89 réponses à ce sujet

[David7204]

I've been looking over some of the DAIII material, and something I've seen come up several times is 'word budgets.' They weren't explained in great detail, but the gist of it seems to be that the amount of 'words' avaliable in game is decided beforehand and appropriated to quests and characters. Gaider's blog mentioned that sometimes writers have to cut down on the dialogue in quests to fit budgets.

I thought the limiting factor behind the amount of dialogue and such in a game was that writing is hard, and there are a limited number of writers with a limited amount of time to do it in. Yet it sounds like BioWare artificially limits the amount of 'writing' done, even if a writer is willing and able to provide more content.

Is there a technical reason for this that I don't know about?

From Gaiders blog: http://dgaider.tumbl...creating-quests

"You’ll also have to work with a budget— the bane of any writer’s existence, let me tell you. There’s a time budget (“how long is this quest supposed to be?”) which means you’ll be working with the pod to approximate how long every step is expected to take. More importantly for you, you’ll have a word budget (as in the # of words of spoken dialogue you can have). The total word budget of the project has already been chopped up and you know how much of it is yours… so you have to figure out how much talking there is in each section. Is this idea going to be complicated to explain? Maybe it’s better to show instead. Is this conversation going to be really long and drag down the pace of the plot? Is it a show piece with lots of cinematic work expected?"

Modifié par David7204, 03 décembre 2012 - 02:24 .

[Auintus]

Source?
Not that I could really help, I just want to know.

Modifié par Auintus, 03 décembre 2012 - 02:19 .

[ledod]

Do the words refer to text, or 'voiced' words? If it's the former, perhaps it is an issue of memory. Assuming more words use more memory, perhaps the budget is not in reference to monetary contraints, but rather to some technial limitations.

[Serillen]

It's sort of explained in one of David Gaiders blogs, but basically it amounts to money and time. It's not just the cost of writing the words, but also implementing them. It costs money for cinematics, level design etc and so they figure out how many words can be crammed into the budget and work off that assigning how much they want to use for quests and characters.

Modifié par Serillen, 03 décembre 2012 - 02:35 .

[David Gaider]

It used to be that art was the major bottleneck in our design. Now it's writing.

Why? Because words are expensive. We have separate types of word budgets, based on the costs they generate. So a "cinematic word budget" are voiced lines that require extensive touching by the cinematic design team. They have X number of people who can work Y number of hours at an average lines/hour speed. So we do the math based on the time we have allotted for the Production phase. We have a "voice budget" based on how many voiced lines we can afford to record, whether cinematic or not. Both of these numbers are smaller than the number of lines writers can actually produce.

Despite the fact that we have more cinematics and voiced lines nowadays, the word budget isn't actually new. After BG2 an effort was made to constrain the amount of writing we do, as even non-recorded lines (including text such as codex entries and journals, which also has its own budget) need to be translated into numerous languages and also have a knock-on effect of how long a plot is (and thus how much time it takes for the level designers to implement).

Ultimately, with more money and more time the budget can be higher... but that's always the case. This isn't something we'd normally discuss since, to a fan, why wouldn't we put more money and time into a project? Hell, we'd like it too. Essentially we need to start from somewhere, and that all starts with people much further up the chain than someone at my level.

[Imp of the Perverse]

I'm not sure how it is for Bioware games, I'm not as familiar with the file structure, but for Skyrim the archive containing voice acting was almost exactly the same size as the archive containing all of the models and art for the game, and those were the two biggest archives. The game itself was just big enough to fit on a single disk. More words would mean having to go to multiple disks, or cutting something else out of the game (not an issue for digital downloads, inb4consolesdraggingpcgamingdown.) You also have to pay voice actors to perform everything you write, so there's going to be a budget from that too.

[JWvonGoethe]

David Gaider wrote...

We have separate types of word budgets, based on the costs they generate. So a "cinematic word budget" are voiced lines that require extensive touching by the cinematic design team.

There's a scene in DA2 where Hawke has a conversation while walking on the beach. I wonder if walking during conversations (in front of a looped background) takes a considerable chunk out of the cinematic word budget? If not, then I would definitely like to see it happen more frequently - it made that conversation seem much more cinematic and special.

