More voice over options for created characters

[Kane99]

Wouldn't it be nice if more games offered better voice options for their custom characters? Whenever I play a game that has voice options, they always seem lacking to me. I want funny voices, serious ones, multiple race types and so on. I think that adds to the game for those wanting to replicate themselves in the game. No voices I use match my own voice and I think it'd be fun to have a game where it comes close to how I sound in real life. 

I know this likely won't happen, as I doubt studios want to hire tons of voice actors just to make everyone feel included. But it'd be nice to have more than a couple options too. 

[Withywarlock]

Sure, more is always welcome. As little as I like the increasingly over-the-top nature of Saints Row, I am amused by one of the games featuring a zombie voice, where your character just groans every line. More games should take themselves a little less seriously and goof around, and I think voice lines are one such way of going about that.

The lack of casting more voice actors, or commissioning more voice lines, is also quite a good argument for unvoiced characters. Either do it properly or not at all, as sometimes going without voice lines works better than with a meagre amount.

[Shagger]

I'm not sure this would actually work to a game's benefit. Putting the practical problems with this aside like having to hire an army of voice actors, having characters voiced also limits what dialogue they can actually have. Look at Fallout 4 for example. Yes, it was kind of cool to have the protagonist fully voiced for the first time in the series, but the dialogue itself was not nearly as diverse and, creative and fun as it had been in pervious games in the series and that had a detrimental effect on the role play experience. I don't think I'm being just some old nerd by suggesting that reading your role-plying character's dialogue my even be better than having it voiced as you can let yourself hear whatever voice you want as you read it, you can feel more connected to the character that way.

[Kane99]

2 hours ago, Shagger said:

I'm not sure this would actually work to a game's benefit. Putting the practical problems with this aside like having to hire an army of voice actors, having characters voiced also limits what dialogue they can actually have. Look at Fallout 4 for example. Yes, it was kind of cool to have the protagonist fully voiced for the first time in the series, but the dialogue itself was not nearly as diverse and, creative and fun as it had been in pervious games in the series and that had a detrimental effect on the role play experience. I don't think I'm being just some old nerd by suggesting that reading your role-plying character's dialogue my even be better than having it voiced as you can let yourself hear whatever voice you want as you read it, you can feel more connected to the character that way.

True, it would be a nightmare to hire many characters. I just wish they added a few more voice options in games that allow you to. Like in Cyberpunk 2077, I think there was 3 male and 3 female voices, but I'm not 100% sure. It's not a big deal, but would be nice to have something different. And true, text based dialogue is fine too, as it does let you imagine your voice. That makes more sense. 

2 hours ago, Withywarlock said:

Sure, more is always welcome. As little as I like the increasingly over-the-top nature of Saints Row, I am amused by one of the games featuring a zombie voice, where your character just groans every line. More games should take themselves a little less seriously and goof around, and I think voice lines are one such way of going about that.

The lack of casting more voice actors, or commissioning more voice lines, is also quite a good argument for unvoiced characters. Either do it properly or not at all, as sometimes going without voice lines works better than with a meagre amount.

Saints row is one of them. They had a lot of voice options, but nothing that fit me much. But I didn't mind too much because the voice acting was kinda funny from what I remember. 

[Empire]

Character creation polish and more voices will probably be some of the last things added before it leaves early access games in most cases if they have any that they would added. I’m actually surprised there are as many cosmetic options as there are currently in Baldurs Gate 3, though I suppose character creation is a pretty important component for these types of games, so they probably had to add em in so people wouldn’t whine.

[The Blackangel]

I've been trying to get into voice acting, and I found out that game studios are booked long in advance. For example Rockstar was holding auditions as early as 2012 to find actors for the new characters in RDR2. There were over 2000 people who worked on the game for voice acting. The vast majority of them uncredited. Not just the Van der Linde gang, but all the others as well as random NPC's.

All that said, I don't see any studio hiring multiple actors for custom characters.

Edited August 10, 2022 by The Blackangel

[Clasher]

Do you suggest that you get to make the sound yourself as opposed to having an already pre-recorded voice coming from the characters?

That would certainly include the players having total control of what the outcome of that conversation would be as opposed to what the game developers wants it to be.

It would be cool to have something like that but do you think it is such a valid addition to video games, and I believe a time would come when you would be able to speak to other characters in the game from you own mic and the character replies you based on what information you passed to it.

