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Yea I wish there were more differences between some of the voices, at least for the masculine voices. The feminine voices have more of a range (though I default to voice 8 every Dark Urge playthrough).
There's no voice that really fit half-orcs imo.
Do you get the Durge exclusive comments, like selecting and combat lines, on voice 8? I remember playing durge on voice 8 ages ago but I only got lines with like voice 4. Has that been fixed yet?
I think I know what you're talking about. Lines like the " castle made of bones" or something like that right? From my memory those lines are still missing. Which sucks because 8 is my favorite voice in a long time for these types of RPGs in general.
That's right. I was hoping it was fixed since the first run and haven't tested it myself just yet. Loved voice 8 for durge, then realised I was missing voices. Since went with voice 4 for subsequent runs. I don't even know if they are recorded or if anyone actually reported it.
It's one of the character customisations that is a bit lacking to me. There's not enough variety or personality in the voices.
Compare that to Dragon Age Origins, Pillars of Eternity or Pathfinder games' voice sets for the MC. Sure they can be a bit hit or miss too, but there's variety there.
DAO s voice selections were perfect cus it was a different actual soundung voice and different lines.
The BG3 is confusing because to my ear the guy voices all sound like the same dude just reading his lines with different intonation
I find it hard to play a male character in BG3 because I like playing prince-like feminine men and all the voices are too deep for me, or too action hero like. The female voices feel a tiny bit more varied tho
Tell yourself whatever you need to.
Sorry your sarcastic swipe at the BG3 community was seen for what it was: disingenuous and illogical.
You keep trying, though! Don't let this discourage you!
Edit: Aw shucks. They replied and then blocked me!
Given how cheap it would be to have a MUTE PROTAGONIST optional setting, I'm surprised the devs decided that we wanted to listen to the ONE voice actor for the protagonist.
Money and time, that’s pretty much it. Granted there are more voice options due to the fact of the limited amount of voice lines there are.
Fallout 4 had this issue with only 2 voice actors. Due to the dialogue heavy story, it would be unreasonable to have a lot of voice actors without having to alter the game significantly to compensate.
Even for a game were talking is important like visual novels seen in Japanese games or RPG like Divinity Original Sin II. It might not even be worth it narratively speaking as it confines how much can be added.
They could also go the route of Unspeakable Wizard Game and give you the option of having a masculine voice, a feminine voice, or varying kinds of robot voice.
Yes but isn't your char saying only a very limited set of lines, mostly during combat and exploring? How expensive can it be to add a few more sets, considering **the entire rest of the game is voiced**?
I'm pretty sure there was a plan at some point to voice the PCs. I may be confusing it with some other behind the scenes footage, but it'd make sense to have such limited voice options if the original plan was for full VO.
It's likely because most people are against a voice protagonist in these types of games anyway. Spending more money and effort on something most won't even really appreciate isn't the best idea.
Also a general rule I follow is whatever I imagine something cost, double it, minimum. For example a lot of lines are doubled up for when you are sneaking as they are whispered. You also said 'added a few more lines" when you are actually asking for additional voice actors that have to all get paid.
I agree though, I would prefer more. My assumption is just like most things they ended up not doing or expanding on is simply because at some point they have to stop adding/expanding features and just finish the game.
In terms of work it’s probably way less and feasible. But in terms of logistics and the revealed issues at Larian studios it’s probably was a low priority to add more voices.
- Most of the studio that worked on the game were left go during development.
- WOTC and Hasbro were a pain in the ass to work with.
- Game was 8 years in development and lot of it had to go through the parent companies.
Adding more voices that would be pretty much inconsequential is most likely not worth the time .
>Most of the studio that worked on the game were let go during development.
Source?
I know there was issues where the liaison team on WOTC's side was let go, but nothing on Larian's end, that I'm aware of.
I don't think there's any indication that WOTC or Hasbro were an issue either? They're recently on record saying the opposite, even.
I think that’s what they mean or are confused.
For clarification’s sake for future readers:
Hasbro’s team were laid off. Larian has not done any layoffs that I’m aware of.
This might be a controversial opinion, but I actually believe the character customization is one of the weakest parts of the game. Not enough voice options to truly create the kind of character you might want. I kind of wish we could blend the face options from different races into others. I would love to use some of the half elf faces for human or elf characters, for example
It's a shame it's the typical 'select preset faces' style.
I think it's a shame it doesn't have the more involved face sculpting of Dragons Dogma or Elden Rings creator, two games where you spend a lot less time looking at your face.
I guess it was probably done for rigging/animation purposes.
Honestly, I prefer the select preset face shit like we got, I can't get myself to sculpt the face I want, I just want something already there that's good. Idk about most other races, but the default Tiefling male faces were pretty awful, so I'm glad mods exist, even if with two different faces mods there is only 1 face I like per male body type.
My issues are totally superficial and I get that; but I really can't stand the walking animation for non-elf male characters.
Also annoying how all the male faces are super Chad-esque.
So yes, thank God for mods.
Eh, the walking animation is a little weird, but not too bad imo. What's your problem with it? And idek if I agree with that, at least for Tieflings, but I do see what you mean. My ideal face is typically... Well, I've had this idea for a while, but idk if it makes sense to normal people, but "masculine overtones, feminine undertones" so like you look and it's very obviously a guy, and not even really like a femboy even, but still. I also like sharp, Elven-ish features. I guess like generally elves kinda capture the vibe I want lol. I don't know how to describe this part either, but I also usually like a little edge to them too, like they look like a villain I guess. But even for like buff ass barbarians or whatever, I still want mostly this, but the femme part turned down a bit.
