Drakensang not fully voice acted?

Originally Posted by 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?

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.

Originally Posted by Kostaz
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.

Originally Posted by Kostaz
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!

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.

Originally Posted by Kostaz
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 ?

Originally Posted by Krzychu
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.

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.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Racing games ? Sports games ? Casual games ? Strategy games ? Simulations ?

Your point is?

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.

Originally Posted by Kostaz
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.

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!)

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

Originally Posted by blackcanopus
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.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
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)

Originally Posted by wolfing
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).

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
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.

Originally Posted by blackcanopus
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.