Drawback of voice protagonists

[BretonWarrior]

I think voiced protagonists work well in first and third person action RPG games like Mass Effect and Fallout.

Non-voiced protagonists work great for Isometric RPG games like Pathfinder: Kingmaker or Pillars of Eternity.

Mass Effect yea I agree as your playing a set person, Cyberpunk 2077 your playing a set person 'V' and the style of game sort of requires some real 'verbal' interaction. As to Fallout I think in general adding a voiced protagonist was one of the biggests mistakes Beth made and some of the more intense ongoing debates the game had. Interesting to note they did not do the same with Fallout 76 even when they added Wastelands.

Fallout and TES you are supposed to be 'whatever you want' a voice ruins that, as did forcing you to be a Mum or Dad in FO4. Now that was without question the worst thing bethesda has done in either franchise, the same voice all the time is one thing, forcing a character type like a Dad is another. Thanks to Talos the Mod Authors (well one) spent the hours needed to change as much of the 'Mum/Dad' voice acting to let you actually not be that Mum or Dad, far better game like that.

 

[RecceJack]

I love female V's voice. Games without voices get boring for me.

With Cyberpunk 2077 the voice actors only fit the Nomad/Street life Origin. For Corporate path the current VO's shortcomings are totally obvious. In our "real life" corporate environment you are dressed and speak properly. Period!

Also, a person from (thinking on this game) the corporate life path could never ever become such a "brute" in shuch a short time. You can take a person out of a corporation but never a corporation out of a person that have been there. I can 100% guarantee that "corporate V" would never ever have become such a proletarian brute in a "real life scenario". The most logical outcome would have been for V to join up with another corporation.

And the entire bull Corporate V is forced into inside Lizzie's Bar is not plausible. Why is Jackie not interfering directly? Things like that would never happen in real life. And the crap about Arasaka having full control of the player economy. Seriously? Every modern politician/corporate have hidden savings (gold assets, houses, et cetera). And most importantly "dirt" on former bosses/co-workers/the company.

The moral of the story is that not even in our current "real life" criminal underworld is things happening without a reason. Let's not forget that "V" in the corporate path is also quite high ranking, and as we see two people work directly under her, and I must presume she even have even more assets at her disposal. What happens at Lizzie's Bar is bad writing plain and simple.

I don't think you actually played the corpo intro. Corpo V still grew up with Jackie and wasn't a corporate executive, if you actually look around the office in Arasaka, you'll come across a service record of sorts. Corpo V is a counterintelligence officer in the special operations side of things and was formerly a special operator with a half dozen or so operations under their belt. V was never a wealthy corporate executive, they were always a "brute" and the people who approach V in Lizzie's weren't working for V nor were they under V, they were sent by the person higher up than V that V was contracted to eliminate from the food chain.

Jackie doesn't interfere until things appear to be going in a physical route, until that point they are just standing next to the table and talking to V. How is Jackie supposed to know somebody at Arasaka is messing with V's stuff? Jackie is standing at a table looking at people standing & sitting at a table, he's not in V's head or at Arasaka with full knowledge of what he can't see. All he sees is a conversation and he intervenes when things look like the are going south.

With these corporations not being the type of corporations you are talking about and more based in the intelligence side of the world, there's no way any other corporation would bring in V after they've been burned and dropped by Arasaka. V is essentially in no man's land as far as corps are concerned.

As far as all the wealth stuff goes, trust me, just because you work in a specific type of field and have millions of dollars of gear and assets at your disposal and the higher ups consider your skillset to be valued in the 10s of millions of dollars, does not mean you are making this type of money. Even if you are making SOME money, by the time you cover taxes & expenses, you'd still be in the same boat as without.

 

[romeos_ra]

I agree that a voiced protagonist can be immersion breaking, especially in older games that had less available memory to store lots of different vocal clips for use (imagine characters that repeat the same dialogue over and over vocally - annoying).

However, in this day and age we can synthesize a human sounding voice almost near perfectly and there could have been variables which change the tone and characteristics of the protagonists voice in this game if they had used some kind of text-to-chat speech synthesizer instead to voice the protagonist. This tool could be used from within the character creation screen as well to adjust precisely the pitch and tone you wish to emulate.

But hey, I'm just your average joe.. I'm no major game developer or top gaming executive even.

 

[Alenheim]

I'm not really a fan of silent protagonist. I don't want to BE my character. I don't want to DEFINE my character MYSELF. I want my character to have his OWN personalities that I can connect to or have a relationship with. So yeah, I'm sick of this silent protagonist bs. Imagine a cutscene where other characters always do an awkward monologue because your character don't speak, such a wasted opportunity of storytelling.

