DEVS: Don't waste time with voice acting.

I want more voice acting in the story..imo their wasn't enough the first time...

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Originally Posted by Laraul

There are none... you start the game in Japanese you are presented with the same English audio just with Japanese subtitles.

You people need to click the "Credits" button on the games start screen. If you did and read thru the hundreds and hundreds of names you'd get to "Voice Over recording and editorial by Soundelux Design Music Group." And then the list of voice actors whom we're used (Yes Nolan North is there).

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I think syndori was talking about 2.0, not now. Cause yes, FFXIV only has English voiceacting at the moment. I don't know where they said they're going to add multiple voiceovers anyway.

Main character of the story (i.e. you) can't talk or be voiced. Much of the acting will then be built around situations in which your character is only passive (yay these are the most fun, like killing Imperials as a clothcrafter by happening to be in the right place!) Thus is will have to be sparingly used to still be immersive.

Having said that, I personally vote it to only remain main story line and used in critical scenes.

A further problem is, if they get a voice actor for say Cid, and want to continue using said actor five years from now in the expansion Final Fantasy XIV: The Chains of the Rise of the Treasured Wings of Abysea, they will need to rehire or keep that individual on retainer. Ask yourself how viable much of this sort of thing will be.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

If you knew how much voice actors cost for QUALITY voice acting of any kind, and how much people expect...you'd understand the concern quite clearly.

Why do you think new gen games suffer in some depart? You don't have unlimited funds to go around to everything lol. This is why Skyrim is ugly as sin even on ultra, the design themselves are low quality because they spent a lot of money on other stuff.

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Skyrim isn't ugly. >_>

i dont care if they have to pay to anyone for several years, we need more voice in the animations, new mmo's have that, we should have that. Its not in our concern how SE makes that possible but we should worry giving them ideas their job is to see pro's and con's of whatever we ask now.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

If you knew how much voice actors cost for QUALITY voice acting of any kind, and how much people expect...you'd understand the concern quite clearly.

Why do you think new gen games suffer in some depart? You don't have unlimited funds to go around to everything lol. This is why Skyrim is ugly as sin even on ultra, the design themselves are low quality because they spent a lot of money on other stuff.

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http://filesmelt.com/dl/2011-11-15_000042.jpg
http://filesmelt.com/dl/2011-11-16_00010.jpg
http://filesmelt.com/dl/2011-11-26_000122.jpg

Sorry, what?

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Originally Posted by ChiefCurrahee

Like the title says, please, please please don't waste your time or resources by adding voice acting to the game.

It's such a gimick. I've played Starwars, and trust me people will skip over all your hard work and time just to get to the gameplay.

If you feel you must add VO to your game, keep it to the main story line only and to a minimum. Especially in scenarios when you are grouped up. Leave lenghty CS and VO to the solo experience. When we are grouped we are ready to roll, get us to the gameplay as quickly as possible.

I know some people will disagree with me. But I ask you this. Everytime you enter the Ifrit fight or the Darkhold, or Moogle King do you watch the CS at length? Everytime? Adding voice won't change that. You've seen/heard it once no need to see listen to it again.

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I'm sorry but i am going to have to disagree. Completely.

(TL;DR at the end)

I play the new star wars MMO, and I find the voices not only NOT a gimmick, but much more engaging and refreshing. It probably depends on your maturity level, age and patience, but not i nor my friends find that we skip over the voices too often. The voices are great to listen to! Sometimes i don't have a lot of time to play so i may skip a few, but in no way are the voices unimportant.

The voices in SW:tor are important to that game and here is why: It is a crucial ingredient in the social system they have created, you are very often given choices in your response that change your light side/dark side, but how other NPCs like you and certain situations, the voices bring you into the game and help you CARE about the choices you make. Just because YOU do not have the time and/or patience for the voices doesn't mean no one else does.

