Get the mics warmed up - 2.0: you're going to need voice acting

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Originally Posted by MariyaShidou

For those who thought VA won't affect content development

http://www.vg247.com/2012/01/17/next...-through-2013/



Do you want 2.0 to be similarly delayed to 2019?

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I'm not sure how this would mean VA's for XIV would create much delay?
First and foremost we do not know how the two company operate. Secondly STOR is fully VA'd, XIV isn't looking to do that. Third he was saying they've planned content out and he's testing them with text first, you don't really need VA to test out content. All this means is they have a good process in adding new content, make sure content is good to go before VA's added, the way it should be.

I don't see anything in this interview's context that would say 'it'd take a year to do VA's' or something similar.

I wish XIV had voice acting only because of how awful the dialogs (monologs) are.

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Originally Posted by Neptune

In any case, Skyrim is a terrible example of quality voice acting. For one thing, you have the same 3 gd males voice acting nearly every character in the game. It's impossible for 3 people to represent all the different sides with enough variety, unless it's South Park. FFXIV already has a lot more voice actors than Skyrim, and they're all damn good.

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Reason I'm picking on Skyrim as a bad example is because it's one of the recent games, but doesn't mean it didn't happen also in Fallout 3, Oblivion and so on. More importantly, these games are more focused on the voiceless lonesome player, and less about relationships with specific people the player meets along the way.

In similar aspect of these flaws appears in Mass Effect and Dragon Age, but they didn't appear as bad because the player was mainly focused on their companion party members rather than some not essential NPC they encounter later on.

Voicing characters that were important to the player is the reason why it feels 'right' in Mass Effect rather than 'awkward' in Skyrim.

Another way to look at it is Heavy Rain. They've selectively chosen important characters that should speak, rather than having all their characters speak. More closely relating to cinema.

For SWTOR;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N9Zqq8krL0#t=55s

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Originally Posted by Dr Ray Muzyka

We see games as an art form and, ... we want to create story that rivals cinema and novels.

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Notice, bioware design was on a character able to interact back in meaningful dialogs, which is in a similar theme with their previous games. Voicing those actions helps reinforce the quality of them, but here in FFXIV our characters don't have voices, or any meaningful dialog choices to make. Even worst is that they are the type of characters with unspoken words, thus the player just has to fill in the blanks.

Attachment to a character though does not have to be done with voices. Another great way to create attachment to your character comes from an game that was based loosely on GURPs. Instead of voicing main characters, what Fallout 1 did was base it on an already existing role playing system (GURPs) to provide the tools for the player to envision a character, and use actions to depict their character rather than voice. What they did do with voice acting was applied to selective storyline characters (called talking heads).

So, in the end, voice acting is a very powerful tool that has become more easily accessible in video game. However, it is a tool the designer can use but does not mean it is always best tool to use to achieve a certain goal.

@lackofwords, yeah overall Bethesda isn't an example of mind blowing voice acting, although they are a good example of the possible scope of voice acting.

Voice acting is all about the voice director. I think the best in the industry is Kris Zimmerman, who worked on Legacy of Kain and Eternal Darkness for Silicon Knights. Not surprisingly, his recording director was Gordon Hunt, the voice director for FFXIV. So they worked together and I'm sure Gordon Hunt learned from Kris Zimmerman. That's why the voice acting in FFXIV is so good. If FFXIV were to record more lines of dialogue through Gordon Hunt or Kris Zimmerman I'm sure the result would be nothing less than fantastic.

I think the dev team could easily add more VO to the game through the Xenoblade system, which displays the text and a prompt before the next line of dialogue.

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Originally Posted by Physic

Voice acting has pluses and minuses, and honestly for this game especially, full voice acting would be a bad idea. The money is better spent on the actual game.
And in a multi lingual game you have another huge buget limit.
Also we havent seen how bioware plans to continue to support the game as it grows, while having to include new VA into every content they add in the future.

Its really just not worth the cost in resources for this game. The massive amounts of time and money it would cost, dont equal how much value they would get out of the same money put into game/world/pvp/item/graphics development.

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You know, something you aren't taking into account is the size limit of the dev team. A problem with game development teams is that they have organizational problems that limit them to a certain size. So I put it to you that it is almost impossible for the dev team to spend money they would spend on voice acting in other areas of the game like PVP, graphics, items, or map data. They can't just hire 100 more people to do those things because they can't figure out how to manage those people as part of their existing team. Things like extra CG and voice acting are examples of things they can add to the game by spending money, but improvements to the game systems have to occur at a pace dictated by their managerial skill, not their bank account. Recant your position!

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Originally Posted by MariyaShidou

For those who thought VA won't affect content development

http://www.vg247.com/2012/01/17/next...-through-2013/



Do you want 2.0 to be similarly delayed to 2019?

