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[The Smoking Bun]

Still curious how they're going to handle voice acting for 2 genders and several different races. I love that they brought race options back - in fact it's what brought me back on this game's bandwagon - but Bioware absolutely can't afford to get lazy with the VA's. A Qunari is not going to sound like a Elf or Human. A Dwarf isn't going to sound like an Elf. There's even room for nuance between a deep-voiced Qunari and a Dwarf. Lots of room for disaster here if they use a single VA for each gender.

But that is exactly what they should do! Again, it would be Nightmare to have 8 voice actors recording hundreds of lines for the different races and gender's. Better to keep it to two genders and then use voice modulation software to alter it. Quarians are deeper and Elves are higher pitched. That's all you need to do.

 

[Lautaro]

But that is exactly what they should do! Again, it would be Nightmare to have 8 voice actors recording hundreds of lines for the different races and gender's. Better to keep it to two genders and then use voice modulation software to alter it. Quarians are deeper and Elves are higher pitched. That's all you need to do.

Fuck no. I always hated when Bioware goes cheap. They need to invest in this game if they want to keep the franchise alive.

 

[JeffG]

What's the point of choices if they all have the same outcome?

Setting tone.

 

[anexanhume]

I like the simplistic three-option choices, just wish they weren't so black and white. Saying something "good" shouldn't be good for everyone. Saying something "bad" shouldn't make everyone hate you. Being neutral should be okay up to a point, then people should get pissed at you for not taking a stand.

It's a compromise to make an alignment system that creates an easy to understand reputation system and expectation of choices down the road. Everything has to be voiced, and increased divergence is a pain to deal with.

They got in over their heads with ME3 choice and it showed.

 

[The Smoking Bun]

Fuck no. I always hated when Bioware goes cheap. They need to invest in this game if they want to keep the franchise alive.

Well Saints Row has done this. But then they don't have branching options
And this is EA we are talking about. DA: I can't afford to bomb

 

[Interfectum]

Press A for Nobility

 

[Enduin]

Still curious how they're going to handle voice acting for 2 genders and several different races. I love that they brought race options back - in fact it's what brought me back on this game's bandwagon - but Bioware absolutely can't afford to get lazy with the VA's. A Qunari is not going to sound like a Elf or Human. A Dwarf isn't going to sound like an Elf. There's even room for nuance between a deep-voiced Qunari and a Dwarf. Lots of room for disaster here if they use a single VA for each gender.

It would be amazing if they all had their own VA, but that's probably not realistic. 8 VAs is rather expensive and incredibly time consuming and ensuring they're all great is no small task, though they've had plenty of experience with it, Old Republic kind of being a VA Goliath and all that. What I think the minimum expectation should be is 4 VAs, two male two female that you can choose from. What I hope they do is have 6 VAs. Elves/Dwarves and Humans can choose between 2 male and 2 females voices, with then the male and female Qunari being predetermined since they will more than likely have a much more distinct speech pattern compared to the others.

 

[Almighty]

Maybe the outcome can't be changed, duh.

Also if you are gonna use a paraphrase system just use the one from alpha protocol plz. And least let the conversations have some flow

If outcome can't be changed then I see no real reason to offer choices in the first place is what I was saying. If your only option is to say "Let's kill them or die trying." in three different ways that effect nothing then I just say don't bother putting in dialog options for that part. It reminds me of old JRPGs where they would ask you if you want to save the girl, but if you pick no it would just say something like "Quit playing around" until you picked yes. I could never tell why they bothered to offer options in the first place.

The solution to that would be even if you can't avoid the fight have the dialog options do something. Say if you pass a skill check to can lower the moral of your enemies or raise the moral of your allies. Something like that.

Setting tone.

Considering that most recent RPGs never let me set the tone I want if what i want is not asshole, indifferent, or trying to out do Jesus I still think it is a waste a lot of the time. Edit: Not my time the developers time. Since a lot of people expect multiple dialog options that are well written all the time I assume that takes effort. Personally I would rather they spent that effort when the dialog actually matters then just adding fluff.

 

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Okay...so how much of this is going into the next Mass Effect?

 

[anexanhume]

Okay...so how much of this is going into the next Mass Effect?

We still know nothing about ME except it's in development and is probably set after the original ME trilogy with no return characters.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

I love how open they've been with this game. It's a great mea culpa for DA2 (even though I enjoyed DA2).

 

[Nirolak]

Okay...so how much of this is going into the next Mass Effect?

We still know nothing about ME except it's in development and is probably set after the original ME trilogy with no return characters.

Well, all the code for it is there for parts that need that, and the shared writers understand the guidelines, but if they use it is a different question.

