[Merged] Voice Acting- Suggestion

[Dashwood]

IIRC there was something about the fact the game may not be fully voiced, due to a lack of funds for hiring voice talent.

 

 

Screw That.

 

Obsidian, you have in excess of 26 odd thousand people backing your project with cold hard cash, why not ask them to do it? For example, I'm currently at Victoria University (Wellington New Zealand) If pushed, I could gather a bunch of Drama students, push them into a (university sponsored) recording room and give them scripts. It's free voice for side quests and NPCs, non essential stuff, whilst the remaining voice talent could be hired (after all, you don't want to distribute story related scripts to complete randoms)

 

I'm sure there are others in a similar situation, If you put out the call you could have, quite literally, thousands of voices for your game, imagine the babble as you entered a busy market place, hundreds of actual people trying to talk over one another (in a recording studio of course), you could have hundreds of people do their best Orc/Goblin impressions, imagine getting a different insult from those pesky raiders before engaging them in combat, imagine having to play hundreds of hours before hearing a repeat of someone's voice! No "Arrow in the Knee" repeats, ask a different fan to voice act each guard, each with their own anecdotes and ways of dealing with trespassers! (vocally, of course)

 

 

Just a thought.

Edited September 16, 2012 by Dashwood

[Longknife]

 

 

Either do it well or don't do it at all.

[Infinitron]

IIRC there was something about the fact the game may not be fully voiced, due to a lack of funds for hiring voice talent.

 

That's not the only reason not to have full voice acting in a game.

[LadySpace]

On the one hand, I would absolutely love to have my voice in the game, and I think this would be a great way to get the community involved. On the other, Longknife makes a pretty excellent point on the pitfalls of poor VA work. So I'll reserve judgement for now.

[Volourn]

Depending on how the kickstarter goes, they can start with having full voice overs for major joinable companions, and the PC then add on major characters. Of course, has Obsidian themselves stated, while fully voice dialogue is cool with it your dialogue gots to be locked in earlier as it will be rather difficult and time consuming to get voice actors to come back later on to redo voice overs or add new stuff and depending on contract with said talent along with time issues that can screw things up as well.

 

Voice acting can add A LOT of stuff to a game (Irenicus would not be nearly as memorable w/o the voice actor as one example) but it comes withs own hardships as well.

[Dashwood]

 

 

Either do it well or don't do it at all.

 

As I said, I have at least 50 odd Drama students on call, these are people who are intending to use their voices professionally, and a top quality recording studio. these guys (and gals) love the sounds of their own voices, and I don't doubt more than a few would run through a script or two for free.

 

What does it hurt to at least screen some free voice talent? 5 or so minutes out of your day for something that could cost a bleeding fortune? If it's bad there's no need to add it, but if it's good ....

[Badmojo]

No voice acting for the main character at all. Partial voice acting for important characters and companions is fine, but absolutely none for the main character. Why? For one, voice acting automatically limits the dialog options, don't say it wont, developers left and right have confirmed this multiple times. You will be limited to stupid dragon age/mass affect dialog options of one liners of good/evil/snarky. Secondly, voice acting is EXPENSIVE and time consuming, the more dialog, the longer it takes to record and the bills start going up. As another pointed out, you have to have the writing locked in place and you can forget any changes later on. Another reason is the characters personality is fixed, again that is because of the limitations of dialog. You will probably end up with a commanding military personality like shepard or hawke, you can forget thoughtfull mage personalities, scared personalities, paranoid..etc. Basically you can forget customizing your personality. Fallout did it correct, it was all dialog except for important scenes and/or characters.

 

Basically this is what happens when you do voice overs.

[Tychoxi]

Depending on how the kickstarter goes, they can start with having full voice overs for major joinable companions, and the PC then add on major characters. Of course, has Obsidian themselves stated, while fully voice dialogue is cool with it your dialogue gots to be locked in earlier as it will be rather difficult and time consuming to get voice actors to come back later on to redo voice overs or add new stuff and depending on contract with said talent along with time issues that can screw things up as well.

 

Voice acting can add A LOT of stuff to a game (Irenicus would not be nearly as memorable w/o the voice actor as one example) but it comes withs own hardships as well.

 

I prefer my PC to be silent, thank you very much.

[Tevious]

If this was done at all, there would have to be a system in place where potential voice actors send in demo reels to Obsidian and then get chosen for roles provided they have appropriate recording equipment. And this should be limited to small roles like NPCs, not main characters.

