Drakensang not fully voice acted?

[cerberus9090]

Hi all,

I just started playing the English version, and wanted to make sure nothing is wrong. Is the english version fully voice acted? Some of the first characters I talk to just say the first line, but then do not speak the rest of the dialogue. I am guessing this is not an error, but just wanted to check.

I am a bit thrown off by this - I figure that a modern game with solid graphics would have full voice acting. I guess THQ was careful not to throw too much money behind it....

[skavenhorde]

I'm going to make a horrible comparison right now, but it seems like the best one that fits. Compare Morrowind to Oblivion in terms of dialogue.

Morrowind: tons of content but only one voiced "hello" type sentence in the beginning.
Oblivion: everything is voiced, but you're now limited in content and how much is said.

I prefer Morrowind especially with a great mod that makes the people come alive like the LGNPC mod, but it's a matter of preference. I don't really care if someone says the lines or not.

Edit: Your avatar gave me idea for an even better comparison.

Fallout 3 vs Fallout 2 or 1

[Gorath]

It wasn't THQ's decision. In the German version only the first sentence is voiced, like in the international versions.

[cerberus9090]

Makes sense to me. If its a choice, then I'd rather have way more content than voice acting. Good call on F3, the shallow dialogue options were a major disappointment.

[Gorath]

In case of Drakensang cutting things down for voice acting would have been counter productive because they hired 4 original DSA authors to write the script.

[wolfing]

That's good in my case, I read faster than the voice, so 99% of the time I just ignore the voice and just read and click over it.
And yes, I definitely prefer content over voice, I'd rather if they spent X money on hiring writers than voice actors. Besides, most reviews always say that voice acting in a game is bad unless it's a known actor or something. Good riddance I say

[Thrasher]

Does anyone really care about voiceacting when they care about what really matters in an RPG?

[Turjan]

Does anyone really care about voiceacting when they care about what really matters in an RPG?
Well done, it might make for some memorable core scenes. Badly done, it might destroy everything. I don't mind if I don't have voice acting, but if it's there, it will definitely influence my reception of the game.

[Thrasher]

If the voiceacting makes a scene, the writing has to be already good to begin with. I can just do with the writing. If I want to hear good acting I'll usually got to a play or watch a movie.

if I want to play a game I want to have good interaction, first of all, presentation is completely secondary.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

In adventures, I turn the subtitles on as often as possible.

But that has also a bit to do with my left ear being almost deaf.

[curious]

that same argument was made by people who liked silent movies i'm sure...some people are simply more auditory than others. i need music for example more than food. for some music is simply 'background' and not the 'meat' of their lives experience--for me its breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

sure some games may not have the budget for voice acting which is fine, but lack of good music/score is pushing it for me. and yes writing ultimately needs to be done well in the first place, while some games suffer a boon by having better voice acting than their writing. is this preferred? not really but for some games, which is better is not that important and boils down to personal prefference.

[Thrasher]

Sounds like an excuse for shallowness and mediocre writing and gameplay.

[curious]

some of us aren't lifeless robots however and 'interaction' is never possible without some devloped form of 'presentation' which engages them.

[txa1265]

Having some amount of acting is nice, but I certainly understand the cost associated with it - and for a budget release I am fine.

[Grandor Dragon]

If the acting was as great as in many movies, I would love full voiceacting. But it is not, and Drakensang, while having okay voice acting, is no exception. Before sacrificing other contents for more so-so voice acting, I prefer the current solution.

Having just the first line spoken is not a bad solution. You know how each character sounds like, and the voice sticks in your head when reading.

Btw, there are two famous German voice actors that do a lot of computer game work. However, they also do the voiceacting for some American actors. So when I play, I keep hearing the voices of Nicolas Cage and Bruce Willis, which can be a bit distracting :)

[Thrasher]

some of us aren't lifeless robots however and 'interaction' is never possible without some devloped form of 'presentation' which engages them.

Voice eacting is VERY low on the priority list. Especially since most of it is SO bad. Seems like a big waste.

[wolfing]

Voice eacting is VERY low on the priority list. Especially since most of it is SO bad. Seems like a big waste.