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Originally Posted by Douten

I'm not sure how this would mean VA's for XIV would create much delay?
First and foremost we do not know how the two company operate. Secondly STOR is fully VA'd, XIV isn't looking to do that. Third he was saying they've planned content out and he's testing them with text first, you don't really need VA to test out content. All this means is they have a good process in adding new content, make sure content is good to go before VA's added, the way it should be.

I don't see anything in this interview's context that would say 'it'd take a year to do VA's' or something similar.

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Firm rebuttal. lol.

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Originally Posted by Mamba

TBH... I don't mind waiting a bit longer to get a finished product.
If I wanted to read walls for text, I would buy a book.

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Agreed!

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Originally Posted by Jinko

No matter how bad it gets it will never get as bad as this games lack of success.

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lol, well said

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Originally Posted by Babydoll

Lol when I first saw this thread (it cut off the last part with the words voice acting) I thought it was a request for se to give us some kinda voice chat feature haha. Totally off topic >.>

On topic: I don't care what they decide as long as 2.0 comes out relatively on time heh

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Nice sig! That is really cool looking.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

Yet I can promise you people would complain if everything you did had a voice tied to it, including hovering over UI elements.

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Now that's just ridiculous. Why would you bring that into the discussion?

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Originally Posted by SnickleWhiskers

I don't see them doing this for things like instances that tells a major chunk of story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmDOLVlkntQ THis is her speech (0:00-1:20) before she's engaged talking to her room filled with minions. Would I love to see something like this? Sure but i don't see it happening.

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That's exactly the kind of thing this game needs too. It means the dev team needs to work harder, something I think everyone can agree on.

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Originally Posted by Douten

I'm not sure how this would mean VA's for XIV would create much delay?
First and foremost we do not know how the two company operate. Secondly STOR is fully VA'd, XIV isn't looking to do that. Third he was saying they've planned content out and he's testing them with text first, you don't really need VA to test out content. All this means is they have a good process in adding new content, make sure content is good to go before VA's added, the way it should be.

I don't see anything in this interview's context that would say 'it'd take a year to do VA's' or something similar.

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Originally Posted by Neptune

Voice acting is all about the voice director. ... If FFXIV were to record more lines of dialogue through Gordon Hunt or Kris Zimmerman I'm sure the result would be nothing less than fantastic.

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Yes, the VO for the cutscene adds that nice touch of cinema, but quality was only one of the aspect I've mentioned. What about application purpose of full VO and the practicality of it?

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Originally Posted by Douten

I'm not sure how this would mean VA's for XIV would create much delay?
First and foremost we do not know how the two company operate. Secondly STOR is fully VA'd, XIV isn't looking to do that. Third he was saying they've planned content out and he's testing them with text first, you don't really need VA to test out content. All this means is they have a good process in adding new content, make sure content is good to go before VA's added, the way it should be.

I don't see anything in this interview's context that would say 'it'd take a year to do VA's' or something similar.

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I'm not sure how you can come to that conclusion. First of all, the contents in SWTOR are clearly delayed not by testing (really, a whole year to test those stuff and then delay patch some more when patch time come? They delayed the latest patch FYI just a day or two before the date. They promised the next patch will be big contents as well, for some reason this sounds like the promise of DCU one patch a month). Why do you think it's not on public test server huh? And why do you think the problems they identified in public test server delayed their first big patch? You would be lying if you think internal server is enough to make contents good to go, it isn't. VA delayed the timing it get on public test server, thus delaying the timing it get released.

Secondly, you all complain at the pace SE churning out contents, and then you boldly declare VA won't affect the speed at which SE is churning out contents. Funny, it all comes down to money. SWTOR has a budget wildly ranging from lol 80m to lol 500m. I don't know if SE can afford that, after all some people are claiming the brand is dead, SE is in dire financial situation blah blah.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

Yet I can promise you people would complain if everything you did had a voice tied to it, including hovering over UI elements.

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Agreed. Then again though..no matter what people will complain sadly :(

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Originally Posted by Babydoll

Agreed. Then again though..no matter what people will complain sadly :(

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Without fail, this seems to appear up on any thread with a discussion. People complaining about people complaining.

Not necessarily a bad thing. Our opinions part of what make us different, isn't it only natural people don't see eye to eye and thus conflict arises?

Although some complaints does come off as sounding like a cry baby whining. We still should see past what they are actually pointing out rather than their literal words. c:

Voice acting is easier to deal with than walls of text for sure. Sometimes it feels like the quest dialogue is over written. They could say more with less words but they choose to be long winded. I need to point out though that there are a few quests/missions besides the opening sequences that have voiceover, if you take the time to do them

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

Yet I can promise you people would complain if everything you did had a voice tied to it, including hovering over UI elements.

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How is that voice acting? My UI is acting as a UI with a voice?