Why your argument is lacking and invalid: I don't recall anyone saying that they were going with any extensive voice acting in the first place. The voices for the main story lines should be kept and even added where it is lacking, sure you are correct about that BUT content in ANY shape or form should never be discouraged unless it is a directly NEGATIVE impact on the game. If you're worried about resources being taken away, then just stop. An entirely different team would be working with the voice actors who would be syncing to the animation anyways. If you're worried about delays, than just go play another game and appreciate that the devs are improving this shiny cripple in the hospital (yes that is what i call FFXIV. Im sure you know who the doctors are :D) Anyway, Any additional voice acting is fun and enjoyable, (assuming its not trashy acting) and sure we may only experience it once or twice, but this is what the SE standard is all about!

Cutscenes. . . You realize that cutscenes on the FF world are what MAKE a good portion of FF right? The drama, action, badassery, everything, is the heart of FF whereas gameplay makes the bones and muscles.

Your main concern is being slowed down to the gameplay by long cutscenes and/or distracting talking. . . it still makes little sense. This is an FF game + MMO. You get cutscenes in ANY FF game. I'm sorry, but it sounds like you had to wait for someone to watch something before moving on to some event in some party or group of yours and now you're complaining about it.

I say deal with it, because cutscenes are nice and so is every little bit that goes into them, from the music (GOOD KING MOGGLE MOG!) to the voices! Unless there are 5 minute cutscenes for some group quest/event, you should sit. And wait.

TL;DR: ChiefCurrahee is complaining over nothing and has little patience and has no appreciation for the importance of the real character and heart of FF titles, the cutscenes.

Skyrim has nice texture work but ugly design -- Bethesda is pretty known for their grimey look they give their games, which usually fits with the genericness of their titles, but in terms of actual design, it's not the best looking around.

I disagree, we need voice acting for story and main quest. The reason why people skip through those cut scene and main story quest is no voice acting. No voice acting in online game? Come on now, we are in the 20 Century, who read text anymore let along a wall of text each time.

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Originally Posted by Nahaara

Sorry, what?

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Good use of lighting effects...so? You can make a 2.5D game look just as good.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

Good use of lighting effects...so? You can make a 2.5D game look just as good.

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2.5D ?.....is that like having 2.5 kids?

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Originally Posted by Coglin

2.5D ?.....is that like having 2.5 kids?

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It's an actual term -- Super Smash Brother's Brawl for example is a 2.5D game.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

It's an actual term -- Super Smash Brother's Brawl for example is a 2.5D game.

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This is truth.

On another note when did people start talking about the graphics in this game? What's there to say besides everything is pretty bland.

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Originally Posted by ChiefCurrahee

Like the title says, please, please please don't waste your time or resources by adding voice acting to the game.

It's such a gimick. I've played Starwars, and trust me people will skip over all your hard work and time just to get to the gameplay.

If you feel you must add VO to your game, keep it to the main story line only and to a minimum. Especially in scenarios when you are grouped up. Leave lenghty CS and VO to the solo experience. When we are grouped we are ready to roll, get us to the gameplay as quickly as possible.

I know some people will disagree with me. But I ask you this. Everytime you enter the Ifrit fight or the Darkhold, or Moogle King do you watch the CS at length? Everytime? Adding voice won't change that. You've seen/heard it once no need to see listen to it again.

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The problem with stuff like voice acting (and what you really mean is... story content) is that often times it's relatively shallow and forgettable. It's not like a game with a traditional story you follow, for the most part - it's just a dressing for a boss fight or a quest.

What you don't realize is, some people DO play for the story, not the end game content. I loved XI because getting from part A to part B was a challenge that rewarded you with little tidbits of story. The writing at times was a little trite... but voice acting would have been welcome to people like me.

Sure, there's people who did their best to breeze through it and didn't give a rat's ass about story. That's not the only kind of player of MMOs, though.

The thing that keeps me hooked on games (and MMOs) is a combination of character, story, exploration, and challenge. You're basically suggesting they keep it shallow so people can get their loot without having a reason beyond getting loot. And you're describing a game I really don't want to play.

If you don't like VO, I'm sure anything they do will be skipable. But Voice acting done well is a great asset to a game, and I'd love to see it. I quite liked the voice acting in the opening cutscenes, and was immensely disappointed when later CSes had just plain ol' text.

