Why I think a fully voiced PoE:Deadfire is a mistake

[The Sharmat]

Well, it could also be because it's often hard to read text in streams. I know I have trouble with it sometimes. Youtube compression sucks.

[Karkarov]

Well, it could also be because it's often hard to read text in streams. I know I have trouble with it sometimes. Youtube compression sucks.

Except the people with high quality streams that have no issue reading the text still do it too.

[The Sharmat]

Given their proclivity for streaming I'd guess they also probably find just sitting in silence very awkward. Streamers tend to like to speak.

[JerekKruger]

If no one likes VO, and it isn't helpful, why does every streamer read aloud unvoiced dialog or little documents they find in games?  Even streamers playing Baldur's Gate 2, or Planescape Torment do it.

 

Is anyone actually arguing that no one likes VO? I've only pointed out that I prefer partial VO and explained why. I've no doubt that the majority of players prefer fully VO'd games.

 

That said there's another explanation for your observation: good streamers know that different viewers read at different speeds, and some won't read at all (when I 'watch' steams I'm often doing something else and have them on as background noise) so they read the lines to ensure everyone will keep up. Related to this, despite loving these sorts of games I cannot watch let's plays of them: they just go far too slowly for me when I'm not actually the one playing.

[SonicMage117]

Speaking of muting voices and just reading or an option to just turn off voices completely...

 

Personally, I usually disable subtitles to enjoy voice overs in games that have decent enough voice acting. I'm hoping there is an option for us to disable subtitles or that the text deviates from the voiced lines a bit like The Witcher 3 did.

[Artaios]

Speaking of muting voices and just reading or an option to just turn off voices completely...

 

Personally, I usually disable subtitles to enjoy voice overs in games that have decent enough voice acting. I'm hoping there is an option for us to disable subtitles or that the text deviates from the voiced lines a bit like The Witcher 3 did.

I completely agree. Give me one or the other but not both. When I am presented with both audio and text I automatically focus on the text and get annoyed that I am ahead of the voiced dialogue. Which is why I also turn off subtitles in games. It is more difficult in PoE though since we still have this text-based dialogue system. How do you present that visually?

[Wormerine]

Speaking of muting voices and just reading or an option to just turn off voices completely...

Personally, I usually disable subtitles to enjoy voice overs in games that have decent enough voice acting. I'm hoping there is an option for us to disable subtitles or that the text deviates from the voiced lines a bit like The Witcher 3 did.

What about narrated bits? And what if you disable text? You draw attention to static background and not interacting characters? I will take screen of text, over Bioware face and PoE doesn’t have even that.

[Skazz]

 

Speaking of muting voices and just reading or an option to just turn off voices completely...

Personally, I usually disable subtitles to enjoy voice overs in games that have decent enough voice acting. I'm hoping there is an option for us to disable subtitles or that the text deviates from the voiced lines a bit like The Witcher 3 did.

What about narrated bits? And what if you disable text? You draw attention to static background and not interacting characters? I will take screen of text, over Bioware face and PoE doesn’t have even that.

 

 

Bioware face?

[SonicMage117]

 

Speaking of muting voices and just reading or an option to just turn off voices completely...

Personally, I usually disable subtitles to enjoy voice overs in games that have decent enough voice acting. I'm hoping there is an option for us to disable subtitles or that the text deviates from the voiced lines a bit like The Witcher 3 did.

What about narrated bits? And what if you disable text? You draw attention to static background and not interacting characters? I will take screen of text, over Bioware face and PoE doesn’t have even that.

To be honest, animations of npc's flailing their arms & hands around would be better than a box of text if the game is fully voiced and one has no desire for the dialogue text. As in real life, some people move their hands alot when talking, giving gestures and we can see sometimes exactly what they mean with their hands even though we cannot clearly make out what they're saying.

 

But that is given that the developer can put in the effort to make body language readable at the distance. Backdrops should be crucial and positive distraction if something drastic is happening within plotline, per usual the dialogue box disappears and the camera pans to said targeted area.

 

There are many options for isometric angle but takes more resources of course. So many opportunities to improve on how Crpg storytelling could be improved and yet to see them being implemented.

