Voice vs. Choice
- Thread starter Shamus Young
- Start date
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.
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.
This is something I've been saying for years. Glad someone else out there sees this as a problem like I do.
What RPGs need is a hybrid of choice and voice, like Baldur's Gate 2: the protagonist is silent, but other characters talk outside of the dialogue trees (banter, opening lines/responses, plot points, etc.) leaving you with the choice of dialogue.
What RPGs need is a hybrid of choice and voice, like Baldur's Gate 2: the protagonist is silent, but other characters talk outside of the dialogue trees (banter, opening lines/responses, plot points, etc.) leaving you with the choice of dialogue.
The interesting point that was made is that I personally read the text well before the character finishes talking. As you said, six words in, and then I skip to the next dialogue box. Voice acting can work in certain situations, such as action games where it's more like a movie, but an RPG is more like a book, and the branching dialogue doesn't need people talking to you constantly. If the game is linear with one story, but if it's trying to present itself as a branching narrative where user choices matter in the outcome then by god, the player can challenge themselves with a little light reading.
That's a very interesting point, and one I hadn't really considered. Thanks for the article.
I have to wonder, though, how much the voice acting is the bottleneck. Surely the vast number of interlocking "trigger events" and the need for creating additional terrain and even additional characters also plays a part. And to what degree the hurdles you mention could be overcome if voice acting was done at a later stage of game development- say, post-alpha testing. Or even post-beta, for that matter- let 'em read text. Developing in-studio sound recording facilities would probably make this easier.
I felt a sense of dread when I heard that Bethesda was taking over the Fallout series- I had been very frustrated with some aspects of Oblivion for much the reasons you mention, including in some places where alternate choices would have seemed obvious (whaddya mean, I have to kill the arena champion?) and felt that the way the company designed their games was antithetical to the open-choice systems of Fallout.
But it's worth recognizing that, while I loved me some Fallout 2, the game as it originally came out had several pitchforks full of bugs, mostly involving the very multitude of options we embrace. Which is to say, again, that maybe voice acting isn't the primary, and definitely isn't the only, hurdle to creating games with lots of choices.
I have to wonder, though, how much the voice acting is the bottleneck. Surely the vast number of interlocking "trigger events" and the need for creating additional terrain and even additional characters also plays a part. And to what degree the hurdles you mention could be overcome if voice acting was done at a later stage of game development- say, post-alpha testing. Or even post-beta, for that matter- let 'em read text. Developing in-studio sound recording facilities would probably make this easier.
I felt a sense of dread when I heard that Bethesda was taking over the Fallout series- I had been very frustrated with some aspects of Oblivion for much the reasons you mention, including in some places where alternate choices would have seemed obvious (whaddya mean, I have to kill the arena champion?) and felt that the way the company designed their games was antithetical to the open-choice systems of Fallout.
But it's worth recognizing that, while I loved me some Fallout 2, the game as it originally came out had several pitchforks full of bugs, mostly involving the very multitude of options we embrace. Which is to say, again, that maybe voice acting isn't the primary, and definitely isn't the only, hurdle to creating games with lots of choices.
I prefer 100 times more options and freedom to complete task in diferent ways than voice acting and more restrains. I hope that in the not so far future voice synthesizer become better and cheaper. Its good to have a real actor telling you a compeling story but i dont care much if the npc is telling me that i must go to hunt 100 more mobs cause he still need whatever stuff to stop whatever etc etc.
If it's simply for how you proceed on a mission, I can accept that, but isn't that just turning something into an open-ended objective then? And things like Mass Effect manages to get voice actors to do four options before letting you go do your thing, even if all the choices segue into the same action.Crystalgate said:
The reason I dislike the text option is because it's not immersive. The only text games I've ever been able to play are either on handheld systems, where it's either play this or watch the road on this lovely family trip, or World of Warcraft, where the thing keeping me in the game is the social factor and my online friends (I am a nerd, I know). Both times I need a distraction in order to keep me entertained while playing. Having a character talk, even if you're choosing the dialogue options, is one more piece of immersion. I'll admit I'm generally not an RPG gamer, but the few I have been able to enjoy haven't been massive reading experiences (or JRPGs).
I can see why this approach would be beneficial to certain people, but I was just trying to give my opinion. I like voice acting in video games, even the dreadful kind. Gives good laughs at the worse, and it can help make the experience at it's best.
I still respectfully disagree.
PS, for those who said text don't count as silent protagonists: They don't say a word, they type on a keyboard. They're silent.
