Hi all.

This is both a question and a plea/suggestion.
Will - in the final release - the main protagonist speak? I know it is quite a lot of voice-acting but at least for me this is in fact quite important. I always hated in DA1, that (unlike to ME series for example) the main protagonist was mute.

You need to be more specific im affraid ...
Since protagonist IS allready speaking. O_o

Sadly he already does :'(

I assume he will. there have been many discussions about it and I realize that the unvoiced protagonist is very jarring for newer players, which I assume are the majority of players. I have no problem with it other than the fact it consumes a lot of resources, but if it will help bring more people into BG3 I think it might be worth it.

I assumed it would be a bit like DOS2 where your character speaks on occasion but no full dialogue

It's not 100% clear, but it seems we'll be getting full protagonist voice acting. Unfortunately.

The player character speaks a lot more often in multiplayer (when players can talk to each other ala DOS). So I assume voicing will be provided for singleplayer as well, eventually.

Unfortunately they seem to be forcing this on us. Hopefully this can be an option only.

I think the chosen maincharacter absolutely should speak every sentence in the final version.

Why? Because everyone else does. All those NPC's.
And of course the party-characters too sometimes as they bring themself in.

Don't forget that we are free to play the "partymembers" as maincharacter in the final version.
It would be absolutely awkward if they are more of a mute if played as main, as when they would be just a partymember.

But it breaks immersion and forces a personality on me that I don't want. Give me the option for a silent protagonist, seriously. It costs NOTHING for Larian to give me this option.
Just imagine if we get to play a half-orc or a lizardfolk and they have this posh british accent. It's going to be so cringe.

I'm glad that they are, and hope that it gets fully fleshed out by release.

+1

Also i dont see any reason for character to repeat every sentence you just choosed, since you should read it before you choose. :-/

There is only one plus in this, perhaps voice version will be more detailed than short version that you have chosen. But this is also a minus LUL. because phrase can be completely different.

No trust in LarianStudios finding a good voice actor huh?
Oh well the silent option is easily implented I think.
Lets just hope the developers think of it.
I have reasons to belief sometimes a solution is SO GOD DAMN EASY that no one thinks of it.


But I have hope for a good human voice actor. And I don't care if my character says it, or if I say it in my mind.

You mean dozens of good voice actors? So every "archetype" has its voice. A gruff dwarf, a cheerful halfling, a barbaric half-orc... Otherwise, no matter how good the voice actor, the voice is going to be off for many characters. Not to mention you'd only have four voices total for however many characters you make... They're going to repeat a lot. Especially that the current voices are similar.

The solution I always propose is to add a whole bunch of voices that would only be used for voicebarks. So like the current voice-over. That on top of those four fully acted voices (if Larian indeed decides to go with full VA) and an option for completely silent protagonist.

Disagree ... that option is pure minus ... huge pure minus ... :-/


Not sure about "easily" ... but certainly cheaper ...
If you only want to create two different voice flavours, you need to double price ... etc. etc.

And concidering how huge this project allready is, i bet they need to keep close eye on budget. :-/

Not sure if I'm in the minority on this or not but I really like the idea of the Protagonist speaking out loud like Mass Effect for example. So I'd like to see the protagonist here speaking out loud in this game.

I wish you were in the minority, but no, apparently everyone wants to copy Dragon Age and Mass Effect now...

The thing is that we have lots of scenes, showing our character close up interacting.
If he is always silent... it looks kinda idiotic.
Really hope that this does not come to pass.

Especially since our character tends to show his feelings. What are we? Link?

Well for me it is exactly opposite. It _immensely_ breaks my immersion if my character does _NOT_ speak his/her lines. I actually fail to even understand how it can break immersion for someone if he/she does but if yes - I agree they could simply give you an option to turn it off. Lucky for you, that's a lot easier solution, than what I need to be happy.

Despite it's simplicity, what I want will probably not be in game and we will need modders to get it done.

itz fo da bettah

I believe this example should help you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz9t5Gkj4WY&ab_channel=WhatCultureGaming

Its ofc a bit extreme ...
But reasons are the same, just not so obvious.

This is easy to solve. Just reduce protagonist screentime by ~90%. It's only awkward because of awkward camerawork.



That's another problem - custom protagonists showing emotional responses that are very theatrical and overacted, as well as completely unfitting (depending on the character - like squeamish drow).

This means that you are satisfied with the voice and intonation of your character, because they coincide with what you imagine. For me it pisses me off because they don't. The voice is boring. The intonation is wrong. This breaks my immersion.

Of course the Protagonist will speak. And SHOULD. Voice number 1 (male, for example) is excellent for multiple builds - especially Wizard Elves, Humans, Tieflings.

You mean its good for you, and that's all that matters right?

Some examples - your quiet rogue character has a raucous, overly fake and shrill voice. Your berserker barbarian has a clear and polite voice when you want him loud and crass. Any fake voices when you want your character to sound like a real person. Also the constipated sounding nonstop grunts whenever you get hit. Extremely immersion breaking when in stealth. This one not really dialogue related but still annoying.
I will only be happy with forced voices if we have the option to turn them off, rather sick of having to turn sound completely off in games.


Yes, this is a big problem. Will play with sound off if I am forced to (due to stupid sounding voices) but impossible to turn off stupid facial expressions.


Well lucky you for having a voice you want to hear. I shall respond in a like manner to you. The Protagonist SHOULD NOT speak as it is immersion breaking.


On a more polite note, I think we can all be happy if the option is there for both voiced and silent. Since we already have silent and they are supposedly adding the voiced, it shouldn't be hard to do.

I think that the point about custom characters is a good one. For some people the voices offered and entonation, work. For other doesn't. So I think that it would be nice, as an option, to turn off the main character voice.

And I think that people would also appreciate the option to select among 3-4 "personalities", one of them "stoic" that afect the type of expressions. But since I don't know if it is feasible, an option to be inexpressive might be ok too.

Yes as i've seen my halfling talk fluently in some cut scenes. Funnily if i reload the cut scene (scum save) the words are there but sometimes the characters lips wont move..

Weird bugs i guess.

I personally hate silent characters, it feels immersion breaking.