Not only that, but it seems that no matter what, people will always find issues or won't like the voices or will have some complaint or another. I think it's the most expensive and less 'appreciated' aspect of recent games.

[Kostaz]

For me not having full-voice acting was a real turn-down.
I can understand games like Fallout having no voice acting because they were released over a decade ago.
But DS was released in 2008 and I doubt that the quality of the dialogs is as high as it was in Fallout.
It's ridiculous that a low budget game like Gothic was full voice acted and DS is not.
Even bad voice acting like in Two Worlds is better than none.
Call me weird but voice acting is a must for new games.

[Corwin]

Well, I dislike nearly all voice acting in games, so I'm happy with the decision. Where would you rather their limited budget be spent, voices, or gameplay? For me the choice is obvious!!

[vanedor]

I tried the demo and found its content much more richer than any new crpg I have been playing these last years. I bet the fact it is not fully voice acted has something to do about it.

This seems a great solution to offer better games.

[Kostaz]

:-/ It just feels lifeless to me,I'd prefer much worse graphics than soundless dialogs.NPCs keep moving their lips and hands yet I hear nothing,it's just awkward.

[Gorath]

It's ridiculous that a low budget game like Gothic was full voice acted and DS is not.

The first Gothic was quite an expensive game in its time. The graphics were great in March 2001, and PB spent like forever working on the game. I wouldn't be surprised if Gothic had a bigger budget than DraSa. And don't forget there's ca. 8 years of rising budgets between them. 2-3M EUR now is hardly as much as 4-6M DM back then.


I'm quite happy with this compromise. The writers had more freedom because they didn't have to write in a voice acting friendly way. Voice was mostly cut. Okay for me. I can live with that.

But of course I'm also somebody who still watches silent moves once or twice a year. ;)

[txa1265]

The lack of full voice acting was brought up as a 'is something wrong' question in the GameSpot forums ... personally I am fine with that since I tend to mute things half teh time so as not to annoy the family.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Nowadays, where full voices are quite a standard now, NOT full voiceacting definitively will be considered as "something is wrong".

On the other hand, it sheds some light on how foreigners might feel who got their full voiceacting axed because of localization costs.
I have vaguely at least one game in mind (don't remember the title, though), which was fully voiceacted, but that was cut for the German version of it.

[Thrasher]

Well, I dislike nearly all voice acting in games, so I'm happy with the decision. Where would you rather their limited budget be spent, voices, or gameplay? For me the choice is obvious!!

^My sentiment exactly!

[Gorath]

On the other hand, it sheds some light on how foreigners might feel who got their full voiceacting axed because of localization costs.
I have vaguely at least one game in mind (don't remember the title, though), which was fully voiceacted, but that was cut for the German version of it.

Beyond Divinity

[Thrasher]

The english voice-acting was mostly ludicrous.

[Dasale]

If I need choose between the same game with a good voice acting or with none, the version with voice acting wins easily.

From what I heard voice acting for a video game is something like 3 intense days very organized. It wouldn't cost so much if you consider it's this cost perhaps multiply by 5 people. The problem is probably more for other countries that haven't such organization and a large pool of professional voice actors that cost much much less than actors.

I haven't tried yet Drakensang but I feel its choice totally weird. First sentence with voices will be a constant reminder of the lack of voices, yes you can cut the voices (I hope) but then it's such a waste of money and time.

[Grandor Dragon]

For a game like Drakensang, voice acting would take much longer than three days. I was working at the place where they did voice-vers for the Spanish version of Halo 2, which certainly has less dialogue. The recordings took at least a week. Actors are often paid per hour, then there is the director, technicians etc. This is an expensive decision.

Also, countries which dub a lot of movies (most of them American) usually have quite good studios and networks. Germany is among these countries. I don't know about the current state of the industry, but for a long time it was the American industry that wasn't very strong, simply because most products were English.

The problem is that most German games don't sell that much. As noted in the news posts, 100,000 sold units makes your title a blockbuster in Germany. German games have less international exposure than US games (with a few exceptions), so sales will be naturally lower.

[Gorath]

If I need choose between the same game with a good voice acting or with none, the version with voice acting wins easily.