Banjo Kazooie games = Best voice acting. period.
sure they were just sounds, but they were sounds that said a lot about the characters.
sure they were just sounds, but they were sounds that said a lot about the characters.
I agree completely with Shamus. It had been a while since I played some of my 1990s computer RPGs, and I had deluded myself that the technology wasn't there to allow the player to have more than 3 ways to go about accomplishing a task. Then I got back to playing Fallout 2 and Arcanum of Steamworks and Magick Obscura and was reminded of all the options that were available to the player. Those older games gave me the feeling I was that character much more than say Fallout 3 which put me on rails of either good, evil, or schizophrenic. Evey quest either run and gun or sneak and assassinate. Which was largely to your character's ability compared to your enemy. More options in game will always be welcomed over some technological gimmick.
Some of the basic things I would always want to see how complete a challenge are: straight fighting through, stealth, charm, bribing, personal contacts, henchmen, research, and magic/technology. Example: getting into a heavily fortified castle. Your character should have the option to fight his way through the main gate, sneak over the walls at night, con his way past the guards, bribe a diplomat to give you papers to get in, have be friends with a nearby kingdom who can manage you a pass inside, have a henchman in your party that can do any of these thing for you, go into an ancient ruin finding lore about a secret passage, or simply teleport in. Each methods has it's pros and cons and it is up to the player to decide which option they want.
I also don't need (in fact don't even want) to be good at everything. Elder Scrolls IV my character was the leader of the Wizards, Assassins, and Thieves, a member of the Royal guard, a master vampire slayer. I just wanted to be a treasure hunting rogue. I shouldn't have even been able to legitimately enter the Arcane University, I had little more magical training than game started me out with. Yet, I was the big cheese of that guild. Really, I don't mind playing a wizard to discover that path.
Some of the basic things I would always want to see how complete a challenge are: straight fighting through, stealth, charm, bribing, personal contacts, henchmen, research, and magic/technology. Example: getting into a heavily fortified castle. Your character should have the option to fight his way through the main gate, sneak over the walls at night, con his way past the guards, bribe a diplomat to give you papers to get in, have be friends with a nearby kingdom who can manage you a pass inside, have a henchman in your party that can do any of these thing for you, go into an ancient ruin finding lore about a secret passage, or simply teleport in. Each methods has it's pros and cons and it is up to the player to decide which option they want.
I also don't need (in fact don't even want) to be good at everything. Elder Scrolls IV my character was the leader of the Wizards, Assassins, and Thieves, a member of the Royal guard, a master vampire slayer. I just wanted to be a treasure hunting rogue. I shouldn't have even been able to legitimately enter the Arcane University, I had little more magical training than game started me out with. Yet, I was the big cheese of that guild. Really, I don't mind playing a wizard to discover that path.
I'm not going to argue that voice acting constrains developers in ways text-only games did not, but the rest of this article is pure historical videogame revisionism. Games which offer a full range of true choices as Shamus describes are, and always have been, EXTREMELY RARE. Developers have never wanted to code fifty different possible paths and outcomes for every little quest.
In Wizardry there was only one way to beat the game: kill Werdna. Same with Ultima, Might and Magic, and all the other classic RPGs. The choices in those games came into play purely in character- and party-building. By comparison, modern games are obsessed with choices and options. In Fallout and Placescape, the big marquee quests had a good range of options on how to complete them, but for 80-90% of the rest of the game the quests all boil down to one or two specific paths and that's it. The utopia of free-form, open-ended questing has simply never existed.
In Wizardry there was only one way to beat the game: kill Werdna. Same with Ultima, Might and Magic, and all the other classic RPGs. The choices in those games came into play purely in character- and party-building. By comparison, modern games are obsessed with choices and options. In Fallout and Placescape, the big marquee quests had a good range of options on how to complete them, but for 80-90% of the rest of the game the quests all boil down to one or two specific paths and that's it. The utopia of free-form, open-ended questing has simply never existed.
Voice acting is over rated, bring in the techies and tweak voices so you can pull off 100's of accent/tone variations off 10 or so voice actors..... if not then don;t bother with voice overs unless the game is a simplistic action thing with maybe a couple hours or less of dailog...
That's OK. I am fully aware that even though I would love the kind of situation Samus described, it's not for everyone. If you think voice acting is a huge plus and/or think having a crapload of choices isn't that important, then of course you will prefer voice acting.Blueruler182 said:
Anyway, since you told me what you find immersive how about I tell how I operate now?
Whether or not I find something immersive has very little to do with voice acting, technical level of graphics and so on. In order for me to be immerser, the game need good mapping and there has to be things to do and find. If I walk around in a town and none of the townspeople has something interesting to say and there's nothing there to find that you won't find in any other town, it will break my immersion. Actually, it doesn't really "break" my immersion, rather it's so that the game cannot maintain my interest and I will gradually slip out of immersion.
So, considering how we operate, both of our preferences makes perfect sense. Another nail in the "try to please everyone" coffin.
Good voice acting in a fully-voiced game > a game that is not fully-voiced > bad voice acting in a fully-voiced game.
I do think it's probably the animation and scripting that are the most significant barriers to multiple plot branches, though. Can you imagine how massive Planescape: Torment would be if it were rendered Mass Effect-style? And as Callate pointed out, there's nothing stopping the developers waiting to tape the VOs until after the game is really well fleshed-out.
I'm also not sure it's fair to compare a couple of the best RPGs ever to modern gaming at large...most RPGs back in the day weren't that complex or well-thought out, IIRC.
I do think it's probably the animation and scripting that are the most significant barriers to multiple plot branches, though. Can you imagine how massive Planescape: Torment would be if it were rendered Mass Effect-style? And as Callate pointed out, there's nothing stopping the developers waiting to tape the VOs until after the game is really well fleshed-out.
I'm also not sure it's fair to compare a couple of the best RPGs ever to modern gaming at large...most RPGs back in the day weren't that complex or well-thought out, IIRC.
Hmmm surprised not more people have mentioned Bioware's Star Wars RPG's.
There's STACKLOADS of options on how to do things, each affecting light/dark side points etc, along with voice acting from EACH and every NPC. Sure things were a little easier because half of them are aliens and speak incomprehensible babble ( Bioware recycles some lines if you listen hard enough ), but the voice dialog is there.
That being said, I'd rather the effort of voice acting going into actual gameplay itself =)
There's STACKLOADS of options on how to do things, each affecting light/dark side points etc, along with voice acting from EACH and every NPC. Sure things were a little easier because half of them are aliens and speak incomprehensible babble ( Bioware recycles some lines if you listen hard enough ), but the voice dialog is there.
That being said, I'd rather the effort of voice acting going into actual gameplay itself =)
I can agree with you on all these points. I guess I misunderstood you from your first post. If only we could go back to multiple, sometimes ingenious ways of solving quests. Too bad I just don't see it as possible with VO's... Oh well. Thanks for clarifying.0HP said:
No worries.Centrophy said:
I am kind of getting the impression that, at root, 3D is to blame for this. When games were in 2D and you wanted to give one particular character a real face, it involved creating that persona from scratch and displaying separately from normal gameplay. But with 3D games, ALL of the characters are supposed to have unique (or at least somewhat unique) faces. So all we see is the camera moving in and the face starts to move to deliver the voice acted content.
What if dialog was more separated from gameplay? Would it make character interaction seem less samey? And what if we had characters with personas that were not defined exclusively by the game engine?
Oh, sure, you could have engine-constrained dialog with normal NPCs because that stuff is SUPPOSED to feel samey; it's part of the environment: This is Normaltown, it's people are generally concerned about Suchansuch Bigissue. But then *BAM* a unique character comes in; someone who we care about, maybe related to a quest or a special NPC. They get specifics: they get more separated dialog interaction and a more unique face than everyone else; they're a memorable character.
And, even then, they don't need to voice-act everything. Most players will skip it anyway, right? So have them act only the over-the-top dialog options, the ones that really characterize them. The rest of the time, I'd be very happy to read read read.
Now, I'm not saying we should do away with 3D (which would be a ridiculous statement altogether), but we do need to separate our priorities here. Game engines help us build worlds, but we already know that they can't characterize because we hire voice actors for that stuff anyway. So why not separate out the processes? Storytelling has its tools and so does worldbuilding. Isn't one of the strengths of games the notion that these two can coexist and deliver an experience to the player, satisfying both those who play for exploration and those who play for story? I reckon.
I must admit that voiced characters is definately nice, but I could happily play a game without voiced dialogue.
Fallout 3 is actually a good example of over-done dialogue - namely talking to moria. I want to buy some ammo and the conversation goes "have you done x?" "no" "blah" "what do you have for sale" "all of this" coulda lived without doing that a hundred times.
(and if there was a way to skip all that, don't tell me)
Fallout 3 is actually a good example of over-done dialogue - namely talking to moria. I want to buy some ammo and the conversation goes "have you done x?" "no" "blah" "what do you have for sale" "all of this" coulda lived without doing that a hundred times.
(and if there was a way to skip all that, don't tell me)