Noaani wrote: » daveywavey wrote: » Noaani wrote: » daveywavey wrote: » The other alternative is to run a competition with the playerbase where the entrants record themselves saying a set of lines, and then Intrepid pick the best few to volunteer their voices. Keeps the cost down, and everyone entering knows they'll be doing it for free and not to expect anything. Or, you know, just not have voice acting of text. 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. 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?
daveywavey wrote: » Noaani wrote: » daveywavey wrote: » The other alternative is to run a competition with the playerbase where the entrants record themselves saying a set of lines, and then Intrepid pick the best few to volunteer their voices. Keeps the cost down, and everyone entering knows they'll be doing it for free and not to expect anything. Or, you know, just not have voice acting of text. 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. 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.
Noaani wrote: » daveywavey wrote: » The other alternative is to run a competition with the playerbase where the entrants record themselves saying a set of lines, and then Intrepid pick the best few to volunteer their voices. Keeps the cost down, and everyone entering knows they'll be doing it for free and not to expect anything. Or, you know, just not have voice acting of text. 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.
daveywavey wrote: » The other alternative is to run a competition with the playerbase where the entrants record themselves saying a set of lines, and then Intrepid pick the best few to volunteer their voices. Keeps the cost down, and everyone entering knows they'll be doing it for free and not to expect anything. Or, you know, just not have voice acting of text.
nanfoodle wrote: » AI Voice Over can be done cheaply and well. This would add so much depth for people who love story and voice acting.
Taaku wrote: » AI voice over is a bit of a pickle. IMO it works well enough to add quite a lot to immersion for cheap. But it comes with other issues. 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 ) But you also open yourself up to a whole can of worms where people will accuse you of taking paying jobs away from voice actors. This could be debated, since if voice actors were too expensive in the first place then it wouldn't have happened, but we seem to be at a weird area of time where A. people don't think rationally or listen and B. people just like to judge and dog pile on people online. Despite any sort of prepared remarks on this topic it could end up being huge negative publicity. These are all reasons why developing MMOs are expensive and risky.
nanfoodle wrote: » 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.
Taaku wrote: » nanfoodle wrote: » 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. 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.
nanfoodle wrote: » 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.
Taaku wrote: » nanfoodle wrote: » 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.
