Voice Acting

[Prescott]

I'm sure this question has been asked before, but what do you all think of voice acting in an RM game?

Our game is going to be fully voice acted, and I just wanted to know what your thoughts were on having everything voice acted in an RM game. And no, it's not just cutscenes or specific moments, I'm talking COMPLETE voice acting.

We are working with our voice actors with their own dialogue so they can help form their character and speak as them.

 

[Shaz]

Personally, I don't like it. If the voice doesn't match what I think it should sound like based on the character, or if things are pronounced differently that I expect they would be (which includes accents), or it's too fast or too slow, I find it jarring. I'd rather just leave it up to the imagination.

 

[Haydeos]

I have to agree with Shaz. I've never seen (heard) it done well in a RM game.

Professional VA really only works well with a professionally made game.

Bad VA can ruin even the best game.

Good VA can't save a bad game

no VA has no effect, and is therefore the safest bet.

I'm fine with stuff like huffs & puffs & grunts (Zelda)

 

[Prescott]

We're going for kind of like a Dust: An Elysian Tail approach with the voice acting... if you guys know what that is. I've heard mostly good stuff about the voices in that game, and I enjoyed them.

Like, the talking sequences will be done in a very similar manner, with characters busts and everything.

It's good hearing your opinions, though. I have a feeling most people aren't too fond of it in RPGs.

 

[Kes]

I have yet to find a game with voice acting which I like.

1) Unless you have excellent voice actors, it just sounds hammy.  I have literally cringed at the way VA has been done in some of games I've tried with this.

2) It is assumed that everyone can understand every US accent clearly and unambiguously.  Nope.  I would imagine it would be even more difficult for people who do not have English as their first language.  There are still words which when pronounced in the US way I find weird, and sometimes still have to stop and think "what was that?"

3) It limits the imagination

4) I want to be able to read/not read the dialogue at my own speed, not be constrained by the speed the developer thinks I ought to go at.  For me it is often far too slow, but for those whose first language is not English it's probably often too fast.

5) I do not want my HD filled up with games with bloated file sizes, and VA adds to the file size.

6) If it adds anything that the written text does not contain e.g. if you are relying solely on the tone of voice to convey the exact emotion/meaning of the words, then how are people who are deaf, partially deaf, have the sound turned off for any one of a variety of reasons etc. to grasp what you're on about?  It is clear in a couple of games I've tried that the developers had come to rely on VA for this.  

 

[Wavelength]

Sounds like I'm in the minority, but I'm personally a fan of it, assuming the VA's know what they're doing.  It brings a lot to the experience, being able to listen to characters that you like instead of just reading text, and makes the project feel more professional and fully-realized.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

I find myself not enjoying voice acting very often. Most of the time it's flat, horribly acted, and had no direction or aesthetic. In fact, most of the time I enjoyed voice acting was because it was hilariously terrible, which is certainly not the goal of most developers. Bad, or even average, voice acting can really ruin otherwise great writing.

If we work under the assumption that the game has great voice acting, I do find it overkill if everything is voice acted. It takes up a lot of time and plain old hard disk space if every shop exchange or run of the mill NPC has voice acted dialogue. 

I kind of feel like voice acting ultimately takes a facet of control away from the player (the voice in their head/imagination), so to be successful it has to be as fully fledged and meticulously designed into the aesthetic as any other element in the game, or it will just feel like it's tacked on.

 

[fallenlorelei]

I agree with the majority. If you have some amateur voice actors, I cringe and lose interest quickly. If they happen to be good, though, I'll give it a shot.

Something to keep in mind: don't voice act lengthy passages. It's redundant and inhibits overall understanding from the player (see redundancy principle - it mostly pertains to multimedia learning, but the idea extends itself to rpgs if you want the player to learn something - like lore or whatever). This is usually the case if the player is reading faster than the voice is acting. If the passage is short (or you sync up enough pauses within the reading), then usually the player is reading at the same rate as the voice, which is fine. There's still a redundancy factor but it's not so bad. So if you have lengthy passages but plan on acting everything, split it up a bit. =]

Edit: And for the love of RPGesus, make sure the voices are all the same quality and volume. I hate playing through a game with one guy doing incredibly well, then there's the other with a sh***y microphone and is also super quiet for some reason...

 

[whitesphere]

I enjoy playing Skyrim, which has every single character voice acted.  However, what I do the vast majority of the time is read the sub-titles and skip through the voice acting.   If I were playing a game which had VA and didn't let me skip it completely, it would annoy me.

Does it add to the game?  To a degree, yes.  Does it increase the game size?  Dramatically so, yes.

Would I want to see that level of VA in every game?  No.  Particularly if it's not skippable.

Would I want any VA on a mobile or tablet game?  No, because it increases the package size, and storage is much more limited on tablets and phones than on a laptop or PC.  If you have an APK that's, say, 3 GB due to 2 GB of VA, you'll turn off a lot of potential users who don't want to allocate 3 GB of storage on their phone to the game.

