Joined: 03 Apr 2003 Posts: 27468 Location: Liberty City, the Netherlands Status: Offline
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 16:41 Post subject: Meet the Devs chugs on
The Meet the Devs threads, though we have stopped updating our feature on the topic as the inane banter about flowers and favourite colours got out of hand, there are still some interesting tidbits. Soundguy Mark "Wolfric Tugmutton" Lampert talks about limitations of dialogue caused by having all dialogue voice acted:
What he said is true, but it's still not anything to back away from as there are ways to create a fully-voiced project where everything is good. The main thing is to organize early and always plan ahead, because recording time is a sort of point of no return in regard to the work it takes to re-do dialogue that doesn't work or we don't like, not to mention potentially costly. So you save it until the latest point that you can to avoid re-writes and re-recording. I like to cast very early, and we typically end up doing some early recording anyway (making it necessary), so it's a good time to get a feel for where we are, how the cast works together in the game, and how everything will be on a much larger scale when we do the big recording push somewhere down the line.
Fully-recorded voice does end up causing issues with disc capacity, but everybody in game development has certain limits that they need to fit into, just like the sound effects I produce for the game. I get this much space, art gets this much, animation this much, etc, so you do whatever is necessary to make it work in the end. Could be that a more efficient compression algorithm is the solution, or perhaps there are redundant lines here and there which could stand to go. There also has to be a little bit of extra space built into the whole estimate to allow for localization since translations might come out about 15% longer across the board, or maybe the files themselves are actually a little longer because the dialogue was spoken more slowly. Who knows. Plan and estimate, plan and estimate. It's just one of many challenges along the way, and I think the work required to pull it off is absolutely worth it.
I also don't think that every game out there requires it. I loved the non-verbal, modular languages that were put together for some of the non-human races and robots in KOTOR, or the purely non-verbal but still emotive deliveries in Wind Waker. It's not always going to make sense to do full voice in every game, but for the kind of work we do, I believe it does and it's worth the trouble.
Dialogue writer Fred "Fizzbang" Zeleny adds:
As Wolfric said, we've got quite a bag of tricks to work around various problems. But I think our biggest advantage here, as Todd said in the GI article, is that our number of NPCs are reduced, in the hundreds instead of the thousands. That gives us a whole lot of dialogue to play with, and I know I've been taking advantage of it in my quests.
As you may have noticed with my posts, I'm a wordy little son of a [gun].
And finally, UI coder Ricardo "socrates200X" Gonzalez comments on the controversial "Fatman" nuclear launcher:
Hmm...I'm afraid I wasn't present for the "nuclear catapult" meeting, per se...
(...)
Ah, that's better. I have the same concerns most do about it being an uber-weapon, but I'm fairly sure the designers won't be decorating the wastes with nuke ammo or keeping the rad count dialed down to debug levels. I definitely want my character to turn to ash within a certain distance, and catch a baaad case of radiation poisoning at anything farther. Concerning its lack of "realism", I play the fiction card. Concerning its lack of "verisimilitude", I think it fits just fine, although that opinion comes from the personal benefit of seeing it in context as opposed to in a screenshot.
"We had to dumb down the dialogue because we have to make sure no one has to read anything in our games."
"We think nuclear catapults are fine, mainly because we don't want to take it out of the game now." _________________
Sealab 2021 wrote:
Murphy: Not so fast, Dr...Quinn, is it?
Quinn: Yes!
Murphy: Or is it - "Dr. Steal Everything from the Sacred Planet Red Mars?"
Quinn: It's Quinn...
Murphy: Then how do you explain this!
Joined: 27 May 2004 Posts: 8335 Location: MaxiMegalon Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Suprisingly Obvious Status: Offline
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 17:19 Post subject:
nucular catupultz are teh bomb!
ugh...
anyhow, fully voiced games are possible without a doubt. i think games like V:tM-B made an extremely good impression there.
still, i feel like Beth is going to use the voice thing as an excuse for not having much text and options (unlike the original FO1 & 2). _________________ Per is the bestest lizard.
G.K. Chesterton (on the agressiveness of Fallout fans?) wrote:
"Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of touching a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it."
Vampire: Bloodlines is probably the best example of full voice acting in an RPG. But even it had it's limit; many of your dialogues would lead to the same response for example.
However, it still stands as far above what Oblivion gave us, and Bethesda are indeed hiding behind excuses.
There's no reason why there can't be un-voiced dialogue either, such as in NWN2. They're just doing it for the hype, so they can put "Fully voiced dialogue!!" on the box. _________________
Vampire: Bloodlines is probably the best example of full voice acting in an RPG. But even it had it's limit; many of your dialogues would lead to the same response for example.
However, it still stands as far above what Oblivion gave us, and Bethesda are indeed hiding behind excuses.
There's no reason why there can't be un-voiced dialogue either, such as in NWN2. They're just doing it for the hype, so they can put "Fully voiced dialogue!!" on the box.
