Owlcat's next game is an AAA title that will need full voice acting to compete with BG3

[Cat Headed Eagle]

poe2 had full va

Voice acting won't save a game that has no way to defend itself.

Tell that to Owlcat then, the statement they made is beyond laughable

 

[ArchAngel]

At least it will be hilarious. We are going to get wrong language voice files, wrong voices compared to text, probably male voices when females are speaking and kind of bugs never before seen in any other game.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

They don't need full VA.

They need to hire a an actual encounter designer if they aim to compete with BG3.

Interns going over maps and filling every single spot with a copypasta mob ain't gonna do.

 

[ArchAngel]

They don't need full VA.

They need to hire a an actual encounter designer if they aim to compete with BG3.

Interns going over maps and filling every single spot with a copypasta mob ain't gonna do.

Well Bg1 and Bg2 were full of copypasta mobs, we didn't mind then. Older games were all about copypasta mobs in their 1000 dungeons and that was all they offered.
I still prefer copypasta mobs than bear sex and dating simulators like BG3.

 

[dukeofwoodberry]

They don't need full VA.

They need to hire a an actual encounter designer if they aim to compete with BG3.

Interns going over maps and filling every single spot with a copypasta mob ain't gonna do.

Well Bg1 and Bg2 were full of copypasta mobs, we didn't mind then. Older games were all about copypasta mobs in their 1000 dungeons and that was all they offered.
I still prefer copypasta mobs than bear sex and dating simulators like BG3.

The bear sex has nothing to do with copypasta mobs. BG3 encounter design is better. It's more fun and strategic. It's an advancement from 20-30 year old games. And yes it takes a lot more work, time and resources to do that kind of encounter design. Totally separate issue from the story and companion cringe

 

[ArchAngel]

They don't need full VA.

They need to hire a an actual encounter designer if they aim to compete with BG3.

Interns going over maps and filling every single spot with a copypasta mob ain't gonna do.

Well Bg1 and Bg2 were full of copypasta mobs, we didn't mind then. Older games were all about copypasta mobs in their 1000 dungeons and that was all they offered.
I still prefer copypasta mobs than bear sex and dating simulators like BG3.

The bear sex has nothing to do with copypasta mobs. BG3 encounter design is better. It's more fun and strategic. It's an advancement from 20-30 year old games. And yes it takes a lot more work, time and resources to do that kind of encounter design. Totally separate issue from the story and companion cringe

Of course it is connected. Both games try to fill 100h of content. BG3 has 40h of custom unique combat and 60h of cringe romance shit. Owlcat has 40h of custom unique combat and 60h of copypasta combat. I still prefer Owlcat design.

 

[Rhobar121]

Any defense of Owlcat's project borders on masochism.
The fact that the game is 90% focused on fighting the same 12 enemies with different names (they didn't even change their colors).
AI is at the BG1 level.
Shitty and broken mechanic implementation.
Statistics inflated to the limit.
It's 2024, not 2004, and defending something for a studio that supposedly has some aspirations is stupid.
Even DOS1 probably had more unique enemies than WotR and those were the times when Larian was on the verge of bankruptcy.
At this point it's just laziness and nothing more.

 

[ArchAngel]

Any defense of Owlcat's project borders on masochism.
The fact that the game is 90% focused on fighting the same 12 enemies with different names (they didn't even change their colors).
AI is at the BG1 level.
Shitty and broken mechanic implementation.
Statistics inflated to the limit.
It's 2024, not 2004, and defending something for a studio that supposedly has some aspirations is stupid.
Even DOS1 probably had more unique enemies than WotR and those were the times when Larian was on the verge of bankruptcy.
At this point it's just laziness and nothing more.

Sure, in Act 3 of RT it does seem you are fighting same 10 enemies but overall there is a lot of different enemies to fight.

 

[Sweeper]

Owlcat, we don't give a shit

What's this we shit? Sit down boy, you're no longer the target audience. They're chasing after that BG3 money now.

 

[lycanwarrior]

It wasn't full voice acting that made BG3 attractive to casual rpg fans. It was the 1000 hours of smooth motion capture used on NPCs, companions and the PC. There are many crpgs that had full voice acting and weren't nearly as successful as BG3. How those retards are drawing the wrong lessons again and again???

But doing motion capture is much more expensive than doing voice acting, so that's why those cheap fucks say they will just do voice acting.

Look at the pitiful state of owlcat animations. 3 games in a row and still reusing the same free animations present in the mixamo library. That's why when they tried to go the cinematic route in the Rogue Trader it fails spectacularly in a laughable way.

BG3 has a silent protagonist for most of the game.

Don't want or need motion capture, considering how incredibly expensive that is. Even for Sony if the leaked budget for SM2 is any indication...

 

[Crichton]

I'm not sure how much difference the quality of the motion capture/animations makes, but I was thinking about this after reading the translation of the interview and I think there's something to this association between BG3's success and the dialog presentation, but many developers (including Owlcat) are likely to come to the wrong conclusions.