(As a side note, the problem with the SW MMO is that it's basically WoW or Aion in different dressing. The voice acting was the gimmick to set it apart, but that doesn't mean voice acting is a gimmick.)

The VO in star wars is cool, but like OP said....you'll probably end up skipping over a lot. Personally i didn't skip over any VO on my first character, but when i get to the same quests on subsequent characters i just blow through the dialog. I would like to see some more in XIV though, like with the story quests that were originally in the game.

Cutscenes and no VO aren't mutually exclusive concepts.

SE told some of it's best stories withot sub-par actors completely ruining the mood.

XI has a 100 times more cutscenes and it has probably the best storyline with an ending in any mmo out there.

From the tiny dev team size anyone can see that they're already screwed when it comes to funding this project. Beta fees anyone?

Now people are asking for one of the most expensive features without any understanding on how much it will slow down and greatly reduce the future content in all fields.

Personally I think it's sad if you skip cutscenes in a FF game. FF is story driven. I play the series for the story, the music, and the battle system. If you are skipping the story content in FFXIV, I wonder what your goal in playing FFXIV really is. The reason people rush through a game like SWTOR, skipping story content, is because those players goal is PvP and raids and for them the game STARTS at 50. Many SWTOR players are not skipping story as their reps have said just this past week that the majority of SWTOR players are in their 20s nearly a month after launch.

I didn't skip any story in FFXI and shed tears at the end of Promathia. What if all those beautiful interweaving stories had been voiced? I can't even imagine how special that would have been. If you want to skip through all of that, fine. But if you had a choice to have a fully voiced story or not and you choose not, do you even care about the storyline?

Personally i love voiced cutscenes. I really want to see more of them in the main story line and GC quests. Maybe some sidequests too

Only time they should have VO:

-Main Scenario
-Grand Company
-Star Onion Brigade like quest chains. (If you never played FFXI you probably wouldn't understand this xD)

If they're going to dedicate a lot of time and money (time is money by the way) towards VO work, it may as well be in conjunction with actual content -- if it's done for just really any generic quest or just random NPCs and they reuse samples (Hi~!!!) for like every other NPC, they'll get called lazy and etc even though other MMO devs does it lol.

There's voice acting in this game?

LOL is that what they call that?

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Originally Posted by djjdiss

There's voice acting in this game?

LOL is that what they call that?

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For English voice acting, it is actually decent. Most english dub work is horrendous, even from native English companies.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

For English voice acting, it is actually decent. Most english dub work is horrendous, even from native English companies.

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Is that or a joke? Or are you one of those anime nerds who always bitches about dubs?

Your statement is absurd.

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Originally Posted by Llewelyn

The problem with stuff like voice acting (and what you really mean is... story content) is that often times it's relatively shallow and forgettable. It's not like a game with a traditional story you follow, for the most part - it's just a dressing for a boss fight or a quest.

What you don't realize is, some people DO play for the story, not the end game content. I loved XI because getting from part A to part B was a challenge that rewarded you with little tidbits of story. The writing at times was a little trite... but voice acting would have been welcome to people like me.

Sure, there's people who did their best to breeze through it and didn't give a rat's ass about story. That's not the only kind of player of MMOs, though.

The thing that keeps me hooked on games (and MMOs) is a combination of character, story, exploration, and challenge. You're basically suggesting they keep it shallow so people can get their loot without having a reason beyond getting loot. And you're describing a game I really don't want to play.

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^ I agree 100%

I never skip quests, whether they are text or voice. I read/listen to each in their entirety.

I personally don't understand the point of playing an RPG (MMO or otherwise) if you don't care about the story. To me, it's all about the story that unfolds, the journey through the world, the places you explore, the characters you meet, the connections you develop, the overall feeling of immersion and really being a part of the fantasy world you are playing in. Yes, there are some who are really only in it to get to the endgame arena as fast as possible. But there are also many who care about why you're working to defeat that boss. I raided endgame for four years in WoW, with epic stories leading you into that ominous boss's lair or fortress. And when Cataclysm came along with lackluster villains, recycled story and unfulfilling quests, it made you wonder why you were even there and it really sucked out the desire to keep raiding, for me and for many others.