Modifié par JWvonGoethe, 03 décembre 2012 - 04:31 .

[LPPrince]

Makes me wonder if this at all is related to unique moments like The Warden and Duncan's discussion on the bridge to Ostagar. You know, they're talking and walking at the same time, and no matter what part of the conversation they're at, they stop at one point and continue talking while standing there.

I just thought that was cool and I'd like to see more if its not too hard to do dialogue/cinematic-wise.

[David7204]

Thanks. That makes a lot of sense.

Although it's also kind of depressing since those seem like pretty hard limits that won't be changing anytime soon. Obviously nothing can be done to automate or quicken voice recording, and I doubt touching up cutscenes is going to get much easier either.

I'm surprised nobody has said anything to the Mass Effect community about this, given how upset people are about the removal of the neutral option and autodialouge and the general perception that it's the fault of the writers.

[shepskisaac]

JWvonGoethe wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

We have separate types of word budgets, based on the costs they generate. So a "cinematic word budget" are voiced lines that require extensive touching by the cinematic design team.

There's a scene in DA2 where Hawke has a conversation while walking on the beach. I wonder if walking during conversations (in front of a looped background) takes a considerable chunk out of the cinematic word budget? If not, then I would definitely like to see it happen more frequently - it made that conversation seem much more cinematic and special.

Be careful what you wish for. More elaborate/cinematic cameras during conversations resulted in more autodialoged Shepard in ME3.

[TEWR]

JWvonGoethe wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

We have separate types of word budgets, based on the costs they generate. So a "cinematic word budget" are voiced lines that require extensive touching by the cinematic design team.

There's a scene in DA2 where Hawke has a conversation while walking on the beach. I wonder if walking during conversations (in front of a looped background) takes a considerable chunk out of the cinematic word budget? If not, then I would definitely like to see it happen more frequently - it made that conversation seem much more cinematic and special.

If it is costly for those moments, I'd support The Walking Dead game's dialogue method for those moments, where you're timed before it progresses.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 03 décembre 2012 - 05:19 .

[Reofeir]

IsaacShep wrote...

JWvonGoethe wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

We have separate types of word budgets, based on the costs they generate. So a "cinematic word budget" are voiced lines that require extensive touching by the cinematic design team.

There's a scene in DA2 where Hawke has a conversation while walking on the beach. I wonder if walking during conversations (in front of a looped background) takes a considerable chunk out of the cinematic word budget? If not, then I would definitely like to see it happen more frequently - it made that conversation seem much more cinematic and special.

Be careful what you wish for. More elaborate/cinematic cameras during conversations resulted in more autodialoged Shepard in ME3.

I know you're against it, but I'm not really. If it's done well, and doesn't break character, then the lines are fine....That and also not too many.

[JWvonGoethe]

IsaacShep wrote...

Be careful what you wish for. More elaborate/cinematic cameras during conversations resulted in more autodialoged Shepard in ME3.

I haven't played ME3 yet, so I'm afraid I can't comment on that game specifically.

Anyway, with regards to walking during conversations in DA3, I'm really just asking for clarification as to whether this is particularly difficult and expensive to implement, or if we can see this happen more frequently without too many negative budget impacts that would affect other parts of the game. Sorry if this is getting off topic.

Modifié par JWvonGoethe, 03 décembre 2012 - 06:15 .

[David Gaider]

David7204 wrote...
Although it's also kind of depressing since those seem like pretty hard limits that won't be changing anytime soon. Obviously nothing can be done to automate or quicken voice recording, and I doubt touching up cutscenes is going to get much easier either.

Yes and no. There's ongoing work to make procedural cinematic scenes (ones that don't require much manual handling) look better, and thus more widely used. There's also some work on making what we call ambient dialogue (such as party banter) more useful and thus reduce the need for cinematics.

Voice-over is always going to be expensive, however, both from a pure cost as well as diskspace standpoint.

