algroth

This is a good point actually, since the title is misleading: the *dialogue* will be fully voiced, not the narration. So I think that outside a few key descrptions the likes of an act introductory scroll or the likes we won't see much of the descriptions being voiced.

I really wish I could put on those rose tinted glasses so many in these forums wear when it comes to Baldur's Gate. I really do. Yes, it was a great RPG at the time, I loved it at the time in fact, especially BG2. But claiming it's writing was full of personality, charm, and wit? No, it wasn't. It was serviceable, but nothing special. It certainly was not "significantly better written" than any of the Dragon Age games except maybe the second one. Also it was going for an epic fantasy feel, it takes place on the sword coast of forgotten realms, and your dad was the god of murder. Don't mistake a couple Daryl, Daryl, and my other brother Daryl jokes for a "Princess Bride" theme. I loved the show Thundercats when I was a kid. That doesn't mean that as an adult I can't go back and notice how bad the writing was, and point out the stupid things like how they were literally from Plant Wayoutback. It is okay to admit flaws in things you thought were great when you were younger. Yet so many Obsidian fans refuse to look at Baldur's Gate, or god forbid Planescape Torment, with anything remotely resembling a critical eye. Well, you've seen me play it recently, so you know I'm not just relying on my memory here. But yes, I do think the writing is infused with its own voice and full of little flairs and touches that make most colour encounters quite distinct and memorable. Likewise the tone is pretty notably different from Dragon Age throughout - it's not "just a couple of Daryl, Daryl and brother Daryl" jokes when about half of the companions essentially play up a particular comedy routine or trope inversion, be it the quixotic hero in Minsc or the tiny halfling with delusions of paladinhood in Mazzy or the compulsive yarn-spinner in Jan or else. Even at its darkest the game hardly reaches the depths of a Planescape: Torment or a Pillars of Eternity, and is still pretty infused with a feeling of adventure first and foremost. It's hard not to see here a clear distinction from the far more earnest and self-important tone wielded in Dragon Age. With regards to Planescape: Torment, I reckon we are on completely opposite sides about it but still I do not see it as a perfect game and have openly criticized it several times. Yet again I played it most recently only a couple of months back, and it holds up spectacularly as a game that is to this day virtually unchallenged when it comes to sheer narrative and thematic ambition, and the success of this very same. It is brilliant, but I have always recognized it as a tale of two sides because there are aspects that are definitely creaky and underdeveloped and which I've felt has always made it the game that was most readily in a position to be expanded upon or changed amidst the IE games, provided the changes were properly curated and so on - specifically speaking of the writing I don't think any Torment fan would deny that the Curst and beyond segments of the game are pretty barebones and perfunctory outside a few encounters here or there, or that certain areas of the setting were not as deeply explored as one could have. But this really brings me back to a massive pet-peeve I have with this ridiculous argument of "oh, it's only rose-tinted glasses at work". No. As a kid I loved the X-Men animated series, it really stuck in my head as a really interesting saga with lots of strange imagery to it and whatnot, I recall being in a state of wonder about the sentinels and Apocalypse and their design... Yet watching it as an adult I feel none of that effect on me, the animation feels pretty basic and unevocative whilst the storylines are far more cookie-cutter than I had an idealized memory of. The same thing has occured with a number of other shows and bits of media here and there. Not so with those with these two, I have continued playing the games since these times and have continually found them to be thoroughly brilliant, immersive, evocative and in Torment's case, thought-provoking. For Torment's case especially I find my appreciation for it only growing with each repeated playthrough. And I'm perfectly fine that others don't agree - but I don't try to blame their disagreement on some bullcrap argument or other like "they don't get it" or their insecurities of adulthood meaning they reject anything that they loved in their non-adult years or something like that. People sometimes disagree and their reasons for disagreement can be entirely valid, without having to chalk it down to "nostalgia" or whatever other cod psychology you want to read into those on the other side of the fence. That one's critical eye differs from yours doesn't mean their critical eye is somehow warped.

I'm gonna aim for as many single classes as I can just because I'm a sucker for high-level abilities. I'd like to see what they do and so on.

Oh, I see.

Help me understand where this is coming from. Mercer voices a couple of characters who most people were shocked to learned were produced by the same guy. Even the guy who does Maerwald does an admirable job of sounding like *actually* different people It is a hypothetical scenario that would allegedly correspond more to AndreaColombo's statement that the "same argument could be made for audio books versus actual books, since the characters in books are mostly people".

