Amen. Instead of teaching kids how it should be.

Kids would step up to complexity and challenge, if it were given to them. I for one hope this streamlining and simplifying trend, and the need for flashy graphics and effects in games slows down. When I see the games today, I wonder how the hell I ever sat through and thoroughly enjoyed a game like Zork, when I was a kid.

"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them." - Steve Jobs.

On the voice acting argument, I personally prefer text, but I concede that text dialogue simply doesn't work in the modern day market.

When it comes to kids, ageism, etc: I'm 24, have a BS in chemistry, and I was a substitute teacher at the local high school. I noticed a dramatic maturity difference between myself and the students. They refused to stay in their seats, they would try to play fight whenever possible, keeping them quiet in study hall was impossible without me literally standing in front of the class the whole time and starring at them, they'd curse like sailors (Trust me, kids, you won't use profanity as much when you get older. Using those words does NOT make you look older.), they'd throw things like little monkeys, and they followed directions and listened about as well as a raccoon. Even among the more mature students, they were often as innocently naive as they could possibly get. I must also say that the "You're an advlt, so you're old and uncool" attitude got a little irritating after a while.

With that out of the way, I must say I did get a couple of chances to have civil conversations with my students (when they weren't trying to blind me with laser pointers). One time I was speaking with some of my students about video games. I told them I like RPG's, and one responded by asking, "You mean like Oblivion?" I replied, "Yes, I liked Oblivion. I'm a bigger fan of Morrowind, but I do like Oblivion." The look on his face basically said, "Wow... do you like disco, too?"

In another instance, I was speaking with one of the more intellectual students (who actually professed to me how much he loves school), and the subject turned to Oblivion. He told me that he loved ES lore and read the wiki often. When I recommended Morrowind, he told me that he could not become immersed in Morrowind due to the text dialogue. I told him I understood fully, and did not bring Morrowind up after that. I did however recommend The Imperial Library, which he enjoyed very much. I can understand why he might have issues with text dialogue. I was born in 1986, and every video game I played up to 1998 had either text dialogue or no dialogue at all. This kid was born in 1995 (or was it 96?). By the time he would be old enough to play games, voice acting would be more common. The moral of the story is: kids these days can enjoy a good tale and deep lore, but good luck pushing "old" gameplay mechanics on them .

On Wikipedia: It is a good place to start if you know nothing about a given subject, but something that you should never cite in a formal paper, article, etc. Since I consider internet forums to be informal means of debate and discussion, I see no problem using Wikipedia here. One time, I had to summarize an article called "Electronic Glow Discharge for the Elemental anolysis of Aqueous Samples." You'd think the article would explain what electronic glow discharge is, but it was written for those who already understood the basic concepts. Likewise, other scholarly articles also assumed I had the same background knowledge. I tried looking in the old books within the library, but I knew too little about EGD to understand them (I was only a sophomore chem major at the time). Therefore, I used Wikipedia to give me basic background information on the subject, then used that knowledge to better understand the explanations on EGD in my other sources. Those sources were the ones I cited. Yes, you can do this. In fact, the professor for that course even recommended that I do just that . In his own words, "Wikipedia is a great place to start, just a bad place to finish."

Pressure the devs into something good for the game like better AI,quests,etc NOT into something stupid like guns or tanks or something.

Yes, I myself find text dialogue very annoying (perhaps it's because I have ADHD innatentive) and am much more easily able to concentrate on and memorise the information if it's spoken to me while I read it, and it captures my interest more easily. But it doesn't mean I'm dumb or anything. I consider myself to be at least reasonably intellectual for a 17 year old. It's probably just the generation difference where we got used to different things and different methods of gameplay. They should have an option to turn it off, though, for those who prefer it.

Good way to look at it and it as I look at it. I'm an older person and I am immersed either way but I do enjoy the voice acting a bit more. For me it was like going from silent movies to spoken movies or radio to TV. It's a natural progression. That doesn't mean the new generations stop reading or spending time on complex problem solving. It means they have moved in a new direction.

And my god how bad those early actors were in those early movies with voiced acting.

The problem with Oblivion was that it was the first time they ever did a fully voiced game. If Fallout is any indication, they've gotten much better at it since then.

Yes.

Question for the people who are saying they "prefer text" - do you mean to say that you hope for more lines of dialogue written and you believe it is too expensive to have it all voice acted; in other words, that somehow a lack of voice acting would result in more NPC dialogue?

Or are you saying you literally dislike having the dialogue voiced?

This is the first of deutschland's topics that I actually agree with. I liked it better unvoiced anyway. I prefer the dialog box, as the npcs have a lot more to say. However, it'll be voiced. Fallout 3, oblivion, new vegas...all fully voiced. That's just how bethesda does it now.

