Voice Packs

[Labjax.2465]

Idk if I'd pay extra for it. Knowing anet it'd be like $50 for a single new voice for one gender and one race.

But, being able to do more with voice def appeals to me. I dislike in general the player character voiced RPG trend more than I like it because it makes it hard to feel like you're ever playing through the game as a different character under the same gender/race set. You can put in all this effort to make the character feel unique and then you hear them talk and it's all blown to hell. And then when you make a request like this, you get told the obvious by other players, which is that it'd be expensive to go back and do, and expensive going forward. Yeah, that's one of the reasons I don't like player character voiced RPGs. Making it customizable in any way gets expensive fast, which means you probably aren't going to get it.

Edit: Oh yeah, another thing that annoys me about the trend is size on disk. Audio files are one of the biggest inflators of taking up space on your hard drive for a game. So imagine if they effectively doubled thousands of lines of audio recording, by adding an additional option for each race and gender. I can't do real math on it without knowing the internal file breakdown, but I'd estimate it's adding a few more gigs at least. Anyway, the point is it's annoying. The silent protagonist's lines take up negligible space on disk, as they are just text. Silent protagonist also makes it easier to allow choices in dialogue, instead of it being like watching a slightly interactive movie.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Labjax.2465
I accidentally a word

[Vyr.9387]

6 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

Idk if I'd pay extra for it. Knowing anet it'd be like $50 for a single new voice for one gender and one race.

But, being able to do more with voice def appeals to me. I dislike in general the player character voiced RPG trend more than I like it because it makes it hard to feel like you're ever playing through the game as a different character under the same gender/race set. You can put in all this effort to make the character feel unique and then you hear them talk and it's all blown to hell. And then when you make a request like this, you get told the obvious by other players, which is that it'd be expensive to go back and do, and expensive going forward. Yeah, that's one of the reasons I don't like player character voiced RPGs. Making it customizable in any way gets expensive fast, which means you probably aren't going to get it.

Idunno, idunno.
Can understand the cynicism, also have been here for a while, but the "old" ANet would most likely also never release a Maid outfit, much less for both sexes, or care much about the PvP modes. Even pretty much everything on the artistic side is moving in a more nuanced direction, be it story, the direction overall, or gear skins.
No clue how much my own biases play into this perspective, but the studio's actions seem to imply a new ideology at play, which, in my opinion, should be supported, so they are not only allowed to be bold with their decisions, but know that the player base stands behind them.
There always will be the mental grandpas and grandmas, thinking themselves an authority on everything ANet just because they'd played the original GW, spamming every novel suggestion with "ain't gon' happen 'cuz back in my day...!"

As Machinae Supremacy put it in their song "Reanimator":
To change takes more than to remain
Therefore we lay - back - in the comfort of our chains

Some days simply getting told that a bit of toothpaste ended up on your pure black shirt can ruin your mood.
If the staff really do read all the suggestions, seeing so many people claim with a fool's certainty ANet's never doing this or only doing that on a daily basis is bound to murder some brilliant ideas outright for no good reason.
So being able to get out of your safe space and pitch those male-Maid outfits and Voice Packs and, hell, not so long ago, even same-sex relationships should be applauded for the balls it takes to risk a failure and not running circles around Shaemoor for the eleventh year.

Applying our current values to this equation's variables:
if any of you ANet guys or gals - or any fellow artist - is reading this, let it be the random bench in the middle of the ocean when you can't swim any longer, the stranger on the street grinning knowingly after noticing the emblem on your shirt, or the person standing tall beside you when your palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy.
Or simply an appreciative nod to Your own self.
Because conformity can go (channels inner quaggan) FOO itself.

Speaking of which, #5021, that's literally in-game jargon; get that blood out of your pitchfork.

 

 

8 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

Edit: Oh yeah, another thing that annoys me about the trend is size on disk. Audio files are one of the biggest inflators of taking up space on your hard drive for a game. So imagine if they effectively doubled thousands of lines of audio recording, by adding an additional option for each race and gender. I can't do real math on it without knowing the internal file breakdown, but I'd estimate it's adding a few more gigs at least. Anyway, the point is it's annoying. The silent protagonist's lines take up negligible space on disk, as they are just text. Silent protagonist also makes it easier to allow choices in dialogue, instead of it being like watching a slightly interactive movie.

That's an interesting point.
Do devs take into account the files' size when doing voice acting?
Can see it for consoles, but consoles are a blight upon virtual artistry to begin with. Is that ever a concern for PC games?

