Replaying Baldur's Gate(s) makes it ever more clearer how much of a disappointment Dragon Age: Origins was.

[SofNascimento]

That's assuming that there is no tonal difference between telling the truth and lying, which normally you woould want to establish.

Click to shrink...

There is, but it's a subtle one. Subtle enough that you could record it as the same line. After all what matters is what the player thinks.

This is a ridiculous statement lol. Do you genuinely believe that people go "we're going to make an ok game with great dialogue choices!" It seems pretty clear that you have a pretty strong bias if you actually believe that.

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I believe people don't have a choice. Having a more "developed" dialogue system might simply take away resources that would go to make a better overall game.

 

[Reven Wolf]

I believe people don't have a choice. Having a more "developed" dialogue system might simply take away resources that would go to make a better overall game.

Click to shrink...

And yet you don't believe that having a voiced protagonist could also negatively impact the dialogue system due to it taking up resources???

Exactly. I'm seeing this "they dumbed down the roleplaying" at least since Fallout 3, so blaming this on voiced protagonists is ignorance or worse.

Click to shrink...

 

[Catshade]

I feel that every post-BG2 Bioware game is Bioware trying to recapture the lightning in the bottle and failed.

 

[Sou Da]

Love to reheat 2011 grognard arguments, also Tauraranto needs his neogaf tag back imo.

 

[SofNascimento]

And yet you don't believe that having a voiced protagonist could also negatively impact the dialogue system due to it taking up resources???

Click to shrink...

My point is that having all these true/lie options don't really make for a better dialogue system, it only gives the impression of a better (deeper) one. When you have enough resources to voice the protagonist you simply stop telling thse lies. To yourself and to the player.

The problem with DA:O is that it doesn't have neither the lies nor the voices.

 

[Freezard]

I don't agree about the universe at all. The lore in Dragon Age Origins is fantastic. The codex is one of the best ever.

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Word brother. The best I would say. I also love that every weapon and item has a description and history behind it.

 

[Yog-Sothoth]

DA:O best Bioware game.

 

[Reven Wolf]

My point is that having all these true/lie options don't really make for a better dialogue system, it only gives the impression of a better (deeper) one. When you have enough resources to voice the protagonist you simply stop telling thse lies. To yourself and to the player.

Click to shrink...

Except this is objectively wrong. Because in the very examples I provided, being consistently honest would result in increased (semi) hidden stats of your character that would further open up more dialogue choices for the player character. The only one "telling lies" to themselves here seems to be you.

The fact is having a voiced dialogue system pretty much always causes restrictions in the writing of the protagonist. Even Alpha Protocol (which does voiced protagonist with consequences very well) gets restricted to essentially:

1. Professional Response
2. Suave Response
3. Aggressive response

With Mass Effect it often boils down to:

1. Paragon Jon luc Picard Response
2. Renegade Jack Boue Response
3. Neutral response (if that's even an option, as often times it might not be)

Compared to something like Pillars of Eternity, or Fallout: New Vegas for example, the above is pretty limiting, as there's a significantly larger range of options for responses to flesh out the player character in their own unique way.

 

[Salsanta1373]

I gonna share my story of DA:O. Now, Im a younger person and I never played or even hear of any BG games. I discovered DA:O on a livestream on Justin.tv, (now Twitch), I bought it because was young a thought the streamer was bad at the game and made bad choices and I was like, I could do better. My first playthrough was a trainwreck. Anyway, I kept playing and discovered practically everything in the game. My favorite line in the game comes from the MC "How about I get you a ladder so you could hop off my back." The gameplay is ass, that it not a lie. It pretty bad. Mages became my go to MC to play. Anyway, the story is not unique, true, but its very well built. Someone one described it as lord of the ring and the hobbit rolled into one (the final battle had literally was a battle of five armies). The world was not fresh, but what was new was great, the quriary and the darkspawn were great. The game was ass and the world was not great but the story and character interactions held the game high up for me. I understand peoples want of of voiced MC but I have yet to see a game to be equivalent to a silent MC. You can create a character with a silent MC or insert yourself, but voiced feels to me that they give you a set character that you control. I have played DA:O around 30 or more times. I played every origin and created a a different character for each origin. What Im trying to say that it feels like a could make different MC each time I played. My conclusion here is that the game is ass, the world is not entirely unique, but the writing is up there for me as one the greatest out there. I never played any BG games, I will soon when the new game comes out. I know its not the best game, but I feel its the best written DA games.
Im probably the bigest DA:O nerd ever( and the only one that likes to play the fade every time)

 

[Laughing Banana]

Thedas seem generic as fuck at the surface level but once you dive deep into the lore and world building, Dragon Age's world is quite possibly one of the most interesting I've seen in a video game fantasy setting. So many gripping stuff.

 

[Jarhab]

I don't agree with the OP at all but I'm also not a fan of the D&D rule sets or the Forgotten Realms setting. I think DA:O plays way better than any of the IE games and I find the setting and lore far more interesting.

I also have zero issues whatsoever with non-voiced protagonists. If anything, I prefer it because it allows for far more dialogue options.

 

[Soneji]

I couldn't disagree more and think this is a very surface level take on the matter. On the surface the Dragon Age universe is typical Tolkien fantasy with dwarves, elves, orcs(darkspawn), etc. but how it executes each of these with it's own unique takes makes it one of my favorite fantasy universes ever. You bring up gun design from races in a futuristic setting as some point in ME's favor, this does not impress me at all in terms of making an interesting world and goes against what DA is going for on the surface level with it's trope standard weaponry for the races in it's world.

Dragon Age series beyond all else excels in having amazing party members, party member interactions both direct and ambient(no game has done this one better), in Origins especially having a quite high level of choice/optional dialogue that can even have you skipping whole sections if the game like Denerim's prison, and above all making you feel like you are having an epic LOTR style adventure all the way down to the cinematic finishing moves on bosses.

It is my favorite CRPG of all time and one of the GOATs of the genre.



This is the best video on the game out there, and goes deep into the plethora of reasons that this game is special.

 

[Teeth]

i just want to agree with the bunch in here that say that, while on the surface, Dragon Age's lore seems pretty rote, it's actually really, really interesting if you go at least one level deeper (especially after Inquisition/Descent/Trespasser).

And I also loved DAO ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Deleted member 49535]

Baldur's Gate 2 is still the best party based WRPG for the companions dialog alone.

But leaving that aside, yes, I think Dragon Age has always been generic and didn't really deserve this many sequels, Bioware should have made something new.

 

[Xagarath]

I feel that every post-BG2 Bioware game is Bioware trying to recapture the lightning in the bottle and failed.

Click to shrink...

I can't find it online, but I've read articles that BG2 had an absolute nightmare development due to the level and variety of content involved - the documentation we do have, for instance, says there were 290 sidequests to be designed, and more dialogue for one companion than for the entire playable cast of BG1 put together.

 

[Soneji]

I can't find it online, but I've read articles that BG2 had an absolute nightmare development due to the level and variety of content involved - the documentation we do have, for instance, says there were 290 sidequests to be designed, and more dialogue for one companion than for the entire playable cast of BG1 put together.

Click to shrink...

DA : O also had development problems for similar reasons. Origins is an absolutely packed game with tons of impactful choices and optional dialogue.



All of this is optional.

 

[NCR Ranger]

Dialog has always been a bunch of smoke and mirrors voiced protagonist or not, but anyone who even pays half attention would see that every time a game goes with a voiced protag the breath and depth of the branching dialog goes down.

Anyway, DA:O might not stack to the greats but it was the best most could hope for until the CRPG/Kickstarter revival appeared on the scene.

 

[Xagarath]

DA : O also had development problems for similar reasons. Origins is an absolutely packed game with tons of impactful choices and optional dialogue.



All of this is optional.

Click to shrink...

Have you actually played BG2?

I'm asking becuse I'm not here to criticise Origins - I enjoyed Origins - but BG2 is the significantly larger, more varied game of the two, and the level of optional content and dialogue in it is ridiculous. Whole large areas, sidequest chains and companions are completely missable, class-specific or tied to branching paths. Some in-game secrets didn't get discovered until seveal years after the game came out.

 

[Bastables]

Can you think of any voiced-protagonist RPGs with dialogue skill check systems as complex as New Vegas', or Shadowrun: Dragonfall's, or Pillars of Eternity's, or KotOR II's, for instance?

