Main character: Voiced or non-voiced?

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Do you want a voiced main protagonist ?


  • Total voters
    39
I can't decide on this one.
I have one foot kicking about in the past where your character was never voiced, and all the usual arguments to support that, and my other foot is kicking around in the near future where voice actors are now robot voices that mimic human speech and inflection perfectly, with only plain text and some standardized extra notation like a music score to define pacing, pauses, drawn-out pronunciations, and other wee bits that tend to put character into speech.
With intelligent text to real speech software, for any language, any accent, any voice, there very well could be a several different voices to choose from, with preferred regional accent, as well as personal personality quirks of speech to choose from for a custom, near-unique character build, just like you're choosing face, hair, and other physical options.
All that could potentially come without much extra bloat to game size, without the requirement of prerecorded dialogue as the intelligent speech proggy could run off a plain text script with variation of pseudo-musical notation to define gender, pitch, pacing, language, accent, and all those other variables.
I think that technology is only in the demonstration phase now and leaking into the deep fake market, however that works, but, as the technology advances in sophistication, we could very well see it applied to gaming for, unique, voiced characters.
While this could potentially cut costs and development times, I'm going to feel a wee bit sad for all the voice actors that will have to find another profession and/or compete in an ever shrinking market taken over by machines.
 
No. I definitely do not want a voiced protagonist.

All it does, is it forces characterization where it shouldn’t, and worst case scenario, the voice is so annoying it’s a pain to listen to throughout the game - it hurts the experience (this was already somewhat present in the trailer and the demo). And even in the best case, listening to gets really old and distracting in the long run... especially in subsequent runthroughs.
 
Has pros and cons. While it was and might still be normal or occurring in games, I sometimes notice myself that I notice (derp) the lack of PC, player character, voice. Which tends to "pull me out" of a moment, if that makes sense. A very figurative example would be dreaming and realizing that you dream, which kinda pulls you out, if it makes sense.

Then again, countless times I just overlook or "overhear" it and do not mind it, picture my own response, whatever. A non-issue, of sorts, for the rest.

Having a voice is more immersive, it blends in better and if it's not subjectively annoying or obnoxious for the player, it can be a cool addition worth the time and money. Time and money is the same downside, however. Developers have more leeway with unvoiced protagonists and responses to and from them as it's easier and quicker to add more dialogue options than you would have if you had to voice every additional line.

In the end I wouldn't mind either for this.
 
I voted for voiced as i think it is needed for Cyberpunk 2077 but i can play both kind of games without problems.
 
There are games that are both voiced and a RPG.

Yeah its, but it would be much wiser to draw a line between them. There isnt that many genres in game industry. But understandable companies want to get them both to please bigger crowd to get more sales.

Going off-topic. Would it be fun when virtual reality comes we could RP movies? You could watch the movie from the main characters eyes or something like that.
 
I would like voice pitching options like in Operation Flashpoint, so you can still have some freedom while this doesn't imply to make new recordings.
 
Silent protagonist means devs need to search for other means of storytelling. You can't just load a cutscene and make a player watch it. It has it's benefits and disadvantages. Benefits - player is more involved in the process. He either has to listen to monologue or actively participate in a discussion. Player also can imagine his own voices or some other voice, isn't tied to what devs came up with. It suits much better for FPP. TPP is trickier, but voiced protagonist is mostly useful in cutscenes. Or in case of a predefined protagonist.

Since CP77 is a FPP, an RPG with a generated protagonist, I seriously think the voice isn't needed. It will only hold back roleplay aspect. But oh well too late for that.
 
I'm generally neutral about this topic.
I don't dislike either voiced or mute protagonists as general approaches.

BUT

If you make your main character voiced, you better put some effort into not making him/her too obnoxious to listen, because few things are more off putting that playing the role of a character that's supposed to be you but you end up finding completely insufferable to listen. Especially in a RPG, where you are supposed to define its personality.
 
If you make your main character voiced, you better put some effort into not making him/her too obnoxious to listen, because few things are more off putting that playing the role of a character that's supposed to be you but you end up finding completely insufferable to listen. Especially in a RPG, where you are supposed to define its personality.
I dunno, I have to listen to myself talk sometimes in recordings and it's insufferable. IS THAT WHAT I REALLY SOUND LIKE? Joking aside, the point is a person can be annoyed with their own voice.
 
if the player won't b able 2 modify v's voice, i find it bttr 2 make character completely mute like in fallout 3
i remember fallout 4 male voice being so bad i didn't finished the game XD
 
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