Rant: can we get narrator options?

[FoxFox]

For example:

• Mute/Unmute
  
• Would you like the narrator subtitles to cover the Acknowledge button or not?
  
• Pick personality type: insane psychopath/respectful/sarcastic jackass/roleplay mode

I mean, seriously if I'm playing the Huns and burning down cities is just how I like to unwind during weekends after a full week of professionally terrorising the civilised world - are you really going to tell me that customary laws are wrong or warn me that allowing war slaves might become a pretext for war in itself (I'm not sure if he even said that, but it's just the sort of thing he might say). Of course it is a pretext for war. I am the Huns, I wage war not for justice or some enlightened ideology, but because I figured out how to turn horse archers into profit.

Even more seriously: The way the narrator comments on my choices is immersion breaking. History is full of morally reprehensible acts and I get that the devs had some doubts on how to deal with that. But it is disingenuous to include immoral options in the game and then criticise the player for actually choosing them. I know what is right and wrong and if I did not, well perhaps there are video games that can offer some profound insights on morality and justice. But Humankind is certainly not one of those games.

I would prefer roleplay-y comments, with the narrator laying it on with all the self-righteous justification you would expect from a bloodthirsty despot, and let the player decide what to make of it.

What's worse: The narrator isn't even consistent in his moral high ground. One minute he's cracking (pretty lame) jokes about cultural stereotypes, the next minute he's schooling me about ethics. The effect is that those moral comments don't even sound sincere. If most of what you say sounds like you are half-joking, then a condemnation of slavery comes across as an ironic imitation of genuine outrage.

I'd rather hear the narrator say something like: "War slaves, what an excellent idea: They get to live, we get cheap labour. Everybody wins!" instead of: "Slavery is bad, right? If you know what I mean (wink wink)". Maybe it's just me, but sometimes those comments sound almost psychopathically insane and they give me the chills,

[The Doctor]

I second the request to have the ability to mute the narrator without muting all the other game sounds.

His "humerous" comments get lame really, really fast. Perhaps someone will find some of them amusing the first time he/she hears them but the twentieth or thirtieth? Not so much.

[Staber13857]

Rant aside, I would also prefer other narrator options. It would seriously add flavor and replayiblity to the game. Tying it to your in game choices might make a mess though, so I would prefer it to just be an option

[Aluminum Elite Master]

I am down for narrator on/off.

Content of the narrator's speech aside, the main problem is there's so little variety. In Civ 6, every tech had I believe 2-3 speech clips for completing it. Which meant you heard the same ones a fair amount, but there was a chance it would change up every game.

Meanwhile, in HK, the narrator can sometimes say the same speech clip 6-7 times in a row for the same action... with the worst example being when you reach the end of an ideology axis. There's maybe 2 speech clips for hitting the end of *any* ideology axis, so when you hit the end of an axis, you get the same clip whether that axis is science/religion or global/local or whatever.

The main reason I'd be down for muting the narrator in this is because the variety of narrator speech is so poor.

[Nareth Erakian]

Err... am I missing something, or have you guys just not found the button to turn off the narrator yet? Because there's definitely one and I turned him off after three victorious rounds. xD

[The Doctor]

Originally posted by Nareth Erakian:

Err... am I missing something, or have you guys just not found the button to turn off the narrator yet? Because there's definitely one and I turned him off after three victorious rounds. xD

Yes, we have but it turns off pretty much all the in-game sound as well. But if you've found the way to turn off the narrator only, please share. I'm tired of being told I've reached the end of an idiology slider and that whatever else terms call me, wishy-washy won't be one of them for the hundredth time.

[Spacesuit Spiff]

I'm all for the mute option, but I don't get the complaining about him taking issue with chaotic evil playstyles. Part of the appeal of being a jerk ingame is that the game (ostensibly) doesn't want you to do it. How boring would a high chaos run in Dishonored or a genocide run in Undertale be if there wasn't at least a facade of rebelliousness to it?

[AOM]

Originally posted by The Doctor:

Originally posted by Nareth Erakian:

Err... am I missing something, or have you guys just not found the button to turn off the narrator yet? Because there's definitely one and I turned him off after three victorious rounds. xD

Yes, we have but it turns off pretty much all the in-game sound as well. But if you've found the way to turn off the narrator only, please share. I'm tired of being told I've reached the end of an idiology slider and that whatever else terms call me, wishy-washy won't be one of them for the hundredth time.

