Yeah, that was my bad. I wasn't thinking of how it sounded out-of context.

slinks into corner avoiding the harsh judgments of others

It's fine man, it was just rather amusing.

:)

Further showing I don't always think things through all the way.

All NPCs but not the pc.

I can't see them going back to a text based system - though I'd prefer a combination of both - if only for modding purposes

I don't want voice acting. Its annoying to mod and really annoying to download mods and feel they are unprofessional because there is no voice acting.

:D My bad, couldn't resist.


And even more annoying to download mods and feel they are unprofessional because they used volunteer over-the-internet voice talent with sub-par (compared to the rest of the audio) recording and mixing. Voices do indeed svck when factoring in modding.

Haha, it's fine.

Modding with voices does get annoying because of the quality. However, there are programs and devices you can use to "clean it up", and some people just have more vocal talent than others... people should make a group for voice actors, but I think I saw one already.

Anyway, voices take away from modding experience because it all feels unprofessional, but if we work as a community, I think we can make some professional-sounding mods.

I'd like the old Dunmer voices from Morrowind to make a comeback, the Dunmer in Oblivion sounded like children.

I back this whole-heartedly

I agree. And they actually had them in Oblivion but then removed them. :cold:

Because it would obviously be well behind the other options, I don't mind reading but most gamers would dislike it and thus lower the amount of people who buy and enjoy it hence the possible end of the elder scrolls series or at least a decline in quality. If your nostalgic for Morrowind turn the volume down and turn on the sub-titles and rely on books for extra text . . .

I don't see how having the option for no in-conversation voices would hurt...But even if we had that, there wouldn't be near the amount of topics that Morrowind had.

I don't think huge amount's of text make a good game, Morrowind certainly had more depth to it's conversations but a lot of the dialogue options were bland and unnecessary. What we need is more interactivity when it comes to conversations, have the NPC's speak but ensure that we can reply in a variety of ways to make it seem more of a conversation than just a lecture.

If I'm nostalgic for Morrowind, then I'm nostalgic for the range of possible dialogue topics and the scope of responses for said dialogue topics. Turning off character voice volume and turning on subtitles will not magically give me that massive boost in dialogue content. Relying on books for extra text is a superfluous suggestion. Books are books. Dialogue is dialogue. They are written in two different styles and serve two different purposes.

I highly doubt that returning to text would shatter the Elder Scrolls series. As mentioned prior, "TES Adventures: Redguard" had full voice acting before Morrowind, and yet Morrowind was fantastically successful for its time.
At the very least, if they truly feel the need to incorporate voice, then there are methods:
1- The first line of dialogue is voiced, and the topics are text.
Or, 2- Only the important characters are voiced, and the rest use text.


Which is inherently difficult when you consider Bethesda's preferred scope (800+ NPCs in Oblivion). While I will agree that I don't want a Morrowind 2.0 dialogue system and that Morrowind's system needed more filtration and permutations for responses, the quantity is just as important as the quality. If I have to choose between 1) a vast amount of NPCs with a vast amount of text-based topics and somewhat repetitive responses due to filtration, 2) a vast amount of NPCs with 2 or 3 voiced topics only, or 3) a scant amount of NPCs with a vast amount of voiced topics, then I greatly prefer 1, as I don't want to sacrifice either the amount of NPCs or the amount of dialogue present. I enjoy being able to ask anyone about virtually anything in Morrowind, and I didn't appreciate such blatant limitation in Oblivion.

I made that suggestion with sarcasm in mind . . .

As for Redguard, I would bet that less than ten percent of the people who played Oblivion would have played that and it's a similar situation with Morrowind. I played them all but series of games that wish to be successful must appeal to large audiences and so hardcoe RPG elements have to be dropped. Also to compare Redguard to Morrowind is just idiocy both were entirely different, even if someone adores voice acting they would still see that Morrwind is a hundred times larger with thousands of more features which out weighs a lack of voice cover.

You wouldn't believe how many times I've heard it in sincerity on these forums.


<10% from Obliivon to Redguard? Agreed. <10% from Oblivion to Morrowind? I seriously question that. Morrowind sold significantly well for its time; when Oblivion was breaking sales records, Morrowind was still on the list of top 25 best-selling PC games of all time. When Oblivion first came out, what provided a significant chunk of its sales? Those who had played Morrowind, or other past titles. When Oblivion became older, and fans of Oblivion wanted new content, what did many of them do? They purchased Morrowind. To this day, so many years after release, I can still walk into Best Buy and bet on seeing a copy of Morrowind GOTY.

Morrowind is not a fringe game that only harcores play(ed) and enjoy(ed). And further, a game is not automatically made successful by watering down and mainstreaming. Take away those purportedly hardcoe RPG elements, and over time things cease to be TES as more and more things are labeled hardcoe and unappealing to the masses. Eventually, there's nothing left of the company's core fanbase who enjoyed those hardcoe elements, which is the foundation of their sales. And that's a very dangerous position to be in. The larger audiences they can seize upon are transitory and constantly shifting around; it's a gambling game and arms race to sacrifice things to make it widely appealing.


Fair enough. But it remains that Bethesda has once before gone from full-voice to almost full-text.

Clearly more than ten percent of people who played Oblivion played Morrowind, but still not many. Don't get me wrong I prefer the core RPG elements but I also understand that developers are always going to ensure that their games do not discriminate against the masses most of which play a game to complete it and be done with it and completely overlook the plot and majority of features. The next Elder Scrolls WILL have full voice cover, it is obvious . . .

