Voices in the game

[Dostro89]

For me personally characters having voices is really important to me, it really ups the immersion. In my mind there are 3 levels of voice in a game and I will try to explain why I want and why there are 3.

 

Firstly you have the party. Party members bantering and chatting in the background, having conversations with them at camp adds a huge level to the world for me. Now your character having a voice doesnt matter to me, DA2 did not benefit from it and that is one voice i like creating in my head. I'm going to put the "major" characters in this as well, which for me is anyone involved in the main storyline. These guys are aroound a lot and

 

On the next you have the people who give you side quests and who do talk to you quite often, crafters, merchants, etc. They may only have a few lines of dialogue but especially if you deal with them frequesntly like you do with merchants it just adds to the immersion, reading dialogue from these guys would just add a layer between you and the game and thats not a good thing.

 

Finally you have the ambiant sound. This is walking through a city and just over hearing conversations going on, hearing a priest preaching on a corner, a beggar begging. Cities are noisy places but that noise is not just bells ringing, or carts going through, its mostly chatter and thats what brings cities to life.

 

I understand that the old infinity engine games didnt have everyone talking, sadly they came before I really got into RPGs so I havent played them yet, but I would like to think that even they can be improved upon and that in this day and age we can one up them per say. Am I the only one who wants a talking, living world?

[lychee26]

I think the problem with having a lot of voice acting is that it cost money, and because this game doesn't exactly have a large budget having all that voice acting isn't really feasible.

 

It also restricts how maeny lines of dialogue you can write, because of the cost and the time it would take to record, which is something they wanted to avoid, Obsidian wanted their writers to have a free reign when it comes to dialogue.

Edited October 13, 2012 by lychee26

[rjshae]

What's been discussed is the hope that Obsidian will leave hooks in the game for modders to add amateur voice acting. Then it's just a matter of finding some volunteers with suitable voices and delivery skills.

[Ieo]

Full VO brings with it significant problems, not just cost.

 

* Amount of dialogic content is stripped because the file size take up too much space compared to text.

* Dialogic content development is iterative, which means VO has to be redone and both cost/time go up that way. Much easier to rewrite text too.

 

 

What's been discussed is the hope that Obsidian will leave hooks in the game for modders to add amateur voice acting. Then it's just a matter of finding some volunteers with suitable voices and delivery skills.

 

It can't be a full VO game regardless because Obsidian has stated so. Post-ship mods would work, though.

 

With an initial partial VO, it's very easy and just as immersive for me to "hear" that voice continuing with the rest of the text. The recent games with full-VO are designed for a passive audience who like watching movies rather than using their own imaginations, such as when reading books.

Edited October 13, 2012 by Ieo

[Yst]

I've seen this addressed quite well elsewhere. But the most prevalent position, it seems to me, and the one I agree with, is that a certain amount of spoken dialogue is desirable, so as to allow for the communication of some of the character's general personality and manner. But this is just groundwork for establishing the character.

 

A maximum of freedom in developing a character and their story is allowed for by the restriction of most subsequent dialogue to text. The player can infer moods and intentions, as they desire, in interacting with their best favoured NPCs. The characters can become their own. They're not at the mercy of a voice actor, who may impose feeling which they don't associate with the character, for the sake of some given exchange.

 

You mention ambient sound, and I think you are right that this is important. Sounds which 'set the scene' are the most important ones. Sounds do not need to tell the story. They need to create the desired atmosphere, so that the player can tell their own story.

 

The Infinity Engine games generally pursued this approach. And it's the one I naturally hope to see revisited.

 

Of course, cost and logistical difficulty is a very important reason as well, for avoidance of unnecessary voicing.

[Piccolo]

I'm fine with ambient voices, but anything more than that isn't an improvement at all. Voiced dialogue is possibly the worst thing to happen to RPGs.

• Written dialogue allows for a LOT more content, better stories, and more fleshed out NPCs
  
• Like a book, it leaves a lot more to your imagination (partly why people often say the book is better than the film adaptation)
  
• Written dialogue is much easier to edit - not only for developers, but for modders as well
  
• In my opinion, written dialogue is actually more immersive than voiced dialogue, because you don't have NPCs spouting the same generic sentences over and over, or recycled voices
  

There's simply no justification for voiced dialogue. Why pay a ton of money just to make the game significantly worse? Just because younger gamers are too accustomed to voiced dialogue?

Edited October 13, 2012 by Piccolo

[Osvir]

*raises hand* I'm all down for volunteering :D probably going to start working on creating some voices after I've played the game at least once though.

