Game News Pillars of Eternity II gets full voice acting

[Pizzashoes]

That said, I suspect the people who care about this either have little experience with CRPGs or they have some literacy issues. Trying to read text and listen to a voiceover at the same time is incredibly discordant; if you’re fluent in the language it’s very hard not to read much faster than the voice acting.

Here's an edgy reply which I hope you won't hold against me. The only people who have trouble reading text while listening to dialogue are verbally incompetent, drooling tards. I am replaying Pillars right now, and the subtext flourishes add to the dialogue. They do not detract.

This is a half-argument against full VO, too. The mainstream crowd they are trying to attract here will be unable to read the cool, in-between text while maintaining understanding of the voiced dialogue. I hope to God there isn't some memetic backlash from the masses who feel tricked that their idols, Critical Role, convinced them to buy a hardcore, attention-requiring, thoughtful game.

 

[Sentinel]

and to think I was so very close to backing this game during the campaign

what a bullet I dodged

 

[Kev Inkline]

Ooof... why? Is there really a single person in their audience who cannot read multiple times faster than a person can speak?

I'm assuming I'll be able to mute all voices, but... man. What a complete and total fucking waste of resources.

They should implement a Karaoke style voice over text control.

 

[oldmanpaco]

I wonder how much the narrator VO guy charged to price him out of the picture.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I am replaying Pillars right now, and the subtext flourishes add to the dialogue. They do not detract.

In the first game it's not a full VO. Partial VO if done right is not an issue.

 

[vazha]

What on earth are these? and what game?

 

[Santander02]

great, now user made content is going to stick out like a sore thumb

 

[taxalot]

They should have taken the voice acting budget, hired a small team with it, and make a good game with them.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

100% agree. Fully voiced dialogue is a great business/marketing decision. When Obsidian announced their deal with the full cast of Critical Role, Versus Evil got flooded with so many preorders that their website went down. This will easily pay for itself and then some.

It's a trend. Vault Dweller and MRY will use fully voiced dialogue in their new games.

 

[MRY]

I have voiced narration. Wanted it to be full but it was taking too long so we just do intro nodes. Some dialogue is voiced if its in the intros.

It’s weird, I often skip VO but I miss it now when it’s not there. Here the VO is largely for mood setting and teaching pronunciations.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

I have voiced narration. Wanted it to be full but it was taking too long so we just do intro nodes. Some dialogue is voiced if its in the intros.

It’s weird, I often skip VO but I miss it now when it’s not there. Here the VO is largely for mood setting and teaching pronunciations.

 

[Falksi]

Jesus fucking Christ, will they never learn?

We all know half the magic is found in the "imagination gap" where reading the dialogue evolves into whatever is in the individuals mind.

Hell each adventure is even a bit different that way, as NPCs can take on a different vibe depending on the player each time they play.

 

[MRY]

I think PST without the limited VO would’ve been a much less compelling story. Maybe my imagination isn’t up to snuff.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

It's enough if the NPC introduces himself with voice. After that you can read the rest with his voice in your head without dealing with all the problems caused by full VO, like having to constantly cut it off mid-sentence when you're done reading.

 

[Roguey]

It's enough if the NPC introduces himself with voice. After that you can read the rest with his voice in your head without dealing with all the problems caused by full VO, like having to constantly cut it off mid-sentence when you're done reading.

It seems unfeasible to set up a recording session to do a single line per person though.

 

[aweigh]

Ironically japs don't really care about full VO in their games. DQ games don't even get japanese VO on initial release, the VO is added only for the western release (in English). And DQ is the biggest selling RPG in Japan.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

It's enough if the NPC introduces himself with voice. After that you can read the rest with his voice in your head without dealing with all the problems caused by full VO, like having to constantly cut it off mid-sentence when you're done reading.

It seems unfeasible to set up a recording session to do a single line per person though.

There's more things to record than just dialogue though. Combat barks, party banter and companion interactions, chapter introductions, CYOA sequences, those are all fine with VO and have plenty of lines. Just dialogue VO should be limited.

I mean, it's not like I'm being a hipstery codexer here who wants everything to work like it's 1985. Gaming is audiovisual medium first and in principle more VO is always better. Nobody has a problem with voiceovers in 3D games and those 3D games that can afford real-life actors and mocap can make dialogue 100x more compelling. I can't even imagine giving up the voiceover in something like Witcher or Kingcomrade.

But in games that are text heavy full dialogue voiceovers have always had presentation issues with dialogue trees and descriptive text and those have never really been solved.

 

[MRY]

It's enough if the NPC introduces himself with voice. After that you can read the rest with his voice in your head without dealing with all the problems caused by full VO, like having to constantly cut it off mid-sentence when you're done reading.

I think you sometimes want key lines voiced beyond the introduction. Think of Ravel for instance.

 

[Quillon]

But in games that are text heavy full dialogue voiceovers have always had presentation issues with dialogue trees and descriptive text and those have never really been solved.

Until Deadfire.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

It's enough if the NPC introduces himself with voice. After that you can read the rest with his voice in your head without dealing with all the problems caused by full VO, like having to constantly cut it off mid-sentence when you're done reading.

I think you sometimes want key lines voiced beyond the introduction. Think of Ravel for instance.

Well yeah, I'm not preaching some sacred rule here that cannot be broken without sky falling on our heads. You can definitely make a case for boss encounters being fully voiced (dragons, archmages, main villain and such) or some critical parts of main quests or other exceptions. I'm quite all right with all that.

But in principle, the generic NPC #153 who will send you to collect rat pelts only needs a voiced introduction.

 

[Zombra]

I hope the VA in the first 30 minutes of the game is stellar ... that's about how long it usually takes before I start clicking through to fucking get on with it.

 

[Kev Inkline]

"Updated my journal."

- would have been a lot less compelling without voice acting. But giving the townsperson #761 a voice? No thank you.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

It's enough if the NPC introduces himself with voice. After that you can read the rest with his voice in your head without dealing with all the problems caused by full VO, like having to constantly cut it off mid-sentence when you're done reading.

I think you sometimes want key lines voiced beyond the introduction. Think of Ravel for instance.

PST would lose something with full VO. Ravel and TTO would have a lot less impact if every other NPC had been voiced; doing just the companions and a few key characters seems ideal for this kind of game. Yes, hearing Ravel for the first time is really eerie, really powerful. I think it would have much less impact if you’d just spent the first half of the game listening to voiced dialogue from every single NPC in the hive.

 

[MRY]

Didn’t MOTB have full voice? I don’t remember thinking that that hurt the impact with Myrkul.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

"Updated my journal."

- would have been a lot less compelling without voice acting. But giving the townsperson #761 a voice? No thank you.