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

[Neptune]

A good game puts you into the middle of the story with all the action involved, not sitting there listening to someone drone on.

You bring up a good point. Voice acted dialogue does not equal lengthy cutscenes. I am in favor of lengthy cutscenes, and social lengthy cutscenes like in SWTOR, but Blizzard takes a different approach, making voice acting part of the gameplay experience while still giving you freedom of movement. Square-Enix can choose from among the different approaches, but they need to add more voice acting regardless of which path they choose.

Most people I know play with the game muted anyways, would be a waste of resources as far as I am concerned.

So far as you are concerned music is also a waste of resources, yet if the game was sold to you without any sound at all wouldn't you feel like it wasn't worth the purchase price?

Actually hearing her beg for her life made the quest difficult to complete, whereas if it had merely been text it wouldn't have stirred such an emotional response.

It's true, there is a surprising emotional investment in the quests and decisions in SWTOR because of the voice acting. I think it's a very surprising and welcome development to MMO gaming, and one that shouldn't be left out of FFXIV's future.

... or not spend it at all to help ensure the game's future.

The only way out of this hole is for SE to open up the wallet. They ****ed themselves hard already by years of incompetence and now they're paying for it quite literally. And if they want the kind of money this business can provide, they're going to have to pay a lot more than they already have.

^ FF XI cutscenes were fine yes, but you are talking about a 10 year old game.

FF VII was fine for its time also but does that mean that FF XIII-2 should also only have text boxes for dialog scenes ?

I think Neptune's point is that voice acting in MMO's is starting to become standard so shouldn't SE also go this route if they want to appear like a current generation game.

That's right, it is starting to become a standard. Does anyone think Blizzard's next game is simply going to throw around the quest text boxes of World of Warcraft? I don't think so. FFXIV is quickly aging in a changing field of other games. It is only going to seem even more dated at the 2.0 relaunch. It's not going to be good enough to be the game it should have been in 2010 once 2013 hits.

PROS

• Adds new dimensions to characters
• Brings the game to life with more vivid storytelling
• Characters become more memorable

CONS

• If done tacky, it can make the game come across as very unnapealing/childish.
• Voice acting can really ruin characters. EG: Seymour/Rikku FFX and Vanille from FFXIII
• Substantial increases in file sizes (Although i guess its not such a big deal in todays world)

In my opinion, the english voice acting from Japanese Game Developers is normally more comical than anything else. (Although i did enjoy FFX's)

The voice talent procured for FFXIV is outstanding though.

Personally I could care less about voice acting.
What I want are raids, mega monsters and stuff that is hard!
I want something to come out that take us a month to figure out how to kill.

If you want raids, mega monsters, and stuff that is hard you should want voice acting. Because attracting the kind of masses of people that will pay subscriptions to FFXIV ensures a big, quality dev team that can build the kind of content you want. I know it may seem counter-intuitive, but if what you want is a small, sh*tty team that can barely push out 2 level 50 dungeons a year (does that seem familiar to anyone? lol) then you are on the right track by not requesting the kind of production value brought to the table by voice acting.

This, I think for some having to read all that text can be a bit of a hassle, especially if its pirate speak.

What a great point. The pirate speak in this game is so amazing. (thanks fernehalwes & crew again). To hear it fully voiced would be a treat unlike any other.

If they want something cooler, we could speak the auto-translates...this does would not only be cool but also useful since you wouldn't need to read the log to know someone said something...and this also would stimulate the natural usage of auto-translate.

Instead of putting effort on CSs, if i was SE i'd make a sticky here asking players to post the 5 phrases they miss the most at auto-translate, add the most common ones and make all auto-translates spoken. This would take the different languages player interaction to another level.

Off-topic, this is a really cool suggestion buried in your post. Imagine if you could select a "voice" from among several auto-translate voices, to be displayed to Japanese, French, and German players when you auto-translated in voice chat. Or imagine if you doing a mission in La Noscea, and heard your French Miqo'te teammate say in a French Accent, "Attack this one first!". Would be very cool. Needs it's own discussion thread really.

