Tav's male voices just sound wrong on any rugged dwarven adventurer. Not the biggest priority in the world, and I figure it's expensive to fix, but hell Larian I'll do it myself for pennies. I can voice act this part myself just to have it.
I dunno, I kinda like the non-stereotypical dwarf voice. One think I liked in DA was how all the dwarves had American accents. It set them apart in a small way. (maybe a German accent? Or maybe they'll just sound depressed all the time :P)
BTW, I want to see more ELVES with a Scottish accent, after watching The Dragon Prince. And at least one attempting a southern drawl.
Lover of non-haughty elves and non-smutty lesbian romance "1404. I will not spoil the adventure's mandatory ambush by using the cheesy tactic of a "scout"." - From "Things Mr. Welch is no longer allowed to do in a (tabletop) RPG"
I like the gravely sounding dwarf also... if they dont at least have the option... shame!
Seems just about every game ive played that had a voice option at all had more that two choices... if this is all they plan on offering, hopefully they will have a mute/text only option...
But yeah, I honestly can't understand why they are holding back on the Voice Sets.
I really get the impression that they have more material, which they simply decided not to include because they want to have it at release. Like maybe they think they're really going to wow us with the full release, when we breathe a collective sigh of relief that they finally included all the stuff that we expected to be included.
But that just seems pretty ass backwards to me. Holding the honeyed wine in reserve while we spend months chewing sour grapes, just so it'll taste sweeter later? Some EA players will probably just dip from early access disappointment before it gets there and not even bother picking it up again. Do it to get us excited now instead. That'd be way cooler
Its hard to imagine they haven't recorded more voice set assets yet for the barks, but if so why not push them out? And if not, then they need to get on it ASAP! Cause it kind of matters if you hate the sound of your own voice. It makes it hard to get excited about another play through when you only have 2 voice sets to choose from. Typically out of a list of a dozen voice barks, I'm hard pressed to find even one that I like in most games, so what are the odds they nail it on a 50/50 shot? Not great, that's all I'm saying. We need variety here.
I really thought the patches would be way more substantial than what we've seen from the first 3, or maybe less substantial but way more frequent.
Clock is ticking on an Xmas patch drop. Like at least throw us some coal?
I want to hear someone who sounds like they smoke like a chimney, just choking on gravel. Are you gruff enough?
I also want to hear someone who sounds like Mako in the preamble to Conan the Barbarian
I want to hear someone who's perpetually annoyed with the entire universe, cause who could resist that? heheh
Like just target 24 voice sets, and don't make us a wait a year for it. Unless that year was 2020, and you're going make some wishes come true for 2021
VA barks might cost a bit of cheddar, but its money well spent. People fall in love with the voices. Truly
Give some amateurs a shot if you have to, but it would be nice to get the barks from any talent you have or can call on. Maybe someone goes on to have a kick ass acting career, or become like legends and lore status Heidi Shannon. Stop gap, surely all the origin barks are done right? Put those in so we can least steal their voice for custom PCs?
EA is essentially meant for play testing various mechanics and features of a game. Voice acting is one of the areas that generally needs little to no testing - record, install and go. I would expect additional voice acting to be at the bottom of the list for EA - something that can easily be handled closer to full release, rather than early on, when the vast bulk of time needs to focus on things that actually need testing and development.
I'd much rather see additional levels, classes, races, spells, feats, skills, items, combat actions, camera and movement mechanics, and a boat-load of other features tested at this stage in development, than more voices.
Hmm, I would be surprised if they are added more voice sets - the sheer volume of voiced lines if they really are going to make all cinematics voiced is huge - and I think they are still counting on us falling in love with their pregenerated characters. Since you can play as origin characters they have all the dialog options that your custom character has which would put us at 9 full voiced sets and that doesn't include later characters that still can take over conversations. In short, this is going to be one of the most massive efforts in game history when it comes to voiceover, probably along the lines if not even surpassing SWTOR, without being a endless live service to bring in the cash.
I'm also certain we ain't going to see the full voiced main protagonist until very late to reduce voice over corrections.
This on the other hand makes the voices a bit dispointing as for me both sets of male and female voices sound too similar. On top of that it makes me resent the origin characters even more for once again character customization was sacrificed to diverge resources to them.
EA is essentially meant for play testing various mechanics and features of a game. Voice acting is one of the areas that generally needs little to no testing - record, install and go. I would expect additional voice acting to be at the bottom of the list for EA - something that can easily be handled closer to full release, rather than early on, when the vast bulk of time needs to focus on things that actually need testing and development.
I'd much rather see additional levels, classes, races, spells, feats, skills, items, combat actions, camera and movement mechanics, and a boat-load of other features tested at this stage in development, than more voices.
