[Mandi Norton]

Imagine you have no TV, no computers, no phones, or anything at all. What do you do for fun? Talk!

Actually, I would have answered "Sing." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_song have an old and rich tradition all over the globe.

[Laura-Jayne Lee]

we already know their going to put voice acting in the main problem is they need more ****ing voice actors!!!!!!!

[Ludivine Poussineau]

we already know their going to put voice acting in the main problem is they need more ****ing voice actors!!!!!!!

... Have you read the thread? If voice acting is in the next game, we should have one voice per race. It takes up far too much space. Did you see my post earlier? Pretty much sums up my opinion on the space it takes. No less, though. Dunmer don't sound like Bosmer!

[Zualett]

... Have you read the thread? If voice acting is in the next game, we should have one voice per race. It takes up far too much space. Did you see my post earlier? Pretty much sums up my opinion on the space it takes. No less, though. Dunmer don't sound like Bosmer!

They don't sound like the elves in Oblivion either. None of the elves in Oblivion are supposed to sound like the elves in Oblivion.

Seriously, for those of you who have only played Oblivion, Bethesda really gave male Dunmer the short end of the stick when it comes to voice acting. In Morrowind they sound like Clint Eastwood with a throat cold. But grittier. And better.

[Hot]

They don't sound like the elves in Oblivion either. None of the elves in Oblivion are supposed to sound like the elves in Oblivion.

Seriously, for those of you who have only played Oblivion, Bethesda really gave male Dunmer the short end of the stick when it comes to voice acting. In Morrowind they sound like Clint Eastwood with a throat cold. But grittier. And better.

What are you talking about? I'm on your side!

[Melissa De Thomasis]

What are you talking about? I'm on your side!

I know, I'm just making the point for those who haven't had the fortune to play Morrowind.

[Katy Hogben]

I know, I'm just making the point for those who haven't had the fortune to play Morrowind.

Ah, fair enough. It's not actually just the elven races in Oblivion that are wrong. Bretons are majorly wrong. Bretons in Oblivion sound dumb, to say the least. When you talk to a Breton, you don't get the feel that you're talking to someone with elven anscestory, or a member of a race of scholars. In Morrowind, Bretons had a scholarly tone to thier voice. It worked well, and each Breton I saw sounded the way I pictured them. I'd love to get that back, and to be able to play a Breton without thinking my character couldn't remember the magic words, or how to wiggle his fingers.

[Harinder Ghag]

The more appropriate question is this: How can TESV be 100% voice-acted, and still manage to contain all of the content of a complete TES game?

I think they should hire lots of different actors for the voices (the very minimun should be one actor per race....). I think great examples of games with good voice acting are Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Some people disagree and say that the dialogues in those games are too long but in real life if you're telling someone to do a quest where failure is not an option, or the entire world will be doomed (maybe not very realistic, but even so ) I think you should spend a couple of minutes doing it....

[megan gleeson]

I think they should hire lots of different actors for the voices (the very minimun should be one actor per race....). I think great examples of games with good voice acting are Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Some people disagree and say that the dialogues in those games are too long but in real life if you're telling someone to do a quest where failure is not an option, or the entire world will be doomed (maybe not very realistic, but even so ) I think you should spend a couple of minutes doing it....

The problem here is that Mass Effect is linear. Sure the dialogue is nice, and I'd kill to have that level of quality, but it's just not feasible in an open world game like TES.

[Chelsea Head]

This is very hard. A double edged sword.

My point in this, to utilize as much as voice as possible for AI. AI is far more important in an open world RPG game then acting, we do it ourselves and for the rest we use non-dialog voice for acting, AI and immersion.

Seen any elves? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

vs.

I saw a mudcrab the other day. Nasty little creatures.

We should get the smartness of first and randomness and NPC-NPC interactivity of Oblivion and combine it.

Maybe I'm asking too much but AI is something to differentiate games in the general lack of AI in modern day games, Bethesda is one step ahead. I wholeheartedly support Radiant AI like innovations.

This should be what differentiates TES from other titles.

[Elle H]

The problem here is that Mass Effect is linear. Sure the dialogue is nice, and I'd kill to have that level of quality, but it's just not feasible in an open world game like TES.

Oh yeah definitely I didn't mean the actual dialogues, but I ment the vast diversity and excellent quality of the voice actors used. And yes the complexity (sorry if mispelled) of the dialogues themselves. So to sum up, picking the quality and variety from those games but using it in a more pratical version for the TES universe.

[Dark Mogul]

I feel safe saying that TES V will have fully voiced dialog. Its a given, frankly. I hope there are more actors/actresses and higher quality throughout. I'm sure the devs have heard everybody whine about the OB VO for the last four years and are aiming to improve the situation for the next game, and I believe they will. Full VO is a genie that is not going to be put back in the bottle, not by all the angry threads on the internet.

