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Originally Posted by Qia
I've deleted the game's voice files just so I wouldn't have to listen to her.

That said i'm curious as to why they went with this type of narration instead of a more normal storyteller approach.

Amelia Tyler is a very capable voice actor, delivering the narration very professionally. Personally, I find her distinctive delivery fits well with the story elements we currently know, but I know reaction to voice and music is quite subjective. I am more disappointed with the Tav voices, which seem to lack variety and colour in the delivery, but I'm sure other players don't feel the same way.

As for why they use this form of narration, I assume it is because they have decided to voice all information delivery that they can, and a narrator cuts down on the number of lines that have to be recorded by all the companion/Tav voice actors to cater for all party combinations.

I would guess that in the full game ,the narrator will also be used as an intermission storyteller, similar to the Infinity Engine games. And as others have suggested, the narrator may also be expressing some aspect of the mental control theme that seems central to the game's story.

We are unlikely to know much more during early access, so we'll have to wait and see.

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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
Originally Posted by fallenj
Think its better than Alfira the Tiefling singing Weeping Dawn, kinda want to bash my face in when listening to this lady sing.
Thankfully it can be skipped. :3

Sounds like a plan

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yeah malady voice actor is not fit for narration. Or maybe she is, but not like this, it's horrible

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Originally Posted by etonbears
Originally Posted by Qia
I've deleted the game's voice files just so I wouldn't have to listen to her.

That said i'm curious as to why they went with this type of narration instead of a more normal storyteller approach.

Amelia Tyler is a very capable voice actor, delivering the narration very professionally. Personally, I find her distinctive delivery fits well with the story elements we currently know, but I know reaction to voice and music is quite subjective. I am more disappointed with the Tav voices, which seem to lack variety and colour in the delivery, but I'm sure other players don't feel the same way.

As for why they use this form of narration, I assume it is because they have decided to voice all information delivery that they can, and a narrator cuts down on the number of lines that have to be recorded by all the companion/Tav voice actors to cater for all party combinations.

I would guess that in the full game ,the narrator will also be used as an intermission storyteller, similar to the Infinity Engine games. And as others have suggested, the narrator may also be expressing some aspect of the mental control theme that seems central to the game's story.

We are unlikely to know much more during early access, so we'll have to wait and see.

did you play dos, narrator was great, malady sucks

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Originally Posted by etonbears
Amelia Tyler is a very capable voice actor.

I'm not questioning her ability, I just hate the way she sounds.

DOS:2 has a narrator/storyteller, what BG3 has feels more like some weird attempt at mixing narration with asmr.

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I really love the narration. It can be a little bit "sultry" at times, but I think that's more the tone of voice than anything that the VA is trying to do intentionally. I'm really glad they chose not to use an "old wizened man" narrator, this seems to me like a fresh way to approach narration in a game, especially a CRPG.


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It would have been entirely possible for them to pitch a pleasant-sounding female voiced narrator *Without* making it 80-90% sex... so, because female narrator roles are so uncommon, this comes off a bit on the nose, with a "it's female, so it must obviously be all about being sexy, of course" vibe... and it's unpleasant. The current iteration just makes me absolutely not want to listen to it drawling that condescending slur at me. Nothing against the VA herself, just the vocal direction is utterly inappropriate for a game narrator role.

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Talking about Narrator...


STILL WAITING FOR NEW COMPANION AND CUSTOM PARTY WITHOUT MULTIPLAYER.
BECAUSE WHY FUCKING NOT???
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Having been listening to a tonne of audiobooks over the pandemic, I was recently thinking that ideally a narrator should draw you into a story and not bring you out of it ie. break your immersion.

The BG narrator has a fine voice in her own right but it feels too contemporary and everytime I heard it, it felt like she was standing provocatively in a doorway with a negligée on. There’s enough sex in the game without the narrator conveying it too.

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Originally Posted by Niara
"it's female, so it must obviously be all about being sexy, of course" vibe...
I allways thought that this aspect is there not bcs she is a female, but bcs the Absolute is trying to seduce you.
I mean i know that she is *also* telling you your introspective thoughts, memories and feelings ... but i never find them to be so seductive as if things she is talking about are somehow related to the Absolute ...

But maybe that is just my feeling. :-/


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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
I allways thought that this aspect is there not bcs she is a female, but bcs the Absolute is trying to seduce you.

The absolute is a character in the story.

The narrator is *NOT*

Etruscan, above, is highlighting a fundamental part of what defines the narrator's role - that is, that it should focus your attention on the world, the events and the story, and that drawing attention To Itself is the exact opposite of this, and anathema to the role of narrator. A sultry, seductive voice is designed to do exactly this - draw attention to itself - and is antithetical to its job.