[Randulf.7614]

4 hours ago, Vyr.9387 said:

Idunno, idunno.
Can understand the cynicism, also have been here for a while, but the "old" ANet would most likely also never release a Maid outfit, much less for both sexes, or care much about the PvP modes. Even pretty much everything on the artistic side is moving in a more nuanced direction, be it story, the direction overall, or gear skins.
No clue how much my own biases play into this perspective, but the studio's actions seem to imply a new ideology at play, which, in my opinion, should be supported, so they are not only allowed to be bold with their decisions, but know that the player base stands behind them.
There always will be the mental grandpas and grandmas, thinking themselves an authority on everything ANet just because they'd played the original GW, spamming every novel suggestion with "ain't gon' happen 'cuz back in my day...!"

As Machinae Supremacy put it in their song "Reanimator":
To change takes more than to remain
Therefore we lay - back - in the comfort of our chains

Some days simply getting told that a bit of toothpaste ended up on your pure black shirt can ruin your mood.
If the staff really do read all the suggestions, seeing so many people claim with a fool's certainty ANet's never doing this or only doing that on a daily basis is bound to murder some brilliant ideas outright for no good reason.
So being able to get out of your safe space and pitch those male-Maid outfits and Voice Packs and, hell, not so long ago, even same-sex relationships should be applauded for the balls it takes to risk a failure and not running circles around Shaemoor for the eleventh year.

Applying our current values to this equation's variables:
if any of you ANet guys or gals - or any fellow artist - is reading this, let it be the random bench in the middle of the ocean when you can't swim any longer, the stranger on the street grinning knowingly after noticing the emblem on your shirt, or the person standing tall beside you when your palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy.
Or simply an appreciative nod to Your own self.
Because conformity can go (channels inner quaggan) FOO itself.

Speaking of which, #5021, that's literally in-game jargon; get that blood out of your pitchfork.

 

 

That's an interesting point.
Do devs take into account the files' size when doing voice acting?
Can see it for consoles, but consoles are a blight upon virtual artistry to begin with. Is that ever a concern for PC games?

In response to your final sentence, the answer is that it depends. One of the reasons stated behind not adding in dye channels to weapons years after launch was because it would create a “non trivial patch”. That would suggest an unnecessarily sized file for such a small thing. Whilst storage spaces are much larger on pcs, casual players are potentially more reluctant to overuse space for a single game.
 

But, whilst file sizes are probably a consideration for some things, I don’t know enough about VA file sizes to suggest they make take up significant enough space for it to be noticeable or a factor.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

5 hours ago, Vyr.9387 said:

Idunno, idunno.
Can understand the cynicism, also have been here for a while, but the "old" ANet would most likely also never release a Maid outfit, much less for both sexes, or care much about the PvP modes. Even pretty much everything on the artistic side is moving in a more nuanced direction, be it story, the direction overall, or gear skins.
No clue how much my own biases play into this perspective, but the studio's actions seem to imply a new ideology at play, which, in my opinion, should be supported, so they are not only allowed to be bold with their decisions, but know that the player base stands behind them.
There always will be the mental grandpas and grandmas, thinking themselves an authority on everything ANet just because they'd played the original GW, spamming every novel suggestion with "ain't gon' happen 'cuz back in my day...!"

As Machinae Supremacy put it in their song "Reanimator":
To change takes more than to remain
Therefore we lay - back - in the comfort of our chains

Some days simply getting told that a bit of toothpaste ended up on your pure black shirt can ruin your mood.
If the staff really do read all the suggestions, seeing so many people claim with a fool's certainty ANet's never doing this or only doing that on a daily basis is bound to murder some brilliant ideas outright for no good reason.
So being able to get out of your safe space and pitch those male-Maid outfits and Voice Packs and, hell, not so long ago, even same-sex relationships should be applauded for the balls it takes to risk a failure and not running circles around Shaemoor for the eleventh year.

Applying our current values to this equation's variables:
if any of you ANet guys or gals - or any fellow artist - is reading this, let it be the random bench in the middle of the ocean when you can't swim any longer, the stranger on the street grinning knowingly after noticing the emblem on your shirt, or the person standing tall beside you when your palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy.
Or simply an appreciative nod to Your own self.
Because conformity can go (channels inner quaggan) FOO itself.

Speaking of which, #5021, that's literally in-game jargon; get that blood out of your pitchfork.

 

 

That's an interesting point.
Do devs take into account the files' size when doing voice acting?
Can see it for consoles, but consoles are a blight upon virtual artistry to begin with. Is that ever a concern for PC games?

Dude, antagonizing the people that aren't interested in this or might not think its worth the Dev time isn't going to earn you any good will from anyone, it just makes you kind of a bully.  They aren't opposing your "Moral crusade" against conformity, they just know that Anet small kitten company with limited resources, that also has a bigger company breathing down their neck to earn profit for it. Or sometimes they just don't like an idea, people are allowed to express their dislike of something on this forum.