Yeah, they want to have all the {"Kewl"? My native language is retard.} stuff they can get to put on the box. They should have stayed true to Fallout in this aspect, also. All of the main characters should have had voiced dialogue while all of the sub-characters and ambient people should have had text dialogue. I guess that'd look weird in their FPP/RT/Dumbed-Down/POS conception of the Fallout world, though.
Edit: Haha, awesome filter for the word K-e-w-l _________________
Sealab 2021 wrote:
Murphy: Not so fast, Dr...Quinn, is it?
Quinn: Yes!
Murphy: Or is it - "Dr. Steal Everything from the Sacred Planet Red Mars?"
Quinn: It's Quinn...
Murphy: Then how do you explain this!
nucular catupultz are teh bomb!
still, i feel like Beth is going to use the voice thing as an excuse for not having much text and options (unlike the original FO1 & 2).
Bethesda's RPGs have never been lacking in volume of dialogue. Oblivion probably contains more spoken dialogue than all the text in either Fallout (disk capacity has advanced somewhat in the past decade, ya know). The actual issue is quality over quantity. I generally cut off Oblivion's voice actors in mid-sentence and skipped to the next line after I finished reading the subtitles; most of it wasn't worth listening to.
And what is the "controversy" over tactical nuke launchers, anyway? Heinlein wrote them into Starship Troopers in 1960. Sounds exactly in line with the retro future-vision of warfare to me. Besides, if it's okay to run around like Jesse Ventura with handheld miniguns, why the fuck not?
Bethesda's RPGs have never been lacking in volume of dialogue. Oblivion probably contains more spoken dialogue than all the text in either Fallout (disk capacity has advanced somewhat in the past decade, ya know). The actual issue is quality over quantity. I generally cut off Oblivion's voice actors in mid-sentence and skipped to the next line after I finished reading the subtitles; most of it wasn't worth listening to.
Err....yeah. Probably not. There were a lot of people who spoke lines, yes. There weren't a lot of people who actually spoke *unique* lines.
Spook wrote:
And what is the "controversy" over tactical nuke launchers, anyway? Heinlein wrote them into Starship Troopers in 1960. Sounds exactly in line with the retro future-vision of warfare to me. Besides, if it's okay to run around like Jesse Ventura with handheld miniguns, why the fuck not?
Because the entire idea is absolutely retarded? Having a hand-held nuclear catapult is about the dumbest idea in a world where everybody is deathly afraid of radiation and sees the destruction of nuclear warfare. Furthermore, popular 50s science fiction sees nuclear weapons as superweapons that destroy huge amounts of land in one go. Not destroy one silly little supermutant with one fire.
Also, Heinlein wrote them in as used by people in extremely heavy armour which protected them from most damage and any radiation. Not as used by a dude in some leather jacket. _________________ No Mutants Allowed, your Fallout resource - Fallout 3 modding
Sander is a finely tuned instrument of death, and as such is only used when the need arises. He hates posters no more than a Tsunami would hate a Japanese coastal village, or a Hurricane hates black people. - DirtyDreamDesigner
My main consolation is that only silly people follow silly advice - E.W. Dijkstra
The Dutch Ghost Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Joined: 12 Jan 2004 Posts: 2445 Location: Leeuwarden, The Netherlands Status: Offline
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 19:22 Post subject:
Sander wrote:
Also, Heinlein wrote them in as used by people in extremely heavy armour which protected them from most damage and any radiation. Not as used by a dude in some leather jacket.
Not to mention that they didn't shoot micro nukes at someone in the next room for example. _________________ All hail Skynet! The exterminator of the human vermin.
_________________
Black wrote:
It's like Hitler vs Stalin.
We're screwed either way.
Nuclear catapult != Feasible idea in FO universe
Nuclear catapult = A really bad joke made real _________________
Sealab 2021 wrote:
Murphy: Not so fast, Dr...Quinn, is it?
Quinn: Yes!
Murphy: Or is it - "Dr. Steal Everything from the Sacred Planet Red Mars?"
Quinn: It's Quinn...
Murphy: Then how do you explain this!
There were a lot of people who spoke lines, yes. There weren't a lot of people who actually spoke *unique* lines.
Oh yeah there were. Basically everyone in every city besides most guard-types had their own unique dialogue, and shitloads of it. They just rarely had anything interesting to say.
There are enough reasons to criticize that game without making stuff up. If you changed *unique* to *worthwhile*, you'd be on the right track.
The Dutch Ghost wrote:
Not to mention that they didn't shoot micro nukes at someone in the next room for example.
Joined: 05 May 2007 Posts: 192 Location: The Codex Status: Offline
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 19:44 Post subject:
Quote:
Nuclear catapult != Feasible idea in FO universe
Not to mention the fact neither the BOS or Enclave had such devices, you'd think the remains of the government/military would have the best weapons, period.