 

[PinkCrayon]

But that is exactly what they should do! Again, it would be Nightmare to have 8 voice actors recording hundreds of lines for the different races and gender's. Better to keep it to two genders and then use voice modulation software to alter it. Quarians are deeper and Elves are higher pitched. That's all you need to do.

nice

 

[Deified Data]

But that is exactly what they should do! Again, it would be Nightmare to have 8 voice actors recording hundreds of lines for the different races and gender's. Better to keep it to two genders and then use voice modulation software to alter it. Quarians are deeper and Elves are higher pitched. That's all you need to do.

Yeah, I realize how ambitious it is, but I honestly can't think of any other way it could work while still preserving the uniqueness of each race. In addition to having different pitches they're going to need different accents and speech patterns as well.

Am I being too demanding? I'm starting to think they might have been better off sticking with a human character if they must have voice acting. We'll see.

 

[anexanhume]

Well, all the code for it is there for parts that need that, and the shared writers understand the guidelines, but if they use it is a different question.

I'm sure they will. It behooves them to use as much of the same resources as possible so the differences are as close to possible as simply generating the creative assets. DA and ME had different engines and this generation everything will be frostbite. Moreover, they've got DICE making changes to frostbite for them to accommodate their needs. I'm sure those are all good for their budgets.

 

[The Silver]

Fuck no. I always hated when Bioware goes cheap. They need to invest in this game if they want to keep the franchise alive.

Come on now, everyone keeps talking about how ridiculous game budgets have gotten, they don't need to do something that expensive for such a minimal benefit.

 

[The Smoking Bun]

nice

You can tell where my heart really is. I'm only here to pass the time until the next Mass Effect

Yeah, I realize how ambitious it is, but I honestly can't think of any other way it could work while still preserving the uniqueness of each race. In addition to having different pitches they're going to need different accents and speech patterns as well.

Am I being too demanding? I'm starting to think they might have been better off sticking with a human character if they must have voice acting. We'll see.

Now you're thinking like a developer. When people like Dan Castellaneta can voice entire show's worth of characters by himself. Do we actually need more than 2?
Imagine Tara Strong's vocals range! She could probably pull off 4 different voices but they would only have to pay her once.

 

[PinkCrayon]

You can tell where my heart really is. I'm only here to pass the time until the next Mass Effect

I know the feeling.

 

[Deified Data]

You can tell where my heart really is. I'm only here to pass the time until the next Mass Effect



Now you're thinking like a developer. When people like Dan Castellaneta can voice entire show's worth of characters by himself. Do we actually need more than 2?
Imagine Tara Strong's vocals range! She could probably pull off 4 different voices but they would only have to pay her once.

I could totally get behind 2 VA's putting on several different voices. Hope Bioware sees sense and pursues this option.

 

[allgamespc]

I'm replaying Dragon Age: Origins now and I'm finding that my main complaint is that I simply don't care what any of the characters have to say.

you are entitled to your own opinion but my god man are you so wrong in this

 

[Kikujiro]

Origins feels bloated and clumsy with mostly cookie-cutter characters but otherwise a solid game. DA II feels rushed with hilarious copy paste dungeons that make it seem like a Monty Python sketch comedy (We had enough budget for only one dungeon set! It's only a model!). But DA II has some nice companions. Slow ACT 1. Great ACT 2. Terrible ACT 3. It feels like huge chunks of the game are missing. Time lapses are weird and senseless.

I mostly agree.

My problems with Origins:
- Menus were awful (played on console).
- Not so great companions: Alistair was ok before the last part, Morrigan was ok, Leliana's voice actress ruined the character (but I blame the voice director), the rest of them were zzzzzzz.
- Felt really generic western fantasy, they did a good job shaping the world with many details, but it lacked something distinctive. It was like reading a generic fantasy book.

What DA2 did right:
- Less generic looking, I liked the Qunari's and Elven's redesign and some armors looked really cool (like the Seeker one).
- Slightly better companions, Aveline was a great "ordinary" character, but I don't understand why they didn't include Nathan Howe, he was the best character in Awakening.

What DA2 did wrong:
- Time lapses didn't feel like time lapses. The city was the same, Hawke was the same, the passing of time (years? More like days) was not believable at all. Not only that but the city felt empty and dead all the time.
- The Copy/paste dungeons were so bad, like "are you kidding me?"
- Writing was really bad or trivial during some of the most important scenes.

DA2 had a lot of great ideas, but the 95% of those were rushed. It could have been a great sequel, wasted opportunity.

 

[Ogimachi]

I don't get this obsession with every choice being completely different and necessarily having a visible impact on the world.