Point is, some people do play mainly for the story, whether they have an interest in endgame or not. And a game without fulfilling or well-presented story can turn away otherwise long-term players, as well.

I remember seeing the Limsa Lominsa opener for the first time during CB, and getting chills when Y'shtola looks out into the sea and whispers, "Gods forfend." I absolutely love the Gridania opener when you hear Papalymo speak for the first time. The scene is very comical, and when he says to Yda, "Oh, Ralgar take you and your great beyond," it wouldn't have been nearly as humorous and memorable without hearing his voice. In contrast, the quest cutscene for "Hoodwinked" (the level 20 weaver quest) would have had much greater impact had it utilized voice acting so you could hear Chuchumu's wicked stepmother call her a 'good-for-nothing little bitch'. And imagine how awe-inspiring the Grand Company leaders' speeches would have been had they utilized voice acting. I'm captivated by Kan-E-Senna, and I would have loved nothing more than to hear her voice as she told her people that they were indeed also one with the forest.

There is already a feeling that Eorzea lacks life, immersion, depth. Zombie-like retainers, NPCs that forever stand in one place, no roaming guards or patrols, no children running through the streets, quests (of the non-leve variety) only added to the game post-release as an afterthought.

Storytelling is one of SE's strong points, and a major reason I am a fan of the Final Fantasy series. It needs to play to those strengths and breathe life into Eorzea's inhabitants.

I am definitely for putting more voice acting in the game!

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Originally Posted by Vackashken

Is that or a joke? Or are you one of those anime nerds who always bitches about dubs?

Your statement is absurd.

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It's perfectly ok to admit that voice acting in general isn't always the best -- One doesn't have to be an "anime nerd" to know that voice acting is usually campy, especially when poorly directed -- Final Fantasy X for example, the voice actor for Tidus, Yuna and Lulu are great VA's but for FFX they were poorly directed.

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Originally Posted by Vackashken

Is that or a joke? Or are you one of those anime nerds who always bitches about dubs?

Your statement is absurd.

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Considering I can understand Japanese, no I don't bitch about "anime dubs." "Dub" simply means localization which goes towards movies, games, animes, audio books etc, and most of the time it's not always the best when it's localized to English because some VAs just simply can't get the emotion right because of translation.

English dub work for a lot of Japanese, German, Korean, French media isn't the best...lol, that's why I say for what is known to be pretty subpar work a lot of the times, it's actually decent.

Noooo, I love the voice acting!!!!
Please don't listen to the OP

Oh, and for me as a non native english speaker, the VA is a must.
I usually skip the mountain of text in quests because it would take me too long to understand.
Text with the VA makes my game a lot better and I wish there was VA in all the quests and missions.

Id love more voice acting in the cutscenes, I was very dissapointed at the lack of voice acting in the main scenario. Its not needed for side quests but I think it should be in the main stories. Yes maybe you dont watch the moogle cutscene every time, but I insist on watching it the first time, I refuse to skip cutscenes.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

It's perfectly ok to admit that voice acting in general isn't always the best -- One doesn't have to be an "anime nerd" to know that voice acting is usually campy, especially when poorly directed -- Final Fantasy X for example, the voice actor for Tidus, Yuna and Lulu are great VA's but for FFX they were poorly directed.

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Complete personal taste. I loved them.

All hate and like on voice acting is personal tastes so why people bitching over it lol one person could say it was retarded and there will always be some one else who disagrees, OO SHOCKER!

I would like voice acting for all story cutscenes maybe some important quests, but not every quest and especially not raids or anything like that, as in SWTOR you just end up skipping it, but no one really skips story cut-scenes, even some quest ones they dont.

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Originally Posted by viion

Complete personal taste. I loved them.

All hate and like on voice acting is personal tastes so why people bitching over it lol one person could say it was retarded and there will always be some one else who disagrees, OO SHOCKER!

