Really, sounds like an arbitrary issue, but I found it to be one of the ruining factors for me for a MMO. Not so much in itself, but in the system. Here is why: I love to delve into a MMO world's lore. For me, it is not enough to have a nice looking place where I kill Orcs, I want to KNOW about the place, about the Orcs about the background. Otherwise I loose interest in the game pretty fast. Now call me lazy, but I just HATE to read those textboxes. I mean, WTF, is this a Legend text adventure from 1979? Heck, even the 25 years old Death Gate had FULL VOICED TEXT. TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO. Its one of the BIG BIG downs of LOTRO and Champions and whatnot, I get to some NPC, and I get a frigging text box? I mean, seriously, who the heck reads all the damn stuff? If I want to read I take a telephone book! Ok, fun aside, I really read much books, because usually they are exciting. Reading quest texts, who usually are NOT exciting to read, I tend to skip them and move on to the 1-liner who tells me who I have to kill and where he is. End of story. I am just so tired of this neolithic way of quest giving, and prolly I am spoilt by 5 years into EQ2, where almost every damn little sidequest NPC talks in lipsynch voice to you. I swear I am so done with this boring reading.
The underlined pretty much sums it up. Those generic kill x quests rarely have an engaging story. There are simply too many of them to make them all entertaining, not to mention with voice overs. I dont see how that would make a crap story more engaging It would only cost more to create.
In WAR you have those npcs that give you a reward if you kill a certain mobs. They recognise it when you killed them BEFORE you talk to the npc and immediately adapt their response to that. I really wished that all those generic kill x quests worked like that. Its one of the details I liked in WAR.
But overall I find these type of quests, not really worth the label 'quest' . Its as silly as a mother asking her son to go on a quest to fetch some milk at the groceries.
Really, sounds like an arbitrary issue, but I found it to be one of the ruining factors for me for a MMO. Not so much in itself, but in the system. Here is why: I love to delve into a MMO world's lore. For me, it is not enough to have a nice looking place where I kill Orcs, I want to KNOW about the place, about the Orcs about the background. Otherwise I loose interest in the game pretty fast. Now call me lazy, but I just HATE to read those textboxes. I mean, WTF, is this a Legend text adventure from 1979? Heck, even the 25 years old Death Gate had FULL VOICED TEXT. TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO. Its one of the BIG BIG downs of LOTRO and Champions and whatnot, I get to some NPC, and I get a frigging text box? I mean, seriously, who the heck reads all the damn stuff? If I want to read I take a telephone book! Ok, fun aside, I really read much books, because usually they are exciting. Reading quest texts, who usually are NOT exciting to read, I tend to skip them and move on to the 1-liner who tells me who I have to kill and where he is. End of story. I am just so tired of this neolithic way of quest giving, and prolly I am spoilt by 5 years into EQ2, where almost every damn little sidequest NPC talks in lipsynch voice to you. I swear I am so done with this boring reading.
Yes, but what was the quality of the voice acting? The chances are it was done by the people who made the game. So, in other words, they did it for free and simply because they wanted to.
It's a whole different ball game these days. Oddly enough things have become more convoluted and haggered rather than simpler and easier, as far as making games goes. These days if you have voice acting in your game it has to be well done. The reason for this is simple; the standard for voice acting in video games is set fairly high. Poor voice acting is worse than none at all, in the industry's current climate.
Good voice actors are expensive. Good engineers to manage and produce the recordings from the voice actors cost money. Studio time to record voices costs money. The game with the most voice-overs I have played (that I remember clearly) has been Mass Effect. Not only was all of the dialogue voiced, but all of the 'main' portion of the codex was as well. I think people really just underestimate how monumental of an undertaking that must have been.
Couple just how much work it takes to voice even a few hundred lines with how monstrous of an undertaking creating an MMO is and you run into a wall - a wall that will take more money to get through. There may very well be some developers out there who would be good at voice acting. If they are enthusiastic they would probably be willing to do it for free and they may even know how to engineer their recordings themselves. The real problem is finding such a person and getting him/her involved. And even then you would have to find more people to add more voices.
Do I think more voice-overs should be added to mmo's? Sure I do. Do I think a fully-voiced (at least in the magnitude as the aforementioned Mass Effect) will come out any time soon though? No. I would honestly be surprised to see one in my life-time.
SW:ToR is supposedly going to have a LOT of voiced dialogue. That's cool and all, but I just hope Bioware hasn't skimped on the budget for more important parts of the game to get that done. I mean, they hired Steve Blum....he's a hot commodity in the voice acting realm, EVERYBODY wants him to voice something in their game and he does a LOT of work in anime series. He's kind of like the Morgan Freeman of the voice acting world.....he's in everything.
I agree... Too bad the genre isn't really forward in any area.
Iam sorry, but sometimes Voices ruin RP value. Just look at GW and AION's cut scenes.
Sometime it work, like the Ashbringer Story on Youtube, but I cant stand the high pitched voices, that ruin RP value. Thats why Text base, allow the user to come up with their own voices (in their head)
I agree... Too bad the genre isn't really forward in any area.
Iam sorry, but sometimes Voices ruin RP value. Just look at GW and AION's cut scenes.
Sometime it work, like the Ashbringer Story on Youtube, but I cant stand the high pitched voices, that ruin RP value. Thats why Text base, allow the user to come up with their own voices (in their head)
Yes, nothing more annoying then cutscene voiceovers interrupting the voices in my head!
I agree... Too bad the genre isn't really forward in any area.
Iam sorry, but sometimes Voices ruin RP value. Just look at GW and AION's cut scenes.
Sometime it work, like the Ashbringer Story on Youtube, but I cant stand the high pitched voices, that ruin RP value. Thats why Text base, allow the user to come up with their own voices (in their head)
Yes, nothing more annoying then cutscene voiceovers interrupting the voices in my head!
lol, that's too funny.
To the point, my thought to the "voices in your head" idea is that people will still go and see a movie that is made from a book. In some cases it might even be enjoyable.
If people only wanted to experience their own sense of the characters from a book then they would just read books. But movies are popular.
Of course one could say that movies are a more passive experience whereas reading a book is a more proactive experience. But I see no reason that having a bit of audience participation i.e. utilizing voice overs in a video game where the players can then interact with the game, would really ruin that. My concerns are always about the technical and whether it can be implemented well. And it should be pointed out that after a few times, the voice overs can be a detracting element as we tend to gloss over their talking after the 4th or 5th time hearing it.
