If full voice-over is not within budget

Hey,

 

Really love the first PoE game. I think the writing was amazing which is so rare to see in RPG games nowadays.

 

However I would like to suggest something and excuse me if this was already commented on. If having everything with voice over by pro actors is not within budget - obviously that's expensive, could we just have an option next to the text to click and have someone (anyone) just read out the line with just a plain reading voice.

 

I like reading even more than the next guy, but I find reading on a computer monitor really straining on my eyes and I already get a lot of that since I'm a digital artist. So just any option to let me hear the text would be very appreciated.

 

Thanks!

Edited September 14, 2017 by CPUCore

Setting a bigger font and going to the optician to get better glasses might help…

 

Amateur text reading can be terrible indeed and I am not sure if there is a text-to-seach that work with games.

Setting a bigger font and going to the optician to get better glasses might help…

While we are at it, going beyond 130% font size would be really neat; with the ability to set a custom font specifically for the chat/combat windows.

I further request that the 'regular reading voice' is the voice of the narrator from Diablo..

 

In all actuality tho, how much do people get paid to do the voice for an audiobook, anyone know?  It's a cool idea for sure..

If this is implemented and the narrator is not Christopher Walken, we riot.

Edited September 14, 2017 by algroth

Stephen Fry Time

Again, Larian voiced even the narrator. Can't be THAT expensive!

Well, it looks like twice as much is not enough...

 

Perhaps some day the text will be compiled with phoneme data so that a quality speech synthesizer can be used.

Can't Siri read it?

Stephen Fry Time

You can never have too much Stephen Fry.

 

At some point someone will finally get around to licensing either phonetic character (voice) libraries, or extremely good middleware—which might include the former as part of itself... And then we can have games where the budget allows for a few consummate voice artists being employed for key principle roles, and use of the library/middleware employed for the bulk remainder of the generic roles.

Tom Baker was hired years ago to make such a library for British Telecom; they used it for text-2-speech over the phone.  At least one person used it to make a Tom Baker cover of "Video Killed The Radio Star", by the Buggles. (Probably by sending themselves spoken text messages, and recording them).

 

Edited September 15, 2017 by Gizmo

Again, Larian voiced even the narrator. Can't be THAT expensive!

 

And yet it bugs me a little when most of the characters have the same voice.

 

Again, Larian voiced even the narrator. Can't be THAT expensive!

 

And yet it bugs me a little when most of the characters have the same voice.

 

Wll yeah, one their voice actors voiced 34 characters :D

But the same was true for Pillars and it had little VO. You were hearing the same voices everyhere (just trying different tones ). Even Bethesda does the same with their huge uss budgets!

But the same was true for Pillars and it had little VO. You were hearing the same voices everyhere (just trying different tones ). Even Bethesda does the same with their huge uss budgets!

 

Does anyone know whether Larian were using professional voice actors? I ask because there's a huge difference between a good voice actor and an untrained person doing multiple characters (and of course the former is more expensive).

 

EDIT: I should add that throwing more money at voice acting doesn't necessarily make it better. The tendency amongst big budget games to use famous screen actors has, in my opinion, made the quality of the voice acting worse in those games worse. Dedicated voice actors do a much better job of delivering their lines in a way that fits the in game situation: a product of more practice at delivering lines without immediate visual queues and, probably, more time spent in the recording booth for the same money.

Edited September 15, 2017 by JerekKruger

People, see the facts. Everyone here pretends to know how the production of the game in managed and whether this will take resources over that blah blah blah when in fact everyone speculates. Like if anyone here was ever a game producer. Facts are others do it, Obsidian doesn't. Why, how, who knows. Maybe they can't, maybe they don't want. Truth is, it can be done.

Now about the voice actors quality; I don't think Pillars voice acting was top-notch. It was just fine. It worked. It wasn't bad it just wasn't great either. In general. There were exceptions. I expect this to be the case for Deadfire too.

What I can make from all that is that Obsidian doesn't care that much about voice-over. Although I prefer the game to be fully voiced, I respect that and I'm OK at the end.

EDIT: I should add that throwing more money at voice acting doesn't necessarily make it better. The tendency amongst big budget games to use famous screen actors has, in my opinion, made the quality of the voice acting worse in those games worse. Dedicated voice actors do a much better job of delivering their lines in a way that fits the in game situation: a product of more practice at delivering lines without immediate visual queues and, probably, more time spent in the recording booth for the same money.

I don't really care who voiced which characters in any given game cept' for NV which I learned willingly or not and those famous actors did a fantastic job IMO.

 

I also prefer fully voiced game, don't care if its famous actors or not, PoE's VAs were good or not bad/I haven't especially noticed a VO that I called out bad. Its up to Obs whether its a worthy investment or not. Hopefully consistent VO will be better than Pillars 1 anyway.

People, see the facts. Everyone here pretends to know how the production of the game in managed and whether this will take resources over that blah blah blah when in fact everyone speculates. Like if anyone here was ever a game producer. Facts are others do it, Obsidian doesn't. Why, how, who knows. Maybe they can't, maybe they don't want. Truth is, it can be done.