So? It might not be quest-essential, but it is "necessary" in terms of immersion and learning the world around you. You can either just be the Player Character who runs around killing things to get to the next quest goal. Or, you can interact with the world in the game, learn its culture and politics and people. I always enjoyed asking NPCs all the questions I could, because I'd gather up at least a half-dozen different responses that were all informative in their own manner. Some where only slightly different, some were very different.

I like how I can ask alchemists all about the different ingredients, where to find them, what they do. I liked talking with the armorers about the different types of weapons and armor, their advantages and disadvantages. Was the dialog "necessary" to any quests? No. But it was informative and helped with the immersion-factor. Why should I only be able to talk to NPCs about quest-specific things? As if we had nothing else to talk about? As if there was nothing else in the entire world except me and my Mission?

The reason I prefer voices, is because it adds emotion for me...

If they added in detailed parts of text like:

"*Her words are broken and they almost make it seem like she's about to cry as she looks at the sword you gave her from her dead friend, her usually strong demeanor fades and you are left with an awkward shadow of her once strong personality* T-thank you... I... I should b-... I should be going now."

As opposed to:" T-thank you... I... I should b-... I should be going now."

Then by all means, I'd love text. But the responses usually feel... fake.

That's the way I think of Voice Acting vs. No Voice Acting anyway. It's not like most of the characters in Oblivion held much emotion, either, but I think they did a better job in Fallout 3... :shrug:

So, in my case, it's more of an Emotional debate versus an Informational debate. I like connecting with the characters.

I'm not going to argue or state some random percentages, or hold my breath until I turn blue if people don't see things my way. That's all I'm saying, I like the emotions of the human voice.

You make some valid points but you see I like many others prefer NPC's to act like real people would, not generic text vendors who stand still in one place. In real life do you ask a stranger about his or her "secrets" I think not. They should however add dialogue that only becomes available once a level of trust or friendship has been achieved, I know this was dabbled in Oblivion but it has more potential.

Obviously NPC's should have more to talk about but it should be something realistic and something associated with their race, profession or faith as you mentioned with the alchemists. It should be made harder to make friends and enemies, why is trust so easy attained for a few bribes in Oblivion . . .

Quick fix: emoticons! I'm sure there could be a way to indicate emotion with text. You could have the NPC's facial features change to correspond to their emotion.

Granted, Silverfall svcked, but one interesting thing is that when dialog appeared, there was a little square picture of the character's face. I noticed that sometimes it changed depending on the mood of the situation for the given line of dialog.

Another method to add emotion would be to get more body animations. Again, I'm playing Tomb Raider: Legend, and I'm stunned at how many animations Lara's character model has (not combat/athletic related).

For instance, "*Her words are broken and they almost make it seem like she's about to cry as she looks at the sword you gave her from her dead friend, her usually strong demeanor fades and you are left with an awkward shadow of her once strong personality* T-thank you... I... I should b-... I should be going now."

Could be done where you physically see the transfer of the sword from your hand to her (shaking/trembling) outstretched hand. She could hold the sword and look at it, maybe even tear up a little, before the next string of dialog.

Comic books manage to convey plenty of emotion with pictures and words. It's a different medium, but just as powerful. Using text cues are often useful - bold and italics for shouting/emphasized words, for instance. Strong facial expressions also convey the tone/mood of the dialog.

Games like Planescape: Torment have shown that all dialogue can be just as good as voiced dialogue. All text dialogue is also a lot more modder friendly as well, as you can write detailed and unique dialogues without having to use a Voice Actor.

EDIT: What's up with the poll? Seriously, come on.

But still, with the voice acting they had in Oblivion, it was more like the second than the first, very few times did you actually see emotion. And in TES V, if we want to get immersive and emotive voice acting it will cost beth more so there will be less NPCs or less dialogue options.

As for the poll, I didn't vote. I would prefer Morrowind style voice acting or something like Fallout had where there are nameless NPCs floating through the towns with random text responses to questions and only have voice acting for the named NPCs.

Regardless of what Bethesda does, some better dialog filtering and race-specifice variation is sorely needed. It's just not immersive when you've got a merchant telling you "rumors" about themselves in third-person, or an Altmer describing problems "in the land of the Altmer". If Bethesda is going to record different tracks of a particular comment anyway for all 8 (or however many) races and 2 sixes of each race, then they might as well put a few minor variations into it. Having one say "making my way to....", another say "heading for...", and another word it as "getting my [censored] over to..." is less repetitive, and doesn't make everything sound like a constant repeat of the same tired phrases in different voices. Some of the voices could use a flatter tone, because the subject wouldn't really pertain to them, while others could be more emotional about it, as it would be directly related to their race or profession.

By limiting who says what, Bethesda doesn't need to record 16 variations of every line of "general" dialog, and you can bet that you'll still have no problem hearing most comments 20 times a day. Make slightly different "versions" for each of several races, with their own slightly different "viewpoints" on the subject by race or six, or use similar but different subjects instead. It takes the same amount of storage space and recording time and the same expense to voice act as if it's all the same line, so why not "change it up" a little bit?

In both games, there were a lot of repetitive "rumors" and other "constant" topics that got tiring to wade through, with a distinct shortage of "meat" in between. The lack of unique dialog in OB was worse, because there was far less of it to begin with. MW's topic lists gradually grew as you "unlocked" new topics, until many of the NPCs became little short of walking encyclopedias, which was a bit excessive at times (although very appropriate for speaking with the few Savants in the game), whereas OB's NPCs mostly had nothing relevant to say, and not much irrelevant either.

Oh, this time, can we have a voice actor who doesn't call the dark elves "Dumbner"? (Same actor, same issue, in both MW and OB)