Rampant Games - Opinion On Voice Acting

The Rampant Coyote talks about his opinion on voice acting in games, and talks about why his Frayed Knight games don't have voiceovers.

Talking to someone at Comic Con last weekend, they recommended fully voiced dialog for my game because they hate to read when playing a game, but they will listen to somebody talk to them “all day.” I mentioned that for me, I’m kind of the opposite. Maybe for the first couple of lines – especially if it’s a major bit of character-revelation or a significant plot development – I’ll listen all the way through. But most of the time, I’ll read through the line of dialog, and then interrupt the voice-over in mid-sentence to jump to the next part. Voice is just too slow.

I love the idea of bringing the Baldur’s Gate style back into vogue – where the first line or paragraph was voiced in any particular scene, so you get the flavor of the character. But in talking to some modern players, they aren’t so keen on that. In short – players don’t want to read when they are playing a game. (I suspect some of them don’t like to read, period, but that’s another story.) I do get that. I find myself in the same boat. When playing a game, certain parts of your brain are active, and get into a rhythm. Going into text-reading mode completely breaks that flow, and engages different parts of your brain. At least, that’s how it feels. It breaks the flow of things. And while gaming is primarily visual, we can be interpret audio information and communication in a way that’s less disruptive then stuff we have to process visually.

So I dunno. Maybe I’m out there on the fringe, wanting a return to the Baldur’s Gate style “samples” in hopes of getting the best of both worlds. Maybe I’m really out to lunch on this. Maybe I’m too far from the “mainstream.” I dunno.

More information.

I also like the BG-style samples and suspect I'm pretty far from the mainstream in many things. No idea if I am on this particular point.

I admit i like my characters (fully) voiced but also interrupt them mid-sentence. From just finishing the witcher 2 I think about 40% of the voice work is wasted on me (would make a nice poll)

Originally Posted by ilm
I admit i like my characters (fully) voiced but also interrupt them mid-sentence. From just finishing the witcher 2 I think about 40% of the voice work is wasted on me (would make a nice poll)

Only 40%? For me I would say 95%, I do excactly what RC does, I read and skip to the next line before the voice-overs are past the first phrase. A line or two for flavour like in BG is perfect, more is just wasted on me. I LIKE to read, and it goes a hell of a lot faster…

For me it's the speed. Playing a 40 hour game where you end up in dialogue for another 10 hours is too long …

However, I think it's good to make some character fully voice-acted. I think Fallout 1 and 2 are good examples of this.

Also ensures you don't hear the same voice used by 200 NPCs…

I definitely prefer full voice acting in pretty much every case. But you have to be smart about it, and divide things into skippable sections - and don't spout one big wall of text and expect people to listen to it all.

An alternative that's almost never used, if you don't have the money for a full cast, is to have a single voice as a "Dungeon Master" - which can work well enough in terms of immersion. It can be sufficient to present events and to voice a variety of NPCs. It's used well in DDO, for instance.

I'd prefer that over these BG-type single spoken sentences, which I never really liked.

Originally Posted by tomasp3n
Only 40%? For me I would say 95%, I do excactly what RC does, I read and skip to the next line before the voice-overs are past the first phrase. A line or two for flavour like in BG is perfect, more is just wasted on me. I LIKE to read, and it goes a hell of a lot faster…

Yep, same. Voice acting is a big waste of money IMO. Good for background noise, though, and other occasional "important" areas. D:OS got it pretty much perfect.

I too thinks complete voice overs are a waste of money. I would prefer no voice acting. For several reasons, one of them being the low quality of voice acing i n\many games, another is (like many have mentioned already) the speed (or lack of) spoken dialogue compared to reading. Unfortunately in some games it's of possible to skip parts of the spoken lines.

Voice acting may put severe limitations on the amount of dialogue, and the number of possible responses. One of the things I liked in PS:T was the extensive dialogue. Lots and lots to read, which to me was a very good thing. That would not be possible with voice overs. Methinks.

Another problem is when there's no option for displaying subtitles. English is not my native language, and sometimes (not often), especially if the voice actors use some (in my ears) incomprehensible and badly articulated drawl, it can be hard getting everything being said.

pibbur who really hatesssss it when non-native speakers try to emulate a languag they're, not familiar with (while I am). Not as much of a problem in games compared to TV shows and movies. Probably.

You guys are just old

Hey, I'm only 59!! But ….

pibbur who admits that the musketeer may have a(n), unfortunately, valid point

Originally Posted by tomasp3n
Only 40%? For me I would say 95%, I do excactly what RC does, I read and skip to the next line before the voice-overs are past the first phrase. A line or two for flavour like in BG is perfect, more is just wasted on me. I LIKE to read, and it goes a hell of a lot faster…

Well there are a lot of cut scenes in tw2. I tend to watch those fully. In ordinary conversations I skip more.

Dart: you mean a bit like in bastion ? a third person narrator is indeed cool

I agree with RC and most of you. I prefer partial voice-overs, not far from BG-style, but I would like to hear more voiced sentences or some NPCs fully voiced. For me the main reason is that many developers cuts the texts in order to meet budget for VO. I dont want to have simplified dialogues because of full VO. But if they can manage I can live with any solution.