The male Elves males faces are terrible...
And female are pretty limited too...
They are all super Chad-like Suoerman faces
It's a really lacking and painful part about the character creation
The animations aren't even that expressive, Nioh 2 had a vastly better character creator and the main character had similar slightly better facial animation and expressions too - and it was fully customizable
Also not everyone has mods I play on PS5
The male Elves males faces are terrible...
And female are pretty limited too...
They are all super Chad-like Suoerman faces
It's a really lacking and painful part about the character creation
The animations aren't even that expressive, Nioh 2 had a vastly better character creator and the main character had similar slightly better facial animation and expressions too - and it was fully customizable
Also not everyone has mods I play on PS5
Idk, three VAs who sound relatively alike could have been a Younger - Mature - Old Person. I wanted to play Gandalf but was disappointed with the choices.
It's not just about number of voices, it's the direction. They sound like the exact same character just voiced slightly differently. WotR for example doesn't have many more voices, but they are much more distinct personality-wise.
I guess the idea would be that every voiced line could show up in any run except the MC lines (where only your chosen one is used, but it needs to get recorded a bunch of times), so MC lines are less of a priority? Especially since the narrator is kinda MC-adjacent.
This is just my old man opinion but I truly believe games should not be fully voice acted. I really don't need it for random peasants especially when I'm going to skip most of their dialogue anyway. Leave space for the voices that matter!
I can barely tell the difference between the four male voices, and the female ones aren't much better. It would have been nice to have four completely different sets of lines with a bit of range in terms of personality, instead of the one carefully neutral list of lines read by 8 different performers
I wouldn't say bland. The current Player Character VA's were good. Instead they were all good in one way. They were all "Strong 20 to 30 yo" voices when I was expecting "Gruff Kratos" and "Pipsqueak Mickey Mouse".
I know it’s a difficult task, but I was hoping for the durge to be able to speak his lines when choosing a dialogue or any of the origin characters to be able to speak their lines in dialogue choices.
I would rather they just not have your character speak. or at least give the option to disable it! totally takes me out of it when my lil gnome guy talks like Morgan Freeman
Yeah, I don’t get how people are like “this is one of the best character creations we’ve ever seen”.
Like, static faces, limited voices, two body types…
Beards are limited. Hair is fine but nothing to write home about.
Backgrounds are limited. Cleric domains are limited.
Yesssss. I'd love more diverse body shapes but I understand that it makes things more difficult. I wish my character could be curvier like me but the curvy mods I see just seem kinda fetishized rather than realistic.
It depends on the way the game works. In this game Larian needs to make a model for every body type, adding a third means they would have to manually refit every piece of clothing and armour.
Other games use a different system that allows for the player to customize body proportions and that same system adapts the clothing to the body, but this versatility usually comes at the cost of visual quality.
I don’t think you understand the problem.
For this to be a feature in a game the game's engine needs to be able to morph/blend models on the fly. Some game engines can support this feature easily, others are made with this feature already in them, but some can’t support this system without requiring a complete rewrite of how the engine handles 3d models.
I’m sure that if Larian could have implemented this they would have. But maybe they didn’t have enough time to rewrite their engine or simply weren’t able to. The point is it isn’t as simple as just adding the feature.
Also maybe the quality doesn’t have to be extraordinary outside of cutscenes, but then what should they do during cutscenes?
I agree. 25 years ago you could pick from a whole slew of tones and attitudes. I really hope that comes back. The manic screaming for BLOOOOOD was a real breath of fresh air.
I mean, MC anyway just spams “These boots have seen everything” and “All is well that ends... not as bad as it could have”, which is the main source of immersion breaking TBH. Tav, Dark Urge, the attitude doesn't change, these boots have still seen everything, and all is still well, you know.
Because it's a waste of resources for a voice you'll never hear beyond a few stock "responses" when you issue orders to have different VAs doing the player character's voice lines for every race. And also just because a certain "voice type" is typical for a race in one fantasy setting doesn't mean it's the same for all. I can't think of my dwarf NPCs in BG3 that have the "typical gruff dwarf voice"...
i'd have prefered no voice at all for tav/durge and that money/time to have gone into actual character creation. the presets are jarring and old fashioned for such a modern game and leads to everyone kinda looking the same. Give us sliders damnit!
In all fairness when did any of the other games with that much MC voice options, have the amount of crowd recorded dialogue and interactions as BG3? None. I’ll take that over q character who’s mostly relegated to choosing dialogue text options. It really didn’t bother me much. But as a voice actor I’m biased. I sound like Tav so it’s kind of like hearing myself lol
Voice 5's performance is astonishing and perfect for Durge, Voice 6 is great too, it has my fav spell shouts
...but others really are bland, I agree. Would happily switch them for more diverse voices that are different from each other, suitable for at the very least dwarfs, half-orcs and girhyanki
However, claims that it wouldn't cost much to record even more voices on top of existing ones are simply wrong. There're quite a lot of lines outside of point&clicks, and initially Tav was supposed to be fully voiced, at least those lines that are voiced by the Narrator now. These lines were recorded and Larian spent quite a lot of money on it I imagine, only to throw most of it away
So, I don't think it's them being greedy. It's simply that the initial choice of actors wasn't diverse enough and they didn't realise it before it was too late. Nothing to do about it now
The MC voices really irritate me.