People have to remember that movies didn't always have sound and that the implementation of sound was a somewhat controversial thing to some. Obviously, now that we are 100+ years after the first sound was introduced to film, people don't complain or worry that it will ruin the theatrical experience.
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As for those who skip the lore altogether: sorry to be blunt, but a MMORPG is NOT for you. Go play some damn shooter, where you don't need to bother with a rich and deep world lore. I don't know why anyone would NOT support VO. It's like going to a Soccer or Football game and then plug your ears to silence the cheering and calling. Sure, it would be quieter, but you'd lose an important part of sensual experience. Voices are another part like music and sounds. How can one NOT want it? It's beyond me..
I hate to be blunt back, but far more MMO players skip all lore then follow it. The majority don't care that much about the lore and just want to play a fun online game.
It's also not being negative to point out that the added cost and work for a company might not have the proper returns which is why they likely don't do it.
I turn off the music in most MMOs too, and depending on what I'm doing at the time I may play without sound. If I'm just playing to kill some time and have a bit of fun, then most of the sounds are probably off because I have the TV on.
It sounds like regular RPGs are more your thing then MMOs are. MMOs are not what RPGs try to be. They are designed as a hugely immersive world with lots of lore to learn and needing time invested to know everything. Now they are made for people to hop on, interact with others and run some quests or kill some things. That is also the design that brings in the most money.
But that's why RPGs are still good business, they offer a different experience. More immersion, more lore, more voice overs.
I agree... Too bad the genre isn't really forward in any area.
Iam sorry, but sometimes Voices ruin RP value. Just look at GW and AION's cut scenes.
Sometime it work, like the Ashbringer Story on Youtube, but I cant stand the high pitched voices, that ruin RP value. Thats why Text base, allow the user to come up with their own voices (in their head)
*shrug* I guess its a matter of taste. I prefer even mediocre voice over text. How exciting can a MMO quest texts like "kill 20 rats for my Moms rat pie" be? I just don't want to read 500 lines of boring text about it when someone can read the text for me. We have voicover in every single play game, and I never heard ANYONE say, the voices were bad and he would prefer KOTOR or Dragon Age or Mass Effect or whatever had only text because the voices disturbed him. I think you folks make that up just to disagree because thats so funny to do in this fourm.
I just have enough of this attitude here. You can't say a goddamn thing here anymore without 50 people jumping on you saying nay, no matter if that was asked for. That people prefer to read is in no way against adding voiceovers, but oh no, people can't keep the unasked traps shut when their opinion has zero to do with what the topic was about in the first place! It's like someone said he wants no loadscreens and 50 people yell him down "I prefer loadscreens because I can make a potty break then!". Really great debate culture.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I'd rather all MMO's be fully voiced which is one of the reasons I think SWTOR is going to be more immersive than everything before it.
It breaks your focus on the game world's environment to have to take your eyes off it to read text boxes and reading them gets boring FAST.
As for increasing the game size because of sound files WHO CARES! I'd rather a more immersive game than more space on my hard drive and for those who don't want to wait for the spoken dialogue to end can have either the option to use a text box,speech, or both! and you can always interrupt it with a mouse click if you're grinding.
But I also agree that the voice acting quality is critical and can destroy a games enjoyment quicker and needs to be carefully matched to the npc and not 'read' in monotone.
DEFINITION OF REALITY: Graphics ok, Sound ok, Gold drops need more work...
I agree... Too bad the genre isn't really forward in any area.
Iam sorry, but sometimes Voices ruin RP value. Just look at GW and AION's cut scenes.
Sometime it work, like the Ashbringer Story on Youtube, but I cant stand the high pitched voices, that ruin RP value. Thats why Text base, allow the user to come up with their own voices (in their head)
*shrug* I guess its a matter of taste. I prefer even mediocre voice over text. How exciting can a MMO quest texts like "kill 20 rats for my Moms rat pie" be? I just don't want to read 500 lines of boring text about it when someone can read the text for me. We have voicover in every single play game, and I never heard ANYONE say, the voices were bad and he would prefer KOTOR or Dragon Age or Mass Effect or whatever had only text because the voices disturbed him. I think you folks make that up just to disagree because thats so funny to do in this fourm.
I just have enough of this attitude here. You can't say a goddamn thing here anymore without 50 people jumping on you saying nay, no matter if that was asked for. That people prefer to read is in no way against adding voiceovers, but oh no, people can't keep the unasked traps shut when their opinion has zero to do with what the topic was about in the first place! It's like someone said he wants no loadscreens and 50 people yell him down "I prefer loadscreens because I can make a potty break then!". Really great debate culture.
If you are not interested in a discussion of your point then what is your point for posting?
Other than a few snarky posts here and there, this has been a discussion on the merits or issues with, including voice acting in games.
Or did you just want us to say "yes Elikal, you are right, we need more voice acting" and end of topic? Considering that we are all different people, each person is going to react differently to game features.Surely you must admit that adding more voice acting will take more resources. It also has to be implemented well.
You say that you would rather hear mediocre voice acting than read text. Ok great. I personally would not as mediocre voice acting is a sure way of ruining any immersion for my taste.
But I would rather see more voice acting in areas where it makes sense. Obviously, a kill x quest that has nothing to do with anything other than killing 10 rats might not merit voice acting or might not need a wall of text.
I see very few people jumping all over you as much as just discussing the pros and cons of more voice acting.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I agree... Too bad the genre isn't really forward in any area.
Iam sorry, but sometimes Voices ruin RP value. Just look at GW and AION's cut scenes.
Sometime it work, like the Ashbringer Story on Youtube, but I cant stand the high pitched voices, that ruin RP value. Thats why Text base, allow the user to come up with their own voices (in their head)
*shrug* I guess its a matter of taste. I prefer even mediocre voice over text. How exciting can a MMO quest texts like "kill 20 rats for my Moms rat pie" be? I just don't want to read 500 lines of boring text about it when someone can read the text for me. We have voicover in every single play game, and I never heard ANYONE say, the voices were bad and he would prefer KOTOR or Dragon Age or Mass Effect or whatever had only text because the voices disturbed him. I think you folks make that up just to disagree because thats so funny to do in this fourm.
I just have enough of this attitude here. You can't say a goddamn thing here anymore without 50 people jumping on you saying nay, no matter if that was asked for. That people prefer to read is in no way against adding voiceovers, but oh no, people can't keep the unasked traps shut when their opinion has zero to do with what the topic was about in the first place! It's like someone said he wants no loadscreens and 50 people yell him down "I prefer loadscreens because I can make a potty break then!". Really great debate culture.
