I just watched a video that had an AI voice-over addon; while I am not a fan of addons I wonder what you all think if VR used this for their quests. Like made it a part of their system not an add on.
I think I really like it... It is way better than reading the quest and made the quest feel more real to me somehow.
It was from Asmon so if you like him or hate him that's not the point just what do you think of the Voice-over?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP63FzzO8Rg
I'm a big fan of voice acting, it definitely adds more depth to gameplay. That AI voice over sounded pretty impressive. It expressed inflections in speech patterns and not just monotone. I'm not extremely picky when it comes to voice acting. The way ESO does it is very impressive because every single NPC has dialogue, but it's not entirely necessary. The way WoW handles it is acceptable, giving run of the mill NPCs little bits of dialogue while major events or major NPCs/bosses have a more robust script. Hell, even how Hollow Knight or Ori and the Bling Forest/Will of the Wisp has gibberish when dialogue is engaged has its charm.
I just hope a form of voice work makes its way into the game at some point, even if its after release.
If you're interested here are some links to other threads in this forum that are also on this topic from older to newer, you can see the topic comes up at least once a year :)
Now with the option of AI voice-overs maybe some options have changed though, haha.
https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3685/voice-acting-in-pantheon
https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5522/music-amp-voice-acting
https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/7350/voice-acting-talent-quot-donations-quot
https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/9321/voice-acting-suggestion
https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/10463/fan-made-voice-acting
Ranarius said:If you're interested here are some links to other threads in this forum that are also on this topic from older to newer, you can see the topic comes up at least once a year :)
Now with the option of AI voice-overs maybe some options have changed though, haha.
https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3685/voice-acting-in-pantheon
https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5522/music-amp-voice-acting
https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/7350/voice-acting-talent-quot-donations-quot
https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/9321/voice-acting-suggestion
https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/10463/fan-made-voice-acting
They seem to be about voice acting, and I am talking about AI doing the voice, but thanks I will take a look at them
I would need to see more examples to have a full opionion but from that short clip as an example I am impressed. Ether building it into the system or just designing the game to allow 3rd part addons that could be installed.
Thanks for the link I will need to look into this some more. It seems AI continues to impress me.
Seems like AI is a rapidly advancing field so it would make more sense, if it's being considered, to wait until later in development. I'm not sure how AI would get inflection and tone right without either Metadata in the dialog to signal it or a person manually manipulating the recordings.
I doubt voice AI would end up being good enough without a lot of time and experience, though if there's a cheaper option that can be made optional, I don't mind that.
Personally, I still like the idea of all dialog being mapped to a sound file and VR releasing this info, so the community can come together to create and share audio files. We could have a sub-forum for them where we vote on favorites and download them.
@Dorotea If you were paying for the voices I completly agree as most people would just turn bad voice acting off and read it instead. But if we can ether have a 3rd part addon or if it can be setup relitivly cheap? People can turn it off still but some will use it. Right now I rarly if ever read quests but if I had a voice option I might listen too them. especially if I can listen too them without being stuck in front of the NPC waiting.
My vote would be to design addon support in a way to allow a 3rd party addon to handle it. This should limit deve time. If done right people could use AI developed voices or Counterfleches idea of community created voices.
I always read quests - every word - at least until the 10th or 20th time through. But I entirely agree that a voice-activation add-on would be wonderful if the game didn't have voice and agree further that with all the advances in machine reading of typed text this is almost surely the way to go absent real voice actors.
I possess a deep sultry cadence that has won over many a target of my desires. I wield an eclectic vocabulary and can turn a phrase that elicits admiration and lust. I thus volunteer my instrument to the VR team on two conditions: 1) I'll only want to voice lines for a handsome baker NPC who specializes in banana nut bread. 2) The bakery where the NPC works refuses to serve the Skar because they can't physically pronounce the word "periwinkle", and that's the NPCs favorite flower, mainly because he likes to say the word "periwinkle" .
I have played WoW for a good many years now and not once did I ever care about the quests or what the NPCs had to say. The AI voiceover (which is pretty impressive!) mod that someone made changed all of that. I now listen to EVERY quest in it's fullest and am ten times more immersed.
I really hope they give you the option to have voiceover AI in the game, and the ability for people to turn it off if they don't like it.
Skyrim 5 did a pretty good job making use of AI voiceovers. Honestly, I didn't even realize they were computer generated voices until I read up about it. That and having every blacksmith NPC telling me "What do you need friend, I have everything to suite your needs" in their own voice kind of tipped me off haha. But I would think that It would be very cost effiecient, and incredibly flexible.
