An RPG in 2023 with a mute protagonist???

[DocClox]

2 hours ago, Jellyfish505 said:

So you chose a crap mod. It should have been built into the game.

 

And may I present my compliments to your charm school. Perhaps we can pick this up after TES6 releases and see how Bethesda's policy has changed going forward?

[Jellyfish505]

6 hours ago, pinky6225 said:

So if we could have voiced plus the ability for a mod to stick in new dialogue relevant to there mod then great

 

That will absolutely happen as ChatGPT style AI ends up in every RPG. You'll be able to just add any dialogue & have it spoken by any toon. It will work for mods because that's how the games themselves will be doing it, because that's a lot faster, cheaper & vastly more flexible that prerecording. The tech is kinda sorta there already, but it will get much better over next few years.

 

 

[Kif_kroker]

8 hours ago, Jellyfish505 said:

 

So you chose a crap mod. It should have been built into the game.

 

 

Of course it's that simple. Unlike adding multiplayer, which is massively complex & requires in effect making two separate games, voicing the character is no different to voicing an NPC. Just add an off-switch for the player's toon to accommodate the strange mute fans and like I said: everyone is happy.

 

 

if its that easy for you then a simple on-switch via mods is the right thing. its not about just on/offing the volume.. its either mute or a voiced actor is going to narrow the player character in a certain way, be it good/bad/violent/aggressive/passive etc. and if we go that route, npcs and some stories in the game will be changed to reflect or even cancel some personality traits.

 

the funny thing is that you seem to not care about all that u simply want a 1:1 voiced translation from the mute player character... so again, on-switch is what u actually want.

[Jellyfish505]

1 minute ago, Kif_kroker said:

the funny thing is that you seem to not care about all that u simply want a 1:1 voiced translation from the mute player character... so again, on-switch is what u actually want.

 

Yeah, I'd buy Starfield if it had that. Ideally, I love a nice customisable voice (I used an altered player character voice mod in FO4) and all sorts of bells & whistles, but I'd settle for an on-switch.

[johnpage]

On 7/3/2023 at 7:33 AM, Jellyfish505 said:

Just discovered the player is unvoiced in Starfield. Instantly lost all interest in the game  

Unvoiced really Wtf! the very very little interest i had for this game has been pushed even further down the not going anywhere near it list, i must say beth has become very good at making the wrong descisions of late or rather the last ten years, mute protaganist increases rpg yeah right just forking lazy by the devs, we used to have mute protag games way back when and we all wished for talking characters it adds to immersion its like bringing back 2D games again jeez no thanks been there done that not again please, your paying big buck for starfield the least beth could do is work a little bit harder than they do instead of leaving it to modders to fix it, you want to play a mutey fine go ahead but they could at least make it an option so that those that like noise from the mouth can have some joy too, to me its just another reason not to go anywhere near it, there is nothing like my sexy babe heroine saying 'f*ck you' as she puts a raider down, and 'yeah tasts like chicken' you dont get that with a muty, to all starfielders enjoy your game but lets have a choice.

Edited July 8, 2023 by johnpage
Better choice of words

[Jellyfish505]

2 hours ago, johnpage said:

Unvoiced really Wtf! the very very little interest i had for this game has been pushed even further down the not going anywhere near it list, i must say beth has become very good at making the wrong descisions of late or rather the last ten years, well if starfield flops then i guess its bye bye beth hmm! not a bad thing i guess remanagemet would be better, their slogan of ''it just works'' is becoming ''its forked'' love to all.

 

If Starfield flops, I doubt this will be the reason as this thread shows mute player is actually a plus for some people.  I am fairly hopeful modders will solve this problem for people like us & I'll still buy the game when that happens.

[bjornk]

4 hours ago, johnpage said:

Unvoiced really Wtf!

Your expectations from BGS are clearly misguided. They've only made 1 game with a voiced protagonist so far and many BGS fans hated it. Skyrim, without a voiced protagonist still remains as BGS's most popular and beloved game to this day.

[Blaze69]

2 hours ago, Jellyfish505 said:

If Starfield flops

The only way this game can flop is by being 100% unplayable. Not even "CP2077 on last-gen consoles" shit-tier performance, I mean literally cannot be played because the game doesn't boot up or whatever.

 

If Beth deliver on what they've shown in the Direct (not even on what they've promised, but just on what they've actually shown), this game is going to make billions.

 

2 hours ago, Jellyfish505 said:

this thread shows mute player is actually a plus for some people.

It is a massive plus for all the reasons people have stated above and many which I won't repeat because they've already explained it.