I have no qualms or issues with my suspense of disbelief when listening to an audio book so I guess I would have to experience it in the context of an iso-RPG to have an opinion either way on it. But that's the issue with different artistic media as well: when playing the first Pillars or any of the IE games, I didn't feel like non-voiced dialogue "read as books" instead of "sounding like people". I could fill in the performance for what I read with a little, effortless bit of imagination and that was that. To me that's just an approach to representing a scene that is just as valid and not at all more alienating or what have you than having the scene actually voiced. I guess that to hear no actor or a single actor perform each voice in the conversation would constitute as some manner of abstraction, and maybe in the latter it might take a few tries to get used to, but I hardly feel like it'd be so jarring or abstract so as to disallow immersion or suspension of disbelief. Likewise I'd say a lot of it would hinge on the execution, and to this I would also add that the success of each are also entirely valid and interesting and impressive in their own ways. But take my own stance on the matter with a pinch of salt. I love art that plays with unconventional and abstract means of representation so I've grown rather used to reading a scene in far more obscure or codified cases than the above.

You can’t take any work out of the context it was made. Even though BGs might not hold up in all aspect they were creative and innovative at its time. Yes, BG shares the same issues that later Boware games have but it was the first one. Poor morality system is usually a Bioware issue, but it took couple games before I really starting to get annoyed with it. Just like Ubisoft Open World game is something I despise, even though I enjoyed Far Cry3 ad original AssCreed. Continue doing the same thing over and over again and it becomes stale, and its issue become more apparent. And as far as writing - the thing is while BGs are corny they are better written than Dragon Age, in big part because they are corny. Dragon Age tries to be more serious but it didn’t click for me. Characters behaved like idiots, lore was unimaginative and dull, conflict was very forced, darkspawn was an incredibly boring antagonist. Whilst I haven't played Mass Effect so I cannot comment on it specifically, I agree here that Baldur's Gate is pretty different to Dragon Age in tone and intention and the style of writing has to be taken into consideration within that given context. In Baldur's Gate the atmosphere is a lot more whimsical and light-hearted, where the "darkness" is usually only really the sort that you'd find in a classic adventure tale - in many ways the tone is quite more reminiscent of a Princess Bride or a Hobbit than a Lord of the Rings for example. Dragon Age is usually a lot more obvious and upfront about its lofty and grand intentions, and the tone is more the likes of an inflated epic with a touch of Game of Thrones-like grit and moral greyness, and in this context the corniness usually very earnest and for the sake of the grand and pompous tone the games are after, not for the touch of self-depreciating whimsy of the former. Baldur's Gate is no literary masterpiece but the writing is usually full of personality, charm and wit, whereas Dragon Age is pretty flat and unmemorable in comparison, and generally rather oblivious of its own preposterousness.

Video games are not books. Are meant to be played not read. I wouldn't consider reading and playing to be actions in opposition, or mutually exclusive. I'm not arguing in favour or against full VO, mind, I'm just more than a bit tired of seeing this argument made with regards to any game with lots of text.

This has been officially denied multiple times, it's a PC game first and then the publisher ports it over to console, as stated by Josh Sawyer. Yeah but there were already plans to port it to consoles, unlike the first game which was ported to consoles long after release. I didn't say it wasn't a pc game first, just that consoles were not an afterthought this time. Obsidian obviously learned from past mistake and sees the potential in console market. They want to succeed where Pillars 1 miserably failed with this. The console port to the first game occured post-Fig campaign and was done by Paradox. Following its success Obsidian/Versus Evil looked into doing a port for Deadfire but this is after months of work and as a project that won't even be done by Obsidian themselves but by Red Cerberus. Their focus is still exclusively on the PC version and that is all that was originally planned for. As stated by Josh several times already.

R.I.P. Milos Forman.

I'm curious about the final wordcount for the game now too. Mind, not because I believe it's been deliberately reduced to accomodate for full VO or any such theories but because I'm curious about the amount of text relative to the original game, and how many words and lines the "full dialogue VO" actually amounts to (or close to). I know the idea from the start's been to make it a less dense read than the first Pillars but I wonder if that amounts to a smaller wordcount or more along the likes of a better distribution of exposition and dialogue and information across a larger game and so on.