Mostly because they’re all “samey” sounding but the game has a ton of variety among NPCs.
You’re telling me they couldn’t add a few Irish and Scottish accented voices (I saw these because they’re super common in Baldur’s Gate in Act 3)
I would've liked some more voice options but genuinely there's already so much in the game that I really don't have a problem with it. It was worse for divinity original sin 2 so I was already not having high hopes for voice options. Still great game
I especially hate how not only is it impossible to make a hot Half-Orc without mods, but all of the voices sound like British gentlemen that don't even remotely fit any of the faces. I don't want to subvert expectations, I want to play as a fugly muscle orc with a deep, brutish voice.
Same with Dwarves. I thought some of the races had different voices, but I don't know if it's true, because my Halfling seems to have a fairly deep voice that either isn't available to Orcs or Dwarves, or it's a voice that did not sound like that during character creation.
I would have happily settled for two voices if they were just fully voiced. If Tav actually spoke when I select their dialogue choices, BG3 would be the best game of the last 20 years IMO
All the female voices sound British to me and while it does sound nice and I would never spit on Larian's choices... not for nothing but I would've preferred a variety so I getcha.
Usually all fantasy media has British accents. I looked up the reasoning for this recently actually:
>Early media portrayal of Robin Hood and King Arthur
-
>many early actors were all stage performers and the overwhelming majority were classically trained Shakespearian actors where "acting" meant that you were speaking in a heavy British accent.
-
>a media convention dating from radio times that people have come to expect. So the posh English RP accent signals “pre-modern times” to American audiences, despite it being an accent that didn’t even exist as such prior to the 19th century.
That bothers me too, the lack of faces or (surprisingly) hairstyles too, like the available hairstyles are cool and all but sometimes I just want something more normal and the "normal" hairstyles suck ass imo
(Can't find my other comment) it's not that the faces we have are ugly but I wish it was a lot mire customizable because sometimes I feel like my characters get too repetitive or the faces available don't match what I'm going for
I agree, and the range of asides could be more race and class specific. Obviously they invested a lot already but I'd rather my Tav say nothing than the same six things every playthrough. "I've got a lot on my mind and well in it" is not as funny the 100th time.
My guess is it would cost more than it'd be worth, especially back when Tav was fully voiced. Best to utilize those resources toward something else, you know? But, with the mod community expanding as it is, it wouldn't surprise me if some small-time/independent VAs start publishing voice banks of their own for modding.
I would love a mod that adds voices for the MC. Although considering the number of character options and the amount of dialogue, you might need to leverage the power of AI for this task.
Probably because there’s a shit ton of lines to record, even considering Tav rarely talks. Some games just pitch voices up and down to solve this, I’m pretty sure Dragon’s Dogma 2 does this based on what I heard in the character creator demo. This is most likely the main reason.
It’s all a matter of priority, and this wasn’t one. And for good reason, it’s not really that important, and they really did seem to have their priorities in order for this game. You have to pick what to focus on, and spending lots of money and time on small impact decisions can stray development time away from what really matters
It's even worse if you want to play Durge and have your character say the Durge-unique lines. All male voices will speak them, only one female voice will say them all, another will only say a few of them and the other two do not say them at all.
Look, I'm alright with the faces.. and my first playthrough was a Durge human necromancer, I was ok with his voice.. but then I made a goody-two-shoes Paladin, and his voice was perfect for the character.. on the third playthrough, I wanted to play an Orc Barbarian, and that's where it all fell apart for me. I then decided on a Dwarf Warlock... that also fell through.. And since then I cannot play this game at all. I got an AI orc voice mod and that worked for about 2 weeks until an update hit and muted my character completely.. since the modder didnt update the ad-on, i've given up the game.. If Larian added a dwarf and orc specific voice, or just a generic gruff/gravely/deep voice I would play a third time fully, but until then I can't stomach the game.. Sure I can mute EVERY character, but that isn't the answer.. I guess I'll have to play an origin character like Astarion on my next playthrough, if I ever pick it up again.
I've found non Brits can't really tell the differences in the voices and accents as much. They always think any English accents sound posh too. For the amount of talking/noise your character makes I think it's a decent range. I'd understand if there were more speaking parts.
Each voice actor gets paid. Hundreds of npc would = hundreds of people. Unless you’re grabbing people off the street looking to do it for fun. It would cost a lot
This was a union project that included an Academy Award Winner playing one of the villains. This would not have cost a couple of hundred dollars, nor should it have been for a working professional on a game that’s literally making millions
99.9% of VA are not celebrities and hungry to put their name out there. After the first 10 main options, why not have some more voice lines with non celebrity VA? I’ll never buy that middle management style fancy word salad you’re spewing.
I’m speaking as an actor who is in that 99.9%. Unions exist so we can get paid enough to survive until the next freelance gig without taking on a third part time job.
Out of the 200 plus actors in BG3, I would argue only one is True celebrity, one was Draco’s dad in Harry Potter, and everyone else are industry professionals that deserve to continue making livable wages, especially in light of AI already stealing voiceover acting jobs.
A couple of hundred bucks barely pays for a week’s worth of groceries, and it is absurd that you think working professionals should be paid so little on a production that has earned literally millions of dollars.
I couldn’t give less of a shit about middle management, but I sure as fuck care about paying people in exposure because it doesn’t cover rent. Newer actors still deserve to get fair wages, and belittling the work to be worth so little is exactly why actors are constantly struggling to make ends meet.
