Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Voiced Protagonist

That's quite standard for an RPG. For practical reason you role has to be somewhat defined - Vault Dweller for Fallout1, Village saviour in Fallout2, Child of Bhaal in BGs, Watcher in Pillars, Kingdom ruler for Kingmaker, Sorcerer for D:OS2 etc. D:OS though kinda used both RPG stereotypes giving you both "Source Hunter" backstory, and amnesiac ancent generals backstory - a bit of an overkill, though D:OS story is kniwn to not be terribly well thought out.

When it comes to an act of playing I find full VO to be unecessary - first of all I want to read what I want to say: I dislike "summaries" - like in Mass Effect or to lesser extend Witcher. And if I read through lines, I won't wait for them to be read out alound again.

Something I literally just thought off, though - if Larian were to do voice protagonists it would be super nice for Coop, which might be the main reason for doing it. Player choosing the line might not care for the VO, but player "listening" on the conversation would probably prefer it to be performed.

Sorry, I meant Divinity II, not Original Sin II (as in the one from a decade ago). You got a choice of six(? Or maybe six each for male and female) voices but they were purely reactive. I suppose a bit like Dragon Age Oranges too, for that matter.

Anyway, I'm torn on the issue, and unsurprisingly it really depends how well the voice works with my vision of my character. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't; so Inquisition was mostly okay but FO4 kept railroading me, which was quite annoying.

I'm in total 'wait-and-see' mode on this myself. In the original BG/IWD games I always kind of 'settled' for what seemed at least 'closest to the ideal' for the type of character I was playing, but ultimately the overall pool of voices for the various reactions always seemed too small for my tastes...which back then especially I understood of course, but still, I always wished for more. Then with BG3, Swen & gang keep talking so so many permutations that you can take, even with the dialogue numbers touted in PFH taken in, it still seems like a daunting tasks to have more than 3-4 voice options you can choose from for each gender (and even thinking of that many makes my head spin).

Luckily, custom voices were easily importable. I finally did a full eng playthrough of BG1&2 as I wanted to recreate Garrett from thief, and VO I found was in English (for obvious reasons).

I didn't even know there were full voice mods for BG1&2....my mind is blown! Next you'll be telling me that the controller UI has been ported to the PC Enhanced Editions too in a mod (hoping I'm manifesting this as I type it lol).

Back to Voiced Protag news, has there been any more word in the community updates on this? I know the Narrator wasn't in the old build videos, so that's been added, and I'm guessing they are doing it piecemeal and adding it as they finish VO work... this and the now confirmed partial controller support at Early Access launch is my 2 biggies.

Still think there's a good chance VO work not added until Version 1.0, but it would be such a delight for Early Access....

Having fully voiced NPCs, narration and so on is always preferable, even mandatory Id say especially in text heavy games. Adding a fully voiced protagonist on top of that however is a bit excessive. Single player should always be the primary focus in this kind of games and Im perfectly able to read my own lines. Not to mention it would only prolong the development even further and we dont need that.

Quality voice acting greatly improves the product. If the acting is poor, the game become distinctly cheesy. To get it right, Larian need to go about recruiting voice talent in an informed way and source their talent intelligently. The West End in London is a world famous centre for theatre and there are several famous drama schools there and associated agencies which could help. BBC Radio has a ton of talent used to entrance listeners in radio drama, technicians, actors, agents and so on. There is a world of talent there just waiting to be tapped. If that wasn't explored properly, then Larian have failed quite considerably, but there is no time like the present to start making contacts and find out what is possible and even doable:

https://www.backstage.com/magazine/...gencies-every-actor-needs-to-know-69817/
https://actinginlondon.co.uk/top-drama-schools-london/
https://millennialstudios.co.uk/blog/top-british-film-production-companies/
http://www.britmovie.co.uk/studios/

Some games are just brilliant for their voices. Two examples should provide an idea of what can be achieved:

Thief II
Thief II was specifically designed to showcase audio and focus on how audio could enhance a game. Many people don't know that the voice acting for both the protagonist, Garret, and the antagonist was provided by the same person.

https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=u5VI1QcOq74

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Alien Crossfire
The amazing milieu in this game was brought to life by the different characters which came vividly to life in their voices.

https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=ftefXCqil_U

Normally, I would concur with this statement 100%.

...but watching the gameplay videos, I feel a distinct inertia in the flow of things due to everyone else's lively performances....it highlights even more, the weird vibe of a silent protagonist when the camera angles are as they are.

When they talk as freely as they do as companions, then once the same characters are the PC they go mute, it just has that weird stop-go affect on me. In games like Wasteland 3, DOS2 and so on, I don't get that same inertia as the camera isn't right in my face, but it is here, and without VO work, it's straight weird IMO.

Obviously, Larian has said (in the AMA) that all lines will be voiced in the final product, and it's getting there with the narrator (for sure), it'll just be great to hear once it's fully realised.

I’m still not convinced that “fully voiced” means a voiced protagonist for every dialogue choice, but they may well be for some story related scenes.

Personally I think it looks much weirder watching someone else play than playing yourself. Especially if you’re watching someone really labour over every choice, or taking votes on what to say next.