Dialogs are not necessarily identical if they are voice acted. If every single take costs money for actor, studio, technician and director it's only natural to cut the costs where it's most efficient: in the script editing process before the recordings. This can have both positive and negative effects. In a game like Drakensang I want long, detailed dialogs though. I can only guess how much dialog would have had to be recorded. Gothic 2 had 9 hours. Drakensang is much bigger. The chance is slim it would have gone through without serious cuts.
Also, by far not all voice acting is good, and good voice actors can be expensive.

[wolfing]

Dialogs are not necessarily identical if they are voice acted. If every single take costs money for actor, studio, technician and director it's only natural to cut the costs where it's most efficient: in the script editing process before the recordings. This can have both positive and negative effects. In a game like Drakensang I want long, detailed dialogs though. I can only guess how much dialog would have had to be recorded. Gothic 2 had 9 hours. Drakensang is much bigger. The chance is slim it would have gone through without serious cuts.
Also, by far not all voice acting is good, and good voice actors can be expensive.

And to tell you the truth, it's hard to find a game where everybody agrees voice acting was good (unless really AAA games with millions and millions in budget and professional voice actors), and the % of people for which it really doesn't matter is high. Considering RPG games are specially heavy in the dialog aspect, voice acting is an extra (and high) expense for each localization. Besides, when you translate from the original language you're introducing one level of potential failure (nobody gives extra points to a game for it's good translation, but if it's bad, heavens save you), add to that an extra layer of people actually speaking those translated words, and it's a second layer of potential problems.
I'm perfectly fine with what they did.

[Dasale]

I have tried a bit the English demo and it makes me see it differently, that is working anyway despite the strange choice. It's not the first sentence but the first talk of a dialog with a NPC. I suppose this choice has been done to save time and money and still be able to feature voices for helping sells, plus the first talk of a dialog can be enough to contribute to setup the mood of a NPC.

But in fact this choice is very ambitious because most if not all NPC with a dialog get a voice acting. That will probably result in many secondary NPC sharing the same voice. I'm sure that a good voice actor can use few different natural voices but well not that many.

[Grandor Dragon]

Yep - same voice for different NPCs.

[Dasale]

Yep - same voice for different NPCs.
Well in English I didn't notice but in my native language I know I'll notice.

About price of such stuff I search a little through the net and found the convention they agreed in my country:

The minimum salary for dub of video game is: 200€ for 4 hours of work but also 670€ from the rights of the sells (no detail about this).

And to get an idea of more detailed numbers taken from dub for movies:
4 hours is 90 lines maximum I quote this but this limit is only for movies not video games. I saw at TV an extract of a take for a video game, it was quite amazing to see the rate of recording and quite different than takes I saw for movies or cartoon.

But yes that also means to pay location of a professional recording studio, a director, technicians. I don't think video games yet get a lips/voice synchronization work meaning a lot of work before to prepare it.

That said I'm not sure it is so significant when you compare few weeks of this to years of an army of developers, graphist, and so on. It's still not free and requires additional organization plus quite a problem in case of bug fix with dialogs.

[Grandor Dragon]

Based on your numbers, let's look at the costs of vice over recording.

Fallout 3 has 40,000 lines of dialogue. Let's assume that recording video game dialogue goes twice as fast as film dialogue. That would be 180 lines in four hours. A little more than 222 blocks of four hours. With a 200 Euro salary per block, we'd be looking at about 45,000 Euros for the voiceover. With a budget of 2.5 Million Euros, that's 1.8%. This is only the acting, and does not include studio rental, technicians etc.

It would be nice to have someone from the industry comment on this issue.

[wolfing]

Based on your numbers, let's look at the costs of vice over recording.

Fallout 3 has 40,000 lines of dialogue. Let's assume that recording video game dialogue goes twice as fast as film dialogue. That would be 180 lines in four hours. A little more than 222 blocks of four hours. With a 200 Euro salary per block, we'd be looking at about 45,000 Euros for the voiceover. With a budget of 2.5 Million Euros, that's 1.8%. This is only the acting, and does not include studio rental, technicians etc.

It would be nice to have someone from the industry comment on this issue.
And don't forget, most of the money used is valid for all versions of the game. For example, whatever they spend in the engine, the same engine will be used in all localizations of the game. Same with the terrain and environments, 3d models and animations, music, sound effects, etc. Not only will they be exactly the same (i.e. no extra investment) for all versions, but they can be reused in sequels/expansions. Voice acting is a separate investment for each localization, and not reusable.

[Gorath]

The minimum salary for dub of video game is: 200€ for 4 hours of work but also 670€ from the rights of the sells (no detail about this).


The idea behind this is the separation of work and rights. The 200€ are compensation for the work. The price for the rights depend on the project, and they are often limited to 12 months. For example a local radio commercial is relatively cheap, a national radio commercial much more expensive.

200€ for 4 hours is the low end. Everybody who has something of a name (read: a well known voice) costs more. I know about one reasonably well known TV actor and top 5 voice actor (he speaks Bruce Willis, among others), who asks for 5000€ per day - and he is in high demand. All prices plus expenses of course, and certain minimum orders have to be reached.

Another problem I see:
An expensive loca is a negative aspect when negotiating with international publishers. Another reason to shrink the dialogs if you want full voice-overs.

[Thrasher]

If it's not done right, it can ruin the feeling of a game:

- bad acting
- reused voices for different characters
- inappropriate voices (like silly accents in beyond divinity)
- bad translations
- trimmed down dialog - (see the original Witcher for an example...)

As said above, to do it all right costs a lot of money. If that's available, fine. If not, it should not even be attempted, because it will devalue the product.

[Gorath]

We'll see what they do in DraSa 2. They should have a relatively bigger budged because the product is now proven and all the technology can be recycled.

[Kostaz]

If it's not done right, it can ruin the feeling of a game:

- bad acting
- reused voices for different characters
- inappropriate voices (like silly accents in beyond divinity)
- bad translations
- trimmed down dialog - (see the original Witcher for an example...)

As said above, to do it all right costs a lot of money. If that's available, fine. If not, it should not even be attempted, because it will devalue the product.
Thing is,that if you don't like voice acting you can just mute the sound and listen to music.
If there is absolutely no voice acting or what is in DraSa then the only option is to read all those dialogs and watch a game which is like silent movie.

Since it's been quite a while since a game was localized in Greece I play only English games and I tend to forget about other localizations.
Maybe voice acting for 4 languages in an RPG would be very expensive and have a negative effect on gameplay,but English only would be good enough for me.

[txa1265]

Personally it doesn't impact my enjoyment of the game ... I would rate full voice acting way, way down on my list. Of course it is nice, but given the choice of the enjoyable dialogue in Drakensang being partly voiced and the mediocre crap in Fallout 3 being fully voiced ...

[Dasale]

Fully voiced seems an approach a little extreme I know it's the point of the Gothic series and I definitely feel that it adds a lot to immersion when well done but not much to the core gameplay of a CRPG. The Witcher even add voices for common peasants and for that too I felt it adds a lot to immersion and to the mood.

A mixed approach with voices for the main NPC and important dialogs make sense for me, but I feel the Drakensang approach less interesting. For the CRPG bigger and bigger I feel it wrong, there's a link, when they are so big the it's extreme expense to have voices then it's perhaps too big. :)

[Thrasher]

The point is that resources that would be better applied to gameplay or better written dialog are wasted on crummy voiceacting. There's no way to turn off voices and then turn on content that is lacking.

[txa1265]

There's no way to turn off voices and then turn on content that is lacking.

Very important point - we all want everything ... but exactly what are your trade-offs and priorities?

[Thrasher]

gameplay over presentation for me

[txa1265]

gameplay over presentation for me

I understood that from your post and apologize that the way I said it sounded like a question back ... it is really a rhetorical question everyone hsa to answer for themselves.

[have]

Wow, I was really fascinated to read through three pages of opinion about voice acting. You must all be truly desperate to be heard (or 'read', for those of you who prefer 'content').

Here's the thing: saying you like content over voice acting is just plain stupid. If you like content, read a book. I play games to be entertained, like going to a movie. If I wanted content I could read, do a crossword or peruse the thesaurus.

You morons who claim to be so enthralled with content from a - VIDEO GAME - are ignorant, pompous little noobtards. You probably 'read' Yahoo for your news too, right?

Save your pathetic roleplaying opinions for your friends at the renaissance faire. Shave the hair off your little dwarf hobbit-toes. Tell them to your imaginary girlfriend, or write a long blog post in Olde English. Just don't inflict them on normal people.

And by the way, I stopped reading after opinion #4. So did everyone else. So only YOU actually read this crap, and if you're still reading my opinon - well you're just pathetic.

You're a bunch of idiots. I dare you to flame me, you 35-year-old RPG fanboys who live in your parents' basement. I could care less because, thank God, I will never visit this forum again, I'll never see your mundane little ramblings, and your opinions just DON'T MATTER. NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU, NO ONE HEARS YOU, AND YOU WILL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING.

Now go eat shit.

[Grandor Dragon]

:cool: :D Welcome to the forum! :D :cool:
I wish more games would have content comparable to a well-written book, that would be great. Books are also great, but they are not interactive.

[Thrasher]

Games are NOT movies.

[KasperFauerby]

10 bucks the nice mr. 'have' *is* checking back here... desperately hoping for someone to take the bait :)

[Thrasher]

Very obvious heavy-handed troll attempt that should be ignored, and preferably deleted.

[Gorath]

Just ignore him. I felt tempted to ban him right away, but one of the other mods has already given him a warning. One punishment is enough.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

From a psychological perspective, the posting of "have" is fascinating.

His posting is very well conceived and undertook probable several hours of fine-tuning.

He begins with a relatively low tone, saying nothing extraordinarily new , or especially interesting. Just an opinion like any other. He calls the people who posted here "desparate", if they cling to a certain opinion.

The next paragraph contains a tiny bit of a stronger tone. He calls the readers "stupid", which is the first real kind of insult, although a relatively mild one.
This insult is very much neutralized by the following sentences which do nothing special but offer the reader(s) his opinion.

The next paragraph is obviously much harsher. The poster didn't want to write down more in order to slowly climb up into his climax of insults, insteads he uses several expressions which are clearly meant to insult the reader(s). The amount of words used to express his or her opinion dwindles.

The next paragraph is not rather filled with "real" insults, but rather with indirect, even implicit ones. The poster clearly speculates on some being offensive on a special kind of readers, because they are expressed in a certain way. This is like a shot into the dark, with a weapon aimed at someone without knowing whether the "enemy" wars a bullet-proof vest or not.

The paragraph following that is a try to put the own opinion as the most important one in this forum. He or she even doesn't care about the fact that this thread is being read by an unknown number of lurkers, even worse: The poster pretends to be speaking for a group of readers he or she cannot know.

This is insofar interesting in that this is a clear expression of the own opinion - and therefore the ego - being most important to any one in his or her whole life. He or she expresses himself or herself as if he or she was being superior to anyone else on this planet, and everyone else is inferior to him or her.

This is a clear sign of a social disorder.

The last paragraph doesn't contain nothing personal of the poster anymore. It nothing but consists of insults. The poster is writing himself or herself into some kind of rage (like I do in other discussions sometimes, but without insulting anyone (at least i try to), which leads into a staccato of uttered wods like someone who is overwhelmed like a great anger and/or fury.

Also interesting is, that the amount of expressions expressing his belief to be superior to everyone else here increases drastically.

In this paragraph, as a summary, all personality is lost, and it is instead replaced by words voiced from an inflated ego.

The very last paragraph is written like - not an insult, but as a way to degrade a person. This is how I imagine a sadistic person finding lust in degrading another person - or even several ones.

I believe from this that this post is a) remarkably fine-tuned to produce the most possible amount of anger / feeling to be insulted / feeling of degradation in the reader, or b) this person has already had so much training in writing similar posts that this comes already naturally.

In conclusion, I'd call this person an inherently sadistic person which finds fun and lust in degrading people. His or her tool in fulfilling this lust re words - and in particular posts like this.

He or she assumes that he or she will provoke very, very strong reactions in he readers, the more, the stronger his or her words are which are used. Which is another hint towards the nature of this poster.

