Joystiq - Voice acting - More Trouble Than It's Worth

RPGWatch · Sun, 8th Jul '12, 1:11am

Joystiq's Rowan Kaiser returns with his regular column, this time looking at voice-acting in RPGs. The piece references developers like Brenda Brathwaite and Chris Avellone on the pitfalls of voice-acting:

"Great ideas were left sitting on the bench because the time to record them (or render graphics) wasn't available," she said in her reply.

Was this a normal issue facing RPG developers? I started a quick conversation with Chris Avellone of Obsidian Entertainment - designer of famous RPGs like Planescape: Torment, Fallout 2, Alpha Protocol and Fallout: New Vegas expansions - about player choice in cinematic RPGs, and he volunteered, unprompted, some of his issues with recorded speech. "I don't enjoy doing cinematic conversations for a variety of reasons, but I have done them as part of my job."

Avellone described three main issues: first, that it disrupts his design process; second, his personal preference in terms of role-playing; and third, that their hard work that may not bear fruit.

Sun, 8th Jul '12, 1:11am	#1
RPGWatch SPS Account Holder Watching... Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 3,509 Like: 0 Liked 3 Times in 3 Posts	Joystiq - Voice acting - More Trouble Than It's Worth Joystiq's Rowan Kaiser returns with his regular column, this time looking at voice-acting in RPGs. The piece references developers like Brenda Brathwaite and Chris Avellone on the pitfalls of voice-acting: "Great ideas were left sitting on the bench because the time to record them (or render graphics) wasn't available," she said in her reply. Was this a normal issue facing RPG developers? I started a quick conversation with Chris Avellone of Obsidian Entertainment - designer of famous RPGs like Planescape: Torment, Fallout 2, Alpha Protocol and Fallout: New Vegas expansions - about player choice in cinematic RPGs, and he volunteered, unprompted, some of his issues with recorded speech. "I don't enjoy doing cinematic conversations for a variety of reasons, but I have done them as part of my job." Avellone described three main issues: first, that it disrupts his design process; second, his personal preference in terms of role-playing; and third, that their hard work that may not bear fruit.
	__________________ RPGWatch - http://www.rpgwatch.com Last edited by Taluntain; Sun, 8th Jul '12 at 2:19am.

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