Voice acting?

[VastGirth]

From the trailer it looks like this game has no voice acting? Is that correct?

If it is it seems a shame for a narrative focused game like this.

[Wok]

I read that every first sentence will be voice-acted.

[Dani_ZAUM]

Hey, thanks for dropping by with a question and thanks to Wok for answering.
Just to be super clear we are using voice acting but not for the entire game. We think we have struck a good balance with the player initially meeting the character and hearing them for the first time alongside the players imagination then continuing to do so. Disco Elysium has A LOT of characters. Maybe it's something we can revisit in the future.

[Simon]

Sounds fine to me. Gotta say though the voicceover on the trailers is really bad and doesn't appear to suit the game at all. If I only saw the trailers it would probably turn me off the game.

[Yours Truly]

Please make it a DLC and take my monay

[TechnoTom 74]

Originally posted by ZAUM_Dani:

Hey, thanks for dropping by with a question and thanks to Wok for answering.
Just to be super clear we are using voice acting but not for the entire game. We think we have struck a good balance with the player initially meeting the character and hearing them for the first time alongside the players imagination then continuing to do so. Disco Elysium has A LOT of characters. Maybe it's something we can revisit in the future.

Would love to hear every line 100% narrated! I'd pay for this! Great job on the 21:9 update!

[Twelvefield]

There's well over a million words of text. Let's say you pay the audio engineers and their crew a dollar a word...

[Me]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

There's well over a million words of text. Let's say you pay the audio engineers and their crew a dollar a word...

No one pay that much for voice acting, though. Probably closer to 20-25 cents per word. Technically you pay per hour, not per word, so it would all depend how many times you had to redo the lines.

[figbyfigbyfigby]

Originally posted by Me:

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

There's well over a million words of text. Let's say you pay the audio engineers and their crew a dollar a word...

No one pay that much for voice acting, though. Probably closer to 20-25 cents per word. Technically you pay per hour, not per word, so it would all depend how many times you had to redo the lines.

Even if we put the absurd cost of a full dubbing of this game out of the equation, the amount of time and patience required to complete a playthrough while listening to every single word professionally voiceacted (with the right speed and every required pause) would skyrocket to the point that players, sooner or later, would simply start to skip ahead after reading the dialogue (basically what we do now), making this effort a gigantic waste of resources that could be used for translations, dlcs and sequels.
This details are the difference between life and death for indie game developers.

I could welcome a quick voiceover session for all the 53 thought names, with the same awesome voice in the "thought cabinet trailer" and "hardcore and widescreen update trailer", it would add a wheelbarrow of charisma and flavour for a reasonably low effort and price.

[Me]

Originally posted by figbyfigbyfigby:

Originally posted by Me:

No one pay that much for voice acting, though. Probably closer to 20-25 cents per word. Technically you pay per hour, not per word, so it would all depend how many times you had to redo the lines.

Even if we put the absurd cost of a full dubbing of this game out of the equation, the amount of time and patience required to complete a playthrough while listening to every single word professionally voiceacted (with the right speed and every required pause) would skyrocket to the point that players, sooner or later, would simply start to skip ahead after reading the dialogue (basically what we do now), making this effort a gigantic waste of resources that could be used for translations, dlcs and sequels.
This details are the difference between life and death for indie game developers.

I could welcome a quick voiceover session for all the 53 thought names, with the same awesome voice in the "thought cabinet trailer" and "hardcore and widescreen update trailer", it would add a wheelbarrow of charisma and flavour for a reasonably low effort and price.

Yeah I agree entirely. I already skip a lot of voice acting in most RPG's that doesn't even have half the dialog lines DE has.

Maybe I'm just old school, but I prefer no voice acting. Just like I prefer reading a book to listening to the audio-book version of it.

[Twelvefield]

Originally posted by Me:

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

There's well over a million words of text. Let's say you pay the audio engineers and their crew a dollar a word...

No one pay that much for voice acting, though. Probably closer to 20-25 cents per word. Technically you pay per hour, not per word, so it would all depend how many times you had to redo the lines.

Factor in the audio engineers, studio time, and the file management and the price goes up. Talent is just a small part of the cost. Nothing goes quickly in audio.

[VastGirth]

Divinity original sin 2 has shown its perfectly possible to voice games with tons of dialogue.