14 réponses à ce sujet

[Heimdall]

Now, I understand that voice acting is very expensive and even my proposal is probably a bit much, but this is my best effort to balance the desire for the return of origins with a more minimalist approach for the sake of keeping cost down.

Apostate Origin - For humans and elves, this origins follows an apprentice who follows along with the rest of a Circle that has rebelled.  Obviously, one has to be a mage for this Origin.

Templar Origin - For humans and elves.  I know we've never seen any elven Templars, but I don't see why it couldn't happen.  In any case, this is for those players that wish to play a warrior or rogue.  In this case the origin follows a junior trainee raised in the Templar order, possibly Orlesian.  Do to being a Novice still in training (Even Alistair was near taking his vows when the Warden's recruited him), the player doesn't have to be railroaded into the Templar specialization.

I include those mostly to give perspective for both sides of the conflict between Templars and Mages.  The other two are more race choice related.

Kal Sharok Origin - For dwarves of course.  This origin would follow a member of the warrior caste sent to escort an envoy to negotiate Lyrium trade with the Templars.  Alternatively the player is the envoy.  Warrior and rogue classes are of course available

Tal Vashoth Origin - For those like me that really want to create a Kossith character.  This origin would follow a Kossith raised amongst a mercenary band of Tal Vashoth that has been contracted by one of the rogue circles of magi to fight with them.  It may turn out that one of the band's members is an undercover agent of the Ben-Hassreth .Warrior and rogue classes are available and possibly even mage.

I see them all coming together in a battle between the Templar contingent mentioned above and the rogue Circle mentioned above, but that's beside the point.

I don't think a return to a silent protagonist is very likely, though I must confess I don't feel strongly one way or another on the subject, and that this is still an incredibly expensive eight voice roles.  Still, possibly the most missed feature of Origins was the Origins themselves and race choice.  This is the best way I can think to bring them back, provide some interesting story perspective, and keep the resource use minimal.

EDIT:As pointed out, it would humans and elves could probably share voices, which brings the total down to six.  Still expensive but who knows, it could be doable.  They also might be able to get the dwarves and Kossith to share their deeper rumbling voices, or atleast use the same voice actor.  The would bring it down to four.

Modifié par Lord Aesir, 29 novembre 2011 - 12:21 .

[AlexXIV]

Did I miss something or did you forget about the voice budget balance?

While elves and humans may have the same VA I think dwarves and Kossith would need a different one.

[esper]

@Alex not surfaces dwarves who might have lived in the same city as the other origins. The carta didn't sound so different from the rest from what I could hear.
I doubt we would ever get to play a Kossith.

[Heimdall]

AlexXIV wrote...

Did I miss something or did you forget about the voice budget balance?

While elves and humans may have the same VA I think dwarves and Kossith would need a different one.

Mostly I was trying to think of the minimum origins necesary to get what most people seem to want.  You're right, elves and humans could easily get away with the same voices.  Six voices.  Can't say I know the cost for even one protagonist voice beyond "Expensive", but perhaps that would be doable.

[AlexXIV]

esper wrote...

@Alex not surfaces dwarves who might have lived in the same city as the other origins. The carta didn't sound so different from the rest from what I could hear.
I doubt we would ever get to play a Kossith.

I am just thinking that dwarves and Kossith would have a rather low, rumbling tone, while elves and humans could be higher pitched. That way you need only 2 VAs for 4 races (per gender). I think 4 VAs is about the max budget anyway considering all and everything, since we certainly don't want Bioware spend a huge chunk of it just for voicing the protagonist. And no, we probably won't get to play a Kossith. In which case they could just do away with only one VA per gender which is probably much more to Bioware's liking.

Modifié par AlexXIV, 29 novembre 2011 - 12:17 .

[esper]

AlexXIV wrote...

esper wrote...

@Alex not surfaces dwarves who might have lived in the same city as the other origins. The carta didn't sound so different from the rest from what I could hear.
I doubt we would ever get to play a Kossith.

I am just thinking that dwarves and Kossith would have a rather low, rumbling tone, while elves and humans could be higher pitched. That way you need only 2 VAs for 4 races (per gender). I think 4 VAs is about the max budget anyway considering all and everything, since we certainly don't want Bioware spend a huge chunk of it just for voicing the protagonist. And no, we probably won't get to play a Kossith. In which case they could just do away with only one VA per gender which is probably much more to Bioware's liking.

I honestely think we could go down to one voice per gender, yes. Which is properly the only way to realistically have race origins back.

Edit of course this would mean city elf and not dalish,

Modifié par esper, 29 novembre 2011 - 12:25 .

[Heimdall]

esper wrote...

Edit of course this would mean city elf and not dalish,

That's pretty much why I just lumped humans and elves together

[Lynata]

Lord Aesir wrote...
I know we've never seen any elven Templars, but I don't see why it couldn't happen.

Because racism. Elves aren't allowed to join the Chantry. 

As far as voice actors go, I think 4 would suffice: male scholar, female scholar, male warrior, female warrior.
The soft and educated scholar voice would be suitable for mages, but the player could also pick it for, say, an elven warrior. The warrior voice would be a bit louder and more grim/"direct", and could lend itself nicely to dwarves in general.

[Gervaise]

I'm thinking that perhaps the basic voice acting for the main protagonist could be tweaked according to race by use of computer without it sounding artificial. Then you would just need variations according to origin story which would feed through into the main story in appropriate places (as per Origins) but much of the time what the protagonist said would be the same whatever race you played (again as per Origins)

[Teachno34]

AlexXIV wrote...

Did I miss something or did you forget about the voice budget balance?

While elves and humans may have the same VA I think dwarves and Kossith would need a different one.

You could also make all the Origins return as party members, with the current PC just being the one that calls the shots, has the most influence, is the leader, or whatever. That way, the Bioware gameplay (PC surrounded by a bunch of characters with each having his or her reasons) is maintained and you've got multiple origins with as little extra cost as possible.

[hwlrmnky]

1. A smaller number of actors does not mean a smaller budget if they are putting in the time to voice more characters. 2. Actors with the skills to do more than one voice will, unless their agents are asleep, command a higher salary. 3. The greater financial burden is not the cost of the actor, it is the cost of implementation; vocal performance in cut-scenes requires accompanying animation and programmers' time.

[Fast Jimmy]

FemaleMageFan wrote...

That is 10 character voices....a bit too much if you do a cost benefit analysis(just the reality of it)
I think at maximum 6 character voices can work that is 3male 3 female. Let us not forget that this mechanism that bioware implements uses a dialog tree. Unless it was all virtualized and each request of a voice response is accessed through a remote server....that could work too(but too expensive and some places do not have quick internet)....but think about it

---o good response
sarcastic response
rude or direct |Pick response|---------->Accesses server---------->|Voice database|
| | Goes back with respons--------- | |

But wait a second.....How Many people are accesing this database ...i mean over a million people pay this game....Every day...It will not happen because people will expect such a service to be FREE(as a population) that is why it can happen but bioware is a business so they cannot model this without a cost benefit analysis.
But i assure you with this model they can have over 10 different voices male and female exclusive.
But hey what do i know..im just a starving software developer

Database... remote server...?

I can't tell if you are suggesting that Bioware doesn't put the VA on the game CD, or if you really think that all the VA in Bioware games is already stored online...?

Regardless, it isn't how the VAs are stored (ME2 came with two discs, it was not a big deal) but how much it costs to pay the actors to do the voices. Sure, space is an issue, but not nearly as big of an issue as the cost and the fact that any edits to plot done after the voice recordings need to be completely re-done.

Those are the real costs of having a voiced character.

[jbrand2002uk]

in that case John Culshaw or Rory Bremner could be good choices for the male VA as they can do many tones accents etc being good impressionists John Culshaw's president bush( Welcome I'm George dubya Bush President of the United States of Amoeba) still has me in stitches to this day

[andar91]

I'd be okay with them using one male and female voice for all 3 races. If you backstory supports them all being raised in the same country, I don't think it's that much of a stretch for a Dwarf to have a higher voice than the ones we've heard so far, and I don't think all dwarves have to have deep voices. Varric's wasn't that deep.

I know I'm not with the status quo here, but I don't even think the game needs to be fully voiced. The main characters, sure, but why do merchants need voices? I don't think they'll change on this point but I'd be fine with cutting out some of the unimportant side dialogue and changing it to text (I mean with non-important characters, not stuff like banter).

In any case, I don't think we're going to get much of a change on this point. I think we're going to be playing humans from now on because of this. But what do I know? I have no idea how much voice actors cost.