algroth

That's fair, except you are overlooking one obvious thing. This was done as a big announcement to encourage more sales and bring attention to the game. If one of them had a "beefier" role as a faction leader.... why would you advertise their role as a sidekick and not mention the more critical faction leader role? Unless of course Rekke and Ydwin, who both easily get as much publicity from Obsidian as any known companion, have been upgraded. I reckon it could be because the faction leaders or other important secondary characters haven't been revealed yet so it would either seem weird or be a bit spoiler-heavy to talk about them in this reveal. I used the faction leader as an example but it could be any sort of big secondary character that we have yet to learn about for plot disclosure reasons. Granted though, I'm just speculating here. I could be wrong, but it's just a guess on my part. Based on the amount of work Josh has mentioned each companion took I would be surprised that they were indeed upgraded - but then again, maybe they could have been upgraded to a "beefy sidekick" and not necessarily a full companion? Won't really know until we play the game. :D

Audio issues aside, that's a great talk. As part of the film industry I also have to add that it's a massive issue in our case too, and one which has led me to pretty much losing a year and a half of my life in battling depression, anxiety and the likes following some of these experiences.

Actually I was thinking about this after my earlier post and realized the ultimate irony. If no one likes VO, and it isn't helpful, why does every streamer read aloud unvoiced dialog or little documents they find in games? Even streamers playing Baldur's Gate 2, or Planescape Torment do it. Oh well you say the answer is obvious, it is more exciting for the viewer. I reply by saying, exactly. To be the devil's advocate here, I'd point out that this isn't an apples to apples comparison exactly. Watching a stream is less like playing a game than it is like watching a show, it is primarily a pretty non-interactive audiovisual experience and in this case static text makes for a very poor viewing experience as it hardly plays to the strengths of that specific medium. But as a player the immersion and entertainment value comes through the interactivity, and so long as a text responds to their input (or successfully paints the illusion of doing so) it will usually keep the player engaged despite being a more static experience - in comparison a series of long non-interactive cinematic cutscenes is also bound to bore regardless of how well-animated and voice-acted it is. But I do agree with the general principle that voice-acting is, if performed correctly, more exciting and comfortable for the player. I reckon part of it has to do with spoken word being easier to decode than writing - with writing you have to translate a visual code to sound to meaning, whereas with the spoken word you are already spared of the first step. Though I would say is that I reckon a non-voiced written dialogue is usually more open to the interpretation of delivery, and that in my experience always yields a better result than the same dialogue poorly or incongrously voiced; likewise I don't recall any specific case where the text has been used in this fashion, but I can also see a possibility where the abstraction of tone in written dialogue can allow a same phrase to gain a pretty different meaning according to either how you respond to it or how you configure through the given choices your relationship with the other character. A "well done" could be freely interpreted as a genuine congratulatory gesture or as a sarcastic remark or as a teeth-gritting spiteful admission depending on whether you chose to recognize the speaker as a friend, rival or else. That's a pretty narrow case that is bound to come up only a few times in any specific game at most, but still I reckon most games using plain text as a means of depicting a scene or interaction don't employ text in this or similar fashion and for these games I don't see why VO would be a negative addition - provided, again, that the VO is good.

So I just came across this bit in the Ep. 2 campaign, at min 0:50: Laura: "I was recording!" Matt: "So were we." Deadfire in-reference?

