Why have voiced protagonist?

[kofeiiniturpa]

I wouldn't say TW3 had limited dialogue.

I suppose the comment refers to the potential of dialog as well as the idea of range of expressions.

Witcher 3 had plenty of dialog, but there it wasn’t so much about player expression or even that much about choice, since you chose a topic and then watched a (Sometimes minutes long) video about an exchange where your choice was but the first sentence.

But look at it this way. If the protagonist (the most talkative entities in the game), both male and female, were silent in CP, and the effort and resources of their voicework had been allocated to writing more (and more diverse, since there’s no vocal tone limiting the range of expressions) lines for the player and giving more voiced responses to the NPC’s, how much would you think the range of dialog would improve. Not 1:1, no, but plenty still, and yet the game’d have the exact same amount of voiced dialog.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

Witcher 3 had plenty of dialog, but there it wasn’t so much about player expression or even that much about choice, since you chose a topic and then watched a (Sometimes minutes long) video about an exchange where your choice was but the first sentence.

I'd attribute this to the way TW3 was designed from the ground up. Not because it had a voiced protagonist. TW3 was actually quite interesting with how the character expression and interactions could completely change depending on the dialogue paths you did or did not explore (a good example would be the Geralt and Yennefer dynamic). It would be true to say TW3 limited the ability of the player to express the character in arbitrary ways, sure. This was because they were handed a heavily defined character.

The more important part is, in spite of a heavily defined character and narrative, TW3 afforded a surprising ability to adjust the way this character was expressed by the player. Provided you actively tried to do so. In my opinion anyway. If you blindly selected any and all dialogue paths because they were there it's another matter. I can also think of numerous open world games with highly open ended characters where the scope of character expression wasn't a strength of the game.

But look at it this way. If the protagonist (the most talkative entities in the game), both male and female, were silent in CP, and the effort and resources of their voicework had been allocated to writing more (and more diverse, since there’s no vocal tone limiting the range of expressions) lines for the player and giving more voiced responses to the NPC’s, how much would you think the range of dialog would improve. Not 1:1, no, but plenty still, and yet the game’d have the exact same amount of voiced dialog.

I don't know how much it would improve because I don't know the impacts from cutting out the player character voice acting. In terms of resources it opens to be allocated toward improving the dialogue. Sure, if we say cutting it out opens up countless doors for expanding the dialogue and ways the player can express the character within it you'd get tangible results. We could make this argument for any other area of the game if it's the going assumption. I don't think this is a safe assumption to make. I think it's more likely the addition of voice acting in this context leads to a greater cost and time commitment for the developer.

The other issue I'd raise is a silent protagonist doesn't provide the player with greater actionable character expression (presumably what Dokter_fleck was getting at). Put differently, a silent protagonist doesn't grant you more options. It merely removes one defined option from being placed out there front and center.

 

[Rawls]

DOESN'T this game let you do whatever you want, kill whoever you want, etc..?

No. There are some essential NPCs, and no crpg lets you do whatever you want. Everything has to be coded in. Also, in this game, everything is hand crafted (no procedural "radiant" quests), which means it will follow a player-choice-based branching non-linear script.

the only thing that's separating V from the Dragonborn or similar is that they have a voiceover. If they didn't, it doesn't seem like they'd be very different (aside from genre and writing quality obviously).

No. CDPR focuses on narrative driven character based story telling. “In our game, in our company, always story design, so the story goes first with everything...” Edlerscrolls games are more event-based story telling. i.e. - "This is what happens, and we leave it to you to imagine how the character feels about it." In narrative based storytelling, they also show how the character and NPCs feel. The character driven emotional impact is essential to the cinematic nature of the story. That design choice has ripple effects that change many other design elements. And CDPRs strength as a company has historically rested in their narrative character based stroytelling. I think they should continue to play to their strengths.

 

[SigilFey]

Sandbox RPG games do not (IMO) need voiced protagonists, nor do I think they benefit from them. Quite the opposite, actually. Blank slates are beneficial in that specific context. Not in this context, IMO. What if Geralt were silent? It'd be weird. I wouldn't like it. V is, to me, still Geralt, just a slightly more freeform version.