So I don't recommend it for any medium where the storage space is fairly limited.  

 

[KeroTani]

What do you all think about voice attacks like in tales games? 

 

[Ms Littlefish]

For me. Just like attack animations; if they're short and sweet it isn't overly bothersome. But, if it drags out common battles it can get a bit annoying. If we're using Tales as an example, that kind of dialogue has never bothered me.

 

[Matseb2611]

I don't mind voice acting in games. Hell, I can look past bad voice acting. It won't make me put the game down if every other aspect of the game is good. But, I do agree that no voice acting is better than bad voice acting.

In the end, voice acting is part of the experience. It's a piece of the game, and just like every other piece, it has to be up to a reasonable standard. If the game's visuals or music or anything else are terrible, they can hurt the game. Voice acting is the same way.

The only thing that does annoy me in voice-acted games are those characters that take forever to say their lines. Yeah, I can skip of course, but I prefer it if the character can speak more or less at a good pace, so that I don't have to skip. But those characters that take hours just to say one line really grind on me.

 

[Wavelength]

What do you all think about voice attacks like in tales games? 

I like voiced battles, but I like the voices as an occasional thing.  The constant repetition of voice clips in the Tales battles annoy me a bit.

 

[KeroTani]

I like voiced battles, but I like the voices as an occasional thing.  The constant repetition of voice clips in the Tales battles annoy me a bit.

Tigerblade!!!

 

[Wavelength]

Tigerblade!!!

NOOOOooooooooooo!

*runs from topic*

 

[Ekanselttar]

I'd say if you do have pro Voice Actors and recording equipment which doesn't  buzz in the background,go for it.If not,well,text is still fine.

In my personal experience with many,many games,voice acting makes the characters feel...Alive.If the VA really knows his stuff,it can give an extra layer of depth and likeability to your characters.But,in some games,like Skyrim and Fallout,I almost always read ahead and skip the voiced stuff.Also,if there are many NPCs and little Voice Actors,the voices just repeat...Which was also a nuisance for me while playing TES Games (I understand that they're too big in scope)

So,my final opinion,save voice acting for another project.Until/Unless you can afford HQ recording equipement.

 

[Prescott]

I really enjoy reading all of your comments!

What do you consider professional? So far all of our voice actors have massive amounts of experience in theater, including myself. None of us have ever done voice overs per se, but we all did theater all throughout school and in our communities and the ones in college are currently doing that as well.

I do have very good equipment and a good recording space. I use a Blue Yeti and have acoustic panels in an empty closet, so while it's not THE BEST, it's still pretty good for budget, and if mixed the right way shouldn't be too noticeable even when compared to professional VA recorded in a full fledged studio. I have a lot of experience with audio production/engineering, and all of it will be recorded at the same volume in the same room with the same equipment and settings, then the audio will be slightly tweaked if needed (highs and lows, removing background noise, etc).

We do plan on having voice actors doing VA at the same time if they are talking to each other, so it is more natural feeling.

We are definitely going to make the audio skippable. If people didn't want to listen to it, that would be absolutely terrible.

What would you think if we added an option to turn of the VA? I know it would still take up file space, but the option would be there to not have any at all, and people who wanted it would still be able to use it without downloading anything else.

We will not be putting VA on mobile other than "emotion sounds." Things such as "oh!" and "hmm..." when text appears for each character, and even that is still in limbo because we may need to shave off all of the file size that we can.

All of our voice actors are proficient in English. We don't have any plans on doing different voice acting, but we do have the means to translate the text into German, Spanish, and French.

Hopefully I didn't miss anything, but those are answers to all of your concerns. I don't know if they quell them, but there you go xD most of what you have all brought up we are already doing.

 

[TheHonorableRyu]

If you have a team of people with stagecraft experience and good audio equipment, you'll have a better shot of success than most amateur RPG makers. 

I think VA can enhance a game quite a bit. It's just something that's hard to get right; there's a medley of things that could go wrong to make it distracting or not worth the effort:

1. The voice actors don't have the same vision of the scene taking place in the game, leading to awkward delivery

2. The conversations lack chemistry, due to voice actors not knowing each other or recording their lines at separate times and places

3. The voice actors are talented but don't know a lot about video games and the kinds of scenarios that can take place, leading an inadequate understanding of the scene 

4. The voice actors know a lot about video games but aren't very talented at voice acting

5. Audio equipment is inadequate, resulting in bad sound quality

6. The timing/intonation doesn't match the facial expressions or body language of the characters, making the characters seem like off-kilter puppets or robots, or else that the voice doesn't truly belong to them

7. The on-screen text doesn't flow at the same pace as a natural conversation, resulting in awkward or stilted conversations 

8. The dialog isn't very interesting in the first place, and it takes too long to listen to the voice acting for it, resulting in players just skipping the voice acting anyway or feeling frustrated if they can't

9. The voice acting, even if technically good, doesn't quite match the creator and/or players' vision for the character

10. Voice acting done in other languages than the native language in which the game was made (e.g., English language track for a game originally released in Japan or vice-versa) can make characters feel different than how they feel in their native language

11. Repeated lines (such as chatter in battles) are too repetitive or annoying

12. The volume of the voice acting is too loud or too quiet compared to the music volume and sound effects 

13. The voice acting is too melodramatic, overacted, or cheesy, resulting in "Narm," moments that are unintentionally funny when they're supposed to be serious

Etc., etc. 