There will be more voicesets on top of those already in the first game, including some new voicesets fashioned after the Critical Role Vox Machina characters as part of the Vox Machina DLC.

What the **** does "anarcho-tyranny state" even mean? Are you guys just mashing random political-sounding words in the hopes you land on something dire-sounding enough to scare the impressionable into listening? Stop selling your communist-capitalist monarchic propaganda, for Karl's sake! Edit: So the term was coined by a white nationalist columnist back in the 90s. Figures. Yeah so what you seem upset lol and live in your dream world. Being white by the way is perfectly ok and good to be lol. Nothing wrong with being white, but I said "white nationalist", which is a very different thing. And the proof of being white nationalist is... he's white therefore he is white nationalist, duh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_T._Francis "Samuel Todd Francis (April 29, 1947 – February 15, 2005), known as Sam Francis, was an American white nationalist, writer and syndicated columnist in the United States. He was a columnist and editor for the conservative Washington Times until he was fired after making racist remarks at the 1995 conference of the group American Renaissance.[1] Francis was later become a "dominant force" on the Council of Conservative Citizens,[2] an anti-black, anti-immigrant group that espoused racism."

Well, the good ole days aren't gone as Lindsey herself confirmed she used real-life portraits and people as inspiration for at least some of the portraits in Deadfire. Serafen for example is based on Ian McShane.

I don't think so... However her mention here as well as Rekke's makes me wonder what is up with Konstanten and Fessina, actually - neither of them have recieved nearly as much attention as the other two in the content shown so far, and it'd be nice to get a little more on them in the near future.

What the **** does "anarcho-tyranny state" even mean? Are you guys just mashing random political-sounding words in the hopes you land on something dire-sounding enough to scare the impressionable into listening? Stop selling your communist-capitalist monarchic propaganda, for Karl's sake! Edit: So the term was coined by a white nationalist columnist back in the 90s. Figures. Yeah so what you seem upset lol and live in your dream world. Being white by the way is perfectly ok and good to be lol. Nothing wrong with being white, but I said "white nationalist", which is a very different thing.

The newest portraits are definitely an improvement, though I never minded them overly in their previous state. I'd like to see if Edér's and Pallegina's get updated though, as those are the two I'm really iffy about. But still, looking very nice!

Some impressions on the stream were: interior lights look wonderful, the creature design and sound design in general seem stellar, and there seem to be some neat little challenges and interactions in that dungeon and so on. The voice performances sound nice though Serafen sounds completely unlike what I expected. The one thing that concerned me, however, was the lack of an exterior location outside the dungeon that was shown - it seemed you entered the dungeon right from the world map. I hope that isn't the case for most dungeons and areas, and that we are actually able to get a more detailed look at their exterior elsewhere, as the world map hardly does much to convey the sheer splendour and presence and magnitude that these places have.

Wait, so what if you acquired the game on GOG?

Eh, I was being facetious as I thought we were trying to name increasingly 'worse' video-game adaptations. I think Super Mario Bros. is pretty terrible myself, but at the very least it's *interesting* in some regard, something cannot really be said about any other video-game adaptation I recall watching.

If you're gonna romance a sword, make sure it's a sword made for thrusting.

Super Mario Bros. is where it's at.

I assume not - at least, I think none of the women in Critical Role were in the first Pillars, and Pallegina would likely be voiced by the previous actress, right? And speaking of which, who voiced her in the first game? Jesus, why can't we get the damn cast list shown with their respective roles?!

The story was pretty great and rather interesting from a thematic/ideological standpoint, it was simply told through the action rather than the dialogue as such (likewise I think Hardy expresses a lot through his sheer physicality, which is as good and visual a medium as any). But certainly Max wasn't the important character in it - he was mostly the vehicle through which we saw Furiosa's story unravel instead. But that's really been the series ever since the first film, which I would add probably gives us all we need to know about the character as well. With regards to that trailer, I never go into a film starring James Franco expecting much out of him. Far as I'm concerned he always rings false to me, like he's usually trying to follow a certain clique or other. I don't expect something very different of this film, the trailer feels very cheap and cheesy, it has none of the Fellini-esque operatic grandeur than Fury Road does and in turn it all feels just a little old-hat and bland. But hey, I always enjoy a surprise.

I thought the Mad Max we always wanted was The Road Warrior and Fury Road?