What are you playing?

[Hassat Hunter]

Is that a ME3 thing? Don't recall voiced Codex entries in the ME's I played (1 and 2)

[Jonas]

I think you may be doing a bit too much conjecture on the necessity of voice acting to sell copies. Zelda games continue to sell like hotcakes, and they have no voice acting.

Yeah I don't know why Zelda sells so much. Wii owners are weird

And for how many people do you think the make or break part of mass effect was if the codex entries had voiceovers?

Give me a break, the game has tens of thousands of lines of dialogue, and you suggest that I'm talking about the codex?

I like voice acting, I just think it's overdone. Not to mention that voice acting tends to cut down on choices and consequences because while it's very easy and cheap to change a text string it becomes way more annoying when you have to deal with voiceacting. Which is probably why all the C&C in mass effect is done in emails.

You haven't played Mass Effect 3, have you? If you have, are you stupid or are you lying? If you're lying, that's a pretty stupid lie considering I've played ME3, I know what a ridiculous amount of branching there is in the dialogue.

So yeah, some voice acting is probably "required" to some extent. but I don't think having every single line in the game read out loud is very important at all. Not to mention that it takes time from other departments cause someone has to direct the voice actors. Spend your money on betatesting instead, you can never have enough of that.

Yeah and that someone is a person you hire specifically to direct VO, usually called the Voice Director

By the way, do you appreciate the hypocrisy in accusing me of using too much conjecture, and then countering with a sentence that starts with "I don't think"?

Is that a ME3 thing? Don't recall voiced Codex entries in the ME's I played (1 and 2)

Don't recall about ME1, but ME2 had voice-over in some of the Codex entries - the Codex was split into two parts, one where all the entries were narrated, one where they weren't.

[nerdenstein]

I'm sure ME1 did have voice acted Codex entries for the main ones. It was obviously done again in 2 and 3.

[Jaedar]

Give me a break, the game has tens of thousands of lines of dialogue, and you suggest that I'm talking about the codex?

I was just making an example of a place where I thought they had completely wasted money on a voiceover.

You haven't played Mass Effect 3, have you? If you have, are you stupid or are you lying? If you're lying, that's a pretty stupid lie considering I've played ME3, I know what a ridiculous amount of branching there is in the dialogue.

I've played it yes. And yeah, it does have some branching. Mainly in regards to characters from the previous games being dead. But note that it also cut down shephards lines by about a third compared from me2(only 2 dialogue options instead of 3 most of the time, and not a single "investigate" node iirc). And I said mass effect not mass effects. Me2 is the mass effect . Point being, they added some consequences, but only by removing some choices. With more text and less voice acting, you could have had moar. Granted that the removed choices were largely cosmetic and the added consequences were a bit heavier.

Yeah and that someone is a person you hire specifically to direct VO, usually called the Voice Director

I'd also wager the writers make notes for that person so he knows what to direct. And after that someone has to sync the facial animations. Expensive stuff.

[Jonas]

And yeah, it does have some branching. Mainly in regards to characters from the previous games being dead.

"Some" branching, hahah. They have entire conversations that are only played if eg. you cheated on a certain romanceable character from ME1 with another romanceable character from ME2 and then bring them both on the same mission. They have entire series of dialogue scenes that change, characters that are swapped in and out, depending on major choices you've made in ME1 or ME2. "Some" branching, pffffffffffffffffft.

not a single "investigate" node iirc

You do not recall correctly.

I'd also wager the writers make notes for that person so he knows what to direct. And after that someone has to sync the facial animations. Expensive stuff.

So not only would you like to not have voice-over, you would also prefer not to have dialogue animations.

I think it's safe to say we have different priorities.

[Hassat Hunter]

I'd also wager the writers make notes for that person so he knows what to direct.

Of course.
Just looking through KOTOR2's .dlg files there are plenty of voice directions (even for non-vocal droids).
Then again that's Chris Avellone's work, I assume not all games are that rigid.

EDIT:
Animations in dialogue is good. Nothing worse than having a long conversation and the person across is a dead corpse, standing stoic all the damn time, freaking you out.

[bobby 55]

Borderlands: The Secret Armory of General Knoxx. I went to T-Bone Junction with a level 64 Soldier. The good; I'm finding some high damage weapons and shields with reasonably high capacities. The bad; there are lots of enemies to deal with, and I thought I was doing okay until a couple of Drifters stomped me to death with their spindly legs. Shortly after I got shanked to death by er, Mr Shank. I fixed his little red wagon by laying corrosive proximity mines and hitting him at the same time with a combat (fire) rifle.

[EER]

I'm playing Populous and Populous 2. Both are still the same as I remember, although I did get used to higher screen resolutions in the meanwhile. Especially Populous 1 has almost no screen real estate for the game.

[bobby 55]

Borderlands: The Secret Armory of General Knoxx. I did the armory thing and hit level 66. After exfiltrating it I ran into some bad-asses, one of which dropped a shield with a capacity of 2234. I hadn't long congratulated myself when I was caught by three hovering turrets and two Lancers (while my turbo boost was recharging). I lasted 5 seconds.

I'm just a red smear on the Crimson Highway of life.

[nerdenstein]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone still play Minecraft and are any of you having issues with running it in Java 7?
I was playing with mods and for some reason the sound stopped working so I decided I wanted a fresh Minecraft install for playing online with a few friends, so I deleted my .minecraft folder and forced update. Now it bloody freezes upon when downloading the files. Everytime.

I've let everything through my firewall, ran as Admin, changed compatibility. Nada.

[EER]

I played Minecraft last a couple weeks ago, the performance is however rather crap on my system so I decided to leave it for now.

[nerdenstein]

Half solved it. Minecraft is running again but still no sound.

[gamer0004]

Avernum, escape from the pit. It's this old school isometric RPG and I'm quite exicted about it. Turnbased combat, which I don't particularly fancy, but it's fun and the setting is interesting. A bit comparable to Gothic: scum (people the Emporer doesn't like) is thrown into an inescapable prison protected by a magical barrier. The result is an almost apocalyptic, medieval setting.
Unfortunately, the writing seems to come straight from the 90s as well.

[bobby 55]

Borderlands: TSAoGK. As much as I love Borderlands there is a side quest that I wish was thrown into the sun. The Circle of Duty (an arena fight ffs) on level 67 is painful. If I wanted some Mad Moxxi action I'd be playing that DLC instead.

[Jonas]

Jeez Bob I didn't even know Borderlands had that much DLC. Are you just making up imaginary DLC for this game now so you can keep talking about it?