[Hannah Whitlock]

Voice acting doesn't destroy action games. But when the point is sheer content, like in an RPG, full voice acting always destroys the game.

I think people want every line read to them so they can feel like they're in a movie. Which is silly.

I understand the whole visceral experience of being led through a high-octane, action packed story. All the sights and sounds are what bring the experience.

But RPGs just are not about that. If you want that kind of experience, it means you're not an RPG player, so there's no conceivable reason why you should go out and buy a TES game to begin with.

It's about character development and exploring and getting involved in politics. If that doesn't sound fun to you. If you'd prefer the cerebral experience of listening and seeing, as opposed to pondering and strategizing, then buy one of the hundreds of new first-person shooters out on the shelves.

I just don't understand why every game has to be the same thing. If TESV is another game that focuses around the combat and the physics and the cerebral experiences, then it'll totally lose what used to make the series unique. The Elder Scrolls are not mainstream games.

I'm not being elitist, I'm not talking down to anyone. It's just that, if TES goes the mainstream route, there'll be nothing left for me to play. There are so many action-packed, fast-paced games out there already. To expect the Elder Scrolls to go that route, just so you can stop bashing in Night Elf skulls, and bash in Dark Elf skulls instead for a week, is extremely greedy.

Personally, if loyalty towards fans was as important as money, the only viable answer would be, "if you need fully voiced dialogue to enjoy a game, then you'd better stay away from TESV."

[Benjamin Holz]

The main issue is just that in reusing sound files like that god awful yet hilarious "thank you kind sir" for EVERY imperial beggar in the game breaks immersion, and instead of feeling like you are in the univers, you notice the screen in front of you and controller in your hand and realize, oh.... Im playing a game

So then what's wrong with a text method like Arena-Morrowind? I can tell you from experience, it doesn't ruin immersion. I, for one, find Morrowind to be far more immersive than oblivion, even without voice. And when there is voice (Dagoth Ur, Almalexia, Hircine) it's always so much more special, and not just another voice.

I just don't understand why every game has to be the same thing.

Exactly. Unique games are actually what sell. If a game sacrificed Graphical quality for an absolutly amazing, jaw droppingly awesome game in every other area, it would do well. There's games out there that do well without graphics because they compensate in other areas. (Pokémon games being one of the best examples) It's exactly the same with sound.

[jessica robson]

But RPGs just are not about that. If you want that kind of experience, it means you're not an RPG player, so there's no conceivable reason why you should go out and buy a TES game to begin with.

This, this right here, is why I keep calling you elitist. Because you seem to think that people are either RPG gamers OR action gamers, hardcoe OR casual. It is not that simple. I love Morrowind. I love Oblivion. And hey, you know what? I like Bejeweled and Halo as well. Stop trying to pidgeonhole people into different cliques. It just makes you seem like a snob.

[Sammie LM]

It just makes you seem like a snob.

Because he enjoys RPG's and doesn't want his favourite RPG series to turn into an action series? Or because he points people looking for action to action games? If you want action in a game, you don't want an RPG. RPG's are about living another life, NOT about action. Action may be in there, but it should never be the main focus of the game, even if it is frequently used. (Morrowind always used combat, but it was all about the story and world and another life)

[Steve Bates]

Everyone complained about Oblivion having only a few voice actors; the obvious reason is so that they could add a few blanket lines to each race about each quest, etc. I would prefer more unique actors but fewer chances to find the information you need (ie most would say that they don't know or wouldn't have the option in the first place). This would reduce the number of blanket lines needed so that there could be multiple actors.

[Connor Wing]

I like voice acting. I think if it's done well and it breathes more life into the lines being delivered, then it's not wasted space at all. I've been thinking about it, and I actually am alright with having two voices for each race (male and female), as long as each race is distinct from each other, because it allows for a lot more generic dialogue (could ES V see the return of the "little advice" topic?). I didn't really care for the voices in Oblivion, but that's because they were delivered poorly (talking about mudcrabs with the same enthusiasm as the obliteration of House Indoril) and there wasn't enough distinction between the races (which isn't an issue with too few VAs- in Morrowind, Wes Johnson voiced the Orcs and the Bretons, and I don't see anyone arguing that those are too similar). But I think Bethesda is well aware of these issues (since they've been complained about enough times), and I'm confident that the voice acting in Skyrim will be good.