Well, you're given the opportunity to wear a shield *on top* of a full-plate armour which already isn't very practical since the latter acted as a replacement of sorts for the former. Dual-wielding shields doesn't seem like a great idea but then again a person *could* do it and that could be the "shtick" for that particular character for whatever reason - but it does seem like a pretty specific and overly niche strategy and character build so as to build dedicated defensive modals and so on for that one character, or for that matter specific animations and so on as you'd likely require to animate a right-handed shield in order to wield it and, again, it doesn't seem feasible considering how utterly niche and most likely terrible the build would be. Well, it's not like shield+full plate armor was unheard of, as there is quite a lot of period artwork depicting fully armored knights wielding shields. Besides not all weapons were equally capable of parrying blows, so i could definitely see a knight that's using a flail or a mace using a shield as well, due to the weapon being pretty useless at defending yourself. Maybe others will correct me on this, since I'm more of an enthusiast than an expert, but it's my understanding that this didn't happen in actual late medieval warfare - not that it *never* happened but that it was exceedingly unusual due to it being fairly redundant and occupying a hand at a time where polearms and other two-handed weapons were much more prevalent as a primary weapon. Maces and hammers usually acted as sidearms instead (flails are a more contentious subject since they were not common at all, to the point some argue that they weren't historically used in warfare). I also think you underestimate the capacity to parry and block with these weapons, as the shaft could be rather effectively used to deflect and parry, the heads could act as a hook, and the weapons were still fairly light even with their point of balance being more top-heavy - they're still pretty nimble weapons that only weigh about the same as an arming sword. Again, all this from my understanding since I don't claim to be an expert, but it's what I've gathered.

Well, you're given the opportunity to wear a shield *on top* of a full-plate armour which already isn't very practical since the latter acted as a replacement of sorts for the former. Dual-wielding shields doesn't seem like a great idea but then again a person *could* do it and that could be the "shtick" for that particular character for whatever reason - but it does seem like a pretty specific and overly niche strategy and character build so as to build dedicated defensive modals and so on for that one character, or for that matter specific animations and so on as you'd likely require to animate a right-handed shield in order to wield it and, again, it doesn't seem feasible considering how utterly niche and most likely terrible the build would be.

Also:

Yes, they appear to be younger now and they have also changed Ydwin portraits 2 times by now... uh... a lot of work for a sidekick don't you think? I kind of agree this is very strange. For one thing we know there was a major push to make Ydwin a full companion, and there has been multiple points on the forums where people were confused about the difference between a sidekick and companion and said things like "why even use a sidekick if you have full companions or full custom?" It was like they were a so so middle ground. Meanwhile Obsidian is using this as a big announcement and to push more sales, which it seems to have worked. We don't know how well it has worked, but it has definitely had a positive effect. So if Critical Roles inclusion is such a big deal, and good enough to be an actual selling point for the game... why would you give a smaller sidekick role to two of them? Also why is there so much focus on Rekke and Ydwin who both have actually had almost as much coverage as full companions at this point. In fact, didn't Ydwin get a full on character reveal, before some of the "full companions"? If this were Denmark I would definitely be smelling the fish market, if you feel me. Mere speculation from my part, but whilst I believe the chances for them to have been secretly expanded into full companions is extremely low, I could see more content being planned for them come the DLCs, which might better make use of those cast members. Also I don't think these roles cover the extent of the Critical Role cast in the game so maybe their relatively small role as sidekicks could be balanced out with a beefier NPC role the likes of a faction leader? Some thoughts.

Hey Mikey! So I'm not sure how GOG works or any of this would exactly, but you (as in Obsidian) have the ability to create redeemable keys through GOG for your own products, right? Is there any way to merely create the Hunt entirely on the Obsidian page with the result at the end being a key you can redeem for that DLC at GOG?

I'm reminded of this:

I myself do not worry too much about the quailty of voice acting per se - we've seen the cast, those guys are pros. I definately assume to hear 15 Matt Mercers interacting with one another in every third scene, but that was the case in New Vegas for instance - all NCR personnel consisted of nothing but Liam O'Briens and Laura Baileys, and it worked out alright enough in the end. I definately approve of the female voice actors this time around, though. I was not a fan of female voice cast in PoE 1 - Pallegina's faux-italian accent, as well as Sagani's bland delivery was always a bit grating for me. Personally, my only weak link now would probably be Marisha Ray. She's alright, but arguably - and correct me, if I'm wrong on that - the least experienced and versatile from what I've seen and heard (in both various videogames and CR itself) - so, we'll see how she fares. That's the double-edged sword right there, I guess - fans may inevitably judge your future performance based on a goofy Twitch show your'e a part of.Rob Schneider's a professional actor, that doesn't mean he's a *good* actor. With regards to the Critical Role cast, I've had pretty middling experiences with their resume. Mercer and maybe Johnson aside I can't say I've yet heard a performance of them I'd deem great, whilst the anime dubs I have heard have all been pretty invariably awful (as is the nature with dubs in general). I don't necessarily think that translates either way for their work in Deadfire but I don't think their involvement automatically guarantees anything either. What I will also add is that whilst they are all involved with voicing the main characters, it's not these as such that worry me so much as the plethora of secondary characters that are bound to be voiced by as of yet unknown (to us) actors. These actors don't comprise the entirety of the cast.

