Requesting more Voice Acting!

[RaijinSupreme]

Hello Eorzeans.

With the new expansion Stormblood coming in less than 5 months, I was thinking about some of the things that can make it substantially better than what we've been playing thus far. I've had hours and hours of fun playing through the MSQ, doing dungeons, raids, etc, but some of the most intriguing things about the game have been the voice acting, in particular, the voice acting while inside dungeons.

Between Hraesvelgr in Sohr Khai, and then the slight voice acting in Baelsar's Wall, It gave those dungeons more depth, and made them more satisfying, especially the first time through.

I also really loved the voice acting during the pivotal times in the MSQ, but I think it should be way more frequent. Even now with the new ongoing cutscene feature they added, it would make the cutscenes even more fun to watch, and might even make people who weren't fond of the MSQ have a reason to pay attention to it (cause those walls of text can get exhausting to just constantly read lol).

What do you guys think? Should SE use their budget to put more voice acting in the game? Or do you think it unnecessary?

[Arutan]

SE should only pay for Jap dub because it's the only one worthing it

[MilesSaintboroguh]

SE should only pay for Jap dub because it's the only one worthing it

Right, because I like having to watch a scene in a different language and needing subtitles for it.

[Xyno]

I want more face animation. The hero can scream, cry or be angry, but his face is calm as usual. Really strange to see that in the cut-scenes

[Alberel]

Voice acting is prohibitively expensive compared to the costs of many other elements of development. This is why it is used very sparingly at present. I would personally much rather they focused on using their budget efficiently by spending it on things that players are likely to make regular use of, as opposed to cutscenes that most will only ever see once.

Now VA for bosses in dungeons is a different issue and one that I could support, though again I would want the devs to focus on making efficient use of that budget. Some VA is great but too much will mean less of other things that likely hold more importance to most players.

[Lewtskie]

SE should only pay for Jap dub because it's the only one worthing it

I'll concede the voice acting aint bad in JPN either, but there's a pacing problem for me. See, I know where the end of the sentence is in ENG and can quickly flip the dialogue box to keep things rolling steadily. Can't with JPN. I'm constantly always trying to figure out if the sentence ended or if they're just taking a breath. Now if they gave me an option to just keep the conversation going without having to hit the next button that'd be great. Cause I'll be honest, the old english and arbitrary word fluff certainly grates on my nerves at times. Feelin like Alisaie listening to these people make a paragraph out of a single sentence.

[SnugglesD]

Voice acting is prohibitively expensive compared to the costs of many other elements of development.

It's surprisingly not. In an interview about the last 2 star wars the old Republic expansions, the developers were asked why they decided to switch their focus to mostly narrative. The simple answer was that cutscenes and voice acting have now become the cheapest part of the whole process.

[Arutan]

See, I know where the end of the sentence is in ENG and can quickly flip the dialogue box to keep things rolling steadily. Can't with JPN. I'm constantly always trying to figure out if the sentence ended or if they're just taking a breath. Now if they gave me an option to just keep the conversation going without having to hit the next button that'd be great.

They actually just added that in 3.5, press space in a dialogue

[Alberel]

It's surprisingly not. In an interview about the last 2 star wars the old Republic expansions, the developers were asked why they decided to switch their focus to mostly narrative. The simple answer was that cutscenes and voice acting have now become the cheapest part of the whole process.

That largely depends on what quality of VAs you're hiring and how many different languages you are recording in. In Japan voice actors are very high profile with massive fan followings and contracting them is very very expensive. SE then has to hire an entire cast for every localised region. They have much more to consider than Bioware does.

[Lunaxia]

SE should only pay for --- dub because it's the only one worthing it

May I suggest using an abbreviation that isn't highly racist or offensive?