[Alan Whiston]

Voice acting doesn't destroy action games. But when the point is sheer content, like in an RPG, full voice acting always destroys the game.

I think people want every line read to them so they can feel like they're in a movie. Which is silly.

I understand the whole visceral experience of being led through a high-octane, action packed story. All the sights and sounds are what bring the experience.

Bloodlines wasn't destroyed because of voice acting, and you really gotta stop with this action game crap, voice acting has nothing to do with with genres, least of all action games.

Yeah, it's about people wanting to be in movies, not about making the experience believable and engaging.

But RPGs just are not about that. If you want that kind of experience, it means you're not an RPG player, so there's no conceivable reason why you should go out and buy a TES game to begin with.

It's about character development and exploring and getting involved in politics. If that doesn't sound fun to you. If you'd prefer the cerebral experience of listening and seeing, as opposed to pondering and strategizing, then buy one of the hundreds of new first-person shooters out on the shelves.

Ah clever, you label voice acting out of Rpgs so you can do a no true scotsman, with a touch of strawman, I guess Bloodlines and Kotor weren't rpgs, I mean how could they be, they had voice acting, or was it combat, I'm not sure what you position you've shoehorned anyone who desires voice acting into. I'm sorry if you want pondering and strategizing, go play a strategy game, it means your not an Rpg player, see? I can do that trick too. Of course it is just as completely invalid. I'm sorry if I want to experience politics and exploration through my real senses.

I enjoy roleplaying in a living breathing world, how exactly would you want me to do that in an action game. lack of voice acting is not an rpg feature.

I just don't understand why every game has to be the same thing. If TESV is another game that focuses around the combat and the physics and the cerebral experiences, then it'll totally lose what used to make the series unique. The Elder Scrolls are not mainstream games.

Combat has always been in roleplaying games, physics is a tool to make it believable. Combat and conflict has always been a major proponent of the TES series. What was TES: Arena originally going to be? Try surviving morrowind without any combat skills or combat encounters.

I'm not being elitist, I'm not talking down to anyone. It's just that, if TES goes the mainstream route, there'll be nothing left for me to play. There are so many action-packed, fast-paced games out there already. To expect the Elder Scrolls to go that route, just so you can stop bashing in Night Elf skulls, and bash in Dark Elf skulls instead for a week, is extremely greedy.

Personally, if loyalty towards fans was as important as money, the only viable answer would be, "if you need fully voiced dialogue to enjoy a game, then you'd better stay away from TESV."

No your not insulting at all, you just redefined Roleplaying games to exclude voice acting, you somehow managed to equate voice acting, indeed even just an audio/visual experience with action, so you could attack supporters of voice acting with arguments against action games, even though action have about the least amount of conversations of all genres. Movies are Audio/visual, are all movies action movies? Or could it be that sound and graphics have nothing to with the genre of a particular experience I wonder.

[Greg Swan]

Bloodlines and Kotor

I have never played these games, and, unless they're online, I doubt they have anywhere as near as much content as text games around the Morrowind time (taking into account better comression or bigger discs, also)

[Alisha Clarke]

I have never played these games, and, unless they're online, I doubt they have anywhere as near as much content as text games around the Morrowind time (taking into account better comression or bigger discs, also)

I don't think I know what Bloodlines is but KOTOR and KOTOR II are both fully voice acted (well, half voice acted, as your character never speaks like in ME) but they are linear games. Granted, you can travel to the various planets in different order, but they are linear. Much like in Oblivion, you really only have 2 to 3 dialog options with most characters. With some of your main characters in your party you can talk to them a lot (much like Jauffre or Martin in Oblivion) but you would never be able to ask them for a little advice.

It should really be obvious to everyone: if the game is fully voice acted dialog will be shallow and limited a la Oblivion. There's no way around it, there just isn't the space available. Most likely we wouldn't have unique voices for the races either.

The Morrowind system was just better. I remember when I finally got to speak with Vivec I just sat their asking about every topic he had available for like 15 minutes just to get his view on things. There was just so much more content. More content is better.