But what I really dislike are demands from people who dont like to read (or cant read properly). If you hate reading its obvious that you usually avoid anything that is not simple or short.. or "cool-looking". You pretty much ignore (deeper) characters, lore, nuances in the story, any info that is not thrown in your face… I dont want to see RPGs dumbed down any more for these people. There are many other games for them. Imagine similar situation when hardcore adventure fan demands precise automated aiming in FPS because he dont like to aim and shoot in games…

Originally Posted by ilm
Dart: you mean a bit like in bastion ? a third person narrator is indeed cool

I haven't actually played Bastion, so I don't know.

I've seen it in a couple of games, but the only one I can remember right now is DDO - where I think it's quite charming and effective.

That said, I'm an old PnP player - so maybe I'm biased in this way

But what I really dislike are demands from people who dont like to read (or cant read properly). If you hate reading its obvious that you usually avoid anything that is not simple or short.. or "cool-looking". You pretty much ignore (deeper) characters, lore, nuances in the story, any info that is not thrown in your face… I dont want to see RPGs dumbed down any more for these people. There are many other games for them. Imagine similar situation when hardcore adventure fan demands precise automated aiming in FPS because he dont like to aim and shoot in games…

Sounds like a pretty narrow-minded conclusion.

I don't mind reading when it's appropriate, I just happen to believe that particularly method of story delivery is out of date where computer games are concerned, when it comes to NPC dialogue.

I love finding books, journals and notes - and reading them. But reading through novels worth of text as dialogue is not immersive and it's often in the way of having a good time.

Then again, I don't think verbosity for the sake of verbosity is a good thing.

I play games largely to immerse myself in the world, and when someone speaks to me - I like to hear the words. If someone writes a note to me, I prefer to read it, as I would if I was actually there.

I like the idea of full voice, in theory. In practice, I find myself skipping over it much as others have mentioned

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Sounds like a pretty narrow-minded conclusion.

I play games largely to immerse myself in the world, and when someone speaks to me - I like to hear the words. If someone writes a note to me, I prefer to read it, as I would if I was actually there.

I dont see why you take it personally. I understand you want to immerse yourself and hear all voices. My conclusion is NOT based on fact that someone prefers full VO. Its based on fact the someone hates to read. Do you hate it? And by hating I really dont mean "different preferences". So my comment wasnt about players like you at all.

Originally Posted by Farflame
I dont see why you take it personally. I understand you want to immerse yourself and hear all voices. My conclusion is NOT based on fact that someone prefers full VO. Its based on fact the someone hates to read. Do you hate it? And by hating I really dont mean "different preferences". So my comment wasnt about players like you at all.

I gave you an example of someone who doesn't like to read when it's not appropriate. I don't think there are many RPG fans who literally HATE to read no matter what, which I believe is part of your misconception.

I'd agree that excluding text entirely because a tiny, tiny subsection of players literally hate to read would be a mistake. But let's just say I don't see that happening.

As for taking things personally, I don't generally do that - except if you mean I believe my position is relevant to your claim.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
I don't think there are many RPG fans who literally HATE to read no matter what, which I believe is part of your misconception.

I never said these people are really (hardcore) RPG fans. So you can take it as conclusion and not misconception. Nowadays we have very different groups of players which are attracted to the genre through all these shooter/RPGs, hack & slash etc.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
I'd agree that excluding text entirely because a tiny, tiny subsection of players literally hate to read would be a mistake. But let's just say I don't see that happening.

Well, its not first time I hear something like that. Thats why I wrote my comment here. So Im not sure if its tiny group. Especially after recent years of "streamlining" of RPGs as we know it oficially. But I cant argue here. Maybe you are right… Or hopefully you are.

Originally Posted by Farflame
I never said these people are really (hardcore) RPG fans. So you can take it as conclusion and not misconception. Nowadays we have very different groups of players which are attracted to the genre through all these shooter/RPGs, hack & slash etc.

Well, even so - I don't really think of people in that way. I don't think that people who don't enjoy reading - or even if they hate it - are necessarily disinterested in lore or depth of any kind. They might just want a different kind of presentation. I don't think reading = depth or intelligence.

Well, its not first time I hear something like that. Thats why I wrote my comment here. So Im not sure if its tiny group. Especially after recent years of "streamlining" of RPGs as we know it oficially. But I cant argue here. Maybe you are right… Or hopefully you are.

Well, I have no way of being certain - I just don't agree with your general perception of people who don't enjoy reading. It sounds like a bit of a broad stroke.

Anyway, I don't think we can avoid streamlining and "dumbing down" to an extent - but things are looking much better these days, because of the way the Kickstarter model has taken off. That means there's going to be lots of text-heavy old-fashioned games. Certainly a lot more than I once expected.

First thing I do when I load up a game for the first time is disable sound. If sound is actually required to play the game, it will likely sit on the shelf until I get bored enough to play it. So, for me, reading the dialogue is the preferred method, by far. I like to have my own music blasting while I play, I find Cradle of Filth and Lacuna Coil particularly decent for gaming, with a dash of Korn and Tool at times.