This isn't a 'got ya' so much as it is a serious question 'cause I'd love to play such a game! I love RPGs with voiced and silent protagonists, but for distinctly different reasons--a game that actually managed to combine a complex dialogue skill check system with a voiced protagonist would very much be the best of both worlds. (Well, mostly--sometimes I have a distinct voice for my protagonist in my head, which obviously isn't something a voiced system can really accommodate.)

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Can you think of a better antagonist than the master, a better showdown? The master was four voices acted by two actors.

Note that the dialog skill check system is utter arse when you see what Black isle did with this voiced interaction, it was not a skill check it was based on the fact that the player had to use their own judgement to argue with a being that did not care about humanities end, you had to argue him out of a plan by pointing out it would fail. This option would only come up if the player had asked questions and discovered evidence that the Mutent's were sterile and the masters plan of re population, progress was doomed to fail.

Now remember how you can get general winters (with your none voiced protagonist) to walk away from the fight by passing a speech check because you put enough points in speech. Or how you can talk Pres Eden to self destructing the enclave with a fucking 90% speech check? Is the issue with voice acting or that Bethesda has a utterly different focus to interplay/black isles team?

Because it's not the fact that general winters is voiced that makes him arse as a character, it's the writing or maybe just the different conception of what fallout is. The issues of simple conversation trees is not an issue with voices, as fallout 3 and Fallout 1/2 both exist with voiced npc's yet bethesda's by virtue of being a different company with different objectives and visions of what a fallout game is means that in the latter you get the good ending by interacting with the world and in the former you get it because you dumped your points in speech. The things people are concerned about in fallout 4 existed in non protagonist voiced Oblivion, fall out 3 and Skyrim.

 

[Staf]

I love both. But Baldur's gate 2 is the far superior game.

 

[Staf]

Oh, and silent protagonist is a much better fit than voiced in a game like Dragon age: Origins.

 

[Soneji]

Have you actually played BG2?

I'm asking becuse I'm not here to criticise Origins - I enjoyed Origins - but BG2 is the significantly larger, more varied game of the two, and the level of optional content and dialogue in it is ridiculous. Whole large areas, sidequest chains and companions are completely missable, class-specific or tied to branching paths. Some in-game secrets didn't get discovered until seveal years after the game came out.

Click to shrink...

Did I ever say that it had more content than BG2? Have you ever looked up the development of DA : O to know that it faced development hell? For a modern AAA age game, with near full voice acting and made to also be released on consoles, Origins has a ton of content relative to the circumstances. We rarely see anything of old CRPGs size in this day and age.

 

[Breqesk]

Can you think of a better antagonist than the master, a better showdown? The master was four voices acted by two actors.

Note that the dialog skill check system is utter arse when you see what Black isle did with this voiced interaction, it was not a skill check it was based on the fact that the player had to use their own judgement to argue with a being that did not care about humanities end, you had to argue him out of a plan by pointing out it would fail. This option would only come up if the player had asked questions and discovered evidence that the Mutent's were sterile and the masters plan of re population, progress was doomed to fail.

Now remember how you can get general winters (with your none voiced protagonist) to walk away from the fight by passing a speech check because you put enough points in speech. Or how you can talk Pres Eden to self destructing the enclave with a fucking 90% speech check? Is the issue with voice acting or that Bethesda has a utterly different focus to interplay/black isles team?

Because it's not the fact that general winters is voiced that makes him arse as a character, it's the writing or maybe just the different conception of what fallout is. The issues of simple conversation trees is not an issue with voices, as fallout 3 and Fallout 1/2 both exist with voiced npc's yet bethesda's by virtue of being a different company with different objectives and visions of what a fallout game is means that in the latter you get the good ending by interacting with the world and in the former you get it because you dumped your points in speech. The things people are concerned about in fallout 4 existed in non protagonist voiced Oblivion, fall out 3 and Skyrim.

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You completely ignored my question.

 

[nashman1313]

Im replaying DA:O right now and Im really really enjoying it. Never played BG so maybe thats why.

 

[LossAversion]

Well that's a take I've never seen before. I can understand enjoying Baldur's Gate more but Origins is fantastic.

 

[Antrax]

I don't really agree. As a frequent DnD player, the systems that BG/BG2 are built on are extremely antiquated and clunky. The lore is take or leave for me, and I can respect the detailed choices in it, but the actual framework was left behind for a reason and is better off that way. I recently fired up BG2, and I definitely had several "WoW Classic players report bugs that are actually just features" moments.

