What's different about this type of game vs TES and so on that makes a silent protagonist work there but not here?
I have no problem with a voice protagonist in general. In a fixed protagonist or cinematic game like TW3 or Detroit Become Human or any number of others it works great and enhances the experience. My problem with a voiced protagonist in this case is that it does affect roleplaying in that it limits the number of dialogue options you can have (since text is way cheaper than VO) and thus the number of ways you can shape your character's personality. As far as I'm aware V has some set attributes but is largely a character we're supposed to shape ourselves and the more options to do that through dialogue and choices the better IMO.
You need friends if you want to play PnP haha
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I don't see why we couldn't have characterization and story without VO. It's not like those things were invented before VO and things like text based games, comics, and books have no problem in that aspect. I know we're not supposed to talk about this at all, but you can SEE Shepard. Voice and face go together IMO and that's all I'll say about that. With a silent protagonist they're able to give way more dialogue options including lots of optional ones based on reputation, stats and abilities, past actions, things you're carrying, etc...That just isn't possible with a voiced protagonist because it's so much extra work and cost compared to text only. If you look at games like Dragon Age: Origins going into DA2 or Fallout New Vegas going into Fallout 4 the dialogue became extremely limited as a result of the transition from silent to voiced. For me there is far more characterization (and replay value) in getting to shape your character's personality in as many ways as possible than there is in hearing them speak. If I want to hear a voice I can just read it out loud however I want.
That's true, there are so many ways one could interpret most lines with different motivations or emotions behind it. There's also the problem of the "summary" dialogue options where you only get a short description of what your character says and half the time that snippet doesn't describe it well at all and you end up saying something you never intended to say. @_@
I feel like "the masses" are the reason we can't have nice things anymore T_T "the masses" are the ones buying lootboxes and microtransactions on a huge scale prompting the game companies to keep slapping them on.
My problem with a voiced protagonist isn't that the voice itself prohibits expression, it's that voicing lines of dialogue is much more expensive and time consuming than simple text options which invariably results in fewer dialogue options.
It's not awkward to me and I don't see how it would affect the interactive cutscenes. What makes you say this will be a cinematic game? Nothing I've seen leads me to believe that and even in your example you note that you can SEE your Destiny character staring like a moron. There's none of that here since we can't see our character they could be making any face we imagine.
I'm told that Cyberpunk 2077 IS an RPG, is that wrong? From what we've seen so far it does seem more like an action game/FPS but I'm expecting or at least hoping that there will be more to it that we just haven't been shown yet right?