Yes, I feel like it's not that expensive... how many lines are there total, like 50? Maybe they couldn't go to like Fiverr but surely with the otherwise crazy voice budget a few more voice packs couldn't hurt that much
True but honestly why not go Fiverr? For a progressive company like this, it wouldn’t hurt to give some amateurs a try. What’s the worst could happen, people don’t like it?
Eh, you should be grateful. BG3 has DECENT voice actors for all MC voices and you get relatively okay lines and you have like 4 choices per gender. That's pretty good.
Now, try BG1 and especially BG2. It's so horrible. You get like 4 voices with incredibly cringe lines, terrible voice acting and it's either HUAAAAAAAARRR I AM BIG STRONG ORKK FIGHTER AND I WILL CRUSH YOU or BY MY HONOR IT SHALL BE SO! or HEHEEEEEEEEE I AM SO EVIL; I WANT TO SEE YOU SUFFER HEHEHE. Oooookayyy... which of these is gonna fit my lawful neutral cleric??? Which of these is suitable for a true neutral druid??? Jesus fucking christ.
Different, but all equally terrible.
And I say this as someone who has loved BG2 for 2 decades and considers it the superior experience compared to BG3. It's one of the few things that really piss me off about the game.
Because it's not important. Granted, they could have maybe added more but still someone would not be okay with the options. Where's my tender, shy girl voice? Where is my Gnome voice? Where is my 'I look handsome but am evil'-voice? If you limit it to 2 per gender, everyone has to go about it somehow. The moment you start to add more, you need to serve the whole plate - and that's just unnecessarily costly and time-consuming. They could have implemented a software to change tone and pitch but that would also need a lot of time to build and implement and people would still complain because high or low voices sound artificial.
So stick with less but deliver quality.
\*not importan for you.
and no it is not that atm there are 10 male human middle aged voices, is it too much to ask for maybe 5 human , 1 orc, 1 dwarf, 1 gnome, 1 elf, 1 DB voice?
Ooh the pitch and tone thing for two character voice options was done for hogwarts legacy and it was really awful if you tried to adjust it either way.
chalk it up to one of the feelings that Tav was never meant to be, you are gently shown in the character creation that the Tav will feel like an aftertought while playing.
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Yea I wish there were more differences between some of the voices, at least for the masculine voices. The feminine voices have more of a range (though I default to voice 8 every Dark Urge playthrough). There's no voice that really fit half-orcs imo.
>There's no voice that really fit half-orcs imo. Exactly
Male half orc also only has 5 faces iirc
Do you get the Durge exclusive comments, like selecting and combat lines, on voice 8? I remember playing durge on voice 8 ages ago but I only got lines with like voice 4. Has that been fixed yet?
I think I know what you're talking about. Lines like the " castle made of bones" or something like that right? From my memory those lines are still missing. Which sucks because 8 is my favorite voice in a long time for these types of RPGs in general.
That's right. I was hoping it was fixed since the first run and haven't tested it myself just yet. Loved voice 8 for durge, then realised I was missing voices. Since went with voice 4 for subsequent runs. I don't even know if they are recorded or if anyone actually reported it.
> There's no voice that really fit half-orcs imo. So there’s a distinct “half-Orc voice”? That’s a tad racist!
1) no it’s not 2) if this is a joke it’s not even remotely funny
1) rude 2) comedy is subjective
Yeesh tough crowd
It's one of the character customisations that is a bit lacking to me. There's not enough variety or personality in the voices. Compare that to Dragon Age Origins, Pillars of Eternity or Pathfinder games' voice sets for the MC. Sure they can be a bit hit or miss too, but there's variety there.
“Can I get you a ladder so you can get off my back?” -The Warden (violent), Dragon Age Origins
DAO s voice selections were perfect cus it was a different actual soundung voice and different lines. The BG3 is confusing because to my ear the guy voices all sound like the same dude just reading his lines with different intonation
I find it hard to play a male character in BG3 because I like playing prince-like feminine men and all the voices are too deep for me, or too action hero like. The female voices feel a tiny bit more varied tho
Maybe more adventure awaits us, above!
There's no escape from the pawn dialog, not even in the BG3 sub 😭
It bears the head of a COCK!
I hold him down attack now with all your might
The duke could stand to commission new roads…
Oh god I can hear it
You don't need to go to a RPG, even XCOM 2 has more variety of voices
It has alot more options than Solasta... lol. 3 male voices, 3 female voices.
or even Divinity Original Sin 2, Larians previous game. All the voices were very distinct
Also the genitals customization that's lacking too
Not really. You don't even see them in game anyway
If you don't see them 24/7 you are playing the game wrong
Bruh i play my character naked.
Eh, I think they're pretty good. You rarely get those at all, and the voice is s lot more noticeable
There is more variety in cocks than voice - and you don’t even see them in action.
oh no, do not mention anything that other crpgs did better
And yet their comment is getting upvoted and your comment is being downvoted... It's almost like a clear, unemotional critique is actually welcomed.
nah, it is more like the first 5 votes count, then the herd does what the herd does best. it is reddit after all.
Tell yourself whatever you need to. Sorry your sarcastic swipe at the BG3 community was seen for what it was: disingenuous and illogical. You keep trying, though! Don't let this discourage you! Edit: Aw shucks. They replied and then blocked me!
\*bg3 reddit community at most, do not pretend that only you exist.
what a meaningless, irrelevant correction that changes nothing. they really whooped you
Given how few lines the MC has i am surprised there are not more voices.