I disagree. Not about what I'd rather see (cause clearly everything you listed I'd rather have too). But I disagree on the purpose of the EA, or at least of the early EA.
I think that the EA is essentially about raising money, which they have done, and which they should now spend on creating simple straightforward content like Voice Barks. Stuff that would reward us for showing out, testing, bug squashing, and providing feedback for their game for the past 3 months.
We need incentives to keep playing the same material over and over again. Voice set barks are relatively easy, "additional levels, classes, races, spells, feats, skills, items, combat actions, camera and movement mechanics" are much more difficult to implement. Which is why they should get on the phone with the person on their team in charge of the recording studio, and deliver on something that can be done relatively quickly but which will give a decent return from the players' POV, by encouraging engagement in replay.
They should also prioritize patching in additional content which becomes immediately available and is highly visible to the player, like stuff in Character creation or in the UI, or content in the earlier sections of the game when possible. So that their EA players see it right away (not after 2 hours of playing). That way when they see new stuff they will get excited, want to roll new toons, and continue playtesting the game. So its more likely that whatever is actually busted further along into the playthrough gets reported and tested out properly. So I can spend more time enjoyably replaying the actual game, rather than on these forums pining.
But that's just my take. Like honestly, how hard is it get the voice barks done? Why should this wait? Hire some actors hand 'em a single sheet with a dozen bark lines, hit record and lets go.
We don't need cinematics for this, we don't need endgame dialogue to already be mapped out. What little there is of voiced protagonist dialogue isn't synced anyway and its virtually non existent already. They should focus on barks, because that's what we hear first and most often, and its what gives the audible flavor to the custom PC right now. Let them figure out how far they want to take Voiced protagonist later on a year from now or whenever, but in the meantime more barks.
Why would you record voice sets for barks that won't be supported with the cinematics later on? How will the player know which voice sets are just to make EA more fun and which will be part of the full synchronisation? Sounds like a receipe for disappointments.
Again adding the full set of voices is going to be a lot of work especially in this case as there is no limitation to where voices are used. For example SWTOR had only the planet's story shared (and only per faction), but all the class stories had only 2 voices (male and female) to support. Most side quest had barely any longer sentences from the players. Now think what happens if you need to change content and suddenly for one line you need to call in a dozen voice actors? Also sounds use a significant amount of diskspace as they can't be cut in modular parts like graphic assets.
When it comes to supporting EA... I agree that most of the changes they have given so far are only interesting for a minimal group of players who think they are deeply involved into the development process, but for most of us there was no reason to replay the game. Personally I can barely make it through the inital squence of the game with a second character as there are a lot of things that make me cringe, but I'm trying to take the evil route. Sadly there is nothing except the evil quest outcomes that might motivate me, since in my first playthough I played a ranger and there is exactly 0 novelty in playing again. I know the classes, I can try different subclasses though only to a limited degree (some are ineffiencent, some are blocked as your cleric and warlock have them already choosen,...), overall it adds nothing to play the game a second time.
On the other hand I don't want the pressure on the development team to be 'ENTERTAIN US!' - they should be focused on the development. If they are willing to make real changes and it takes more time, I am all for it and a lot more interested in those results than having fun with EA. But so far its non of both. The game barely changed, my biggest gripes with the game don't seem to be at all on Larian's roadmap.
When it comes to supporting EA... I agree that most of the changes they have given so far are only interesting for a minimal group of players who think they are deeply involved into the development process, but for most of us there was no reason to replay the game.
This is a rather bold statement. How do you know it's true for most?
Lover of non-haughty elves and non-smutty lesbian romance "1404. I will not spoil the adventure's mandatory ambush by using the cheesy tactic of a "scout"." - From "Things Mr. Welch is no longer allowed to do in a (tabletop) RPG"
Look at the number of users here on the board and players overall. Its not even BG3 specific it happens even with full game releases. After the first couple of weeks the interest drops significantly. But feel free to prove me wrong that there is as much interest in the last updates as in the first hot-fixes.
Tyrion was a human being not a dwarf. Besides, we don't reference that show which was completely ruined.
Dwarf is a real term used historically for little people and the way it was imagined for GOT - and even in DnD, elves, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes are all technically humans because they can all produce successful offspring - they vary like Neanderthals and Denisovans differed from Cro-Magnon.
Why would you record voice sets for barks that won't be supported with the cinematics later on? How will the player know which voice sets are just to make EA more fun and which will be part of the full synchronisation? Sounds like a receipe for disappointments.
Again adding the full set of voices is going to be a lot of work especially in this case as there is no limitation to where voices are used. For example SWTOR had only the planet's story shared (and only per faction), but all the class stories had only 2 voices (male and female) to support. Most side quest had barely any longer sentences from the players. Now think what happens if you need to change content and suddenly for one line you need to call in a dozen voice actors? Also sounds use a significant amount of diskspace as they can't be cut in modular parts like graphic assets.