Thedas seem generic as fuck at the surface level but once you dive deep into the lore and world building, Dragon Age's world is quite possibly one of the most interesting I've seen in a video game fantasy setting. So many gripping stuff.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, each race/class has its own twist on the generic formula.
1) Elves are split into city and Dalish (IE wood elves), but they're extremely impoverished and discriminated against instead of the typical "elves are aloof demigods who maybe care enough to help humans" trope. Their gods are a whole can of worms too since they are, in fact, real lol.
2) Dwarves do the underground mining thing, but they also have a caste system held up by homo-lineal inheritance (you're placed in the caste of your same-sex parent, so marrying out of poverty is only a 50/50 for your kids). And then there's the golems.
3) Humans are split along religious lines as well as political. Instead of the usual conflicts (LotR, for example, is just human city-states not united via a king), humans in this world are sorted into outright nations (Ferelden, Orlais, Tevinter, etc...) with long, deep histories and lore. And there's the constant conflict of the Chantry assuming a growing control over them all, via its own military forces.
4) The Qunari are then pretty unique on their own. Tons of weird stuff with the Qun.
5) I also think the mage situation is pretty interesting.

And of course, the whole thing is just so overwhelmingly depressing. There's no hope at all in DA:O. Every place you go is one stiff breeze away from annihilation, and basically none of it is the fault of the darkspawn, the ever-present threat that's also going to kill everyone. A lot of games where you call for aid can be annoying with the contrived excuses for why they can't immediately team up to deal with the evil looking to destroy them all(looking at you, ME3), but in DA:O, each individual crisis that you have to solve is independent of the darkspawn and threatens each of those factions with destruction anyway. Of course the elves can't help you if they're all going to be mauled to death by werewolves. Of course the mages can't help you when they're trapped in a tower with demons. Etc...

I just finished a DA:O playthrough last night, and that shit holds up. I could read some deep fantasy books in Thedas.

 

[Bastables]

You completely ignored my question.

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Yeah I'm pointing out that their are non voiced protagonist games (fallout 3) with all the same weakness's that occur in Fallout 4 voiced protagonist, maybe just maybe pointing out that the issue with the Voiced protagonist is that Bethesda is not interested in making Fallout 1/New Vegas. That fallout 4 is literally building on skyrim template, which is a refinement of Fallout 3. Is Fallout 76 a better variant of interplay/black isles games because the protagonist is unvoiced, no because the issue is not with the voice acting. Bethesda has other ideas about their games, other focuses as their misfired attempt to ape Fallout 1 in falloutr 3 by having the baddie off themselves, just have 90% speech, such RPG stats wow.

 

[Sarek]

I don't really agree. As a frequent DnD player, the systems that BG/BG2 are built on are extremely antiquated and clunky. The lore is take or leave for me, and I can respect the detailed choices in it, but the actual framework was left behind for a reason and is better off that way. I recently fired up BG2, and I definitely had several "WoW Classic players report bugs that are actually just features" moments.

Click to shrink...

Just curious, did you play the original BG2 or the enhanced edition? I don't really feel like I'm going from a modern game to ancient one when comparing eg. Pathfinder: Kingmaker and BG2EE. I've played through BG2 every few years since it was released and trying to be as objective as possible I think BG2 hold ups incredibly well compared to the current CRPGs.

As for the topic completely agree. DA:O was quite disappointing compared to BG2. Everything felt designed by a committee and the lack of enemy/spell/skill variety compared to BG2 is really apparent. For anyone wanting more of the BG2 flavor I'd recommend Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

 

[Coxy]

Disappointment and Dragon Age Origins are two things that don't go together - sorry OP

 

[Antrax]

Just curious, did you play the original BG2 or the enhanced edition? I don't really feel like I'm going from a modern game to ancient one when comparing eg. Pathfinder: Kingmaker and BG2EE. I've played through BG2 every few years since it was released and trying to be as objective as possible I think BG2 hold ups incredibly well compared to the current CRPGs.

