Voiced NPCs

[MReed]

No, absolutely not. In fact, I'd prefer that there be no voice acting at all, under any circumstances, but I'm not going to get that.

 

Voice acting dramatically increases the cost per line / word of dialog, dramatically reduces flexibility when it comes to offering dialog choices (once voice acting is done, the dialog is locked in stone), and the money spent on voice acting means that the game world is smaller (twice -- once to pay for the voice actors, and again because adding more content means more voice acting). While there are benefits to immersion, the costs are far to high.

[Pangur]

BG's amount of voice over is enough for me.

[Uomoz]

BG style.

 

(greetings, spell mantras, key dialogues)

Edited September 21, 2012 by Uomoz

[Jaesun]

A Narrator and major character voices would be Fabulous, but I don't recall them even saying VO would be in game, at the current project funding level.

[lolaldanee]

as long as i can think, voice acting has been the most important part of any game for me - nothing makes a character more real than a good voice actor

none the less i picked option nr. 2 - the budget simply is not one of a fully voiced game (sadly )

[Piccolo]

It surprises me how many people are in favour of some or all characters being voiced. I don't think such people really understand just how detrimental voice acting is....

[incubus9]

I like greetings and certain exclamations. Full voice acting is expensive and a waste of an already limited budget.

 

"I serve the Flaming Fist!"

[Jarmo]

IE style, lots and lots and lots of voice acting, but only for greetings and maybe a bit more in important parts.

Voices do add a lot in the way of immersion, and it doesn't even require much of it, just a few words and the character is alive!

Edited September 21, 2012 by Jarmo

[Water]

One of the things I've always missed about unvoiced games is that they could have NPCs to refer to your PC by name. You know, rather than just "Exile", "Our Leader", or some variant of the word "you".

[Chunkyman]

Maybe here and there, but I do not want the budget wasted on hiring people for voice overs.

[Cahir]

Giving all character in game professional voice acting will be, I think, out of reach for devs with funds they will gather, but all joinable and other more important to plot NPC's should be fully voiced. It gives a real fun to hear well writen dialogues read by profs.

[Andre]

BG2 did it the best. Usually greetings and such were voice-acted, and the most important NPCs were usually fully voice-acted. As it has been noted by others on the forum, the more voice acting you have the less you can use your imagination.

 

Minsc's level of voice acting was perfect. PS:T's level of voice acting was a tad low, I don't really mind but there were only a few lines spoken there.

 

Also to note is that getting good voice actors costs a lot unfortunately :/ One voice actor I would LOVE to hear is Glynnis Talken Campbell, she voice acted Kerrigan in SC1 and had such a strong female voice... she would probably also be super cheap.

 

Will be disappointed if there's no David Warner as well, Jim Cummings and Jennifer Hale would be a big plus!

[ohmygodsquad]

Just a little bit of voice acting can go a long way. Every time you heard a voice in Planescape you sat up because you knew something important was going down. Hearing Ravels voice in the maze had so much more impact than if the game had been voice acted fully through out.

[Lucas]

If they aim to re-create the spirit of those BIS classics, I would be perfectly fine with the same (limited) amount of voiced content that was included back then; budget is the most important thing, and also how important this feature would be in order to reach a wider, general audience, if they aim to reach them too (and I guess they want to).

 

I assume a lot of us (of course not the entire forum base) who participate in this message board played a lot of CRPGs, maybe since the eighties, so I guess we wouldn't even mind a "written-only" approach, but that's quite a "hardcore" one

[TCJ]

Maybe you can add a new $10,000 tier which allows the person to voice-act for an NPC.

 

...Now that's a bizarre idea!

 

 

I do like the way BG2 did it for a lot of NPCs.... voice the first line and let the rest be text. Once you've heard the voice you can imagine the rest of it in the same voice easily enough. It's nice to have main NPCs voiced fully, but for lesser ones, the one line might be nice.

Edited September 21, 2012 by TCJ

[Zoma]

Maybe you can add a new $10,000 tier which allows the person to voice-act for an NPC.

 

...Now that's a bizarre idea!

 

 

I do like the way BG2 did it for a lot of NPCs.... voice the first line and let the rest be text. Once you've heard the voice you can imagine the rest of it in the same voice easily enough. It's nice to have main NPCs voiced fully, but for lesser ones, the one line might be nice.