When it comes to supporting EA... I agree that most of the changes they have given so far are only interesting for a minimal group of players who think they are deeply involved into the development process, but for most of us there was no reason to replay the game. Personally I can barely make it through the inital squence of the game with a second character as there are a lot of things that make me cringe, but I'm trying to take the evil route. Sadly there is nothing except the evil quest outcomes that might motivate me, since in my first playthough I played a ranger and there is exactly 0 novelty in playing again. I know the classes, I can try different subclasses though only to a limited degree (some are ineffiencent, some are blocked as your cleric and warlock have them already choosen,...), overall it adds nothing to play the game a second time.
On the other hand I don't want the pressure on the development team to be 'ENTERTAIN US!' - they should be focused on the development. If they are willing to make real changes and it takes more time, I am all for it and a lot more interested in those results than having fun with EA. But so far its non of both. The game barely changed, my biggest gripes with the game don't seem to be at all on Larian's roadmap.
Its possible we want something a little different out of the game. I enjoy SWTOR was well, but think it would be a mistake for Larian to attempt a fully voiced protagonist. I simply don't belive they will be able to pull it off even remotely to my satisfaction. SWTOR had the Star Wars cinematic experience to lean on, as well as a constant revenue stream from subscription. They also offered a rather high degree of visual character customization to offset the fact that your toon had only one voice option per class/gender choice. SWTOR had a level of visual customization which, from what I've seen so far, probably isn't going to be present in BG3, no matter how much I wish it was.
The reason I want barks, is also to take the pressure off this cinematic streak in Baldur's Gate. To prove that for many people, (peeps like me) it is not necessary. Otherwise full VO cinematics are going to be a megamaid sized vacuum sucking up like all their resources for months and months.
The fact that they haven't even been able to sync the VO for the progloue inspires next to no confidence that this is something they should attempt. But if they do, I have a solution there maybe...
Have the first Voice Set (the default set) be for a full VO Tav and every other voice set option below it understood in BG1/2 terms, e.g. Barks only and text based convo.
I am part of the group that would prefer not to hear my protagonist at all, as I think it is totally immersion breaking and the most massive development bottle neck imaginable, as well as being a total impediment to the game's writers being able to do what they need to do. But I know some people really do want full VO. I just think it borders on insanity for a D&D game of this sort. To say nothing of foreign language sales. Even if the animation is bad enough to accommodate overdubs, like a cartoon, I don't want it for my main. For CHARNAME silent era subtitles work perfectly fine for me. I'd rather they focus the VO on companions and NPCs, not the protagonist.
I thought Larian already confirmed fully voiced main characters?
Regarding cinematics... right now they are just... yeah... but like it was pointed out by the guy that made the cinematics review video (I'm ashamed that I don't remember his name) the whole presentation does make sense for the orgin characters and them being voiced since you as a player know next to nothing about them and seeing their reaction actually gives you some insight in the character you are playing. Now put the promise ontop that 'the custom characters' won't be a worse experience than the origin ones' - and I see Larian have already made their bed or they will give critics just ammo to complain.
The split in Tav's voice and barks can only make sense to a user who read our conversation - if you see it without explanation in the character creation you would be at the least confused, but more likely complaining about it being a bug
I have to admit I don't like the postion Larian put themselves into by wasting the resources on orgin characters. Are more traditional approach to them being just NPCs that might step into conversations instead of having to have the full dialog recorded would have left a lot more resources for several voice sets that in my opinion would make a lot more sense when using cinematics. Coming from the old RPGs myself I don't mind the unvoiced mains up until you put them into cinematics - those simply don't work as they are now. So for me its either properly voiced or no cinematics. The way they are now (and they were in DAO) they just kill any moment they were building up to.
If they need to do full VO to satisfy the broader player base I would prefer that be left to just the Origin characters, given what they've already sunk into it. If they really do make 8 Origins that should be enough to satisfy those players. Maybe one of them should be a gruff Dwarf.
If the Custom PC elects to use an Origin voice set and experience full VO that's fine. There could be a check box at launch, or in the settings to change voice sets. And many other things in the character creator that are largely cosmetic.
But I hope they don't foist this full VO on every custom PC, and then give us only one or two voices for everyone. That would be a bummer for me
Hehe Dotmats that was his name. Living legend that one
Yeah, they at least need to make the 2 male and 2 female voices far more distinct. A this point I have a hard time guessing where they want to go with the custom characters overall. So far calling them lackluster would be close to praising them, but bringing them to the origins' level sounds like an absurd amount of work.