These reactions are also meant to generate nothing but attention. Here comes in the term of an "attention-whore", which he or she very likely is. Attention is like sustentation for the poster. He or she cannot live without it, otherwise this post wouldn't contain so strong expressions - expressions which are perhaps even hand-picked during year-long training in order to provoike the most strongest possible reactions. Expressions that he or she has perhaps assembled from other posters who use a similar style, which means that the poster is constantly learning in order to further develop his or her posts into a certain direction.

From people like that I would expect criminal acts.

[Thrasher]

Nicely done.

I agree that this is definitely a very sick individual.

[k1000]

For the little I've played of Drakensang (I still haven't reached Ferdok), I find it a bit distracting to have the first line spoken and not the rest of the dialog. I would of preffered to have no voice acting at all and only text.

[Kostaz]

For the little I've played of Drakensang (I still haven't reached Ferdok), I find it a bit distracting to have the first line spoken and not the rest of the dialog. I would of preffered to have no voice acting at all and only text.You can always turn down your speakers.

[Krzychu]

From what I've seen, a lot of people find the voiceover thing in Drakensang confusing, which is kinda interesting. Do we expect to always have full VO in games nowadays? Since when? Heck, I enjoy voiceover *a lot* myself, but I'm not surprised if a game does not have full VO.

I mean, in BG2 only the most important dialogues were fully voiced, and in the party conversations only the first line was spoken. That's similar to Drakensang, only in DraSa every now and then we get a cutscene with full VO! Sure, BG2 is an old game, but, for example, do the NWN2 games have full VO? No.

Still, I have to admit, I highly appreciate it when imporant characters and party members have full VO - but, hm, in DraSa party members *have* voiceover for most of their lines, don't they?

[Grandor Dragon]

As far as I remember, NWN2 has full voiceover.

[Gorath]

River of Time will also have full voice acting - and a legion of additional writers. Strange combination.

[Krzychu]

As far as I remember, NWN2 has full voiceover.

No, it doesn't. Well, yes, there's a lot of voiceover there, but it's not full. A lot of npcs don't have spoken lines - shopkeepers, etc., but not only! Even Deekin does not have voiceover (a travesty! ;)). And if I remember correctly, in NWN:HotU the companions usually had voicover for the first line only - don't remember how it was in the OC, but I'm assuming it was less than in that expansion, but that's NWN1 anyway - just saying.

@Gorath: Well I hope some reviewers will be satisfied with the VO this time. I don't mind really, as long as it doesn't cost too much.

[Kostaz]

From what I've seen, a lot of people find the voiceover thing in Drakensang confusing, which is kinda interesting. Do we expect to always have full VO in games nowadays?
Absolutely
Since when?
We're in 2009 and I consider voice acting to be as standard as 3d graphics.
Heck, I enjoy voiceover *a lot* myself, but I'm not surprised if a game does not have full VO.When the game is brand new I'm really surprised,in a negative way.I mean, in BG2 only the most important dialogues were fully voiced, and in the party conversations only the first line was spoken. That's similar to Drakensang, only in DraSa every now and then we get a cutscene with full VO! Sure, BG2 is an old game, but, for example, do the NWN2 games have full VO? No.BG was released almost 10 years ago but DrakenSang just a few months ago.


But maybe my attitude towards voice acting comes from the fact that the first 2 RPGs(KotOR,Gothic) I completed were fully voice acted.

[Krzychu]

BG was released almost 10 years ago but DrakenSang just a few months ago.

Yes, I realise that, but I just don't see VO as something evolving the same way as graphics, personally.

But maybe my attitude towards voice acting comes from the fact that the first 2 RPGs(KotOR,Gothic) I completed were fully voice acted.

Well, in KotOR BioWare was in very convenient situation - a lot of NPCs spoke in the alien language (what was it, 10-20 lines repeated over and over?), but... Gothic - argh, you've got me there! ;) Yeah, I can't really imagine that game without full voiceover.

Edit: I don't see full VO as a norm, I guess. Thinking about, I feel that to me it just depends on the game. While I wouldn't like to see Gothic without full VO, I probably wouldn't mind if NWN2 had more silent dialogue windows and less cinematic conversations with spoken lines. On the other hand, take one of my favourites, Outcast - a game from 1999. It had full voiceover, and it made perfect sense!

