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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
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Its reactivity is top notch, but beyond that,
(...)
As an aside, I think people put way too much emphasis on every choice leading to something different. I think it's enough if every choice lets your character be different, and the world notices in small ways that difference. The small changes to dialogue that come as reactions to our choices are enough for me. I don't need every choice to come with some massively game-altering outcome, and I would hate if crpgs only offered those choices and not also the small ones that let us characterize our characters. That's something which BG3 is lacking and I think that the lack of voice acting makes it more possible to ammend that. I think it will very much depend on what one is looking from an RPG. Some people seem to value variety of unique content (I haven't seen that in my last playthrough), others satisfying linear narrative, others roleplaying possibilities. I have seen people bouncing off or criticising PoEs for stuff I most like them for. And there is no denying there is an appeal to seeing what else Larian has hidden in their game, though personally for me BG3 so far failed to provide interesting dilemmas. To me it is actually not too far from Mass Effect or Kotor in that regard - you pick if you are a good guy or an asshat and that's about that. That is why I find news that BG3 might not have full VO disappointing after all. I don't think it aims to take advantage of a silent protagonist, so it might as well not have a silent protagonist. We might as well have our fantasy "Shepard" while we look for all the quirky reactivity Larian has packed into their title.
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I don't know if I totally agree with the conclusion of the Paragon/Renegade divide, those choices didn't become so pointless until the subsequent games decided, for perfectly understandable production reasons, to avoid bifurcating the characters and world. Funnily enough I think most of the memorable Shepard moments come from the Renegade routes, maybe for the same reasons Prequel memes are so popular. Here are some of the threads that have been talking about player agency including how having a voiced protagonist influences that. (Ii think you might still have me blocked.... but oh well!)
Larian as done this all over the place, unfortunately. They forcefully characterise the player character in a number of places, either because they have in their own mind a character for the custom character (Such as the first "dead, good" line - there are many, many characters who would not make such a strong expression, not just more pacifistic ones - it's too strong a reaction for the game to be putting in the mouth of a custom character), or because they need that character to say or act a certain way in order to be a springboard for their origin characters; essentially being the patsy and a line-feeder to help their own origin characters show off their personalities (Such as lae'zel's warrior line). In this latter case in particular, the play character's personality swings around quite a bit, because they are made to mouthpiece whatever line they want the origin character in question to counter - and it's always the origin character countering and negating whatever the player character says, and having the final word, in these cases.
In each case where it's visible, the issue is that the comments are forcefully aligned and invested in one direction or another; if they are going to put dialogue lines in the player character's mouth and have them speak them without our input, they need to be neutral enough that they shouldn't conflict with a majority of personality types a player might be imagining; they currently don't do this.
It absolutely is a reasonable complaint, yes!
The underlying root of it seems to be that Larian are at first brush unfamiliar with, and generally not comfortable working with the idea that players may be interested in having their own personal character, roleplaying it, and having a personality of their own design in mind; when they first started working on the game, this seemed like a completely alien concept to them, and it hasn't improved much. It harks back to their days working on D:OS2 as well, where initially, origin characters were your only options - the ability to play a custom character was added later, by popular demand that Larian didn't seem to understand, but they did it because it was so strongly requested... but what they delivered was an empty sell with no reactivity and no content they they could engage with, and missed out on large swathes of content that was locked behind being an origin character. Coming to work on BG3, we have custom characters from the outset, because I believe it was contractually required of them, and because they knew it would be wanted... but they still don't really seem to "get" why players want to play their own characters, or understand it very well. JandK, you might also be interested in some of the other threads that brought this up by no means all of them, but the only ones I've got handy You could say this is a hot botton issue.
Last edited by Sozz; 25/06/23 10:24 PM.
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veteran
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Joined: Jan 2018
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I would say POE does a much better job of providing roleplay options within dialogue, but Larian do a vastly superior job of understanding the potential for roleplay outside of dialogue. That is something I really appreciate. The world’s reactivity makes it feel much closer to a tabletop experience to me.
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Joined: Feb 2023
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disappointed, this would've helped with the immersion, I can't imagine I would've enjoyed playing Witcher 3 that much wo hearing the beautiful voice of Doug Cockle
Anyway, 2 months left!
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2022
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disappointed, this would've helped with the immersion, I can't imagine I would've enjoyed playing Witcher 3 that much wo hearing the beautiful voice of Doug Cockle
Anyway, 2 months left! I have a lot of trouble imagining how a voiced protagonist would have helped with the immersion, quite the contrary in fact. Nothing takes me out of the game like hearing a custom character talking for me. I can see it work for an already well defined character, but Tav is such an amorphous blank slate that I don't see a world where Larian can voice act all contexts.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
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This is pretty sad news, was still hoping for full voice for custom. Thanks for sharing.
