A new thread on voice acting (ugh i know)

so any word yet if we will get voice acting for cutscenes in 2.0, or maybe even future expansions. I dont mean every cutscene but every story related one. Square is amazing in this department in their single player final fantasy titles. SO give it a budget! seriously just major story events.. I dont want to hear every NPC talk anyway. I would love to hear what the white raven(whats his name? the garlean in white armor) sounds like. I imagine it kind of like a more evil sounding Judge Ghis from Final Fantasy XII

I meant any word from the devs on this? I dont speak japanese so I dont have a clue if its been shot down by yoshi himself

i'd like for all important NPCs to have voices. I mean, I know it's not something SE is known for
but seriously. It's 2012. Almost all games have a majority of voice acting. I personally love it when its done well.
I'd say storylines, major npcs and conversations and only ones that don't are small quest npcs and random npcs.

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so any word yet if we will get voice acting for cutscenes in 2.0

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major cutscenes already have voice acting (and it's actually quite decent IMO)

Doing voice acting for every cutscene (or worse every NPC) in an MMO is impractical due to data size. If you limited it to specific characters I guess it could be doable, but it's still a concern.

I am being hopeful so I am just going with main story line. the intro had great voice acting and I thought storyline would get that treatment. but the game was rushed I can only hope its been considered for 2.0 or an eventual expansion

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

major cutscenes already have voice acting (and it's actually quite decent IMO)

Doing voice acting for every cutscene (or worse every NPC) in an MMO is impractical due to data size. If you limited it to specific characters I guess it could be doable, but it's still a concern.

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what game are you playing? there is not voice acting in cutscenes... not a single one except the intro. unless you mean the grunts or whatever you sometimes hear like say in emotes /cheer and so on. that is voice acting true but not what I mean at all. seriously if your cutscenes have voice acting you need to get your head examined because they are voices in your head sir

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Originally Posted by Mushy

what game are you playing? there is not voice acting in cutscenes... not a single one except the intro. unless you mean the grunts or whatever you sometimes hear like say in emotes /cheer and so on. that is voice acting true but not what I mean at all. seriously if your cutscenes have voice acting you need to get your head examined because they are voices in your head sir

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This is voice acted, not exactly what you want but it still counts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFg8SOhcImo

Also the rank 15 mission for gridania is voice acted aswell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWx3pv3bUTQ

Yeah more is needed. Got to give Cid, and other important characters we'll meet some voices.
And while they're at it, they should put Biggs and Wedge as a comic relief in there as well.

I think in the ver 2.0 PDFs they said that major CS will be voice acted.

While VO is nice, the charm quickly wears off and it's only a matter of time before you are skipping through everything.

Steve Blum as Raubahn {Can I have it?}

It's impractical to do voice acting for every CS, but it's not impossible. other MMO's have proven this already.

I don't mind normal NPCs not being VA'd, but Cutscenes should have that Final Fantasy flair, unbounded. They need to go all out.

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Originally Posted by Mushy

what game are you playing? there is not voice acting in cutscenes... not a single one except the intro. unless you mean the grunts or whatever you sometimes hear like say in emotes /cheer and so on. that is voice acting true but not what I mean at all. seriously if your cutscenes have voice acting you need to get your head examined because they are voices in your head sir

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When the game goes into the fancy CGI cut scene there is voice acting. In the main story line that is.

Totally unaffected by it in any game.

But I already do a lot of reading and listening, so they're pretty much the same level of immersion for me.

I would like voice acting on par with GW2

If I recall correctly, that star wars MMO had voice acting in every single cutscene. Unfortunately, because of that, speed of content delivery faltered early on (I don't know the situation now but I remember that patches were slow to come because of the vast number of voice recordings they had to perform for each patch).

For me, the current system of voicing major cut scenes is good. Obviously, a majority of folks have not heard voice acting for quite a while since they completed the last main mission, I think no voice acting for the stuff up to 2.0 is fine.

Why? I would rather have content and bug fixes delivered asap. A majority of the stuff going to 2.0 will up and dissapear (Live invasions, Dalamud etc), so there is not much point to doing voice work for these kinds of things.

