Today's RPGs are not RPGs, and its all thanks to voiceacting

[King of Creation]

<strong>[ Game -> Editorial ]</strong> - More info on <a href="http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout 3">Game: Fallout 3</a>

<p>The latest edition of <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/article ... xperienced Points</a> over at the Escapist tackles the issue of how modern "RPGs" (like <em><strong>Fallout 3</strong></em>) have turned into nothing more than action/adventure games.</p>
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<p><em>A classic RPG quest setup: You need to get the Knickknack of Awesome, which is in the hands of King Bob. In exchange for the Knickknack, Bob wants you to rescue Princess Nancy from another kingdom. Because he'd rather not start a war, he'd prefer if you didn't kill a bunch of prison guards in the process. So we have a quest with loot, risk, travel, and optional goals. If this were an old-school RPG like </em><em>Fallout or </em><em>Planescape Torment, then we'd probably have many, many ways we could approach this challenge:</em></p>
<p><em>1) Sneak or scam your way into prison and free Nancy, claim the knickknack.
2) Murder your way into prison and free Nancy, claim the knickknack.
3) Swipe the knickknack outright.
4) Kill King Bob, then take the knickknack.
5) Get Nancy killed (or kill her yourself) and then end up having to obtain the knickknack some other way.
6) Kill Bob, take the knickknack, but later rescue Nancy anyway.
7) Kill Bob, take the knickknack, enter prison, kill Nancy.
8) Free Nancy on your own, then meet Bob for the first time and get the knickknack.
9) Bribe Bob for the knickknack with a huge sum of money.</em></p>
<p><em>That's a lot of options, and players can have a lot of fun running through the game again and again, experimenting with different actions and seeing what the NPC's have to say. Roleplayers will approach the quest by asking themselves, "What would my character do?" Other players will just do whatever sounds like fun. "Stealth mission? Awesome!" And others will just look for whatever route gives them the greatest mechanical advantage. "If I wipe out the guards, I can make a fortune looting them!" The game is able to appeal to a lot of different play styles and moods.</em></p>
<p><em>But if we were talking about a more modern RPG like </em><em>Oblivion or </em><em>Fallout 3, then this quest is likely going to be a lot less flexible. On the back of the box the game might brag about how you'll have all kinds of choices to solve problems the way you want, but in the end your options will boil down to:</em></p>
<p><em>1) Sneak into prison and free Nancy, claim the knickknack.
2) Murder your way into prison, free Nancy, claim the knickknack.</em></p>
<p><em>Maybe the two routes will have a good /evil bent to them, and maybe you'll sometimes get a third option, but in general the days of inventing our own solutions to freeform quests are gone. Usually the game world will be "hardened" against the player by making certain NPCs (like Bob and Nancy) invincible. Some doors, no matter how flimsy, will be <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/article ... -Sidequest" target="_blank">indestructible and have an unpickable lock</a>. And Nancy won't appear in the prison cell until Bob tells you to rescue her. Now the game is less about inventing your own solutions to problems and more about just doing what you're told.</em></p>
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<p>Why, you might ask, has this happened? Shamus Young says its because of voiceacting.</p>
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<p><em><span id="intelliTXT">While the newer games supposedly evolved from the older ones, they have very little in common at this point. Usually when a genre changes radically fans will blame it on the designers "dumbing down" the game for a wider audience. But in this case I think the culprit is technological advance: I think games have been simplified because of voice acting. If the game is all in text, then King Bob can have dozens - maybe even hundreds - of different lines of dialog to respond to all of the possible player actions. If the game is fully voice acted, then this is completely infeasible. Voice acting might not be the <strong>only</strong> reason games are offering less freedom, but I think it's a major culprit. Going back twelve years or so you can see the trend: The more voices we get the more linear games get, because having both at once is too danged expensive.</span></em></p>
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<p><span>Shamus also brings up the point that most of us don't even bother to listen to all of the dialogue...we just click right through it. The rest of the article <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/article ... hoice">can be found here</a>. It's a good read.
</span></p>
</span></p><p>Spotted @ <a href="http://www.rpgcodex.com">RPG Codex</a></p>

[SenisterDenister]

I can agree with this.