[David Gaider]

JWvonGoethe wrote...
There's a scene in DA2 where Hawke has a conversation while walking on the beach. I wonder if walking during conversations (in front of a looped background) takes a considerable chunk out of the cinematic word budget? If not, then I would definitely like to see it happen more frequently - it made that conversation seem much more cinematic and special.

We call that the "walk-and-talk". It requires cinematic work, but isn't as work-intensive as some of the bigger scenes where you see combat or need elaborate animations. It's primarily useful for making longer conversations drag down the pace less.

[JWvonGoethe]

David Gaider wrote...

We call that the "walk-and-talk". It requires cinematic work, but isn't as work-intensive as some of the bigger scenes where you see combat or need elaborate animations. It's primarily useful for making longer conversations drag down the pace less.

Thanks, that's certainly encouraging news. Hopefully we can see more walking and talking in DA3. While it could be seen as just a palliative for making long conversations drag less, I think it is quite an exciting feature in its own right for a lot of people - Assassin's Creed Revelations actually advertised the 'walk and talk' as a game feature.

Modifié par JWvonGoethe, 03 décembre 2012 - 06:42 .

[caradoc2000]

Talk used to be cheap,..

[TheJediSaint]

David Gaider wrote...

Voice-over is always going to be expensive, however, both from a pure cost as well as diskspace standpoint.

Silly voice actors and their need to eat on a semi-regular basis.

[nightscrawl]

David Gaider wrote...

Ultimately, with more money and more time the budget can be higher... but that's always the case. This isn't something we'd normally discuss since, to a fan, why wouldn't we put more money and time into a project? Hell, we'd like it too. Essentially we need to start from somewhere, and that all starts with people much further up the chain than someone at my level.

I'm surprised that you approached this post from a strictly financial viewpoint.

It seems to me that word budgets, even with no financial or time constraints, can serve another purpose: they force the writers to be conservative. I could talk to Fenris all day long, but I know that is not a realistic desire, nor is it feasible. They also force you to be clear and concise during quest dialog in order to provide the player with the relevant information. Being long winded -- I'm guilty of it myself with forum posts here -- can cause your words to be drowned out by other content, your audience to lose interest, and make some of your more important statements have less impact than you want.

Even if you all had unlimited funds and time, I think word budgets, for written and voiced, would still be important.

Modifié par nightscrawl, 03 décembre 2012 - 07:27 .

[WhiteKnyght]

David Gaider wrote...

Voice-over is always going to be expensive, however, both from a pure cost as well as diskspace standpoint.

Well at least until technology advances enough to where synthetic voices sound real. It'd save a lot of money in voice actors.(InB4 someone makes a video of Alistair with Stephen Hawking's synthetic voice)

[nightscrawl]

The Grey Nayr wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

Voice-over is always going to be expensive, however, both from a pure cost as well as diskspace standpoint.

Well at least until technology advances enough to where synthetic voices sound real. It'd save a lot of money in voice actors.(InB4 someone makes a video of Alistair with Stephen Hawking's synthetic voice)

There is a difference between sounding real and acting out a scene. You might be able to set up a realistic synthetic voice that will say "I want some cheese," but it won't be able to put any emotion to it. Just listen to Alistair when he is talking about Duncan after Ostagar. Because you are a human being with empathy, you can tell that Alistair is in pain. That's an actor putting that pain in there. Humans can also put many different inflections and emphasis on words to completely change the meaning of a sentence.

[Maria Caliban]

David7204 wrote...

...and I doubt touching up cutscenes is going to get much easier either.

It could with a better toolset.

[Gyrefalcon]

@David Gaider: I don't suppose there is any chance you might engage in a Kickstarter if Bioware's budget does not match up well with the ambitions for DA3? It worked quite well for Reaper Miniatures and other companies as well. I'm sure the fans would support it.

[Maria Caliban]

BioWare is owned by EA, a publisher; they're not going to have a Kickstarter.

[Allan Schumacher]

Are you asking what the likelihood would be of EA/BioWare doing a kickstarter if we felt we needed additional funding to match our vision for DA3?

While I am never keen on talking in absolutes, I would bet large sums of money on it not happening.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 03 décembre 2012 - 09:00 .