Disk space: chill out. I am not convinced that TESV will hit seventh generation consoles - I know Sony and MS are saying "10 year cycle" like a mantra, but I am sure that what they will end up with is a 7 year cycle, and by the end of 2011 we'll hear the first rumours about the next consoles. OB was a 7th gen launch title, and it may well be the case that TESV will be an 8th gen launch title - I'm not saying it is super likely, but it is a possibility that should be recognized - remember, even if they announce TESV tonight, we shouldn't expect a release for at least another year, maybe two years.

As far as that concerns disc space, the PC and PS3 are non-issues, blue ray disks, multi-DVD installs, digital distribution, TB+ hard drives all make disk space a non-issue - and by the time TESV comes out, space will be even less of a problem (Moore's law applied to storage).

IF TES V comes out on the current Xbox 360, then I could imagine that like Forza 3's full car roster, a share of the non-MQ dialog could be dumped on a second 'optional' install DVD. There is precedent for this on the 360, and MS listens to the money talk - if Beth says the 360 release in contingent on an 'optional' install, I'm sure MS would see the light - they would not let Sony crow about having a console exclusive of the follow up to a major 360 launch title. New 360s are shipping with 250gig HDDs, and now any fool can stuff any USB drive into their console for up to 16 GB of storage, so people with Arcade units won't have to buy laughably overpriced official HDDs.

And don't say things like 'compression is at its peak'. Everybody who has ever said something similar to that has been made a fool of by history - especially in the realm of computing.

[Allison Sizemore]

There really is no chill out because fully voiced dialogue is going to be a major killer for content, unless you were happy with the number of quests available in Oblivion and Fallout 3. Which I know I wasn't.

I'll say it again:

Unless they can fit in around 400 quests, most branching as well as at least as much misc. dialogue as in Morrowind, then fully-voiced dialogue isn't worth the sacrifice.

Why 400? Morrowind had around 300, I'm pretty sure, Oblivion had around 200. I feel, with the increased amount of space on discs, they should go up at least a hundred, not down a hundred.

I don't care if a quarter of them are gopher quests (I happen to like the gopher quests, they make a lot of sense for the lower ranks in guilds), I want more quests. And fully-voiced dialogue is just a novelty. You guys think just you'll miss it because you don't understand how wonderful life is without it.

[Jade MacSpade]

Allow me to repeat the same post in this thread another time

You will not be pleased TESV. You were not pleased by TESIV or Fallout 3. You will not be pleased by any forthcoming major releases. The things you want are no longer the things game companies are in the business of making. You are the guy who preferred vinyl and hated CDs. Learn to enjoy the way games are made today, or become a committed retro-gamer.

[Anne marie]

You will not be pleased TESV. You were not pleased by TESIV or Fallout 3. You will not be pleased by any forthcoming major releases. The things you want are no longer the things game companies are in the business of making. You are the guy who preferred vinyl and hated CDs. Learn to enjoy the way games are made today, or become a committed retro-gamer.

no.

And by the way I was pleased with Fallout 3, there just could have been so much more of it.

If you're pleased with mediocrity then more power to you. Because the media's full of it and I wish I had the lack of soul to just eat it up and enjoy it without complaint.

But there's this strange force inside of me that wants 60 dollars worth of content from the 60 dollar game I buy.

Judging from what I've seen in Fallout 3, they are listening to the fans and coming to a compromise. Reserving dialogue for the major quests is such a small tweak in the scheme of things, and the added content will certainly attract sales, even if it's a risk they'll have to convince some thick-skulled publishers of it.

If you think 100 quests is enough, when the potential is 400 +. If you're really happy with that lack of content and re-playability, just so you don't have to read, ever, then I really doubt I'm the one who's in the minority.

And besides, even if what I'm suggesting was impossible, why wouldn't I say what I think?
How about I keep giving my suggestions, and you go pay the devs 60 dollars to dangle some car keys for you if you're that easily entertained?
Then, you won't have to worry about whether TESV will make you read or not.

[Rachael Williams]

And don't say things like 'compression is at its peak'. Everybody who has ever said something similar to that has been made a fool of by history - especially in the realm of computing.

We are not at, but near the peak. For general data, we're within 10% of the theoretical maximum as predicted by the Shannon–Hartley theorem, and for lossy domain-specific methods for speech we can save us maybe another 25% over what we can already do with stuff like AMR-WB / G.722.2 or Speex (if you want to go "free").

[Austin England]

But there's this strange force inside of me that wants 60 dollars worth of content from the 60 dollar game I buy.

Are you factoring inflation into your expectations?

[Georgia Fullalove]

You are the guy who preferred vinyl and hated CDs.

Are you being serious? I think it's the other way around. You would rather have voice acting than an all round high quality game? People who prefer vinyl would rather have that vinyl sound than a "high quality" song. See. I can turn that one around easily.

(quotation marks because it depends on an opinion)

But there's this strange force inside of me that wants 60 dollars worth of content from the 60 dollar game I buy.

I can't remember the last time I didn't feel ripped off whenever I bought a game. I think Morrowind was one of the last I was happy with.

[Tanya Parra]

Hahahahahahahahahaah. $60 worth of content. Is very little content. Remember old games? That could be made in a month with 15 people? That cost $60?
You are actually getting more and more content as time passes, at the same price! So you are getting cheaper and cheaper games! Ahh realism.

I hope that the game comes with "turn non-mq voices off" option for people who dont like the sound of the human voice like you...

Because TES5 will have full voice over for one reason only. First person. The only way they can put text only dialogue today is dialogue baubles( think dragon age and world of warcraft), where you have a third-person game. I really dont think they will switch to TP for TES5.

[Stefanny Cardona]

I'm not saying what I like, I'm saying that game developers are responding to the market, and the game-buying market wants more spectacle, more graphics, and yes, full audio for their $60. There is an indie games sub-market that caters to some other interests with inexpensive, small-team games, but if a publisher is going to sink millions of speculative dollars into a game developer's next project, they are going to be certain that the game will have the broadest appeal possible.

What I want matters as little as what you want. What matters is the fact that a game has to have a million unit sell through in its first month in order to be considered a success, and that after paying a team of ~100 people for ~4 years, and licensing hundreds of thousands of dollars of middle ware, and putting a few million into advertising, fabrication, and distribution, you have to sell HUGE in order to recoup upfront costs before you can even start making a profit - thats why DLC has gotten so big in the last few years, because in many cases straight retail sales just covers the publisher's costs to get the product out, and the DLC is where profit starts.

I cannot imagine a scenario where a massive sequel to a beloved franchise known for boundary-breaking productions releases without full VO for all spoken dialog and isn't torn a new orifice in the gaming press over what would appear to the mainstream market as a slipshod, skinflint production decision and a major step back from the previous iteration. Franchise super-fans and hardcoe RPG players over 25 might not mind, but your average Joe Gamer would see the reviews and editorials and typically negative websnark and put his wallet back in his pocket and buy the next hypefest instead. TESV launching without full VO would not be a small tweak in the eyes of the market, it would be a potential deal-breaker for many would-be consumers, and no publisher would risk it on a game as expensive as TESV will certainly be. The point of my previous post is that this is the situation today, learn to live with it or bail out.

And the vinyl/CD thing is not about sound quality (a whole other holy war in some circles), its that people hate full VO in major game releases are straight outta luck because they done stopped pressing records, and you can only buy CDs now. (I am aware that a handful of big albums from Tool or The White Stripes are also released on collector's vinyl, but that isn't the format of any major label-backed wide release).

You can take your ad hominem implications that I would worry about reading and that I would entertained by dangled keys and employ them in the manner of a proctoscope .

Regarding theoretical compression limits, never say never. We may plateau for a few years near a theoretical threshold, but someday some especially clever individual will have a breakthrough idea getting out of the shower, and we'll have to imagine an entire new theoretical limit.

[luke trodden]

I hope that the game comes with "turn non-mq voices off" option for people who dont like the sound of the human voice don't like thier games to be bloated with uneeded crap that detracts from the various conventions of an awesome RPG like you...

Fixed your post.


The whole "it's the modern thing" argument is worthless. If Bethesda see that more content = great sales, they WILL get rid of the system. You really underestimate the RPG fans. There are far more than you think. Not everyone is a mainstream gamer. Especially with the lack of in depth games in general, Bethesda has a huge target audience of non mainstream gamers.

[Tiffany Carter]

Hahahahahahahahahaah. $60 worth of content. Is very little content. Remember old games? That could be made in a month with 15 people? That cost $60?
You are actually getting more and more content as time passes, at the same price! So you are getting cheaper and cheaper games! Ahh realism.

I hope that the game comes with "turn non-mq voices off" option for people who dont like the sound of the human voice like you...

Because TES5 will have full voice over for one reason only. First person. The only way they can put text only dialogue today is dialogue baubles( think dragon age and world of warcraft), where you have a third-person game. I really dont think they will switch to TP for TES5.

Games were much cheaper back then and there was so much more to do in them. $60 for around 200 quests? You're ok with that? You'll pay 60 dollars just to be distracted by a show, essentially, pretty explosions, physics and acting, but not much to actually do....

