Originally Posted by grysqrl
While "NPCs looking lively" does add to the feeling that the world is alive, the kind of "being alive" that the other guys and I are talking about is beyond that. It has to do with the personality of NPCs, the things that they say, the stories that they tell, their history, their reaction to world events, and the way world events happen. These are the things you don't immediately perceive like all the cool animations. They involve more writing. It takes good writing, and it takes reading and playing time to see and appreciate. Voice-overs certainly help add personality to a character, but it takes more than that for the character to feel alive.

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I agree, writing is the most important part here, but writing alone is enough only for some people. Many people, including me, never read popular plays, but we love going to theaters to watch professional actors act in those plays, because the way those actors present their characters is what makes these characters "alive" for us.
Those plays are only fun to watch because the characters are doing something interesting.

You know it's not a question of one thing is more important than the other. Like..it is for me but I see what you mean. Yes, standards changed. Still, if they decided to voice over every single dialogue and add a cutscene to it and that's the reason to loose all those things mentioned on the last 2 pages of this discussion than what's the point? I hope they manage to mix both. I love what they did so far to some extent, of course graphics and animations from Larian are just sweet. But you can't trade graphics over dialogue in Baldur's Gate just like that.

Best example I can give is the first encounter with Astarion. The guy literally jumps on you with a knife. During this time the rest of the party is 100% silent and just looks at you. I guess it will be changed over time cause EA but ....will it?

Will Astarion at some point decide he had enought of Shadowheart's bs and just leave to live in peace? Or at least mention he has problems with her other than " Astarion disaproves " every single time " Shadowheart approves"? Or will it be too expensive to get yet another dialogue and it will be cut off from the game?

Yes, interrupting the game every single time at random moments when one of them has something to say in multiplayer might feel akward and they did the camp only discussions exactly because of it. But at least show a dialogue box to let us know they are talking while our camera is on the other side of the world making us unable to hear them?

Shadowheart at some point due to one of my decisions started screaming at me, saying she had enought and at that point she's ready to die to the tadpole rather than spending one more minute here. That was perfect! Of course I wanted to know that. I need to know it. Why did it happen in the camp? Like if she felt like this she decided to keep it for herself and not let me know during the whole day? Oh I also made a " shadowheart approves" decision that day so just after that dialogue she started a new one. A dialogue where she was " so thankfull to be in this group". Like that made her feel bipolar, dangerous and at most 14 years old.

Eh I could go on like that for hours. Maybe weeks. On one hand they want to show more of the characters, show their emotions in cinematics and close ups. Have a more" alive" dialogue. And precisely for this reason they " cut off the balls" of every single one character in our party.

BG2 had the same problem so they voiced over the first dialogue + the most important parts. Worked well for Viconia. You kinda knew what she felt when being nearly burned alive+ she had time to say a bit more than that. In BG3 they have voice over for all dialogues so...less dialogues. Less of everything. 20 years later. Just mix both. Cinematics and dialogues. Simple ones. It won't interrupt for long if shadowhearts says something, you answer her and she just answers with one line. No cinematic. Just a quick exchange.

Last edited by virion; 19/06/21 07:22 PM.
Alt+ left click in the inventory on an item while the camp stash is opened transfers the item there. Make it a reality.