Voice vs. Choice

[Tortoisepower]

i know what you about reading the text in voice, i get it alot while watch anime and i also like how planetscape did it but i think we may have to put up with the current method for a while as necessity is the father of invention so maybe the faulty method we have now will inspire people take make better voice acting tech, who knows

 

[Jaeke]

Three words to solve the problem. Mass Effect Two.

 

[Jack_Uzi]

I think they did a great job on the ratio voice acting/ tekst in fallout(2). It gave me the feeling that I was still playing, how strange it may sound, a bit of a pen and paper rpg as well with a good storyteller who told me in (gory) detail how the headshot killed my opponent.
Voice acting gives depth, but on the other hand it doesn't have to be the whole game trough. A bit of imagination with a good discription of what is going on in your surroundings can do the same job maybe even better than having to look at a almost generic generated face that is talking to me.

 

[DTWolfwood]

Well if u make an rpg in the vain of GTA/RDR or ME2 i'd rather the developers just railroad me down a story path or 2. cause i actually do listen when the choices are limited.

But if your gonna give me the freedom to do whatever, i would agree with what Shamus said. Just give me text. cause in that type of RPG you really dont care about the NPCs to begin with cause i sure as hell cant remember any of them. But i remember Niko Belkic, John Marston, and Shepard and crew!

 

[craddoke]

Maybe it's not just storyline, but increase in complexity of game scripting, animations and overall technology. In fallout you can script NPC to go at point (x; y) and then initiate a dialog, while in modern RPGs like Mass Effect 2 designers have to take care of camera, different animations, facial expressions, lighting etc. And then debug it all.
Just remember how messy and full of bugs were Troika's choice-rich games like Arcanum and Vampire: Masquerade - Bloodlines.

So it's not just voice acting, but tech complexity and players' expectations of production values. I'm more than ready to play Fallout: New Vegas with 2D 1998-level tech if it had as much freedom as original Fallouts, but most gamers aren't so forgiving, sadly=(.
A friend of mine said he won't play Alpha Protocol 'cause its graphics sucks. I'm, afraid he's not alone.

I agree that the bottleneck in allowing free-form questing is more likely to be related to scripting than voice-acting. I also agree with those saying that Planescape Torment was the last great CRPG. That said, not even Torment could hold a candle to Ultimas 4-7 in terms of allowing players to play however they want. The closest thing I've seen in recent years are the Avernum retro-games - hell, perhaps the issue is 2D vs. 3D!

 

[Snotnarok]

I don't really care for voice acting in games, sometimes it's useful when there's a group over and they're watching or maybe for LPer's but honestly it just slows down the game if you want to really just listen to them. Morrowind was a fine example about tons and tons of dialogue that really didn't need voice acting. Though in a game like Mass Effect I felt it gave it that movie feel that text wouldn't really give.

It's a mixed bag I guess, I say I don't like it but then I look at ME and ME2 and realize I really do love it in those games, it sucks you in so well. It really depends on the game I guess.

 

[USSVagrant]

I agree wholeheartedly. I like Fallout 1 & 2's style -- important characters to the story get talking heads, and other characters just get text. It gives immersion without sacrificing choices.

 

[Nikolaz72]

For Bethesda it's an issue of not being able to write proper dialogues and not caring in the first place. Their focus has always been on sandbox screw around yourself gameplay.
Their stories cannot branch, because nothing is connected anyway.

Bioware do really try, but they don't quite make it, because they both make it themselves difficult (ye olde enlish) and they do run into budget constraints for hiring many voice actors.

There exists only 1 RPG with truly great VO and that is Bloodlines. The game was also railroaded much in the same way Dragon Age is.

I believe VO is a limiting factor, but there's also the challenge of writing choices into good plots.

