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

Mass effect 3 was really fun with a voiced protagonist. I'd like the protagonist voiced in BG3 too. Makes all the talking bits really enjoyable for me and much more cinematic to play thru.

Same here.
I really hope they give us the silent option, and drastically reduce the camera-time focusing on our characters doing these weird poses

I really hope the MC will remain as silent as possible. I can hardly stand those few lines the MC says right now. Less voice acting for the MC and more dialog options please.

I agree. Partial VO or no VO.

Without a doubt VO brings value to a game, same with directed cinematic - but it’s a question of what the game tries to achieved: be a pre-directed spectacle to be watched or give player as much choice and agency in shaping their character as possible? Spicing up presentation, unavoidably leads to limiting the player input - even choices and reactions are plenty, those choices are scripted, directed and recorded by 3rd parties, unaware of our intentions as players. That a big potential problem in an RPG.

I really don’t think getting closer to Uncharted level of production should be a goal of an RPG. I found talking heads detrimental in Dragon Age: Origins, and I am yet to be convinced by BG3. A sheer amount of animation and camera placement requires to make talking heads pay off is staggering. Even very limited in RPGness Mass Effects couldn’t keep up. Witcher3 did well, but.... that’s was a single character actionRPG, with a pre-determined and defined protagonist.

They've already gone with the cinematic path for dialogue though. At this point having every character be an active participant except the MC, who's just a mute observer, feels a bit jarring.

The production of this game is momentous with all the voice acting. I hardly doubt it'll be so hard to have the PC be voiced acted too. The already have given the PC facial expressions during his voice options. I hope they come to flesh it out more and give us more voices to choose from and bring our PC to life.

For me nothing would be more jarring than a voice that doesn't fit my character. It would a real waste of money to provide enough voices to fit all possible MC types, imho. And even if the voice was right, intonation might not be.

No it doesn't, it feels nice and comfy.
Also, making silent protagonist an option costs nothing and would make a lot of people happy.

I agree that currently lack of PC VO is jarring, especially that they attached hilarious animations to him/her anyway. I read that they will have full VO, and I believe them. It makes more sense to me with their current design, then not doing PC VO. Even if they won't do it, it won't alter existing decisions, so 🤷. Might as well have that VO so streamers don't have to do their own reading.

But from a purely theoretical point of view, if we were to keep PC mostly silent the simple solution would be keeping camera away from PC - there has been plenty First Person RPG with a silent protagonist and it works wonderfully. But yeah, cutting back to silent PC in otherwise fully voiced game has been awkward since KOTOR.

This is one of the main wastes of time and money so many games fall victim to.
One more reason Fallout 4 was so bad compared to New Vegas. They poured time and money into useless things instead of making an RPG.
I don't need to hear my own voice, ever. Actually seeing the entire dialogue choice before I choose it is enough. (It's a problem when you don't know what you're actually about to say, but hearing the voice AFTER choosing makes no difference anyway!)
I support the current state of a voiceless protagonist so they can work on things that matter more for the RPG experience.

+1

More choice is never a bad thing. Reading hundreds of lines of dialogue is prohibitive for a LOT of people, particularly in games with a more mature target market like BG3. Us old farts are blind as bats and time poor.
Also, more accessibility is never a bad thing. There's a vast difference between "we're adding this because it makes the game accessible to and playable by more people, and it might appeal to a niche of players. Things like spoken dialogue ENHANCE accessibility.

Ditto for FPS etc. The amount of games that get restricted to FPS/completely overlook people with migraines/vision impairments/disabilities/colour blindness/extreme motion sickness just because "X style of game is crap and for casual players and only losers like it anyway"TM (always said with a superior sneer) is mind boggling. Just make accessibility a NORMAL part of game development ffs. It doesn't take away from anything and it adds so much more for so many more players. I for one am sick to death of seeing people with health issues and disabilities being excluded because it's "too expensive or inconvenient" to just do what should be a NORMAL part of development for EVERY game.

