Dear Square Enix,

[Larsille]

you have more than enough money.

pls dub every Main Story Quest for 5.0
I was so hyped for the "pls make sure you have time for the next event" in 4.3 and it isnt even voiced yet.

Hopefully it will be voiced soon after i wrote this.

What do you think? i think this should be reasonable with all the money they got from us by now.

[MistakeNot]

you have more than enough money.

pls dub every Main Story Quest for 5.0
I was so hyped for the "pls make sure you have time for the next event" in 4.3 and it isnt even voiced yet.

Hopefully it will be voiced soon after i wrote this.

What do you think? i think this should be reasonable with all the money they got from us by now.

Adding voice acting is quite expensive, and also makes it a lot harder to adjust things afterward. The desire to use the same voiceactors for each patch also makes scheduling harder.
So adding voice to all new MSQ is actually not all that reasonable. Would be nice - certainly, but too expensive to happen.

[Marxam]

Adding voice acting is quite expensive, and also makes it a lot harder to adjust things afterward. The desire to use the same voiceactors for each patch also makes scheduling harder.
So adding voice to all new MSQ is actually not all that reasonable. Would be nice - certainly, but too expensive to happen.

I think the problem is that they do multiple language VO. Personally I would prefer if they just stick to the ENG/JAP format since it is a Japanese MMO and English is the most spoken language. No offense to other languages. Personally I play with Japanese dubs since the acting is so much better and more consistent though the English dubs do shine through once in a while. However, SE is treating FFXIV as a cash cow milking it for all its worth but investing just enough to keep it going. Profit is the end goal for all game developers but some do it leaving the customer with a smile on their face and feeling happy to support a product while others just make their customers feel dejected and spiteful of what they just bought yet.

[LeoLupinos]

To be honest, they don't have enough money. Voice actors cost a LOT of money, and the time it would take to dub EVERYTHING would cost an extortionate amount and time. If you want to wait extra months for each patch then sure, but it'd overall receive more complaints.

Soory, but this is inaccurate. There are plenty of voice actors worldwide, SE does not need to hide the most expencive ones.

[Sigma-Astra]

Soory, but this is inaccurate. There are plenty of voice actors worldwide, SE does not need to hide the most expencive ones.

It depends, not every cheap voice actor is "quality" work, but the same can be said for the most expensive ones as well. It's a hit or miss that sometimes, even the least well known, ends up being the better choice. However, it is true that most of the popular voice actors that people use, the ones that you see showing up repeatedly in anime and tv shows, are usually expensive to hire and rightly so, they're the most experienced.

Experienced voice actors usually a demand a higher compensation than the amateur ones, especially if they need to work XIV in their existing schedules.

[Enkidoh]

No, I disagree, I do not wish to see more fully voiced cutscenes, let alone the entire main scenario, and that is for one simple reason which is why SE does not already do so (and cost actually is not really a deciding factor despite first impressions).

The reason why not all cutscenes are voiced is because many cutscenes identify the player by name, which is completely impossible to do with a fully voiced cutscene, unless they identify your character in a default manner (which the currently voiced ones already do, identifying your character with generic pronouns or boilerplate terms like 'the adventurer', 'the champion', the 'Warrior of Light' etc). It's no surprise that when SE started to add voice acting to the FF series the player suddenly lost the ability to personalize their party's names, MMOs like FFXIV and FFXI before however it's a necessary component of the game, and thus they couldn't avoid it. Games like Mass Effect and The Old Republic which do have all cutscenes in the game fully voiced usually sacrifice personalization for this reason (requiring the player to have a default name that is what they are actually identified by in cutscenes, regardless of whatever name the player happens to have given them).

So I do not see this changing, and I'm glad, because voice acting in games in general tends to gravitate more towards the good side of "Z-grade bad", and FFXIV is no different.

[Larsille]

Fixing the name addressing is easy in my opinion. change <playername> to <you> and equivalent words and i dont see any problem with that, why should you? There´s not a big difference between a you/WoL and the playername. As long the dialogue is written in a way that its actually engaging. It also works in skyrim and similar games with no voiced protagonist. Fallout New Vegas has one of the best dialogues and your protagonist is also silent like the WoL.
If ESO and GW2 can fully voice MSQ which are "F2P" or "B2P" so can FFXIV. Even Mess Online can manage to develop an almost fully voiced MSQ.
Saying its to expensive for them is kinda like white knighting for them so they can be lazy in that development stage.

