RPGS Fully Voiced = Bad thing?

Does anyone else thing that having an RPG that is fully voiced, make it so that you have far less game? Look at bauldrs Gate for e.g, becasue alot of the game was text based you would have a different responce to whatever you say everytime. Now look at Kotor or ME, both great games yes, but you could say 2 different things to the same character and still get the same reply. Why? Becasue an RPG that has thousends of characters it would make an extroidnary long amount of time and money to make it so everything you hear is different everytime. Now text based games is different, the only obstical you have there is time, and lets be honest, given how professional and loaded game companys are nowadays, finding the time to write lots of dialogue options, isnt as big as a task as it once was.

Now lots of people expect every RPG to be fully voiced now, and i just know that whenever an RPG is gonna come out that is fully voiced, its gonna mean far less options and dialogue trees then i would of liked because voice acting costs alot more time and money.

Thats just my opinion.... yours? (sorry for spelling mistakes, late at night)

I think you should make an effort to have the game fully voice acted if you can. Dragon Age had to cut main character voice actinf simply because of money and time, but everything else is fully voice acted.

I just find it really annoying when a game is mostly text based, but every once in a while has a poor vocie acted cut scene that ruins the flow.

I prefer texted based, but I grew up on the old JRPG's . Voice acting is nice but its just another expense IMO. I could do with it and it doesn't change the impact of the game. Takes away some of the imagination who they might be.

Well, I see you point, but still: I think a voiced NPC has a lot more depth and personality than one who only speaks in text.Black_Knight_00

And localization is much better with JRPGs. Reading a poorly localized line of text in your head and trying to voice act it are two different things, so they often make changes to the game to make it fit better. It doesn't make completely fix the problem by an means, but we don't have to worry about "All your base are belong to us" being voiced by any actor.

Well, I see you point, but still: I think a voiced NPC has a lot more depth and personality than one who only speaks in text.Black_Knight_00

Well, I see you point, but still: I think a voiced NPC has a lot more depth and personality than one who only speaks in text.Black_Knight_00

Only if it gets in the way of telling the full story. If the game is meant to be linear, then sure full voice acting is great since there are x amount of characters and x amount of locations that the player is going to visit. If a game is meant to be "epic" and sprawling then I think the main scenes should have voice which leaves more room on the disc for the developers to make their world bigger. Nothing more annoying in a rpg to start on a interesting side story and have it either never be finished or have it just aruptly end with a dumb conclusion. Always makes me wonder how much the game would have been better if the developers had focused on the story/gameplay instead of paying for the gimmick of everybody is voiced. On a side note when the game is fully voice acted the developerssomtimes do away with what is then termed "subtitles" which are useful for those of us who are hard of hearing and don't want to turn the volume up on the tv until the windows rattle. m.a.c

Newer gamers have very little imaginations. Everything is pre-rendered for them in amazing HD graphics and fully voice acted. I doubt most of them even crack open a book every now and then.

For the gamers who grew up in the 8 bit gen, we knew what imagination was. You had to put your OWN personality to the characters. You had to imagine how epic it really was in the old Breath of Fire and Final Fantasy games. You had to picture how freaky it really was to be locked in a mansion in Resident Evil.

Thats why I like fallout. You can choose to have the dialog on or off. I turn it off sometimes, so I dont have to hear the same guy voice 20 different characters. REALLY takes you out of the immersion.

[QUOTE="Black_Knight_00"]Well, I see you point, but still: I think a voiced NPC has a lot more depth and personality than one who only speaks in text.Phantsy16

I don't care either way. I don't mind reading text, but I also don't mind voice acting, and even if it is bad, I can usually tolerate it.

If the JRPG has voices it better be good or i just prefer text boxes. I cant tell you how many JRPGs i dropped this gen because the English voices is ****. *Looks at Star Ocean 4*

I don't care either way. I don't mind reading text, but I also don't mind voice acting, and even if it is bad, I can usually tolerate it.

DJ-Lafleur

It's not a bad thing, but I wish more games had the option to turn it off and use subs instead.

As a parent I do most of my gaming after the kid's go to bed. So having the "luxury" of being able to read the text is much wanted and needed.

I think voice acting is great, until you get a situation like in Oblivion, where they apparently only used half a dozen voice actors for the entire game. So you get the frankly stupid situation of two NPCs speaking to each other in the same voice.

Even better is when you get two pairs of NPCs near each other, having the same conversation in the same voices so it sounds like an echo. "I saw a couple of mudcrabs the other day" "I saw a couple of mudcrabs the other day" "Nasty little things" "Nasty little things"...

[QUOTE="DJ-Lafleur"]

I don't care either way. I don't mind reading text, but I also don't mind voice acting, and even if it is bad, I can usually tolerate it.

Metamania

well, it's not like I WANT them to have bad english voice-overs, I'm just saying that if, unfortunately, there are bad voice-overs, I usually can tolerate it.

I suppose watching alot of badly dubbed animes got me immune to it over time. :P

[QUOTE="Metamania"]

[QUOTE="DJ-Lafleur"]

I don't care either way. I don't mind reading text, but I also don't mind voice acting, and even if it is bad, I can usually tolerate it.

DJ-Lafleur

well, it's not like I WANT them to have bad english voice-overs, I'm just saying that if, unfortunately, there are bad voice-overs, I usually can tolerate it.