[MrLexx]

Shamus also brings up the point that most of us don't even bother to listen to all of the dialogue...we just click right through it.

This is true. I personally only play with subtitles... then I read the subtitles faster than the voice actor and if I am at the end of the line, I skip to the next one.

[Cimmerian Nights]

Holy shit a mainstream gaming media outlet critical of Bethesda's McRPGs.

I don't think Bethesda's lack of choice and depth is due to VO though.
They're are just shallow developers.

They aren't an RPG company (anymore) making RPGs for RPG fans. They make RPG-lite action adventure games for the LCD. That's their goal.

Bethesda's not trying to make the next PS:T and failing due to VO. They're trying to make the next Oblivion and they are succeeding wildly at lowering the bar and serving up profitable rubbish to the masses.

[inomel]

I think Young is confusing VOs with lack of vision and continuity.

[Manoil]

Yeah, I'd considered the logic as well. Doesn't mean it can't be done, though. The guy who voice acted for CJ in San Andreas had some 5000 lines of dialogue in the game, if I'm not mistaken, so you could arguably do the same for other games.

[Kashluk]

Great article, but I too disagree with the voice acting -part. Sure it might've been the reason back in 2001, but in the modern era of multi-million game developement budgets it should no longer be so.

[Dreadnought]

You crave bacon.

[TwinkieGorilla]

I don't think Bethesda's lack of choice and depth is due to VO though.
They're are just shallow developers.

i would probably have 20 sigs from you by now if sigs worked here. in lieu of this, i'll just QFT you (up the ass).

[Gimp Mask]

the only sig that works here has the suffix "heil" if you catch my drift

[Taco-Hero]

He makes a good point and it makes sense but Bethesda didn't even have very good voice acting, not that it matters when making this argument...

Usually the game world will be "hardened" against the player by making certain NPCs (like Bob and Nancy) invincible. Some doors, no matter how flimsy, will be indestructible and have an unpickable lock

Not only how linear the quests were, but this too is what really pissed me off about those games.

[Cimmerian Nights]

Great article, but I too disagree with the voice acting -part. Sure it might've been the reason back in 2001, but in the modern era of multi-million game developement budgets it should no longer be so.

He makes a good point and it makes sense but Bethesda didn't even have very good voice acting, not that it matters when making this argument...

Bethesda would rather hire big name Hollywood actors with name recognition for mass market appeal. They missed the boat on hiring actual working professional voice people like Vampire Bloodlines did with DiMaggio and Lamarr - ex Futurama voice guys.

Usually the game world will be "hardened" against the player by making certain NPCs (like Bob and Nancy) invincible. Some doors, no matter how flimsy, will be indestructible and have an unpickable lock

Not only how linear the quests were, but this too is what really pissed me off about those games.

There were no mechanics to speak of behind Fallout 3, it was a thin patina of neutered SPECIAL ineptly slathered over a FPS.

[PiP]

Shamus

is that an americanised version of the Irish name 'Séamus'?

[Dreadnought]

<marquee behavior="scroll" direction="left" scrollamount="15">

[inomel]

...'Séamus'?

It could be of Jewish origin by way of Celtic, wrapped in an un(spell)checked Americanized cheese wrap....

[Gimp Mask]

<marquee behavior="scroll" direction="left" scrollamount="10">

[POOPERSCOOPER]

It is a good article and I pretty much agree with all of it, he mentions that voice acting is a part but not the whole thing but I think it is completely valid that a developer is thinking in terms of work as a whole. More options means more work whether it be voice acting, writing, designing etc.

I actually usually listen to all the dialog because I feel like I might MISS THE EXPERIENCE OH GOD but I'm often annoyed if they talk slow and it turns out they didn't really say anything good.

[Blargh]

Was the observation that spending vast sums of money on voice actors will have a deleterious effect upon the quantity and quality of writing intended to be a revelation ?

Fucking gosh.

[cazsim83]

[quote="POOPERSCOOPER" I'm often annoyed if they talk slow and it turns out they didn't really say anything good.[/quote]

This - whether text or audio i don't care but dear lord, This.

[inomel]

This - ... This.

Did your code break?