Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
PLease Give a Voice to NPC that are given Quest
Beyond
Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Hello Ashes,
I apolagise if if this question has been put and aswer already, but i will add it to be there for my peace of mind.
In my jurney throw life in gaming experience i foud it so boring when an NPC that gives you a quest does not have a voice and it has a generic text line. But when a NPC even a sideques or an none
related quest line, that gives you a quest has a voice it brings so much life in to the world it self.
Does AOC will have all NPC with voice in them? please make it so!
I am sure that as a comunity people will offer their voice to give life for an NPC if requiered! I will do if i will be ask if i can help!!!
I apolagise if if this question has been put and aswer already, but i will add it to be there for my peace of mind.
In my jurney throw life in gaming experience i foud it so boring when an NPC that gives you a quest does not have a voice and it has a generic text line. But when a NPC even a sideques or an none
related quest line, that gives you a quest has a voice it brings so much life in to the world it self.
Does AOC will have all NPC with voice in them? please make it so!
I am sure that as a comunity people will offer their voice to give life for an NPC if requiered! I will do if i will be ask if i can help!!!
1
Comments
So, I wouldn't expect too much of it.
Haha, that would indeed be awesome!
Bad voice acting is worse than no voice acting at all.
Community send ins tend to be garbage to subpar at best.
Writing, casting and voice acting are expensive and are industries on their own.
Maybe in the mid to long term future.
Essentially, the risk is too high. I am hoping that Ashes makes an outstanding success and that IS decides it warrants adding voiceover shortly after release.
Yes it can be nice, but I'd rather those funds go to developing fun gameplay mechanics than spending massive amounts on getting someone to say "my chickens are lost" and then skipping all dialog after they first couple months.
It can be something "cool" the first time, but honestly after a couple of months I find I turn 90% of the game sounds off as I listen to music, discord or watch movies.
Would it be amazing to have, sure, do I expect any voice acting beside a few generic lines from say an inkeeper, no.
Voice acting would be exciting but I feel its too much work for whats already promised
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Heh, I only use Voice Comms when I'm in a raid. Otherwise, I like to hear the sounds of the game!
did you ever play Skyforge? I like the game, i really did, but that was the worst voice acting of all time. I realize it was a Russian port but they cheaped out on the English voice acting.
holy shit yes.
Gorgeous looking game, fun combat - the voice acting was horrendous though. Literally on the level where you'd rather mute it.
The game had potential though, just unlucky that it was heavy pay to win and didn't really have an open world.
I wish the NPCs did that but most players skip quest dialogue and as a DM that hurts my soul
something something show don't tell but for games something something.
If you text dump in a game you need the option to skip it.
(like if I replied with 7 paragraphs to this thread)
That said, I think a solid middle ground would be working towards giving each NPC a bit of personality through good writing. There's no reason every single Tavern NPC needs to be the Ashes version of Nurse Joy where they say the exact same thing over and over again.
Text is cheap to produce and store and I'd love to see AoC really push some fun variety such as having NPCs display joy or anger at changes made within a Node, terror at an upcoming siege, excitement for a caravan that's en route...even if it's just flavor.
Reasons why we should not have voice acting in MMOs:
-Story is not important in any MMO.
-Voice acting slows down production of the game.
-Voice acting has a budget and any amount of money spent producing sounds that I don't want to hear, is money not spent on bosses I could be fighting and armor I could be wearing.
I am going to turn down voices anyways. If they did not announce "Bear McCreary" as the composer I probably would not even listen to the music. Even so I will more than likely mute the game after the first week and play my own music in the background. This is the way.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Without story, we're just running around hitting stuff with weapons. It's story that gives the game purpose and meaning.
Player driven-story, with a nice background lore written in scattered tomes or told by key NPCs to those that want to learn.
I think that's what he meant, and I agree.
Way better than the theme-park, lazy written, everywhere, generic excuses for fetch quests that in some games are called story.
But, quests can help a newer player understand the mechanics in the game.
https://knightsofember.com/forums/members/winner909098.54
I did a thread a while ago about how tutorials could be a separate single player experience that happens offline. Similar to elite dangerous.
More importantly. People are smarter than you think. New players can just figure it out or better yet. Ask another player and socialize. Quests really are not necessary. It is a antiquated concept.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Every entity that is not a player in the game needs to have lore behind it. If our nodes are being attacked by a dragon, there should be lore there. If the castles are all occupied by various groups when the game goes live, there should be lore there.
Additionally, throughout the entire game, we should be uncovering aspects of what Verra was like before The Fall, and maybe even finding out what actually happened that caused everyone to leave.
There is some lore that Intrepid don't need to write for Ashes. They don't need to write stories in regards to different nodes being at war with each other, or how alliances are formed. This aspect of it is something that is up to us players, and in that regard I totally agree with you.
However, Ashes should have lore in relation to the actual land and to all non-player entities that is on par with the lore in any other MMO. This includes non-player entities that we meet in game, but also includes the entire history of both Verra and Sanctus.
But i agree that the game would be more interesting if it had voice acting. If someone doesnt know an mmo with good voice acting, than you should try star wars the old republic. The starting area would already be enough to get a feeling for it. You can even choose what you want to answer in these dialogs.
Sure, you are right, if you are doing a quest in a dungeon for the 100 time, then everyone skips it, but if it is a normal quest in the world which you do only once, then nearly no one would skip it.
For me thats one of the things that lets you dive in the world of an mmo instead of just getting a text and afterwards complaining about stupid quests with "kill 10 of these and 20 of them", because if you hear someone talking then its far more interesting than just getting a wall of text, where you just klick on "OK", even if you still have to kill 10 of these, because its a voice that tells you why he ro she needs your help or something like that.
I'm mixed on this b/c there are plenty of examples in ESO where you just stand there while some NPC vomits exposition and it's just an absolute bore and the quest still ends in "Kill 10 boars."
I don't mind some background lore in the game for those who want it. If I talk to a NPC, and he has the option to tell me some background information about himself or his place in Verra. That is fantastic. It is self contained and optional.
With the way the node system is. Every world will in theory be different. I am hoping that means that there is no specific main story quest with voice acted "main characters" I am not going to care about. I hope that every NPC will be a generic towns person with a few dialog options for RP. I don't think the world should have Main character NPCs. The main characters of the world should be the guild leaders who own castles and whoever has the most power in your node at the time.
I am still very adamant that some of the best stories I can tell you about video games happened in a sandbox. I can talk for hours about all of the crazy things that happened in Darkfall online or Ark: survival evolved and I literally could not tell you a single sentence about what the lore is in those games.
When I read the wiki and watch the interviews the game looks more like a sandbox than a sandpark or themepark. That is why I am all in on ashes.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.