 

[hulkman2456]

You can techincally have different voices. Change the games laungue to the other ones. So you'll have V in German or Japanese.

 

[BretonWarrior]

I'm not really a fan of silent protagonist. I don't want to BE my character. I don't want to DEFINE my character MYSELF. I want my character to have his OWN personalities that I can connect to or have a relationship with. So yeah, I'm sick of this silent protagonist bs. Imagine a cutscene where other characters always do an awkward monologue because your character don't speak, such a wasted opportunity of storytelling.

That's the very opposite of why some (we) don't want a voiced protagonist because WE want to be the character and not play act with 'somebody' with a voice that may not even fit what you believe the character could sound like. WE can change that character totally from one playthrough to the next with no voice. Having the same voice with a completely different look and build type does just not work for some players.

As to 'awkward' monologue in a cutscene, that's easily sorted, get rid of the cutscenes. I know that would shock many who enjoy those games which always have cutscenes for me it's not an issue. Beth has sold 30 Million of Skyrim without a 'voice' or a cutscene, FO4 was rubbished (by some) for the voice. I normally play Beth so for me they are not needed

It's sort of the same as some only play 1st person to be the character while others play 3rd to watch the character playing. I TBH hate third person to play with (over the shoulder not so much) that's why even though I bought Witcher 3 I could not play it.

So I am the person in the game if the game allows it and that's what I prefer like many others. How do you have a 'relationship' with a bunch of pixels on a screen, at least when 'being' the character all you have to believe is real is the world surroundings which is very easy once your in character.

 

[Night_City_Native]

I think voiced protagonists work well in first and third person action RPG games like Mass Effect and Fallout.

Non-voiced protagonists work great for Isometric RPG games like Pathfinder: Kingmaker or Pillars of Eternity.

This.

A game like Mass Effect, Cyberpunk, or the Witcher would be jarring without a voiced protagonist. The closer the presentation is to real life, the more a voiced protagonist is needed.

Protagonists not being voiced is mostly outdated and only functions with isometric RPGs where you don't spend a significant amount of time looking at your character or NPC's faces during conversations.

 

[MM0Junkie]

damn.......this is bottom of the barrel for reasons to hate on the game and CDPR, it's a 1st person story driven game, it'd be even more empty and soulless if the protagonist wasn't voiced

The moral of the story is that not even in our current "real life" criminal underworld is things happening without a reason. Let's not forget that "V" in the corporate path is also quite high ranking, and as we see two people work directly under her, and I must presume she even have even more assets at her disposal. What happens at Lizzie's Bar is bad writing plain and simple.

But V isn't high ranking at all, he's a minion, a corpo slave and he even says it several times, they say jump...you say how high, so no , the writing isn't bad, V's boss ( the one who gave him the task, got caught by his superior[abernathy] and you know how shit rolls downhill) V was simply " expendable ", it was a typical corpo move, nothing strange or terrible about the writing.

 

[DMCain]

I prefer voiced myself, and I do like a selection of voices. If they can't afford, or don't want to use multiple VO actors, they could go the same route Maxis did with The Sims. Record generic dialog then in character creation, add some voice modulation controls for pitch and tempo.

 

[BretonWarrior]

This.

A game like Mass Effect, Cyberpunk, or the Witcher would be jarring without a voiced protagonist. The closer the presentation is to real life, the more a voiced protagonist is needed.

Protagonists not being voiced is mostly outdated and only functions with isometric RPGs where you don't spend a significant amount of time looking at your character or NPC's faces during conversations.

Outdated How and Why, Bethesda another fairly big open world Dev tried it once and seems it may have dropped it again with Fallout 76. It's only outdated to a player who likes or plays a game type that uses voiced a lot, same as liking cutscenes. I never played Mass Effect or other voiced protagonist games in general so for me it's not outdated at all. It's what most of my game library consists of including many newer as well as old games.

It's a game style like being full of cutscenes trying to make them into a game/video/film? if you just want to play a 'game' without all the unneeded distractions that is not outdated because it's still out there right now. It's a difference of choice in what the player wants or likes not a question of being outdated.

There is the 'Do you prefer Voiced or No Voice' question on this thread, 11 for No Voice, 34? for Voiced, that supports your view to some degree. Go and find the thread at Beth.net asking the same question, the result was totally the opposite mostly players hated it, although a fair amount liked it. Different type of games, different Dev, different result.