As for the topic completely agree. DA:O was quite disappointing compared to BG2. Everything felt designed by a committee and the lack of enemy/spell/skill variety compared to BG2 is really apparent. For anyone wanting more of the BG2 flavor I'd recommend Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, enhanced. I think it's just really clear why a lot of that stuff (from DnD 1st and 2nd edition) got phased out and haven't really been mourned in the tabletop space. Like, off the top of my head, Thaco scores are just pointlessly convoluted compared to the 3E system that's become more standard today (and that DA:O essentially rips with "Defense" essentially meaning "AC").

I'd love a BG3 with that kind of plot but on a more modern framework.

 

[DeepChord]

Have you played Pathfinder Kingmaker OP? That's the spiritual succesor to BG you want.

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

Yeah, each race/class has its own twist on the generic formula.

Click to shrink...

Without going into specifics, a lot of fantasy work has done things of this nature in the past. Not that I expect DA:O to be some sort of completely ex-nihilo creative work, just that most of what you mention doesn't stop it being generic implicitly, it just means it's not an exact clone of Tolkein specifically.

The Qunari are probably the high point of the series, but are window dressing in the first game. It's the (fairly shitty) DA2 that actually thrusts them into the limelight and it's far more evocative because of it. DA:O, itself, doesn't feel very interesting to me despite aspects of the lore feeling like they should be in a vacuum. The Fade is conceptually interesting, the Qun is good, some of the history and misc lore is good, but there's some sort of hard to pin down thing about the first game that sucks a lot of the air out of it.

Oddly, D&D Lore is so derivative from such a diverse range of sources that it crosses some kind of barrier, wraps around the other side and feels fresh. The Forgotten Realms can be generic and bad feeling in some games, although I don't think BG2 is one of them, and in fact quite a few aspects of it (even down to the Vancian magic system) somehow make the world feel more solid and unusual. Once you start crossing over into Planescape all bets are off naturally.

 

[Concelhaut]

DA O is a game made for console casuals. Of course it's a worse version of BG.

Am I the only one who prefers BG1 to 2 though? I like how BG1 simulates a real life D&D campaign.

 

[Composer]

Dragon Age Origins is a monumental RPG for PC and consoles. Just because you don't like it compared to BG series doesn't make it any less of a great game. Why the unnecessary comparisons? Gamers can be so fickle.

 

[Soneji]

Dragon Age Origins is a monumental RPG for PC and consoles. Just because you don't like it compared to BG series doesn't make it any less of a great game. Why the unnecessary comparisons? Gamers can be so fickle.

Click to shrink...

Everyone likes to think that their personal favorite is a unique work of art, driven only by the passion of creators allowed to express their individuality. Everything else is a soulless husk that is "designed by committee", is generic, a cash grab. CRPG fans are among the worst of all elitist fanbases in this regard, not giving due recognition that games with that level of content are not feasible with AAA production values, and that those production values definitely can matter in creating an engrossing experience. It's not as if even having more content is really that big of a difference maker, unless that RPG is literally the only game you have. Origins has less content than BG2 but that is far from meaning that it's lacking in content. There is enough there for hundreds of hours of varied experiences just from replaying with different origins alone, and a lot of content is easily missable on even a second or third playthrough.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

DA : O also had development problems for similar reasons. Origins is an absolutely packed game with tons of impactful choices and optional dialogue.



All of this is optional.

Click to shrink...

Now let's imagine if only they bothered trying to pack the same amount of care in terms of enemy diversification and encounter design.

It's hard to stand the comparison with Baldur's Gate 2 when all the enemies/monsters in your game are basically a reskin, lack individual specialties and can ALL be fought with the same strategy. It doesn't matter if it's soldiers, werewolves or undead.

Their skill/progression system was quite rough and under-refined as well.

I liked DA:O to a certain extent and I hoped it would be the stepping stone to something even better and more refined with the sequels.
Well, we've seen how that turned out in reality.

 

[Quinton]

The Dragon Age setting went from 'some fantasy world a couple of games I like are set in' to 'one of my all-time favourite fantasy settings' with Inquisition and its DLC.

I fully agree that Thedas was, on the face of it at least, bland as hell in Origins--but they more than remedied that in the later games, thankfully. I genuinely can't wait for The Dread Wolf Rises, in large part because I'm really excited to see how they follow through on all the Massive Lore Revelations from Inquisition. And that's all in spite of the fact that I had major issues with Inquisition as an actual game.