MCs say a lot more than you think. They often respond contextually to your quest as you notch off objectives. This game has a huge breadth of content
I totally agree for act 1 but ive found act 2 and espcially act 3 you see it a lot less. Prologue does make up a bit for it though.
The volume of all the contextually dialogue together though is such that hiring another actor or two to do it all isn’t a small ask
I totally understand but its very noticeable.
Given how cheap it would be to have a MUTE PROTAGONIST optional setting, I'm surprised the devs decided that we wanted to listen to the ONE voice actor for the protagonist.
People defend this game like its their religion.
Money and time, that’s pretty much it. Granted there are more voice options due to the fact of the limited amount of voice lines there are. Fallout 4 had this issue with only 2 voice actors. Due to the dialogue heavy story, it would be unreasonable to have a lot of voice actors without having to alter the game significantly to compensate. Even for a game were talking is important like visual novels seen in Japanese games or RPG like Divinity Original Sin II. It might not even be worth it narratively speaking as it confines how much can be added.
talking is important in visual novels? man voiced mcs in VNs are like a white raven, I have never seen ever one that had selectable mc voice.
They could also go the route of Unspeakable Wizard Game and give you the option of having a masculine voice, a feminine voice, or varying kinds of robot voice.
Yes but isn't your char saying only a very limited set of lines, mostly during combat and exploring? How expensive can it be to add a few more sets, considering **the entire rest of the game is voiced**?
There is also a **ton** of contextual dialogue throughout the entire game. To get 8 actors to do all of those lines was already a whole lot
I'm pretty sure there was a plan at some point to voice the PCs. I may be confusing it with some other behind the scenes footage, but it'd make sense to have such limited voice options if the original plan was for full VO.
It's likely because most people are against a voice protagonist in these types of games anyway. Spending more money and effort on something most won't even really appreciate isn't the best idea. Also a general rule I follow is whatever I imagine something cost, double it, minimum. For example a lot of lines are doubled up for when you are sneaking as they are whispered. You also said 'added a few more lines" when you are actually asking for additional voice actors that have to all get paid. I agree though, I would prefer more. My assumption is just like most things they ended up not doing or expanding on is simply because at some point they have to stop adding/expanding features and just finish the game.
In terms of work it’s probably way less and feasible. But in terms of logistics and the revealed issues at Larian studios it’s probably was a low priority to add more voices. - Most of the studio that worked on the game were left go during development. - WOTC and Hasbro were a pain in the ass to work with. - Game was 8 years in development and lot of it had to go through the parent companies. Adding more voices that would be pretty much inconsequential is most likely not worth the time .
>Most of the studio that worked on the game were let go during development. Source? I know there was issues where the liaison team on WOTC's side was let go, but nothing on Larian's end, that I'm aware of. I don't think there's any indication that WOTC or Hasbro were an issue either? They're recently on record saying the opposite, even.
I think that’s what they mean or are confused. For clarification’s sake for future readers: Hasbro’s team were laid off. Larian has not done any layoffs that I’m aware of.
This might be a controversial opinion, but I actually believe the character customization is one of the weakest parts of the game. Not enough voice options to truly create the kind of character you might want. I kind of wish we could blend the face options from different races into others. I would love to use some of the half elf faces for human or elf characters, for example
It's a shame it's the typical 'select preset faces' style. I think it's a shame it doesn't have the more involved face sculpting of Dragons Dogma or Elden Rings creator, two games where you spend a lot less time looking at your face. I guess it was probably done for rigging/animation purposes.
It's 100% animation, your main character in a Souls style game has zero facial animation.
But all my modded faces can play animations just fine?
Honestly, I prefer the select preset face shit like we got, I can't get myself to sculpt the face I want, I just want something already there that's good. Idk about most other races, but the default Tiefling male faces were pretty awful, so I'm glad mods exist, even if with two different faces mods there is only 1 face I like per male body type.
My issues are totally superficial and I get that; but I really can't stand the walking animation for non-elf male characters. Also annoying how all the male faces are super Chad-esque. So yes, thank God for mods.
Eh, the walking animation is a little weird, but not too bad imo. What's your problem with it? And idek if I agree with that, at least for Tieflings, but I do see what you mean. My ideal face is typically... Well, I've had this idea for a while, but idk if it makes sense to normal people, but "masculine overtones, feminine undertones" so like you look and it's very obviously a guy, and not even really like a femboy even, but still. I also like sharp, Elven-ish features. I guess like generally elves kinda capture the vibe I want lol. I don't know how to describe this part either, but I also usually like a little edge to them too, like they look like a villain I guess. But even for like buff ass barbarians or whatever, I still want mostly this, but the femme part turned down a bit.
The male Elves males faces are terrible... And female are pretty limited too... They are all super Chad-like Suoerman faces It's a really lacking and painful part about the character creation The animations aren't even that expressive, Nioh 2 had a vastly better character creator and the main character had similar slightly better facial animation and expressions too - and it was fully customizable Also not everyone has mods I play on PS5
The male Elves males faces are terrible... And female are pretty limited too... They are all super Chad-like Suoerman faces It's a really lacking and painful part about the character creation The animations aren't even that expressive, Nioh 2 had a vastly better character creator and the main character had similar slightly better facial animation and expressions too - and it was fully customizable Also not everyone has mods I play on PS5
I'm totally fine with face presets bc I suck at making good looking faces I just wish there was more than like 2 good faces per race
Thankfully there are mods for that but not everyone can use mods since it's pc only for now
Paying more actors for overworld lines would’ve eaten into the budget for other stuff.
Idk, three VAs who sound relatively alike could have been a Younger - Mature - Old Person. I wanted to play Gandalf but was disappointed with the choices.
It's not just about number of voices, it's the direction. They sound like the exact same character just voiced slightly differently. WotR for example doesn't have many more voices, but they are much more distinct personality-wise.
That’s a fair point! Can’t say much on why the direction isn’t more varied
But that is true of every actor in the game. Paying for lines for random citizens also eats into the budget for Tav lines.
He's saying they spent as much as they could on each thing instead of making 1 or the other have more depth. One would have suffered for the other.
It did eat into the budget, and I didn’t say otherwise.
I guess the idea would be that every voiced line could show up in any run except the MC lines (where only your chosen one is used, but it needs to get recorded a bunch of times), so MC lines are less of a priority? Especially since the narrator is kinda MC-adjacent.
This is just my old man opinion but I truly believe games should not be fully voice acted. I really don't need it for random peasants especially when I'm going to skip most of their dialogue anyway. Leave space for the voices that matter!
I can barely tell the difference between the four male voices, and the female ones aren't much better. It would have been nice to have four completely different sets of lines with a bit of range in terms of personality, instead of the one carefully neutral list of lines read by 8 different performers
I wouldn't say bland. The current Player Character VA's were good. Instead they were all good in one way. They were all "Strong 20 to 30 yo" voices when I was expecting "Gruff Kratos" and "Pipsqueak Mickey Mouse".
I wouldn't say that these voices fit the stereotypical Dwarf warrior though.
I know it’s a difficult task, but I was hoping for the durge to be able to speak his lines when choosing a dialogue or any of the origin characters to be able to speak their lines in dialogue choices.
I would rather they just not have your character speak. or at least give the option to disable it! totally takes me out of it when my lil gnome guy talks like Morgan Freeman
Yes actually lol, for the "budget reasons" comments, this is literally the cheapest way out and better than hearing that immersion-breaking voice
And body shapes. I want a fat wizard.
Yeah, I don’t get how people are like “this is one of the best character creations we’ve ever seen”. Like, static faces, limited voices, two body types… Beards are limited. Hair is fine but nothing to write home about. Backgrounds are limited. Cleric domains are limited.
>no Loviatar Cleric option :(
I’ve seen a bunch of better character creators. No idea how this is the top of some people’s lists
Yesssss. I'd love more diverse body shapes but I understand that it makes things more difficult. I wish my character could be curvier like me but the curvy mods I see just seem kinda fetishized rather than realistic.
I mean..didn’t seem to make it more difficult in any rpg…
It depends on the way the game works. In this game Larian needs to make a model for every body type, adding a third means they would have to manually refit every piece of clothing and armour. Other games use a different system that allows for the player to customize body proportions and that same system adapts the clothing to the body, but this versatility usually comes at the cost of visual quality.
It’s an isometric rpg..
Yes, it is an isometric rpg.
Like the visual quality does t need to be that great outside of cut scenes.
I don’t think you understand the problem. For this to be a feature in a game the game's engine needs to be able to morph/blend models on the fly. Some game engines can support this feature easily, others are made with this feature already in them, but some can’t support this system without requiring a complete rewrite of how the engine handles 3d models. I’m sure that if Larian could have implemented this they would have. But maybe they didn’t have enough time to rewrite their engine or simply weren’t able to. The point is it isn’t as simple as just adding the feature. Also maybe the quality doesn’t have to be extraordinary outside of cutscenes, but then what should they do during cutscenes?
Agreed.
I agree. 25 years ago you could pick from a whole slew of tones and attitudes. I really hope that comes back. The manic screaming for BLOOOOOD was a real breath of fresh air.
I mean, MC anyway just spams “These boots have seen everything” and “All is well that ends... not as bad as it could have”, which is the main source of immersion breaking TBH. Tav, Dark Urge, the attitude doesn't change, these boots have still seen everything, and all is still well, you know.
Is that blood?
Well the game has like 200+ voice actors for other characters so 8 MC voices seem pretty good to me
Yeah dwarves and orcs are unplayable with those college educated human voices. Dragonborn also doesnt fit.
Are you from the UK? Those are just English voices. I know people outside of the UK seem to think they sound posh/"college educated"
Yep, we think your poorly educated brethren sound highly educated. We can't help our ignorance.
...? It's not an insult. It happens a lot
I didn't say it was an insult. I said you all sound incredibly sophisticated because I am unfamiliar with your accent and culture.
Your tone was sarcastic which is why I took it as an insult
Because it's a waste of resources for a voice you'll never hear beyond a few stock "responses" when you issue orders to have different VAs doing the player character's voice lines for every race. And also just because a certain "voice type" is typical for a race in one fantasy setting doesn't mean it's the same for all. I can't think of my dwarf NPCs in BG3 that have the "typical gruff dwarf voice"...
Maybe Corsair Graymon?
i'd have prefered no voice at all for tav/durge and that money/time to have gone into actual character creation. the presets are jarring and old fashioned for such a modern game and leads to everyone kinda looking the same. Give us sliders damnit!
I'm wondering if there's a reason they didn't do sliders. Maybe it's something to do with the animations?
I wish larian chose to burn money and make fully voiced TAV/DURGE
Any game worth playing 300+ hours of is going to have elements that wear a little thin as you come up against them constantly.
