[Merged] Voice Acting- Suggestion

[Azzy]

The issue would be that going though all the submissions for it would probably cost more than using an agency and paying a real acting type person. You do get the feeling that folks don't appreciate the difficulties of voice acting.

[Domigorgon]

Thing is, this is an Infinity Engine inspired RPG. That means YOU WILL READ DIALOGUE. Tons of, hopefully. Words upon words.

 

I actually get annoyed with voice-overs in dialogue-driven games. I can read faster than these characters speak. I'm done reading the subtitles while they are only half-way through. I really don't see any reason to have more voice-over than Planescape: Torment or Baldur's Gate had. Sure, okay, maybe some main/important characters could have a bit more voice-over (thinking along the lines of talking heads in Fallout 1 and 2), or save it for cutscenes and banter.

 

Planescape: Torment behaved more like an interactive novel than anything, and everybody loved it for that. But to voice-over every word of all that dialogue? It'd be either too expensive or too shoddy.

 

Leave the voiceovers out of actual NPC interactions, please.

[Karranthain]

No thanks, I find VA more effective when it's used sparingly (case in point: Fallout, BG2) - those rare moments were really memorable.

[Sensuki]

I liked the Baldur's Gate style of voice acting.

 

Every character had a line they spoke when clicked on and some muttered random things as you walked by.

 

Important characters had more voice.

[Merin]

Some voice is alright. For flavor, and for scenes where you have no control (preferrably your character isn't there.) Anything where having voice doesn't limit the player's options is fine, probalby even desired.

 

Once you start adding voice to dialogs where you can choose responses, you get a lot of limitations.

 

The second you have NPCs talking to your character, you really lose the ability to name your character. When they didn't address you directly with voice, it's a simply $tring command to get their text to include your chosen name. When they DO address you with voice, then you either have a set name or they call you some generic term (Warden, for example.)

 

That's just one example. Badmojo's excellent post was another.

[h4mm32]

While the original voice actors are quite nostalgic, I would love to see some newer people in the industry. This is a new IP afterall. Wouldn't you like some fresh blood?

Jennifer Hale and possibly Steven Jay Blum will be in it. They're in everything. It's a physical law on par with the speed of light or Avagadro's Number.

 

oh christ ANYTHING but blum. he's always the same person

[kenup]

No voice acting, except for very specific cases perhaps. The last thing I want, is my character's family and friends call him You all the time.

 

Unless we have a completely fixed character, like The Nameless One or Mike Throton for example, which this game isn't going to have. Not to mention, it will drain a huge amount of resources.

[eimatshya]

Even if you didn't have to pay the actors, you would still have to pay for a director and studio time to record. Then there is the task of actually getting all of the recorded lines into the game and testing them to make sure they are working correctly. All of this would be expensive and time consuming. I'm fine with limited voice acting (I'd actually prefer none because I don't really like BG's system of abrupt transitions when recorded dialogue gives way suddenly to text only, but Obsidian's made their decision).

[Piccolo]

Every time someone asks for fully voiced dialogue in an RPG, I want to thump them really hard (really really hard if they want the player-character voiced also). Does this make me a bad person?

[Nakia]

I would love a fully voiced game but it takes resources not only of the developer but of the player. Sound can kill your performance. Also far my experience has been that a fully voiced game can be annoying. repetitious and the voices boring. That fact that the main character can't be fully voiced is jarring because you still have to go back to text. Maybe someday technology will enable a true fully voiced game but right now it isn't or doesn't seem to be possible.

 

My preference would be that the main characters are voiced but what ever Obsidian does I will live with it so long as the game itself is good.

[Kaldurenik]

Ah yes the classic "let the community do the voice acting topic" that almost every kickstarter seem to have now days.

 

To keep it short:

 

NO

[The Sharmat]

oh christ ANYTHING but blum. he's always the same person

That's really more the directors' fault. He's been typecast. He can do other voices.

[aVENGER]

If it's not too expensive, I'd like to hear David Warner in Project Eternity. Not necessarily in a big role, but something memorable nonetheless.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22Ki7yp2XL0

 

Thanks to him, every self-respecting BG2 fan knows at least one of Irenicus' lines by heart.