What is the point, then? Most of the time in Bioware games these choices barely change the response and people treat you the same way.

So accurate it have me chills, hahahaha.

Edit: But, I should be clear, I do think in lieu of the absence of branching choices, I think dialogue options and choices on the way to a unified point still feed into a sense of player agency. Even if the meaning of the conversation ends the same, I have a sense that I crafted it. Just like in an open world game, choosing the path to a single point.

Of course, this is a delicate line to walk and can backfire exactly in the way you described.

SWTOR the perfect example of how such a system can become more of a drag than real interaction. If there's no consequence to speak of and these choices have to be made constantly, the sense of crafting disappears completely.

This is more what I'm looking for and hope that the name change in their system allows for more shades of grey instead of 'this good, this evil, this don't care' that almost all morality systems have. Seriously, 'direct' means you're blunt and people might think you come off as a jerk but not that you'll go kill tons of babies during your afternoon stroll.

Edit: Make it impact how npcs react to you as a person without needing to force the good/bad/neutral endings.

It doesn't have to change the ending, but it should change which content you have access to, who stands by your side and who leaves your team, how people react/approach you, your success/failure in quests, and so on.
By the way, if you're looking for something like Noble/Clever/Direct, take a look at Alpha Protocol. That's a game that gets dialog, consequences and tones right.

 

[Tex117]

I honestly don't care about all the nifty and flashy dialogue options, Bioware. Simply stepping up your writing game would be more than enough.

Im.In.Tears.

Please bring back Alpha Protocol. Timed responses, good dialog.

Easily my favorite of modern dialog conventions.

 

[Almighty]

SWTOR the perfect example of how such a system can become more of a drag than real interaction. If there's no consequence to speak of and these choices have to be made constantly, the sense of crafting disappears completely.

That is a perfect example of what I am talking about. SWTOR(and a lot of other games) are fun until i realized that nothing I said matters at all and I just picked options solely for the light side/dark side points. At that point it all became a sham. If I can walk up to one of the most powerful Sith in the galaxy tell him to fuck off more or less and get nothing more then a mean look all immersion is broke.

I want dialogue options to do something and after thinking more since my last post it doesn't necessarily have to change the world it just has to change something. Alpha Protocol is a good example of dialogue options that even if they don't change the final outcome the conversation can be completely different depending on what you picked. Hell the conversation can be completely different depending on the choices you made before it even started. Really AP is the bar that all games should aim for when it comes to reactivity to the player.

 

[Tex117]

I want dialog options to do something and after thinking more since my last post it doesn't necessarily have to change the world it just has to change something. Alpha Protocol is a good example of dialog options that even if they don't change the final outcome the conversation can be completely different depending on what you picked. Not to mention that the conversation can be completely different depending on the choices you made before it even started. Really AP is the bar that all games should aim for when it comes to reactivity to the player.

Hell, lots of times the course of game swung on conversations. People helped or didn't help...quests presented or didn't.

Gawd, if Bioware and Bethesda don't have a copy of Alpha Protocol on their desk, then they don't understand how dialog is supposed to work in a game yet.

 

[HK-47]

If outcome can't be changed then I see no real reason to offer choices in the first place is what I was saying. If your only option is to say "Let's kill them or die trying." in three different ways that effect nothing then I just say don't bother putting in dialog options for that part. It reminds me of old JRPGs where they would ask you if you want to save the girl, but if you pick no it would just say something like "Quit playing around" until you picked yes. I could never tell why they bothered to offer options in the first place.

The solution to that would be even if you can't avoid the fight have the dialog options do something. Say if you pass a skill check to can lower the moral of your enemies or raise the moral of your allies. Something like that.



Considering that most recent RPGs never let me set the tone I want if what i want is not asshole, indifferent, or trying to out do Jesus I still think it is a waste a lot of the time. Edit: Not my time the developers time. Since a lot of people expect multiple dialog options that are well written all the time I assume that takes effort. Personally I would rather they spent that effort when the dialog actually matters then just adding fluff.

Because in you the player arent a fucking reality warper. And there is value in personal choices that dont effect anything. Expecting every choice to have the world change at your whim is the kind of noxious concept that no game should strive for. Just cause you pick a choice in dialogue or whatever doesnt mean the characters or the world or the game are necessarily obliged to acquiesce.

 

[Almighty]

Because in you the player arent a fucking reality warper. And there is value in personal choices that dont effect anything. Expecting every choice to have the world change at your whim is the kind of noxious concept that no game should strive for. Just cause you pick a choice in dialogue or whatever doesnt mean the characters or the world or the game are necessarily obliged to acquiesce.

