What are you smoking? *snip*
look you seem woefully uniformed and are responding on emotion. *snip*
You insult and then accuse of responding on emotion. Pick one or the other bud, can't have both.
Corona causes compromises? Correct, voice over work was absolutely one of them especially back in March/April.
However, where you are wrong, is that yes, you can setup high quality recording studios in your home, if you are so inclined. Many voice over artists have literally done exactly that (
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/n...g-remote-set-ups-working-at-home-1289235). That article is from April 10th, around 5 months of work time before voice recording finished. I'm kind of surprised you didn't know that, given how quick you are to insult my knowledge on the subject.
Alternatively, and hear me out on this since you seem to want to get all emotional on us, Larian could have them record the lines as a studio near the voice actor and transmit the data via the internet. You know, like they did even before Corona virus? Recording studios in Los Angeles reopened all the way back in May/June, months of lead time to record lines.
Trying to argue that technical limitations is why every single voiced line is a British accent is just wrong.
*edit*
Forgot to add. The biggest reason you're wrong (that British accents had to be used due to technical limitations imposed by Corona) is that the voice over artists they used are incredibly talented people. If Larian had instructed Neil Newbon (the voice of the nearly painfully British Astarion) to give him a French accent instead, I am 100% confident he could have done it. Or hell, make it a Russian accent like he got paid to do for Resident Evil 3 (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYwN1yDKvYE). You are insulting the voice over artist by implying they couldn't have done other accents.
grow up. The cost of renting out multiple studios so that you can be happy with the voice acting is height of self entitlement. Did you read the article most of the people talking are talking about experiments not actual up and running set ups. And why haven't i seen and developers praising how they have all their sound recoding being done from home? because after this article was written they realized the variance between one recording from one actor was to different from the recording from another actor. This is why you get all actors going to the same recording studio using the same equipment.
look at these quotes from the article and see why you don't hear about this wonderful new "craze" 5 months later..
"With high-end performances, we have to record them in very isolating conditions in recording studios and in motion capture stages,"
"He explains that, most of the time, all the recording equipment and the environments have to match between actors, because they are stitched together to form conversations in games that need to sound like they're in the same space."
"Generally speaking what LaMarr has realized is, "If you have a good mic, then you need a good environment, because a mediocre mic doesn't pick up as much around you," he explains. "If you have a $2,000 mic, you need a $10,000 studio. But if you have a $200 mic, you just need sheets in your closet." He has a recording booth with an office attached to it, which has occasionally caused problems when his computer has made noise, and a client has wanted to pick up his feed from Zoom. There are various kinks. "The biggest problem with [working from] home is that, even in lockdown, neighbors are still having their gardeners come," LaMarr laughs. "There's absolutely no control you can have over that."
"There’s certain games I’ve worked on now where, even the microphones need to be different," Burch says, getting into the nitty-gritty that can be easy to overlook. "For example, if you’re on a motion capture game, the mic placement and type of mic is different than a pure video game. So there are some projects that are thinking about sending a lapel mic, or, [I'm considering if] I need to upgrade. With games, people are always tweaking technology to see how they can get the best performance. You want it to sound consistent with what you’ve already recorded."
You seeing a trend? This article isn't so much a celebration of success but an account of people trying to make the transition and running into problems, but firmly believing they can succeed. And yet is there a follow up how great the gaming industry has made the transition? i have not seen it. All the talk I hear is of developers still using recording studios and thankful when restrictions lifted to allow such work again in some countries.
But sure one article in the Hollywood reporter is 100% enough evidence that the industry could magically turn multiple different recording setups from home into a professional sounding game in a few months so that all the voice actors in the USA could be called upon to make baldur's gate 3. Yeah that seems plausible. i mean that is obviously the way larian should have done it right? i mean why use a motion capture studio / recording studio so you can record in a controlled environment, when you can try to get multiple recordings from multiple different set ups where they don't have complete control of environmental sounds and try to make them all sound like the conversation is happening in the same location? You could just get a bunch of actors near your location and use their talent and control all the variables from a studio. Yeah but why do it the easy way?
Don't you think the only the best actors would be able to do all these wonderful accents you want? And are you aware that the virus screwed up larian's schedule for recording? Don't you think the best talent would be tightly booked so that delays could push the talent you want to be unavailable because they made other commitments? Does that seem reasonable to you?
Wouldn't all these factors create a situation where maybe just maybe they went with the options that got early access up and running with decent Voice acting as fast as possible vs the best possible results but added a further 6 month delay to the game? I don't know seem plausible to me.
unlike you i am willing to accept compromises to the development of the game because of corona virus. And unlike you i don't view the Hollywood reporter as a reliable source of news. And i especially don't take one data point as evidence of a complete and radical change in the industry when i am not hearing any collaborating evidence. maybe i am wrong and your view is right and larian are just idiots who could have created this perfect version of the game you wanted but they just decided not to. I mean that is obviously more likely you are right, then larian did the best they could during a crisis, they could not for see and maybe things are not as good as they could have been without the crisis but.. no you're right larian were just idiots and... or no! they did it to spite you it was all a plan to screw you over with the nasty British accent. yeah that's got to be the real reason