[Izzy Coleman]

I have never played these games, and, unless they're online, I doubt they have anywhere as near as much content as text games around the Morrowind time (taking into account better comression or bigger discs, also)

They aren't online, and they are singleplayer rpgs and are about 1-2 yrs younger than morrowind, having less content than morrowind doesn't make them any less rpgs, morrowind is a massive game. I would say they have a more intense experience though, they have more dialog choices than morrowind though, and greater choice and consequence, but bloodlines is a pure rpg, not a sandbox rpg. A lot of people on this forum forget that TES isn't pure rpg, it's a sandbox action rpg. Sandbox because it's an open world, Action because of the major combat elements, Rpg, because of the customization, advancement and C&C. The rpg part also goes in and affects the action element, rpg governed action = Hack 'n' Slash, (see diablo series).

When we discuss fast travel, we're discussing sandbox elements, when were discussing weapons & armor, we're discussing actions elements, specifically Hack 'n' Slash elements, when were discussing stats, skills and C&C, were discussing Rpg elements.

When were discussing Voice acting, or Graphics, we are most definitely NOT discussing, the games genre, or any element thereof.

[KRistina Karlsson]

Exactly. Voice acting can be a nice addition to the game, but we're currently not technologically advanced enough to do it right right now. We need to wait until compression rates stop voice acting from being such a burden.

[Jani Eayon]

Exactly. Voice acting can be a nice addition to the game, but we're currently not technologically advanced enough to do it right right now. We need to wait until compression rates stop voice acting from being such a burden.

I think we are there, I understand why you disagree, but Oblivion fills about 4gb, a dvd duellayer disc can hold 9gb, most recent game I know is red dead redemption, which filled 6.7 gb, beth just wasted space.

[claire ley]

Exactly. Voice acting can be a nice addition to the game, but we're currently not technologically advanced enough to do it right right now. We need to wait until compression rates stop voice acting from being such a burden.

Compression rates are near their peak for voice already. If you want to squeeze more voice seconds per MB, you need voice synthetisation, but that isn't here yet, not good enough to convey deep emotions anyway.

[Valerie Marie]

Because he enjoys RPG's and doesn't want his favourite RPG series to turn into an action series? Or because he points people looking for action to action games? If you want action in a game, you don't want an RPG. RPG's are about living another life, NOT about action. Action may be in there, but it should never be the main focus of the game, even if it is frequently used. (Morrowind always used combat, but it was all about the story and world and another life)

Read my post again. My point is that it's possible, and in fact it's the norm, to like more than one genre. Telling people who like action games IN ADDITION TO RPGS to stop playing TES games is elitist and snobbish.

[Ludivine Poussineau]

I'll go ahead and re-post my thoughts:

I'm all for voice acting, as long as there's variety and it doesn't limit conversations like it did in Oblivion. It would be awesome to have Morrowind's amount of dialogue voice acted, with each race having, say, two voices per gender. Unfortunately I don't see this happening.

Until that is achieved, I prefer Morrowind's way of handling it, but if it did have Oblivion's way, I would be upset, but I wouldn't freak. Besides, I'm sure a Lore_Dialogue300 equivalent for TES V will come out eventually. :shrug:

[Izzy Coleman]

Read my post again. My point is that it's possible, and in fact it's the norm, to like more than one genre. Telling people who like action games IN ADDITION TO RPGS to stop playing TES games is elitist and snobbish.

It can seem a little bit snobbish, but I think people are worried about rpgs being turned into action games. I like TES and halo, but I don't wander around the Bungie forums insisting that I should have to level up 12 times before I can kill a grunt and that voiced dialogue should be dropped in favour of 30 pages of text conversation between master cheif and the arbiter.

[Lizbeth Ruiz]

Read my post again. My point is that it's possible, and in fact it's the norm, to like more than one genre. Telling people who like action games IN ADDITION TO RPGS to stop playing TES games is elitist and snobbish.

Um, I like action games, too. But TES games aren't action games.

If I want to play an action game, I play an action game.

I'm not telling you to stop playing TES games, if you like RPGs. I'm telling you to only play TES games if you want to play an RPG.

If you want a game that focuses on the combat, sacrifices content for voice dialogue, tells you exactly where to go, prevents you from making mistakes by blocking off dungeons and making essential NPCs immortal, and defeats the point of leveling by scaling the whole world, then it's obvious you don't want an RPG.

If you truly like playing action games IN ADDITION TO RPGS, then, like me, you'd want the Elder Scrolls to return to their roots, because there are tons of good action games out right now. But, as you've already noticed, since you claim to be an RPG player, there haven't been many deep, good, true RPGs out in the past six years.