If you are not interested in a discussion of your point then what is your point for posting?
Other than a few snarky posts here and there, this has been a discussion on the merits or issues with, including voice acting in games.
Or did you just want us to say "yes Elikal, you are right, we need more voice acting" and end of topic? Considering that we are all different people, each person is going to react differently to game features.Surely you must admit that adding more voice acting will take more resources. It also has to be implemented well.
You say that you would rather hear mediocre voice acting than read text. Ok great. I personally would not as mediocre voice acting is a sure way of ruining any immersion for my taste.
But I would rather see more voice acting in areas where it makes sense. Obviously, a kill x quest that has nothing to do with anything other than killing 10 rats might not merit voice acting or might not need a wall of text.
I see very few people jumping all over you as much as just discussing the pros and cons of more voice acting.
Lol, I guess the day anyone says "Elikal, I agree you are so right" the internet would explode. Seriously, I just don't get it. We have VO in single player games, whats the difference? I just don't see how anyone can logically be for VO in single play and against it in MMOs. Or how "I prefer to read" has ANYTHING to do with it. I mean, feel free to read. You are welcome, but don't ruin my effort to spread VO simply because you prefer to read. Thats ridiculous. But its impossible to get any support for anything here. I have not seen a single logical reason against VO here.
People say, oh but it may be bad voices. SO WHAT? Everything CAN be bad. Thats no reason against it per se. I am just TIRED of people saying against something for the most bizzare and arbitrary reasons. Its not that people disagree with me that irks me, its WHY. Saying I am against VO because the VO might be bad spoken is like saying I hate comics because some writers suck. Hello? Logic?? If you don't like the VO you can shut it down, ok? But taking it out of consideration because it MIGHT not be perfect, wow, what kind of argument is that???
Again, you turn things I said upside down. I don't care that people disagree, but it bugs me that people bring reasons against it which are entirely illogical and ridiculous.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I'm inclined to agree. I'd rather all MMO's be fully voiced which is one of the reasons I think SWTOR is going to be more immersive than everything before it. It breaks your focus on the game world's environment to have to take your eyes off it to read text boxes and reading them gets boring FAST. As for increasing the game size because of sound files WHO CARES! I'd rather a more immersive game than more space on my hard drive and for those who don't want to wait for the spoken dialogue to end can have either the option to use a text box,speech, or both! and you can always interrupt it with a mouse click if you're grinding. But I also agree that the voice acting quality is critical and can destroy a games enjoyment quicker and needs to be carefully matched to the npc and not 'read' in monotone.
Interesting that you nowhere mention costs. MMORPGs have way more lines of questtext then any single player RPG or movie for that matter. I really think that the generic 'go kill x' type tasks dont even deserve a voice over. Their story is never interesting enough and any money spent on voice over actors is a waste.
I rather see a new type of presentation for the mundane tasks like those kill counter quests. I even prefer the daily clipboards tasks that some MMO's have over some stupid queststory for killing 10 boars.
If Bioware wasnt claiming to use several writers for the upcoming SW:TOR, I wouldnt be interested in full voice over for that game. Fortunately they already show with holonet and the rest of the website that they can write engaging stories (for a MMO).
I would like to see more voice over work in mmos, but I can see why they might not want to do it. As great as it would be fore the player to the ability to head an npc character speak if desired, it would probably add more to the dev cost to make the game than they are willing to spend.
*shrug* I guess its a matter of taste. I prefer even mediocre voice over text. How exciting can a MMO quest texts like "kill 20 rats for my Moms rat pie" be? I just don't want to read 500 lines of boring text about it when someone can read the text for me. We have voicover in every single play game, and I never heard ANYONE say, the voices were bad and he would prefer KOTOR or Dragon Age or Mass Effect or whatever had only text because the voices disturbed him. I think you folks make that up just to disagree because thats so funny to do in this fourm. I just have enough of this attitude here. You can't say a goddamn thing here anymore without 50 people jumping on you saying nay, no matter if that was asked for. That people prefer to read is in no way against adding voiceovers, but oh no, people can't keep the unasked traps shut when their opinion has zero to do with what the topic was about in the first place! It's like someone said he wants no loadscreens and 50 people yell him down "I prefer loadscreens because I can make a potty break then!". Really great debate culture.
If you are not interested in a discussion of your point then what is your point for posting?
Other than a few snarky posts here and there, this has been a discussion on the merits or issues with, including voice acting in games.
Or did you just want us to say "yes Elikal, you are right, we need more voice acting" and end of topic? Considering that we are all different people, each person is going to react differently to game features.Surely you must admit that adding more voice acting will take more resources. It also has to be implemented well.
You say that you would rather hear mediocre voice acting than read text. Ok great. I personally would not as mediocre voice acting is a sure way of ruining any immersion for my taste.
But I would rather see more voice acting in areas where it makes sense. Obviously, a kill x quest that has nothing to do with anything other than killing 10 rats might not merit voice acting or might not need a wall of text.
I see very few people jumping all over you as much as just discussing the pros and cons of more voice acting.
Lol, I guess the day anyone says "Elikal, I agree you are so right" the internet would explode. Seriously, I just don't get it. We have VO in single player games, whats the difference? I just don't see how anyone can logically be for VO in single play and against it in MMOs. Or how "I prefer to read" has ANYTHING to do with it. I mean, feel free to read. You are welcome, but don't ruin my effort to spread VO simply because you prefer to read. Thats ridiculous. But its impossible to get any support for anything here. I have not seen a single logical reason against VO here.
People say, oh but it may be bad voices. SO WHAT? Everything CAN be bad. Thats no reason against it per se. I am just TIRED of people saying against something for the most bizzare and arbitrary reasons. Its not that people disagree with me that irks me, its WHY. Saying I am against VO because the VO might be bad spoken is like saying I hate comics because some writers suck. Hello? Logic?? If you don't like the VO you can shut it down, ok? But taking it out of consideration because it MIGHT not be perfect, wow, what kind of argument is that???
Again, you turn things I said upside down. I don't care that people disagree, but it bugs me that people bring reasons against it which are entirely illogical and ridiculous.
Well then that's really what a discussion is about. If someone makes a statment that doesn't hold water and it is clear that it doesn't hold water, then just counter that reason with, er "reason".
So in the case of "I'd rather read" the response could be "I appreciate that there are personal pros to people reading text over voice overs but perhaps the solution would be to allow people to turn the voice overs off and to always maintain text content so that players can pick their choice of quest delivery".
It doesn't always have to be one or the other but certainly you can recognize that not everyone will have the tolerance for medocre voice acting that you would have.