You can turn it off. It isn't in Audio settings like one would think though.
Game Menu (Gear button) > Settings > Gameplay > Activate Narrator > Off

[slcowden]

You can turn off the narrator without turning off any other sounds. Its in the game setting. I have been playing without him for like a 150 hours now.

[The Doctor]

Well, what do you know? I just went into the settings and found a Narrator option as you guys suggested. I won't insist but I'm pretty sure that option wasn't there at launch because I knew I wasn't going to like it.

It doesn't matter whether it was or wasn't anymore though because it's gone now.

Thank you.

[yutterh]

I jsut find it annoying that when I click to see what area was ransacked he always says "your first ransack" nah dude this is like number 100.

[AOM]

Originally posted by yutterh:

I jsut find it annoying that when I click to see what area was ransacked he always says "your first ransack" nah dude this is like number 100.

That's why there's an option to turn the narration off.

[Quineloe]

Originally posted by The Doctor:

Originally posted by Nareth Erakian:

Err... am I missing something, or have you guys just not found the button to turn off the narrator yet? Because there's definitely one and I turned him off after three victorious rounds. xD

Yes, we have but it turns off pretty much all the in-game sound as well. But if you've found the way to turn off the narrator only, please share. I'm tired of being told I've reached the end of an idiology slider and that whatever else terms call me, wishy-washy won't be one of them for the hundredth time.

What do you mean, what other ingame sounds are disabled? because my game still makes noise when I turn the guy off.

[The Doctor]

Originally posted by Quineloe:

Originally posted by The Doctor:

Yes, we have but it turns off pretty much all the in-game sound as well. But if you've found the way to turn off the narrator only, please share. I'm tired of being told I've reached the end of an idiology slider and that whatever else terms call me, wishy-washy won't be one of them for the hundredth time.

What do you mean, what other ingame sounds are disabled? because my game still makes noise when I turn the guy off.

Because I thought it was in the Audio settings. I was wrong and have been corrected, thankfully :D

[FoxFox]

Originally posted by AOM:

Originally posted by The Doctor:

Yes, we have but it turns off pretty much all the in-game sound as well. But if you've found the way to turn off the narrator only, please share. I'm tired of being told I've reached the end of an idiology slider and that whatever else terms call me, wishy-washy won't be one of them for the hundredth time.

You can turn it off. It isn't in Audio settings like one would think though.
Game Menu (Gear button) > Settings > Gameplay > Activate Narrator > Off

Thanks! I still wouldn't hate it so much if all he did was repeat himself over and over and over again and made lame jokes about hidden wine cellars. Right now it feels like they wrote another GLaDOS, except they did it by accident. He might just as well say things like "Well done. Here come the test results: You are a horrible person. I'm serious, that's what it says: A horrible person. We weren't even testing for that."

Anyway, off with his voice!

[Praetorian_INTP]

This so, SO reminds me of a specific YT video.
Title: "Sincerity: Hollywood's Forgotten Currency"
Great watch!
+ it fits the narration-problems I see with this game to a T !

There is no sincerity in it; it tries to be snarky and clever or even "meta" (I hate the mis-definition that the meme-generation gave this word, but... oh well!), but it isn't.
It just comes across as pretentious and self-righteous, or (in your case) even going full on hypocrite!

That being said: having different narrators would only serve as a band-aid for the problem as I see it. The narrator should enhance the atmosphere, not give me late history analysis or judgments (those are just anacronisms; it's like having space-ball humor infest a real star wars movie), wether shallow or not, on what is happening in the moment.
The stakes in the moment are way too high (thus the emotional investment should be way too intense) for that sort of narcissistic drivel! -- and without this, the game just feels like a bad joke, that can't even take itself seriously for a moment.

It undercuts any and all momentum that the atmosphere might actually gain (through whichever OTHER game-element that might be).
Sincerity! -- if you cannot give us that, just exclude yourself from the art of storytelling alltogether. B/c you are not cut out for it!