Text or Dialogue?

[Guest MajinCry]

I was reading another thread, when somebody mentioned that "They should just remove voice acting, text allowed for much more dilogue" (Or something around those lines), and a question popped into me head.

 

Would you play Skyrim / mods of Skyrim that had no voice acting, yet there was much more verbal interaction?

 

Very curious.

 

 

 

Oh, and do discuss.

 

((Edit: If anyone was wondering if there was another reason why I posted this (Liek, nubudy wus), I'm gathering info for mods to make when the CS comes out :P))

Edited December 3, 2011 by MajinCry

[Tardivex]

I would, but as I voted, it better be well written because voice acting just adds so much to the game, don't get me wrong I love reading, but voice acting is just better, ughhh why is it so hard to explain!! One example is Tales of Burning sands Fallout NV mod, both part 1 and 2 are so damn good, god that guy writes so well! But I mean there are other mods in wich theres voice acting and I've actually prefer that way, I don't know what point I've made here (lol) but uhhhh yeaahh... That's it I guess...

[bluekatt]

yes i'd play it

voice acting isnt everything and the dialogue options for every npc would be a lot more varied and deeper instead of the same amount of voice clips you usually get in oblivion

[Brittainy]

Yes, I would definitely play without any voice-acting at all.

 

And I think the 'it had better be good' argument is just as valid in regards to voice-acting as it is to text. While there has been some great voice-acting in some of the games, (Haskill from SI I love you! <3) there has also been some dreadful acting.

 

Either way, I want it well written. And when it comes to more expansive, quality content, I'll take that every time over voices.

 

For example, on the most basic level, getting rid of the voice acting would eliminate ANY excuse for repetitive basic NPC dialogue. You could vastly open up the way NPCs react to you over time. At present, you're generally either a nobody or a a champion with little else in-between.

 

I'd LOVE to lose the repetitive dialogue. It would also mean a world of opportunities in regards to modding NPC dialogue. (In all honesty, that's one thing I find off-putting about quests created by modders. Going from voice-acted dialogue to purely text-based dialogue is jarring. I'd prefer entirely one or the other for the whole game. The two don't blend well - at least not to my taste.)

 

Also, a MAJOR point for me: Our characters have no voices. (Short of standard grunts when fighting - and those I could do without. The shrieks of the Wood Elves in Oblivion were painful. Aiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!~) That in itself makes it incredibly jarring when combining the text dialogue of your character against voice-acted dialogue of NPCs.

 

I realise not everyone shares my opinion. Ideally I'd LOVE for it all to be voice-acted...but there just isn't enough variety and immersion that way. (At least not at this point in time.)

 

I'm all for text.

 

:thumbsup:

[surasshu]

Yeah, in my opinion the voice acting is the weakest part of the game, it's definitely immersion-breaking to me. It's inexplicably bad at points, hilariously so. As a Dutch person living in Sweden, the motley collection of goofy accents from Nowegian to Icelandic to Dutch to Austrian (AHNOLD!) and everything in between (none of it good), and some plain ol' American thrown in... It's just jarring. Plus there are direction errors, like mispronounced names. I distinctly remember at the farm near Solitude, the child and the wife pronounce the name of their father/husband differently. I know that's nitpicking, but it's indicative of the lack of direction the voice actors probably received (I'm sure they're a great bunch of voice actors...).

 

All this stuff wouldn't be an issue without voice acting! I totally agree with Brittainy that having no voice acting for the main but voices for everyone else is also a bit weird. If the voice acting wasn't so friggin' hilarious, I'd probably have turned the volume to 0 on it already.

 

I was thinking about it before too, but one thing I'd love is to get more dialog out of followers, while you're wandering around. Just observing stuff (like the first time you enter a village with them, they'll talk a little about it, if they have any connection to it... not EVERY village of course), or if you fight a certain monster, they might comment on it (like in the intro, "I hate those things. Too many legs, y'know?" also not every time, but maybe once a game-day/week). It's something that was fun in Mass Effect, too, although there it was voice acted. But it certainly doesn't need to be, and the scope of this game is way bigger (despite not being about space wars! :D ). Just feels like now the followers are kinda meh and lifeless at times, and that would give them more personality maybe?

