.

Having a silent main character in a fully voiced game feels... jarring. Breaks the immersion.

Half-life says otherwise.

Sorry, I meant in RPGS only.

You know, when your silent character can apparently telepathically project his words into other people's heads.

I try to imagine that they had some catastrophic damage to their neck when young that healed up but left them unable to speak, and that they run around with a note pad and write out everything they're going to say. It doesn't help much.

I also don't understand this whole issue with "deciding what they say, not how they say it" as if silent protagonists somehow have better control of the plot.

I don't remember being able to threaten the guards and mages at Ostagar that the Grey Wardens wouldn't stay and fight without some tribute in the form of $, or being able to help the fake helmites in NWN and later play it off as an attempt to infiltrate it when some real adventurer comes by and smashes the whole group. The dialogue is just as locked in whether it's in text or voiced form.

 

[Fidelias]

I think it depends on whether or not the rest of the game has voiced characters.

Having a silent main character in a fully voiced game feels... jarring. Breaks the immersion.

Half-life says otherwise.

And I disagree with Half Life. Freeman is a tool. /jking ...kind of

But seriously I do think Half Life WOULD have been better with a voiced character. Or at least a main character. Freeman just feels like a robot with no will of his own. And the argument that the game is trying to immerse you in the game by having YOU be the main character doesn't work for me. In MY opinion, Half Life and Half Life 2 are some of the least immersive games I've played. You want a truly immersive game with a mute protagonist, play Stalker.

But then again, this is just my opinion.

Also, to more directly answer the thread:

I think in games where the main character is supposed to be a major star of the game, they should have some kind of voice. But games where they aren't, or where the main character is developed through the actions that they take, it doesn't matter.

For example, games where the main character IS the protagonist; Halo, Call of Duty, Half Life, etc.

What I mean by having the main character as something or someone else besides the protagonist, are shown in games like Fallout, Stalker, or Bioshock. The games aren't centered on the player's character. The true stars of these games are the environments you explore; Post-apocalyptic DC, the Chernobyl Zone, and Rapture, respectively.

 

[BENZOOKA]

You have to quit having the same opinion as me. I need to stop quoting you.

That's alright, and it's nice to see someone having the same opinion.