[Jordyn Youngman]

Not LESS content, usual amount of better content, as opposed to more content of less quality.

[Zoe Ratcliffe]

Not LESS content, usual amount of better content, as opposed to more content of less quality.

And how is that going to happen when voice acting takes up 50% (at least) of the disc?

[Code Affinity]

This thread specifically: work out the best way to have voice-over without taking up more than 25% of the disk.

General: Make a bit (20-30) quality quest more than in Oblivion, and have a LOAD of tiny book/note/scribbles on the wall only quests for RPG fans, for exploration, and mercenary board, for a bit more advanced quests( minimal interaction with NPCs so they don't take um much space). But great quests for the main side quests( as in not: "go kill x goblins")

[A Boy called Marilyn]

This thread specifically: work out the best way to have voice-over without taking up more than 25% of the disk.

Even 25% would be a huge waste. But still, just how is that going to happen? Bethesda's going to go 50 years into the future and get compression techniques? You also have to think about dialogue. In Morrowind and Daggerfall, people spoke to me a lot. That is a great, immersive feeling. And don't gie me the whole "random people wouldn't start a conversation with me on the street" thing. If I was a world renown hero that saved the world from impending doom with almost no chance, someone would want to say something to me that isn't "e-e-e-e-exuse me, sir..." If you want realism, people should talk to me depending on both my reputation and my disposition to them. Perhaps some kind of confidence attribute, but that seems a bit much, imo.

[Tanya]

While on the disk, sound can be compressed a lot more than when on the hard drive/in use.
And of course you would talk to people outside of quests, hear rumours, talk about the weather, An RPG would be crap if you couldn't talk to people outside of quests, but most of that would be shared between NPCs.

Think force unleashed. It was on x360, But I remember the PC version having 16GB... 16GB! 20% sound is 3,2GB. Oblivion for 1.6 had 60h, That's double!

The way to conserve space: well written dialogues, even for shopkeepers. 7minutes of beautifully written dialogues can easily replace 20 minuets of crappy ones, while still having everything.

Because of this day and age, games go after Hollywood, big budget and big target audiences, drowning in mediocrity, building on a frame. It will have effects and flashy stuff, and probably $30M on marketing. Lets help make it good even with all that.


Oh and that "e-e-e-e-exuse me, sir..." gave me an idea! Make your fame(or infamy[or TESV equivalent]) and disposition change dialogue, you can quite easily change audio dynamically to add stutter, So when yo are really famous, people whose disposition you didn't raise, stutter when talking to you, as if afraid or stuned by your presence.

[El Khatiri]

Even 25% would be a huge waste. But still, just how is that going to happen? Bethesda's going to go 50 years into the future and get compression techniques?

Just to note: Bethesda used 64 kbps CBR MP3 files. Modern (even by Oblivion's standards) voice compression technologies like Speex or the ITU-approved codexes already sound good at 8kbps (1/8th of Oblivion's file size), and 16kbps is considered "high-quality" (that's sttill only 1/4th of Oblivion's file size). The voice files in Oblivion don't take that much space because there are so many of them, but because Bethesda chose the wrong compression algorithm at a way too high bit rate.

[Matthew Barrows]

Fallout 3 switched to 70 kbps mono ogg files.

[Alister Scott]

Fallout 3 switched to 70 kbps mono ogg files.

Are ogg files smaller?

[Ria dell]

To be fair, Oblivion was amazingly advertised.

And, more content = a better game, if that game is supposed to be an open ended RPG with thousands of possibilities in each play through. Why are you even debating that you WANT less content?

I'm not. I'm saying, given the choice, most other gamers would want full VO, even if it means less content. And the vast majority of gamers don't think about things like disk space, so they don't even realize that less VO means more content, and vice versa. They hear "No VO" and automatically think there's something wrong with the game, that the devs didn't care enough to give the game VO.

Hell, I'd play an 8-bit game with no sound if it had the depth and content of Morrowind. I'm all for more content at the expense of sparkles and flash. Most gamers, by my estimation, think differently.

[CxvIII]

Are ogg files smaller?

Honestly couldn't tell you, since I don't know where or how ogg files measure bitrate. Either way, the alleged case is that Bethesda's moving toward higher quality.

One thing I can confirm: most mp3 encoders are "terrible" at compressing silence. I'm very sure it's not the algorithm, per se. It's the encoding software itself that is doing bad stuff.

[Christina Trayler]

Are ogg files smaller?

Doesn't matter. 70 kbps > 64 kbps, so they end up bigger. Ogg Vorbis has a higher quality-per-kbps than the old MP3 though, for both music and voices, but specially for voice there are way better compression algorithms which retain that quality at a significantly lower file size.

[Racheal Robertson]

I'm not. I'm saying, given the choice, most other gamers would want full VO, even if it means less content. And the vast majority of gamers don't think about things like disk space, so they don't even realize that less VO means more content, and vice versa. They hear "No VO" and automatically think there's something wrong with the game, that the devs didn't care enough to give the game VO.

Hell, I'd play an 8-bit game with no sound if it had the depth and content of Morrowind. I'm all for more content at the expense of sparkles and flash. Most gamers, by my estimation, think differently.

True, but you, among many others, are majorly underestimating the potential sales to "hardcoe" rpg fans. About 50% of Bethesda forums' are all for less gimmicks and more content. Then there's all the various pen and paper rpg players willing to get a good enough game, then there's all the various fans of other series who've been majorly let down (I remember Might and Magic: The Mandate of Heaven game being a pretty deep, and then the lastest one was a shallow linear fps) who want to find another series to fall on, and then there's the various others who simply want a deep rpg, but fail to find one. And THEN there's the mainstream gamers who actually find out that they like deep rpgs. Just look at al the mainstream gamers Oblivion got, who then went on to play the likes of Daggerfall.

That's probably more than the mainstream gamers altogether.


Also, incase anyone comes up with it, we want more variety than a few games. Those who like games to be deep shouldn't just stick to the games they've played already.

[Alexandra walker]

I don't think it has to do with mainstream vs. hardcoe.

If someone wants to play an RPG, and they purchase a game that's been advertised as an RPG and reviewed as an RPG, then why on earth would they expect it to have less quests and choices in exchange for a more visceral experience?

Unless, for some reason, they think RPG stands for: first-person shooter.

Ok, I'll crawl back into my crawl space now. Continue.