Edited December 4, 2011 by surasshu

[Susurruss]

The game feels better with voice-acting, but hearing the same voice used for so many different NPCs is immersion-breaking (particularly the one who voiced Farkas - I hear his voice EVERYWHERE now that I ran with him one time!) I played OB with subtitles (because it seemed there were critical voiced parts I could not understand/hear), but I play Skyrim without. If the voices were more diversified (more different voices), it would be massively better.

 

As far as mods go, I'd rather them be voice-acted, but it's not necessary at all and is not a factor in whether or not I try it out.

[JimboUK]

It wouldn't bother me at all, I'm more interested in what they have to say, not how they say it.

 

Yeah, in my opinion the voice acting is the weakest part of the game, it's definitely immersion-breaking to me. It's inexplicably bad at points, hilariously so. As a Dutch person living in Sweden, the motley collection of goofy accents from Nowegian to Icelandic to Dutch to Austrian (AHNOLD!) and everything in between (none of it good), and some plain ol' American thrown in... It's just jarring. Plus there are direction errors, like mispronounced names. I distinctly remember at the farm near Solitude, the child and the wife pronounce the name of their father/husband differently. I know that's nitpicking, but it's indicative of the lack of direction the voice actors probably received (I'm sure they're a great bunch of voice actors...).

 

All this stuff wouldn't be an issue without voice acting! I totally agree with Brittainy that having no voice acting for the main but voices for everyone else is also a bit weird. If the voice acting wasn't so friggin' hilarious, I'd probably have turned the volume to 0 on it already.

 

I was thinking about it before too, but one thing I'd love is to get more dialog out of followers, while you're wandering around. Just observing stuff (like the first time you enter a village with them, they'll talk a little about it, if they have any connection to it... not EVERY village of course), or if you fight a certain monster, they might comment on it (like in the intro, "I hate those things. Too many legs, y'know?" also not every time, but maybe once a game-day/week). It's something that was fun in Mass Effect, too, although there it was voice acted. But it certainly doesn't need to be, and the scope of this game is way bigger (despite not being about space wars! :D ). Just feels like now the followers are kinda meh and lifeless at times, and that would give them more personality maybe?

 

The accents are comedy gold, not only are they hilariously bad but they also change nationality mid sentence. :biggrin:

[justwannaddl]

I wouldn't mind having less talking and more text since I'm an old fashioned rpg fan. If the text is just annoying repeats of one liners, I would really prefer it. Sometimes I wonder what a game could accomplish if it didn't have voice actors.

[Brittainy]

In all fairness, I must add that the voice acting in the Shivering Isles was incredibly fun to hear and added a lot to the feel of the place. Thadon, Sheogorath and Haskill were exceedingly entertaining and they absolutely made the place shine. Nonetheless, it still left me wanting MORE and the repetitive parts tend to contrast too painfully with the good bits.

 

Until games reach a point at where there is a capacity for a ridiculous abundance of dialogue, I think text is ultimately the most appropriate way to go...for the present.

 

:thumbsup:

[surasshu]

There was .hack// where characters would have VO, but then have speech bubbles for generic background chatter stuff (and when talking to eachother). If you picked up an item, they'd say stuff like "Ooh, that item looks good..." or "As the leader, you should collect the spoils!". Ofcourse, they said it almost every time so it got old fast, but it still had charm and gave them more character, I think. And since you heard their voices in proper dialogs, it was easy to "project" their voice onto the speech bubbles.

 

Though in the case of a mod with extra lines of dialog for all NPCs, it might be better to turn off the voices altogether. But I guess it would be very easy to leave that up to the discretion of the user with the Voice volume slider. ;)

Edited December 4, 2011 by surasshu