I've been playing through the Solasta expansion Palace of Ice, where the devs ran out of money/giveafuck and many dialogs are now text boxes rather than 3D "cinematic" animated affairs (though still fully voice acted), roughly equivalent to Deadfire. It's difficult to describe how much of a step down this is after you've gotten used to the default Solasta dialogues, which are BG3-like in presentation (though made with a shoestring budget).

Solasta dialogues, even though the animations are bone simple and the voice actors are volunteer renfaire patrons, do a huge amount to boost the game's presentation. By contrast Deadfire's budget-busting 100% voice-acted dialogue boxes were a flop and added basically nothing to the game. Throwing money at the problem isn't going to do a damn thing if the developers/directors/whatever don't actually give a fuck about the product.

Owlcat have to be the poster boys for that with all their unskipable isometric "cutscenes" where text is popping up over character's heads at 0.1 words per minute. How could Arue's quest from Wrath or the Hellknight quest from Kingmaker possibly be improved with voice-acting?

To the points above about motion capture, I've played through Solasta and BG3 twice and I would say Solasta is about as good in terms of presentation, but you'll notice it didn't attract anything like the same attention. I think rather than smoother animations, BG3's advantage stems from the use of an established franchise and all the hooks to draw in zoomers, fuckable NPCs, recruitable pets, dolly-dress up outfits and the like. Now some of that will cost, but I recommend the principle reason zoomers want to fuck Shadowheart rather than Arueshalae isn't super mocap, it's looking at a proper 3d model of a woman's face rather than a 1024x1024 portrait. Voice acting does also matter (the girl playing Shadowheart did a bang-up job), but putting that same voice-acting into a portrait+dialogue box would have been good for nowt.

 

[JarlFrank]

I've been playing through the Solasta expansion Palace of Ice, where the devs ran out of money/giveafuck and many dialogs are now text boxes rather than 3D "cinematic" animated affairs (though still fully voice acted), roughly equivalent to Deadfire. It's difficult to describe how much of a step down this is after you've gotten used to the default Solasta dialogues, which are BG3-like in presentation (though made with a shoestring budget).

Am I weird for considering it a huge step up?
Reading text boxes is so much more comfortable than having the dialog delivered line by line with voice acting.

 

[Crichton]

I've been playing through the Solasta expansion Palace of Ice, where the devs ran out of money/giveafuck and many dialogs are now text boxes rather than 3D "cinematic" animated affairs (though still fully voice acted), roughly equivalent to Deadfire. It's difficult to describe how much of a step down this is after you've gotten used to the default Solasta dialogues, which are BG3-like in presentation (though made with a shoestring budget).

Am I weird for considering it a huge step up?
Reading text boxes is so much more comfortable than having the dialog delivered line by line with voice acting.

I think for Pillars-style encyclopedia entries, reading through them is definitely superior; no one wants to listen to an audiobook in the middle of their cRPG. However for single sentences of dialog, I can't see any advantage for (dialog box + voice acting) over (skipable animated and voice-acted line + subtitles).

 

[JarlFrank]

I never said I prefer dialog box + voice acting.
I said I prefer dialog box without voice acting.

 

[the mole]

honestly full voice acting would be ok, but, but but, them working on 4 games at once and they want full voice acting on all of them whatever they may be, seems a bit stretched thin no

4 60 dollar titles with 1/4 the content each, fun

 

[Azdul]

Can't they just use AI for voice-over? I mean it does a decent job at mimicking voices nowadays.

Even korean gacha aimed at permacoomers get thrown to the flames when it's found out that they used AI. Apologies are written and AI stuff is replaced by man made materials. Imagine what would happen if a dev with AA 1/2 aspirations gets caught using AI.

You only get apologies from people who got caught. And you only get caught if technology is not good enough.

Investing in good voice actors means you'll have to pay them again - most likely more - for your next project. Investing in technology means that VO for the next project are free.

OFC VO cost pennies when compared to hundreds of hours of optional cutscenes. Larian had to hire hundreds of animators in 3rd world countries - but I'm pretty sure that in few years text prompt concerning inter-species romantic encounter will be sufficient to generate good quality animation data.

 

[the mole]

robots are our friends, I don't understand why you would be mad at a robot just for doing its job

 

[TheDarkUrge]

Can't they just use AI for voice-over? I mean it does a decent job at mimicking voices nowadays.

Even korean gacha aimed at permacoomers get thrown to the flames when it's found out that they used AI. Apologies are written and AI stuff is replaced by man made materials. Imagine what would happen if a dev with AA 1/2 aspirations gets caught using AI.

You only get apologies from people who got caught. And you only get caught if technology is not good enough.

Investing in good voice actors means you'll have to pay them again - most likely more - for your next project. Investing in technology means that VO for the next project are free.