 

[Night_City_Native]

Outdated How and Why, Bethesda another fairly big open world Dev tried it once and seems it may have dropped it again with Fallout 76. It's only outdated to a player who likes or plays a game type that uses voiced a lot, same as liking cutscenes. I never played Mass Effect or other voiced protagonist games in general so for me it's not outdated at all. It's what most of my game library consists of including many newer as well as old games.

It's a game style like being full of cutscenes trying to make them into a game/video/film? if you just want to play a 'game' without all the unneeded distractions that is not outdated because it's still out there right now. It's a difference of choice in what the player wants or likes not a question of being outdated.

There is the 'Do you prefer Voiced or No Voice' question on this thread, 11 for No Voice, 34? for Voiced, that supports your view to some degree. Go and find the thread at Beth.net asking the same question, the result was totally the opposite mostly players hated it, although a fair amount liked it. Different type of games, different Dev, different result.

Not all RPGs are the same, and Bethesda games are a different beast.

The appeal of their gameworlds is 100% the sandbox and characters, both player controlled and otherwise, are not all that important to the experience. As a general rule Bethesda characters are usually lacking in personality or characterization, but that doesn't matter, because the sand box is why players are there.

Cd Projekt Red doesn't make the same kind of RPG. It's much more similar to Bioware, a company that makes RPGs where the characters that populate the gameworld are the main draw. What made TW3 so memorable was Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, the Bloody Baron and all the stories surrounding those characters. The game world itself was secondary to the experience.

If a company is making an RPG where characters are the primary focus rather than the world that they inhabit, the storytelling just does not land as well if the conversations are portrayed realistically or cinematic, but one or more of the characters isn't speaking. It's just not immersive. The one exception to this is isometric RPGs and that is because the story isn't being presented in a cinematic or realistic way. The lack of a voice then is not quite as jarring.

 

[lelxrv]

I'd go as far as to say that for a true CRPG a non-voiced protagonist is ESSENTIAL.
Voice makes sense for a pseudo-RPG like Witcher with strong cinematic influences and a pre-defined protagonist. There's no way around it.

 

[Shaamaan]

Most of the time voiced characters are better than non-voiced. Ideally you can do what Saints Row did, and give the player a number of voice options to pick from, but this is of course rather expensive on part of the developers.

Granted, there are SOME instances where a silent-protagonist is the better take, but those are relatively few.

 

[BretonWarrior]

Not all RPGs are the same, and Bethesda games are a different beast.

The appeal of their gameworlds is 100% the sandbox and characters, both player controlled and otherwise, are not all that important to the experience. As a general rule Bethesda characters are usually lacking in personality or characterization, but that doesn't matter, because the sand box is why players are there.

Cd Projekt Red doesn't make the same kind of RPG. It's much more similar to Bioware, a company that makes RPGs where the characters that populate the gameworld are the main draw. What made TW3 so memorable was Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, the Bloody Baron and all the stories surrounding those characters. The game world itself was secondary to the experience.

If a company is making an RPG where characters are the primary focus rather than the world that they inhabit, the storytelling just does not land as well if the conversations are portrayed realistically or cinematic, but one or more of the characters isn't speaking. It's just not immersive. The one exception to this is isometric RPGs and that is because the story isn't being presented in a cinematic or realistic way. The lack of a voice then is not quite as jarring.

Totally disagree as a player with Beth from Morrowind onwards the range of characterizations or the personality you want to create is as open as your imagination. Multiple Races, Multiple Racial Skills, Star Sign Skills before you even get to deciding what form of build your going for. I can and have played as the major character type to be the "typical' leader of a Faction, the same voice on all of them would ruin it. The only reason it works on the games you mentioned is they are stuck within a set character, apart from FO4 you could be 'The hero' (or not) in any way you wish and as whoever you wished.

Your character in any of their games is just as important as the world around them, the only difference is how 'you' view the games and how they are played. That's not how a true long term Bethesda player looks upon their games, they are the most immersive games you can play (if your into them) and they have never needed a voice. Your obviously not a long term Beth fan as in general we would never relate to them as simply a sandbox game, they are more of an open RPG than Cyberpunk is for example.

People play as traders, using the world to travel selling their wares just as one example, others play the games as if they actually live in there. Creating a daily routine that works around other aspects of the game, that's way beyond a sandbox and way beyond what many other games can offer you. You know not of what you speak.