Im sorry but in my opinion the books lying around in Morrowwind seemed quite interresting and original (If few that wasnt the same) and each character you went around meeting had a whole different personality and a story to them. I found Arena/Daggerfall/Morrowind writing great and even a whole lot of interresting points in Oblivion (Texts that is) Bethesda is well able if not great at writing text for each individual they have shown that. If they suddenly stopped writing well would probably mean that they wanted to save money not because they were not able.

On the voiceacting part. I believe Text is skipped just as fast as voice just eh. Cheaper to make.

 

[erethizon]

What they need to do is continue to have voice acting for the same parts that they currently have, but if you figure out a way to accomplish the quest that is not the "main" way, you simply get dialogue with no voice acting. They can use voice for the one or two most likely choices that people will make and then use only dialogue for the rest. This way you can have voice without removing choice.

 

[Brainstrain]

Red Dead Redemption has most of the talking occur during the run-up to a mission, or after. It must've been easier than in GTA, where if you die, you have to restart the mission over again, and then you'd get ALL NEW DIALOGUE. (I barely died in a way that sent me back to hear the dialogue again). And the characters are darn interestin', even if a few are thin.

Put the dialogue where it covers boring things, like riding to a mission. Don't put it in the middle where I might have to rehear it.

 

[Akiada]

I agree wholeheartedly! Morrowind's way of handling things seems superbly suited for RPGs. In games with high choice, having only important people (including perhaps the PC) voiced makes sense. Though for other games like shooters this is entirely unnecessary for obvious reasons.

What I think could also help is if game devs waited until they'd playtested the game to hell and gone and were ready to release it before putting in voices. Just have the dialogue sequences all set up but unvoiced (or with placeholders provided by the devs/friends/family for free) so that they can catch those "Oh, what if they do this thing we didn't anticipate?" and thus ensure the VA can voice those lines when they actually come in.

For Bethesda it's an issue of not being able to write proper dialogues and not caring in the first place. Their focus has always been on sandbox screw around yourself gameplay.
Their stories cannot branch, because nothing is connected anyway.

Clearly someone hasn't played Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. Not only did it have branching quests, it had around about six endings. Of course, that was back when they had Ted Peterson as a lead designer rather than a guy who freelances for them and gives them short stories to stuff in books.

 

[veloper]

I agree wholeheartedly! Morrowind's way of handling things seems superbly suited for RPGs. In games with high choice, having only important people (including perhaps the PC) voiced makes sense. Though for other games like shooters this is entirely unnecessary for obvious reasons.

What I think could also help is if game devs waited until they'd playtested the game to hell and gone and were ready to release it before putting in voices. Just have the dialogue sequences all set up but unvoiced (or with placeholders provided by the devs/friends/family for free) so that they can catch those "Oh, what if they do this thing we didn't anticipate?" and thus ensure the VA can voice those lines when they actually come in.

For Bethesda it's an issue of not being able to write proper dialogues and not caring in the first place. Their focus has always been on sandbox screw around yourself gameplay.
Their stories cannot branch, because nothing is connected anyway.

Clearly someone hasn't played Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. Not only did it have branching quests, it had around about six endings. Of course, that was back when they had Ted Peterson as a lead designer rather than a guy who freelances for them and gives them short stories to stuff in books.

I don't recall anything about the dialogue being good. That was 14 years ago anyway, ancient history.

 

[ultrachicken]

What's wrong with linearity?
Besides, there are more ways than you've explained that you could have rescued nancy in fallout 3. For example, how are you going to persuade her that you're not just going to sell her into slavery or ask for a ransom? You could:
1) Threaten her into following you
2) Convince her using speech
3) Forcefully take her with you

Then there's getting to and from Nancy. Will you
1) Stealthfully take out the guards
2) Run in, guns blazing
3) Set traps for guards
4) Smooth talk your way in

 

[Mid-Boss]

Personally, I don't skip the voice acting unless I've played that part of the game several times over. When a game is voice acting heavy, like Dragon Age, I'm being told a story as much as I'm dungeon crawling and slaughtering crap. So I sit back and enjoy the story I'm being told.