Once 2.0 hits, I think we'll receive steady updates to the main scenario quest lines, in which a majority of the important cut scenes will be voiced. Don't forget, they mentioned that voice work will be done for all languages, so that puts an additional strain on how fast content can be pushed out when you are doing Voice work for 3+ languages.

Too much voice work = content gets delayed.
Too little voice work = lose a bit of life of the game.

I think the ideal balance would be just voicing the important cut scenes that relate to the current scenario (or expansion if you will).

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Originally Posted by Darte

If I recall correctly, that star wars MMO had voice acting in every single cutscene. Unfortunately, because of that, speed of content delivery faltered early on (I don't know the situation now but I remember that patches were slow to come because of the vast number of voice recordings they had to perform for each patch).

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I think you're seeing it from a weird perspective.

They have done content updates every month since release, including the new patch 1.2, voice acting doesn't slow anything down, it can take a couple days to voice everything you need for a single patch. And their patches are vastly bigger than XIV's

Voicing doesnt take long, the issue is cost usually.

GuildWars 2 is also voice acted, even the random NPC's in the streets are voiced.

Voice acting is great, when done tastefully. And lets be honest, how often is that the case?

Unfortunately a lot of substance is lost when english voice actors tackle japanese games.

Disidia however, was done fine for the most part.

Voice acting for games that were designed by english speaking countries like Blizzard seem to be consistantly top notch.

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Originally Posted by viion

I think you're seeing it from a weird perspective.

They have done content updates every month since release, including the new patch 1.2, voice acting doesn't slow anything down, it can take a couple days to voice everything you need for a single patch. And their patches are vastly bigger than XIV's

Voicing doesnt take long, the issue is cost usually.

GuildWars 2 is also voice acted, even the random NPC's in the streets are voiced.

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It doesn't mean XIV needs to be samey samey.

I've yet to play GW2 but if is just scripted dialogue like:

"Hey you should come hunting with me"
"nah, i hunt better alone"
"fine, suit yourself"
/wait 5
"Weird weather"
"yeah it's getting colder"
/wait 5
"Hey you should come hunting with me....."

BORING!

If there was NPC chatter I'd want it to be in context with my adventures. Such as:

If I'm on a battle class, and a NPC has a quest for around my level or for my current job/class I'd want them to speak up.
"Psst, hey adventurer, I have a task for you" or some variation to grab your attention.

Something like that in my book is 100% better than an "!" above their head and 100% more immersive because they are talking to me.


I'd hate if everytime you clicked on a NPC to engage in dialogue they would say "good morrow fine gent!" and when you disengage they say "may the twelve protect you" or any combination of a salutation and a farewell. same alternating rehashed VO for every NPC you encounter.

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Originally Posted by Keith_Dragoon

This is voice acted, not exactly what you want but it still counts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFg8SOhcImo

Also the rank 15 mission for gridania is voice acted aswell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWx3pv3bUTQ

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No this is exactly what I want. is it only these two? im from ulduh so Ive only seen the first link. but why so few? like there being one for the 15 LL quest but not the other cities, or not a higher level quest for LL. that means it was very rushed and they had intended for it for major plot cutscenes.

Papalymo better have a 10 minute monologue or I rage quit.

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Originally Posted by Mushy

No this is exactly what I want. is it only these two? im from ulduh so Ive only seen the first link. but why so few? like there being one for the 15 LL quest but not the other cities, or not a higher level quest for LL. that means it was very rushed and they had intended for it for major plot cutscenes.

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Like I said its not exactly what you want but there is voice acting in the game. Maybe when 2.0 brings in the new players SE will dump more resources and money into the game and buy more voice acters from their single player RPGs and have them VA for our story missions.

Yes I am going to bring up Guild Wars 2. I love how NPC's walk and have conversations with one another when you pass them by in the actual game. Not every cutscene though, that would be too much.

SE can probably make some shinies offering DLC Speech Pack and DLC this and DLC that...
Just saying...

no dlc please, we pay a monthly subscription. as long as they build upon the game I am paying for, or release worthwhile expansions that add a lot of new content which they further support(as they did with FFXI) I am happy. I am going to go to the Inn now and see how many cutscenes actually have voice acting I bet I can count it on one hand or 2 fingers