I feel more in tune with my Beth characters and their differences than in any other game, Cyberpunk has no real difference between the 3 types other than the beginning. Then it seems to be everyone plays the same character after a point. But at least it's 1st person so you can actually be the character and not sit there watching them like a movie, a big plus.

 

[animalfather]

not having a voice is so ghetto

 

[mewpokemon]

Hmm... I think its okay for story telling to have a protagonist that comes with some baggage and that's what I think VO adds to. There needed to be more diversions, more paths though the dialogue and so the VO in the game breaks but its otherwise not done too badly.

Having two VOs for each gender would be exceptionally nice but its a very large amount of dialogue already.

If they could use AI to generate VO, I'd love to be able to control the parameters for the vocalisation. That would be great and make up for the machine quality by a long way. Being able to make your character sound however you want would be amazing.

But they could still do this with IBM's AI... Might cost a bit but possibly less than getting more actors. *sigh*

 

[BretonWarrior]

I agree that a voiced protagonist can be immersion breaking, especially in older games that had less available memory to store lots of different vocal clips for use (imagine characters that repeat the same dialogue over and over vocally - annoying).

However, in this day and age we can synthesize a human sounding voice almost near perfectly and there could have been variables which change the tone and characteristics of the protagonists voice in this game if they had used some kind of text-to-chat speech synthesizer instead to voice the protagonist. This tool could be used from within the character creation screen as well to adjust precisely the pitch and tone you wish to emulate.

But hey, I'm just your average joe.. I'm no major game developer or top gaming executive even.

I'd have to agree, my perfect answer to all this is a On/Off button 'Voice or No Voice' then a variety of voice options or as you say a way within the settings to just adjust the 'sound' of your voice. Then it does not even need additional VA just set the 'equaliser' settings as such when you start the game.

The actual discussion of Voiced or Not could so easily be made irrelevant by offering (very simply) one variable voice or the subtitles instead of your voice. In a conversation real life I hear myself of course but I'm focused on what the other person is saying. In a game I have a small amount of responses in general, once I've done that bit a few times the voice becomes annoying as it's just repeating everything (which obviously feels false) and generally in the same voice. Although some games do not even give the variation in character type to warrant different voices, you are what the Dev gives you to play.

Although I do agree with whomever said 'V' is a good VA, same as the female in FO4, she played the part well. I hated the addition but can't fault her quality, the Male well that's something totally different, IMO.

 

[Obstructionist]

you are supposed to be 'whatever you want' a voice ruins that

I never found myself having an issue with that. At least not the voice itself, if you wanted to say adding VO limits the available reactions the PC has to situations that I would agree with. Not really feasible to add half a dozen responses to every interaction when you have a VO budget.

as did forcing you to be a Mum or Dad in FO4

That I 100% agree with. Also tying them to a given career pre-war, not that Beth adds skill checks in conversations anymore anyway that make it incompatible with playing smart/dumb/sly/etc. characters anyway.

Those totally open games like TES aren't what CDPR does anyway though. V is as much a set character as Geralt was.

 

[Galerion90]

I prefer voiced. I mean I get the argument that voiced can hinder RP but in Cyberpunks case the problem is not with it being voiced directly but with the way it was structured.

A Corpo should not sound like or handle things like a Street Kid/Nomad at all. The difference between Street Kid and Nomad is less but still there is one considering the very different environments they were raised in. I think we can all agree on this and this is exactly where the game messed up. Because all these very different backgrounds are put into the exact same place and then you have a single voice actor who is supposed to account for all of them throughout the entire game. That is impossible and you have to find a middle ground. One that will not be able to satisfy everyone and hence why we ended up with a character that isn't offensive but also quite generic and not really memorable.

For an example on how to do it right you we just have to look at Mass Effects Commander Shepard. You also chose a background, psychological profile and have the Paragon/Renegade system but those things are minor and just support and put a little twist on what you mainly are and what the focus of the character is. You are an accomplished elite soldier, a high ranking officer in the military and the first human Spectre. The game makes it very clear what you are and what you are not. So the voice actors and the script had to just focus on this baseline and make it work and they certainly did. That's why Shepard as a character works and is so beloved by many. No matter what you said or did the game tried its best to support it and make it feel like Shepard is truly your own character and not just the plot device that guides you through the story.

I found the voice acting of Female V pretty good actually so I can't blame her performance at all. It's the script that was given her where the problem lies.

Considering the game that CP2077 ended up being CDPR should have made V a more focused character like Geralt or Shepard. This current compromise is primed to lead to situations where your RP is smashed because it's at odds with the story that CDPR wants to tell in that moment.