100% spoken dialogue. Yay or nay?

[Sever]

Does anyone else feel that by having spoken dialogue instead of text, it lessens the whole immersion factor of the game? I'm not a big fan of voice acting in rpgs for two reasons:

1. It takes up more disc space. Not that i'm short of it or anything, but if they only had, say, 20% of dialogue spoken by actors, they'd be able to fit in about 5000 times more dialogue for all the various npcs. Elder Scrolls games are heavy on the 'generic' npc and i feel that they need to move away from this trap. If each npc were given about 100 new, unique lines of unspoken dialogue (still about 1000 lines short of what i'd like), it'd still cost less money, time, disc space and people to produce than 100% voice acting and it'd fix the problem of the generic (boring) npc.

2. The level of *cough* talent in game voices in general leaves a lot to be desired. I like my rpg experience to be rich. Like a fat book. And like a book, i like to leave the particulars of voice characteristics to my own imagination. (how many of you prefer reading a book as opposed to listening to a book?) Believe it or not, most non-Americans don't like listening to American accents in their rpgs. (I kid you not, it's true!) And i've yet to come across a 'monster' voice that wasn't corny in the extreme. (NWN anyone?)

I'm not saying there shouldn't be voice talent at all. There are times where a little 'talented' voice talent has really brought a character to life: Sarevok, Tommy Vercetti, Irenicus etc. But for every good example i'm left with 100 bad ones that should've been left as text.

More on this a little later. I've got to get back to work. But i'll finish this post by casting my vote:

100% spoken dialogue in Oblivion? Nay.

[Stratos]

I don't mind spoken dialogue myself in addition to text dialogues. The ideal would of course be if you could adjust this to your tastes ingame.

They've been using some good voice actors for Oblivion, at least for some major characters. I also think that they mentioned in one of the demos that half of the game (in size) consist of voice-over dialogues. And that for a game that supposedly require 10.5 GB of free hard disk space to install.

As for non-American voice overs; doesn't that that thief you meet in the slums in BG2, you know the ones that goes "Coo", speak with an Aussie accent?

[JrKASperov]

Originally posted by Sever: 1 (...) and it'd fix the problem of the generic (boring) npc(...) 2. (...) most non-Americans don't like listening to American accents in their rpgs. (...)

1. There were several problems all of the fans addressed. These were bad combat, generic npc's and framerate issues. They have at least dealt with the first two, making combat kinetic and npc's (all 1200 of them) unique.

2. Notice how all of the actors are British? (wasn't this the case with MW as well?)

[Sever]

Originally posted by Stratos: As for non-American voice overs; doesn't that that thief you meet in the slums in BG2, you know the ones that goes "Coo", speak with an Aussie accent?

It only sounds aussie to someone who doesn't speak it. If there's an accent i don't want to hear in an rpg at all, it's aussie. *shrugs* It worked quite well for Halo though.

[edit: spelling]

[ 10-14-2005, 05:34 AM: Message edited by: Sever ]

[johnny]

As for non-American voice overs; doesn't that that thief you meet in the slums in BG2, you know the ones that goes "Coo", speak with an Aussie accent?

Nah, i think it's an attempt at creating a character with a Cockney English accent. Mind you, not a very good one though.

[Sever]

Originally posted by JrKASperov: quote: Originally posted by Sever: 1 (...) and it'd fix the problem of the generic (boring) npc(...) 2. (...) most non-Americans don't like listening to American accents in their rpgs. (...)

1. There were several problems all of the fans addressed. These were bad combat, generic npc's and framerate issues. They have at least dealt with the first two, making combat kinetic and npc's (all 1200 of them) unique.

2. Notice how all of the actors are British? (wasn't this the case with MW as well?) [/QUOTE]If they're making each character unique, then that's fine with me. But from what i've seen from the demos, each line of dialogue is short and more than a little simple. And even though i love Patrick Stewart (not literally, but you get the idea) i didn't find a single example of quality voice acting. Maybe i'm just a fussy bastard, but i'd much prefer to leave most of the voices to my own imagination and use the extra disk space to make the dialogue not so "condensed".