OFC VO cost pennies when compared to hundreds of hours of optional cutscenes. Larian had to hire hundreds of animators in 3rd world countries - but I'm pretty sure that in few years text prompt concerning inter-species romantic encounter will be sufficient to generate good quality animation data.

India is not a 3rd world country they're a superpower

And owlcat should stop releasing their game before it's playable if they want more sales. People actually preordering a broken game for the 4th time in a row have to be the dumbest animals imaginable (I did it too but RT is the only game I didnt pirate)

 

[The Jester]

The anime vision of fantasy. No thanks. Give me a solemn knight in blackened mail and magic that is mysterious by virtue of its wonder rather than its ability to mimic a modern artillery weapon

So Berserk?

 

[Ravenswood]

I've been playing through the Solasta expansion Palace of Ice, where the devs ran out of money/giveafuck and many dialogs are now text boxes rather than 3D "cinematic" animated affairs (though still fully voice acted), roughly equivalent to Deadfire. It's difficult to describe how much of a step down this is after you've gotten used to the default Solasta dialogues, which are BG3-like in presentation (though made with a shoestring budget).

Your problem is you were actually reading the dialogue in Solasta. Just spam space and get into the dungeons ASAP.

 

[jungl]

Are we seriously pretending bg3 had good combat? 5e plus larians house rules made the combat a waste of time filler could not stomach finishing the game how bad it was. Also the illusion of choice was lol bad all you did was choose what map/level you load into next like your playing left 4 dead or a cheap game for kids bg3 was larping as a epic roleplaying game. Oh god larians 5e gimicky itemization belongs in a nightmare. Game was a colossal failure outside of interesting characters and it even handled that poorly with the badly implemented approval system.

 

[Ravenswood]

Are we seriously pretending bg3 had good combat? 5e plus larians house rules made the combat a waste of time filler could not stomach finishing the game how bad it was. Also the illusion of choice was lol bad all you did was choose what map/level you load into next like your playing left 4 dead or a cheap game for kids bg3 was larping as a epic roleplaying game. Oh god larians 5e gimicky itemization belongs in a nightmare. Game was a colossal failure outside of interesting characters and it even handled that poorly with the badly implemented approval system.

If you look up any choice in BG3 on a wiki after making the choice, you will quickly realize how shallow it all is. No idea how people are doing multiple playthroughs of this. Probably just excited about the difference between bear themed sex scenes, frog themed sex scenes, and tentacle themed sex scenes.

 

[cpmartins]

Can't they just use AI for voice-over? I mean it does a decent job at mimicking voices nowadays.

Even korean gacha aimed at permacoomers get thrown to the flames when it's found out that they used AI. Apologies are written and AI stuff is replaced by man made materials. Imagine what would happen if a dev with AA 1/2 aspirations gets caught using AI.

You only get apologies from people who got caught. And you only get caught if technology is not good enough.

Investing in good voice actors means you'll have to pay them again - most likely more - for your next project. Investing in technology means that VO for the next project are free.

OFC VO cost pennies when compared to hundreds of hours of optional cutscenes. Larian had to hire hundreds of animators in 3rd world countries - but I'm pretty sure that in few years text prompt concerning inter-species romantic encounter will be sufficient to generate good quality animation data.

India is not a 3rd world country they're a superpower

And owlcat should stop releasing their game before it's playable if they want more sales. People actually preordering a broken game for the 4th time in a row have to be the dumbest animals imaginable (I did it too but RT is the only game I didnt pirate)

Anyways, I don't think they need to compete with BG3, seeing BG3 released last year. They'll keep doing what they're doing and be fine for it.

 

[scytheavatar]

Are we seriously pretending bg3 had good combat? 5e plus larians house rules made the combat a waste of time filler could not stomach finishing the game how bad it was. Also the illusion of choice was lol bad all you did was choose what map/level you load into next like your playing left 4 dead or a cheap game for kids bg3 was larping as a epic roleplaying game. Oh god larians 5e gimicky itemization belongs in a nightmare. Game was a colossal failure outside of interesting characters and it even handled that poorly with the badly implemented approval system.

Still better combat than WOTR, at least the AI targets your backline in BG3.

 

[Ravenswood]

Are we seriously pretending bg3 had good combat? 5e plus larians house rules made the combat a waste of time filler could not stomach finishing the game how bad it was. Also the illusion of choice was lol bad all you did was choose what map/level you load into next like your playing left 4 dead or a cheap game for kids bg3 was larping as a epic roleplaying game. Oh god larians 5e gimicky itemization belongs in a nightmare. Game was a colossal failure outside of interesting characters and it even handled that poorly with the badly implemented approval system.

Still better combat than WOTR, at least the AI targets your backline in BG3.

The problem with WOTR isn't even the AI. It is the encounter design. I remember having to be a lot more protective of my backline in kingmaker than in WOTR, although both could do with better AI.