Character's name identified by NPCs

[kenup]

So there is one thing that's been really bothering me lately. In every game that we can name our characters and NPCs have voice actors, NPCs will always refer to the player character as "you" or another title but never with either the first or last name.This most notable and ridicilus when your character's buddy, father, other family member, romantic interest, rival refer to the pc like that. This, combined with how much better and natural it feels playing games like the witcher or alpha protocol, which have predetermined pcs, has me dislike games that go half way(including voice acting but not a full player character name). Considering that this game will have roots in games that mostly lacked voice acting, I would be willing to sacrifice voice acting just to see npcs that should know and by extend have enough familiarity with my pc to refer to them by his or hers first or last name when appropriate. As long as I don't go blind by how small the text is at least.

 

Would others be willing to sacrifice voice acting of NPCs, just to have that sense that their character is an actual person in that world, and not have stupid situations where the poeple closest to your character, refer to him like the soldiers hailing their Knight-Captain/"Shepard"?

[Sarog]

It is nice when games are fully voice acted but it certainly isn't a requirement for me. Baldur's Gate for example used voice acting for important lines and left the rest of the conversation to text, and I'd have no issue if P:E did the same. Having NO npc voice acting would be silly though, there's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[Progressive_Stupidity]

I'd rather have the most important NPC's voiced (companions and frequently recurring characters pivotal to the plot) and referring to my character by some sort of title or nickname than have no voice acting. It's never really bothered me that much, except maybe in DA2 where your immediate family are calling you 'Hawke' but that was the least of that games problems.

[salty]

It's not going to be fully voice acted anyway, which is the main reason devs have to do this.

[WDeranged]

I definitely want short voice clips now and again for flavour but there's no reason your character can't be referred to by name in the main body of text, I also like seeing this.

[Countdown0]

This will probably happen if there isn't full voice acting, so the text based conversations will likely feature your character's name. But if its fully voice acted, it would be hard to get all the names your character could have included...

[Jozape]

It's not going to be fully voice acted anyway, which is the main reason devs have to do this.

 

Indeed. They've told us that only a few lines will be voiced, so addressing the player character by name won't be an issue in PE.

 

From GameBanshee:

 

Project Eternity features voice acting as "flavor", while allowing for extensive, reactive conversation trees in the style of Planescape: Torment.

 

and again GameBanshee:

 

Feargus: Our goal is to use voice over as flavor and not as something that exists for every written word in the game.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Jozape

[LadyCrimson]

Yes, I like it when folk in the gameworld use my chosen name, when possible. Unless they're all calling me "Your Majesty" because I've conquered and rule the entire planet. Then it's ok.

[MinotaurWarrior]

It's not going to be voice acted, so they'll probably use %CHARNAME like in BG & whatnot.

 

However, that got on my nerves sometimes in BG, because NPCs who couldn't possibly know my name would call me by my name nevertheless. This wasn't a big deal, but it happened a few times.

[kenup]

I'd rather have the most important NPC's voiced (companions and frequently recurring characters pivotal to the plot) and referring to my character by some sort of title or nickname than have no voice acting. It's never really bothered me that much, except maybe in DA2 where your immediate family are calling you 'Hawke' but that was the least of that games problems.

Companion NPCs being fully voice acted is my biggest buff. The big bad throwing a speech is fine, but when your buddies that you have been going through hell with, for months or years, refer to you as knight-captain or some-such, while not under your direct command? that's annoying. like really, really annoying.

 

Note that I'm not against voice acting in general. Just when this makes people that would logically refer to your character by name, completely ignore it.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Even NWN, which did have considerable voice-over, used the PC's name in conversation. The voiced lines actually differed subtly from the displayed text in these cases.

 

I thought that was a great solution, and don't understand why modern fully-voiced games don't still do it.

 

Nevertheless, without extensive voice-over, Project Eternity won't need this workaround, and thus can safely refer to the PC by name in dialogue. It's not difficult to drop a %CHARNAME% here and there.

[Progressive_Stupidity]

I'd rather have the most important NPC's voiced (companions and frequently recurring characters pivotal to the plot) and referring to my character by some sort of title or nickname than have no voice acting. It's never really bothered me that much, except maybe in DA2 where your immediate family are calling you 'Hawke' but that was the least of that games problems.

Companion NPCs being fully voice acted is my biggest buff. The big bad throwing a speech is fine, but when your buddies that you have been going through hell with, for months or years, refer to you as knight-captain or some-such, while not under your direct command? that's annoying. like really, really annoying.

 

Note that I'm not against voice acting in general. Just when this makes people that would logically refer to your character by name, completely ignore it.

 

I just think that a companion (even one already well written) can be elevated so much by a talented voice actor and their takes on certain lines. If they have to refer to the player character as 'Warden' or 'Living One' or 'Shepard' to accomodate this then so be it. I understand why this is a peeve for some people. I suppose with certain characters as you gain reputation with them they could start to refer to you with a friendly nickname or something.