Agreed. I think the two are mutually exclusive. I'd vouch to say that a pure sandbox would have a lot of its magic and immersion drained away if a voiced protagonist were included. Vice versa, I do remember being quite bummed when I booted up Dragon Age: Origins for the first time and realized the player character was silent. After Mass Effect, it was a bit of a let-down. I got over it, but I also enjoyed it in DA 2 and Inquisition.

On the other hand, since DA:O was pretty darn open ended -- I DID like the ability to imagine my own voice and personality. (Silent is my preference, as much as I can enjoy the VO when it's done well.)

DOESN'T this game let you do whatever you want, kill whoever you want, etc..? Maybe that's just my assumption and we need to see more but so far to me the only thing that's separating V from the Dragonborn or similar is that they have a voiceover. If they didn't, it doesn't seem like they'd be very different (aside from genre and writing quality obviously).

I don't think so, actually. Can you cause collateral damage and wind up killing random NPCs on the street? Wouldn't surprise me. But insofar as the story quests, I imagine there will necessarily be "essential" characters that can't be killed. Or that you won't have a chance to kill until certain points. [EDIT -- Oh, sooo ninjaed by Rawls while I was typing.]

That's just logical sense insofar as the game is still a computer program that needs to avoid "divide-by-zero" situations in order to progress. (Although, I will once again tip my hat at Black Isle Studios and Baldur's Gate -- the Biff the Understudy thing was genius. Laughed my toofus off.)

My main concern with voiced characters (aside from bad acting, lol) relies on the repetition of sentences.

That's probably almost impossible to avoid completely if the game is going to be as big (length and breadth) as something like Cyberpunk.

The thing is, CP77 seems to be that game in which you'll be able to catch parts of conversation around every corner of the streets ; in order to make that right, I guess that either 90% of the sentences are written so they can be shared through every NPC because the subjects are mundane (That's a common thing in many many RPGs : "It was rainy yesterday / I lost my cat again / etc.") ; Another (more complex) method could be to cut the subjects, locations, people apart from the sentences and distributes them at the right occasion (ex : "I lost my [dog / car / dad] again...), but I doubt that it will be the case since it would be a hell for voicing the translated versions then...

Actually, and this kind of goes with what you said above, that was one of the few things in TW3 that I thought was pretty wonky. Rather than have random NPCs just run into each other and trigger an exchange, CDPR built "scenes" all over the place. Totally unique characters, situations, and dialogue. Trouble was, they were always in the same spots...and most of them never changed. So if you, like I do, tend to learn the streets of Novigrad by wandering around, you eventually start taking the same route to get to places.

I eventually heard, "...a profitable case o' leprosy I had. Along comes this healer -- up he pops and heals me!" about 200 times. (Still laughed out loud the first time, though. Love easter eggs like that.)

 

[jt4gov]

Nope, definitely not. This is not an open world sandbox, it's a story-driven RPG that happens to be set in an open world.

The way the game has been presented to me, at least, is that this is basically the same type of game Witcher 3 is. There's a change in camera perspective and setting, but it's still fundamentally the same kind of RPG.

I think people are going into this thinking it's going to be the replacement for Bethesda's games in the "blank slate" sandbox RPG (which I'd be more than happy to see myself) instead of an altered state of their previous games with greater customization to the PC than Geralt.

In the case of making a story driven RPG like CDPR is known for, the games would profit from a voiced protagonist. If the game were to feature a "blank slate" protagonist in the case of previous Fallout games, TES games and games like DA:O or DA:I the game would be better suited to a silent protagonist.

Witcher 3 and Mass Effect would suffer from a silent protagonist, where as Fallout 4 and [IMO] DA:I suffered from having a voiced protagonist.

 

[Lucian06]

oblivion and skyrim protagonist has no voice, yet you have hardly any branched dialogue options (vanilla version)

 

[Suhiira]

Do they though? I've seen this comment several times. The idea a voiced protagonist somehow reduces the dialogue. I wouldn't say TW3 had limited dialogue. Compared to other games referred to as "RPG's". TES titles could fit for the silent protagonist side of the coin. I'm trying to think of all the games I've played and, based on memory, do not believe there is any clear consistency between the quality or scope of dialogue with respect to voiced vs silent protagonists.

Also, do the writers or designers of the dialogue even do the work going into the voice-overs for the protagonist? I ask because I really don't know.

Time.