 

And have a chance to end up like this?

 

[TCJ]

Maybe you can add a new $10,000 tier which allows the person to voice-act for an NPC.

 

...Now that's a bizarre idea!

 

 

I do like the way BG2 did it for a lot of NPCs.... voice the first line and let the rest be text. Once you've heard the voice you can imagine the rest of it in the same voice easily enough. It's nice to have main NPCs voiced fully, but for lesser ones, the one line might be nice.

 

And have a chance to end up like this?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bangt7d9vGA

 

Hence the reason for the crazy face. I wasn't being serious.

[MReed]

... how important this feature would be in order to reach a wider, general audience, if they aim to reach them too (and I guess they want to)....

 

Full voice acting would, indeed, be critical to reach a wider, general audience. Ditching the isometric camera, minimizing / eliminating pause and play, simplifying the rule set, and releasing in consoles would also be good ways to reach a wider, general audience. Of course, if they did that, they wouldn't need a kickstarter in the first place, would they?

 

So, no, in my opinion Oblivion does not want to reach a wider, general audience and (speaking for myself only) if they modify the game to achieve this goal I would withdraw my donation in a heartbeat.

[Merin]

I'm 2, but just barely. I almost went 3.

 

Voice to highlight and add emphasis, not for everything.

 

BG2, kinda, does it mostly right.

 

I don't want cinematic dialogs... so right here it cuts out the need for a lot of voice.

 

And I'd rather there only be cut scenes for set events that no player choices could possibly change... or, at worst, major events even if there are a couple different possibilities.

 

In short - I don't want voiced dialog to affect how many choices the player can make, nor do I want the cost of voice acting to limit the scope of the game.

 

EDIT - As someone posted above me, I also read a hell of a lot faster than the spoken dialog plays out - so I find myself torn between listening to the actor or moving at my own pace with the dialog, and it's a disjunction I'd rather not deal with. I always have sub-titles on anyway, so there you go.

Edited September 21, 2012 by Merin

[ohmygodsquad]

... how important this feature would be in order to reach a wider, general audience, if they aim to reach them too (and I guess they want to)....

So, no, in my opinion Oblivion does not want to reach a wider, general audience and (speaking for myself only) if they modify the game to achieve this goal I would withdraw my donation in a heartbeat.

 

Pretty much, yeah. They're making a niche product, hence the justification for using Kickstarter. If the product starts outgrowing the niche, they may as well have gotten a publisher.

[The Sharmat]

It won't fit the budget.

The poll criteria assume that it's a magical world wherein it does fit the budget no matter what. I voted accordingly.

 

In the magic perfect world, yes, I'd love fully voiced NPCs with quality voice actors. Since we don't live in a perfect world, I'd rather that Eternity not have VOs for any but the important characters, and even then only to flavor the important scenes.

[alphyna]

And the answer is no.

 

There's one thing that voiceover forbids: side notes. I really like the idea of, say, descriptions of how the character's face changes when he talks to you. It was executed brilliantly in PS:T, where Ravel's weird speech patterns (all those not/knots) poisoned the way TNO thought of her. And that was wonderful, it gave the player insight into the character's thought process without directly describing it. That can't be voiced.

 

On the other hand, good voice acting can be really wonderful. So my answer is the secong: partially — yes.

[kenup]

No voice acting! Unless the main hero is fixed, like Gerald or Mike Thorton. I hate always hearing "You that!" and "You this" or whatever. Going half way is never good, unless obsidian hides some futuristic text to voice programme that can replace voice actors and recognize custom text/names.

[Shevek]

Voices are nice, no doubt. However, the money to do it just isn't worth it. I would rather have more dialog and less voices. Just greetings, battlesounds and the occaisonal off color remark, ala-BG2.

[molarBear]

No voice acting! Unless the main hero is fixed, like Gerald or Mike Thorton. I hate always hearing "You that!" and "You this" or whatever. Going half way is never good, unless obsidian hides some futuristic text to voice programme that can replace voice actors and recognize custom text/names.

 

â la hatsune mitsu (will still fail)

Edited September 22, 2012 by molarBear