[daven]

As long as the voice acting is terrible I don't really mind. Oblivion is fully voiced right? A lot of that is like.. 5 different voices? I really don't mind, it's kind of amusing at times. Guess it depends on the tone they are after. 

[The Sharmat]

Oblivion is probably the laziest case of full VO for a AAA game I can think of, yeah. It's not the number of voice actors that was the problem, it's the voice direction and lack of versatility. More the former than the latter though since some of the VAs actually had a good bit of range. They just weren't allowed to use it for some reason.

[daven]

Oblivion is probably the laziest case of full VO for a AAA game I can think of, yeah. It's not the number of voice actors that was the problem, it's the voice direction and lack of versatility. More the former than the latter though since some of the VAs actually had a good bit of range. They just weren't allowed to use it for some reason.

Well yeah, it's pretty bad a lot of it but I don't really mind it. So if it's at least better than that it will be good... right?

 

I don't get this whole argument of 'It means there are less options!' I think that only applies if the main character is voiced. 

[SonicMage117]

Games with voices have just as many options but presented in different ways. Some may argue that the way each is presented makes it more or less of a role playing stance but that has never been proven to be such the case. You see, text and voice differenciation does not dictate if a game allows for more or less of a given feature, mechanic or trait for each game BUT it does offer accessibility to the disabled.

 

For example, the deaf can read text, the legally blind can hear audio. In case someone tells me "The blind do not play games" they need to look up what legally blind means, of course the legally blind or vision impaired play games, this is an argument which people disagree on and ignore facts for passing their opinion as law which makes it a hard discussion.

 

At hand, we have two sides of a nickel but the past of both types of games prove that the experience can be identical since the way of narrative does not manipulate the game as a whole.

[algroth]

 

They patched that out in later versions of Witcher 2. But kept the "everyone in Flotsam is in their underwear" glitch, because they thought it was funny.

 

Thinking about it, for all the people wishing there was less voice acting in games these days (and I do understand a lot of the reasoning mind you) I'd imagine a bunch of people playing the infinity engine games as kids thought to themselves "I wish more of these lines were voiced". And some of them are probably the same people. It's never quite the same when you actually get it, I guess.

Actually I was thinking about this after my earlier post and realized the ultimate irony.

 

If no one likes VO, and it isn't helpful, why does every streamer read aloud unvoiced dialog or little documents they find in games?  Even streamers playing Baldur's Gate 2, or Planescape Torment do it.

 

Oh well you say the answer is obvious, it is more exciting for the viewer.  I reply by saying, exactly.

 

 

To be the devil's advocate here, I'd point out that this isn't an apples to apples comparison exactly. Watching a stream is less like playing a game than it is like watching a show, it is primarily a pretty non-interactive audiovisual experience and in this case static text makes for a very poor viewing experience as it hardly plays to the strengths of that specific medium. But as a player the immersion and entertainment value comes through the interactivity, and so long as a text responds to their input (or successfully paints the illusion of doing so) it will usually keep the player engaged despite being a more static experience - in comparison a series of long non-interactive cinematic cutscenes is also bound to bore regardless of how well-animated and voice-acted it is.

 

But I do agree with the general principle that voice-acting is, if performed correctly, more exciting and comfortable for the player. I reckon part of it has to do with spoken word being easier to decode than writing - with writing you have to translate a visual code to sound to meaning, whereas with the spoken word you are already spared of the first step. Though I would say is that I reckon a non-voiced written dialogue is usually more open to the interpretation of delivery, and that in my experience always yields a better result than the same dialogue poorly or incongrously voiced; likewise I don't recall any specific case where the text has been used in this fashion, but I can also see a possibility where the abstraction of tone in written dialogue can allow a same phrase to gain a pretty different meaning according to either how you respond to it or how you configure through the given choices your relationship with the other character. A "well done" could be freely interpreted as a genuine congratulatory gesture or as a sarcastic remark or as a teeth-gritting spiteful admission depending on whether you chose to recognize the speaker as a friend, rival or else. That's a pretty narrow case that is bound to come up only a few times in any specific game at most, but still I reckon most games using plain text as a means of depicting a scene or interaction don't employ text in this or similar fashion and for these games I don't see why VO would be a negative addition - provided, again, that the VO is good.