And Gender-flipped outfits is hardly ground breaking, Blade And Soul has been doing it for years.

[Vyr.9387]

26 minutes ago, The Greyhawk.9107 said:

Dude, antagonizing the people that aren't interested in this or might not think its worth the Dev time isn't going to earn you any good will from anyone, it just makes you kind of a bully.  They aren't opposing your "Moral crusade" against conformity, they just know that Anet small kitten company with limited resources, that also has a bigger company breathing down their neck to earn profit for it. Or sometimes they just don't like an idea, people are allowed to express their dislike of something on this forum.

As long as it keeps the "ANet can afford two chairs and half a pizza per year" narrative from spreading into proper discourse about pros and cons of ideas, I'm in. Because people who (dis)agree, yet have genuine insights into how stuff works, can get and most likely are getting discouraged from sharing their thoughts in fear of conservative/status quo-preserving backlash.
Inside or outside of the game.

But I was talking solely about people whose forum contributions revolve exclusively around saying "no" to every post they can find, not about those who simply disagree.
E. g., that conversation about Open World Legendary Armor which #5021 woke up to confiscate in the name of whatever passes as "holy" these days: I and Sob tend to claw at each other's throats in most of the topics, but in there his points were all solid, and I was actually looking forward to his responses. Because discussions should strive to find a solution to a problem, to learn more about the world through observers from different places coming together to share their findings, and that's precisely what we did.

Ironically, I actively despise people agreeing with me, because it always feels like they're forgoing their own view points in favor of my perceived superiority in regards to a topic, even in cases of it being true.

So, by all means, let them spam/ban/Confused me all they like, if it helps other people from either side of an argument raise their chins and speak their piece.
Not playing a martyr, either; hell knows I could be a professional streamer with all the senseless flak I'm able to take for breakfast.

 

 

1 hour ago, The Greyhawk.9107 said:

And Gender-flipped outfits is hardly ground breaking, Blade And Soul has been doing it for years.

Not for the rest of the world, true, but it does look pretty groundbreaking for Tyria, and that's what counts.

[Gehenna.3625]

19 hours ago, Vyr.9387 said:

Might very well be.
Said in the initial post that I've got no idea how many lines there are outside of the story stuff, but every investment is made with profit in mind, yes?

Well there definitely would be a cost versus benefit projection done before anything. There are other things to consider as well though, but that's the bottom line.

19 hours ago, Vyr.9387 said:

Then you look at the poll, and even though 19 isn't exactly a sample size worthy of a game of these proportions, only 3 people are wholeheartedly up for the idea. Not exactly a promise of a golden age incoming so far.

Well and that's it. It's good of you to realize it, because a lot of people who come here with their ideas tend to overstate their opinion and cannot admit that their ideas might not be so popular after all. 

I think there are probably many things that people would want that are higher on their priority list than this.

[Labjax.2465]

8 hours ago, Vyr.9387 said:

Idunno, idunno.
Can understand the cynicism, also have been here for a while, but the "old" ANet would most likely also never release a Maid outfit, much less for both sexes, or care much about the PvP modes. Even pretty much everything on the artistic side is moving in a more nuanced direction, be it story, the direction overall, or gear skins.
No clue how much my own biases play into this perspective, but the studio's actions seem to imply a new ideology at play, which, in my opinion, should be supported, so they are not only allowed to be bold with their decisions, but know that the player base stands behind them.
There always will be the mental grandpas and grandmas, thinking themselves an authority on everything ANet just because they'd played the original GW, spamming every novel suggestion with "ain't gon' happen 'cuz back in my day...!"

As Machinae Supremacy put it in their song "Reanimator":
To change takes more than to remain
Therefore we lay - back - in the comfort of our chains

Some days simply getting told that a bit of toothpaste ended up on your pure black shirt can ruin your mood.
If the staff really do read all the suggestions, seeing so many people claim with a fool's certainty ANet's never doing this or only doing that on a daily basis is bound to murder some brilliant ideas outright for no good reason.
So being able to get out of your safe space and pitch those male-Maid outfits and Voice Packs and, hell, not so long ago, even same-sex relationships should be applauded for the balls it takes to risk a failure and not running circles around Shaemoor for the eleventh year.

Applying our current values to this equation's variables:
if any of you ANet guys or gals - or any fellow artist - is reading this, let it be the random bench in the middle of the ocean when you can't swim any longer, the stranger on the street grinning knowingly after noticing the emblem on your shirt, or the person standing tall beside you when your palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy.
Or simply an appreciative nod to Your own self.
Because conformity can go (channels inner quaggan) FOO itself.

