Having your character talk during cutscenes

[Kallera]

I dont think because a company does it poorly that the idea itself is poor. In that matter anything FFXIV 1.0 did was a horrid idea and Yoshida made a horrible decision by keeping anything it had. (which some argue lol) But I know most people felt comfortable keeping most aspects but just reworking it a lot.

Imo, not a horrible idea and I think you are being highly unfair by pointing out mmos that failed entirely as example why the idea is bad.

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 Elvaan lass, though, I'm all for it.

[Kallera]

That would not fly for me.

Unless I'm the one typing what Gramul says, he ain't talking.

Better the Gramul we need, than the Gramul we deserve...Twelve, we'd probably end up with strawberry haired Zeid talking.

[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.

[Kallera]

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.

Mass Effect 3 is a single player RPG with Shepard. If Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer only allowed you to play male or female Shepard voices, that would only be a sampling of the problems you'd have in a MMO with limited voices.

And that's not even going into the costs as the MMORPG expands in recording new lines and keeping said actors available, making much more difficult than with its smaller cousins.

[Gramul]

Better the Gramul we need, than the Gramul we deserve

I...I'm not sure which is which.

[Shougun]

Let me restate then. I think it's a terrible idea if the intention is to promote any connection we have to our characters. I'll agree that having our characters take a more active part in cutscenes would be nice, and having us grunt or laugh or sigh or cough or whatever would be fine, but the very second your character opens his mouth and spouts off a two sentence statement, using sentiments you yourself would never use, I can guarantee that you'll feel less connected to your character. It doesn't matter if this dialogue is voiced or written, in the end the writers are choosing to speak for you, which just can't work. The only possible way it could work is if they gave us speech options. Mass Effect did it beautifully, with the vague "gist" statements on the wheel that led to a more in-depth and lore-friendly statement by the main character. Even if it wasn't exactly something you'd say, there was still some connection because you chose for him to go in that direction.

I didn't use the example of the other MMOs having failed for having done the voiced character thing, I simply meant that other MMOs did it and it doesn't work, in my opinion. I'm all for having Llen grunt hit in a cutscene, or growl in an angry way if some guy is being a jerk, or gasp in shock or express sadness at something horrific having happened. Character integration into cutscenes can be achieved perfectly well without having our characters see something bad happen, take a knee, and say, "Oh, woe! I can't believe something like this happened! I'm angry, and I will vow to make them pay. Whether they pay with coin, or pay with their lives, they will pay! FREEDOM!" or some such nonsense.

I suppose everyone connects differently and/or has different points at which connections can fail and in general the experience isnt hindered.

As silence or any other type of emote is also an action that a player may have not personalized. It seems you have no problem with those types of actions (probably because they tend to be subtle) vs actual vocalization (in this case written vocalization lol).

I on the other hand prefer the general choice of action and accept that it may not be 100% my ideal moment because its pretty much impossible to do that (similar to how you point out Mass Effect has "gist" choices that include dialog and emotions).

Of course if the character isnt meant to be "mine" then I start to judge on a character base not on a personal choice base, like watching a movie. so sometimes a silent character is cool and other times its like "why didnt you open your damn mouth and tell them that way was going to kill them."

When my character makes emotes that I dont agree with I feel distanced by him - specially in the opening scenes.. lol I was like close your damn mouth and go help out.

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 Elvaan lass, though, I'm all for it.

OP should edit their post but later they clarify they meant written dialog only.

[fusional]

Silence is a characteristic

just because your character doesn't have lines of dialogue, that doesn't mean they're mute.

the silent protagonist in games generally isn't actually silent. their responses are implied, and you fill in the blanks yourself with whatever you're thinking or feeling as you watch/play along. they're interacting in the story, but as a blank slate.

i never thought it was that complicated, but it seems even outside of preference a lot of people have difficulty grasping this concept.

[Shougun]

just because your character doesn't have lines of dialogue, that doesn't mean they're mute.

the silent protagonist in games generally isn't actually silent. their responses are implied, and you fill in the blanks yourself with whatever you're thinking or feeling as you watch/play along. they're interacting in the story, but as a blank slate.

i never thought it was that complicated, but it seems even outside of preference a lot of people have difficulty grasping this concept.

Its interesting it seems you quoted what I want to reply to this with.. so you misunderstood what you quoted.

Silence is a characteristic - its an action and response a personality. When someone says holy shit the town is burning down and I shrug off the wall and silently walk into the town to save everyone - I have developed my character and yet I didnt speak.

I understand this, obviously you do too - but you dont understand my post at all.

[fusional]

Its interesting it seems you quoted what I want to reply to this with.. so you misunderstood what you quoted.

Silence is a characteristic - its an action and response a personality. When someone says holy shit the town is burning down and I shrug off the wall and silently walk into the town to save everyone - I have developed my character and yet I didnt speak.

I understand this, obviously you do too - but you dont understand my post at all.

the direct quote was "Silence is a characteristic and If I wouldn't do it at that time then it isn't "my" character." you also go on to use "silence" as an example for a dialogue choice.

based on that, everything i've said stands- and it seems like you actually don't understand. to put it into context- just because the silent protagonist doesn't say anything at that time doesn't mean they're not actually saying anything at that time. whatever you think or feel is the response, which you project onto them. if you're projecting silence onto them as a result of not seeing or hearing lines of dialogue, well... that's on you.

the point is, silent protagonists aren't your preference and that's fine. but your perception of them being silent and associating it with being a characteristic and therefore 'not you' doesn't, in fact, mean they possess a silent characteristic.

the default response of the silent protagonist isn't "silence"- it's whatever you imagine them to say. so it's only a characteristic if you yourself perceive it that way (which i suppose is understandable, but not at all intended)

[Shougun]

the direct quote was "Silence is a characteristic and If I wouldn't do it at that time then it isn't "my" character." you also go on to use "silence" as an example for a dialogue choice.

based on that, everything I've said stands- and it seems like you actually don't understand. to put it into context- just because the silent protagonist doesn't say anything at that time doesn't mean they're not actually saying anything at that time. whatever you think or feel is the response, which you project onto them. if you're projecting silence onto them as a result of not seeing or hearing lines of dialogue, well... that's on you.

the point is, silent protagonists aren't your preference and that's fine. but your perception of them being silent and associating it with being a characteristic and therefore 'not you' doesn't, in fact, mean they possess a silent characteristic.

the default response of the silent protagonist isn't "silence"- it's whatever you imagine them to say. so it's only a characteristic if you yourself perceive it that way.

If they don't say anything at that time they don't say anything. I'm not going to mentally -force- extra scenes into the scene. Sometimes they do things like "explain the situation "yes/no"" and then you start talking and it fades out and fades in - that is something you can add imagination to I suppose.

But if not, that's not on me. You are being extremely unreasonable to defend some point like "If you don't see the purple dragon in the back ground well that's on you!" ... Except there was no purple dragon in the background and you are making stuff up to satisfy the point (imagining things your character says to say that's how he is, except he never spoke during the scene for you to be able to say he said anything).

Please don't make things up to make points... those aren't points - its just nonsense to argue fact with (saying you imagined extra scenes or something, if there are fade in fade outs for every talk then there are "in-between" scenes that you can say are designed for imagination but otherwise there were no scenes to explain the extra imagining scenes at that moment).

Assuming the point we are making is that silence makes or does not make a character easier to personalize - which I say it doesn't (for myself).


Edit: explained everything more / removed some unnecessary comments.