 

At the end of the day I won't deny that having the PC actually have a voice and facial expressions is kinda neat, but until such a time when there's some kind of uber-powerful AI that can read my mind to identify what I want my character to sound and behave like and generate all the voice lines and expressions they should have to match those guidelines, I'd much rather have a silent protagonist that I can easily project such traits on with my imagination, rather than be shackled by Beth's awful writing and forced to stick to it (as FO4 was due to the constraints imposed by the voiced PC).

 

Also considering all previous Beth games have had a silent PC and have been massive successes (F76 doesn't count since it's not really a BGS game, the B-tier studio they bought made it instead), I'd wager the "won't play without voiced PC" crowd are a minority.

Edited July 8, 2023 by Blaze69

[chooo]

On 7/3/2023 at 3:33 AM, Jellyfish505 said:

Just discovered the player is unvoiced in Starfield. Instantly lost all interest in the game  

 

Player is unvoiced in BG3. I much prefer when the player is unvoiced. I read his line in my head before I chose it, that's the players voice to me.

[Endlesslust]

And thank God it's a silent protagonist. I hope the voiced player character never comes back in their games. You lose so much with a voiced protagonist in terms of modding, character building and even the world itself. 

 

That goes for including a toggle as well. A voiced protagonist, like multiplayer or coop, is something that the game has to be designed around from the beginning. If there's a voiced protagonist in any capacity, then the game, as a Bethesda-style RPG, ultimately suffers for it. 

 

As far as RPGs go, I think a defined and already built character (Geralt) benefits from a voice, but when we're able to build our own character and have any type of impact on the world, especially through choices and dialogue (Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Wasteland, etc.) the protagonist needs to be silent, or else the character creation and those choices/consequences are hindered or lost altogether. 

[Jellyfish505]

4 hours ago, Endlesslust said:

A voiced protagonist, like multiplayer or coop, is something that the game has to be designed around from the beginning.

 

A voiced protagonist is probably two orders of magnitude simpler to implement than multiplayer or coop (it's just a timing issue, speaking text is simple). Fortunately I'm optimistic over the next year or so a modder will make it happen, at which point I'll buy Starfield. The game will probably even be stable by then  

[carnifex]

A voiced protagonist makes sense for games like Witcher or Mass Effect, where you play a predefined character with just some story- and personality-appropriate wiggle room in your choices.

 

It's an utterly idiotic idea for Bethesda-style RPGs where a huge part of the game's appeal is creating whatever character you want and treating the world as your playground.

I'm really glad Bethesda is realizing that rather than blindly chasing the trend that made F4 unplayable for anyone who didn't vibe with the designated protagonists' personalities.

[DocClox]

7 hours ago, Jellyfish505 said:

A voiced protagonist is probably two orders of magnitude simpler to implement than multiplayer or coop (it's just a timing issue

 

The problem is not complexity.

 

The problem is structure.

 

If you hire a voice actor, you need to give them something to act. So you write lines for them that have emotion. This means the character needs opinions. They need personality. That structures the way other NPCs respond to them, and affects the choices that can plausibly be offered to the character.

 

You can mute the player, but the personality and the structure of the quests, that remains.

 

Bethesda RPGs work best when the player character is a blank slate onto which the player can project the character they want to play. A voiced PC works against that on several levels.

 

It is not as simple as merely muting the protagonist.

[Darkening Demise]

Voiced protagonists work for ARPGs or action adventure games like The Witcher and Mass Effect. But NOT for RPGs akin to Neverwinter Nights, TES, Fallout, etc.

The last thing I want is to always talk like a generic white male or female no matter who I design with a predetermined background like in FO4 ever again.

Plus voices limit dialogue and choice or there lack of. *cough* Fallout 4 *cough*

[Jellyfish505]

14 hours ago, DocClox said:

Bethesda RPGs work best when the player character is a blank slate onto which the player can project the character they want to play.

 

I understand, but that's where we completely disagree  

[Jellyfish505]

3 hours ago, Darkening Demise said:

The last thing I want is to always talk like a generic white male or female

 

I'm certain mods & AI will solve that issue. I used a voice mod on FO4 which made the protagonist sound quite different. Far deeper accessible options regarding this kind of thing will explode with AI development within a year or so,

[ThyraUnn]

I wonder what these people do when they play a Table top... do they like... bring a sound board? You are supposed to voice the character yourself. Having a voiced protag limits WAY to much. Even when you are talking MODS you can't do ALL inflections, Feelings toward particular choices and so on.

 

like the simple line "I'm not doing that." do you think it should sound Panicked, Angry, Scared, maybe you want to add a Chuckle and laugh it off. 

 

You block all kinds of Role playing with a voiced character, and its a Role playing game.

 

But that is just my opinion. I personally think Voiced MCs don't work in RPGs.

[DocClox]

4 hours ago, Jellyfish505 said:

I understand, but that's where we completely disagree  

 

And I'm entirely happy to agree to differ.