That's why it only costs $10 to go see the movies. They can't expect you to pay more if you're not actually involved. When I buy an RPG, I expect to create my own story. In Oblivion, the devs take me through their story because they focused more on the presentation than actual choice.

If you really think having hardly anything to do in the game is worth the sacrifice. If you really think that being able to hear every word spoken actually adds something to the game, then you're in it for the instant gratification, which RPGs are not about. Honestly, you're too easily impressed by flashy shallow things.

I'm not getting more content I'm getting more shallow novelty.

Don't be distracted by the flashiness, there is absolutely nothing under the surface with these one-dimensional games. I'm gonna say it one more time:

If you could have 400 quests, but settle for 100, because, God forbid, you don't want to have to read, then I feel very sorry for you. Even if you can turn the voice off, it's still gonna be there and eat up space.

Honestly, I don't know why I bother. If you can't read a line of text in a video game, how can I expect you to read my posts. I think that's why you keep posting nonsense, like texted dialogue is only possible in third person... :bonk:

[Danger Mouse]

I didnt say that. I just said that the game will have full VO and you sound illogical in you arguments to not include it.

1. @Hiricine More content =/= great sales. Its what the content is. Borderlands had theoretical insanity of possible guns, but what of it?

2.@hamsmagoo Make your own story? Play tabletop RPG's. If the choice is: Play one linear story that they put 100 units of effort (UOE)( bear with me for a moment) or play one of possible four that had 25UOE each, I'd rather play that 100UOE one. In computer/console RPG's its always the devs story. They can create a branching point story, but you still have to follow a line.

3.@Me defending voice-over. I like to read. I read every (mini)book in oblivion. I read each line of dialogue. I would read it all again. I realise that the quality of stories in games fell when they induced voice-over. All my favourite games have 8/16bit music for sound( and i don't really have to say no voice-over, do I?).
But the best storylines I played trough were linear ones. My favourite RPG of all time is Shining Force II for gennesis, where you dont actually have a single dialogue choice. The thing is, This game will have full voice over. The story will suffer for it. Because the bosses are not gamers. I loved playing fable where good/evil choices made a difference in the world. But I felt, while playing mass effect that the choice was there just so they can say: "Ooh look we gave you choices!"


This game doesent need choices in the main quest, or a lot of side quests. It needs a good main quest, and good side quests. But maybe there's a compromise: Mercenary guild: They put quests on pieces of paper, and everything is there. So they dont bogged down in voice-over space.

But when I think it over: 1 voice actor per gender per race +20-30 unique characters AND voice-changing algorithms, no matter the fact that they are noticeable, would make full voice over take little space(relative), and the voice-over look nice. Because if they are going to put full voice-over (which they are) they should at least make it decent.


p.s. i mean casual gamers would only accept text in tp games. and they are part of the target audience, so that's why text dialogue will onkly be included in TP games.

[Niisha]

Here are my thoughts on the current debate:

Morrowind was a fantastic RPG with a relatively small audience. Bethesda was trying to make a good game, and they made a good game.

Then Oblivion came along. Bethesda sacrificed some of the depth of Morrowind to make what I'm sure they thought was a better game. And if you count in terms of audience size and sales figures, they did just that. My little brothers aren't RPG fans, and while they played Morrowind, they LOVED Oblivion.

Today most people want full VO. If Bethesda wants to sell their next game and actually turn a profit, they almost have to have VO. They screwed the pooch when they did it to Oblivion. Stahlbrand was 100% right when he said that without it, most gamers will take their money elsewhere. In my experience, most gamers will take flash over substance any day of the week -- they don't understand that by pushing for things like VO, they're stealing disk space from content. He was also right when he said that without the kind of audience that Oblivion had, Bethesda's finances will take a massive hit. The Elder Scrolls may be an RPG franchise, but at the end of the day Bethesda has to make what sells. There's no way they would even risk spending millions of dollars on a game if they weren't absolutely sure it would sell profitably.

I'm of the opinion that you simply can't profit from a game with the kind of budget Oblivion had (and TES V is going to have) if you ignore the "Oblivion fans" and cater exclusively to hardcoe-RPG players. Lord knows I wish they could -- Morrowind-esque RPGs are a dying (if not extinct) breed. But the fact of the matter is that zeitgeist is going to prevent a game with the depth of Morrowind from being made in favor of a blockbuster hit.

[Kelvin Diaz]

Then Oblivion came along. Bethesda sacrificed some of the depth of Morrowind to make what I'm sure they thought was a better game. And if you count in terms of audience size and sales figures, they did just that. My little brothers aren't RPG fans, and while they played Morrowind, they LOVED Oblivion.

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?