Click to shrink...

Pretty much this. :)

 

[Reven Wolf]

Yeah I'm pointing out that their are non voiced protagonist games (fallout 3) with all the same weakness's that occur in Fallout 4 voiced protagonist

Click to shrink...

But this doesn't really prove anything, because that wasn't the argument being made?

maybe just maybe pointing out that the issue with the Voiced protagonist is that Bethesda is not interested in making Fallout 1/New Vegas.

Click to shrink...

But in the literal post you quoted, this wasn't the argument being made?

That fallout 4 is literally building on skyrim template, which is a refinement of Fallout 3. Is Fallout 76 a better variant of interplay/black isles games because the protagonist is unvoiced, no because the issue is not with the voice acting. Bethesda has other ideas about their games, other focuses as their misfired attempt to ape Fallout 1 in falloutr 3 by having the baddie off themselves, just have 90% speech, such RPG stats wow.

Click to shrink...

I mean this still isn't a counter to the idea that voiced protagonists restrict dialogue though.

Arguing that there have been games with silent protagonists that have poor dialogue options/encounters isn't really related to the idea that silent protagonists allow for a much wider degree of options compared to voiced protagonists.

Especially when the question becomes: Well are there any RPGs with voiced protagonists that have the same level of dialogue complexity as:

New Vegas', or Shadowrun: Dragonfall's, or Pillars of Eternity's, or KotOR II's, for instance?

Click to shrink...

DA O is a game made for console casuals. Of course it's a worse version of BG.

Click to shrink...

Can we keep the console warring and ironically naming others as "casuals" out of the discussion?

Now let's imagine if only they bothered trying to pack the same amount of care in terms of enemy diversification and encounter design.

It's hard to stand the comparison with Baldur's Gate 2 when all the enemies/monsters in your game are basically a reskin, lack individual specialties and can ALL be fought with the same strategy. It doesn't matter if it's soldiers, werewolves or undead.

Their skill/progression system was quite rough and under-refined as well.

I liked DA:O to a certain extent and I hoped it would be the stepping stone to something even better and more refined with the sequels.
Well, we've seen how that turned out in reality.

Click to shrink...

I liked DA:O well enough too. I remember it didn't blow me away at the time (the combat really rubbed me the wrong way unfortunately) but I was hopeful of the future. Shame I really disliked DA 2.

 

[Enforcer]

It's still one of the most intricate modern rpg out there before the casualization took over the genre.

The sheer amount of skill tree, choices, origins and customization was impressive for an actual 3rd person western rpg.

 

[Spleenpoker]

DAO is still my most replayed game to date, along with ME1 and 2.

So what's so special about the Trespasser DLC? I've heard lots of praise for it.

I'd prefer a non spoiler explanation as I've recently finished a replay of DAI,so hoping to jump into the DLC soon

 

[Serious Sam]

Nope nope nope nope nope. DA:O is amazing. I usually try to ignore threads that shit on great critically acclaimed games in an effort to seek attention and get reactions, but for some reason this one really grind my gears. I guess I really like DA:O.

 

[Asbsand]

I agree. Dragon Age didn't find a sense of iconicness until they brought on Matt Rhodes, the Mass Effect lead concept artist for Dragon Age Inquisition and that game got some more striking imagery, but in the end still not as memorable.

I gotta admit as well, I think DA:O aged poorly in terms of being 3D but not far from traditional cRPG. It reminds me of the PS2 era Resident Evil game or the PS3 era Ratchet And Clank. Ultimately it's more of the same and not an innovation.

 

[Bastables]

But this doesn't really prove anything, because that wasn't the argument being made?


But in the literal post you quoted, this wasn't the argument being made?


I mean this still isn't a counter to the idea that voiced protagonists restrict dialogue though.

Arguing that there have been games with silent protagonists that have poor dialogue options/encounters isn't really related to the idea that silent protagonists allow for a much wider degree of options compared to voiced protagonists.

Especially when the question becomes: Well are there any RPGs with voiced protagonists that have the same level of dialogue complexity as:



Can we keep the console warring and ironically naming others as "casuals" out of the discussion?


I liked DA:O well enough too. I remember it didn't blow me away at the time (the combat really rubbed me the wrong way unfortunately) but I was hopeful of the future. Shame I really disliked DA 2.