 

Do you also understand the problem is not simply solved by adding an option to mute the protagonist?

[Gameplayer]

Honestly 

Most peolpe I have ever played a table top game absolutely hate role playing their character and hate players at the table top that do play in character.

 

They want to roll dice.

Move models on the table,

Argue about obscure rules.

That is the majority of people.

Guess what, they dont sit there in their chair at the video game "role-playing" because they think you and I are weird for doing so.

It has never bothered me at all that the lines were voiced.

I can also get mods to alter those voices, so Im just stomped.

 

We should just go back to 2D gaming I guess since we dont need VA's anymore.

[RohZima]

On 7/4/2023 at 2:05 AM, fred200 said:

Voiced protagonist was absolutely awful for Quest mods.

Mod authors were limited by the existing dialogue choices. With Starfield, that will not be an issue.

I am really excited to see what great mods we get now. An active slave economy is high on the list.

 

Exactly. It's a massive boost for modding. I'm very excited for Starfield in so many ways.

[buzzbombr]

44 minutes ago, Gameplayer said:

That is the majority of people.

Well, no. That may be the majority if people you've played with. In the groups I played with we did all the above. The best moments could be evenly divided between that nat20 and somebody just doing what they think their character would do in that situation. Maybe that person didn't try to speak in an obscure accent, but they were trying to do what they thought their character would do in a situation that was wholly in our imagination. The rules matter. That's the law of the universe in role playing. No problems with that. That's role playing in my book.

 

Too everybody here: I really don't care if a game protagonist is voiced or not. I'm going to play with subtitles on and I'll be reading what I see, in my voice, in my head. If that means ignoring a voiced protagonist or enjoying the fact it matches it, I'm cool either way. I'm still going to hear what I read.

 

Resources spent on voice actors that could be spent elsewhere really doesn't matter to me either. It's not my game. I didn't make it. I had no say in it. I'm just playing it. Voiced or not voiced, I'm very much looking forward to buying Starfield once the CK comes out and the nude mods hit.

[fred200]

Just to be clear - no one here has said get rid of the voice actors. They add an incredible amount to the games we play.

This discussion is only about the voiced protagonist. And I think anything useful on that topic has been said.

Peace.

[Miauzi]

Vor 9 Stunden sagte ThyraUnn:

Ich frage mich, was diese Leute machen, wenn sie auf einem Tabletop spielen... mögen sie es..., ein Soundboard mitzubringen? Sie sollen den Charakter selbst sprechen. Einen stimmhaften Protag zu haben, schränkt VIEL zu viel ein. Selbst wenn Sie über MODS sprechen, können Sie nicht ALLE Beugungen, Gefühle zu bestimmten Entscheidungen usw. zum Ausdruck bringen.

 

wie die einfache Zeile „Das mache ich nicht.“ Glaubst du, es sollte panisch, wütend, ängstlich klingen? Vielleicht möchtest du ein Kichern hinzufügen und darüber lachen? 

 

Sie blockieren alle Arten von Rollenspielen mit einem Charakter mit Stimme, und es ist ein Rollenspiel.

 

Aber das ist nur meine Meinung. Ich persönlich denke, dass Voiced MCs in RPGs nicht funktionieren.

 

How weak is the imagination of many so-called "role-players" to not be able to OVER-BLEND something like this?

Honestly? All I ever read here is "mimimi" - I feel like I'm in the Muppet Show.

Spoiler

 

If the protagonist's voice is already disturbing ... what about the field of vision outside the PC monitor?

Or when you look at yourself while playing ... do you then put on a replica suit of armour for immersion reasons?

Here a small mosquito is made into a giant elephant.

Menno - let yourselves freeze and thaw out again when there are finally "full-dive" systems like in SAO.

[DocClox]

1 hour ago, Miauzi said:

How weak is the imagination of many so-called "role-players" to not be able to OVER-BLEND something like this?

 

I love this line of argument. The people who like to imagine the protagonists voice for themselves? They are the ones that are lacking in imagination. And the people that need the prop of having a VA recite the lines for them? It seems they are especially imaginative, presumably because "immersion".

 

And furthermore, Up is Down, Left is Right, and Black I'm guessing is now White.

[Jellyfish505]

8 hours ago, DocClox said:

Do you also understand the problem is not simply solved by adding an option to mute the protagonist?

 

To state the obvious, it is absolutely solved for me because we don't have the same problem.

 

12 hours ago, ThyraUnn said:

I wonder what these people do when they play a Table top... do they like... bring a sound board? You are supposed to voice the character yourself.

 

But a computer game isn't a table top game. I have no interest in RP table top these days for the same reason RP in a multiplayer game doesn't interest me (it's usually hilariously badly done). I want a more cinematic experience in a single player computer RPG & part of that is not having a toon mute when it says something.