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

[Triangulon]

I prefer unvoiced main characters. Essentially when playing an RPG I am playing MY character. I have determined who the character is and what they are all about, including how they sound. In a fully voiced RPG I am playing someone elses character. This is not the same and really doesn't feel like an RPG to me. More like an action game with levelling-up. Bioware have created some excellent and memorable party members, I just wish they would continue to allow me the freedom to create my character to interact with them (which I thought was acheived well in DA:O). This side of the argument may stem from those of us who grew up with pen and paper RPGs and the old-school games such as Baldur's Gate and Fallout. I used to love it when you created your character in an RPG and there was a huge text block to fill in for your character's back story!

 

[LittleBlondeGoth]

I think as long as whichever option the developer goes for is done well, then it's all good. DA:O had plenty of dialogue options to choose from, which I enjoyed. Would I have liked a voiced Warden? Yes, probably, but it didn't break the game for me being silent. Though in retrospect, having played the Mass Effect series after DA, when I went back to a Warden, I did find myself having conversations and wishing I could hear my side.

As for ME, I liked FemShep, but MaleShep's voice didn't quite do it for me. No real reason, he just wasn't quite what I had going on in my head.

In general though, I think the VA of games these days is done very well. Uncharted for example - you don't control the dialogue, but it's very well done by the actors.

Mind you, if Steve Blum was voicing it, I'm all for it. I could sit there and listen to him all day...

 

[Xaositect]

Depends entirely on the project.

Of course, if the standard for voiced protagonist is going in the direction Bioware is taking it where you basically have hardly any control over what Biowares character says, only if they are going to be naughty, nice or nasty while saying things, Ill stick with silent protagonists where I can inject my own character.

If Bioware werent so fucking lazy and continued from ME1 by EXPANDING the possibilities of the dialogue wheel and taking the characters dialouge in different directions and making it a deeper experience, I wouldnt mind so much about developers choosing a voiced protagonist.

Instead they increased the amount of unpromted dialogue by about 200% and often only used 2 options on the entire fucking wheel. I mean thats just lazy. Its little better than cutscenes.

Neither option is good unless you commit to it and use it well. However the silent protagonist always has the imagination of the player to lean on, like in Bethesda games. If it wasnt for them allowing me to imprint my own imagination into things, their games would be lifeless.

However, if using a voiced protagonist is little more than a slightly interactive cutscene where you mildly alter the characters tone (and change fuck all else) then I think silent protagonists win hands down, since it actually ALLOWS for roleplaying instead of forcing everything premade by the devs on you, like.... I dont know, a non-roleplaying game (and dont pull the whole "written dialogue is pre-made" since its about making choice, and written dialogue more often allows to make the COMPLETE choice, not just the superficial tone of the choice).

 

[darth.pixie]

It depends.

Each has a different way to be execute properly. Yes, Shepard had some Hammy speeches that were cool. And it would have been a bit weird to deliver a monologue because...it was a monologue. It has to feel like a conversation. Remember the Atris dialogue in KotOR 2? That was one awesome argument. That was the boss fight. And it was great.

Planescape:Torment...imagine that with voice. It would have been massive. The wall of texts in the game would have been extremely hard to voice properly too. And one wrong intonation can ruin the entire speech. Also, a non-VO leads to more dialogue options in conversations which leads to more immersive role-play.

Also...how the hell can I imagine my Hawke as Champion when I can't imagine him with a voice like Morgan Freeman or Kevin Michael Richardson and have to listen to what came out? I had an orc in NWN 2 that sounded like Patrick Steward, a halfling that sounded like Grey DeLisle and so on. The only voiced PC I actually liked was Geralt. And that's because I was playing him instead of a character of my own.

 

[Irriduccibilli]

If its a game with multiple dialogue options I prefer a fully voiced character.... in a matter of fact I always prefer a fully voiced character (Mass Effect). Makes it easier to identify/understand yourself with the character.

 

[Anah'ya]

Voiced.

Man, I wish I had those screenshots uploaded which I took to compare Dragon Age: Origins character interaction (none voiced) with Dragon Age 2 interaction (voiced).

As much as I loved my Cousland, that blank stare as she "talks" in comparison to the facial expression of her conversation partners is unsettling. Alistair is handing her a rose. *Blank stare* She is raging about the murder of her family. *Blank stare*

Hawke on the other hand makes things at least a little less jarringly awkward and doesn't just look perfectly tranquil.

The issue here is that we are playing these games with a close enough view of their faces. If attention was not drawn to the facial expressions and actual dialogue positioning would not exist, then a none voiced character will do the job just as well. As long as the rest of the RPG crew is not voiced either, otherwise I'll just be forced to talk for my character and that makes people give me funny looks...


...I don't like being given funny looks.