So again, if people are giving you reasons that you dont' think are strong, come back with your reasons why their reasons don't support the case.
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Problem is it would cost too much money to voice over every quest, without the guareentee that most players would even care about the lore of each quest. Take WoW for example, they have over 3,000 quests. Do you know how much money it would cost to voice over 3,000 quests? A ton.
Problem is it would cost too much money to voice over every quest, without the guareentee that most players would even care about the lore of each quest. Take WoW for example, they have over 3,000 quests. Do you know how much money it would cost to voice over 3,000 quests? A ton.
How 'bout making less quests with more quality? I take quality over quantity any time. That is why Vanguard was not that appealing to me.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Really, sounds like an arbitrary issue, but I found it to be one of the ruining factors for me for a MMO. Not so much in itself, but in the system. Here is why: I love to delve into a MMO world's lore. For me, it is not enough to have a nice looking place where I kill Orcs, I want to KNOW about the place, about the Orcs about the background. Otherwise I loose interest in the game pretty fast. Now call me lazy, but I just HATE to read those textboxes. I mean, WTF, is this a Legend text adventure from 1979? Heck, even the 25 years old Death Gate had FULL VOICED TEXT. TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO. Its one of the BIG BIG downs of LOTRO and Champions and whatnot, I get to some NPC, and I get a frigging text box? I mean, seriously, who the heck reads all the damn stuff? If I want to read I take a telephone book! Ok, fun aside, I really read much books, because usually they are exciting. Reading quest texts, who usually are NOT exciting to read, I tend to skip them and move on to the 1-liner who tells me who I have to kill and where he is. End of story. I am just so tired of this neolithic way of quest giving, and prolly I am spoilt by 5 years into EQ2, where almost every damn little sidequest NPC talks in lipsynch voice to you. I swear I am so done with this boring reading.
Not every quest giver in EQ2 speaks. I had recently done several quests in EQ 2 and noted the palpable difference between the spoken dialogue and dialogue that is read.
You should probably know that sound files are large. compress them too much and quality suffers. And even compressed they are still large. Couple that with an ever expanding game world and you are going to get a very large game on your hard drive.
You make a very good point but a solution to that is streaming, look at stuff like Spotify and other music providers you can already have hundreds of thousands of ppl streaming music through it and the quality isnt bad at all, what companies need to explore is ways of creating clusters for streaming voice to your client so a single copy is held on the servers and not on everyone's HD. This is already possible it just needs someone to do it.
VO Cons: Can easily be annoying. Can easily be badly done. It's expensive. Players with english as a second language can't understand it. Expensive to adapt to other regions with different languages.
What is so hard to understand Elikal?
Fair point as well, but you seem to be confining yourself to MMO examples what about single player games like Dragon Age they are full of voice acting and they are not localized yet they provide a much needed enrichment to the already rich storyline, I dont think localization would be needed for voice acting and taking into account that ppl cant understand, that can be said about hundreds of successfull single player games out there that have english only voice overs.
With new technology it is possible to modulate a single persons voice to sound different, so what companies must do is explore these possibilities rather than having 20 guys for 20 NPCs have 1 guy read 20 different texts and modulate the voice differently, this is very possible right now and would cut down ALOT on costs.
Annoyance well there are so many things that can be easily annoying in an MMO if that if we took them all out we would have no game at all to play, even the sounds of character casting and attacking can be easily annoying most of the time mainly because its always the same over hundreds of hours of play.
Only having text doesnt bother me that much really but having voice overs as well would be a really good addition and provide alot of imersion how can someone not want that is beyond me, the technology to do it is already available the main reason we dont see this alot is because its not a standard "YET" so designers discard it and do not want to put more development time and money into it.
Could get too big of a game, memory problems occur more often in large games... And quality would most likely be bad, and no MMO company has time for that when they already release games with 3/4 features.
Problem is it would cost too much money to voice over every quest, without the guareentee that most players would even care about the lore of each quest. Take WoW for example, they have over 3,000 quests. Do you know how much money it would cost to voice over 3,000 quests? A ton.
This is a rough estimation of what people could potentially make for voice overs...
For Morgan Freeman, Patrick Stewart, James Earl Jones - astronomical
For Steven Jay Blum, Wendy Lee, Johnny Yong Bosch - quite a bit
For John Doe, Jane Doe - Minimum wage
For Chevy Chase - He pays you
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
The most memorable NPC's I have encountered in gaming were probably the townsfolk in Diablo. They had audio speech and were brief, informative, and amusing all at once. While there was some text box stuff, generally you did not have to read much or click through many boxes to get the point.
In contrast, MMO's which force lengthy and numerous text boxes on their players are irritating their own player base. If something is compelling, players will want to hear it. If not, then why force-feed them useless information.
Perhaps MMO's should return to the Diablo-style (Diablo 1, that is). Brief audio speech by the NPC, then some text appears in your quest log if you want to reference it later.
Problem is it would cost too much money to voice over every quest, without the guareentee that most players would even care about the lore of each quest. Take WoW for example, they have over 3,000 quests. Do you know how much money it would cost to voice over 3,000 quests? A ton.
This is a rough estimation of what people could potentially make for voice overs...
For Morgan Freeman, Patrick Stewart, James Earl Jones - astronomical
For Steven Jay Blum, Wendy Lee, Johnny Yong Bosch - quite a bit
For John Doe, Jane Doe - Minimum wage
For Chevy Chase - He pays you
Honestly its fun sometimes when you hear that NPC in game and you know you have heard that guy before, but there are tons of ppl that do Voice Overs out there that can do it with as much talent as patrick stewart and probably alot cheaper as well, if its a good voice acting its good voice acting wether its patrick stewart or a guy you randomly picked on the street, a good example of this taken to the extreme is Oblivion with their patrick stewarts and some random other guy doing ALL the voices. That surely didnt make it better.
Really, sounds like an arbitrary issue, but I found it to be one of the ruining factors for me for a MMO. Not so much in itself, but in the system. Here is why: I love to delve into a MMO world's lore. For me, it is not enough to have a nice looking place where I kill Orcs, I want to KNOW about the place, about the Orcs about the background. Otherwise I loose interest in the game pretty fast. Now call me lazy, but I just HATE to read those textboxes. I mean, WTF, is this a Legend text adventure from 1979? Heck, even the 25 years old Death Gate had FULL VOICED TEXT. TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO. Its one of the BIG BIG downs of LOTRO and Champions and whatnot, I get to some NPC, and I get a frigging text box? I mean, seriously, who the heck reads all the damn stuff? If I want to read I take a telephone book! Ok, fun aside, I really read much books, because usually they are exciting. Reading quest texts, who usually are NOT exciting to read, I tend to skip them and move on to the 1-liner who tells me who I have to kill and where he is. End of story. I am just so tired of this neolithic way of quest giving, and prolly I am spoilt by 5 years into EQ2, where almost every damn little sidequest NPC talks in lipsynch voice to you. I swear I am so done with this boring reading.