[arrowhead]

If it's not too expensive, I'd like to hear David Warner in Project Eternity. Not necessarily in a big role, but something memorable nonetheless.

 

Thanks to him, every self-respecting BG2 fan knows at least one of Irenicus' lines by heart.

"You will suffa, you will all suffa!"

[Amentep]

Only voice actor I think I'd ever really think "wow, cool to hear him again" would be Tony Jay, but alas he's no longer with us. Such a great voice and voice-over actor (pretty good in non-VO roles too, IMO).

[jivex5k]

Free voice acting from college students?

I'll politely say no thanks.

 

Obsidian said it's not all about the money anyways, it's also about flexibility of dialogue options.

 

I think BG2 got the perfect balance of little VOs here and there, but mainly leaving it up to your imagination.

In fact, I hope your character isn't voiced at all, the voices never sound close to mine at all.

[hawkmoon]

Come now... Michael Bell is essential for this. Or is he locked into a zales contract or something? Still love that from an episode of threes company.

[DocDoomII]

Can we have Claudia Black? I love her voice.

[HeedlessHorseman]

Another thing is there is a difference between acting and voice acting. So for the few voice lines, I think Obsidian should hire professional voice actors.

[truesky]

Full voice acting would take up too much of the budget and the resources spent on that would honestly be better spent elsewhere. As someone else already pointed out it also severely limits how much npc's can say. Instead of a long in-depth conversation you could end up with rather short conversation that abruptly ends. I want long memorable conversations like the ones from PS:T. That being said I wouldn't mind the game being partially and professionally voiced like in bg2. The most important lines could voiced while rest remains just text.

 

I don't see the harm in issuing a callout for volunteer drama students to lend their talents for Project Eternity. If the submissions end up being THAT terrible then Obsidan can say, "Thanks but not thanks." They're not obligated to use the submissions.

[jivex5k]

Yeah pro is the way to go.

Batman: AC comes to mind immediately, freaking amazing voice acting.

[DocDoomII]

Less voice acting = More people learn decent grammar.

And maybe, just MAYBE there will be less people saying "should of" instead of "should have".

[jivex5k]

Less voice acting = More people learn decent grammar.

And maybe, just MAYBE there will be less people saying "should of" instead of "should have".

Yeah it just burns me up somethin' fierce when people be using incorrect words all the day.

[Loranc]

Why 4 h8?

[Ieo]

People are still talking about full VO?

1UP interview with Chris Avellone, Oct. 11, 2012:

 

1UP: Voice acting has been described as providing "flavor" in Project Eternity, which seems to indicate that most dialogue will take the form of text. How much does this free up your ability to provide meaningful conversation choices, and to flesh out the world and characters? Being able to add or edit dialog at any point must be very different from working on fully-voiced games that require recording sessions and file size considerations.

 

Avellone: Yes, true to the Infinity Engine games, most dialogue will take the form of text. It's a lot easier to iterate and make changes to text that isn't being voice acted, post-processed, and then voice acted and post-processed in a number of other languages as well. Note that this doesn't mean complete freedom -- the text is still going to be translated into French, German, Spanish and hopefully a host of other languages as well, and it does need to be locked down, but it's much easier to make the necessary iterations well into the bug-fixing phase, which is often a lot more difficult when there's voice for everyone (which you often have to wrap up several months before the end of the project, and a LOT can change during that time).

 

 

Abso-freaking-lutely NO FULL VOICE-OVERS. It's not just cost. Avellone also mentioned in another interview, probably quoted in this thread, that full VO by its very nature inhibits free-form dialogic content with more reactivity and all that.

 

Random flavor chatter from extremely minor NPCs, maybe so, since I wouldn't expect that to be iterated like quest VO. I'd much rather Obsidian invest in live instrumentation than amateur VA--as I said in that thread, minor imperfections in live music definitely lend a different feel of authenticity to a setting, but imperfect voice acting kinda just breaks everything.