 

I've brought this up a couple of times before, I think that if Obsidian would make it easy to put audio files into the game (on top of the dialogue) we could see fans doing this themselves. Just looking at Let's Play's and similar I know that there are thousands of people with great voices and the proper tools to make good sounding dialogue voices for the game.

 

Please? :D I've got some actor's background, and I'm so looking forward to this~

 

If Obsidian implements an ease-of-use, I hope they do it on the Main Character "choices" and dialogue as well, that way you could get a fully voiced main character as well. There should also be an option of "Silent Hero" (something which didn't exist in Baldur's Gate, as an example) where your main character never makes a sound. I'd rather my main character be silent the entire game than hear him go on about the same 5 different .wav files present in the game.

 

EDIT:

It can't be a full VO game regardless because Obsidian has stated so.

 

With an initial partial VO, it's very easy and just as immersive for me to "hear" that voice continuing with the rest of the text. The recent games with full-VO are designed for a passive audience who like watching movies rather than using their own imaginations, such as when reading books.

 

I've missed this when did they say it?

 

I'm sure that it wouldn't be too hard to "cut" the voice mid-sentence if you click an option in a dialogue or skip ahead. It's 2012! :D <3

I want the game to be dialogue heavy and designed as a book, like many here agree with because of the same reasons.

Edited October 13, 2012 by Osvir

[Ieo]

It can't be a full VO game regardless because Obsidian has stated so.

 

When, how and where?

 

Are you kidding? This has been known since the very beginning.

 

 

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/109462-obsidian-entertainment-announces-project-eternity.html

 

http://www.1up.com/features/interview-chris-avellone-project-eternity

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/12/project-eternity-obsidian-live-chat/

 

 

And other sources. Man, there has to be a giant highlighted sticky somewhere for all the things Obsidian has stated over and over again.

[Shades]

For me personally characters having voices is really important to me, it really ups the immersion. In my mind there are 3 levels of voice in a game and I will try to explain why I want and why there are 3.

 

Firstly you have the party. Party members bantering and chatting in the background, having conversations with them at camp adds a huge level to the world for me. Now your character having a voice doesnt matter to me, DA2 did not benefit from it and that is one voice i like creating in my head. I'm going to put the "major" characters in this as well, which for me is anyone involved in the main storyline. These guys are aroound a lot and

 

On the next you have the people who give you side quests and who do talk to you quite often, crafters, merchants, etc. They may only have a few lines of dialogue but especially if you deal with them frequesntly like you do with merchants it just adds to the immersion, reading dialogue from these guys would just add a layer between you and the game and thats not a good thing.

 

Finally you have the ambiant sound. This is walking through a city and just over hearing conversations going on, hearing a priest preaching on a corner, a beggar begging. Cities are noisy places but that noise is not just bells ringing, or carts going through, its mostly chatter and thats what brings cities to life.

 

I understand that the old infinity engine games didnt have everyone talking, sadly they came before I really got into RPGs so I havent played them yet, but I would like to think that even they can be improved upon and that in this day and age we can one up them per say. Am I the only one who wants a talking, living world?

 

You say you haven't played the IE games, so I think you may be misunderstanding the way voicing works in them.

 

Typically in IE games your character has a soundset, like say... DA: O where you select a PC soundset. Your companions also have soundsets like this, and they have some lines of banter between each other that are all voiced. They may also have longer banters where you have the standard first line being voiced, and the rest isn't.

 

With most conversations the first line is voiced, and the rest won't be (I find for me this provides me with the sound of a character so I end up reading the rest of the dialogue as if the voice actor is saying it). Sometimes you'll get a few voiced lines in a conversation, or with your big baddies sometimes you'll get all or most of their side of a conversation voiced.

 

You do have ambient voicing, both with background sound that involves voices where they're not actually saying anything intelligible, and also specific lines from random NPCs standing around. For example a town crier will yell out every so often, courtesans would call out, sailors will call out too. NPCs would usually have... I think about 2 or 3 different voiced lines they would cycle through if you talked to them. I don't recall talking to NPCs and not getting a voiced sound playing in response.

 

Basically my point is that although the IE games have limited voicing that doesn't mean they don't cover everything that they need to with the voicing they do have. I'd suggest trying them out before deciding that more voicing is needed

Edited October 13, 2012 by Shades

[Osvir]

It can't be a full VO game regardless because Obsidian has stated so.

 

When, how and where?

 

Are you kidding? This has been known since the very beginning.

 

 

http://www.gamebansh...t-eternity.html

 

http://www.1up.com/f...roject-eternity

http://www.pcgamer.c...dian-live-chat/

 

 

And other sources. Man, there has to be a giant highlighted sticky somewhere for all the things Obsidian has stated over and over again.

