TenShadows Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 (edited) Okay, that might sound like a strange suggestion for a mod, but bear with me here. Can you even count how often you have heard two people with the exact same voices talking about how one of them saw a mudcrab once? Do you remember the time when you asked some rumors from a beggar, and the old wheezy crone suddenly developed a smooth and classy voice like the best of noblemen? You must have noticed how almost no character in the game has any personality to speak of, because most of their lines are recycled in between one another and taken from a ridiculously small pool? Let's face it: Oblivion's voice acting is atrocious. It doesn't help with the immersion at all, and at least for me actually hurts it like an arrow to the knee. Giving each and every character in the game a voice is an ambitious thing to do, but with such a small amount of voice actors, being forced to give even them only the bare minimum of things to say, and especially sacrificing NPC personality and likeability for it, makes it all just worse instead of better. It's in a dire need of fixing, and with the game being out for seven years, I am mildly surprised no one seems to have done it yet. So what to do? Removing the voice acting is only a part of the solution, and frankly doesn't even require a mod - just turn the voice volume to zero. No, the real fun comes in replacing the whole thing, and taking the opportunity to bring back what was taken away! Here's what I suggest: - Morrowind-style text boxes. Instead of a bunch of text lines that are there only for some time, or that you need to click through several times if you've already read it all and need to get over with it fast, you have the classic choice of a box with all the text on it, like Morrowind and many other RPGs have done. It will stick around for as long as you need, and unlike with the text dia show, you could fill it with as much wall of text as you would like, and add in much more rumors and other topics when you no longer need to voice act them all. - More personality. This arrangement will allow you to bring in an infinite amount of unique stuff to say for each character, again just like how it was in Morrowind. Now, I'm not saying that Morrowind's characters were all paragons of deep personality and memorable characterization, but you had a few people such as Crassius Curio that I'm sure we all know and love. But with a bunch of dedicated fans, we could theoretically go and personalize all the NPCs in the game. - Character gestures and emotion. Oblivion's face system does an adequate job of showing how a character feels about a given situation, but quite frankly it is still rather awkward and clunky, not to mention buggy. But if we have pure text, we can easily add this sort of stuff in too, like [You can see he is uncomfortable to talk about the subject], or [umbacano's eyes light up as he sees the item]. First initiating conversation would get you a little short introduction such as [You see an old, grizzled redguard warrior. He glares at you and seems to have little patience with you.], or [You see Dar-Ma. She appears frightened and more than ready to leave this place.]. - Portraits. This one's really just purely optional, but if we got a bunch of talented artists on board, we could draw a few pictures for some of the more notable NPCs in the game, how they would look like if the rather simple NPC graphics system allowed them more detail and unique appearances. Could even make several of them for each, to show happiness, anger, and other emotion, if we really got this thing going. - NPC chatter. Another opportunity to give them some personality and things to say, but with the voice acting gone, you'd just have to go close to them to "hear" what they're saying - i.e. have it appear where it usually does. Could even get the bandits to talk about bandit stuff like loot distribution and how much fun it is to beat up merchants, rather than more mudcrab chatter. - Speechcraft minigame. Honestly, we could just keep the original faces visible for this and not change anything, but we could also take up the opportunity to completely revamp it. It's kind of silly and arbitrary, after all, and it feels weird to have to joke with a guy and then threaten him on the very next word. I can't do mods myself. I have no idea how to program things, or work with all the applications and stuff, and have far too little time and patience to learn any of it. So all I can ever do is to make a post about it on a forum and hope for the best. I might be willing to write some dialogue if this got going, though. So yeah, anyone else even remotely interested? Or am I really the only one that's at all bothered by voice acting? Please don't drive me out of town. Edited August 9, 2013 by TenShadows Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashpaper Posted September 15, 2013 Share Posted September 15, 2013 I totally agree with everything you've said here. Seems I saw a mod that even includes the voice of Garrett from the Thief game series, and that it claimed to address this exact issue with diverse voice talent, but I can't find it. It might not be something available from this website. If I find it and it's useable, I'll let you know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanceor Posted September 16, 2013 Share Posted September 16, 2013 Just turn on subtitles and turn the voice volume to zero... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMastersSon Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 From what I've read a lot of things were scaled back for budget reasons in Obvlivion, I think voice acting was toward the top of the list. :) IMO they should have avoided the celebrity pitfall and put that money toward more actors. It's amazing how voice acting can make or break a game, e.g. the original Myst had laughably simple graphics, but the voice acting made it worth playing for a lot of people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashpaper Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 I agree. Actually, MYST to me did everything right. The tech at the time, the music, the voice acting, the cut scene quicktime acting, and a very unique and intriguing storyline. I've actually met Rand Miller and crew on a few occassions. I think the small, personal nature of CYAN had something to do with their initial success. Oblivion is one beautiful game for sure. I was telling my wife it reminded me of MYST in some some ways...but the voice acting. Ouch. Turn the voices down to zero and turn on subtitles. :) I also agree with the opinion that they should have taken those dollars spent on celebrity voice acting at put it elswhere (or is it elswyre?). Now, if I could just figure out why I can no longer get into Bruma, where I live, without it freezing up after I kill a bandit in the countryside. None of the "statue killer" stuff works for me. Bet it's a mod issue. I feel a separate thread coming on! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doeetfgt Posted October 5, 2013 Share Posted October 5, 2013 Hm, as an amateur writer and fan of the TES games, I think that's a wonderful idea, and I'd be ready to help with the writing and reviewing if need be. I'd love the Morrowind quest indications to come back! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
severr Posted November 15, 2013 Share Posted November 15, 2013 (edited) There is a dialogue mod for oblivion that adds a lot more dialogue to each npc http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/25091/?But keep in mind that it is known to conflict with windfall. Edited November 15, 2013 by severr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TenShadows Posted April 21, 2014 Author Share Posted April 21, 2014 There is a dialogue mod for oblivion that adds a lot more dialogue to each npc http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/25091/?But keep in mind that it is known to conflict with windfall.Worth a try considering I don't use Windfall. Then again, my Oblivion's crashy enough already... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts