People really hate to read on screen. It''s just a fact! Some of my friends have refused to watch some of the world''s greatest films, simply because they were subtitled... So what does this mean for writers? I''ll tell you what I think. The second memory and production costs are low enough for everything to be voice-acted, that''s what we''ll have. Hence, game writers will need to take their techniques more from film writing than prose... We need to start thinking in terms of props and dialog flow. The other thing i predict this will create withing the production of games is Directors will become FAR more important. We have a lot of clueless voice talent in the industry, and some pretty clueless dierctors too. So crack open Syd field''s Screenplay and take notes, right?

Personally, I don't mind subtitles most of the time.
This probably is true though. In a large-scale RPG it probably wouldn't happen 'til they start putting games on DVD. The sound files would start taking a lot of CD space if everything was spoken in a heavily story-based game.

It is inevitable however. One more thing to make it harder for the amateurs to compete, eh?


""You see... I'm not crazy... you see?!? Nazrix believes me!" --Wavinator

"All you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be." -Pink Floyd

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Edited by - Nazrix on October 22, 2000 6:12:03 PM

I think there are a lot of people are just lazy and/or lack imagination... Personally I loath the day that all games will require voice actors... The whole idea of "feeling involued" in a game = how "realistic" it is comes directly from the mouths of idiots [prolly marketing people]...

I personally loved Final Fantasy III [USA release of FF6, I think, or maybe it was FF5?]...there was no FMV... no voice actors reading from a script...hell it was EVEN in 2D with simple little 2 and 3 frame animations...but, my god, that game felt so real, so alive...all because it connected with my imagination...allowing my mind to provide the voice actors, camera angles, perfect acting, and the ultimate special effects...

I just wish the industry would wake up to that...but judgeing from the recent PC Gamer "gameing gods" feature... I guess not... So we will be stuck for now with silly game stories that would barely work for a B-movie, created by designers who believe they are the next Spielburg... well at least thats how things look for mainstream games... and if the "indie" side ever gets out of it''s current "me too!" funk things will certainly brighten up a bit...

Don''t get me wrong, I love subtitles, they cover bad acting! But unfortunately this is just a fact. People HATE to read on screen. As cool in some ways as I thought MYST was sometimes, the reading killed it for me... A voiceover might have saved that game.

I loathe it too, but we all know it will probably happen as soon as hardware allows it. I think Thief made fantastic use of voices. It provided atmosphere and was actually useful by letting you hear whether the guards knew where you are and so on. They didn''t use voices just so that people don''t have to read. It had some in-game purpose.


""You see... I'm not crazy... you see?!? Nazrix believes me!" --Wavinator

"All you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be." -Pink Floyd

Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

Damn, I prefer text-adventure to most of the crap they put out. Reading gives you a better feeling of the entire scene being that you create it in your imagination. Diddums if people don''t like subtitles - they are the lazy few. The majority (if not all) of the people I know would prefer text, provided that it was elegantly written

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If people hate so much reading on screen, tell me why the internet is so popular ?
And why they are so many people discussing in here ?

We don''t hate it, we just want to have nice, big, subtitles.
The only complaint I ever have is that sometimes it''s written too small or colors are badly chosen.

-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-