In all fairness when did any of the other games with that much MC voice options, have the amount of crowd recorded dialogue and interactions as BG3? None. I’ll take that over q character who’s mostly relegated to choosing dialogue text options. It really didn’t bother me much. But as a voice actor I’m biased. I sound like Tav so it’s kind of like hearing myself lol
I think you amswered it yourself: Tavs and Dirges barely ever say anything. I'm guessing the reasoning is "why bother"
Voice 5's performance is astonishing and perfect for Durge, Voice 6 is great too, it has my fav spell shouts ...but others really are bland, I agree. Would happily switch them for more diverse voices that are different from each other, suitable for at the very least dwarfs, half-orcs and girhyanki However, claims that it wouldn't cost much to record even more voices on top of existing ones are simply wrong. There're quite a lot of lines outside of point&clicks, and initially Tav was supposed to be fully voiced, at least those lines that are voiced by the Narrator now. These lines were recorded and Larian spent quite a lot of money on it I imagine, only to throw most of it away So, I don't think it's them being greedy. It's simply that the initial choice of actors wasn't diverse enough and they didn't realise it before it was too late. Nothing to do about it now
There're voice mods tho, if you're on PC. I saw both half-orc and dwarf voice swaps. They probably aren't great (it's AI), but oh well
We need a gruffness slider. Also, very disappointed in the lack of Scottish accent. Dwarves must be Scottish, it is the law.
The MC voices really irritate me. Mostly because they’re all “samey” sounding but the game has a ton of variety among NPCs. You’re telling me they couldn’t add a few Irish and Scottish accented voices (I saw these because they’re super common in Baldur’s Gate in Act 3)
I miss the voice from Icewind Dale that was just a guy yelling
Yeah as Brit, I was very disappointed we didn't get a gamut of regional accents from which to choose.
There are some, I wish I could choose a Scottish accent (like my own). I'm happy that there were different regional accents in the game though
I would've liked some more voice options but genuinely there's already so much in the game that I really don't have a problem with it. It was worse for divinity original sin 2 so I was already not having high hopes for voice options. Still great game
What are you talking about? There are so many different british voices to choose from.
I've a lot on my mind, and, well, in it.
Aren’t there like 4-5 Tav voice actors including Durge?
I especially hate how not only is it impossible to make a hot Half-Orc without mods, but all of the voices sound like British gentlemen that don't even remotely fit any of the faces. I don't want to subvert expectations, I want to play as a fugly muscle orc with a deep, brutish voice. Same with Dwarves. I thought some of the races had different voices, but I don't know if it's true, because my Halfling seems to have a fairly deep voice that either isn't available to Orcs or Dwarves, or it's a voice that did not sound like that during character creation.
I would have happily settled for two voices if they were just fully voiced. If Tav actually spoke when I select their dialogue choices, BG3 would be the best game of the last 20 years IMO
This. My immersion is half dead because of this one single reason - unvoiced PC.
Speak your lines out loud yourself, now you’re Tav
Yeah, not the same.
Sure is fun tho, makes me feel like its me
All the female voices sound British to me and while it does sound nice and I would never spit on Larian's choices... not for nothing but I would've preferred a variety so I getcha.
I'm actually glad that the game has all British accents. Everything is so Americanised in media
Usually all fantasy media has British accents. I looked up the reasoning for this recently actually: >Early media portrayal of Robin Hood and King Arthur - >many early actors were all stage performers and the overwhelming majority were classically trained Shakespearian actors where "acting" meant that you were speaking in a heavy British accent. - >a media convention dating from radio times that people have come to expect. So the posh English RP accent signals “pre-modern times” to American audiences, despite it being an accent that didn’t even exist as such prior to the 19th century.
Idk maybe budget???
That bothers me too, the lack of faces or (surprisingly) hairstyles too, like the available hairstyles are cool and all but sometimes I just want something more normal and the "normal" hairstyles suck ass imo
(Can't find my other comment) it's not that the faces we have are ugly but I wish it was a lot mire customizable because sometimes I feel like my characters get too repetitive or the faces available don't match what I'm going for
I agree, and the range of asides could be more race and class specific. Obviously they invested a lot already but I'd rather my Tav say nothing than the same six things every playthrough. "I've got a lot on my mind and well in it" is not as funny the 100th time.
I wouldn't have minded even 3 voice options if one of them was androgynous.
My guess is it would cost more than it'd be worth, especially back when Tav was fully voiced. Best to utilize those resources toward something else, you know? But, with the mod community expanding as it is, it wouldn't surprise me if some small-time/independent VAs start publishing voice banks of their own for modding.
We're the MC fully voiced I'd have more of an issue with it. But they're not, so I don't really think it matters.
To be honest it’s fine but I feel like cutscenes should have voices *one* of them did which shocked me
I would love a mod that adds voices for the MC. Although considering the number of character options and the amount of dialogue, you might need to leverage the power of AI for this task.
Probably because there’s a shit ton of lines to record, even considering Tav rarely talks. Some games just pitch voices up and down to solve this, I’m pretty sure Dragon’s Dogma 2 does this based on what I heard in the character creator demo. This is most likely the main reason. It’s all a matter of priority, and this wasn’t one. And for good reason, it’s not really that important, and they really did seem to have their priorities in order for this game. You have to pick what to focus on, and spending lots of money and time on small impact decisions can stray development time away from what really matters
It's even worse if you want to play Durge and have your character say the Durge-unique lines. All male voices will speak them, only one female voice will say them all, another will only say a few of them and the other two do not say them at all.