 

I think I misunderstood your post mate. I read it like "There's never going to be Full VO in the game, it's going to be designed to not include it at all or let anyone attempt it post-game. Period".

Edited October 13, 2012 by Osvir

[Ieo]

I think I misunderstood your post mate. I read it like "There's never going to be Full VO in the game, it's going to be designed to not include it at all or let anyone attempt it post-game. Period".

 

Fair enough. Full VO isn't something Obsidian can or will worry about, so PE isn't going to include full VO; but since we already know modding will be possible, it's best to leave stuff like this up to the modders. We might get some interesting stuff.

[Adhin]

If they handle it like BG/PST I'd be happy, I'd love it even more if after its been out and, sales permitting, they had a more full VO DLC/Expansion type thing. I love mods and all but amateur voice acting is sadly just that. It's the difference between an awesome B-Movie and... the crap people call a b movie cause they're not sure what else to call it.

 

In other words I'd rather not leave it up to the modders cause it'll, as history has shows for the past...well its always crap. Might be mildly entertaining here and there but it just often lacks the quality in recording and actual VO talent it's jarring. Like someone trying to add there own pre-rendered backgrounds in only they're scanning in crayon 'art'.

 

Meh, happy with IE lvl of VO either way.... but a guy can hope for an add-on later to bolster it, from the same people who made it.

[Pappi_man]

I really hope PE has background voices playing in cities, taverns and etc. The same magic that Baldur's Gate games had.

[Yst]

A case in point for how carefully selected and specifically purposed voiceover can be marvelously valuable, without impeding freedom of interpretive experience (as full VO does):

 

The most powerful and most memorable voicing for me, in Planescape Torment, is the voicing for Deionarra. But she needed only have spoken a sentence, to break my heart.

 

That was enough. That was entirely sufficient, to make her story (experience in depth, in text) heartbreaking. She needn't have spoken a word more. Had she spoken it all, it could not possibly have been as haunting.

[Lord Kelric]

I'm hoping they have the character banter at least...still love some of the BG/BG2 lines.

 

"Go for the eyes Boo, GO FOR THE EYES!!"

[Osvir]

If they handle it like BG/PST I'd be happy, I'd love it even more if after its been out and, sales permitting, they had a more full VO DLC/Expansion type thing. I love mods and all but amateur voice acting is sadly just that. It's the difference between an awesome B-Movie and... the crap people call a b movie cause they're not sure what else to call it.

 

In other words I'd rather not leave it up to the modders cause it'll, as history has shows for the past...well its always crap. Might be mildly entertaining here and there but it just often lacks the quality in recording and actual VO talent it's jarring. Like someone trying to add there own pre-rendered backgrounds in only they're scanning in crayon 'art'.

 

Meh, happy with IE lvl of VO either way.... but a guy can hope for an add-on later to bolster it, from the same people who made it.

 

Depends on how much time and how devoted the amateur is I managed to make some pretty sweet sounding sound sets for Baldur's Gate and I tried to be as professional as I could (I spent about a weekend on one of them, writing a manuscript, sound editing). I managed to get the volume just right for them as well so they were sounding like they could've been a part of vanilla BG. Now Baldur's Gate was fairly simple to make it good, mainly because it was short, 3-6 second .wav recordings... VO's are much more dialogue heavy, you need to set the tone right and you need to act accordingly and consistently, much much more work of course.

 

If it took about a weekend for me to write and make a good sound set, I'm sure it would take months doing a full-on VO on all dialogues.

 

Unless I could, of course, get some dialogue scripts from Obsidian beforehand (which I doubt I would) so I'm looking at being finished with this personal project 1+ year after P:E has been released probably for 1 character.

Edited October 13, 2012 by Osvir

[Tamerlane]

I've been playing some Witcher 2 lately, so any mention of ambient voices absolutely terrifies me.

 

"Plough 'em all, plough 'em all!"

 

"Odrin! Odriiiiiin!"

 

"Not another ****in' stone!"

 

God damn you all.

[agewisdom]

Leaving in some game hooks for modders to add in their own voice acting sounds to be a great compromise and solution. I definitely support this x100

[Adhin]

Sound sets yeah, but I wasn't talking about sound sets. That's... sound sets, not dialog. I mean yeah ok its technically spoken words so dialog but im talking about party member to party member banter, special NPC lines. Not the stuff you hear in combat. For that? Sure amateur stuff works fine and can be better then the base stuff... especially with the IE games. But the voice sets they try to be generic while still having a theme and it doesn't always work out great. But that's the least ehh, offensive stuff a mod could add voice wise...

