Why Voice Acting Sucks

[Kaanyrvhok]

The solution is shorter games. Give me a 20 hour game with Planescape's dialog. Save your voice acting money and make me yearn for DLC. Its a win win win.

Actually that wouldn't fix anything but thanks

Yes it would. With fewer quest/missions the dialog would be more concentrated. More paths.

 

[markec]

Its not the voice acting that killed RPG-s but 3D graphics. Imagine creating any city of Fallout 1,2 in 3D, it would either take a whole lot of time or they would make them like in F3 a five houses and handful npc-s. At one point 3D become the new cool shit that every game need to have and 2d become obsolete. Both Van Buren and Baldurs Gate 3 would have been released if they didnt spend time creating a new 3D engine, who can say that NWN 1 or 2 look better then BG. Many great non rpg series were also ruined by this transformation like Monkey Island, Simon the Sorcerer and Lords of Realm and lets not forget that today shooter are all about who can make prettiest graphics and not better level design, because that games like Shadow Warrior and Blood are still pinnacle of their genre.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Its not the voice acting that killed RPG-s but 3D graphics. Imagine creating any city of Fallout 1,2 in 3D, it would either take a whole lot of time or they would make them like in F3 a five houses and handful npc-s.

To be fair, in Fallout even big places like the Hub consisted of nothing more than a douzen houses.
For me however, 2D allows for more suspension of disbelieve. It's easier to imagine that what you actually see in the game is just a part of the settlement, the most important areas.

With a city in a 3D game this doesn't work anymore.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

2D doesn't have ugly blurred textures. Also, currently it has much lower system requirements.

 

[Jim Cojones]

It would probably work similar if game used hubs instead of almost continuous world ("almost" because of transition between outdoor areas and indoors).

And, to be precise, there was about 30 houses in Hub.

 

[Sceptic]

I wouldn't cite Polish PS:T as an example of why a professional voice actor is better than normal actor.

What do you mean?

 

[DraQ]

I wouldn't cite Polish PS:T as an example of why a professional voice actor is better than normal actor.

What do you mean?

Awesome is a bad example of bad.

 

[Sceptic]

Well at least the game didn't suffer from horrible localization. That's always something to be thankful for.

 

[Cassidy]

The relevance and priority given to voice-acting is actually something very important to identify the nature of a game, when it serves as an additional hint to the fact that a given game is closer to the passive than to the active spectrum of entertainment and thus is nothing more than another crappy film wrapped inside a collection of dumb mini-games. But then, the problem lies not in the voice acting, but in the basic design and marketing goals.

Voice-acting actually has been used, like bloom-filled GFX, as means to disguise or distract people from a core "gameplay" that is either nonexistent or shit. I consider it very naive to simply think that the sort of game that Bioware, Bethesda and now Obsidian too delivers would be better if it lacked voice acting. It's not a matter of investment, it is a matter of intentional choices to "streamline" and make gameplay easier to balance for anyone, with or without voice acting.

 

[Sceptic]

The relevance and priority given to voice-acting is actually something very important to identify the nature of a game, when it serves as an additional hint to the fact that a given game is closer to the passive than to the active spectrum of entertainment and thus is nothing more than another crappy film wrapped inside a collection of dumb mini-games.

If that were true then all these "closer to passive" games would spend tons of money on stellar voice acting.

Hello DA, Oblivion, ME.......

 

[Cassidy]

I meant it in a quantitative rather than qualitative manner.

 

[Lothers]

Polish Gothic was terrific.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

That said, even though it's hard to judge a language that I don't know, the voices seem to hit the right tone. Deionnara sounded especially close to the original's tone.

True. The translation was quite outstanding in this case - they even managed to convey specific dialect quirks so important in PS:T. Also, I wouldn't cite Polish PS:T as an example of why a professional voice actor is better than normal actor.

On the other hand they fucked up pretty badly in BG1/BG2 to the point where English and Polish voiced characters like Gorion, Nalia, Viconia, etc. seemed to be completely different people in both versions.

 

[Elzair]

Shamus Young is an OK guy. The Escapist doesn't deserve him.

There are articles by Young with which the Codex has heavily disagreed.

Shouldn't there be if the guy has any ability to think for himself? It''s pretty sad when someone's views line up entirely with any particular group's, whether that's a political party's or something like the Codex's.

Anyway, provided they're reasoned articles, we get a lot more value out of having articles we disagree with and can debate, then we do out of having someone come along and publish something we all like, so we can all pat ourselves on the back for thinking the same way as each other and say what a great guy the writer is for thinking like us.

Having said that, I still give the guy Kudos for calling out full voice-overs because of the site where he is doing it. Posting that here would be Captain Obvious. Posting it there is likely to raise some eyebrows among the readership.

Sorry to necro an old thread, but I just had to respond to this. There is a difference between having a conflicting opinion and just being flat out wrong. Read this article he posted.

There are two groups that know how to make a good computer role-playing game: BioWare and Japan.

Fair enough. I might give a nod in the direction of games like Fallout and Planescape: Torment. Not fabulous, but both had a lot of new ideas and took some chances. But in any case, Pixy is right: Americans can’t make good RPG’s. (BioWare is Canadian)

 

[commie]

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.

I click through if there's a ......NPC.......voiced...........by............someone..............who............thinks.............that...............delivering...............lines............in...........a..........deliberate..............and..................pronounced............way............is............like..............real.............people................talk...............and........(AH FUCK IT!) [click]

Polish Gothic was terrific.

This was the first version of Gothic I played and compared to the usual bullshit Polish voice overs it was superb.