@snowram it breaks immersion when your main character is front center smiling and acting like a mime most of the time in cut scenes / dialog.
Last edited by fallenj; 26/06/23 05:40 PM.
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I want to quickly apologise. I got a bit incensed with my earlier response and kinda veered out from just discussing the topic and got into voicing my frustrstions with the game, and I feel I did so in an overly hostile and dismissive manner. That wasn't cool of me and I shouldn't have gotten caught up like that.
On the topic, I do hear people's claims that Tav isn't really a blank slate and so voice acting is appropriate. I don't think that's wrong necessarily, but if that's the direction Larian wanted to go, then they'd need broadcast that better in marketing and more importantly, gameplay. They should leverage that aspect of Tav as shepard-like semi-defined character to give our character more grounding in the setting, something thats severely lacking in Act 1 as a whole.
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They should leverage that aspect of Tav as shepard-like semi-defined character to give our character more grounding in the setting, something thats severely lacking in Act 1 as a whole. There are still origins. As Icelyn pointed out it would be a bit weird if origins are voiced but Tav isn’t - even in a single player.
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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Oct 2020
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This is very disappointing. In my opinion, it moves BG3 from being a AAA title to AA at best. Stupid cutback for minimal financial gain. Now we have to endure our MC acting like a demented mime artist. If this is true, Larian has seriously dropped the ball on a feature that was heavily implied would be present in the final game.
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Joined: Jan 2018
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This is very disappointing. In my opinion, it moves BG3 from being a AAA title to AA at best. Stupid cutback for minimal financial gain. Now we have to endure our MC acting like a demented mime artist. If this is true, Larian has seriously dropped the ball on a feature that was heavily implied would be present in the final game. There are AAA games that don’t have full voice acting. I never thought full VA for custom characters was heavily implied. Where did that come from?
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Joined: Apr 2023
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Oh my God this game keeps getting better and better!
I'm so happy! Seriously the only thing they need to do now is add a "no voice" option at character creation and reduce the camera focusing in on my character doing strange faces.
Thank you Larian!
(I'm not being ironic, I'm really happy)
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It's going to be so weird having this weirdly expressive, no voice muppet just hanging around while everyone else is talking with these super professional famous voice actors having witty lines and monologues. idk, maybe it'll work!
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I never thought full VA for custom characters was heavily implied. Where did that come from? There was a comment early in the Ea, from one of Larian's official people - either in a Q&A or on a stream, I don't recall which, where they said something to the tune of - and I am paraphrasing here because I do not have the source directly on hand - "Like the origin characters, the custom PC will be fully voiced". This has not been confirmed/reiterated upon since, and it's mostly just that one comment that happened early on. It does seem to have been one of the various many things that were commented early and that have since fallen by the wayside.
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veteran
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I never thought full VA for custom characters was heavily implied. Where did that come from? There was a comment early in the Ea, from one of Larian's official people - either in a Q&A or on a stream, I don't recall which, where they said something to the tune of - and I am paraphrasing here because I do not have the source directly on hand - "Like the origin characters, the custom PC will be fully voiced". This has not been confirmed/reiterated upon since, and it's mostly just that one comment that happened early on. It does seem to have been one of the various many things that were commented early and that have since fallen by the wayside. I see. Thanks for the clarification.
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There are AAA games that don’t have full voice acting. I never thought full VA for custom characters was heavily implied. Where did that come from? It was from AMA that was held on reddit before Early Access release. Some people disagreed if what they said meant the full VO was planned, though to me their answer was rather clear. You can judge by yourself: link to AMA itself Whatever they said, though, it is very old information, so if they decided change things around I don 't have any hard feelings about it. ![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/HH7wXwp.jpg)
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It's going to be so weird having this weirdly expressive, no voice muppet just hanging around while everyone else is talking with these super professional famous voice actors having witty lines and monologues. idk, maybe it'll work! That is why the camera by and large, should not focus on the face of our main character that much. Also, those goofy face animations should either go away or be severely reduced. Mind you, I REALLY love this game. BUT I don't want a cinematic experience where the main character is already played by someone else. I'm the one playing him, so I'm the one voicing him in my head. Giving us a mute protagonist would be the bare minimum that I expected, I am just hoping we can also reduce voicebarks and such.
Last edited by Brewman; 28/06/23 09:59 AM.
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Regarding the VO of the main protagonist, the best and easy solution would be to have the "mute" option in the settings.