Though, if there was any voice acting I'd like to see in game, is a Xenoblade Chronicles style of interaction with NPCs. (especially the old man of the gem crafting in japanese, if anybody played it =D)

Renshi you are misbehaving! You know the dev team needs to focus on making a great game and voice acting BOTH at the same time. Also, I did play Xenoblade (still playing). What did the old gem crafting man say in the Japanese version? :O

SE is a business, they can't continually funnel money from other potential projects for one -- especially considering SE stated that XIV is self-funded, they already dumped over 16 months into the game without any profit, that's a lot of money already invested.

Actually they can funnel money from other completed projects into FFXIV, which is what they have been and will continue to be doing. They have a large war chest and it's time it was put to good use. They can't expect millions of copies of a game to be sold if they put something out through text boxes. Would FFXIII have sold so many copies if it was text-based? Yeah right. Also don't forget FFXIV did turn revenue, $40 million already not counting whatever hundred thousand they made this month off of people like you. lol

[Renshi]

I dunno if an old man going like "HARMMMMNNNN!!" is Voice Acting, but still... It makes me laugh each time I hear it =D
Lemme check if I can find a link, I'll link it in this post...

I'm uploading it rite now, hold your seat tight =)

[Neptune]

This I can agree with but mostly because it's just plain bad writing.
You can tell the writers are scraping the bottom of the barrel when every second word is either shit or arse.

Or because Marauder is synonymous with Pirates in this world.

That's right, they're just being creative. I think it's really hilarious. They succeeded in creating a really great atmosphere of the pirates and what they care about. You don't see it everywhere, for instance in the regality of the Gridanian dialogue. That should clue you in to their level of talent, which is arguably the best in the field right now.

On a high level, I would disagree that the current voice acting was great (for Gridania's opening movie - the English Dub voice acting was laughable and amateurish at best).

Bad or mediocre Voice Acting can ruin an otherwise great moment that has spectacular Camera Work and key Plot / Story Points. (e.g., English Dub of Vanille in Final Fantasy XIII (yikes!).)

But spectacular Voice Acting can really elevate major story elements and add gravitas and emotional attachment when done right (see, Nolan North (Nathan Drake (UNCHARTED 2, 3), Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf (THE LORD OF THE RINGS (Movies)).

Great post kiara, especially about the camera angles and ideas for making voice acting more accessible to everyone. The dev team should take notice.

It's important to distinguish good voice talent and good voice directing/work from voice actors you like. For instance, Papalymo's voice is very high pitched, British, and comical-sounding, but it's not amateurish. The voice recordings are fully inflected and consistent, which is an indication of solid voice directing and a solid performance by solid talent. Just because you don't like the sound of it doesn't make it bad, it just means you don't like it. You have to learn to see what's there. I appreciate all of the voice acting in FFXIV because I'm not so hung up on likes and dislikes. To be sure, there is such a thing as amateurish voice recordings. If you listen to WoW's voice acting, most of the time it sounds like a random member of the dev team recording an on-the-fly voice over, not the work of professionals that is well executed. So there is a difference, but I challenge you to point out voice work in FFXIV that is truly amateurish or bad on a technical level.

Game needs voice acting. It hurts no one. reading does hurt a lot of people. because no one reads it. More people wil listen to the story then read.

Voices yes please

Haha, I love the simplicity of your post.

wut world is this? SE translations to english have always been second rate at best and an afterthought at worst.

You don't give enough credit to the talent that has been lined up for this game. You should visit the localization forum and take a look around. I'd like to share this post with you that clears up some misconceptions about the localization of FFXIV.

Hey everybody.

It's great to see the the localization (localisation!) forum heat up again. Having the opportunity to communicate with you guys is one of the best parts of my job (the paycheck and the free cookies being the other two ).