Ever since Oblivion lowered the bar, every linear action game that happens to let you choose skills in the chargen, has been calling itself an RPG. And a deep, engaging world that rewards exploration and quests that reward creativity and thinking outside of the box are all but extinct.

Once again, I have highlighted your unnecessary insults in red.

[Chenae Butler]

I'm going to just restate my thoughts regarding a previous post.

I have a lot of respect for the attempts at it. If anyone has ever added the Oblivion companion mod Vilja of Emma's, she voices over a thousand lines of dialogue herself. To make a well rounded character, that is indeed some commitment.

Honestly, there are entire voice banks of people who would just love to voice for games, and I daresay many would love to here. The real problem of course is that it takes more than the want and the ability, you really have to have the talent for it.

IF they were to continue with the usage of notable names and those who have a history with it, then I would suggest Bethesda employ the help of Andrea Romano, the voice casting director who has nearly revolutionized animated features by knowing who to cast for what part. Her resume is beyond impressive, with the likes of the Animated Batman(s), Justice League, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and countless others to her credit. She doesn't seek out those on the "high budget end" (read contemporary actors), but canvassed the talent from yesteryear and beyond. Actors who you wouldn't know their faces, but have heard their voices for decades. Like Grey Delisle. She may be more known for her works as the voice of Azula from Avatar:The Last Airbender cartoon, Mandy from Billy and Mandy, PuffyAmiYumi, and a bunch others including the latest Tinkerbell movies, but Grey had some very impressive beginnings as the voice talents from the very first Baldur's Gate games, waaaaaaaaaaaay back when.

That's what Bethesda should consider, find those with the talent, history, and respect for the craft of voice acting who look at the work as something they'd want to participate in, and not just those doing it for spec or scratch.

This is perhaps one of the best well-made points I've read in a while. I concur, completely. However, Morrowind's dialogue posed no problem for me. In fact, considering that I'm an individual who loves reading, I think I would be quite welcoming of it. However, the writing in itself demands talent as well. Voice-work aside, that aspect alone makes or breaks immersion; immersion could be broken quite quickly if the writer did not know how to do their job.

[Ross]

First I will mention that modern games come on dual layer DVDs that can hold up to 8,5 GB of data. Now that storage is out of the way...

TESV will in 99% of cases be fully voice acted. The "additional info without voice acting for people who want it" will be journal entry only. Why? People are generally lazy. And are playing games so hey can enjoy a story that goes on longer than 2h of a movie, but don't want to read books. And yes that is also the part of the target audience, because for a modern game to get profit it has to sell millions, and "True RPG fans" are not the only ones this game will be for. TESV will be for casual games too, so that means all the shiny stuff that comes with modern games.

The thing that I find important is that they don't mix voice actors mid-character. Like the beggar that is growling in an oldish voice, then switches to a youthful one to tell me the rumours. I want that, when I talk to a character, they always talk with the same voice. And its better to get 30 amateurs each doing 1/15 of a gender of a race, than getting 6 professionals doing 1/3 of the population per gender.

[Ellie English]

Dear God, I don't even care; just give me my Vvardenfell Dunmer back. Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, give me my Vvardenfell Dunmer back.

But seriously, I love the way Morrowind handled the voice acting. I really, really don't think that Bethesda will do anything but full voice acting in this day-and-age, but one can always dream.

Since TESV will almost definitely take place in Skyrim, you can probably expect to hear alot more gruff-voiced Dunmer refugees from Vvardenfell floating around (if they haven't been slain by Nords yet!). Or not, who knows.

The only acceptable from that a TES game could take without voice acting would be a handheld on the PSP or 3DS. Removing voice work is not the answer to our problems - it's all about adding variety and coupling it with quality talent and writing.

[Erich Lendermon]

With the amount of games they're churning out these days. I doubt they'd go bankrupt from producing one game that isn't aimed at the mainstream.

Besides the people who post on these forums, there are, certainly, tons of people out there who have given up on commercially produced modern video games, but if they heard about a new video game that's actually really deep and mentally engaging, they would probably give it a try.

I know that's not the best argument from a financial standpoint. But, of course, I'm speaking from the heart.

And, as I've said before, it isn't just a matter of space.

[Albert Wesker]

Now that storage is out of the way...