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Having everything to be voiced just means to me there's no need to put energy into reading again. No distractions for the mind, please ! No work at all !

To me, I often wished that games were NOT fully voiced, since I'm more reading that listening. To me, an RPG is apart from racing games - like a good book I can explore.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

We're in 2009 and I consider voice acting to be as standard as 3d graphics.

Racing games ? Sports games ? Casual games ? Strategy games ? Simulations ?

[Grandor Dragon]

No, it doesn't. Well, yes, there's a lot of voiceover there, but it's not full. A lot of npcs don't have spoken lines - shopkeepers, etc., but not only! Even Deekin does not have voiceover (a travesty! ;))..

Ah yes, now I remember the little text boxes. Forgot about them.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

By the way, "modern" games sometimes don't even offer subtitles anymore.

Nice for deaf gamers !

I believe the vast majority of the gamers crying out for this and for that just doesn't realize that there might be handicapped gamers out there.

Like me, I'm almost deaf on one ear.

Therefore, real stereo listening is for me not really accomplishable.

[Kostaz]

Racing games ? Sports games ? Casual games ? Strategy games ? Simulations ?Your point is?

[Grandor Dragon]

Drakensang is not 100% deaf-friendly either. Some of the written dialogue appears on top of an NPCs head. Easy to miss since you might be looking into the wrong direction.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Your point is?

That you say that iut's "standard".

I doubt that some of these game genres are fully voiced, even now.

I admit that I might be wrong, though.


What I actually hate is when people demand on something, hard, without compromise.

[wolfing]

To me it's just something that adds so much to a game's cost and almost nothing to my gaming experience (99% of the time I just ignore the voice and just read the text and skip to the next sentence... and I hate it when I have to wait for the voice!)

[blackcanopus]

Drakensang is not 100% deaf-friendly either. Some of the written dialogue appears on top of an NPCs head. Easy to miss since you might be looking into the wrong direction.
Deaf people can always use the game console. I used it when I had to turn down volume when I was playing in the middle of the night. It worked for me, it should work for them. Just click "?" mark at bottom-left corner of the screen.
Besides, Drakensang's console gives a lot of info about dice rolls and fights. Nice feature.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Besides, Drakensang's console gives a lot of info about dice rolls and fights. Nice feature.

Yes, I think that's partly because DRASA is built upon a real P&P rule set. So it's something for the TDE P&P players.

The results shown in the console have also revealed that several things were twaeked towards playability, and away from the *original* rule set. Not much, but surely notoceable for those who know the P&P rule set.

Sometimes I'd wish I'd see a similar console in other games, too.

[wolfing]

Yes, I think that's partly because DRASA is built upon a real P&P rule set. So it's something for the TDE P&P players.

The results shown in the console have also revealed that several things were twaeked towards playability, and away from the *original* rule set. Not much, but surely notoceable for those who know the P&P rule set.

Sometimes I'd wish I'd see a similar console in other games, too.

It was also a little spoilerish, but that's ok (you could see that you failed in some skill roll so you know there is something you missed)

[Grandor Dragon]

It was also a little spoilerish, but that's ok (you could see that you failed in some skill roll so you know there is something you missed)

Oh well. That is another aspect of pen&paper roleplaying games also (though of course the DM can do hidden checks for the PCs).

[blackcanopus]

Yes, I think that's partly because DRASA is built upon a real P&P rule set. So it's something for the TDE P&P players.

The results shown in the console have also revealed that several things were twaeked towards playability, and away from the *original* rule set. Not much, but surely notoceable for those who know the P&P rule set.

Sometimes I'd wish I'd see a similar console in other games, too.
I have played many games with a similar feature. BG, IceWind Dale, Fallout. Even NWN2 (which is a rather recent game, considering Storm of Zehir and Mysteries of Westgate) had it.
But I agree with you on that. More RPGs should have a console. Even games like Gothic could have and optional console. People like us can simply turn it on if they feel like it.

[Moriendor]

Even games like Gothic could have and optional console. People like us can simply turn it on if they feel like it.

If you turn on Marvin (= dev) mode in the Gothic games then you do actually have a console. In fact, Gothic 1 had a showstopping bug in the release version that could only be worked around via a console command before a patch was released to fix the issue.