Speaking of which, #5021, that's literally in-game jargon; get that blood out of your pitchfork.

 

 

That's an interesting point.
Do devs take into account the files' size when doing voice acting?
Can see it for consoles, but consoles are a blight upon virtual artistry to begin with. Is that ever a concern for PC games?

I will say, I think if you want something in the game, you should ask for it even if you yourself think the request isn't possible because it still says something about what you'd like to see, which can be useful information. I'm saying the stuff about cost and file sizes more to manage my own expectations (and vent a little about style choices).

Ultimately, we don't know what is or isn't something anet can do or would want to do and they themselves couldn't tell us in a way that would account for changes in staff and infrastructure over time, unless they updated us on the status of these things periodically. So suggest away, is my mindset. The worst that happens is nothing, which is already the result of most suggestions, however minor.

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Vyr.9387 said:

But I was talking solely about people whose forum contributions revolve exclusively around saying "no" to every post they can find, not about those who simply disagree.

95% of all ideas and contributions on these forums are junk. That's why the reactions to them are most often no, not to mention the amount of rehashed and repeat ideas, which make up probably at least half of ideas posted already.

That said, I personally don't mind voice packs. I doubt it will ever happen though and the reason for that is not only creative.

1. offering voice packs creates another layer of work which needs to be serviced and the only benefit here is making money. There is no additional immersion, there is no additional benefit, on the contrary, it reduces existing immersion

2. spending resources on voice packs directly competes with potentially something far more beneficial: an additional race.

3. doing voice packs half baked would simply diminish the quality of the product. I know people love to hate on Anet, but they actually have a very high quality VA and sound team. The music is most often great, the VA is at worst decent and at best great. It's what sets them appart from most other MMORPGs and given the size of the studio is kitten good work

4. there is far easier low hanging fruit to make money off of which is less intrusive

5. it might even cause issues with current voice actors. Imagine telling an actor or artist:"oh by the way, we will have someone else do the same lines as you for this character you portray". That usually doesn't go over well, neither with the original VA nor the audience. A great example here was the replacement of David Hayter's Snake in Metal Gear with Kiefer Sutherland (both great VAs) or as mentioned by others the examples we have in game where VAs had to be replaced.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Vyr.9387]

42 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

...
Imagine telling an actor or artist:"oh by the way, we will have someone else do the same lines as you for this character you portray".
...

First and foremost, since You're the second person bringing up this point, which part of the original post makes it look like I'm suggesting CHANGING the cast for the packs? Not a derogatory rhetoric question; genuinely curious, because there's obviously something in the air there.


 

49 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

1. offering voice packs creates another layer of work which needs to be serviced and the only benefit here is making money. There is no additional immersion, there is no additional benefit, on the contrary, it reduces existing immersion

If we boil everything down to making the most immediate money for the least immediate effort, going for anything involving art is probably the worst choice, save for maybe trying to sell market stocks to enlightened monks.
Also, how does sounding more like the type of a person one imagines the character as objectively ruin the immersion? Unless this point has been made with the aforementioned "one VA does skills, second one does story" idea in mind.
 

 

59 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

2. spending resources on voice packs directly competes with potentially something far more beneficial: an additional race.

Yes, I agree with You - and Gehenna above - on this.
The poll, too, does show that the idea is far from being exciting to an adequately overwhelming number of people, although maybe the cost for a single ambience pack might not be as enormous as it seems at first glance.
And, well, compared to exactly a new race, there's no way as many as twelve packs get even close to the work needed for such an endeavor, especially if it wouldn't be just another re-skinned human.

 

 

1 hour ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

3. doing voice packs half baked would simply diminish the quality of the product. I know people love to hate on Anet, but they actually have a very high quality VA and sound team. The music is most often great, the VA is at worst decent and at best great. It's what sets them appart from most other MMORPGs and given the size of the studio is kitten good work

I assume "half-baked" in this instance is, again, the same previous misunderstanding.
If not, and it meant to say that if April Stewart made a suave commandess pack, it should also include the story in the same theme, I do wholeheartedly agree, because I love the woman - honestly the whole Commanding Party, but April made the miserable writing of Core sound good, and because of that she's the fourth person I'll buy a hat for just so I can put it off in respect - and it would be utterly magnificent to go all Canach/Voice on the whole Dragon Cycle.
I'm also aware that this particular thing would cost more than six wildly different races combined.

[b k.1648]

If they could spend the resources in Elsweyr, maybe it'd have more depth than the paper-thin service it got from ZoS.

Sorry, I like voices and all but that option is just too intriguing