Character Names
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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The sad truth is, voice synthesizers suck.
When I was a kid, we had this bondwell CP/M computer with a cool voice synth. If you've heard U96's das boot, it's exactly the same synth. I remember seeing some magazine ads for tiny synth chips you could put into any home appliance, and that in the future all devices would speak to us. We even bought a voxbox synth for our speccy back then. The future seemed bright.
Then, nothing.
Couple years ago I did some research on the current state of voice synths, and it's depressing. Text to speech has improved, but the voice synthesis itself? Basically no advances since then, apart from the use of bigger and bigger recorded voice sample libraries. Toss in a complicated word that's not in the dictionary, and the illusion breaks apart.
One hobby project of mine would be to design a voice synth that doesn't just concentrate on text to speech, but would let the "speech designer" to compose the tone of the speech in a more flexible way. This would be perfect for games, except that using actual voice actors would probably result in a better quality, cheaper. Of course you could use it in a mobile game where huge voice samples wouldn't fit in memory, but the budgets there are so ridiculously low anyway that it wouldn't be commercially feasible.
Still fun to think about.
When I was a kid, we had this bondwell CP/M computer with a cool voice synth. If you've heard U96's das boot, it's exactly the same synth. I remember seeing some magazine ads for tiny synth chips you could put into any home appliance, and that in the future all devices would speak to us. We even bought a voxbox synth for our speccy back then. The future seemed bright.
Then, nothing.
Couple years ago I did some research on the current state of voice synths, and it's depressing. Text to speech has improved, but the voice synthesis itself? Basically no advances since then, apart from the use of bigger and bigger recorded voice sample libraries. Toss in a complicated word that's not in the dictionary, and the illusion breaks apart.
One hobby project of mine would be to design a voice synth that doesn't just concentrate on text to speech, but would let the "speech designer" to compose the tone of the speech in a more flexible way. This would be perfect for games, except that using actual voice actors would probably result in a better quality, cheaper. Of course you could use it in a mobile game where huge voice samples wouldn't fit in memory, but the budgets there are so ridiculously low anyway that it wouldn't be commercially feasible.
Still fun to think about.
Usually the problem is not the lack of mention in the voice acting, its when games don't much develop the main character at all, and hes not even a relevant part of the story, one of the few good things about Nier is that the main character voices his opinions, acts like he cares etc...
Things that, don't come off so well at all in games where your character must be a blank slate and his personality only comes of during dialogue options which sometimes could make he look like a schizo that doesn't make up his mind... and several other problems.
If there's one thing Bioware hasn't figured out how to do properly yet (which is a shame since apparently they are the only ones who can say what is RPG and whats not) is lead character development.
Now im sure BW fanboys will come out of the woodwork to go completely against this, but all i got to say is... the best RPG of all time for me so far has been Planescape Torment, from a combination of factors (best setting etc) but mostly because the Nameless One is such an amazing character.
Went on a tangent there for sure, and to go off even more i'd just like to point out my general disappointment on RPG villains these days... at least in Baldur's Gate 2 Jon Irenicus filled the hole left by the main character by being an interesting badass villain, but its rare to find a game where the villain evolves into such a douche you can't wait to get back at him, sometimes, like in Dragon Age, the villain is a complete afterthought.
Things that, don't come off so well at all in games where your character must be a blank slate and his personality only comes of during dialogue options which sometimes could make he look like a schizo that doesn't make up his mind... and several other problems.
If there's one thing Bioware hasn't figured out how to do properly yet (which is a shame since apparently they are the only ones who can say what is RPG and whats not) is lead character development.
Now im sure BW fanboys will come out of the woodwork to go completely against this, but all i got to say is... the best RPG of all time for me so far has been Planescape Torment, from a combination of factors (best setting etc) but mostly because the Nameless One is such an amazing character.
Went on a tangent there for sure, and to go off even more i'd just like to point out my general disappointment on RPG villains these days... at least in Baldur's Gate 2 Jon Irenicus filled the hole left by the main character by being an interesting badass villain, but its rare to find a game where the villain evolves into such a douche you can't wait to get back at him, sometimes, like in Dragon Age, the villain is a complete afterthought.
I always thought it was tricky to let you name EVERY character. Like in FF6, suddenly the game will say "Hey this is a player character, what is their name?" and I can't really think of a name out of nowhere so I usually just stick to default anyways.
That slayed me.
I always thought it must be possible. On ventrilo for example you can type in your screen name, but also type something phonetically for the robotic microsoft sam-esqu anouncer to say when you login.
Obviously too much effort for too little pay out (In the developers opinion)
Or... you could make such a good character you could relate, no matter which his name is.
Ask yourself: would Silent Hill 2 would be better if all the characters tried (and failed) to say your name?
These are gimmicks.
Nothing compares to a good story.
Ask yourself: would Silent Hill 2 would be better if all the characters tried (and failed) to say your name?
These are gimmicks.
Nothing compares to a good story.
So... a character editor then instead of a fixed model. Fine by me!Yahtzee Croshaw said:
Except if it's the one from WoW, where they call it customization but you can't change more than jack shit and they all end up looking like clones of a few guys and gals
It's too bad you generally can't name every character anymore these days; I remember having fun with that when I was a kid, e.g. the time I started a Final Fantasy VII file and named everyone "Barret." Chaos ensued.
If you have heard the voice synthesizer that was made of Ebert you'll know that at least in a year or two you could definitely get a program that could fluidly enter a single name into a sentence.
