Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
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In other words, until the case law is settled, there is a chance that if Intrepid use AI voice to produce, the game
as an whole entity wont be able to have a copyright (while possible, this is unlikely - but possible is bad enough at this point).
The suggested best practice right now is to disclose which parts of a work are produced by AI, so that once this all sorted out copyright can be applied appropriately. However, there is no guarantee as to how that will be.
It may well be that by the time Ashes releases this will all be sorted, and depending on how things fall, this may be a good idea - but as of today, it isn't worth it.
How would you feel about NPC merchants shouting out the items they have in store in nodes?
We know that players can hire merchant NPCs they can place in their market stalls. You could set them to shout out your special offer or rate item and have them be triggered by player proximity or just by some simple intervals.
The problem with this is that literally every line of voice in the game would be recorded differently, with different background noise, reverb etc.
This would be more jarring to most players than poorly acted voicing. It would be like you are talking to one NPC in an open field, then turn around and talk to another who sounds like they are in a cathedral, or in a bathroom - or just generally in some other place.
The end result wouldn't be worth the cost - and that is assuming Intrepid didn't pay a cent for any of it.
I don't think VA is necessary, but it wouldn't be a bad thing either and if AI makes that happen to where someone can just lend their voice for 15 minutes and that can be replicated through the whole damn game why not?
Shit I'd happily lend my voice for the Tulnar.
Absolutely a valid concern.
But! I do already know of people doing this kind of hand out voice acting. There is a YouTuber called Michael Ghelfi that takes recordings from his viewers that he uses for his channel. (All TT players, especially DMs, and people that just like epic fantasy music/ambience in general should REALLY check out his channel!)
So, by filtering out any voices that does not hold up to standard and then tweaking the ones that do, it is fairly easy to manage them all into the same tune. This DOES however require a workload on Intrepid's side - but it will be less costly (... yet one could counter with time is money and all that). Bottom line is: perfectly possible to do it in a good way. But it does require some editing time. In other words: not a suitable goal for pre-alpha 2 and perhaps not even before official launch.
It is indeed technically possible, but I have a challenge for you.
Load up All of Me by John Legend on YouTube. Put a decent set of headphones on (not necessary, but helps). Then listen.
When you get 4 bars in to the song, before any lyrics start, there is a drastic change in the recording. It is nothing short of jarring - and on the off chance you like this song and never noticed it, it isn't overly hyperbolic to state that the above may well have ruined the song for you.
This is the kind of thing that happens when you record in different locations (not specifically saying that is what happened here, but it sure seems like it).
Now if a music production company with all of it's experience, equipment and knowledge can't fix this in something that they recorded themselves, what hope does a company without that equipment and experience have when trying to clean up recordings not made by them?
If it was cheaper to do this to an acceptable quality than hiring out a recording studio and doing it that way, more companies would be doing it.
Well, that'd just be for the competition. For the actual recording, it'd be up to those winners to get themselves to some sort of sound studio where it could be done properly.
Wait, so you enter a competition for voicing a character, and the prize is that you can then spend $10k to record your lines?
I agree with this 100%. This could add some awesome press to Ashes. First MMO to add AI to its game. What kind of traction could that add? How many backers?
I have to say the mention of NPCs hawking their wares is what moved my needle. That is the sort of thing that would really make the world feel alive.
I never said it was a good option! Hahaha
At least you'd only get people who really wanted to do it.
WIth the right minds on it, It should turn out great. But yeah I think that sort of endeavor would end up costing more time and still quite a considerable amount of money to do. Probably best to just use VAs.
Please look at this. I may be silly here - and probably a bit old-fashioned,
but i hope we will be able to confuse and swindle Guards just like in this Video.
( SPOILER !! It also has a good "WTF"/Surprise-Moment, for whoever didn't saw it yet. )
( A.I., Guys. " Artificial. Intelligence. " 😅 )
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
1. It will never be as good as professional voice acting with proper direction. But this takes a ridiculous amount of money and time.
2. You can pay for more unknown voice actors to save a lot of money. But doing this can lead to a wide mixed bag of voice acting quality. You can cut down on said quality issue a bit but only if you dip into your savings from paying professionally to pay for talent scouts, thus leading to even more time spent than #1.
3. You can use AI voice over for cheap, it will get the job done but don't expect to win any awards (perfect for an mmo imo, mmo's don't get awards
These are all reasons why developing MMOs are expensive and risky.
The risk of making people upset is kinda moot. Every emerging new technology put somebody out of work. It's been like that since the wheel. Every gaming giant is implementing AI. It's about to be everywhere. It's so cost effective and powerful, it's just inevitable. I'm looking forward to testing it in Alpha 2.
" Good graphics are not that important. Good game systems are what is important.
And those good game systems become even better with good graphics. "
Or something along this lines. And he is right.
In general everything that helps to amaze and impress.
Immersion is one of those aspects too and while I am pretty sure Ashes won't need (good) AI voiceovers for everything, if they have such a thing, it will definitely give tons of flavour to every single quest in the game.
And elevate Ashes to an even higher experience.
Well the risk of making people upset about an MMO means they don't play it. Means the MMO doesn't gain players, means current players see lower numbers then what they expect, means people say game is dead (doesn't matter if it's true or not), means more people quit playing, means self fulfilling prophecy. So i wouldn't say it's moot when your game needs players to maintain the game. You need people to like the game.
Won't happen in a impactful way. In the short there maybe a small percentage that will boycott but not as much as they would make if used. When is they last time you seen someone protest the invention of the farm tractor? It put entire villages out of work.
People move on quick when they enjoy the advantages. I think there will still be voice actors. But people will settle into companies using AI that just would not have without AI. Much like Classic WoW in the OP. I get its 3rd party but people already moving towards some level of acceptance. My self being very dislexic, would embrace Ashes with all NPC story, lore and dialog had AI voice acting and maybe even AI Interactive dialog. Would be a celebration for many like myself.
Farm tractors are a necessity to feed people. Video games are not necessary for anything, it's purely a luxury. I agree that form of new tech put people out of jobs but almost all forms we have had of that has been out of necessity, or laziness but replacing things that were still very much needed. AI voice acting is in no way NEEDED by anyone ever to survive. There is a big difference. Don't get me wrong I totally agree with you that I think AI voice over is perfect for MMOs in general. It's cheap, works well enough to get the job done, and no one expects to get blown away by voice acting in an MMO. It's a perfect fit IMO. I'm just saying voice actors and talent won't see it that way and there will be big money pushed around to make sure people still get paid before we see public sentiment caving to AI. I'm just not sure AOC wants to take that big a risk since it's already making a lot of big risks.
well, if you own a business its not your job/responsibility to think about if a group of people who dont even work for you are getting paid of not because you are saving on costs by using AI.
also, i think ai voice isnt there yet. ive heard ai voices that do not match the characters and its annoying and of putting. actors are better at finding the best voice for their characters then AI or people who arent actors. so thats something to consider as well.
I definitely think it's something that should be added in the game, makes it more immersive!
I don't know if I want AI voice.
But I want all dialogues and stories to be available later in a log too, when I can read them carefully in an inn.