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Yes, both of them.

Yes, Planescape: Torment. (Planescape did have voice acting, just not full voice acting.)

Yes, Baldur's Gate.

Unsure.

No, neither of them would've been considerably better games.

I have not played either of them.

Don't care. / View poll.

[Vattic]

I pretty much agree with the article you two linked.

Voice acting has it's place but unfortunately it often limits options and can even destroy the suspension of disbelief. I find myself using subtitles in most games and, like many of you, skipping most of the speech because I already read what's going to be said.

Thinking back I realise my favourite kind of voice acting in RPGs is like that found in Planescape Torment or the Castlevania games on the DS where you only get a few words of greeting that give you a feel for the character. I've got to admit that in action oriented games not having to pause to read text is something I appreciate.

It's a pity computers aren't better at emulating human voices, I bet voice actors would disagree here though.

[Duke 2.0]

 I must remind this thread of the superb voice acting in the Half Life games. But then again this is Valve, the company that really takes too long polishing things.

[Pathos]

I must remind this thread of the superb voice acting in the Half Life games. But then again this is Valve, the company that really takes too long polishing things.

Voice acting makes a difference in FPSes though, I think. It meshes with how the game's moods are meant to feel, and there's a lot less choice in terms of the way you're going to do things or if you're meant to reply or not.

Anyway, not a lot of people talk. =p

[jnecros]

Voice acting is the least important part of RPGs IMO. I would rather do without because most voice acting is pretty bad, and the few RPGs with good voices, i.e. Dragon Age, seems to take something away from the devlopment of the story and flavor text in game.

Maybe because of the cost of hiring actors?

I also feel the same way about in game movies, very much at the bottom of the list of what I say are good game qualities.

[Tilla]

Good voice acting can make stuff feel pretty great to me. Bad voice acting..well, at least it's something to laugh at

[ILikePie]

Bad voice acting..well, at least it's something to laugh at

Due to the utterly terrible voice acting in Resident Evil, the serious plot is hardly even serious, it all sounds like a big joke. They still had a nice plot though. Voice acting is better in places where you don't notice it, games like RTSs actually benefit from the stuff, FPSs do too, but it ain't so for the rest.

[Soulwynd]

Meh.

Voice acting doesn't change the fact a game is crappy beneath it. But if you have a decent-to-good game and add a nice voice acting on top, it does add something.

[subject name here]

nothing could make baldurs gate 1 a good game imo bg2 is the only bg game worth playing unless you really love fetch quests i guess.

the ps1 resident evil 1 voice acting is the only reason to play that over the remake, nobody takes the plot of resident evil games seriously not even the people who wrote it

writhe in my cage of torment my friend

[Puck]

I really don't see the connection. Good writing is good writing, whether you pay a voice actor or not. Same with bad writing.

And bad voice actors can fuck up good writing, whereas good voice actors can't compensate for bad writing.

So what's the point of the discussion again? I might be drunk, but I'm still right!

[ILikePie]

I really don't see the connection. Good writing is good writing, whether you pay a voice actor or not. Same with bad writing.
And bad voice actors can fuck up good writing, whereas good voice actors can't compensate for bad writing.

Um, I think were discussing /that/, discussing voice acting in general, and everything that goes with it.

[Shurhaian]

Personally, I find that voice acting gets in the way. Especially for games with a high degree of moddability.

In Morrowind, adding pages and pages of dialog was only limited by the author's patience(and their estimation of the audience's).

Then there was Oblivion. There are so few voice actors that, as I think Yahtzee pointed out, you will overhear a person having a conversation with... himself... about the shop run by... himself. Oblivion's voice acting is especially horrible in the places in the main plotline where people are supposed to be saying something in unison(the voice actors obviously didn't rehearse together), and in general it's so stiff and flat that it takes much of the feeling out of the game.

As for the mod community... it utterly ruins any non-Bethesda attempts to make immersive mods. People's greetings are according to their race and gender, and any custom voice clips play after that, causing a mismatch between actors.

Morrowind's limited voice acting(cutscenes, enemy taunts, other background remarks not part of a conversation) was of a much higher standard and added to the experience, rather than subtracting from it. When they stepped up to fully voiced dialog, the quality suffered, and so did the game's immersion; and it made mods much harder to make seamless. I personally felt the gravelly growl of "Die, fetcher!" to feel much more hostile than Generic Voice #2 blabbering on and on that "Your presence here will not be tolerated!"

Puck is, I think, correct. Good voice acting can't carry bad writing, but bad voice acting can ruin an otherwise good experience.

[Grendus]

I must remind this thread of the superb voice acting in the Half Life games. But then again this is Valve, the company that really takes too long polishing things.

True. Then again, the Half Life games were very linear, so they never ran into the "holy crap, the player could do things out of order and this wouldn't make sense" fiasco the guy described. Plus most of the voice acting in Valve games (let's not forget about Portal, which had equally incredible voice acting) is simply background noise. Once you reach a scripted event, the NPC's start walking around and talking. You can follow them, or you can run around and do your own thing. It's not like you're sitting there, waiting impatiently for the guy to shut up because you already read the subtitles and he talks really... EFFING... SLOW!!!

[Duke 2.0]

 Perhaps that is the element missing? Retaining freedom while those NPC's are running their mouthes? It seems prevalent in Morrowind, where the voice acting does nothing to stop you to listen to it. And ultimately is is a very nice tool to use for conveying information without gluing down the player.

[ILikePie]

Once you reach a scripted event, the NPC's start walking around and talking. You can follow them, or you can run around and do your own thing. It's not like you're sitting there, waiting impatiently for the guy to shut up because you already read the subtitles and he talks really... EFFING... SLOW!!!

When I saw this thread Half Life 2 was the first thing that came to mind. The voice acting here actually adds to the story, the body language that come with it is also something you can't get with simple text. The amount of emotion that the characters show in the story sequences is incredible, and it owes everything to the superb voice acting. Text has its upsides, and its got many, but nothing can contend with great voice acting.

[Onlyhestands]

I don't care for voice acting, unless it is well done and used as a greeting,one liners, or important conversions (A la Planescape, Baldurs gate). Normally I read much faster than the voices anyways so I click through it if at all possible. The voice acting in Planescape and Baldursgate was so good (especially Minsc  ) that I listened through most of it.
I think a great example of awful use of voice acting is in Oblivion, where people change voice mid conversation, and with all the extra voice acting the fact that they only had a few voice actors was much more apparent and noticeable than in Morrowind.