Preview The Witcher Enhanced: What the game was meant to be

[Oarfish]

That's nothing, FOblivion has ten times more lines.

Which will consist mainly of filler like "I saw a radscorpion today" recorded in 5 different voices.

 

[DefJam101]

Yay, arthouse mode. It should really be an option for more non english games, especially from those with less dedication to quality than cd projekt. A decent textual translation has to be cheaper than voicing something in 8 languages.

Cheaper? Maybe, but I think translating an entire game to have good solid dialog is far more difficult and time-consuming than getting a few people in front of microphones. o_o

 

[Trash]

I'm still kinda puzzled wether they've implemented all the cut dialogues in the expanded edition. Anyone knows?

 

[Claw]

That's nothing, FOblivion has ten times more lines.

I don't give a shit about the number of lines. How many words are in them is what I want to know.

 

[SpaceKungFuMan]

I'm definitely going to play the polish language version, just so that I can more easily read the english while ignoring the voiced dialog. I think voiced dialog is one of the worst things to happen to RPGs. It takes FOREVER to play a game like KOTOR if you actually listen to all the dialog instead of just reading, the extra cost of recording voice leads to shorter games, and the level of risk involved in the game rises with cost, so it discourages more experimental games. Fuck voice acting.

 

[inwoker]

play bloodlines then
edit: and repeat that VO is shitty feature

 

[SpaceKungFuMan]

play bloodlines then
edit: and repeat that VO is shitty feature

Yes, Bloodlines has exceptional voice overs. They do add to the game. But if I had my say, they'd have saved the money they spent on VO and developed the end of the game more fully. While the voices are great, they're not better than having the whole game be more the like beginning. . .

Torment had the most dialog of any game ever and did not suffer from minimal voice acting. I still think text is the way to go. Also, I don't even play JRPG's anymore (I know, I know, I wasn't supposed to play them to begin with) because the voice acting is often so annoying.

 

[Gragt]

I actually wouldn't have minded more voice acting in Torment though certainly not the whole thing. I liked games like NWN2 or Anachronox that used voice acting mostly for important conversations and the rest was only text.

 

[DefJam101]

I don't mind VO if it acting adds something to the game. If the dialogs feel very alive because of it, with characters shifting tones and leaving subtle clues on top of the writing, then it's great. It adds to the experience.

If it's just two people reading off of a script back and forth I don't see any real point of having it, and if extra time could be put into writing then I wouldn't mind seeing it go.

 

[inwoker]

Just like any other game feature VO may be done well and shitty. That is all.
But saying that VO is shit feature by itself and money spent on it must be spent on something else is nonsense. Period.

 

[SpaceKungFuMan]

Just like any other game feature VO may be done well and shitty. That is all.

My point wasn't that it can't add to a game. It's that it is expensive, time consuming, and constrains the amount of dialog (especially alternative dialog) you can include in a game.

 

[inwoker]

Every ascept of game (if done well) is costly and time consuming.
I don't believe VO forces devs to cut dialog. It's lies created by PR department.

 

[JarlFrank]

It only restrains the amount of dialogue you can put into the game if you hire people like Patrick Steward, Sean Bean or Liam Neeson who, of course, will require a lot more payment than professional voice-actors. When you spend millions to hire famous actors just so you can use their name to promote your game, there's of course not much voice-acting budget left for the other dialogue.

 

[Jasede]

Let's give some credit, Patrick is -awesome-. I don't know how well he was in Oblivion though.

I wonder how much they spent on Voice Acting in Bloodlines. They had Bender.

 

[JarlFrank]

Yes, Patrick is awesome, but still... hiring someone as popular as him takes a lot of your budget, while a cheaper professional voice actor would've done the job, too.

Well, to be honest, before Oblivion's release I was one of the persons who suggested that he would be a good choice for voice-acting the emperor, and many others agreed with me about that. That was before the Elder Scrolls forums became retarded, though, and it was more of a "his voice would fit to the emperor's character" instead of "LULZ CAPTIN PIKARD SPEAKS THE EMPEROR THIS IS SO AWESOME ZOMG" like it was when all the hype was released to the fanboys.

 

[Jasede]

I don't really care. But you know, if they made a really awesome RPG I would really love it if he speaks the king. But they won't have the 50000000000000000000000000$ left that 1 minute of Patrick costs by then.

 

[Gragt]

I'd like Max von Sydow as a king.

 

[Zomg]

Yes, Patrick is awesome, but still... hiring someone as popular as him takes a lot of your budget, while a cheaper professional voice actor would've done the job, too.

We need someone to do dev interviews to establish that idea. A total package - real voice casters, real voice directors, etc. - is needed to make a game with genuine interest in VA, like Bloodlines. If you just want to shit out a celebrity name that reads mock Tolkien off a page undirected, I doubt it's a big price premium.

 

[Umbragen]

I'd like Max von Sydow as a king.

King Osric?

"There comes a time, thief, when the jewels cease to sparkle..."

 

[Shoelip]

They should have had Crispen Freeman play Martin. He's really good at playing idealistic characters without sounding whiny. Anyone seen the dub of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex?

They should have had the guy who played Uriel in Daggerfall play him in Oblivion. He was good.

 

[Pegultagol]

Way to go for Witcher getting a well deserved revamp and supporting its user base. And for free, too, amazing value. I would not mind other popular Polish literature being sourced into gaming. There is a lot of talent out there, it seems.

 

[Gragt]

I'd like Max von Sydow as a king.

King Osric?

"There comes a time, thief, when the jewels cease to sparkle..."

"..., when the gold loses its luster, when the throne room becomes a prison, and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

Exactly, now have him in do a voice in a video game and we're cooking with fire.

 

[Mareus]

I don't know about you guys, but voice acting is expensive and very often there is a lot of content that has to be cut out and the writing has to be shortened just so the game would have full voice acting. If you ask me, no voice acting is the way to go for RPGs, or partial voice acting like Fallout or Baldur's Gate, PST.... I know this would be a killer for younger generations of retards who never read a book in their life, but less voice acting could also mean better writing and more content. I know that voice acting is nowdays necessary because of all the cinematic cameras and next gen graphic, but I am against that too. It's not going to happen anytime soon, I know.

Anyway I started playing recently Betrayal at Krondor. The amount of descriptions and quality of writing so amazed me that I got completely into the game despite bad graphic and sound. Good writing can compensate for a lot of things.
On the other hand Bloodlines did it right, but I really wonder how much it cost them and we all know what happened to Troika. I have read somewhere Simpsons uses only 6 voice actors + guests and I am sure we can all agree it doesn't sound like there is only 6 actors. So maybe the solution is to find professional voice actors that could give voices to a lot of characters. Oblivion obviously had bad voice actors.

---EDIT---
I checked wikipedia and Simpsons have 11 main actores + guests. Still quite a small cast if you ask me, considering how many characters there are in Simpsons.

 

[Jasede]

I'd like to say that BaK has very good graphics for its time and -excellent- sound; you must have not had the joy of growing up with these games.

 

[Mareus]

I'd like to say that BaK has very good graphics for its time and -excellent- sound; you must have not had the joy of growing up with these games.

Nope, quite the contrary. I have been growing up with games since the old ZX Spectrum days. I just find the graphics a bit bad due to 3D aproach. I have seen games that came out that same year or previous years that looked better. For example: Conan the Cymerian (1991), Eye of Beholder 1,2,3 (1991-1993) or Lands of Lore (1993).