Not every quest giver in EQ2 speaks. I had recently done several quests in EQ 2 and noted the palpable difference between the spoken dialogue and dialogue that is read.
You should probably know that sound files are large. compress them too much and quality suffers. And even compressed they are still large. Couple that with an ever expanding game world and you are going to get a very large game on your hard drive.
You make a very good point but a solution to that is streaming, look at stuff like Spotify and other music providers you can already have hundreds of thousands of ppl streaming music through it and the quality isnt bad at all, what companies need to explore is ways of creating clusters for streaming voice to your client so a single copy is held on the servers and not on everyone's HD. This is already possible it just needs someone to do it.
Yeah, Goronian mentioned streaming as well and pojung suggested something that indicated that there was a better (?) way to go than streaming.
My only concerns are that there isn't a buffer while voices load and that the voice acting is good.
@ lansid, too funny regarding the chevy chase reference ; )
There really are good actors out there who have not yet made it so I really don't see the issue for hiring medocre actors. My guess is that whoever is hiring just wants to get casting over with quickly or doesn't have an ear for the nuances of fine voice acting.
I can name several friends of mine who would be greate voices for many games. My brother for one though again, he wouldn't be good for every project.
Heck, all one would have to do is to send someone to New York, rent out a space for the audtions (and you can get really cheap but decent spaces. If I can afford them a game company could afford them) and put an advertisment out that they are hiring for voice actors. You would get a line around the block. Really. And you could pay them a nominal fee.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
VO Cons: Can easily be annoying. Can easily be badly done. It's expensive. Players with english as a second language can't understand it. Expensive to adapt to other regions with different languages.
What is so hard to understand Elikal?
Fair point as well, but you seem to be confining yourself to MMO examples what about single player games like Dragon Age they are full of voice acting and they are not localized yet they provide a much needed enrichment to the already rich storyline, I dont think localization would be needed for voice acting and taking into account that ppl cant understand, that can be said about hundreds of successfull single player games out there that have english only voice overs.
With new technology it is possible to modulate a single persons voice to sound different, so what companies must do is explore these possibilities rather than having 20 guys for 20 NPCs have 1 guy read 20 different texts and modulate the voice differently, this is very possible right now and would cut down ALOT on costs.
Annoyance well there are so many things that can be easily annoying in an MMO if that if we took them all out we would have no game at all to play, even the sounds of character casting and attacking can be easily annoying most of the time mainly because its always the same over hundreds of hours of play.
Only having text doesnt bother me that much really but having voice overs as well would be a really good addition and provide alot of imersion how can someone not want that is beyond me, the technology to do it is already available the main reason we dont see this alot is because its not a standard "YET" so designers discard it and do not want to put more development time and money into it.
An MMO is different from a single player game. I still remember how incredibly annoying was to hear the quest givers in EQ2 over and over and over again.
About localization, single player games get dubbed to other languages. An MMO is much more expensive to make, has much more quests, so there isn't so much money to spend on that, and they should spend much more. And if you consider the other cons... it's clearly not worth it.
Why is it beyond you that most people find the VO annoying? Do you like to hear the same lines 20 times a day, from a teenager pretending to have a deep voice and obviously failing? And if they start using distorted voices like you mention, that would be beyond bearable.
What is beyond me is why would anyone want to spend a lot of money on something that will annoy the majority of gamers.
Comments
The underlined pretty much sums it up. Those generic kill x quests rarely have an engaging story. There are simply too many of them to make them all entertaining, not to mention with voice overs. I dont see how that would make a crap story more engaging
It would only cost more to create.
In WAR you have those npcs that give you a reward if you kill a certain mobs. They recognise it when you killed them BEFORE you talk to the npc and immediately adapt their response to that. I really wished that all those generic kill x quests worked like that. Its one of the details I liked in WAR.
But overall I find these type of quests, not really worth the label 'quest' . Its as silly as a mother asking her son to go on a quest to fetch some milk at the groceries.
Yes, but what was the quality of the voice acting? The chances are it was done by the people who made the game. So, in other words, they did it for free and simply because they wanted to.
It's a whole different ball game these days. Oddly enough things have become more convoluted and haggered rather than simpler and easier, as far as making games goes. These days if you have voice acting in your game it has to be well done. The reason for this is simple; the standard for voice acting in video games is set fairly high. Poor voice acting is worse than none at all, in the industry's current climate.
Good voice actors are expensive. Good engineers to manage and produce the recordings from the voice actors cost money. Studio time to record voices costs money. The game with the most voice-overs I have played (that I remember clearly) has been Mass Effect. Not only was all of the dialogue voiced, but all of the 'main' portion of the codex was as well. I think people really just underestimate how monumental of an undertaking that must have been.
Couple just how much work it takes to voice even a few hundred lines with how monstrous of an undertaking creating an MMO is and you run into a wall - a wall that will take more money to get through. There may very well be some developers out there who would be good at voice acting. If they are enthusiastic they would probably be willing to do it for free and they may even know how to engineer their recordings themselves. The real problem is finding such a person and getting him/her involved. And even then you would have to find more people to add more voices.
Do I think more voice-overs should be added to mmo's? Sure I do. Do I think a fully-voiced (at least in the magnitude as the aforementioned Mass Effect) will come out any time soon though? No. I would honestly be surprised to see one in my life-time.
SW:ToR is supposedly going to have a LOT of voiced dialogue. That's cool and all, but I just hope Bioware hasn't skimped on the budget for more important parts of the game to get that done. I mean, they hired Steve Blum....he's a hot commodity in the voice acting realm, EVERYBODY wants him to voice something in their game and he does a LOT of work in anime series. He's kind of like the Morgan Freeman of the voice acting world.....he's in everything.
Iam sorry, but sometimes Voices ruin RP value. Just look at GW and AION's cut scenes.
Sometime it work, like the Ashbringer Story on Youtube, but I cant stand the high pitched voices, that ruin RP value. Thats why Text base, allow the user to come up with their own voices (in their head)
Iam sorry, but sometimes Voices ruin RP value. Just look at GW and AION's cut scenes.