I'm going to avoid the topic of which name is better: "Maelstrom" or "Black Vortex Group" or "Stygian Swirl Sentries" or "Ebon Eddy Elite," just as I'm going to avoid the topic of which is a better translation/localization policy: stick to the JP or localize for maximum "kick-arseness." Everyone has their preferences, and I'm not one to say A is better than B or B is better than A. There is nothing I, or my colleagues, wouldn't give to have 100% of our users say "Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude! Maelstrom RULES!" but we know that's nigh on impossible.

That said, the issue of loosely translated terms does rear its head every once and a while, so I'd like to toss out a bit of background info on how the naming process is handled here at Square Enix headquarters. Unlike a lot of games by Japanese developers which are translated after the game (or at least the text) is finished, the LOC team here works with the world planners during the early stages of lore creation. This, in effect, makes the naming of everything from NPCs and monsters, to locations and organizations, a joint effort. Once a concept is conceived and a bit of background info is created, name suggestions from both the planners and the LOC team begin pouring in. Usually one side will start off with a bunch of ideas, and then the other side will counter with their own. After a few back-and-forths, we usually arrive at something that we believe sounds good in both our languages, while remaining faithful to that original concept.

Because of this, you'll find the development side translating terms originating in EN back into JP almost just as often as you'll find the LOC team translating into EN terms that originated in JP. An example of this is the Grand Company Names--both the Maelstrom and the Order of the Twin Adder actually originated in EN and were translated into JP, while the Immortal Flames was taken from a Japanese word (不滅隊) that the lore-masters was quite smitten with.

Well then, where in the seven hells did "black" in come from!!!!!!?

I seem to recall that the kanji for "Black" was added to the JP Maelstrom translation to keep the three-kanji symmetry that the other two Grand Company names possessed. Another reason "black" was chosen was because of its use in the word 黒潮 (kuroshio), the powerful "black tide" current that swirls about Japan. So, in this case, "black" would mean "powerful," -> "powerful whirlpool" -> "maelstrom" -> localization GOLD.

I hope this helps to clear up some things.
Talk to you all again soon!

(Wow, these are starting to get as long as Yoshi-P posts... I hope he doesn't think I'm trying to steal his thunder...)

FUN FACT
Some other in-game terms that originated in EN: The Black Shroud / The Mizzenmast Inn / Maidenmere / Immodest Mouse

[Shyd]

Lamar Burton imo.

[Neptune]

I dunno if an old man going like "HARMMMMNNNN!!" is Voice Acting, but still... It makes me laugh each time I hear it =D
Lemme check if I can find a link, I'll link it in this post...

I'm uploading it rite now, hold your seat tight =)

lol good. i can't wait.

[Renshi]

Ok, here you go!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxPk1Srm1Bw

[Neptune]

Ok, here you go!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxPk1Srm1Bw

lol. that is so funny. what is that sound all about! on another note, i <3 xenoblade

[nibelunc]

I dont care about voice acting in a MMORPG. I learned reading in school.

[Rutelor]

All the cries for voice "acting," so frequent nowadays, seem to me to be pure and unabated SW;tOR envy. However, I find the voice acting in that game to be mostly dreadful... almost embarrassing at moments. But even when it's done well, for this sort of game, voice acting is basically fluff. Let's stick to the essentials and don't burden my HDD with unnecessary material, especially if the astronomical amount of time and resources needed to deploy it consumes prime (and badly needed) budget and timeline assets.

I find the type of live interaction SE has decided to pursue, with GMs often impersonating NPCs, much more innovative, unique and groundbreaking than the stale mimicry that passes for acting in games these days. And yes, I'm including in this assessment some of the familiar voices we luckily hear infrequently in American localizations of this and other FF games.

R

[SniperRifle]

Ok, here you go!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxPk1Srm1Bw

Great example, much like Fus Ro Dah started its own meme.

People can google image "Time is money friend!" and get a picture of a Troll from WoW, or even "For the Horde!". Who hasn't heard that before?

It's something so simple and it goes light years further.

Check out all the TOR envy up in my post.