I suppose watching alot of badly dubbed animes got me immune to it over time. :P

Fallout 3 has me convinced that full voice overs are a godsend for character immersion.

I think an argument can be made for having some text rpg's, but i think good quality voice work adds a lot to the gaming experience. A good example of that is the exquisite Lost Odyssey.

I prefer them with voices. I find it much more immersive that way.

Voice actors for main characters and the occasional shop owner? Sure. Voice actors for EVERY FREAKING NPC? No. I prefer text boxes for those NPCs that have nothing of real value to say. I can read a lot faster than they speak, so if they have nothing of importance to say, it doesn't waste as much time if it's text.

I definitely prefer text, I very much enjoyed reading large amounts of text in games like Planescape, or Arcanum, and with voice acting it would A) cost a fortune to do that, and B) end up with hour long conversations, which would be very tiresome to watch. Voice acting definitely limits a lot of the choices in conversations that WRG's are so famous for, considering a lot of those conversation trees have to be cut down entirely so the game pacing is not affected in a too drastic way..

I know what you're getting at and I totally agree. It's like reading a book and then seeing a movie based on the book. Yep, you know it, the book was better.

Text based stories and characters allow you to use your IMAGINATION. Voice acting does not (new flashy 3D graphics which look great but not still not life like doesn't help either, but thats another topic). You also have what I like to call "The gravel-voice problem"....How the hell do you get a voice actor to read out high-fantasy lines without sounding ...well, homosexually inclined? You tell him to put on the voice of a 100cigs-a-day smoker. There, much more manly. Frankly, it sucks and kills immersion for me.

I know what you're getting at and I totally agree. It's like reading a book and then seeing a movie based on the book. Yep, you know it, the book was better.

Text based stories and characters allow you to use your IMAGINATION. Voice acting does not (new flashy 3D graphics which look great but not still not life like doesn't help either, but thats another topic). You also have what I like to call "The gravel-voice problem"....How the hell do you get a voice actor to read out high-fantasy lines without sounding ...well, homosexually inclined? You tell him to put on the voice of a 100cigs-a-day smoker. There, much more manly. Frankly, it sucks and kills immersion for me.

Kan0nF0dder

[QUOTE="Kan0nF0dder"]

I know what you're getting at and I totally agree. It's like reading a book and then seeing a movie based on the book. Yep, you know it, the book was better.

Text based stories and characters allow you to use your IMAGINATION. Voice acting does not (new flashy 3D graphics which look great but not still not life like doesn't help either, but thats another topic). You also have what I like to call "The gravel-voice problem"....How the hell do you get a voice actor to read out high-fantasy lines without sounding ...well, homosexually inclined? You tell him to put on the voice of a 100cigs-a-day smoker. There, much more manly. Frankly, it sucks and kills immersion for me.

Phantsy16

Newer gamers have very little imaginations. Everything is pre-rendered for them in amazing HD graphics and fully voice acted. I doubt most of them even crack open a book every now and then.

For the gamers who grew up in the 8 bit gen, we knew what imagination was. You had to put your OWN personality to the characters. You had to imagine how epic it really was in the old Breath of Fire and Final Fantasy games. You had to picture how freaky it really was to be locked in a mansion in Resident Evil.

Thats why I like fallout. You can choose to have the dialog on or off. I turn it off sometimes, so I dont have to hear the same guy voice 20 different characters. REALLY takes you out of the immersion.

grim0187

I guess i am what you call a newer gamer and i read a book just about every night.

fully voiced RPGs- not bad and can be a good thing

badly done fully voiced RPGs- very bad, it can totally ruin the game if the voices are horrible.

I feel you are more submerged in to the game if it is voice acted, so I'm not sure how it's a bad thing, but text based games are great too, and voice acting an entire game can prove to be quite a challenge.

I find that games with an anime style look or else a very detailed animated edge are well suited to text. Examples of these sorts of games include Skies of Arcadia and Zelda: TP (Whether that is an RPG or not is up for debate but the point I am making is equally valid here).Articuno76

I also usually just skip through voice-overs... So I'm a bit of a hypocrit really.

10 years ago, I would agree that voice acting in RPGs is a horrible thing. However, the acting has improved tremendously and, i think, it is much more immersive when it is done right.

How? Because you're seeing the character as the story writer fully intended. There are plenty intended emotions, flaws, accents, and other nuances that are very easy to lose with just text.

I think it really depends on the game. For example Mass Effect isn't exactly the most hard core rpg and I think the voice acting really brings the characters to life and enchances the story more. But with more story based games like Lost Oddysey I think that if there wasn't any voice acting it would be alot more engrossing and that the players imagination would forumulate them alot better then any voice actor could

Bad voice acting can entirely ruin a gaming experience, but if the voicing is good, and has the right emphasis and emotion to it when required, then I find it can make a game amazing, and you are submerged a lot more than you would be with simply just text.

I find that games with an anime style look or else a very detailed animated edge are well suited to text. Examples of these sorts of games include Skies of Arcadia and Zelda: TP (Whether that is an RPG or not is up for debate but the point I am making is equally valid here).Articuno76

There is no debate, it's an Action Adventure. Every site I've seen has it under that category. :lol: