Voice in Game...

Discussion in 'Archived Topics' started by Lord Baldrith, Jan 28, 2014.

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  1. Lord Baldrith

    Lord Baldrith Avatar

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    Well, It has been discussed a bit about the possibility of voice acting in the game...perhaps from the Devs and Community...Some of us do have decent enough voices...I've listened to Stephen in the Pen series and his voice is awesome...so is RG's Voice!

    I would volunteer to help in something like this...And of course it could be judged by the community and devs if we did some testing for some Alphas...

    What does everyone think?
     
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  2. Skalex

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    I would love to as well. I am sure there are a lot of unique voices and talent in the community.
    I myself have done a bit of voice acting and love to do something like this.

    Maybe the first steps would be to audition or something.. Be given some scripts for different voice styles to audition with.
    Or maybe people could submit their own voices and texts.

    We'd need to know ahead of time the voices they need and texts to actually record.

    Then it would become a matter of recording all of these voices. The problem I see is since it's community based.. We have computer microphones but nothing near sound booth quality.
    We'd almost need volunteer sound engineers from the community to mix the voices into something useable and consistent for submission.

    I just have no clue if Portalarium would have the time of funds to mix and cut it all..

    Love the idea.
     
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  3. Doppelganger [MGT]

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    This was mentioned in another thread and I just don't see voice acting happening in SotA. It is a high expense and would come at the cost of other things. Personally, although voice acting can be nice, I'd rather see the time and $$ spent for far more important things in game.
     
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  4. Ned888

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    I like the idea of some voice acting. Especially for things like ambient sound and listening in on conversations between NPCs.
     
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  5. Skalex

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    Doppleganger, That's why we should see if it's even feasible to do through the community.

    The biggest problem is consistent sound quality if we did it ourselves.
     
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  6. Lord Baldrith

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    Well it is 2014. People do want to see features like this in games...It adds to immersion and can be quite fun and humorous.

    I get tired of reading wall after wall of text in games myself, and it breaks up the game to hear some voice in the game.

    I can't imagine it would be that hard to add voicing to a few things...and the cost of actors is 0 since it would be volunteer basis. They already have what sounds like recorded sound effects in the game. The table saw sounds like a real recording to me...along with the chests and doors...How difficult/expensive would it be to program in? Not sure...I don't do programming.
     
  7. Gabriel Nightshadow

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    Indeed, as stated in the other thread, full voice acting would be prohibitively costly and time consuming. I do think that limited voice acting for a few key events (i.e., introduction, climax, conclusion) for key characters (i.e., Lord British, Fire Lotus, etc.) would still be desirable though.
     
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  8. Kain3

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    Being an audio/visual guy (e.g. I prefer audiobooks to books for some reason). Adding voice acting in a game would require longer amount of time for the devs to record the dialogs and apply them in the game, which could mean that the content would become sparser than what LB would want. Im not saying that it shouldn't be added, only that it would possibly increase the amount of time between content. Now is that bad? Not if the content is substantial and of good quality, but from what I gather RG wants to add content every now and then, slowly building up more of the game even after launch.
     
  9. Curt

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    some voice acting for a couple of the emotes perhaps? /hello
     
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  10. Mystic

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    I had actually contacted Richard early on about this because VO is something I'm actively doing now in my studio. In fact, it was my original intention to do VO work rather than music for SotA when this first started.

    The costs of voice acting are extremely high. To do a game like SotA would require around 2mil if they voiced most of the characters and dialogue. It's not really something that you can just skirt by with either because quality needs to be on the same level and voice work is one of the hardest things to record without proper acoustic treatment and microphones (in fact, I am buying a new isolation chamber at some point this year). To do anything but professional VO would be very very bad for the game, especially when trying to promote it. I would much rather have no VO work than have a product that is done with anything but professional results.
     
  11. Lord Baldrith

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    Well, we are just putting some thoughts out there for the team and community to think about...Weather it's possible for first release or not is the first question...But the possibility to add more for future releases and content expansions of the game would be another question. Why totally discount the possibility of this in game? I think it would be excellent to have this at some point.

    I know there is a limited amount of time for release, and would never ever want to cause that to be pushed out as I'm dying to play this game too :)...But I just think it's something that should be in this game so that it will attract a broader audience and, will add to the game.

    Again, just my .01 :p
     
  12. Lord Baldrith

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    Agreed. I don't want bad quality voice either. I have not professionally done any voice acting, but, I have done alot in my personal life ie albums, story reading etc. I just think it would be worth checking into. They are having contests for story writing, and graphics for the game, why not voice?
     
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  13. Mystic

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    For the same reason I just mentioned: quality issues. How many people on here have the proper setup and equipment to do such? Mel and myself are the only two I know off the top of my head. :p
     
  14. Lord Baldrith

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    Good point...Oh well, just throwing out some ideas :)
     
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  15. Mystic

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    I'd certainly still like to do it myself, but I don't know if that will happen due to the fact that it would be silly to have minimal voices and mostly text. IMO, it would be better just to not have it at all.
     
  16. Lord Baldrith

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    Well I'd buy equipment/software to do it if there was a chance ... just how dedicated I am to this game :)
     
  17. Doppelganger [MGT]

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    These are excellent points. I could imagine community voice acting; people sending in audio files with their Logitech or Labtech microphones running through their Creative audio cards lol. We would end up with voice acting sounding like in-game voice chat via Team Speak or Ventrilo, muffled and low quality. I agree, if there were to be any attempt at voice acting (which I still don't see happening), it would have to be done right, otherwise it would sound cheap and terrible in game.
     
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  18. Shades2585

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    Being, in part, an off-shoot of the discussion in my thread (Thinks Lord Baldrith for starting this.) I support researching into this idea. I know several fan made game that have good quality audio in the games so I personally think that this can be done by people in their homes. Yes quality control would weed out most of them.

    Suggestions of reasonably priced components that contributors can purchase would be helpful. Heck people can set up local weekend voice acting parties if someone has a good quality set up. I think it is something worth exploring at the very least.

    That being said, can the branching conversation implemented in the game support pointers to audio files? We all know that the Unity system can play audio files but the branching conversation is something specifically written for this game so it is unknown if it can do this. If is can't that would kill the whole point of this conversation. If it can then it would be nice to try to make some test files for the Dev's to see what audio quality would be acceptable.
     
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  19. PrimeRib

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    It's not just that it's really expensive. It also needs to be translated. And an online game doesn't exactly ship on an CD and be done...it could be constantly patched. It's an entirely different thing from doing it once in English and shipping it.

    I remember everyone using the Japanese voice packs in Aion, because the actors were so much more talented than any other region, it didn't matter what they were saying.
     
  20. Lord Baldrith

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    I was just thinking about the Unity system for sound...Does it have ways to add sounds in the same way that people can create graphics? I can't draw...Otherwise I would be submitting art-work, but what about voice/sounds in the Unity system? I would ask if it has a module for people to put sound and submit it...
     
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