Sometime it work, like the Ashbringer Story on Youtube, but I cant stand the high pitched voices, that ruin RP value. Thats why Text base, allow the user to come up with their own voices (in their head)
Yes, nothing more annoying then cutscene voiceovers interrupting the voices in my head!
Iam sorry, but sometimes Voices ruin RP value. Just look at GW and AION's cut scenes.
Sometime it work, like the Ashbringer Story on Youtube, but I cant stand the high pitched voices, that ruin RP value. Thats why Text base, allow the user to come up with their own voices (in their head)
Yes, nothing more annoying then cutscene voiceovers interrupting the voices in my head!
lol, that's too funny.
To the point, my thought to the "voices in your head" idea is that people will still go and see a movie that is made from a book. In some cases it might even be enjoyable.
If people only wanted to experience their own sense of the characters from a book then they would just read books. But movies are popular.
Of course one could say that movies are a more passive experience whereas reading a book is a more proactive experience. But I see no reason that having a bit of audience participation i.e. utilizing voice overs in a video game where the players can then interact with the game, would really ruin that. My concerns are always about the technical and whether it can be implemented well. And it should be pointed out that after a few times, the voice overs can be a detracting element as we tend to gloss over their talking after the 4th or 5th time hearing it.
People have to remember that movies didn't always have sound and that the implementation of sound was a somewhat controversial thing to some. Obviously, now that we are 100+ years after the first sound was introduced to film, people don't complain or worry that it will ruin the theatrical experience.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
QFT
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
I hate to be blunt back, but far more MMO players skip all lore then follow it. The majority don't care that much about the lore and just want to play a fun online game.
It's also not being negative to point out that the added cost and work for a company might not have the proper returns which is why they likely don't do it.
I turn off the music in most MMOs too, and depending on what I'm doing at the time I may play without sound. If I'm just playing to kill some time and have a bit of fun, then most of the sounds are probably off because I have the TV on.
It sounds like regular RPGs are more your thing then MMOs are. MMOs are not what RPGs try to be. They are designed as a hugely immersive world with lots of lore to learn and needing time invested to know everything. Now they are made for people to hop on, interact with others and run some quests or kill some things. That is also the design that brings in the most money.
But that's why RPGs are still good business, they offer a different experience. More immersion, more lore, more voice overs.
Iam sorry, but sometimes Voices ruin RP value. Just look at GW and AION's cut scenes.
Sometime it work, like the Ashbringer Story on Youtube, but I cant stand the high pitched voices, that ruin RP value. Thats why Text base, allow the user to come up with their own voices (in their head)
*shrug* I guess its a matter of taste. I prefer even mediocre voice over text. How exciting can a MMO quest texts like "kill 20 rats for my Moms rat pie" be? I just don't want to read 500 lines of boring text about it when someone can read the text for me. We have voicover in every single play game, and I never heard ANYONE say, the voices were bad and he would prefer KOTOR or Dragon Age or Mass Effect or whatever had only text because the voices disturbed him. I think you folks make that up just to disagree because thats so funny to do in this fourm.
I just have enough of this attitude here. You can't say a goddamn thing here anymore without 50 people jumping on you saying nay, no matter if that was asked for. That people prefer to read is in no way against adding voiceovers, but oh no, people can't keep the unasked traps shut when their opinion has zero to do with what the topic was about in the first place! It's like someone said he wants no loadscreens and 50 people yell him down "I prefer loadscreens because I can make a potty break then!". Really great debate culture.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I'm inclined to agree.
I'd rather all MMO's be fully voiced which is one of the reasons I think SWTOR is going to be more immersive than everything before it.
It breaks your focus on the game world's environment to have to take your eyes off it to read text boxes and reading them gets boring FAST.
As for increasing the game size because of sound files WHO CARES! I'd rather a more immersive game than more space on my hard drive and for those who don't want to wait for the spoken dialogue to end can have either the option to use a text box,speech, or both! and you can always interrupt it with a mouse click if you're grinding.
But I also agree that the voice acting quality is critical and can destroy a games enjoyment quicker and needs to be carefully matched to the npc and not 'read' in monotone.
DEFINITION OF REALITY: Graphics ok, Sound ok, Gold drops need more work...
Iam sorry, but sometimes Voices ruin RP value. Just look at GW and AION's cut scenes.
Sometime it work, like the Ashbringer Story on Youtube, but I cant stand the high pitched voices, that ruin RP value. Thats why Text base, allow the user to come up with their own voices (in their head)
*shrug* I guess its a matter of taste. I prefer even mediocre voice over text. How exciting can a MMO quest texts like "kill 20 rats for my Moms rat pie" be? I just don't want to read 500 lines of boring text about it when someone can read the text for me. We have voicover in every single play game, and I never heard ANYONE say, the voices were bad and he would prefer KOTOR or Dragon Age or Mass Effect or whatever had only text because the voices disturbed him. I think you folks make that up just to disagree because thats so funny to do in this fourm.
I just have enough of this attitude here. You can't say a goddamn thing here anymore without 50 people jumping on you saying nay, no matter if that was asked for. That people prefer to read is in no way against adding voiceovers, but oh no, people can't keep the unasked traps shut when their opinion has zero to do with what the topic was about in the first place! It's like someone said he wants no loadscreens and 50 people yell him down "I prefer loadscreens because I can make a potty break then!". Really great debate culture.
If you are not interested in a discussion of your point then what is your point for posting?
Other than a few snarky posts here and there, this has been a discussion on the merits or issues with, including voice acting in games.
Or did you just want us to say "yes Elikal, you are right, we need more voice acting" and end of topic? Considering that we are all different people, each person is going to react differently to game features.Surely you must admit that adding more voice acting will take more resources. It also has to be implemented well.
You say that you would rather hear mediocre voice acting than read text. Ok great. I personally would not as mediocre voice acting is a sure way of ruining any immersion for my taste.
But I would rather see more voice acting in areas where it makes sense. Obviously, a kill x quest that has nothing to do with anything other than killing 10 rats might not merit voice acting or might not need a wall of text.
I see very few people jumping all over you as much as just discussing the pros and cons of more voice acting.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Iam sorry, but sometimes Voices ruin RP value. Just look at GW and AION's cut scenes.