We have the second biggest playerbase and a subscription model. It is not to expensive for them. Its an issue of net income growth. Stop telling yourself they dont have enough money for that. The last quest in 4.3 was a real bummer because it had no voice acting. I was looking forward seeing an awesome 20-30 minute cutscene and suddenly i had to read one of the most important scenes in the newest addition to the story. That doesnt make sense, like at all.

We all expected more voiced cutscenes and Yoshi-P told us that they would make more and more voiced cutscenes. The last 2 quests are very dialogue heavy compared to the rest of the patch. So for me it doesnt make sense at all. It is the first time im dissapointed by the overall presentation of the story. Its just lazy on their end.

[Penthea]

It is not to expensive for them. Its an issue of net income growth. Stop telling yourself they dont have enough money for that.

You seem to be forgetting some things:

Recording voice clips takes time. Voice actors need to be guided by a director on how to portray the character. Often they will have to redo the same snippet of speech several times until the creative team is satisfied. I hope that if all msq dialogue is voiced that you won't be complaining about content taking longer to release.

Voice actors typically have contracts with several companies. Attaching voices to every piece of msq dialogue heightens the chance of inconsistent voice actors when schedules inevitably clash.

It's not as cost effective as other content. You generally experience msq dialogue only once. This isn't like music which can be experienced over and over again without making an alt. Of course SE would want to get the most out of their money so if they can they'll put the majority of it into repeatable content.

Fixing the name addressing is easy in my opinion. change <playername> to <you> and equivalent words and i dont see any problem with that

I don't fancy being called "you" and "they" all the time. In FFX the npcs constantly avoided calling Tidus by his real name because you could change it, and it was honestly off-putting as hell. It made the dialogue appear very unnatural because it frankly isn't normal to never refer to someone by name.

It also works in skyrim

It works in Skyrim because your character mostly works alone. In the main story the main character doesn't build a strong bond with anyone in particular. It's the opposite in the msq. Your character has a strong bond with the majority of the main cast because you work closely with them. It wouldn't make sense for them to never call you by name. Your character has fought, bled and grieved with those people. How could they not be close enough to drop all titles and use their real name? Exactly this happened in FFX and it bugged the hell out of me for the entire game.

[WilhelmWhite]

No, I disagree, I do not wish to see more fully voiced cutscenes, let alone the entire main scenario, and that is for one simple reason which is why SE does not already do so (and cost actually is not really a deciding factor despite first impressions).

The reason why not all cutscenes are voiced is because many cutscenes identify the player by name, which is completely impossible to do with a fully voiced cutscene, unless they identify your character in a default manner (which the currently voiced ones already do, identifying your character with generic pronouns or boilerplate terms like 'the adventurer', 'the champion', the 'Warrior of Light' etc). It's no surprise that when SE started to add voice acting to the FF series the player suddenly lost the ability to personalize their party's names, MMOs like FFXIV and FFXI before however it's a necessary component of the game, and thus they couldn't avoid it. Games like Mass Effect and The Old Republic which do have all cutscenes in the game fully voiced usually sacrifice personalization for this reason (requiring the player to have a default name that is what they are actually identified by in cutscenes, regardless of whatever name the player happens to have given them).

So I do not see this changing, and I'm glad, because voice acting in games in general tends to gravitate more towards the good side of "Z-grade bad", and FFXIV is no different.

^This. While voice acted scenes are nice, it's even more nice to see a story NPC addressing me by my name. Hell, there are some games with voice acted scenes where, if your name should come up during the scene, the NPC will literally become silent for a brief moment where your name would be spoken, and then continue with the rest of their dialogue. With FFXIV, voice acted characters will refer to us almost always as "The warrior of light". While that is probably the best option for voice acted NPCs communicating with a custom character, it starts to feel very... generalized and unnecessarily formal.

It works in Skyrim because your character mostly works alone. In the main story the main character doesn't build a strong bond with anyone in particular. It's the opposite in the msq. Your character has a strong bond with the majority of the main cast because you work closely with them. It wouldn't make sense for them to never call you by name. Your character has fought, bled and grieved with those people. How could they not be close enough to drop all titles and use their real name? Exactly this happened in FFX and it bugged the hell out of me for the entire game.

^^^Thank you! After everything we've been through with certain characters, constantly being referred to as "The warrior of light" seems rather silly. Piggybacking off of Penthea, I couldn't agree more. I love Skyrim, and the formality with how you're addressed makes sense in that game. Even the potential followers you can recruit are never emotionally close enough to warrant a first name basis.

I find it amusing how people assume that a given company has more than enough money when they are clueless as to how much things actually cost.

^^^I have to agree with this as well. Voice acting is not cheap at all, and unless people are somehow able to obtain intricate details of SE's expense reports, "Lol SE has money" isn't much of an argument.