I replayed a bit of Dragon Age Origins recently and I’d forgotten it was the same system. It seemed odd for maybe the first half hour.

What no one ever seems to mention in these debates is that the whole conversation is often structured differently for voiced protagonists compared to silent protagonists. With silent protagonists, you usually pick a line of dialogue, then they reply, then you pick another line, and so on. But very often with fully voiced protagonists, picking a dialogue option results in a two way conversation, and sometimes a lot more than that. You don’t just pick one line at a time, more steer the conversation and events.

You could be right re: what is voiced (aka protagonist lines) vs chosen...I think if there were flavour things said in each exchange of dialogue, that would satiate that aforementioned inertia, the narrator also helps a lot here: but yes, for sure, if the protag fully voices all the cutscenes, then that'd be a great middle ground.

Hey @Larian , anyone able to clarify what the AMA meant when it said all dialogue was voiced? The addition of the narrator of late makes me think it's all getting done, but it would be good to know expectations going forward...either way, guess we find out in 2 weeks aye!

It worked for me in Mass Effect; although it was more like you pick a general idea, then..."OK surprise me".

Before you ask: Mark Meer.

Now in this game you can live someone else's story too...so lots more variety.


I will be a custom character and it will be the first time someone reads for me... so no opinion yet...other than a toggle on/off can't loose.


Now for voice spam we always got the same actor for "noble", "gruff", "ruff", scruff", ect, ect...It could get expensive otherwise. Unless of coarse they used a pay per line site and got lucky.

`"My favorite actor was wine-o Bob from downtown Detroit"... I smell mod opportunity.

+1 for Mark Meer too: I love Jen Hale, but man......Meer just connected with me perfectly.

I know what the above is talking about with the camera angles making it more awkward with no voiced protagonist, it's all well when it's at Infinity engine angles, and you're not right up in the grill of the person, but yeah: it's far more noticeable when you're seeing facial animations like they're about to speak, then boom, no speech.

I am pretty sure the AMA meant that the protag will be voiced - but now I'm thinking it may be just referring to cut scenes and flavor voicing too: if that's the case, I have that there's multiple voice options, that would be a cool halfway point/middle ground.

Voiced protagonist works well in the witcher 3 for example because you don't have the choice of the character you are playing.

But in a game in which you can make your own character from scratch with your own name, race, class, background and so on, it's kind of tricky to record the right voice for them. When you play a pnp game, there is nobody else next to you telling your lines. You are the one in charge.

And in that sense, Larian made the right decision in my opinion. It remains true to a pnp session adventure. And it's much less work besides, cause it would have meant find 10 more actors for generic voices and also make all the companions having to talk from the protagonist perspective as well.

I can understand people preferring the money spent on hiring an additional developer to add features to the game. You could probably play the game without any sound at all! Page 24 of this PDF has the rates:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/contributors/bbc-equity-tv-agreement.pdf

I think most game studios are not aware of how much value a professional actor can add to the game, if the talents are well involved. "Here you are mate, read this. Bye!" Ideally, the actors ought to be in communication with the team writing the dialogue at an early stage. If the Art team and the Sound team haven't learned from the actors and incorporated this into the game, it is a waste.

IMHO Larian generally do a pretty good job with this, at least starting with Divinity 2 (Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity were their own thing in that regard...) I'm not sure how involved the VAs were then but the acting really fitted the game well and it's improved through DOS and DOS2 which seemed to have a lot of actor engagement, or at least it sounded like it. Contrasted with several games I've played where the acting really did sound pretty much like it was phoned in with no direction.

I would expect this to be at least the same standard as previous games and may even improve on them.

One thing I'm not so sure about is blowing a huge chunk of the budget on A-list actors: a number of studios have done that and tbh a lot of the time a jobbing actor better known for bit parts in the usual carousel of TV dramas and soaps can do as good a job and it avoids the pitfalls of a game character being eclipsed by their actor.

I am pretty sure that most VO is done by professionals these days. Honestly, I doubt the quality of VO comes from actors competence, but rather from the process - game development is a fluid thing and actor has likely little insight into the actual game. If devs don't quite know what they want, or are doing recording in an overtime hurry, or keep changing the script it all might contribute to the final quality of the VO.

I will be honest - I don't think you want actors to have creative control over their work - their contribution are absolutely vital but one needs to accept, what the product is - just like music their work is complimentary to the game itself, rather then the point of focus.

Luckily, Larian's VO has been rather great so far. If protagonist has full VO, that is a decision that confuses me - not because full VO can't be effective, but IMO it goes against what an RPG should try to achieve. Or at least singeplayer RPG - I can absolutely see the benefit of the full VO in coop. But can we really have one voice for all of the races? Doing one voice per race and sex would be madness - but then it is Larian we are talking about.

You need to play Beyond Divinity. Half the protagonist gets full VO so you get the best of both worlds; and it is truly the best!

Will do! Recently bought all previous Divinities on GOG.

Unless it’s Brian Blessed. Every game should feature Brian Blessed.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HWAu7CQK6Wg

If they do give the protagonist a voice, I am rather certain they will make it optional, as it is a rather divisive feature among CRPG players.