Why Voice Acting Sucks

[Jason]

<p>The latest edition of <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/7588-Experienced-Points-Voice-vs-Choice" target="_blank">Experienced Points</a> has Shamus Young complaining that fully voiced dialogue in modern RPGs leads to fewer dialogue and quest options while not adding much to the player's experience.</p>
<blockquote>But here is the kicker: Watch anyone play these fully-voiced RPG's, and you'll see they click right through the voice acting. People can read a lot faster than they can talk, and so players end up hearing just the first six words of every sentence. Unless the actor is Patrick Stewart or Liam Neeson, people aren't going to sit still while an NPC rattles on. We've lost so much in the way of freedom and depth, and in return we've gained voice acting that everyone is in a hurry to skip.

The thinking is that voice acting adds to the immersion of a game. And while that's true during certain epic, plot-centric moments, in general the voice acting can really get in the way during the 95% of the game that isn't driving the main plot. It really shatters immersion when you walk down the street and hear the exact same voice coming from a beggar, the town guards, an aristocrat, a shopkeeper, and a shiftless dock worker.</blockquote>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/" target="_blank">The Escapist</a></p>

 

[Sceptic]

Did the Escapist suddenly go back 3 years in time? This is the best article they've done since early 2007. The parts you highlighted are spot on but there's some good stuff on page 1 too.

I never liked fully voiced shit in my RPGs. And yeah I'm one of these people who click through 99% of the voiced dialog (a remnant from clicking through non-voiced dialog I guess). And if the game doesn't let you skip the voiced dialog then it doesn't get played. Voices at key points by good voice actors is the only way to go. PST did this awesomely well. It's the only game where I never skipped voiced dialog and even wished there was MORE of it, especially towards the end.

 

[RampantCoyote]

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!

Okay, I didn't mind it so much in the Baldur's Gate games / Planescape / etc... but they only said like the first two sentences, and then left it for reading.

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

HEAR! HEAR! Well said, old chap, well said!

 

[DraQ]

Yawn.

I have a more concise explanation:

Amount of voiced dialogue per DVD:
[] This much.
Amount of text only dialogue per DVD:
[..............................................................] This much.
Cost of voiced dialogue:
[..............................................................] This much.
Cost of text only dialogue:
[] This much.

 

[Grunker]

A bro at the escapist. Who would've thought?

 

[Jack]

Finally some incline.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Whoa, the comments are surprisingly non retarded (except for the third guy).

Yes. It is. I hate silent protagonists. I understand your reasoning, but I honestly think voice acting in games is absolutely essential to sell it as the next step in media that the industry seems to be trying desperately to do. If it comes down to reading multiple dozen option there are a lot of people, myself included, that'll read until something interesting comes up and click on that because they don't want to spend half an hour deciding on these things.

So I respectfully disagree.

what happen !!!?!?1!

 

[Brotherman Bill]

A bro at the escapist. Who would've thought?

Don't get too exited now, Shamus also thinks Obsidian is in danger of ruining everything that made Fallout 3 great.

 

[roll-a-die]

A bro at the escapist. Who would've thought?

Don't get too exited now, Shamus also thinks Obsidian is in danger of ruining everything that made Fallout 3 great.

He actually likes Fallout 3, yes, but he likes fallout 1 and 2 better, bro. He's more lamenting the fact that they've screwed up most of their games before. In his opinion they are good games, but ruined by bugs and incomplete stories.

If you watch his LP, he likes fallout 3 for the gameplay and freedom(basically that it's a good hiking sim) and any time the "dialogue" starts or an NPC comes on to the screen, they complain and bitch, almost exactly like the codex does.

 

[Ovplain]

Good read.<3

 

[Fat Dragon]

Voice acting can add a lot to a game when done well. See Bloodlines.

The problem is that most devs waste their VO budget on hiring some dumbshit Hollywood celebrity to voice only a few lines, leaving them with only enough left to hire a bunch of amateur voice actors instead of the professionals.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

A bro at the escapist. Who would've thought?

Don't get too exited now, Shamus also thinks Obsidian is in danger of ruining everything that made Fallout 3 great.

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /twentysidedtale/ on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

 

[Phelot]

HOLY SHIT! I can't believe this guy actually wrote this. Nice read and I was just talking about it!

Like I've said, let the player use their imagination, just like in books, a game should give a summary or hint at a disposition of a character.

Until games can match the level of acting that certain movies can do then they shouldn't even fucking try. I don't mind so much an intro voice over just to introduce what the character sounds like, but that's it.

 

[Phelot]

A bro at the escapist. Who would've thought?