With voice overs you need to have all the dialog locked down early and you can't change or add to it on the fly. Also it's VERY difficult to get the voice actor to supply the right "tone" to the dialog ... is a given line a statement? Questioning? Amazed? Confused? etc. How does the player view the line? The same as the VO manager? The actor? This is why some voice work is considered good, much so-so, and far to much lousy.

 

[atomowyturysta]

Let's be honest. If the game was TPP and no VA, that rant would be about how no VA is bad and how TPP is even worse

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

That's it.

OK. Case closed.

Question to those, who want to play mute character. How exactly are you "roleplaying" a silent protagonist? Are you reading out loud? Are you imagining how the character would sound in your head? What happen when you are a male but you are playing a female? Will you read out loud in high-pitched voice? Not want to be disrespectful, I'm really curious.

My suggestion will be to turn off all the dialogue sound off - this way you can roleplay not only your character, but all the other ones. Hell, do a stream play with your friends and they can read out other character lines loud for you.

There, "problem" solved.

Would the problem of unvoiced protagonist not be solved for you, if you read the lines out loud yourself or asked a familymember to read them for you? Or perhaps even had a voice simulator modded in?

Of course nobody (who's still in their senses) speaks to a monitor. That's not how it works. Read a book (read, not audio book). How do character voices come out there?

I don't think this is a safe assumption to make. I think it's more likely the addition of voice acting in this context leads to a greater cost and time commitment for the developer.

How so? And so what?

There's more management between the NPC VA's, and extra animation costs (since the PC's don't need that, but the NPC's do), but I did not say the ratio would be 1:1 for exchaning PC dialog to NPC. It won't be that. But if you had even half the PC dialogs turned towards NPC responces, that is already a lot.

The other issue I'd raise is a silent protagonist doesn't provide the player with greater actionable character expression (presumably what Dokter_fleck was getting at). Put differently, a silent protagonist doesn't grant you more options. It merely removes one defined option from being placed out there front and center.

Leaving voice out alone of course doesn't provide anything extra. Those additional options need to be written down and put in manually. But it would relieve the PC from the burden of predefinement and the confines of the voice work, and let the player take the lines as he pleases.

If this was the only way you could read 50 shades of gray (not that anyone would or should actually read it), do you think it would've worked for the women so well? There's a clear tone there, the removal of which would only a refined option from front and center...

Jesus... @Sardukhar or any other mod. Would you forward a note that this text editor is really messed up right now? Adding links or using italics, bolds and underlines messes up the whole post under them if you add them after the post is otherwise aleady made.

 

[Rawls]

Jesus... @Sardukhar or any other mod. Would you forward a note that this text editor is really fucked up right now? Adding links or using italics, bolds and underlines messes up the whole post under them if you add them after the post is otherwise aleady made.

I'll pass it on to admin.

 

[Rawls]

@kofeiiniturpa By any chance do you use Mozilla Firefox as a web browser? We've historically had issues with that after updates. I use chrome and cannot replicate the issues you describe.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

@kofeiiniturpa By any chance do you use Mozilla Firefox as a web browser? We've historically had issues with that after updates. I use chrome and cannot replicate the issues you describe.

Yes. I have the latest version of Firefox.

I had some suspicions it would be the browser since when I use a phone, there are no problems (aside from iOS' own set of cumbersomeness).

 

[doktor_fleck]

Would the problem of unvoiced protagonist not be solved for you, if you read the lines out loud yourself or asked a familymember to read them for you? Or perhaps even had a voice simulator modded in?

Of course nobody (who's still in their senses) speaks to a monitor. That's not how it works. Read a book (read, not audio book). How do character voices come out there?

I have no "issues" with both voiced and unvoiced option. Also, I don't think that having voiced character limits my experience in any way. Or vice versa. You know, I'm trying to not force my limitations (like inability to deal with voiced protagonist, like some people are having here) on other people creations, because it's kind of unfair to them. If you cannot "deal with it", you should act like an adult and find some other things to do. Playing ASCII RPG's for example.

I've read thousands of books in my life. Never, ever I've "voiced" the lines I've read, in my head. Thoughts don't have sound you know. But looks like that some people do make noises by playing or reading, considering the comments in this topic. I can kind of understand that - my one year old son is also making noses watching pictures in his books. I was just curious, considering the fact that people here are probably older than he, but they are still doing that.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

You know, I'm trying to not force my limitations (like inability to deal with voiced protagonist, like some people are having here) on other people creations, because it's kind of unfair to them. If you cannot "deal with it", you should act like an adult and find some other things to do. Playing ASCII RPG's for example.