 

[Prescott]

If you have a team of people with stagecraft experience and good audio equipment, you'll have a better shot of success than most amateur RPG makers. 

I think VA can enhance a game quite a bit. It's just something that's hard to get right; there's a medley of things that could go wrong to make it distracting or not worth the effort:

1. The voice actors don't have the same vision of the scene taking place in the game, leading to awkward delivery

2. The conversations lack chemistry, due to voice actors not knowing each other or recording their lines at separate times and places

3. The voice actors are talented but don't know a lot about video games and the kinds of scenarios that can take place, leading an inadequate understanding of the scene 

4. The voice actors know a lot about video games but aren't very talented at voice acting

5. Audio equipment is inadequate, resulting in bad sound quality

6. The timing/intonation doesn't match the facial expressions or body language of the characters, making the characters seem like off-kilter puppets or robots, or else that the voice doesn't truly belong to them

7. The on-screen text doesn't flow at the same pace as a natural conversation, resulting in awkward or stilted conversations 

8. The dialog isn't very interesting in the first place, and it takes too long to listen to the voice acting for it, resulting in players just skipping the voice acting anyway or feeling frustrated if they can't

9. The voice acting, even if technically good, doesn't quite match the creator and/or players' vision for the character

10. Voice acting done in other languages than the native language in which the game was made (e.g., English language track for a game originally released in Japan or vice-versa) can make characters feel different than how they feel in their native language

11. Repeated lines (such as chatter in battles) are too repetitive or annoying

12. The volume of the voice acting is too loud or too quiet compared to the music volume and sound effects 

13. The voice acting is too melodramatic, overacted, or cheesy, resulting in "Narm," moments that are unintentionally funny when they're supposed to be serious

Etc., etc. 

1. We are actually forming the dialogue with the voice actors themselves, putting all of the text into the game, and then having them do their voice overs after playing it This should insure that they are both knowledgeable and comfortable with their lines, yes?

2. Another reason we are forming dialogue with them is to build at least a bit of chemistry. Have the brother and sister in the game together a lot making dialogue, and just playing video games afterwards It is all being recorded in the same place with the same equipment.

3. We are all heavily involved in video games... some of us too much however, that's also why we are having them play the game through first.

4. Like I've said, we have a pretty talented group of individuals here! If I could show you the audition reels you could maybe hear for yourself but... not yet

5. Not a problem!

6. We have 16 different character busts for each character for each emotion. The way we are going about it is, each text box could potentially have a different bust emotion, so each text box could have a different voice acting emotion associated as well.

7. This is interesting. We were thinking to go with text that actually goes faster than the VA and finishes before they are done, so that people can skip the VA if they choose to instead of waiting for it to finish so they can proceed. You can read something in your mind a lot faster than a VA can say it and have it actually sound good in the context of the scene.

8. We do want the option for the players to be able to skip it, or turn it off entirely. I love it when games have options to do a lot of stuff (remove blood, remove swearing, etc. although I don't care too much about turning them off), so we would like to include as many options like that in our game. We are making sure that the dialogue is very interesting, one of our writers is actually published so that's pretty cool x)

9. Also why we are working with the VAs to make their own dialogue, rather than creating a character ourselves and finding a perfect match, we create the base line for a character and find someone that can grow with them and almost become their character.

10. We do not plan on translating audio, just text.

11. We are not going to have those battle lines, because yes, they can get severely annoying xD even listening to Ness say "PK Fire" all the time in Smash Bros can get awfully old. We are going to focus more on the sound effect side of things during battle, rather than the voice actors.

12. This will be easy to balance in my opinion. I have a good ear for the balance of instruments and frequencies. I usually record things as loud as I can without clipping and then take the volume down, to avoid distortion from turning it up.

13. Definitely something to look out for xD once again I wish I could show you the voice reels we have received thus far. They are very natural sounding, and I'm glad we have got the VAs that we have.

Thank you for your advice I know a lot of it wasn't totally directed towards us but gaming VAs in general. I really appreciate it

 

[Kitsou]

I haven't seen a rpg maker game with voice acting before, but that doesn't mean it can't work!

But if the story and especially characters are compelling and the VAs confident in their role, it shouldn't be cringey I suppose.

I can't really judge on this, but I've seen a lets player voice the characters, while playing, but it was mainly funny and not really emotional.

Just go ahead and try and let us judge a sample or thus, before throwing all your resources into it.