One thing it could do is when you enter your name in the beginning, if it simply can not pronounce it because it's something like "kqrtrdgkk" the computer asks you to enter a new name, if it can pronounce it, it does so allowing you to hear how the computer actually would sound saying it before you confirm it.
One thing it could do is when you enter your name in the beginning, if it simply can not pronounce it because it's something like "kqrtrdgkk" the computer asks you to enter a new name, if it can pronounce it, it does so allowing you to hear how the computer actually would sound saying it before you confirm it.
Super Cool Awesome Links, but case in point to my favour (not that we were arguing, tho, dunno that you even read my post, heh), neither of those could pronounce my name even close to what it should sound like, even in my native language. By combining syllables from different languages, I could though, and I guess that's enough for games.miraclefilms said:
Here's an idea: Voice acting has basically killed the idea of the player naming characters, but how about a compromise? Why not include something like three dozen names that the player can pick from the start? Then you simply have the voice actors say the lines three dozen times so the game follows out with the name the player selected. It won't give the full optionality of being able to name the main character after yourself, but at least you can pick a better name than say "Cecil". Out of 36 names, I'm sure everybody can find something to like.
By the way, the remake of FFT on the PSP had an interesting way of working around this. 90% of the game was just text boxes, but there were something like ten voiced cutscenes. In this case, it didn't matter what you named your main character, because the voice actors would always say "Ramza". Oops!
By the way, the remake of FFT on the PSP had an interesting way of working around this. 90% of the game was just text boxes, but there were something like ten voiced cutscenes. In this case, it didn't matter what you named your main character, because the voice actors would always say "Ramza". Oops!
Well, oppp7 mentioned this earlier in the thread but I'm don't think anyone noticed.
You could consider your voice synthesizer as a limitation and design around that. Have the character who uses the synthesizer be a robot, computer, or something of the sort. Maybe have a fortune teller try to predict your name and tell it no every time it was wrong.
I see a lot of people posting that either it isn't necessary or it would be cool. I hold the stance that it would be cool the first time. After that, it would become the norm for games afterward. I just hope the first time they incorporate this into a game will include a plot that makes me care.
You could consider your voice synthesizer as a limitation and design around that. Have the character who uses the synthesizer be a robot, computer, or something of the sort. Maybe have a fortune teller try to predict your name and tell it no every time it was wrong.
I see a lot of people posting that either it isn't necessary or it would be cool. I hold the stance that it would be cool the first time. After that, it would become the norm for games afterward. I just hope the first time they incorporate this into a game will include a plot that makes me care.
There are some ludicrously good voice synthesizers out there for mute people and such, but they cost a comparatively ludicrous amount of money.
One day... one day...
One day... one day...
I liked the fable system of picking a title, then hearing every single person on the planet make exactly the same joke about my title being 'pie master'. Truly wonderful...
But unless you have a voice synthesising robot do all of the dialogue, or pay voice actors extra to record every syllable pronounceable by a human throat (in which case some ass-hat will still pick a name like vkxldsghtjklxz), it's still going to sound out of place when someone says your name.
But unless you have a voice synthesising robot do all of the dialogue, or pay voice actors extra to record every syllable pronounceable by a human throat (in which case some ass-hat will still pick a name like vkxldsghtjklxz), it's still going to sound out of place when someone says your name.
In a certain viewpoint, I agree to some level. As I see it, my opinio is largely based more around the games that lack voice acting, but still utilize character names as obscure as what most Poke'mon names would be. This didn't exactly shine on me until very recently with Monster Hunter Tri. Now let's not beat around the bush--a good handful of the monsters in that game have names that are likley to have online disputes at some point in the future as to how they're actually pronounced. Seriously, how the pluck do you pronounce 'Lagiacrus'? I had enough trouble with Lugia while I still gave a crap. That's one of my main nitpicks of most Japanese fantasy games; they might lack voice acting yet still only use the most illegible compilations of letters for the sake of finding some kind of middle ground for international players. FFXIII gave some level of compensation, but when you look at the names, you can tell they just weren't trying. Hell, I'm sure 'Vanille' was named such just because naming a character after the certain orchid flavoring was going too far.
What was the point of changing the characters looks and story? It's so pointless and I hate when they do that crap. I want to original game god damn it. Same with the censoring, they took out part of the game just because one of the girls had a dick(That you don't even really see)
Ontopic though, games like Mass Effect and Dragon age handle this really well. Though I still prefer the characters to already have names if it's a linear game.
The Gothic series also has an interesting way of doing this. You don't name your character at all and whenever you're character goes to say his name the NPC will interrupt him immediately.
Ontopic though, games like Mass Effect and Dragon age handle this really well. Though I still prefer the characters to already have names if it's a linear game.
The Gothic series also has an interesting way of doing this. You don't name your character at all and whenever you're character goes to say his name the NPC will interrupt him immediately.
Arby and the Chief beg to differ.Sol_HSA said:
Ontopic: that robot idea sounds fun, actually.
And funny, I got around the "Exile" part in Kotor II by naming my character "Exile Kun."
It worked wonders for immersion.
I'm not really convinced that an English language voice synthesizer is quite feasible for this kind of thing yet, although that robot idea could work. Changing the protagonist for the western release of Nier was an interesting idea, but one which is slightly undermined by the fact that both versions of him look pretty terrible and unbalanced.