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Poll: Voice Acting Can I Have It?
neKrow
Member UncommonPosts: 170
As of yet I have seen no indication on if FFXIV will be voice acted at all. If you have please post here letting us know where to find the info!
I personally am a pessimist and tend to be negative about such things. Since the game will be worldwide available in Nihongo, English Francais and Deutsch. And since when SE doesnt something they do it right or they don't do it at all, considering the cost of (quality) voice acting the game in 4 languages. I think we are going to be reading our quests for years to come.
But the poll isnt about what you think will happen. Its about what you would like to see. Maybe if SE sees enough interest they will shell out a couple more million dollars... or save some money if they dont.
Comments
I went with the Full Voice with no Text. I think that would make it very different from every other mmo out there and would be very interesting. Of course I dont think there is a snowballs chance in hell of that happening.. but with SE in 2010 anything is possible.
I'd have to go Full Voice with text to accomodate hearing impaired and just because I tend to play with the volume down a lot (kids napping or other circumstances like that). Really, it would be nice to see games fully voiced going forward, but I suppose that's easier to cut in the interest of budget.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
I prefer having text + VA at the same time, simply because it's easier for me to read the text rather than listen to it (2nd language english e t c.), but it'd create nice immersion if there was a VA.
Also they've actually said something about VA being a possibility.. I mean when they were asked about it they smiled mysteriously etc. so doesn't really rule it out
But damn, in 4 different languages and there'll be new stories every few months at least.. I guess it'd only be possible for the main story, or idk could be every quest with cs too!
Voice acting take a lot of space in an offline game, to have it in an online game where there are many many more NPC would take up a crap load of space. Youd be looking at a good 20 GB of space if you are going to have full voice acting ina full sized MMO as a minium. That is 1/3 of the space of most PS3s that this game is being made for. I don't think it is doable. Maybe in CSs only.
To me it adds little value. I mean you read chat text all day long, why do you need an NPC to have a inane convo with you about collecting or killing? Or take the anime angle - Most like anime subbed not dubbed, so why not try it in our MMOs
lol.
I'd go with missions / main quest line stuff put the work into, but full is just a waste of valuable dev time, imo.
Let Old Republic deal with the full voice, I want my FF to have the gameplay I know & love...
Irony: Sure it'd be nice to have full voice, but can you have it now? I doubt it, its not cost effective at all versus the value it adds, beyond already monumental MMO dev costs. And even if you had it, the amount of QQ over its quality would be more hasstle...on top of actual bugs & gameplay issues that will need the time to fix
Eh, I prefer text only! Voice only takes longer and they'd have to do it in 4 different languages. If it had voice though I'd want original JP voices with english subs!
This is why I voted for partial, now if sound files didn't take so much room it would be nice to have full voice overs, but really it's just not feasable in a game jam packed with content that continually gets added to for years.
(,,,)=^__^=(,,,)
I myself prefer all text, but I can see FFXIV having partial voice acting. I'm not sure if FFXIV will have missions and quests like FFXI, but it makes sense to have voice acting in major cutscenes like those related to the main storyline (missions in FFXI), and text only for tasks picked up from random NPCs (quests in FFXI).
I voted no voice acting because alot of voice acting just plain flat hurts to listen to because its so poorly done. Trying to get top notch voice acting in several different languages will take forever to do, and alot of resources away from the gameplay. Just give us text and a well polished game to play and I will be more than happy.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
what I would voted for is "voice acting w/ optional text"... I guess that's nothing strange. Still, I agree with others that voice acting quality is pretty spotty from game to game. There are various reasons, but it seems English-voiced games suffer sometimes from corny/subpar actors who overact and kill any hopes for a sense of immersion.
However, many here surely know that voice acting is a bit of an artform in Japan and I would *love* if XIV offered Japanese voices w/ English subtitles. Maybe that is not practical or wouldn't appeal to most gamers, but I would take quality voice acting in any language as long as the subtitles were well translated. I enjoy learning languages, though I'm pretty miserable w/ grammar and writing when it comes down to it, but if the actors are good, ppl can hear emotion in ANY language, even if they don't speak it or only know a few words in it.
Thinking of an example for the difference in quality and enjoying a game w/ Japanese voice acting+english subtitles... a game like Ninja Gaiden for PS2 works I guess (only cite it b/c remember a friend w/ the game pointing out the diff. in quality). Better examples out there, I know... But, still... obviously, the American voice actors destroyed the flavor of the game while the Japanese voice actors were much better actors, if I remember correctly.
The coolest notion to me = it would rule to have tarutaru's talking to you in forceful Japanese voices, or Galka's rumbling at you in Nihongo about dangerous tasks that await you at every turn. Imagine melding Japanese and mithran "cat sounds".... I wonder how a skilled, hardcore voice actor would approach that. ;^_^
Oh, and we mustn't forget what the rumored new race would sound like... Is it strange to wonder about these kinds of things? Gotta love completely pointless dreaming, considering it's more likely we'll get "text based" MMO gaming for several more years (at least where SE is concerned).
I voted for voice acting with text of course. Though honestly it's hardly something I would care about really. I guess it could cut down on questions if people are willing to listen to it, instead of the dreaded reading of quest text!!! Though with SW:TOR doing full voice acting i'm wondering if people will be spoiled by it if its fairly high quality. In Star Wars mmo case it would defintely add immersion for me if some Sith npc was speaking like Palapatine.
No voice acting. There are more important things to spend development money on.
I want voice ONLY if it is in japanese.
I am sorry to say this to all Americans. But all your voice actors sucks and please stop releasing licensed anime with english voice! .
Seriously, can't bare myself to listen to any American/european voice'd anime or game. Because i know japanese well enouth, i might as well go with japanese... at least girls sound like a girl...not some 70 grandma voice acting the character....
none
I doubt the FFXIV devs will even read this. Anyhow, it would take up too much memory if it had full voice acting.
I love voice acting in games and hope more MMOs use it to their fullest advantage. It just keeps me immersed in the world and more interested in the quests themselves. I vote for voice with optional text.
Oh come on... It gets so old with the otaku NA VA's = sux and JP VA's = godly!
Have you played any of these games nowadays with such fantastic american voice actors? Don't go off anime garbage. Some of those dubs they could have hired some guy of the street instead of a real voice actor. The real deals are amazing and it's just as much of an art form here as in Japan. If you've really seen the JP language, it's so bland and boring. Someone, please find me those JP VA's that can do different accents, and then we'll be talking.
If you've even read what the localization team did for XI in NA, they added all the little things that put so much depth from how the Elvaan talk to how Mithra's use their rrrr's. The JP text was just bland and boring because it's such a stiff language. You can't do much to make it exciting really.
I'd be fine with the game having voice acting. I know they'd do a fantastic job. I'd be fine with just text too. I'd agree it would be rough having more than one language to do for it all. Whatever they give me is fine.
To be the best, you must help each other become the best.
FFXI Character: Satimasu
FFXI Server: Valefor
FFXIV Character: Tamorae Fonteil
I personally would prefer it if they didnt have voice acting. Stories are much more appealing if i can kind of decide how the heroes should sound like rather than the game devs choosing that for me but thats just my personal preference.
Unfortunately i think you may be right.It would be quite costly to utilize voice acting over several languages.If they utilize the language chat again as in FFXI,that alone will take a ton of time to complete.
I am with most and would love to hear some voice acting,lets hope,Square is no small developer they have thousands of employees,so i am sure they dedicate at least 75+ to the game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
JP VA does have different accents. Japan have different regions that go off on their own way of speaking Japanese. I know the Japanese language as well as Chinese which is where Japanese derived from. It is only dull to those that doesn't understand the context of how and when certain phrase, word, setence are used. At the same time, alot of phonetic pronounciations over lap, so only native or masters of the language can possibly see the subtle nuances of conetextual meaning in Japanese. Basically, don't criticize something you don't fully understand.
The difference between JP and NA voice actors is the fact that in Japan, voice acting is a whole industry of fierce competition. In North America, the voice actors usually go off on talent alone without any technical training. This is why even the worst of JP VA are still several notches above the most skilled NA voice actor. JP VA have developed alot of talents over the fierce competitions, such as a man being able to control his voice to sound old, young, or female without the aid of any technology.
I rather if FFXIV do voice actiing that it have the option of being Japanese, or do a really brilliant job with NA VA so the game sounds up to standard at least.
EDIT: BTW, for a man to sound like a female, the strain on their vocal chord is very high. I seen a male JP VA that did a imitation of the whole family from old, middle age, and young (both male and female) having a conversation. However, aftter he did the voice of a teenage girl he coughed rather badly due to the strain of perfectly imitating female voice using a male vocal chord.
What I meant by accent is that an NA voice actor can do a southern accent, german, russian, and almost anything else you can think of. Of course there are different "accents" for them to use, but when someone is suppose to sound like a cowboy, it doesn't sound so much like that.
You think the NA VA's don't have any competition either? They already have to worry about screen actors taking away from them as well as each other. You make it seem like even the best of the best (Michael Gough), are still leagues behind anything a JP VA could do. That's simply not true. NA's can do the same thing.
XIV will not sound horrible if they have NA voices unless they hire horrible actors. I've heard the bad JP actors too, so it can go both ways. That's all there is to it.
If they're going to have voice acting, it had better be good.
To be the best, you must help each other become the best.
FFXI Character: Satimasu
FFXI Server: Valefor
FFXIV Character: Tamorae Fonteil
I agree that it is not cost efficient, especially given the multiple languages/simultaneous release... Perhaps they will implement it on a very limited basis though (i.e., cutscenes and the like). However, I must touch on the JPN vs. NA voice actors point one last time.
In my earlier post, I was careless and I want to acknowledge that there are many great NA voice actors. Likewise, I have played many games (and seen others) featuring almost stereotypical JPN voice acting that made my skin crawl. Yet, overall, it seems like NA voice acting is much more spotty as far as consistency ACROSS THE ENTIRE GENRE goes. It's a generalization, but I still think it is based on fairly unbiased observations.
I feel like if you pick up a random game with NA voice acting, you have a much higher chance of finding yourself distracted by the voice "actors" (or at least turning the vocal track off in the options menu, if that's even allowed --- which it frequently isn't, annoyingly so... ugh). Likewise, your random JPN voice acting tends to show a lot of depth and you can tell the voice actor has studied the game's world/story/plot/etc. That's just on average, and yes... there are exceptions to the rule. And, it should be said, over the years NA voice acting has improved DRAMATICALLY. I won't deny that. Still, you gotta admit, your random NA voice acting on a game vs. JPN voice acting = more often than not, the JPN voice actors are more "refined"/professional and better at what they are doing.
Honestly, I just want to play the damn game. Now. Right now. This is too long to wait. ;^_^
/sighs dejectedly.
Trying to quantify that one type of voice acting is better than the next is completely laughable. Have you heard Japanese dubs of originally English speaking media? Just as funny. Now what is acceptable is that the NATIVE language a piece of media is recorded in is usually better, but even that is changing, with great exceptions such as Final Fantasy XII, Metal Gear Solid (whole series) or most Ghibli movies as great examples of this.
With even MMOs moving toward voice acting (The Old Republic, Everquest II and even sound bites and voiced cutscenes in World of Warcraft) it would be ashame not to have some form of voice acting in the game, at least for mission cutscenes. Sure they might not do it in ALL languages they are going to launch in but I would settle for JP/EN voices with text in the languages that have been announced (its not like games that are text localized for numerous regions also do as much voice acting).