[Longknife]

Can I voice a troll

 

I think I could fit the role quite well.

[Tychoxi]

uhm, not need to be agressive, my friend, I was just stating my preference. Besides preferences can't be stupid! They are personal tastes, there's no right or wrong, smart or stupid.

Edited September 16, 2012 by Tale

[WDeranged]

Seeing how we should only be getting short snippets of voice, all I want from the actors is character, voice acting these days seems to be focused on realism and it's lost some of that weird magic you get from an actor with a really distinctive voice hamming it up

 

Obsidian are pretty good at getting voice talent, Black Isle weren't slouches either, I won't lose much sleep over it.

Edited September 16, 2012 by WDeranged

[Volourn]

I'm not being aggresive. I'm just stating my preference as well.

[Humanoid]

In an immediate sense, VA is just a matter of trading a large cost for a possible immersion benefit, but that's not a thing I'm really worried about either way. My concerns would be more about implications for the future should the developers wish to expand on content - in this scenario what full VA tends to do is to "show the seams" so to speak, where the addon stuff meets the original content. Even Bioware with there vastly larger budget suffered from this, for example, in ME2, where the two DLC characters had minimal interaction with any existing aspects of the game and were restricted to self-contained comments, because of the practical difficulties in retrofitting any interaction hooks to include this new element. Doing it in pure text would be a relative doddle.

[LadySpace]

Oh, yeah, definitely no voice acting for the main character. For me, that was a major problem with both ME's approach to dialogue and Risen's. No thank you.

[Bedlam]

Vin Diesel should VA the brogue companion, if there is one.

[LadySpace]

Vin Diesel should VA the brogue companion, if there is one.

 

I can't tell if you're making a portmanteau of "bro" and "rogue" or if you're saying that Vin Diesel would do a good Irish accent. I choose to believe the latter.

[Volourn]

"For me, that was a major problem with both ME's approach to dialogue"

 

Eh. ME's dialogue wouldn't have been as awesome if it wasn't for voiced PC dialogue.

[Bedlam]

Vin Diesel should VA the brogue companion, if there is one.

 

I can't tell if you're making a portmanteau of "bro" and "rogue" or if you're saying that Vin Diesel would do a good Irish accent. I choose to believe the latter.

 

You know what? I'm going to go with the latter too.

[Xantomas]

No. Nononononononononononono

 

 

 

NO!

[Pop]

I have no doubt there is a guild or union of voice actors, and Obsidian would more than likely run into a lot of trouble were they to solicit uncompensated VA without at least making a good faith effort to procure professionals. They probably get offers of free work all the time but at best, they rely on themselves for VA (Brian Mitsoda, for example, did a lot of VA work in Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines and Neverwinter Nights 2)

 

Besides, it's just a bad idea. Not enough volunteers with their professional audio recording equipment, too many potential script leaks, and just plain bad acting.

[Metabot]

I have no doubt there is a guild or union of voice actors, and Obsidian would more than likely run into a lot of trouble were they to solicit uncompensated VA without at least making a good faith effort to procure professionals.

 

lol what? Tell them to go f*** themselves. That being said, minimum voice acting please. I think reading is more interactive actually, and thus more "immersing". God, immersion is such a buzz word these days that it means absolutely nothing now.

[The Sharmat]

Good voice acting adds a ton to a game, and both Bioware and Obsidian have excellent records on that count. But it's EXPENSIVE, and quite time consuming. The hybrid way would be best for the game you guys seem to be aiming for. Introductions for major characters voiced, as well as the really important dramatic scenes, but the rest pure text.

 

I actually LIKED that Mass Effect was fully voiced, for the record. The developers were going for a very cinematic, hollywood blockbuster sort of feel. And there's nothing wrong with that. But it's not what a game like Torment or KOTOR 2 are about.

[Metabot]

I think good music and good writing add more than voice acting ever can. I like to imagine what the characters sound like and that can be accomplished with great writing.

[Ieo]

I think good music and good writing add more than voice acting ever can. I like to imagine what the characters sound like and that can be accomplished with great writing.

 

I definitely liked how BG/PST did it, and it's what they're planning here: Initial voiced lines and the rest not voiced, no voiced PC. The initial voiced lines are very important to establish an NPC's voice and verbal carriage, and the rest the players can so easily extrapolate. We're CRPGamers, dammit; we're creative types! I absolutely hated--was it ME1?--I would pick a stupidly short text option on the dialogue wheel and my character would spout off something completely snarky that I didn't expect at all. Gah!