You think this is about an "inability to deal with it" to which a solution is "please go away"?

It's just a discussion about a design choice. We all know (you should too, you big adult you) that none of this is going to change anything about the game.

But looks like that some people do make noises by playing or reading, considering the comments in this topic. I can kind of understand that - my one year old son is also making noses watching pictures in his books. I was just curious, considering the fact that people here are probably older than he, but they are still doing that.

That's an interesting comment. Let me reflect on it for a while.

 

[doktor_fleck]

You think this is about an "inability to deal with it" to which a solution is "please go away"?

It's just a discussion about a design choice. We all know (you should too, you big adult you) that none of this is going to change anything about the game.

No, it's not. This, like almost every topic here in this forum is just a rant, from people being frustrated that CP2077 won't look and feel as they imagined it. So yes, the "adult" thing to do would be to go away and find something more pleasant to do.

 

[Rawls]

Deep breaths everyone. Let's move on and stay on topic, which is about having a voiced protagonist, not the quality of other users' posts.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

EDIT - [redacted]

Anyway. The criticism over voiced protagonist, just in case it's gone amiss, is not about not being able to handle voiced protagonists and crying about it. Everyone here has played Witcher games, possibly Gothic and Risen series', Deus Ex and more, so there's no problem in handling character voiceovers. The point is about finding and discussing (or debating/arguing, which ever way one sees it) an RPG ideal as per how CP has been advertised to be hailing from CP2020 roots, and how you are supposed to "be" V, and how you're supposed to be able to create your "own" character (even if just a "version" of V).

Someone who's been keeping tabs on interviews, can dig up the quote about how CDPR doesn't want the voice to interfere with the players idea of his character (and tell me I'm bullshitting, if that's not what they said), so CDPR already kinda agrees with the criticism. But they obviously aren't going to completely jump ships on this one and delete all the voicework, but if my memory actually does serve, they've implied some measures to be taken over that (what, if any in the end, no idea).

The crux of the criticism is about the feeling of ownership over the character that comes with the ability to interpret him/her as the sort of character you have in mind, and going further from that comes the possibilities of wider range of dialog expressions (cowardly <-> heroic, silent and subtle <-> loudmouth, ingratiating <-> shy, nerdy <-> gruff, etc) that one VA can't do believably (and won't due to the costs of voicing all those lines). The voice can create a "feeling" about the character, this is true (Geralt and Adam Jensen have pretty recognizable voices), but it also detaches you from him, denies and distracts the freedom of interpretation and limits the ways to roleplay that character. The voice will always be the same inspite your characterbuild or characteristical idea, so every subsequent playthrough will also be largely the same. And if the voice is deemed intolerable, either by tone or delivery of acting, it can't be helped. This negatively affects the whole experience through and through; if one has to "suffer" through the dialogs, of which there is allegedly a lot. And it makes the character have unwanted character, the "roleplay" is tarnished and few options of developing a number of combat related skills isn't going to help.

That's about it.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

Time.

With voice overs you need to have all the dialog locked down early and you can't change or add to it on the fly. Also it's VERY difficult to get the voice actor to supply the right "tone" to the dialog ... is a given line a statement? Questioning? Amazed? Confused? etc. How does the player view the line? The same as the VO manager? The actor? This is why some voice work is considered good, much so-so, and far to much lousy.

I'm not disputing it takes more time to implement voice-overs for dialogue. I'm disputing the claim any game taking this route is going to have worse dialogue. Either because the dialogue itself is worse or the way the player feels they can express the character becomes more limited. Bearing in mind player expression here is kind of a misnomer anyway. You can only express what is coded into the game. Everything else is a mental construct.

If the argument is a person does not like voice-overs because they feel it interferes with their options for forming the earlier mentioned mental construct, I get it. I don't agree with this argument for reasons provided earlier in the thread (and for reasons presented by Rawls, Snowflakez, jt4goz and others I may have left out). This is not the same as claiming it's wrong.

If the argument is any game with voice-overs has inferior dialogue across the board I'd take a completely different stance. There I'd say the claim is incorrect. This was what I thought was being claimed. Thus, I challenged it.