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Exactly. However when someone says "most English work" is blah blah blah it stinks of anime nerd bias. Personal taste of course but carpet statements like that are too absurd to not make at least a passing comment on.

And I too liked 10's voice acting :)

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Originally Posted by Vackashken

Exactly. However when someone says "most English work" is blah blah blah it stinks of anime nerd bias. Personal taste of course but carpet statements like that are too absurd to not make at least a passing comment on.

And I too liked 10's voice acting :)

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agreed.
I too liked 10's voice acting, I never knew why people harped on about it.

Of course english VA can be good. But in japan it has a way higher standard thanks to all the animes and live action super hero shows where everyone wears a mask and can't talk 'cause of that xD
But if I had to choose from "only main story voiced in english and japanese" or "all storylines voiced in japanese" I'd definately prefer the latter. Come on SE! Give Raya-O-Senna a cute voice! >.<

i support vioce acting in the fff14.

I think its dumb to want to read walls of text because you fear the voice overs wont live to your high standard.

devs please do not think this op is what people want. we want voices because this is 2012 not 2001 when ur last mmo came out. it was ok then but now every single word needs a voice.

This thread makes me want a dislike button =(

crispin freeman needs a bigger role in the game. long live crispin

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Originally Posted by Coldfire

Of course english VA can be good. But in japan it has a way higher standard thanks to all the animes and live action super hero shows where everyone wears a mask and can't talk 'cause of that xD
But if I had to choose from "only main story voiced in english and japanese" or "all storylines voiced in japanese" I'd definately prefer the latter. Come on SE! Give Raya-O-Senna a cute voice! >.<

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Plus there's quite a few more schools in Japan for it compared to America. Mel Blanc was one of the few very talented English VA to ever live.

Oh wait that makes me biased for saying that and an "American Animation Nerd"...sorry vack.

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Originally Posted by Vackashken

Yeah, thats what I meant.

Whos the dumbass, dumbass?

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Still you, considering knowing a foreign language makes you biased, based on your post.

VO doesn't equal immersion.
VO isn't content
VO doesn't mean 20xx.

VO is frosting on the cake. EXPENSIVE frosting.

Voices have to be recorded, edited, and synchronized with each CS, in four languages. Will the devs go the extra mile and create lip-sync for each CS effectively having to do each CS four times? NO. will people complain? YES!

I would rather see the money they earmarked for VO to go to some other aspect of the game. If they set aside.... a million for VO, how far would that $1,000,000 go if they spent it on content creation? Probably pretty far.

I'm not against VO in games. I'm just saying it's not a needed device to drive the plot further.

SE: Don't feel that you need to use VO to compete.

Write strong stories. Write engaging scenarios. Leave the VO to the most important plot points and don't over use it for every aspect of dialogue.



@ Sarchy_Warchy

maturity nor age have anything to do with it. I'm almost positive I have both on you.
Impatience; maybe you go me there. However, if you are in a CS for the 10th time, What does having VO bring to the table that text doesn't. Chances are you'll skip the CS on your 2nd or 3rd play through.

What I really wanted to say in my original post, was this: SE please don't look toward SWTOR and implement VO in a similar fashion. Your hard work and money will go to waste. Look to your FF franchise and only do VO work for the main story.
If CS are used during group play, like leading into a boss battle please don't make them long and complex. Get us pumped, but get us to the grp content quickly. Leave the lengthy epic CS for after the boss battle, between events or leading into larger events. Leave them for solo type game play. So that we may enjoy the story you've created and not feel rushed due to four to seven other players chomping at the bit to see some action.

Any time it goes into that mode of ingame cutscene(which is amazing.) all of those moments should be voice acted. The visual quality and localization is great in this game. We just need voice acting, in those moments - please PLEASE!

I just came in here to up my post count this time because I have no clue what's even going on in this thread anymore.

What an important op ruined by selfish and childish name calling. I hope at least something about the topic goes through to devs because at least for me the existence of voice acting has ruined many perfectly good games.

FFX, MGS, Resident Evils, Mass Effect, Every Tales of game, eternal sonata, lylat wars and so on.

DO A BARREL ROLL!