:rofl: Seriously?

8.5gb is nothing when voice acting is involved. Did you see my earlier post? I came to the conclusion that 20 hours of voice acting would come to 4gb. And that was with me being nice. 20 hours is hardly anything with the scale of a TES game. And even then, nearly HALF of the whole disc on voice? HALF!? Imagine how much more content we could have without voice acting. Imagine Oblivion with twice the amount of content. More filled out world, more quests, deeper NPC's, better greeting voices, different race skeletons, deeper questlines, deeper morality, more guilds, rivaling guilds, etc. etc. All of this could have been in Oblivion, if it wasn't for the voice acting. As I said before, voice acting is fine in a linear game, but in a game with hundreds of quests with multiple outcomes, it just doesn't work.

Also, an Xbox disc can't hold 8.5gb. 4gb is thier limit, I believe. The game WILL be on the xbox, and the game WILL have the exact same content on every version. Installing the game to a hard drive on the Xbox isn't a viable option. Not everyone can actually afford a hard drive, and not everyone wants to waste thier hard drive space on one game. (I use PC, I have no biased opinion here)


EDIT:

Oh, and last time I checked, new, exciting and unique games that aren't afraid to be different to every other game out there is what sold?

[Alexis Acevedo]

No, xbox also reads dual layer dvd's, so that is 8,5GB.

Oblivion had 0,7GB of voices.(no expansion)
Yes, it had mediocre amount of dialogue for a sandbox RPG, but that's still an impressive amount overall. Same quality, and 2GB, they could recite the Greek epics and still have enough space left for an average action game.

And for all you out there hoping that bethisoft will risk it with TESV. No they will not. They will not do a game that does not promise profits. And they don't want to just make even. They want big profits for there hard work. And also the menagment that is giving the DEV team their budget, are a bunch of money grabing pricks, just like Nintendo is [censored] their franchises for $ so will bethsida. They will make casual games, riding on old glory. So instead of asking for the imposible( a game that is a true and good sequel to The Elder Scrolls, ask for things that would make a game with the prime audience, the casual gamers, better to play for the rest of us. It will be HD, it will have full voice-over, it will probably even have a action elements, it will have the pointer and fast travel. Help them make the game good even with all that cr*p.

[Adam Kriner]

If they do that, which I agree is very likely, then I just won't buy it and i won't be disappointed either, because I figured it would happen.

However, I'm gonna keep describing exactly what I want in a game, because I feel that if I don't, I'm just part of the problem. And who knows who is reading these threads? Someone a little less corporate and a little more independent might be willing to take the risk.

I bet tons of Bethesda's competitors are anonymously browsing these forums, looking for ways to steal fans away.

[Latino HeaT]

I really don’t think space is the main problem here; however this topic always seems to dominate when it comes to the pros and cons of full voice acting.

I wouldn’t go to such length and say full voice acting destroys an RPG but I do think it is so much more difficult to make great dialogs with them.
Lets take the mod project LGNPC (Less Generic NPC) for Morrowind as an example. While vanilla Morrowinds dialogs does somehow degrades unimportant NPCs to encyclopedias and clones of each other LGNPC breathes live into each of them. I want my TESV NPCs to be as alive as presented in LGNPC, I want to listen to their stories, laugh about their jokes, pity them, feel for them, hate them...
...and I really don’t care if I read the dialogs or listen to them.

But here I do have to ask myself if full voice acting is able to accomplish it. And I honestly think it isn’t. Not because of the limited space only, but all resource needed in general.
Writing those unique dialogs alone would eat up a lot of resources but voicing them will just be...impossible? Making a character coming alive and be unique through text is doable while giving each of them a unique voice isn't. Even if there is only one voice actor (not an option really), how much time will he or she spent in the studio? How much money would it cost to record 1000 mini-books? I cant tell, but I would guess it will both be an insane amount...
So even if the space problem is solved there are so much more other things to be taken into account.

Of course I am against full voice acting under the assumption that the new TESV will have dialogs like the LGNPC mods but really, is there a RPG fan who did not liked what the project had achieved?

My personal conclusion: if I can get unique living NPCs with full voice acting I would totally love it, but realistically speaking it really isn’t possible. For me it isn't the speaking that makes a character alive but how he/she is presented; a voice just ads to it but isn’t essential.