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Volunteer Moderator
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Volunteer Moderator
Joined: Feb 2022
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For me, as I know I've said elsewhere on these forums before, a voiced protagonist is really important for me to bring my PC alive and make them feel present in the game world, particularly when other characters in the game are fully voiced. I know some people can manage to invest their silent puppets with character through their imagination and own voice acting, but I'm afraid I need the help of professionals to really feel my main character isn't the least real, interesting or charismatic one in the game. Dragon Age: Origins would be my undisputed favourite game if it had a voiced protagonist, but as it is I now find it really hard to replay and watch my character standing there silently while everyone talks around them. Whereas, despite the limited options, my "canon" Shepard feels both real and mine and I'll happily replay any of the ME games. I do understand folks' concerns that voiced protagonists might mean compromising on the amount of dialogue, but personally I think well-chosen, well-written dialogue is more important, and both that it should be possible to include enough such dialogue even if voiced to give us the flexibility to create the characters we want to, and that if the dialogue isn't well-chosen or well-written then adding more of it isn't really going to help! Lack of a voiced protagonist isn't going to be a deal-breaker for me, but having my character be vocal would have been among my top 5 wishes for the game to really live up to its potential and I am still going to keep my fingers crossed this is at least partly a false alarm! ... Larian do a vastly superior job of understanding the potential for roleplay outside of dialogue. That is something I really appreciate. This comment really resonated with me. I'm not sure how much it's the fact I've played and replayed the same bit of game and experimented with different ways of doing things more than I have with any other game, and how much it's Larian's approach to game design, but I've really felt when playing BG3 that the whole game can feel different playing different characters not just the dialogue and selections I make within it. My concept for my character affects how I approach challenges such as getting into (and out of) the goblin camp and Ethel's hut and so on, where I'll go and in what order, how and when I use stealth and so many other things. Even how much I loot! If Larian manage to build on this and provide multiple other ways to express who my PC is then it might make up somewhat for lack of voice ... though I'd rather have both!
"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
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Dragon Age: Origins would be my undisputed favourite game if it had a voiced protagonist ...
I do understand folks' concerns that voiced protagonists might mean compromising on the amount of dialogue, but personally I think well-chosen, well-written dialogue is more important Funny you mention it ... Just a question then ... would you concider dialogues in other Dragon Age games to be well written? Bcs quite honestly, i dont ... On the contrary, dialogues are imho one of bigest flaw of Dragon Age II. and Inquisition ... bcs in the end, it didnt even really matter what you picked. :-/ ESPECIALY in inquisition that even retconed some of your previous decisions. -_- //Edit: And when you start concidering characters ... In Origin your character was shaped both by voice (bcs each voice had different barks that helped describe your character) ... and by dialogue choices. In Inquisition you got ... how many, two i think? ... Voices that didnt even fit to either Dwarf or Qunari female, and was talking the same all the time. 
Last edited by RagnarokCzD; 28/06/23 04:34 PM.
I still dont understand why cant we change Race for our hirelings.  Lets us play Githyanki as racist as they trully are!
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Joined: Aug 2020
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... Larian do a vastly superior job of understanding the potential for roleplay outside of dialogue. That is something I really appreciate. This comment really resonated with me. I'm not sure how much it's the fact I've played and replayed the same bit of game and experimented with different ways of doing things more than I have with any other game, and how much it's Larian's approach to game design, but I've really felt when playing BG3 that the whole game can feel different playing different characters not just the dialogue and selections I make within it. My concept for my character affects how I approach challenges such as getting into (and out of) the goblin camp and Ethel's hut and so on, where I'll go and in what order, how and when I use stealth and so many other things. Even how much I loot! If Larian manage to build on this and provide multiple other ways to express who my PC is then it might make up somewhat for lack of voice ... though I'd rather have both! I think that ultimately a big chunk of my dissatisfaction with the game comes back to here. Without dialogue grounding me, all the rest is just "the stuff I do to get to dialogue and roleplay." I love picking dialogue options and making choices, that's the part of crpgs I always look forward to. If I could get a choose your own adventure book with equal or greater depth of character customization than a game like PoE or DAO, I'd love that game to to death and it'd probably be my favorite thing ever. It just doesn't feel natural for me to do a lot of the weird, random stuff the game let's me do. Playing characters that do that just doesn't feel right. I can't think in terms of "my character would approach by this route" if I'm left free form, it ends up feeling more like "Well I guess I'll try this way." Which is not nearly as satisfying. Maybe if I thought differently I'd enjoy this game as much as other folks seem to. But I guess it just means Larian and the games they make just aren't for me. Regarding voiced protagonists, it really is a matter of taste. I think for me at least, I'm constantly worried that voiced protagonists and the limitations on character expression they impose will eventually completely push out quality unvoiced crpgs, which would mean the death of the kind of experience I really enjoy. So I'm glad if BG3 really does have a silent protagonist since then at least thats a high profile game supporting voiceless protagonists.
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