I get the impression even Ricardo thinks it's stupid from his comments... surely if he thought it was good he would defend it, not abdicate responsibility and pass the buck to the designers?
Joined: 03 Apr 2003 Posts: 27468 Location: Liberty City, the Netherlands Status: Offline
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 20:15 Post subject:
"abdicate responsibility"? He's a GUI programmer, he's not passing the buck, the buck was never his to begin with. _________________ No Mutants Allowed, your Fallout resource - Fallout: New Vegas - Brother None counts down his favourite games
"There are two novels that can change a bookish 14-year-old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
The other, of course, involves orcs." --John Rogers
There were a lot of people who spoke lines, yes. There weren't a lot of people who actually spoke *unique* lines.
Oh yeah there were. Basically everyone in every city besides most guard-types had their own unique dialogue, and shitloads of it. They just rarely had anything interesting to say.
Not including the "I saw a mudcrab the other day dialogues"? _________________ Black
You value power, ambition, and darkness. You love power at any cost, and are a corrupting influence on those around you. At your best, you are resourceful and unashamed. At your worst, you are parasitic and amoral. Your symbol is a skull. Your enemies are white and green.
Joined: 27 May 2004 Posts: 8335 Location: MaxiMegalon Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Suprisingly Obvious Status: Offline
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 21:31 Post subject:
Spook wrote:
Bethesda's RPGs have never been lacking in volume of dialogue. Oblivion probably contains more spoken dialogue than all the text in either Fallout (disk capacity has advanced somewhat in the past decade, ya know). The actual issue is quality over quantity. I generally cut off Oblivion's voice actors in mid-sentence and skipped to the next line after I finished reading the subtitles; most of it wasn't worth listening to.
i'm talking about actual dialogue, not wikipages.
also, what use is having a real book in a game like Oblivion if simple items like a very short and cryptic holodisk entry can easily best it in both delivery and content?
Spook wrote:
And what is the "controversy" over tactical nuke launchers, anyway?
1) catapult: yeah, that's fucking likely.
2) range 1 (reach): enjoy being a ghost on the building wall, sparky.
3) range 2 (area of effect): could someone explain to me why we're using very dangerous materials to blow up an area which can be blown up with less dangerous materials to the exact same effect?
4) feel: yes, portable nukes are correct for a FO retro 50's feel (there were nuclear mortars and artillery pieces in real life afterall), but nuclear catapults? FUCK NO!
Spook wrote:
Heinlein wrote them into Starship Troopers in 1960. Sounds exactly in line with the retro future-vision of warfare to me. Besides, if it's okay to run around like Jesse Ventura with handheld miniguns, why the fuck not?
Heinlein, Haldeman, Steakley etc never wrote about close range detonation, but about powerarmored (protected) troops using extreme firepower on long range targets.
I could live with EXTREMELY RARE nuclear bazookas in FO3 tbh. it does fit the overall setting. but a catapult detonating a fart away? haha, really, go home kiddo. _________________ Per is the bestest lizard.
G.K. Chesterton (on the agressiveness of Fallout fans?) wrote:
"Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of touching a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it."
Me, I could see at most a one-time event where you use a Davy Crockett type cannon to nuke a horde of Super Mutants in the distance, or something like that.
But that's it. _________________
I think that some kind of powerful plasma explosives would be more Fallout than portable nukes. _________________ Too much to do, not enough time to do it...
Joined: 19 Apr 2007 Posts: 4 Location: Atlanta & Athens GA Status: Offline
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 23:28 Post subject:
Nuclear catapults are freakin stupid, end of story... Exactly who has the facilities and machinery capable of refining nuclear materials when every nuclear facility would have been a priority one target? Unless an extreme exercise in imagination, tactical hand-held nuke's don't fit harmoniously into the FO universe.
My guess is that this is the kind of weapon that appeals primarily to the 22 and under crowd. _________________ ATLien about town.
Well we hoped that we are wrong, but we were not. Those console whores ain't going to appeal to us, they raped and slaughtered our dreams of a true Fallout follow-up. They should make a new genre - games for retarded people with no reading or thinking ability. Is it just me or hack'n'slash d2 style is back on rolling?
Well we hoped that we are wrong, but we were not. Those console whores ain't going to appeal to us, they raped and slaughtered our dreams of a true Fallout follow-up. They should make a new genre - games for retarded people with no reading or thinking ability. Is it just me or hack'n'slash d2 style is back on rolling?
No, because Diablo 2 was vastly different. It made no effort to pretend it was anything other than a click-fest, and it was a damned good click-fest at that. _________________ No Mutants Allowed, your Fallout resource - Fallout 3 modding
Sander is a finely tuned instrument of death, and as such is only used when the need arises. He hates posters no more than a Tsunami would hate a Japanese coastal village, or a Hurricane hates black people. - DirtyDreamDesigner
My main consolation is that only silly people follow silly advice - E.W. Dijkstra
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