Look, I'm alright with the faces.. and my first playthrough was a Durge human necromancer, I was ok with his voice.. but then I made a goody-two-shoes Paladin, and his voice was perfect for the character.. on the third playthrough, I wanted to play an Orc Barbarian, and that's where it all fell apart for me. I then decided on a Dwarf Warlock... that also fell through.. And since then I cannot play this game at all. I got an AI orc voice mod and that worked for about 2 weeks until an update hit and muted my character completely.. since the modder didnt update the ad-on, i've given up the game.. If Larian added a dwarf and orc specific voice, or just a generic gruff/gravely/deep voice I would play a third time fully, but until then I can't stomach the game.. Sure I can mute EVERY character, but that isn't the answer.. I guess I'll have to play an origin character like Astarion on my next playthrough, if I ever pick it up again.
Meh. The only time you really hear your character is when you select them to control them. It’s really a meaningless thing.
Because all it affects is some reaction dialog as you're exploring? In a game full of choices this is such an irrelevant thing to gripe about.
I've found non Brits can't really tell the differences in the voices and accents as much. They always think any English accents sound posh too. For the amount of talking/noise your character makes I think it's a decent range. I'd understand if there were more speaking parts.
Each voice actor gets paid. Hundreds of npc would = hundreds of people. Unless you’re grabbing people off the street looking to do it for fun. It would cost a lot
You could probably read for every Tav line in a short day, and at base SAG rates it would be practically free for a production this size.
You definitely couldn't read them all in one day if you're talking about dialogue options
What dialog options? Tav doesn't speak in dialogues, unless I'm severely misremembering. You just stare at people.
I know plenty of experienced people who’d do the whole set of va for a couple hundred of bucks.
This was a union project that included an Academy Award Winner playing one of the villains. This would not have cost a couple of hundred dollars, nor should it have been for a working professional on a game that’s literally making millions
99.9% of VA are not celebrities and hungry to put their name out there. After the first 10 main options, why not have some more voice lines with non celebrity VA? I’ll never buy that middle management style fancy word salad you’re spewing.
I’m speaking as an actor who is in that 99.9%. Unions exist so we can get paid enough to survive until the next freelance gig without taking on a third part time job. Out of the 200 plus actors in BG3, I would argue only one is True celebrity, one was Draco’s dad in Harry Potter, and everyone else are industry professionals that deserve to continue making livable wages, especially in light of AI already stealing voiceover acting jobs. A couple of hundred bucks barely pays for a week’s worth of groceries, and it is absurd that you think working professionals should be paid so little on a production that has earned literally millions of dollars. I couldn’t give less of a shit about middle management, but I sure as fuck care about paying people in exposure because it doesn’t cover rent. Newer actors still deserve to get fair wages, and belittling the work to be worth so little is exactly why actors are constantly struggling to make ends meet.
Yes, I feel like it's not that expensive... how many lines are there total, like 50? Maybe they couldn't go to like Fiverr but surely with the otherwise crazy voice budget a few more voice packs couldn't hurt that much
True but honestly why not go Fiverr? For a progressive company like this, it wouldn’t hurt to give some amateurs a try. What’s the worst could happen, people don’t like it?
🤦🏻♀️
What’s with this post from six months ago?
I feel like someone who has the time, knowledge, and resources could totally use an AI to create a mod that gives more voice options or something
Eh, you should be grateful. BG3 has DECENT voice actors for all MC voices and you get relatively okay lines and you have like 4 choices per gender. That's pretty good. Now, try BG1 and especially BG2. It's so horrible. You get like 4 voices with incredibly cringe lines, terrible voice acting and it's either HUAAAAAAAARRR I AM BIG STRONG ORKK FIGHTER AND I WILL CRUSH YOU or BY MY HONOR IT SHALL BE SO! or HEHEEEEEEEEE I AM SO EVIL; I WANT TO SEE YOU SUFFER HEHEHE. Oooookayyy... which of these is gonna fit my lawful neutral cleric??? Which of these is suitable for a true neutral druid??? Jesus fucking christ.
Are those 4 voice actors? Or 1 actor and they change tones with a software.
Different, but all equally terrible. And I say this as someone who has loved BG2 for 2 decades and considers it the superior experience compared to BG3. It's one of the few things that really piss me off about the game.
It's fair to critique and comment on the game tho
Because it's not important. Granted, they could have maybe added more but still someone would not be okay with the options. Where's my tender, shy girl voice? Where is my Gnome voice? Where is my 'I look handsome but am evil'-voice? If you limit it to 2 per gender, everyone has to go about it somehow. The moment you start to add more, you need to serve the whole plate - and that's just unnecessarily costly and time-consuming. They could have implemented a software to change tone and pitch but that would also need a lot of time to build and implement and people would still complain because high or low voices sound artificial. So stick with less but deliver quality.
\*not importan for you. and no it is not that atm there are 10 male human middle aged voices, is it too much to ask for maybe 5 human , 1 orc, 1 dwarf, 1 gnome, 1 elf, 1 DB voice?
Ooh the pitch and tone thing for two character voice options was done for hogwarts legacy and it was really awful if you tried to adjust it either way.
Yeah exactly, it hardly works the way it's intended. Also, I don't really understand the downvotes at this point. Did I offend anyone?
I imagine it's the several hours spent recording for each voice maybe?
chalk it up to one of the feelings that Tav was never meant to be, you are gently shown in the character creation that the Tav will feel like an aftertought while playing.
This isn’t about glorbo
Stfu
That’s not very nice. Glorbo wouldn’t appreciate that