How so? And so what?

There's more management between the NPC VA's, and extra animation costs (since the PC's don't need that, but the NPC's do), but I did not say the ratio would be 1:1 for exchaning PC dialog to NPC. It won't be that. But if you had even half the PC dialogs turned towards NPC responces, that is already a lot.

The point is nothing I've ever seen or heard leads me to believe development, in terms of the entire cumulative package, is zero sum. By this I mean Bob might be working on the dialogue. Bill might be doing the voice-overs for that dialogue. Bob's work on the voice-overs consists of providing information to Bill so he can translate the text to a voice as desired. The context of the dialogue, mood of the scene, etc. I don't think it's realistic to say Bill can just move over to writing dialogue instead of doing voice-overs.

The only logical rationale for Bill working on voice-overs causing the dialogue to be inferior is the time or cost components. That is, because Bill has to translate text to voice-overs it consumes more time or costs more benjamins to get both the written dialogue and voice-overs to the "finished" stage. This would presumably be where Suh's point comes into play. This only holds water if the allocated time or cost to finish the game in the case of a silent protagonist vs a voiced one is the same. In my opinion, this would be an example of a developer cutting corners. It's not necessarily a flaw with voice-overs.

If this was the only way you could read 50 shades of gray (not that anyone would or should actually read it), do you think it would've worked for the women so well? There's a clear tone there, the removal of which would only a refined option from front and center...

If the quality were that bad I'd mute the audio during the voice-over, to be honest. I'm not sure it's a fair example given how over the top it is either. It comes off more like a spoof. I'm not claiming this result cannot occur. I am saying it shouldn't if the actor for the voice-over and the execution is sound.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

It comes off more like a spoof.

It was supposed to. I thought the video was kinda selfexplanatory on that.

But there is some truth to it too. As I mentioned above (in the edited post), if the VO is deemed intolerable, what can you do? Surely turning sound off would make everything look weird as peoples mouths move but nothing comes out.

The point is nothing I've ever seen or heard leads me to believe development, in terms of the entire cumulative package, is zero sum ... I don't think it's realistic to say Bill can just move over to writing dialogue instead of doing voice-overs.

I'm not claiming it is a zero sum.

I'm not entirely sure I understand how "who does what" relates to my point. There dedicated departments handle their own jobs, no switchovers from VO to writing needed, or from coding to arts. This has to be planned, of course. Preferably from the ground up.

The point of the example was simply bring forth the idea, that if you save from X, you can spend more on Y or Z or A or B, or all of them. How much, that's a questionmark, but nonetheless.

 

[jt4gov]

The point of the example was simply bring forth the idea, that if you save from X, you can spend more on Y or Z or A or B, or all of them. How much, that's a questionmark, but nonetheless.

I understand and completely agree with this point and the suggestion made. In fact, it's one I've argued quite a few times myself on games like DA:I and Fallout 4. Adding a voice to a protagonist will limit dialogue options, will limit range of emotions and choices and will add both time and financial constraints. It also doesn't lend itself to playing different types of roles.

That being said, it all depends on what the developer is ultimately hoping to achieve with the game and overall narrative. While I absolutely hate when this is said, I think all we can do with this particular game is to wait and see how everything actually unfolds.

This is an extreme example, but imagine if Joel or Ellie from The Last of Us didn't have a voice. It'd ruin the narrative, because there isn't that same level of emotional attachment and expressiveness in the story. It's the same situation with Geralt from Witcher 3. I'd imagine this is the point to the voiced protagonist in Cyberpunk 2077. After all, we're playing the role and character "V". While the role is more open than say Geralt, it would appear it is a defined role.

Now if the type of game were Fallout and we were playing the somewhat open-ended role of the "Sole Survivor", then the game would be ruined by having a voice associated to that kind of character. It's partly where Fallout 4 suffers. They attempt to make you the "Sole Survivor", but in reality you're always going to be Nate or Nora, thus the game is in constant conflict with itself.

That's my two cents at least. I ultimately prefer the type of RPG where the role is open-ended and the protagonist is silent, but I'm also one who will more than enjoy playing as Geralt or V. I'm also one who doesn't compromise on those things either. I've been arguing against any inclusion of a voiced protagonist in any future TES or Fallout game, because as soon as the game is designed with a voiced protagonist in mind, the damage is already done.