 

You're right, we know basically nothing about why Obsidian decided not to fully VO Pillars.

 

I don't really care who voiced which characters in any given game cept' for NV which I learned willingly or not and those famous actors did a fantastic job IMO.

 

I can't comment on the quality of NV voice actors as I've never been able to get into it*. I have no problem with famous actors voice acting in games if they do a good job, it's when they're used as a selling point for the game and don't actually add anything that I think it's dumb. Patrick Stewart in Oblivion springs to mind: it was talked about in press releases, he was quoted as saying he'd never had a role with so much backstory, then his actual appearance in game was incredibly short and his performance was alright, though a little wooden.

 

But it's not a big deal.

 

I also prefer fully voiced game, don't care if its famous actors or not, PoE's VAs were good or not bad/I haven't especially noticed a VO that I called out bad. Its up to Obs whether its a worthy investment or not. Hopefully consistent VO will be better than Pillars 1 anyway.

 

If the voice acting is good then I too prefer a fully voiced game (preferably with an option to turn it off for later playthroughs), but I probably prefer partial voicing a la Baldur's Gate 2 to fully, but badly, voiced.

 

*I should add this is nothing against NV. I haven't been able to get into Fallout 3 or 4 or any of the Elder Scrolls games.

Edited September 15, 2017 by JerekKruger

TBH, I'd rather other game features rather than more VO, given a budget where competing for resources between features is a thing. 

 

But that's just me.  I was just thinking that the OP's suggestion about just having an audiobook type narration of non-VO text seemed like an interesting idea..

This would be a catastrophe. While I'm sure the OP and some others will appreciate it, there will be a torrent of complaints and criticism about the "terrible voice acting". Most people just won't understand that here's this part of the product which is of awful quality because it wouldn't be there at all otherwise but some people wanted the awful quality option. They could try and have a pretty competent but not celebrity/actor VO do it, but then the difference in costs starts diminishing.

Edited September 15, 2017 by Tigranes

So long as the fact remains that full VO means the story and options suffer I am against it. 

Ok, now playing DOS2; I don't like the voiced narrating, it gets old too fast. And for dialogue...doesn't matter voiced or not if its not interesting, I'm gonna fast forward, which I'm doing more often than not atm. So I trust Obs to do...whats best for the game :D

 

F*** VO discussion; lets push for quality writing for interesting themes, situations, characters, schemes & plots & scenarios & scripts & deeper relations and whatnot

Playing DOS 2 right now. I like the writing AND the voice over. Actors are very good imo, even if they are few. Great job by Larian, better that Obs did in Pillars. The voiced narrator can get old fast BUT there is an option for muting him as muting voice-over and ambient voices too (all in different sliders). So if you don't like 'em, you just don't hear them. That means Larian put the effort to fully voice the game AND gave the option to those who don't like not to listen to it. Win-win.

 

@Tigranes, it is only a disaster if they make it one. Options/sliders for muting voice solves the problem for those who think only celebrity actors are worthy for voice acting.

 

@Quillon, the game is ultra high fantasy. Given that, I believe the dialogues are very good.

Edited September 15, 2017 by Sedrefilos

@Quillon, the game is ultra high fantasy. Given that, I believe the dialogues are very good.

Sounds very much like "oh, you know, it's a comic book" or "it's a kid's movie" excuse.

Playing DOS 2 right now. I like the writing AND the voice over. Actors are very good imo, even if they are few. Great job by Larian, better that Obs did in Pillars. The voiced narrator can get old fast BUT there is an option for muting him as muting voice-over and ambient voices too (all in different sliders). So if you don't like 'em, you just don't hear them. That means Larian put the effort to fully voice the game AND gave the option to those who don't like not to listen to it. Win-win..

 

Same.  I'm enjoying it as well.  Also, one of the great things about DoS2 full voice acting is it makes it easier to let's play.  Sadly, PoE isn't a very popular let's play title because of the lack of voice acting and huge lore dumps make it frustrating to read for some people. Let's plays are one of those things that help with marketing.

 

Playing DOS 2 right now. I like the writing AND the voice over. Actors are very good imo, even if they are few. Great job by Larian, better that Obs did in Pillars. The voiced narrator can get old fast BUT there is an option for muting him as muting voice-over and ambient voices too (all in different sliders). So if you don't like 'em, you just don't hear them. That means Larian put the effort to fully voice the game AND gave the option to those who don't like not to listen to it. Win-win..

 

 

Same.  I'm enjoying it as well.  Also, one of the great things about DoS2 full voice acting is it makes it easier to let's play.  Sadly, PoE isn't a very popular let's play title because of the lack of voice acting and huge lore dumps make it frustrating to read for some people. Let's plays are one of those things that help with marketing.

Sure, but usually games which are good for letsplays aer games that I don't enjoy playing. To be honest I am surprised that DoS is watchable.