Sometime it work, like the Ashbringer Story on Youtube, but I cant stand the high pitched voices, that ruin RP value. Thats why Text base, allow the user to come up with their own voices (in their head)
*shrug* I guess its a matter of taste. I prefer even mediocre voice over text. How exciting can a MMO quest texts like "kill 20 rats for my Moms rat pie" be? I just don't want to read 500 lines of boring text about it when someone can read the text for me. We have voicover in every single play game, and I never heard ANYONE say, the voices were bad and he would prefer KOTOR or Dragon Age or Mass Effect or whatever had only text because the voices disturbed him. I think you folks make that up just to disagree because thats so funny to do in this fourm.
I just have enough of this attitude here. You can't say a goddamn thing here anymore without 50 people jumping on you saying nay, no matter if that was asked for. That people prefer to read is in no way against adding voiceovers, but oh no, people can't keep the unasked traps shut when their opinion has zero to do with what the topic was about in the first place! It's like someone said he wants no loadscreens and 50 people yell him down "I prefer loadscreens because I can make a potty break then!". Really great debate culture.
If you are not interested in a discussion of your point then what is your point for posting?
Other than a few snarky posts here and there, this has been a discussion on the merits or issues with, including voice acting in games.
Or did you just want us to say "yes Elikal, you are right, we need more voice acting" and end of topic? Considering that we are all different people, each person is going to react differently to game features.Surely you must admit that adding more voice acting will take more resources. It also has to be implemented well.
You say that you would rather hear mediocre voice acting than read text. Ok great. I personally would not as mediocre voice acting is a sure way of ruining any immersion for my taste.
But I would rather see more voice acting in areas where it makes sense. Obviously, a kill x quest that has nothing to do with anything other than killing 10 rats might not merit voice acting or might not need a wall of text.
I see very few people jumping all over you as much as just discussing the pros and cons of more voice acting.
Lol, I guess the day anyone says "Elikal, I agree you are so right" the internet would explode. Seriously, I just don't get it. We have VO in single player games, whats the difference? I just don't see how anyone can logically be for VO in single play and against it in MMOs. Or how "I prefer to read" has ANYTHING to do with it. I mean, feel free to read. You are welcome, but don't ruin my effort to spread VO simply because you prefer to read. Thats ridiculous. But its impossible to get any support for anything here. I have not seen a single logical reason against VO here.
People say, oh but it may be bad voices. SO WHAT? Everything CAN be bad. Thats no reason against it per se. I am just TIRED of people saying against something for the most bizzare and arbitrary reasons. Its not that people disagree with me that irks me, its WHY. Saying I am against VO because the VO might be bad spoken is like saying I hate comics because some writers suck. Hello? Logic?? If you don't like the VO you can shut it down, ok? But taking it out of consideration because it MIGHT not be perfect, wow, what kind of argument is that???
Again, you turn things I said upside down. I don't care that people disagree, but it bugs me that people bring reasons against it which are entirely illogical and ridiculous.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Interesting that you nowhere mention costs. MMORPGs have way more lines of questtext then any single player RPG or movie for that matter. I really think that the generic 'go kill x' type tasks dont even deserve a voice over. Their story is never interesting enough and any money spent on voice over actors is a waste.
I rather see a new type of presentation for the mundane tasks like those kill counter quests. I even prefer the daily clipboards tasks that some MMO's have over some stupid queststory for killing 10 boars.
If Bioware wasnt claiming to use several writers for the upcoming SW:TOR, I wouldnt be interested in full voice over for that game. Fortunately they already show with holonet and the rest of the website that they can write engaging stories (for a MMO).
I would like to see more voice over work in mmos, but I can see why they might not want to do it. As great as it would be fore the player to the ability to head an npc character speak if desired, it would probably add more to the dev cost to make the game than they are willing to spend.
If you are not interested in a discussion of your point then what is your point for posting?
Other than a few snarky posts here and there, this has been a discussion on the merits or issues with, including voice acting in games.
Or did you just want us to say "yes Elikal, you are right, we need more voice acting" and end of topic? Considering that we are all different people, each person is going to react differently to game features.Surely you must admit that adding more voice acting will take more resources. It also has to be implemented well.
You say that you would rather hear mediocre voice acting than read text. Ok great. I personally would not as mediocre voice acting is a sure way of ruining any immersion for my taste.
But I would rather see more voice acting in areas where it makes sense. Obviously, a kill x quest that has nothing to do with anything other than killing 10 rats might not merit voice acting or might not need a wall of text.
I see very few people jumping all over you as much as just discussing the pros and cons of more voice acting.
Lol, I guess the day anyone says "Elikal, I agree you are so right" the internet would explode. Seriously, I just don't get it. We have VO in single player games, whats the difference? I just don't see how anyone can logically be for VO in single play and against it in MMOs. Or how "I prefer to read" has ANYTHING to do with it. I mean, feel free to read. You are welcome, but don't ruin my effort to spread VO simply because you prefer to read. Thats ridiculous. But its impossible to get any support for anything here. I have not seen a single logical reason against VO here.
People say, oh but it may be bad voices. SO WHAT? Everything CAN be bad. Thats no reason against it per se. I am just TIRED of people saying against something for the most bizzare and arbitrary reasons. Its not that people disagree with me that irks me, its WHY. Saying I am against VO because the VO might be bad spoken is like saying I hate comics because some writers suck. Hello? Logic?? If you don't like the VO you can shut it down, ok? But taking it out of consideration because it MIGHT not be perfect, wow, what kind of argument is that???
Again, you turn things I said upside down. I don't care that people disagree, but it bugs me that people bring reasons against it which are entirely illogical and ridiculous.
Well then that's really what a discussion is about. If someone makes a statment that doesn't hold water and it is clear that it doesn't hold water, then just counter that reason with, er "reason".
So in the case of "I'd rather read" the response could be "I appreciate that there are personal pros to people reading text over voice overs but perhaps the solution would be to allow people to turn the voice overs off and to always maintain text content so that players can pick their choice of quest delivery".
It doesn't always have to be one or the other but certainly you can recognize that not everyone will have the tolerance for medocre voice acting that you would have.
So again, if people are giving you reasons that you dont' think are strong, come back with your reasons why their reasons don't support the case.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Problem is it would cost too much money to voice over every quest, without the guareentee that most players would even care about the lore of each quest. Take WoW for example, they have over 3,000 quests. Do you know how much money it would cost to voice over 3,000 quests? A ton.
How 'bout making less quests with more quality? I take quality over quantity any time. That is why Vanguard was not that appealing to me.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Not every quest giver in EQ2 speaks. I had recently done several quests in EQ 2 and noted the palpable difference between the spoken dialogue and dialogue that is read.
You should probably know that sound files are large. compress them too much and quality suffers. And even compressed they are still large. Couple that with an ever expanding game world and you are going to get a very large game on your hard drive.
