I was trying to say, that thing is hideous, no matter where you put it. I'm totally cool with it as it's entirely optional and has huge comedy value, but like I wrote, some things just don't mix.
While I agree that I don't think it's a valid look for Johnny Silverhand, there's nothing inherently wrong with any visualization, in and of itself. If we're talking about, saaay, a slimy, smooth-talking character -- a devious shark of the financial world that makes backroom deals in order to get rich on the side, with connections to the underworld and a penchant for wearing their ego on their sleeve -- then here's a look that works great:
When we're talking about a rockeryboy that's become a renowned figure in the world of Cyberpunk -- a radical and a terrorist with a shadowed past, but also a legend of music and someone that fostered a massive following both alive and dead -- "Where's Johnny?" Well, the above visualization probably won't work out, but this one will:
Two different looks that resonate with two totally different characters. It's the same consideration if the game is going to be defining traits about the player character rather than the player.
It's very relevant as setting supports wildest V's imaginable regardless of how things may work in other game universes or what some individual player may feel what clicks with their vision. Limiting character creation options would limit options for players who would just go with style that has been in game since tabletop.
And here's where there was a major disconnect with the the game overall for a lot of players. I can still remember, in many posts, trying to stress that there's no way of making a tabletop game into a CRPG. Different games can come closer, or they can be further away, but a
CRPG is not the same thing as a tabletop RPG. Many was the time, since 2015, that I argued people expecting CP2077 to be a 1:1 translation of the Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebook, simply turned into a video game, were going to be disappointed. They're two different mediums.
Here, what we have is the game trying to allow for the same sort of wildly open-ended character creation that would work better with a less narrative design. (But, that would also negate a huge amount of the awesome storytelling that CDPR is noted for.) Defined narratives require defined characters. That includes visualization. If the player character is defined, the visualization options would be best off sticking with that.
Voiced protagonist has become mainstream because that's what clicks with the audience. Haven't played Dragon Age but FO3 had silent protagonist IIRC. Don't remember if there was voiced dialogue in Wasteland 3. Silent protagonist I think is economic choice for studios as it enables creation of lot's of dialogue options and conversation paths between protagonist and NPC's. It has other perks from role playing perspective and I see that can become convenient feature in big budget creations.
Yes and no. Ironically, perhaps, that's the way I feel about it perfectly. I absolutely love some of the voice work we've seen for protagonists in games ever since Mass Effect 1. I am still, overall, a fan of silent protagonists.
It's not just about bottlenecks I wrote about but also that's also easily ~70% more disc budget on end users end.
The amount of "disk space" required is going to be the #1 caveat here. Obviously, if I'm going to distribute it, I need to have it hosted on multiple servers. More space = more cost over time. It definitely would impact sales.
Biggest thing aside from that, though, is the time, effort, and expense of making the recordings. It would mean thousands of additional man hours to staff the studio, pay the voice actors, edit the recordings, hand them off to the devs to put into the game itself...
Yeah. That's a lot. All to provide the player a single choice that will result in the vast majority of all that work never being seen in the game.
But it would be cool.
I was just browsing LowSodiumCyberpunk today and saw some V's where their creator had put a lot of effort to them. T
his one was particularly impressive but there are factors that has been covered in this topic many times already.
Cool design! Not sure if it really captures "V", per say, but there's a prime example of the other side of the argument. People that just don't really care and make things that resonate for them.