Click to shrink...

But I was pointing out if the issue with voiced protagonist is that if increased cost lead to restricted options, why have voiced characters in RPG's at all? Isn't it costly to have the Master reply to you with two voice actors. The thing is though it elevates the encounter, not just because of good writing but also excellent performances.

Most of those other non voiced protagonist rpg's still have the cost of recording multiple voiced replies to the player, so did this restrict "dialogue complexity"? Is Morrowind, with no voice acting a superior game to voice acted Fallout 1/2 Kotor II, and BG?

Or is it actually the quality of the writing and the telling link between many of the RPG held in regard for being well written share the talent pool and oft cases the same writer

 

[Keldroc]

You're spot on, OP, and DA:O is a terrible game, but you're not gonna find many who realize that, it seems.

All the DA games are bad in their own way, but Origins in particular is archaic, uninspired, and, as you say, caught between two eras of CRPG design, in part because of how long it took to make it. After Baldur's Gate 2 it couldn't hack it as a top quality fantasy RPG and after Mass Effect it couldn't hack it as a top quality cinematic RPG. Add in the completely by-the-numbers world and lore and you have one of the most inexplicably praised games of all time. For all their shortcomings, 2 and Inquisition are better games in every way.

 

[Reven Wolf]

But I was pointing out if the issue with voiced protagonist is that if increased cost lead to restricted options, why have voiced characters in RPG's at all? Isn't it costly to have the Master reply to you with two voice actors. The thing is though it elevates the encounter, not just because of good writing but also excellent performances.

Most of those other non voiced protagonist rpg's still have the cost of recording multiple voiced replies to the player, so did this restrict "dialogue complexity"? Is Morrowind, with no voice acting a superior game to voice acted Fallout 1/2 Kotor II, and BG?

Or is it actually the quality of the writing and the telling link between many of the RPG held in regard for being well written share the talent pool and oft cases the same writer

Click to shrink...

And that's a false equivalency.

Having voiced NPCs isn't as difficult because it's still less work than a voiced protagonist.

With a voiced protagonist you have to consider:
Gender: which means at least two voice actors for the exact same character, going through every option in the game.

Alignment/choices: on its own this seems similar to NPCs, but each n
NPC is voiced based out of player choices etc. There's no need for Bob the NPC to have voicelines for literally the entire script because he isn't a part of every scene.

Tone/style of talking: I covered this a bit when I mentioned ME:A, that game had less meaningful choices and instead placed a focus on player tone (sarcastic vs professional etc) if the player wants one or the other, guess that's more voicelines to add, throughout the entire game.

Species/origins/backstory: gotta record for all that, and if the PC is a different race all together, does it need a different voice actor? You can bet it does if any of your races have unique voices! (Such as if orcs/half orcs have. Noteably deeper voice etc.

It's really not comparable because because an NPC will never have the same level of variation a created character could have.

 

[unicornKnight]

Alwayes wanted to play baldur's gate but I'm afraid it will be too difficult for me.

 

[SofNascimento]

Except this is objectively wrong. Because in the very examples I provided, being consistently honest would result in increased (semi) hidden stats of your character that would further open up more dialogue choices for the player character. The only one "telling lies" to themselves here seems to be you.

The fact is having a voiced dialogue system pretty much always causes restrictions in the writing of the protagonist. Even Alpha Protocol (which does voiced protagonist with consequences very well) gets restricted to essentially:

1. Professional Response
2. Suave Response
3. Aggressive response

With Mass Effect it often boils down to:

1. Paragon Jon luc Picard Response
2. Renegade Jack Boue Response
3. Neutral response (if that's even an option, as often times it might not be)

Compared to something like Pillars of Eternity, or Fallout: New Vegas for example, the above is pretty limiting, as there's a significantly larger range of options for responses to flesh out the player character in their own unique way.

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I believe you have a point, I was lost in another line of thought. In games that they actually highlight the intent of the answer, it's unfair to say the game doesn't take it into consideration, even though we could argue just how much it matter. And also that it doesn't go against a voiced protagonist, we would still need that counting of lines said by the protagonist. And not every line mind you, because in a game like Planescape: Torment, a lot of the lines that can be "spoken" by the protagonist are actually generic questions. The dialogue moments in which the game actually make use of a bigger array of choices that might go beyond three is relatively few.