[Heatman]

These guys we all know that are very specific about making more money from the game more than they are willing to spend on it, there's no way they would be willing to hire a couple of voice actors for the same role in one game. If it's possible for them to use fewer voice actors for multiple characters role play, they will do it. 

[Kane99]

2 hours ago, The Blackangel said:

I've been trying to get into voice acting, and I found out that game studios are booked long in advance. For example Rockstar was holding auditions as early as 2012 to find actors for the new characters in RDR2. There were over 2000 people who worked on the game for voice acting. The vast majority of them uncredited. Not just the Van der Linde gang, but all the others as well as random NPC's.

All that said, I don't see any studio hiring multiple actors for custom characters.

I can see that. Rockstar has so many voice actors on their payroll it's gotta be crazy. There's tons of different voice actors for GTA V, RDR2, and most of their other open world games. The fact that each NPC has a voice is pretty cool. I know there are probably multiple voice actors doing multiple voices. Makes me wonder if any of the main voice actors started off speaking as NPCs in the Rockstar games. Kinda tempted to look into Arthur's voice actor to see what else he's done. 

[The Blackangel]

22 hours ago, Kane99 said:

I can see that. Rockstar has so many voice actors on their payroll it's gotta be crazy. There's tons of different voice actors for GTA V, RDR2, and most of their other open world games. The fact that each NPC has a voice is pretty cool. I know there are probably multiple voice actors doing multiple voices. Makes me wonder if any of the main voice actors started off speaking as NPCs in the Rockstar games. Kinda tempted to look into Arthur's voice actor to see what else he's done. 

Roger Clark (Arthur) has a YouTube channel if you want to look into him. @Rain Dew got me a shoutout from him for xmas last year. I have it saved on multiple places. Phone, thumb drive, computer, etc. As for them being in any other games, I have no idea with a couple exceptions. Benjamin Byron Davis (Dutch) and Rob Weithoff (John) were obviously in RDR1.

 

 

[Kane99]

Awesome stuff! 😄  I've been seeing a lot of videos from them on TikTok as of late. Mainly because every RDR2 thing I check out I favorite. I believe all of them have a tiktok as well, I think I follow Roger and Rob. I love how Benjamin Byron Davis and Rob Weithoff don't have to change their voice at all, it's just them. And with Roger, what accent does he have? He has this interesting accent I can't place. 

But yeah, I can see Rockstar going to the well of actors that they have to find voice actors for their major roles. But then again, a lot of these actors are probably picked up from elsewhere or they have to audition. I think most of them did audition for their roles. 

[Heatman]

21 hours ago, Kane99 said:

Awesome stuff! 😄  I've been seeing a lot of videos from them on TikTok as of late. Mainly because every RDR2 thing I check out I favorite. I believe all of them have a tiktok as well, I think I follow Roger and Rob. I love how Benjamin Byron Davis and Rob Weithoff don't have to change their voice at all, it's just them. And with Roger, what accent does he have? He has this interesting accent I can't place. 

But yeah, I can see Rockstar going to the well of actors that they have to find voice actors for their major roles. But then again, a lot of these actors are probably picked up from elsewhere or they have to audition. I think most of them did audition for their roles. 

You're right with how most of them are turning to TikTok right now. The platform is carrying a big wave because just about everything goes to TikTok now. I'm not sure if it's going to affect other streaming channels but you can never be so sure. I'm actually a big fan of Rob Weithoff. There's a sense of uniqueness to his voice. 

[Justin11]

Variety is always interesting and if you could get different voice over characters and different voice type for their characters.

Hopefully more video games adopt this it would be really interesting.

[Kane99]

I read something about the new Hogwarts game, and I guess you can change the pitch of your voice. If that's the case, I hope they allow us to do something like that in future games. As long as I can mess with sound of my voice, to make it as close to mine, or to someone else, that would honestly be cool to me. Most games that have voice options, don't usually have the greatest sounding voices imo. But this would give me more options. 

[Justin11]

2 minutes ago, Kane99 said:

I read something about the new Hogwarts game, and I guess you can change the pitch of your voice. If that's the case, I hope they allow us to do something like that in future games. As long as I can mess with sound of my voice, to make it as close to mine, or to someone else, that would honestly be cool to me. Most games that have voice options, don't usually have the greatest sounding voices imo. But this would give me more options. 

That would be interesting been able to change the voice in a variety of voice options and not confined to a few robotics voices that some video games have.