Deadfire will have FULL Voice over. It's ON!

[The Sharmat]

I don't know, I was able to spot Laura Bailey every time I heard her, and Liam O'Brien only caught me by surprise in WoW (he does sound differently as Serafen though). But there is no point in worrying about it now. 

Heh, Laura Bailey was exactly who i was thinking of when I wrote the caveat about some of them not getting to exercise their range lately. She actually has a ton of vocal range in older stuff but recently has gotten somewhat type cast and sounds samey. Not her fault. Just gotta hope the voice direction avoids that.

 

Where did you hear Liam O'Brien as Serafen? There are voice samples floating around of these characters?

[Guest]

 

 

 

I can't listen to audio at the moment, did they say anything specific about voiced player characters? I'm very curious about whether there will be a choice of voices, or it's one per gender.

There will be more voicesets on top of those already in the first game, including some new voicesets fashioned after the Critical Role Vox Machina characters as part of the Vox Machina DLC.

Actually, as of Beta 4 many of the voice sets have been replaced (i.e. male “Noble” is still there, but it’s a completely different voice)

Huh? I wonder what's the reasoning behind that. I don't want my character to suddenly sound like a completely different person.

I share your concern. I submitted the question for the last dev Q&A and they said they’d have to follow up.

[Yria]

 

I don't know, I was able to spot Laura Bailey every time I heard her, and Liam O'Brien only caught me by surprise in WoW (he does sound differently as Serafen though). But there is no point in worrying about it now. 

Heh, Laura Bailey was exactly who i was thinking of when I wrote the caveat about some of them not getting to exercise their range lately. She actually has a ton of vocal range in older stuff but recently has gotten somewhat type cast and sounds samey. Not her fault. Just gotta hope the voice direction avoids that.

 

Where did you hear Liam O'Brien as Serafen? There are voice samples floating around of these characters?

 

I share your hope. 

 

There was this stream just a couple of days ago: https://mixer.com/MaximusRaeke?vod=27848688

Serafen spoke up a few times, and so did Xoti. 

 

 

 Huh? I wonder what's the reasoning behind that. I don't want my character to suddenly sound like a completely different person.

I share your concern. I submitted the question for the last dev Q&A and they said they’d have to follow up.

I suppouse we can always replace the voice files with the old ones from PoE if it comes to that, but it will be tedious. 

[Guest]

 

 

Huh? I wonder what's the reasoning behind that. I don't want my character to suddenly sound like a completely different person.

I share your concern. I submitted the question for the last dev Q&A and they said they’d have to follow up.

I suppouse we can always replace the voice files with the old ones from PoE if it comes to that, but it will be tedious.

Yeah, if push comes to shove...

[master guardian]

I didn't think they would go there. But it seems we get all the VO we could dream of! Rejoice!

 

 

https://twitter.com/Obsidian/status/984868229859368960

 

 

 

awewsome thanks for letting me know!!! happy camper here!

[The Sharmat]

Yeah most of the voice work in New Vegas put me to sleep. Good VO>No VO>Bad VO

[ArmyP]

Curious who is doing the voice of the narrator

[Michael_Galt]

Hopefully there will be an option to disable voice-over.  Don't want it.  Unless it is escapable. Don't want to be stuck listening to the whole spiel when I've already finished reading it a while before (or don't really care about what that character is saying).

[Michael_Galt]

I think it's safe to assume that this is English only. PoE 1 didn't get dubbed in any of the languages it was localized in, did it?

 

I almost hope that is the case... So I can install it in Spanish or German, and not get forced to hear it.

[Ethics Gradient]

Hopefully there will be an option to disable voice-over. 

 

Per reddit.

We will definitely allow you to turn off VO altogether.

[Michael_Galt]

 

Hopefully there will be an option to disable voice-over. 

 

Per reddit.

We will definitely allow you to turn off VO altogether.

 

 

Nice!  Thanks!  I really only like voice-acting for important characters and companions- beyond that, it just seems excessive and overkill. 

 

I will say, that deciding to implement voice-acting on this scale is probably a net positive.  It means that the dialogues are probably a bit more realistic.  Rather than long walls of text, they are probably closer to what "real" people would say in a conversation.  Because if a voice actor gets the script and one of his/her bits takes 3 minutes to record... it is probably too long.  I guess we'll see "shortly"... or should I say, hear?

[MortyTheGobbo]

I'm not super stoked about it, honestly. The more you voice everyone else, the stranger it feels for the main character to be silent. But then, Deadfire is still in an isometric style, so at least we won't be playing a silent, blank mannequin among fully-voiced and animated NPCs (looking at you here, Dragon Age Origins and KOTOR).

[The Sharmat]

I never found that jarring at all but maybe I'm just used to it. if I started with games like Mass Effect maybe I'd find it weird.

[jf8350143]

I imagine their partnership with CR help them a lot in this area. They probably get a much better price comparing to hire voice actors alone.

 

Also I don't think they reduced the dialogue to achieve this, fully voiced is clearly not their plan from the very beginning, so when they write the dialogue, they did't have thoughts like "Oh crap, too much dialogue and we can't afford to voice all of them".