 

So yeah, voice sets - awesome. Actual dialog? Look at the countless games out there with horrible VO, often times by freakin' amazing VO's. Some great actors end up doing ****ty performances in movies and often it boils down to a lack of direction or understanding of what there character is. That's actually a big issue I have with a lot of fan made mods VO or otherwise. The actual conversation writing never sits right with me. Characters jump around a lot when they're trying to be more then 1-2 dimensions, or... they're just badly done one dimension characters.

 

I'm pretty picky though, I don't like the vast majority of 'fan fiction'. It's almost just as rare that I find a story based mod with characters/progression I like... in any game type. Not to say they're not all good ideas, but I think that's a distinction a lot of people don't make. Having great ideas doesn't make a story good, though bad ideas can ruin an otherwise great telling. Kinda needs both in the end and Amateur stuff more often then not falls on the 'nice idea, bad presentation'.

 

All my opinion though I know a lot of people love that stuff, and for that very reason I hope the games flooded with good stuff for everyone. Also I feel I should note I suck at writing stories, talents lie elsewhere, and it's partly why I value IE games so highly. The VO movies to the chapters in Icewind Dale 2 where.. probably some of my favorite parts of the actual game outside of just the 3E implementation.

 

"...there was no sound, no motion. Just the face of Faerun rising to meet him." - I just really liked the wording in a lot of that stuff, also kinda helps I adore the voice actress' voice in those. And as a silly side note, Annah was my favorite thing in PST, but im a sucker for her accent and general attitude through out the game and how that can semi-shift.

[Tamerlane]

So yeah, voice sets - awesome. Actual dialog? Look at the countless games out there with horrible VO, often times by freakin' amazing VO's. Some great actors end up doing ****ty performances in movies and often it boils down to a lack of direction or understanding of what there character is.

And even if the voice actor nails it, it can still get all ****ed up.

 

Just try doing a running tally of how many times one character cuts off another mid-sentence in, say, the Mass Effect games, but there's this weird second-long delay between when the first one stops talking and the second actually cuts in. No matter how well delivered the line is, that sort of thing just makes it feel like god damn high-school theatre all over again.

[ddillon]

If they handle it like BG/PST I'd be happy, I'd love it even more if after its been out and, sales permitting, they had a more full VO DLC/Expansion type thing. I love mods and all but amateur voice acting is sadly just that. It's the difference between an awesome B-Movie and... the crap people call a b movie cause they're not sure what else to call it.

 

In other words I'd rather not leave it up to the modders cause it'll, as history has shows for the past...well its always crap. Might be mildly entertaining here and there but it just often lacks the quality in recording and actual VO talent it's jarring. Like someone trying to add there own pre-rendered backgrounds in only they're scanning in crayon 'art'.

 

Meh, happy with IE lvl of VO either way.... but a guy can hope for an add-on later to bolster it, from the same people who made it.

 

You should play Skyrim for a bit. You'll notice the terrible writing and voice acting. Then install Interesting NPCs. It currently adds 100 NPCs to the game, 73 of which are fully voiced (and you can choose to use only the voiced NPCs, the number of which increases with each release of the mod). The writing and voice acting is a hundred times better than that of the game.

 

Not all mods are equal in quality, of course, but it is certainly possible that we could get some excellent mod-added voicing if Obsidian builds the game to allow for it...

[Krios]

I like voice acting, I feel it adds to the game, and yes the game plays like a movie at times, which I also enjoy. Just because it has voice acting does not mean a lack of writing or the quality of the writing will suffer because of it. The voice actors are following a script, they are professionals who are able to convey the right emotions and feelings. The scripts come from the same writers who would be responsible for much of the mood, the story, etc. There is a saying here 'money talks', and it is so in this case. I will miss the voice acting in this game and given the presence of a sufficient budget, I hope to hear my companions further down the franchise.

[Piccolo]

Just because it has voice acting does not mean a lack of writing or the quality of the writing will suffer because of it.

Of course it does.

 

Are you even aware of how much dialogue has to be cut in order to go with full voice acting? Or how difficult it is for the developers to make changes to voiced dialogue compared to text?

 

It's huge tradeoff, even for RPGs with budgets over 10x greater than what Project Eternity will have.

[Hassat Hunter]

For a sign of how much VO cost, just look at the insane cost of TOR (and it's still so shallow. It'll be worse with proper dialogue).

And where did most of the money go to? Yup...

 

So better make that 400M goal. Oh, wait...

Edited October 13, 2012 by Hassat Hunter

[Loranc]

There's going to be voice acting, they already stated as much. It's just not going to be full voice acting.

We plan on having limited voice acting. Only for major characters and companions, and not for all conversations. We will have voice-sets for characters. Very similar to how the IE games handled voice acting.