I was wondering what the community thought about possibly allowing backers to audition as volunteer voice actors for PoE? Obviously, it would be completely unreasonable to expect the game to be fully voiced, even with unpaid talent. However, I do think that there is a unique opportunity to both flesh out the storytelling, as well as letting backers to give part of themselves to the game.

 

Imo, still strictly against it. (With cincerns to vlice direction and management.)

 

So voted no.

Edited December 12, 201312 yr by C2B

Take the fraction of the community that is good at voice acting. Now, remove all the ones that don't have an appropriate audio setup. Congratulations, you have a group so small that it is not worth the headache it would cause Obsidian.

Take the fraction of the community that is good at voice acting. Now, remove all the ones that don't have an appropriate audio setup. Congratulations, you have a group so small that it is not worth the headache it would cause Obsidian.

 

Touché 

As long as it's possibly to set a sound or voice to start from the dialogue, whoever wants this could always get together and add voices themselves through the magic of modding.

 

I don't particularly want Obsidian to spend time on it though.

Take the fraction of the community that is good at voice acting. Now, remove all the ones that don't have an appropriate audio setup. Congratulations, you have a group so small that it is not worth the headache it would cause Obsidian.

This. A thousand times this.

I don't know a lot about how this sort of thing works, but wouldn't using unpaid voice actors in a commercial product make the project non-union, making it difficult or impossible to get any professionals on board?

I'm okay about people with voice acting experience donating their voice for free - like Jack Black did with Double Fine Adventure.

 

Other than that, nah.

well if any famous actors are among the backers and want to volunteer for a few voice overs i would not mind, but i dont think it's going to happen

Really I can't see too much good coming out of unpaid voice actors short of professionals volunteering to work for free. I'm voting no on this one because without quality voice acting I'd really rather have no voice acting at all as bad voice acting really detracts from the experience. If pros wanted to do it for free, well, that'd be a different story.

Edited December 12, 201312 yr by Pshaw

Still a better idea than programmer voice actors.

No thank you. If they're too strapped to pay talented voice actors for the bits that they want in the game, they can add a stretch goal that would probably be met the very same day.

I'm pretty sure the voice actors' wages aren't even the main cost item. Using lots of voice will force them to nail down the dialog early enough to get the recordings done, processed, and integrated into the game, whereas with limited voice acting they can keep on tweaking the dialog until Gold Master... and even beyond.

 

What's more, a fully-voiced isometric game would feel very weird. You really want to stare at the screen with a couple of midgets in the middle of a landscape perhaps waving their hands, and listening to VO? I wouldn't. You'd have to go with Fallout-style animated talking heads (FO1 and 2 here, natch), which is another big animated can of worms.

 

So no, no no. Even more than a console port, this would actively make the game worse, not better.

I voted no, there are plenty of young actors out there who would be willing to do voice acting and won't charge an arm and a leg, imho getting people that have no acting or voice acting talent is a bad idea.

I think it could be a good thing but shouldn't be done just for the sake of having voice acting.....if Obsidian were willing to evaluate volunteers and only select solid talent then ok....but that would cost time, money and resources as well. The game shouldn't have just any crappy voice acting because some people decided to volunteer.

I know the OP is well intentioned, but holy cow this feels like a dumpster fire waiting to happen.

I'm pretty sure the voice actors' wages aren't even the main cost item. Using lots of voice will force them to nail down the dialog early enough to get the recordings done, processed, and integrated into the game, whereas with limited voice acting they can keep on tweaking the dialog until Gold Master... and even beyond.

 

What's more, a fully-voiced isometric game would feel very weird. You really want to stare at the screen with a couple of midgets in the middle of a landscape perhaps waving their hands, and listening to VO? I wouldn't. You'd have to go with Fallout-style animated talking heads (FO1 and 2 here, natch), which is another big animated can of worms.

 

So no, no no. Even more than a console port, this would actively make the game worse, not better.

Nothing needs to be fully voiced. But if they want to give it the same amount of voice over work as PS:T or Baldur's Gate 2 and lack the funds, that could easily be remedied. That would hardly effect the overall game in a negative way. No one said anything about turning this into Fallout.

There will be mods for that OP, if PE is successful.

I'm not sure I want to know what you lot sound like. 

NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO--------

 

 

Oh, you don't expect the game to be fully voiced? Carry on, then.

 

I'm surprised no one has linked one of the previous threads about this already. Although that other thread's approach is a bit different (hence OP, some of us might expect this thread to go down a similar road ). http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60051-merged-voice-acting-suggestion/

Well though i'm pretty stupid, I still consider myself able to read. So no.

A bit of dubbing for some specific dialogs is enough already.

 

No one said anything about turning this into Fallout.

 

 

God the first Fallout had an epic voice acting <3

No thank you.

considering the quality of amateur voice acting in some mods I know, I'll pass.

I'm not sure I want to know what you lot sound like. 

I sound like I have a foghorn up my nose (allergies). It's very sexy, I tell you.

The first time I saw this topic brought up was here:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63940-concerning-the-vo-budget-for-project-eternity/

 

Anyway, no. Community voice acting = More expensive + far poorer voice acting than in-house/professionally hired work.