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Guild Wars 2: Keeping Your Eyes & Ears Entertained
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The ArenaNet site has been updated by Lead Writer Bobby Stein in a continuing avalanche of blogs and information from Guild Wars 2 developers. In this entry, Stein talks about new ways that the sound of Guild Wars 2 will bring players into the game. Gone are the days where NPCs speak through a wall of text. Instead, immersion is the name of the game.
Stein and his team have uploaded one of their voice actors reading some text to introduce you to the sounds of Divinity's Reach. It's impressive and sounds like someone walking next to you while the sounds of the city come and go as you stroll the streets.
In probably the most astonishing sentence in the entire article Stein says, "We’re voicing the equivalent of more than 60 feature-length films."
Granted, you won’t be absorbing most of this dialogue through traditional cinematics. Instead, we’re evenly distributing story bits, lore, gameplay information, and ambience over hundreds of hours of play. Yes, we’ve got gorgeous, stylized cinematics that will make your jaw drop, but much of what you hear simply happens all around you, or at specific dramatic points in your personal story.
We’re also aware that there can be too much of a good thing, which is why we’ve developed a sound throttling system so you won’t hear the same combat chatter repeated over and over again during fights. Those concerned about the game being diluted with “snappy one-liners” can breathe a sigh of relief. You won’t hear quips every five seconds, and most of them aren’t smarmy in nature. That annoys us just as much as it does you.
Then Stein moves on to a subject that has baffled MMO players for years: WHY does every NPC in an MMO speak in Ye Olde English and in highly formal ways? In Guild Wars 2, NPCs will be less likely to 'forsooth' and 'come hither' to players. There will be some characters who speak more formally, but not all will. There's another sound bite worth listening to that illustrates the point from one NPC snarkily talking to another. It's a hoot!
Check out the full blog post at the Guild Wars 2 ArenaNet site.
Comments
This and SWTOR are my two next games for years and years to come...
<a href="http://www.enjin.com/"; alt="swtor guild hosting"><img src="http://sigs.enjin.com/sig-swtor/23d3ae4fb19b441f.png"></a>;
Good stuff, I love how they talk about many many different aspects in the game. Heck, there was an article about in-game languages.
Sound immersion is a great plus, I hate it when I feel the need to use Windows Media Player to listen to music because there's just not enough to keep my ears interested.
Pretty much!
subs at least on quest givers pliz =x
edit: thinking got me now... the much effort they are putting into immersion they could start their own movie, right after release... "Guild Wars: the movie" =p
now: GW2 (11 80s).
Dark Souls 2.
future: Mount&Blade 2 BannerLord.
"Bro, do your even fractal?"
Recommends: Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, Mount&Blade: Warband, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
Most MMORPG players I've met actually play their games with the sound turned off, some because they want to listen to their own music but largely because sound has been a complete non-factor in MMORPGs. Sure, flavour text is nice and people want to hear what is going on in a cinematic, but other than that it wasn't necessary or even really helpful. It seems that once more the ArenaNet team is bringing back something that already should be there and something that has gone terribly under-appreciated and under-utilised. This is yet another bit of damned good news!
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
Ungh, full voice is not all that. On the other hand it looks like they are doing more for the MMO genre than TOR so I guess I can forgive them this foible.
Not just another pretty color.
Another excellent piece that just makes your mouth water.
Question though... how do we talk back? Never? Do we speak (interact with the NPCs) only with our actions?
They've strongly implied through various blog posts that you will have dialogue choices that will change based on your character's "personality". Whether our character's lines are voiced along with those choices remains to be seen.
This sounds amazing.
Although, I, at least, do not want my character's lines voiced. This is a great thing to do for characters I meet in the world, and is a great way to pull me into that world, but you will not get a voice actor to say lines in a way that will please everyone. I quite like the way Bioware does this part. Other people talk. You do not. I quite liked this in Zelda games too.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
So when is the Beta!?
sounds really good that they are making an extra effort in voice acting... and its good to know that they learn from their past mistakes ( i'm looking at you, Shiro Tagachi! )
Have fun storming the castle! - Miracle Max
The sound clip sounds amazing! Really stoked to play it...talk about immersion!
That's very atmospheric and hooks you in.
I'd be interested in weather effects also, if that's possible: Mist, Snow, Rain, Sun etc. One thing I'd really like to see in Fantasy Setting.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
They're introducing weather effects along with day-night cycles
Thanks!! This would be a personal favorite if they do, helps the land come alive, imo.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
omg I want to play NOW.
The more I hear the better it sounds.
they did that in dragon age...i hated it coming from the Mass Effect games...but i do agree and i think the actor for shepard was an exception.
however in TOR they will have voice over for your character (just an FYI)
Great news so excited GW always had the best world in MMOs ...and the only one i gave a damn about
Day-night cycles will be very interesting if there will be differente mobs and npcs.
Ah, voiceover. We can forget about GW2 getting regular or timely content updates.
I've worked on several games with VO. This will add months of lead time to and tens of thousands of dollars to the process of adding quests. First they write it, then they hire actors and rent a sound studio, get the former into the latter, and after that's done, they spend a few weeks mixing and editing the results. And then they repeat the process in other languages.
And god help them if they need to change the dialogue in one of those quests. Then you have to rehire the same actor (subject to their scheduling), or re-record the entire NPC.
This is the first misstep I've seen them make in GW2. They're not perfect after all.
Great Article.
I'm trying not to glide down into fanboi mode but to keep detached and wait for the GW2 beta to see how it really is and judge then; but damn, they're hitting so many buttons right with their explanations that it might as well be Scarlett Johansson talking you up
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
@stormwaltz, the game is not fully voiced (just "extensively", according to ANet) and as stated in the blog, much of the voicework is going to the ambient sounds that take place in populated areas. Therefore, where content updates are concerned, much of the work will not have to be revamped because merchants will always hawk their wares, crickets will always chirp, etc.
We do not yet know to what extent to which the dynamic events and personal storyline will be voiced, and therefore the impact of content updates on that voicework.
I am really looking forward to Guild Wars 2. These kinds of details just add fuel to the fire baby. Love it. I just hope it won't be a long long wait until they release
It is annoying to get all the hype like 2 years before it releases. But better than the magazine article they put out like 4 or so years ago (I don't remember but it was forever ago) and then no news until recently.
There is a problem with your logic. GW won't have monthly fee so to earn money they will have to release new content regulary. I guess the prospect of earning money will speed up the whole process. And as someone said earlier. Not all quests will have VO.