And hell, people who actually need voiced dialogue/accessibility have had no choice but to skip oodles of dialogue/gameplay for decades. Everyone else spacebars through dialogue after the first shot anyway, so it's really not changing much for those who don't need it even if the devs don't add a "keep silent protagonist" option.

I really miss briowares circle dialog option wheel. It just made game look better, over the "pick option 1 thru 6" dialog list. I feel like Larian is making some big steps in all departments. Would love to see a new approach there in any new creative way than a list of sentences.

Is DnD not the focus of the morality chart? The whole good neutral evil chart? I hope Larian takes a chip off the old chart and let's players decided whether they are true neutral and good. Or maybe just chaotic evil haha

[img] https://imgur.com/a/YdV7wX6[/img]

So then you support the option to have a silent protagnist then.

I think most of us that want a Voiced PC are not opposed to the option of them silent. Thus "give us the choices."

I support the OPTION yes, as long as there is an accessible option as well. I think there should be BOTH. That said, if I had to choose one or the other (not ideal) then I chose the one that lets people who are being physically hurt or are unable to play if there is no voiced option.

If you have a voiced protagonist and you DON'T want to hear the voice... Just do what everyone else does and spacebar through it. Or have the captions on and turn the voices down to silent in options. People who DON"T want it already have the option to get rid of it when it comes down to it. Trouble is most people who are so adamantly against it are just railing against it because "I don't wanna" will win out over "I'm not fond, but if it's causing harm I can work around it" practically every time. Just look how many people are willing to kill granny over a piece of fabric over their mouth. People hate giving others the compassionate option.

Do you have a link to this please? This would make my day!



In a single player setting this makes sense, but in multiplayer it can be useful to see the other player's choice being played out because they probably would not have read your selected option before you selected it.

I'm sure even if they added voices, they would give us an option to mute them anyway. Otherwise, you can default back to spacebar'ing through everything as a few people have pointed out.

In twitch terms this is a 4head. If you have a silent protagonist and you WANT to hear the voice... just do what everyone else does and read it out loud!

Anyway, after playing a bit of Cyberpunk i really hope they either keep or don't remove the option for a neigh silent protagonist. Been playing a lot of CRPGs these last couple of years and i'd forgotten how annoying it is to have the idea of who my character is being completely subverted by how they're voice acted.

Only game that i can think of that did blank slate+voice near flawlessly is Mass Effect. Most others just just feel too railroaded one way or the other, like the Inquisitor (DA:I) and the Sole Survivor (F4) writing and VAs really only fitting good character.

After playing Cyberpunk, I lothe voice acted protagonists even more. I made I dark skinned brother and from the get go immersion was completely lost. Most games 100 percent favor specific backgrounds. It does not work in roleplaying. Its brother Commander Shepherd all over again. It really really reaaaaaally sucks.

Sooo everyone who's vision impaired, can't read very well, gets migraines reading walls of text and just plain doesn't like the things that you like has to suck it up because it's too much effort to turn the volume down, turn on subtitles (which is what you want anyway) and hit spacebar when you're ready to read the next line (which again is what you want anyway).

Nice to know who matters in the world.

A lot of assumptions you have there. First off you know it's ridiculous to turn down the volume for the main protagonist then turn it up for the other characters. That's comically ridiculous so I won't even bother talking more about that. Second not reading well? Do you mean skill, being lazy, or a disability? Sounds like a reach there, so you will have to clarify what you mean about that. Wall of text? What wall of text? Do you mean the lines in the subtitles? Or do you mean the options for responses are too long and/or too descriptive? I would assume being descriptive is a good thing so you know exactly what a dialog option actually means.

Don't give me some dramatic overly emotional nonsense. Do you want options? Make a disability mode that includes descriptions for almost everything. It's like audio logs. It's actually closer to DM'ing in real life too. Hell I'd even give it a try if they make it well enough.

I can't believe someone tried to bully shame me for lack of black voices using disability as a pity weapon. It's you who should feel shame. Unbelievable. Are there no rules on the forum against this?