Moreover, in games like Baldur's Gate 2 or Divinity, that hidden intent behind the answer is much, much more rare. And I believe a lot of people would still refer to these games as to why mute protagonists are better than voiced ones (and we would go back to "telling lies" to oneself, which might be a bit of a crude term, I admit).

All that said, my main point in the OP was not about any of these games, it was about Origins. I believe it suffers from a lack of a voiced protagonist because it ha s elements of a modern AAA RPG but make the choices of an old one. It's no surprise that the two sequels had fully voiced main characters.

 

[Bastables]

And that's a false equivalency.

Having voiced NPCs isn't as difficult because it's still less work than a voiced protagonist.

With a voiced protagonist you have to consider:
Gender: which means at least two voice actors for the exact same character, going through every option in the game.

Alignment/choices: on its own this seems similar to NPCs, but each n
NPC is voiced based out of player choices etc. There's no need for Bob the NPC to have voicelines for literally the entire script because he isn't a part of every scene.

Tone/style of talking: I covered this a bit when I mentioned ME:A, that game had less meaningful choices and instead placed a focus on player tone (sarcastic vs professional etc) if the player wants one or the other, guess that's more voicelines to add, throughout the entire game.

Species/origins/backstory: gotta record for all that, and if the PC is a different race all together, does it need a different voice actor? You can bet it does if any of your races have unique voices! (Such as if orcs/half orcs have. Noteably deeper voice etc.

It's really not comparable because because an NPC will never have the same level of variation a created character could have.

Click to shrink...

But this is not a insurmountable problem, we've gone from having 0 voiced characters in Ultima V to 10 voiced characters in Fallout 1 (15 in BG?) is fallout 1 a "worse" rpg? I mean shit Ultima V with it's smaller team and lower costs and no voice acting modelled planetary orbits so I guess it's a better RPG? No of course not.

The issues around bethesda and Bioware not being old Interplay/black isles are more rooted in Bathesda and Bioware not being 90s/early 00 interplay/Black Isles. It's not the voiced protagonist that's the issue and you can see that in a comparison between non voiced Fallout 3 and Fallout NV.

 

[Z-Brownie]

Agree with you 100%. But i guess production value wise, DA:O is a good game, but DA2 is inexcusable

 

[Reven Wolf]

But this is not a insurmountable problem, we've gone from having 0 voiced characters in Ultima V to 10 voiced characters in Fallout 1 (15 in BG?) is fallout 1 a "worse" rpg?

Click to shrink...

I'd like you to point to where I ever said that.

I mean shit Ultima V with it's smaller team and lower costs and no voice acting modelled planetary orbits so I guess it's a better RPG? No of course not.

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You can keep straw-manning if you want.

The issues around bethesda and Bioware not being old Interplay/black isles are more rooted in Bathesda and Bioware not being 90s/early 00 interplay/Black Isles. It's not the voiced protagonist that's the issue and you can see that in a comparison between non voiced Fallout 3 and Fallout NV.

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So I'm still waiting on you naming any game. Your example in this line is literally just "writing can be bad with non voiced protagonist". You haven't presented a single compelling reason as to how voicing a protagonist magically doesn't take up more resources than a voiced NPC.

I'm not saying it's physically impossible. I'm pointing out that the resources necessary for a voice protagonist always result in limitations happening.

You keep bringing up voiced NPCs, while ignoring the reality of the difference it takes in resources between an NPC and a player character. Already having voiced NPCs often result in the PC needing a nickname or title (the exile, the watcher, shepard etc) so that the NPCs have some way of addressing you by name, since they can't custom voice every conceivable name in existence.

Good writing can obviously alleviate such an issue, but it absolutely presents writing limitations because just the PRESENCE of voice acting can result in limitations depending on the context.

All that said, my main point in the OP was not about any of these games, it was about Origins. I believe it suffers from a lack of a voiced protagonist because it ha s elements of a modern AAA RPG but make the choices of an old one. It's no surprise that the two sequels had fully voiced main characters.

Click to shrink...

I can certainly understand that point of view for origins tbh. I don't necessarily feel like it was as basic in terms of options as a voiced protag game, but compared to others in the genre it definitely was more bare bones.