Edited April 20, 2018 by algroth

[Karkarov]

But I do agree with the general principle that voice-acting is, if performed correctly, more exciting and comfortable for the player. I reckon part of it has to do with spoken word being easier to decode than writing - with writing you have to translate a visual code to sound to meaning, whereas with the spoken word you are already spared of the first step.

You also just hit on another subtle reason why VO is generally better than no VO.  You can easily misinterpret a written statement if the language is not plainly clear. 

 

For example, simple statements like "Good god!"  The person saying it could be expressing shock, or frustration, or even making reference to an attractive person they see.  To some extent you can figure it out if you know the rest of the conversation, but that takes work and you could still potentially get it wrong.  That is also just a two word statement, imagine if the writer is trying to capture a long but subtle conversation where the meaning is not implicit in the words themselves?

 

With VO you will immediately be able to tell the intent of the speaker because of tone of their voice, because tone is actually a huge part of conversation.

[algroth]

 

But I do agree with the general principle that voice-acting is, if performed correctly, more exciting and comfortable for the player. I reckon part of it has to do with spoken word being easier to decode than writing - with writing you have to translate a visual code to sound to meaning, whereas with the spoken word you are already spared of the first step.

You also just hit on another subtle reason why VO is generally better than no VO.  You can easily misinterpret a written statement if the language is not plainly clear. 

 

For example, simple statements like "Good god!"  The person saying it could be expressing shock, or frustration, or even making reference to an attractive person they see.  To some extent you can figure it out if you know the rest of the conversation, but that takes work and you could still potentially get it wrong.  That is also just a two word statement, imagine if the writer is trying to capture a long but subtle conversation where the meaning is not implicit in the words themselves?

 

With VO you will immediately be able to tell the intent of the speaker because of tone of their voice, because tone is actually a huge part of conversation.

 

 

It's a bit of a double-edged sword, I'd say, because on one hand you can aid in avoiding misinterpretations, but on the other you run into the issue of overlining or unilateralizing the meaning to dialogue that might have best been served by letting the player fill in the tone he felt it more natural or appropriate to the dynamic between both characters instead. A case in point here would be NWN 2, where the original campaign often suffered the issue of overshooting the enthusiasm with which lines were read, and where characters like Sand or that pyromaniac sorceress would respond in a widely fluctuating mishmash of tones that didn't often correlate to your current stance with them (i.e. be on very bad terms with eachother but respond jovially at a compliment or choice they agree with).

 

And generally I'm of the opinion that deliberate ambiguity is a good thing and Pillars would have better been served with more of it. So I welcome tactics that leave interpretation a bit more open too. Though I do agree that plain ole misinterpretation can be a problem if the meaning of a particular exchange was meant to be pretty deliberate and everyone was interpreting otherwise, or not sure in what tone they were meant. In my experience at least it's usually more frequent a problem when it comes to player options most of all, and oddly enough I don't think it's particularly better in the case of a fully VO'd game like, say, The Witcher 3 or Horizon Zero Dawn, where the choices offered are short blurbs that don't often say much regarding the actual tone or intention.

Edited April 20, 2018 by algroth

[Karkarov]

It's a bit of a double-edged sword, I'd say, because on one hand you can aid in avoiding misinterpretations, but on the other you run into the issue of overlining or unilateralizing the meaning to dialogue that might have best been served by letting the player fill in the tone he felt it more natural or appropriate to the dynamic between both characters instead.

This isn't Dark Souls, I shouldn't be guessing about the intent of the Merchant from the Old Rebpublic who is trying to convince me to help them sink a Principi vessel.

 

Some vague and open ended dialog is fine, basing your entire game around it?  I hope your game isn't very dialog or story heavy, otherwise it will make little to no sense.  Case in point, no one made rave reviews of Hotline Miami because of the story.  It was the gameplay and the soundtrack that sold it.

 

You can't maintain a tight solid narrative, and have large amounts of open ended dialog with unclear meaning at the same time.  Deadfire is a story driven RPG, it needs a tight solid narrative.