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but i never find them to be so seductive as if things she is talking about are somehow related to the Absolute

This did not translate with clear meaning; please try again to say what you're meaning here, as it doesn't make sense as written.

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Originally Posted by Niara
The absolute is a character in the story.

The narrator is *NOT*

We don't know if the narrator is or isn't a character yet.

Finding out who she is might be part of the mystery, but I doubt we'll get far with that in the EA.

If the narrator is a character, then the narration has a purpose. Persusasion? or something else?

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Originally Posted by Umbra
We don't know if the narrator is or isn't a character yet.

No. This is the fundamental misunderstanding that those supporting the 'narrator as Absolute' line of thinking continuously make. If the narrator is telling us, as given information, what we specifically, perceived, felt or sensed, then they are NOT an active character or force in the story. The narrator we have does this, and so they are not, by definition.

A narrator that is also a participant character does not do these things, unless they are narrating their own actions.

Art that contravenes this is not being mysterious or clever - it's just poorly composed and flawed; in short, bad.

Telling the player what their character *thought* or *felt* about something is an even more cardinal sin, but that has nothing to do with the narrator's VA, and lies more broadly at the feet of Larian's bad writing.

Last edited by Niara; 14/02/22 01:11 PM.
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As Umbra say ...
We dont know the full scale yet.

Sure Narator is not (as it seems so far) "a character", Narator represents our mind, our inner voice ...
But if that inner voice, our mind, our memory and stuff are twisted by the power of "some entity" so we tend to like her more, it kinda makes sense to me that voice will talk to us in seductive way.

I mean, when you say narator i imediatly remember that part when you pick up the tadpole from Eodwin.
When she was talking about how the tadpole recognize you as one of its own ... it seems logical to me that her voice is smooth as silk and captivating, almost intrusive. The tadpole is twisting your mind to like it, and your inner voice reacts on that in brilliant display of rule "show, dont tell".

But yes, there is allways option that someone in Larian just thought it would sound better this way and there is no deep thought behind it. laugh


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For me this narrator is better than many others exactly because she sounds as character with emotions and not an audiobook that usually makes me bored. Is she intrusive? - Yes. Does that make me pay more attention to her words? - Also yes.
Plus it seems to me that some of you here are stretching the occasional cases on the whole situation. Don't tell me the narrator sounds seductive when she talks about Timber (the territorial squirrel) for example, that's not true. She sounds clearly seductive when it's about the Absolute, tadpoles, Daisy... so I'm quite sure she represents the unnatural seductive side of the Absolute this way.

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With the way the game presents itself – that is, building an affectation of maturity using explicit violence and sex – it appears to me that the choice of the narrator is just more of the same. Well, we're a mature game, of course our narrator sounds like she's an operator of a phone sex line! Thinking in those terms, t's not that the narrator is seductive because she's a woman, it's that the narrator is a woman because the narrator needs to be seductive. At least that's how it comes off to me.

As many others in this thread, I find it off-putting, but it's too late to change anything at this stage I think. An option to mute the narrator sounds nice on paper, but it'd only make things worse in my opinion, as we'll be stuck with periods of awkward dead air during the cutscenes. Just another disadvantage of the cinematic approach.

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I have no problems with the narrator. I prefer having one as opposed to having to read EVERYTHING. And I have no problem with the voice actor. As Zellin said, she's way better than others. She seems to at least have a lot of feeling and emotion especially a Grymforge. Seems like she gets even more carried away when you reach there.

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Originally Posted by MrToucan
Thinking in those terms, t's not that the narrator is seductive because she's a woman, it's that the narrator is a woman because the narrator needs to be seductive.
Sorry, this statement is hilarious. This implies that only those who are attracted to women are supposed to play the game.

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I'm in team "Not too fond of this narrator" and I agree with people who seem to think her constant sultry, allusive tone seems to be a bit of a misfire.

That said, it's not something I feel strongly about (I don't like it but I don't hate it) and what's worse, I don't think it's something even remotely up to negotiation at this point in development. They are not going to burn a boatload of money just to make a second attempt at the idea. Not to mention she seems to be largely more popular than disliked, reading around.

I still think that both DOS 2 and PoE 2 Deadfire nailed their narrators far better, though. The second one incidentally also sporting a "pleasant female voice".


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Yeah, I also think she's not fitting for a narrator in a DnD game. She's way too sensual sounding. The narrators in DoS 2 and PoE 2 are great examples of perfect narrators, I agree.

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