How important is voicing in mods?

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Currently decided to resurrect my old mod for Mazzy and just thinking...

How important is the voicing in a mod?

My questions are:
1) How important is it to have a fully voiced NPC in your party?

2) If an existing NPC is expanded upon should the new parts be voiced?

3) If an existing NPC is expanded upon should there be alternative voicing available as an option to keep the voicing consistant?

 

1) not really alfa omega, but it is a VERY nice addition and a big plus

2) and 3) yes they should, at least partly and if the voice acting is not very close to the original, an optional of a full new soundset should be available

i would like to mention though that a mod can still be very enjoyable and replayable w/o voice acting if the char is good(edit: believable, good story etc.) and espescially(spl? and yes i see the irony) if it is well written

this is just my humble 2 cents

 

1) Writing is infinitely more important than sound.

2) If you can find Jennifer Hale to voice for you, then yes. See, part of why I like Mazzy so much is because of her voice...and if you take that away from her (because really, it's her most obvious defining quality other than her portrait), she'll be a different Mazzy. In saying that, I'm not opposed to the idea, but perhaps there should be an option to keep the original voice.

3) Yeah, if you want. Not necessary, though.

Good luck!

 

I know most modern mods expect a voiceset and full voicing of the first phrase of each conversation, and I am most likely in the minority opinion here, but I actually prefer "less is more". I would prefer a voiceset to give the impression of the vocal quality, and then no voicing at all. I would prefer to construct the inflection and sound in my mind.

For the standard BioWare NPCs, since hiring the original actors was out of the question, BG1NPC took the approach of setting music when the NPC was talking - which I think was a much more open approach.

 

That's so true cmorgan. Kulyok did a great job with Xan's revoicing though.

 

Personally, voicing isn't too important to me. It's a nice addition, but not necessary. Writing is what matters.

 

I am currently playing with another of Kulyok's NPCs, Angelo (written by Sister Vigiliante who does the voicing and also did the voicing for Xan) and yeah, it's mainly fine though a little variable in volume. From what I've read, Kelsey is about the only mod NPC that has voicing that blends in almost perfectly - however, for the 10 minutes or so that I tried him, I wasn't sold on the character so I can't confirm that he is consistantly good all the way through.

I would be wary about providing voicing for mods based on existing PCs (say, for instance, you wanted to make a Sarevok romance - he has such a distinctive voice you're really not going to be able to replicate that, so you're best leaving any additional dialogues unvoiced). For brand new characters then knock yourself out.

 

1) Writing is more important, but poor voicing can IMO somewhat ruin otherwise interesting NPC.

2) Only if it's possible to use the same voice actor. Concistency is important.

3) Maybe - "Silent NPC"-option could also be useful addition, if some voicing happens to irritate some players?

BG1 NPC has good approach . If mod expands original NPC's, I'd rather have them be non-voiced or using those existing short command voices than having brand new soundsets.

 

Actually, I always thought Fran Descher would have made a better Mazzy.

 

*Wiki*
Are you crazy, man?!

(I liked the butler, though)

 

Good voicing adds to the attraction of a mod, bad voicing scares people off. There are mods I have installed that I wouldn't install the voicing of unless Minsc stood over me with a sword.

 

Why yes, Kido's maniacal and highly pitched voice really freaked me out...I just could not bear to play with him.

 

You can always change the soundset by renaming files.

Anyway, less voicing but good quality voicing is much better. Too much voicing can ruin an otherwise perfectly enjoyable mod (vanilla NPCs may even sound mute in comparison).

For mods using existing NPCs the best would be to check for other works by the original voice artists. I remember the actor who did Sarevok did the voicing for one of the spirits in Lionheart. There might be a few soundfiles that could be of use.

 

He's done a lot of voicing for games (and actually one of the male voicesets in IWD is him. Or it might be IWD2). That was just an example, anyway.

I'm currently playing the Edwin romance. The author just uses his selection sound ("Yeees?" "What do you WANT?" etc) to start his dialogues which is fine. Add some background music and it's fine (plus you can tell whether it's a romance dialogue or existing banter, which I like, actually). When you have a distinctive voice like that, I don't really think it's advisible to add stuff in a completely different voice.

You could do as the Edwin team have done, or do as with the Xan romance - give the player the option of using a revoiced Xan with spoken lines, or just a Xan soundset from BG1.

If you are going to get someone to revoice Mazzy, then at least find someone English as you don't want her sounding like Dick Van Dyke.

 

I have plenty of people I could ask from around here, don't worry about that

At worst I can just record myself and morph it.

 

Things I hate about voicing in mods:

- Volume is not set properly to match other voices.

- Concern over precise diction kills the "character" of the character. Result is that it sounds like someone very carefully (and far too slowly) reading out a script, which, of course, is precisely what mod voicing *is*, but that's not the effect you wish to create. People speak imprecisely. A badly spoken catchphrase that the character often uses (a battlecry, for instance) can quickly become extremely annoying, but for one-off dialogues, the occasional quirk of diction is far preferable to the stolid ... carefully ... voiced ... monotone ... that ... every ... mother ... loving ... mod ... NPC ... except ... Xan ... suffers ... from. For heaven's sake, if I wanted to put up with that then I'd take Valygar as an NPC.

 

1. Voicing can be nice, but it's not necessary for me. Sometimes I play the game with sound very low and I don't really hear voices anyway.

2. I'd say only if you can get someone who sounds VERY similar to the original voice-actor, otherwise leave the voicing alone.

3. I wouldn't like a completely new voice set as I am quite used to the way the NPCs sound. Going back to BG1 and hearing that Jaheira seemed strange after I had gotten used to the one in BG2.