Well, it seems obvious that you could squeeze in more text if it was merely written. Forget even the disc-space, or the cost of actors : I would get bored sooner by someone talking to me than by reading the same text, simply because reading is way faster. *shrug*

But as I will readily admit, it all boils down to the fact that I'm primarily a reader. Heck, bar a few things I watch on the computer, I don't go to the movies nor do I have TV connected. I find spoken conversations tiring after a while. Reading means I go through the game at my speed, and I'm not hindered by the game's talking speed ; I automatically put the voice, the tone in - and more than often, the way in which the line is read is jarring. But I totally get that someone who's more versatile and oriented toward movies would want acted lines for better immersion.

The last thing is the quality of acting in Oblivion... Bar a few examples, I really wasn't impressed. :unsure: And what with the close-up on faces on which emotions were displayed at the speed and subtlety of ice age...

In short : good hopes for Skyrim. They know the problems : with better technology and more money, they will endeavour to ameliorate variety and quality of acting. Now, there's the question of content : I hope they'll also make a decent effort to make every bit of conversation interesting or funny or captivating.

Ever thought why European RPGs are better than America made ones? *
Because much lower birth rate , less kids = better games.

Kids not like reading = less books, less lore , less complexity in game mechanics ; also less mature things like politics , more focus on phat l00t , "clearing levels" and combat .


Disregard Arcania .

I'd agree with that. I'm a graphic designer, and often I'll show a client a rough sketch or a layout and they won't be able to grasp it at all. I try to explain that the finished article won't look exactly the same, but they have to see it polished to understand.

Art can't be produced by committee. With a community project like a movie or a game there's a lot of vested interests, but you still need one director with a vision and everyone else working to that goal. If it's made with love the audience will follow. If it's put together by a bunch of suits who think they know what sells because they've done some market research, they're usually wrong and the audience hates it.

Text or recorded dialogue in a game isn't just cosmetic, it presents a different experience. If you read you put your own imagined tone and inflection to the words. If the dialogue is acted, it's presented as is and there's no personal input. In a way, that's LESS immersive for a game. It's more movie-like; a passive experience, not interactive.

In Oblivion I often felt the actors hadn't really understood the context of what they were saying and were delivering the dialogue with the wrong stresses, which took me out of the action. But that's probably the directors fault, who probably had time pressures and couldn't do a re-take. Hopefully Skyrim's dialogue will be recorded with more care.

I was going to say the developers are man enough to make the right decisions without feeling under pressure from fans to add features they think are bad, but...
Maybe not. If that is honestly what swayed them into fully-voiced dialogue, then I hope they've learned their lesson. Because Morrowind's partially recorded dialogue was a lot better than Oblivion's. And it was a lot better than Fallout 3's as well. They should stick to their instincts - it's them that have built up a successful game series, not the "kids" who want novelty features which detract from the game.


And ironically, saying that on these forums would land him with a warning

I played a little bit of Nehrim today, just finished a couple of miner quests, and I have to say the nehrim developers did a great job with voice acting. I mean my german is almost non-existent and I can only understand a few words they say (had to read subtitle; yet that was hard because I'm a slow reader since english is my 2nd language), but their tones were very natural, way better than oblivion's. and it didn't hinder immersion in any way.

so yea beth should learn from the germans...

Let’s see…

Baldur’s Gate > BioWare > Canada
Planescape: Torment > Black Isle > USA
Fallout > Black Isle > USA
Icewind Dale > Black Isle > USA
Ultima > Looking Glass > USA
Betrayal at Krondor > Dynamics > USA
Wizardry > Sir-Tech > USA
System Shock > Looking Glass > USA
Deus Ex > Ion Storm > USA
The Elder Scrolls > Bethesda > USA
Neverwinter Nights > BioWare > Canada
Star Wars: KotoR > BioWare > Canada
Star Wars: KotoR II > Obsidian > USA
Nox > Westwood > USA
Diablo > Blizzard > USA
Neverwinter Nights 2 > Obsidian > USA
Arcanum > Troika > USA
Dungeon Siege > GpG> USA
Fallout New Vegas > Obsidian > USA
Anachronox > Ion Storm > USA
Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption > Activision > USA
Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines > Troika > USA
Might and Magic > New World Computing> USA
Dragon Age > BioWare > Canada

Could you please provide a list of legendary Europe-based RPG’s so we could understand how exactly they are “better”?

He's one of my favorite characters :laugh:

Wow, that's a fine selection! I played almost all of them with 2 exceptions.