Edited April 21, 2018 by Karkarov

[Silent Winter]

There are still the Watcher's lines - you read them and choose them without indication of tone - which is why I appreciated the [Clever] / [Cruel] / [Passionate] tags - not to monitor reputation so much as to let me know how to interpret a line.  Often it was obvious, but not always.  Ran into the same problem in BG without tags and was occasionally surprised at the reaction to what I thought was a different line.

 

Good VO can indeed help a character's tone/meaning (which is part of why 'no VO' is less preferable than 'full VO' for me) (but I still prefer partial VO - any ambiguity can be voiced and the initial lines can be voiced to establish tone).

[Karkarov]

There are still the Watcher's lines - you read them and choose them without indication of tone - which is why I appreciated the [Clever] / [Cruel] / [Passionate] tags - not to monitor reputation so much as to let me know how to interpret a line.  Often it was obvious, but not always.  Ran into the same problem in BG without tags and was occasionally surprised at the reaction to what I thought was a different line.

 

Good VO can indeed help a character's tone/meaning (which is part of why 'no VO' is less preferable than 'full VO' for me) (but I still prefer partial VO - any ambiguity can be voiced and the initial lines can be voiced to establish tone).

That's why I like my default response to all conversations in BG.  "EAT COLD STEEL!!!"

 

Hard to misinterpret my intent on that one.

[The Sharmat]

 

It's a bit of a double-edged sword, I'd say, because on one hand you can aid in avoiding misinterpretations, but on the other you run into the issue of overlining or unilateralizing the meaning to dialogue that might have best been served by letting the player fill in the tone he felt it more natural or appropriate to the dynamic between both characters instead.

This isn't Dark Souls,

Neither is Dark Souls, for that matter. Dark Souls lore is the Emperor's New Clothes of worldbuilding.

[AlphaShard]

No one had a problem with Skyrim being fully VO. 

[Karkarov]

Neither is Dark Souls, for that matter. Dark Souls lore is the Emperor's New Clothes of worldbuilding.

Only according to youtubers and twitch streamers.

[SonicMage117]

No one had a problem with Skyrim being fully VO.

It's mainly because there was nothing wrong with it, but some people out there will probably complain about it lol It's the internet, sometimes it doesn't even have to be about what's preferable, some people just like to talk

 

Anyways, Skyrim's voice acting/voice overs and wtiting in general is pretty good actually, and so was Oblivion. Morrowind on the other hand....

[algroth]

 

It's a bit of a double-edged sword, I'd say, because on one hand you can aid in avoiding misinterpretations, but on the other you run into the issue of overlining or unilateralizing the meaning to dialogue that might have best been served by letting the player fill in the tone he felt it more natural or appropriate to the dynamic between both characters instead.

This isn't Dark Souls, I shouldn't be guessing about the intent of the Merchant from the Old Rebpublic who is trying to convince me to help them sink a Principi vessel.

 

Some vague and open ended dialog is fine, basing your entire game around it?  I hope your game isn't very dialog or story heavy, otherwise it will make little to no sense.  Case in point, no one made rave reviews of Hotline Miami because of the story.  It was the gameplay and the soundtrack that sold it.

 

You can't maintain a tight solid narrative, and have large amounts of open ended dialog with unclear meaning at the same time.  Deadfire is a story driven RPG, it needs a tight solid narrative.

I think you are taking my above remark to extremes - I never said that all lines should be vague or open to multiple interpretations, I said that *some* interactions could benefit from this approach and that full voice-over could potentially work against it due to setting an explicit delivery or tone. In all honesty you probably wouldn't run across the risk of misinterpretation in most encounters anyhow provided the game is competently written (which, in Obsidian's case, they usually are). Likewise I don't think tonal or implicit ambiguity necessarily works against the tightness of narrative, that would be more if the literal or explicit meaning in plot points and certain key situations are made unclear which is not the kind of "open interpretation" I was referring to.

[The Sharmat]

 

No one had a problem with Skyrim being fully VO.

It's mainly because there was nothing wrong with it, but some people out there will probably complain about it lol It's the internet, sometimes it doesn't even have to be about what's preferable, some people just like to talk

 

Anyways, Skyrim's voice acting/voice overs and wtiting in general is pretty good actually, and so was Oblivion. Morrowind on the other hand....

 

Morrowind barely had voice overs, are you sure you're thinking of the right game?