NPC VOICE

[Nayito]

In the live letter yoshi-p said that it wouldn't be cost efficient and it would delay new countent since it'll have to be recorded in all the languages that hte game suports.

My question is, why don't only have the NPC speak japanese? would it be THAT bad?

For me it would be great to hear the NPCs/CSs talk in japanese and have the text in whatever language they choose to release the game.

what everyone else thinks?

[Zantetsuken]

Perhaps, or English would work as well... most use English as a 2nd language.

I think Yoshi's comment had more to do with the added process of adding any voice-over. That overhead takes a decent amount of time and money; and isn't essential to telling the story.

Still, for the main storyline, it would be nice...

[Raven_Reborn]

For every person that will like the voice over in Japanese ... sadly there will be 100 others who do not. And the circle of /rage topics will continue.

Sometimes it's better just to leave things like that out.

[Soukyuu]

Adding random crowd chatter in cities as ambient sounds should be enough. Imagine NPC dialogues triggering as you walk by.. it can turn spammy fast. That's why I'm glad NPC chatter is going to be chat bubbles and text only (not even chat log)

[Nayito]

In FFXII as you passed by you had random NPCs talking. though i don't remember if it was text only or there was voices in them (played it LOOOOONG time ago)
anyway i wasn't talking about any and all NPCs, just the NPCs related to quests and missions. and as for the language it self, it's a japanese game, and even after translation you can see a hint of japanese left behind that trace is also left in the auto-translate function. so why don't embrace it completly? at least with the voices

[KaplanHomahru]

In FFXII as you passed by you had random NPCs talking. though i don't remember if it was text only or there was voices in them (played it LOOOOONG time ago)
anyway i wasn't talking about any and all NPCs, just the NPCs related to quests and missions. and as for the language it self, it's a japanese game, and even after translation you can see a hint of japanese left behind that trace is also left in the auto-translate function. so why don't embrace it completly? at least with the voices

Because Yoshi promised to deliver the full game experience to a variety of languages for one. (That's the stickler, Yoshi is all about doing his best to keep promises)

But also, even if they only did Japanese voice acting, there would be a very large increase in both time and development costs. And that would be both for the launch of ARR, and basically every big patch/expansion. Every new quest, every quest they have to change in the future...and remember ARR is going to feature a TON of quests. That's why they decided to just have the main scenario voice acted I believe.

[casker]

Adding random crowd chatter in cities as ambient sounds should be enough. Imagine NPC dialogues triggering as you walk by.. it can turn spammy fast. That's why I'm glad NPC chatter is going to be chat bubbles and text only (not even chat log)

auction house in lion's arch in GW2, every time you go in:

guy: twenty? but yesterday they were ten!
lady: today, twenty.

next day

guy: twenty? but yesterday they were ten!
lady: today, twenty.

next day

guy: twenty? but yesterday they were ten!
lady: today, twenty.

next day

guy: twenty? but yesterday they were ten!
lady: today, twenty.

[Nix]

One thing I wouldn't mind seeing from NPCs is a little vocalization when you talk to them. Easiest way to explain this I can think of is in monster hunter tri for example, when you go talk to the chief and he's all like "Hmmm" when you initiate dialogue, or Jr. who is a little more upbeat and like "'Hoy!". That kind of thing I wouldn't mind! But voice overs.. I think I can live without D:

[casker]

I think at a minimum level there should be voice acting for neutral greetings, (greetings, hello traveler, farewell, twelve bless you, etc)

stuff like job quests and main storyline I think ought to have voice as well. They don't have a bunch of dialogue tree bullcrap so it shouldn't be too bad. Priority should be English and then have subtitled translations for different regions.

Stuff like the monk questline gave me chills with just the text. Get a good voiceactor on that and you've got a winner.

[Soukyuu]

auction house in lion's arch in GW2, every time you go in:
~snip~

Actually, GW2 is the reason why I ended up hating voiced NPCs. Especially the NPCs triggering not only when you pass by, but also the other players... now imagine a large-scale event, a lot of players gathering, every single one running past an NPC triggering it's speech... and you get something along the lines of
"CITIZENS! CI-CIT-CI-CI-CI-CIT-CI-CITIZE-CI-C-CI-CI-CI-CI-C-C-CITI-CI-CI-C-CI-CI-CITIZENS-CI-CI-CI-CI-CI"...