Don't get too exited now, Shamus also thinks Obsidian is in danger of ruining everything that made Fallout 3 great.

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /twentysidedtale/ on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

You are forbidden from readin that. It's about you.

 

[Visbhume]

Voice acting also precludes the possibility of less canned, more dynamically generated text responses.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

You are forbidden from readin that. It's about you.

Apparently my computer won't allow me to expose myself to the Escapist.

*caresses PC's screen gently*

 

[Vibalist]

Voice acting can add a lot to a game when done well. See Bloodlines.

to this day I'm still astounded at how good the voice acting in Bloodlines is. aside from the voices done for the secondary characters by the troika devs, it was so fucking amazing. i cant believe this bug ridden piece of shit is the best game i have played since forever.


fuck i miss troka.

 

[Grunker]

Voice acting can add a lot to a game when done well. See Bloodlines.

This is true. A number of characters, Fat Larry for instance, wouldn't have worked without the brilliant VO. Genius characters like Gary are strengthened by it. But isn't Bloodlines a unique example? I can't think of any game that even comes close to Bloodlines' VO.

to this day I'm still astounded at how good the voice acting in Bloodlines is. aside from the voices done for the secondary characters by the troika devs, it was so fucking amazing. i cant believe this bug ridden piece of shit is the best game i have played since forever.


fuck i miss troka.

QFT.

 

[bhlaab]

A bro at the escapist. Who would've thought?

Don't get too exited now, Shamus also thinks Obsidian is in danger of ruining everything that made Fallout 3 great.

Where does he say that? He just says "NWN2 and KotoR2 were fucking broken, I hope this one isn't as well"

 

[Vibalist]

QFT.

 

[DraQ]

Good VOs are good and can add to the game. The problem is when you have to cut the dialogue down so that it can be voiced. And when VO is shitty or repetitive enough for player to just click through it.

In other words: almost always.

 

[Twinkle]

Fully voice acted dialogue is a double-edged sword.

It's reasonable to expect text replied with text and voice replied with voice. On the one hand you have Torment, Fallout, BG etc. On the other - tWitcher, Gothics, Ass Effects. Actually, both approaches are good for what they are, though full voice-acting, while adding to the immershun, limits the possibilities of customizing PC and is heavily biased towards action-with-stats and action-adventure games.

There is a catch, though. Game writers forget that dialogue is about interaction. In that regard games like Dragon Age are the worst of both worlds: every fucking peasant has a voice, companions more than often interrupt conversations, yet you should be content with mostly crappy out of place one-liners. The protagonist becomes the dullest character in the whole story - a total fail of game design.

 

[DraQ]

Fully voice acted dialogue is a double-edged sword.

It's reasonable to expect text replied with text and voice replied with voice. On the one hand you have Torment, Fallout, BG etc. On the other - tWitcher, Gothics, Ass Effects. Actually, both approaches are good for what they are, though full voice-acting, while adding to the immershun, limits the possibilities of customizing PC and is heavily biased towards action-with-stats and action-adventure games.

There is a catch, though. Game writers forget that dialogue is about interaction. In that regard games like Dragon Age are the worst of both worlds: every fucking peasant has a voice, companions more than often interrupt conversations, yet you should be content with mostly crappy out of place one-liners. The protagonist becomes the dullest character in the whole story - a total fail of game design.

On the other hand Witcher or (now something completely different) Wizardry 8 did it superbly right. Can't complain about Divinity 2 (which is a H&S, not an RPG) either.

 

[Phelot]

Fully voice acted dialogue is a double-edged sword.

It's reasonable to expect text replied with text and voice replied with voice. On the one hand you have Torment, Fallout, BG etc. On the other - tWitcher, Gothics, Ass Effects. Actually, both approaches are good for what they are, though full voice-acting, while adding to the immershun, limits the possibilities of customizing PC and is heavily biased towards action-with-stats and action-adventure games.

Yes, it really depends on what the game is trying to do. In the Gothic games (and Risen), there really isn't any room for what the protagonist's personality is since the developers decided for you and then went all out to make it interesting. Which is the key, if it's interesting then it works and you can then make interesting and fun VO dialogue for the NPCs all with the understanding that you aren't going to get choices in dialogue nor long winded rants.

While games like PST and BG may only have an introduction VO which is also ok because even if the voice actor sucks, you can still imagine the style of voice sounding not so much sucky for the rest of the dialogue.

Personally, I can appreciate the first, but much prefer the second. Give me a dialogue screen with a nice portrait at most and give me some nice thought provoking dialogue. Perhaps even let the gameplay be put on hold, let me enjoy the writing and the choices in dialogue without time limits or continuous loops of some animation.