Edited April 14, 2018 by jf8350143

[Wormerine]

White March is much more consistently voiced an it works in its favour. For Deadfire the commitment is simply good news.

 

The only negative effects I can foresee are long them - what if the next game won’t have the budget or have other ambitions and won’t be able to afford full VO? Will the public accept the degrade in polish, or will they have to adjust the design to fulfil those expectations? But that’s not for me to decide or worry about. For now Deadfire is looking good and Obs seems confident enough to dump cash into it.

[TheisEjsing]

I can't believe nobody has raged about the extra money being spent on VO could have made Ydwin a full companion instead. :p

[Archaven]

this is solely my own opinion. i don't like this at all. i find myself often skipping the voice over on subsequent playthrough. i appreciate more VOs (which i actually i agree) but i fully voiced VOs are not necessary. this also seems logical to cut dialogues, lores, side contents. in other words, gimping the game for the casuals.

[Wormerine]

I can't believe nobody has raged about the extra money being spent on VO could have made Ydwin a full companion instead. :p

I would preferably have a deeper ship and world simulation, but voice actors won’t do those. Expanding core team by Extra writers/designers might not work too smoothly.

[theBalthazar]

Voices are extremely important to feel the message.

 

It is a good news for sales : casual don't love read mass of text and others languages are accustomed to subtitles with a background of english voice.

 

But when you look VOst you remove the voice, it is not the same thing than you only reading.

 

The voice is undoubtedly an added value for the emotion. I remember the "good, good..." of Raedric, the cry of durance etc. More than what they said precisely at that moment ...

Edited April 14, 2018 by theBalthazar

[Gairnulf]

My wife: "Well, they tried to be original..."

 

Me: "No, the opposite. They tried to be Original Sin! <evil laugh>"

Edited April 14, 2018 by Gairnulf

[TheisEjsing]

Voices are extremely important to feel the message.

 

It is a good news for sales : casual don't love read mass of text and others languages are accustomed to subtitles with a background of english voice.

 

But when you look VOst you remove the voice, it is not the same thing than you only reading.

 

The voice is undoubtedly an added value for the emotion. I remember the "good, good..." of Raedric, the cry of durance etc. More than what they said precisely at that moment ...

Still I think you're missing a vital point in your ongoing argument. This game is not a mainstream game for casuals. This is a niche game in a style that's not been used in tripple A games for a long time. I don't mind full VO if it's good and doesn't take away from other more vital areas budgetwise. If casuals like it, all the better. More money for OE.

 

But I'd rather read a whole lot of unvoiced text in a great big IE style game, than have less text, and less overall game quality as trade-off for full VO anyday.

Edited April 14, 2018 by TheisEjsing

[lordgizka]

To be honest, as long as the game doesn't have Original Sin's "comedic" tone, that's awesome. With OS2 I was in a state where I fell compelled to listen to all this crap since someone obviously went through the trouble of voicing it (and well, too), but it was all just so long and boring, I just kept skipping it.

 

Basically, I think the old "minimal or no voiceover" idea was functional for a reason. The player then knows how characters sound, and writers/designers can exercise their graphomania without many real-world constraints, except time limitations.

 

And OS2 doesn't seem to have any planned DLC, and thus, no reason to bring in actors again. In PoE2' case, to me, the question is whether the lack of actor availability for, say, party member, might influence writing. With full voiceover, that would be jarring...

Edited April 14, 2018 by lordgizka

[BillyCorgan]

Will the narration also be doubled?

[Starwars]

White March is much more consistently voiced an it works in its favour. For Deadfire the commitment is simply good news.

 

The only negative effects I can foresee are long them - what if the next game won’t have the budget or have other ambitions and won’t be able to afford full VO? Will the public accept the degrade in polish, or will they have to adjust the design to fulfil those expectations? But that’s not for me to decide or worry about. For now Deadfire is looking good and Obs seems confident enough to dump cash into it.

 

Do you really think the White March VO added a lot? I'm just curious. I just played through the first part (can't remember the VO in the second part right now be honest) and I'd say the only voices in it that I think actually *adds* something is 1) Zahua. Nice voice, pleasant to listen to, nice delivery and seems to have an understanding of the character and 2) Galvino which seems to bring some character to the... character.

The Devil and Maneha are both... not good to terrible. The rest of it (for NPCs and sidecharacters) is extremely average if you ask me. And characters like the three dwarf ghosts in Durgan's Battery are not only average but also instantly recognizeable as other characters in the game.

Edited April 14, 2018 by Starwars

[Sedrefilos]

Bring that shyt in! Aw right! 

 

I'm pretty sure we owe this to Larian, though

 

Edit: I don't believe they cut anything out of writing at all. VO usually is done at the end of production when everything is in place. From what we know, writing has been finalized months before now, before beta 1 so I don't believe it's done at the cost of it.

 

Also, people. Stop assuming/believe you know jack about budgets, moreso what is been told to us as truth/fact about it. Obsidian is not a small company AND has partnered with a publisher for Deadfire. Extra money could come from other routes besides crowdfunding.  

Edited April 14, 2018 by Sedrefilos