Drakensang not fully voice acted?

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….

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Originally Posted by Thrasher
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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Originally Posted by curious
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.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
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.

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.

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!!

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.