British accents (not actors) are the status quo in rpgs and, on the whole, i don't have a problem with that. I also don't mind 'some' of the non-accents like the hoarse, guttural dark elf speach. But aside from a little introductory comment to set the scene, i'd like to leave it all in my head. But that's just me. Something tells me i'm in the overwhelming minority here...

[CerebroDragon]

I'll be frankly honest and agree wholeheartedly with you, Sever. You're not being fussy, just espousing your tastes. [img]smile.gif[/img]
I definitely would prefer more text to speech for various reasons, most of them aesthetic, but some of them philosophical. A balance between the two is critical, I feel, for the 'wholeness' of the game experience.
There's the immersion factor and there's also the deeply personal interactivity between mind and text which traditionally cRPGS have had in large quantities, going back to the great Ultima IV. This game exemplifies just how text can really serve to draw you inside a virtual world. Obviously it is dwarfed now by the massive rpgs of the modern era (Baldurs Gate) and even the generic dialogue trees from Morrowind, but the Ultima experience is very much captivating from the art of its written words, or 'purple prose' as Dicky Garriot once called it.

I don't want to pre-empt Oblivion at all here, but this 100% spoken dialogue notion tends to give me vague fears of a general 'dumbing down' of its gameplay in favour of quasi-cinematic drama which is less demanding on the ol' brain.
Now this may sound odd, but one of the reasons I don't mind my younger brother having extended sessions on Morrowind (other than for the fact that is a good game!) is the fact that it is indeed fairly text heavy and that he generally doesn't read as much as I'd ideally want him to. Any rpg, nay, any game that can continue to help pass on a love of the written word in this way gets my [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

I'd argue generally for the inverse: the less speech and the more text, the better since it allows the imagination to have a deeper role in the gaming experience rather than have characterisation imposed upon one's mind through too much voice. I thought Morrowind featured a reasonable balance, if only for the sub-par generic writing at times, it would have been superb. Lets hope Oblivion is flexible in its speech options and retains a Morrowind like text immersion.

Cheers,
CereborDragon

P.S: Every time I see Patrick Stewart mentioned, I grin and cheer "Long Live King Richard and the Ruby of Truth!" He's awesome, for sure.

[ 10-14-2005, 10:10 AM: Message edited by: CerebroDragon ]

[Brayf]

I love the concept of fully spoken dialogue for a fully evolved gaming world, but to be honest, I think in practice it will actually reduce realism.

In Morrowind, every NPC had the same answer for everything, and I think an audio version of this will only magnify the effect, as it will draw more attention to the fact that the characters not only say the same thing, but say it in the same voice with the same tone. In this particular area, I'd agree with Sever and say the more that is left to the imagination, the better.

Not sure if I got my point across properly there, but I've got to be at work in twenty minutes!

[CerebroDragon]

Keep Moving.

Adventure games (i.e Gabriel Knight series for one) have obviously been doing the full speech thing a long time before the immersive 3d first person rpg.

But I think as virtual worlds and roleplaying games get even larger and the technology advances likewise along side it, the concept of a fully voice-driven game world does become more interesting, sure. Whether any of us will be alive to truly see the full realisation of the idea, is another question. [img]smile.gif[/img]

So providing the gameplay mechanics and roleplaying depth involved isn't 'dumbed down' in any way and there is enough text to keep me happy, I probably won't mind with Oblivion.

*Rushes off to secure new motherboard and RAM purchase in excited view release date*.

[Sever]

Thankyou Cerebro. 'Dumbing down' is a good phrase to describe what i fear will happen to the dialogue with 100% voice acting.

Originally posted by Brayf: In Morrowind, every NPC had the same answer for everything, and I think an audio version of this will only magnify the effect, as it will draw more attention to the fact that the characters not only say the same thing, but say it in the same voice with the same tone.

Spoken dialogue will indeed highlight recycled lines. You can't glance and ignore audio like you can with text. I'm wondering if there may be a "shut up" function to cancel a line. Even though we're supposed to be getting unique dialogue for each of the npcs, i can't imagine that there won't be at least a few lines of shared, generic speech. This doesn't really bother me too much. In real life, if you ask the right questions to enough people, you're bound to get generic answers.