Yeah way to take what said to the extreme. Though if I wasn't clear enough then my bad. So I am going to walk back a little. First no I don't expect my every choice to change the world and I don't expect every character to bow to my every whim. All I was trying to say is that if the choices they give you lead to the exact same outcome then I don't see the point. Now I think that is where the problem lies as by outcome I didn't necessarily mean whether you were going to fight at the end of the conversation or not, but any reaction to what I said at all. The problem I have is I fail to see the point of giving me options like "Please go on.", "Eh this is boring." and "Why the fuck are you still talking. Shut up." If the response to all those is "Anyway as I was saying...." and nothing I say matters. What i want is that if I tell someone to "Shut the fuck up" they would say something like "Fine if you don't want to hear it I am done." Even if that means I the player misses out on important information.

Age of Decadence is a good example(at least last I played it and its been a while. So a lot might have changed) of a game that give you options when they actually do something or might do something as you can still fail the skill check and not just options for the sake of options.

 

[Lautaro]

Come on now, everyone keeps talking about how ridiculous game budgets have gotten, they don't need to do something that expensive for such a minimal benefit.

It's not like I'm asking for celebrities for VA (or 8 VA for the main char.) or take a lot of years like they did with Origins.

Besides they already reuse animations, levels and a lot of stuff

Spoiler

(like endings)

in their other titles. If they want me back as faithful consumer they better invest in this game.

 

[Phades]

Setting tone.

If you have a map that marks where "something happens" and dialogue that doesn't matter, the whole "tone" aspect is drowned out by the lack of need to even pay attention to it in order to play the game in the first place.

Also, if done even more poorly, you end up with "tone" with the characters that range from grating to outright stupid and very few ways to avoid interacting with them due to potential missed content and thus you are forced to suffer through that all important "tone/mood" setting that those characters embody.

 

[Dawg]

I wonder when the previews, gameplay reveal(s) etc are gonna hit the web. This is supposed to release this year so it can't take that long anymore, right?

 

[FlutterPuffs]

If they manage to let me make my choices without accidentally flirting with my companions, sure.

That was so awkward in the last game. You just want to keep the conversation going and suddenly Hawke is hitting the shit on Anders.

 

[Nirolak]

I wonder when the previews, gameplay reveal(s) etc are gonna hit the web. This is supposed to release this year so it can't take that long anymore, right?

They're going to start next week.

Currently they're keeping quiet though since it's in EA's favor to make everyone think Garden Warfare and Titanfall are the only games on earth.

UFC is their only other unveiled game at the moment and that's May.

 

[Easy_D]

Wheels wheels wheels. Whatever happened to dialogue trees?

 

[Deified Data]

If they manage to let me make my choices without accidentally flirting with my companions, sure.

That was so awkward in the last game. You just want to keep the conversation going and suddenly Hawke is hitting the shit on Anders.

To be fair DAII put a heart icon next to flirty dialogue options. It was pretty easy to avoid them for the most part, unlike Mass Effect 2 where flirtation was often mandatory if you wanted to continue having a positive relationship with the NPC.

 

[Phades]

I mostly agree.
What DA2 did right:
- Less generic looking, I liked the Qunari's and Elven's redesign and some armors looked really cool (like the Seeker one).
- Slightly better companions, Aveline was a great "ordinary" character, but I don't understand why they didn't include Nathan Howe, he was the best character in Awakening.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?

We are still existing in a world where Anders, Merill, and Fenris exist right? A few of the DA1 characters were about as deep as a puddle from a raindrop and flexable as petrified wood, but when half of your party choices involve insufferable idiots, with overflowing angst (justified or not), and are effectively bipolar and codependant...

It just comes off as bad writing making an excuse towards why those other "heros" need the PC, but that would also suggest that the PC would be able to steer them into making good/bad/whatever decisions, but that simply wasn't the case at all.

Sure Aveline was good and believable, in addition to Varric and it was nice to see the both of them not pining over the PC like a stray cat in heat like the rest, but those 2 do not make up for the rest of the cast really.

 

[Doctoglethorpe]

Sounds good, especially the bit about less auto-dialogue. Hopefully this ends up staying true in the final game rather then be one of those false promises we got a lot of with ME3. I can't see them making that same specific mistake twice though.

I don't really trust Bioware at their word anymore, yet I can't help but anticipate their games and hope for the best.

 

[Yoda]

Yeah, the more I hear about this game the more it seems to NOT be learning from DA2's massive mistakes. The dialogue wheel worked for ME that doesn't mean it has to be in DA. Look at how the Witcher 2 handled dialogue. Got the point across, and wasn't insane on the reading like Baldur's Gate. I have 357 hours clocked on DA:O and I'm most likely never going to play this game.