Having your character talk during cutscenes

[KyahAlmasy]

I think its more that the idea lends itself more to non-MMORPGs, a story where there is single player, or a limited number of actors the player can assume.

A voice lends a personality, a look into what makes the character tick. For example, Saints Row 3. There you have 6 voices to choose from, and each handles the events throughout the game in their own manner.(one's a faux Jason Statham kind of guy, the other a typical rap star, another a bipolar lady seeing a shrink[and voiced by Lightning], and so on.) Within their own game sessions they are their own person.

But multiply that by hundreds of thousands of players, in one game? Not so much.

We may have the likes of default character like Derplander, but a MMO gives the option of the player to make their own story and adventure with their own created avatar. adding a voice with responses that aren't yours takes some of that narrative away, now your player is someone else, with shades of the default personality cloud who you are in chat.

The day they can make me sound like a take-the-wrong-things-seriously Duskwight though, I'm all for it.

I'm not so sure about that, I mean as the OP mentioned, Mass Effect gave Shepard a voice and yet you never feel disassociated with your character because it's you choosing the dialogue and what they have to say. A character that stands on the sidelines and never really makes any choices or effects the decisions made in a conversation gives the player a sort of distant relationship from the events of the game, as if we're merely observing a scene play out instead of inhabiting it. With a voice, we're taking the reins and gain control of our character, instead of being shunted to the side.

And I mean, personally I don't see why other characters having the same voice would effect how we immerse. In no instance are we going to be talking to someone with the same voice, or even hear the same voice in a cutscene because the scenes are specific to our character. After all, the voice we choose when we initially create a character is a product of our decision. I can understand why others feel differently, but I guess it's merely a matter of preference.