For the sake of adding another opinion to the noise, I reckon that alongside the added expense it'll likely present for future DLCs my other concern with regards to full VO is that to my mind VO in Obsidian has always been fairly patchy in quality the more ground it tended to cover, and have found that their VO work tends to be better the more focused and narrowed down it is. As it stands right now I'm not entirely trusting that Deadfire will prove different to the rule, and that might be a problem since the performance always colours the dialogue/text in some fashion or other and I can see how a bad performance could "taint" what is otherwise a decent line - yet at the same time I'm sure other performances might *elevate* what could be a fairly average on unmemorable interaction instead. The binary decision of "muting/unmuting" voices in the game is a hard one precisely because you'll always be invariably silencing the good along with the bad.

This thread in a nutshell:

I didn't watch Black Panther yet either. But I actually would probably have skipped Infinity War anyways - still it's a shame to hear that, for anyone in your position, TN.

More frustration in gif form...

It's the little things.

It's a community-funded pirate party. Here's two of the threads for more information: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/91675-rejoice-black-isle-bastards-100-funded-stretch-goal-55-funded-thank-you-everyone/ https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/92373-donations-closed-brace-yourselves-the-black-isle-bastards-are-coming/

"BLASTED BEGGAR'S IMMUNE!"

Unfortunately human female characters was a 5.5 million dollar stretch goal so they won't be included in the game. All humans will be male, all female characters will be non-human. Nudity will be randomly unlockable through loot crates which may apply to any character in the game.

Vittorio Taviani, who directed films such as Padre Padrone (for which he won the Palme d'Or) and Caesar Must Die (for which he won the Golden Bear at Berlin), also died today.

I don't agree with the last part myself. I don't think any piece is so sacred and perfect that it could never be touched by another artist who might want to adapt it according to his vision. A good artist may certainly take these games and remake them into something good or better, but that really falls to how capable the artist is (to give an example I think it's arguable that Great Expectations is far more "untouchable" a piece than any videogame could strive for - Baldur's Gate and Torment included - yet David Lean's cinematic adaptation of it is hardly one to scoff at - likewise it's hard to ignore the success of the Aeneid even as it is partly an adaptation of the Illiad, or for that matter a piece like Adam Buenos Aires as a more modern adaptation and repurposing of the Divine Comedy). The question as to whether it becomes a success or not ultimately falls into the particulars of that vision and its execution and that's where Beamdog failed for me (I would go as far as saying that their blind veneration for the original source and the self-imposed kid gloves resultant from it was a detriment to their vision and to their work on these remakes). Personally I still think it's entirely possible to take a game like Torment and properly remake it into a piece that can quite feasibly be even better than the original - there is certainly room for improvement, all successes about it considered.

I just read about that. R.I.P.

Kill ANTIFA thats is evil. I don't think it is about white race... some people that come can be good but many others are not. Look he is not white maybe from India race? I also have also one very good friend from Iran. He thinks Iran goverment is not good, but he is good and study and do work and he is my good friend. I don't like Iran goverment, but that does mean that all people for Iran are bad. My Iran friend does not speak well Finnish or Swedish language that I also speak very well, but he can speak English well. People who come and study and do work are welcome but then also there comes lazy people or even worse those who become criminals. lol