Not a problem. I do agree that there was a lot of repetition already in Morrowind, though I appreciate the quality of the writing a bit more than you. They didn't try to fix the shortcoming on their next installment though, instead it felt even more stripped and generic, and the voice over made it more jarring, in my opinion, because of the quality of it and the way they implemented it. It didn't help that Oblivion's setting has more of a high fantasy feel, maybe they felt than since it was a familiar setting with most players, lore and background detail could take a backseat?

voice over in parts because it allows for more quests and more in depth explanation of the missions.

they can voice over the main quest for example and just place greetings and simple talks for other NPCs that way we can have thousands of side quests and mini main quests and such.

complete voice over will NEVER be better unless they hire voice actors that won't charge 1 million dollars for every line, only then will they be able to voice over every text they have.

I actually thought it would be easy, but after thinking about it, I'm torn... I'd love voiceacting, but NOT like oblivion, I'd like actual nice voice acting that fits the characters... On the other hand though, I'd like a lore-heavy game and that might be hard with everything voiceacted.. hmmm

Possibly. I'll admit that I like the setting in Oblivion better than in Morrowind but I liked Morrowind too so it's not like that's saying a whole lot. I think for me, I just didn't mind the repetitive voice acting that much. Sure, it was annoying at times but I guess I was able to look past it better than some. Having said that, with Skyrim, I hope they have more voice actors to give more diversity. Fallout 3 and New Vegas did a much better job of voice acting IMO so that gives me high hopes for Skyrim.

Morrowind is actually a example of game not using text in a good way. They didn't have a problem changing dialog because of voice acting, yet there's grammatical errors and mess ups because of the wiki system. they also didn't have voices holding them back from creating different answers from different people, yet if you ask different people about the same topic it leads to the same page, word for word.

I agree that they have done a much better job lately, especially with New Vegas, but then again, you don't talk to every random npc in that game, they went for a more focused approach, limiting the fully voiced npcs and giving the rest of the population a few one liners. Its a compromise that allows them to focus in making important characters stand out.. This is exactly my point regarding being aware of your limitations and working around them, instead of going with an approach that most probably will ensure you end up with a sub par implementation of voice over due to the sheer size of the project. In a perfect world all npcs would have proper voicing, but since reality is a bit different than that, some people might simply object to setting for generic and bring up alternatives like text to flesh out the world, or anything else that allows them to implement dialogue in a better way than both Morrowind and Oblivion.

That's not "they." New Vegas =/= Bethesda. New Vegas = Obsidian.

You have a point. :rolleyes:

Fully voiced, but hopefully more dialogue. I get that it's a long process, but I would much rather have a smaller game and more dialogue.

Yep- that New Vegas was Obsidian schooling Bethesda in the voice-over and text department, and the abominable dialogue in Fallout "I'm looking for my father....middle-aged guy..." 3 was Bethesda's last outing.

And New Vegas still suffered from Bethesda's "favorite fatal flaw" of too many NPCs, far too few voices.

While Morrowind's system was nice, we've advanced. You are insane if you think they could revert from full voiceovers to text and some voiceovers after Oblivion and Fallout. Voiceovers are much more immersive; I can't really see how people think text is more immersive.

Personally I prefer it like Morrowind. Having the text there to read, for me felt like there was more content and it felt more advlt having to read. Although it was pretty sweet that Oblivion had it all over, I thought at times it felt like the dialogue was a little bit simplistic in comparison to the text I enjoyed reading in Morrowind

I vote for partial voiceover,full voiceovers are waste of time and bethesda should concentrate on other things.
Apart from that partial voiceovers leave plenty of room for imagination as full voiceovers just kill the impression for me.

Partial voice overs wouldn't be able to compete for the spending dollars of the mainstream gaming market. Bethesda's rivals (and Bioware especially) utilize full voice overs and so will Bethesda if it wants to create more profit. This is an inane poll and a forgone conclusion. Throughout their history video games have been transforming inexorably into more cinematic experiences with more verisimilitude.

I love the full voice overs, however they need to not spend money on big name talent and take that extra money and spend it on local talent. This way you get more talent and you have a better produuct in the end.

I liked Morrowind's system but I doubt they'll go back to that because full voice acting is pretty much a staple for AAA titles.

I'd *like* partial, but I think if voiced is done right, then it could be better

Unless there's an extra disc for the files, I say no. We should stick to a Morrowind standard. All it does is completely ruin the content. People complain that Oblivion/Fallout lacks content, yet want full voice acting. They're mutually exlusive, unless more disccs are involved. (which I highly doubt)

Personally, I really couldn't care less about voice acting, other than the issues with space. As long as we're not given more Oblivion standard voice acting, it's all good.

And "a step back" is having more, rich dialogue with depth and meaning? Damn. I really need to rethink.

Seriously, voice acting is merely a novelty. And don't even bother telling me how it's neccessary in the modern gaming industry. I mean;

• Games actually do great, with little or no voice acting. Civilisation, World of Warcraft (and most MMO's), The Sims, all have minimal voice acting, and they're some of the best selling PC games ever.
  
• TES has always been revered for the massive amount of content. Huge worlds, immense detail, hours of gameplay, etc. If you can find another game to TES standard, with full voice acting, without an extra disc, I will be amazed.

Beause everyone just gives me simple one line answers. "Hi, there!" gets old after a while. Sure, that's fine for a few commoners. but not everyone in the game. The only people that really spoke to me where people involved in a quest somehow, and a few "special" characters, such as M'aiq. Not a single talkative person in the homeland of the diplomatic Imperials? Yeah, I doubt that.

I am a firm proponent of everything Bethesda, but in this I have to say I would like it mass effect style, but with a fuller richer feel as the mass effect world seemed cold and distant most the time, but then so did Oblivion most the time the only thing I will say bad about TES ! Yes I did like Morrowinds style better, but it could be improved as all of them can be with new engines and such so lets wait and see what they do with their new engine I for 1 am willing to give them the benefit of doubt they always produce a quality game for me that I play for hundreds of hours

Full voices + personal character voice. Gothic 3 has it, Mass Effect has it, why would I want a mute character in Skyrim.

I don't care and mind if there is voice or only text or partial.

Let's be honest here, both systems weren't anywhere near immersive. If BGS could flesh out the majority of all characters in their game with voice overs, then I don't imagine there would be that many people asking for text based conversations.

Not when your game is only 4.6GB big, that Oblivion lacked content because of voice acting is a myth, it had at least an extra 2GB to use.

Let's at the very least max out the current disc before we talk about additional discs.

My first TES was Oblivion but after trying Morrowind I much prefer Morrowind's system of partially-voiced NPCs, it greatly improved immersion.

If they're going to use full voice acting at least give the option to turn off NPC quest dialogue in the audio options.

I wonder how many people arguing for voice acting actually end up just speed reading the subtitles like I do and skipping listening to the person all together.

There really isn't a point to voice acting if you're going to read through the subtitles that fast anyways. I did the same in Mass Effect, KotoR, and lots of other games. If you all don't have the time to use Morrowind style fast travel, then why do you have the time to listen to an NPC that talks as slow as my grandmother?

I rarely find myself listening to a full line of dialog from an NPC. I just read the text and skip to the next line.