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... I need good RPG's
Ok now I got the tldr out of the way let's start 
At a certain time after the Baldur's gate era, RPG makers all moved on to 3d. It was the new thing, a game had to be 3d or it wouldn't sell, it would look dated.
Still in retrospect I like BG1 and BG2 a lot more than Neverwinter nights, even if it was an ok game. And a lot of RPG's that were 3d just outright sucked compared to their older isometric versions.
After the 3d hype came the era of voiceacted RPG's.
It was cool for the first time for sure. But now we got used to it and when I go back to an old RPG like fallout, planescape torment, I might miss the voices for a few minutes but soon enough it doesn't matter anymore at all, the story and game pull me in anyway.
Now I know people say that voiceacting does a lot for characters, immersion etc. But I wonder if that's really the case?
I mean, I like a book usually a lot more than I like the movie about that book. One reason being that in a book you fantasize your own faces and voices for the characters.
I liked my DA1 character more than my DA2 character, because the DA2 character had a voice that I had to live with.
It feels that because of the voiceacting, games became more and more like movies, with big budgets, high salaries for the voice actors who are often well paid hollywood actors.
And because of that a high amount of time and resources goes into the voiceacting.
While in the end, for me at least, it's just a nice gimmick to have.
But I could really live without it if those resources were spend on more content, more text, more gameplay.
Voiceacting also causes rpgs to be highly "fixed". It's very hard to change content afterwards, because it's not just some code and graphics, but you also have to hire the actor to speak his texts.
There is hardly any "on the fly" creativity left for the game coders and artists because they have to work with the spoken texts they already have. Some great idea's can pop up on the fly, and in the past they could just add them and make the game greater. Now they can't do that easily anymore.
All in all, I'm sure there are people who always want voiceacting. But there are probably some like me as well who'd prefer to get rid of it, or at least give us a big rpg from time to time without it. But with 4 times more characters, stories, quests, paths.
This is ofcourse related to the latest bioware games like Swtor and ME3, but not specificly aimed at bioware. I liked the sc1 story also way more than the sc2 one, even if the later had all voices spoken.
I do fear about the new planned BG release.
"Sorry we had to skip a lot of the original content, but it does have voiceacting now!"
 
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They made it clear they will stand to original so not worry. Enhanced BG1/BG2 will be almost as same as you remembered them.
I agree that with graphic change there was a change of presentation, its a major flaw and blessing of a medium. The greater(more detailed) the medium, the lesser imagination is put, putting words in a window box is not feasible anymore because you have animated faces, because you have animated faces you need voice to come out. It kinda killed the spirit of "narrated" rpg like Baldurs gate but added movie-esque feeling. I agree with that move for Mass Effect i disagree with Dragon age, which was basicly a weird oversimplicated Baldurs gate remake.
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It's quite interesting to think about the progression of RPGs, from Dungeons and Dragons and card games, to text adventures, to adventure games like Monkey Island, to JRPGs, to modern style western RPGs like Mass Effect and Skyrim. The defining part of an RPG has always been the character development along with a non-linear game play. I think about the progression as moving away from the imagination required to read a book, to the roller coaster of a blockbuster movie. The reality is that most people have got zero patience for reading text in games these days (like all the books in Skyrim, or even the data pads in Mass Effect). The other thing is that games these days cut to the action as fast as possible, whereas old games would shamelessly have you collecting some resource for an hour or more (or some other time wasting exercise). The old RPGs were great in the past, but I can't help but feel that game design is moving forwards to produce the best games now that we have ever had.
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For me Dragon age 1 had the best mix. I don't like it when alot of characters just have a few dialogue lines which are actually voice acted, but the main character should never have voice acting imo. MC with voice acting is the biggest reason I didn't like Mass Effect.
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On March 21 2012 00:12 deathly rat wrote:
The reality is that most people have got zero patience for reading text in games these days
That's indeed a big problem too.
many people watch america's next top model while something likes Firefly got canceled.
Many people also prefer Justin Bieber above for example The Police.
Many people also prefer McDonalds above an authentic Italian dinner.
Those 2nd three being my taste, those first 3 not.
One of the big reasons I stopped watching tv because it caters to the taste of the majority, which isn't mine.
You can even see it on TL. The drama threads get way more views and posts than some of the most interesting intelligent SC2 related threads.
Rpg's where a niche, but now game developers found out ways to go mainstream quality will get less and less.
It will have more voiceacting, less text, more effects, less choices etc etc. Dumbing down and adding more bling, because that's what the majority wants.
Just wish one rpg developer said, screw the majority, we go for the niche, the old school ways of the great rpg's
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On March 21 2012 00:21 Zandar wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2012 00:12 deathly rat wrote:
The reality is that most people have got zero patience for reading text in games these days That's indeed a big problem too. many people watch america's next top model while something likes Firefly got canceled. Many people also prefer Justin Bieber above for example The Police. Many people also prefer McDonalds above an authentic Italian dinner. Those 2nd three being my taste, those first 3 not. One of the big reasons I stopped watching tv because it caters to the taste of the majority, which isn't mine. You can even see it on TL. The drama threads get way more views and posts than some of the most interesting intelligent SC2 related threads. Rpg's where a niche, but now game developers found out ways to go mainstream quality will get less and less. It will have more voiceacting, less text, more effects, less choices etc etc. Dumbing down and adding more bling, because that's what the majority wants. Just wish one rpg developer said, screw the majority, we go for the niche, the old school ways of the great rpg's
CDprojekt? The witcher 2 was a very good RPG. How about the kickstarter project for wasteland 2? Or the developers for BG enhanced edition/a possible bg3?
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the witcher 2 was ok yes, but way too lineair. I'd like to have many paths choices often, lots of roads to lots of endings.
Thanks for the kickstarter project, reading about that now 
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On March 21 2012 00:52 Zandar wrote:the witcher 2 was ok yes, but way too lineair. I'd like to have many paths choices often, lots of roads to lots of endings. Thanks for the kickstarter project, reading about that now
No problem . I can definitely see how witcher 2 is too linear for someone, since you play Geralt as a character, not anyone you want to be. So your choices are pretty limited in that aspect.
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yup I blame voice acting as the number 1 culprit of why games' declining quality nowadays. A developer has to spend so much money on it that they are forced to cut corners on other parts.
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How difficult it is for users to read text depends entirely on how the entire game is paced. I wouldn't want to read any text in Mass Effect either (and I didn't ever touch the Codex or anything despite the wealth of information it has and the effort that was put into it). In a slower paced, possibly a turn based game, reading comes naturally easier - and is probably preferable as you can take the time to absorb information without feeling like you're missing out on the action or the action is being interrupted.
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EPT