You make a very good point but a solution to that is streaming, look at stuff like Spotify and other music providers you can already have hundreds of thousands of ppl streaming music through it and the quality isnt bad at all, what companies need to explore is ways of creating clusters for streaming voice to your client so a single copy is held on the servers and not on everyone's HD. This is already possible it just needs someone to do it.
VO Pros:
More inmersive for some players.
VO Cons:
Can easily be annoying.
Can easily be badly done.
It's expensive.
Players with english as a second language can't understand it.
Expensive to adapt to other regions with different languages.
What is so hard to understand Elikal?
Fair point as well, but you seem to be confining yourself to MMO examples what about single player games like Dragon Age they are full of voice acting and they are not localized yet they provide a much needed enrichment to the already rich storyline, I dont think localization would be needed for voice acting and taking into account that ppl cant understand, that can be said about hundreds of successfull single player games out there that have english only voice overs.
With new technology it is possible to modulate a single persons voice to sound different, so what companies must do is explore these possibilities rather than having 20 guys for 20 NPCs have 1 guy read 20 different texts and modulate the voice differently, this is very possible right now and would cut down ALOT on costs.
Annoyance well there are so many things that can be easily annoying in an MMO if that if we took them all out we would have no game at all to play, even the sounds of character casting and attacking can be easily annoying most of the time mainly because its always the same over hundreds of hours of play.
Only having text doesnt bother me that much really but having voice overs as well would be a really good addition and provide alot of imersion how can someone not want that is beyond me, the technology to do it is already available the main reason we dont see this alot is because its not a standard "YET" so designers discard it and do not want to put more development time and money into it.
Could get too big of a game, memory problems occur more often in large games... And quality would most likely be bad, and no MMO company has time for that when they already release games with 3/4 features.
This is a rough estimation of what people could potentially make for voice overs...
For Morgan Freeman, Patrick Stewart, James Earl Jones - astronomical
For Steven Jay Blum, Wendy Lee, Johnny Yong Bosch - quite a bit
For John Doe, Jane Doe - Minimum wage
For Chevy Chase - He pays you
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
The most memorable NPC's I have encountered in gaming were probably the townsfolk in Diablo. They had audio speech and were brief, informative, and amusing all at once. While there was some text box stuff, generally you did not have to read much or click through many boxes to get the point.
In contrast, MMO's which force lengthy and numerous text boxes on their players are irritating their own player base. If something is compelling, players will want to hear it. If not, then why force-feed them useless information.
Perhaps MMO's should return to the Diablo-style (Diablo 1, that is). Brief audio speech by the NPC, then some text appears in your quest log if you want to reference it later.
This is a rough estimation of what people could potentially make for voice overs...
For Morgan Freeman, Patrick Stewart, James Earl Jones - astronomical
For Steven Jay Blum, Wendy Lee, Johnny Yong Bosch - quite a bit
For John Doe, Jane Doe - Minimum wage
For Chevy Chase - He pays you
Honestly its fun sometimes when you hear that NPC in game and you know you have heard that guy before, but there are tons of ppl that do Voice Overs out there that can do it with as much talent as patrick stewart and probably alot cheaper as well, if its a good voice acting its good voice acting wether its patrick stewart or a guy you randomly picked on the street, a good example of this taken to the extreme is Oblivion with their patrick stewarts and some random other guy doing ALL the voices. That surely didnt make it better.
Not every quest giver in EQ2 speaks. I had recently done several quests in EQ 2 and noted the palpable difference between the spoken dialogue and dialogue that is read.
You should probably know that sound files are large. compress them too much and quality suffers. And even compressed they are still large. Couple that with an ever expanding game world and you are going to get a very large game on your hard drive.
You make a very good point but a solution to that is streaming, look at stuff like Spotify and other music providers you can already have hundreds of thousands of ppl streaming music through it and the quality isnt bad at all, what companies need to explore is ways of creating clusters for streaming voice to your client so a single copy is held on the servers and not on everyone's HD. This is already possible it just needs someone to do it.
Yeah, Goronian mentioned streaming as well and pojung suggested something that indicated that there was a better (?) way to go than streaming.
My only concerns are that there isn't a buffer while voices load and that the voice acting is good.
@ lansid, too funny regarding the chevy chase reference ; )
There really are good actors out there who have not yet made it so I really don't see the issue for hiring medocre actors. My guess is that whoever is hiring just wants to get casting over with quickly or doesn't have an ear for the nuances of fine voice acting.
I can name several friends of mine who would be greate voices for many games. My brother for one though again, he wouldn't be good for every project.
Heck, all one would have to do is to send someone to New York, rent out a space for the audtions (and you can get really cheap but decent spaces. If I can afford them a game company could afford them) and put an advertisment out that they are hiring for voice actors. You would get a line around the block. Really. And you could pay them a nominal fee.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Fair point as well, but you seem to be confining yourself to MMO examples what about single player games like Dragon Age they are full of voice acting and they are not localized yet they provide a much needed enrichment to the already rich storyline, I dont think localization would be needed for voice acting and taking into account that ppl cant understand, that can be said about hundreds of successfull single player games out there that have english only voice overs.
With new technology it is possible to modulate a single persons voice to sound different, so what companies must do is explore these possibilities rather than having 20 guys for 20 NPCs have 1 guy read 20 different texts and modulate the voice differently, this is very possible right now and would cut down ALOT on costs.
Annoyance well there are so many things that can be easily annoying in an MMO if that if we took them all out we would have no game at all to play, even the sounds of character casting and attacking can be easily annoying most of the time mainly because its always the same over hundreds of hours of play.
Only having text doesnt bother me that much really but having voice overs as well would be a really good addition and provide alot of imersion how can someone not want that is beyond me, the technology to do it is already available the main reason we dont see this alot is because its not a standard "YET" so designers discard it and do not want to put more development time and money into it.
An MMO is different from a single player game. I still remember how incredibly annoying was to hear the quest givers in EQ2 over and over and over again.
About localization, single player games get dubbed to other languages. An MMO is much more expensive to make, has much more quests, so there isn't so much money to spend on that, and they should spend much more. And if you consider the other cons... it's clearly not worth it.
Why is it beyond you that most people find the VO annoying? Do you like to hear the same lines 20 times a day, from a teenager pretending to have a deep voice and obviously failing? And if they start using distorted voices like you mention, that would be beyond bearable.
What is beyond me is why would anyone want to spend a lot of money on something that will annoy the majority of gamers.