Owlcat's next game is an AAA title that will need full voice acting to compete with BG3

[luj1]

Seriously codexers are so blinded by the culture wars they completely deny all the amazing things BG3 does.

What amazing things brother? It's literally Dragon Age. You like Dragon Age?

Dragon Age Origins was okay imo.

So basically Dragon Age Origins with better encounter design? You need to understand that the people who dislike these types of games with cinematic dialogue are logically going to dislike BG3 as well.

 

[Space Satan]

I remember how Satellite Reign devs struggled with motion capture and then bought several trackers from game consoles, glued them to guys and recorded that in their garage.

 

[Space Satan]

Also, there were a fun story from Russian localizaton community. Some guy said that it will cost several millions $ to fully voice some AAA game and added calculations. An вру became famous because everybody laughed at him, because at the same time other guys used crowdfunding or BuyMeACoffee to just push it through neural network and only asked for some bucks to buy pizzas and some expenses. And their voicing were awesome, to be frank, with emotions, tones, etc. Even rudimentary voicing progs and soft are capable of simulating a needed tone and voicу if people know how to adjust it.

 

[Decado]

If they are competing with BG3 they already lost, tbh.

Find it amusing how BG3 collectively crushed the confidence of so many other developers. Can't say I have seen that happen before - the resentment for their success.

I was thinking about this as well. It's like nobody has any confidence in their vision for anything they are making. They all think "Oh shit, now we have to compete with Baldur's Gate 3?!?!".

No, you don't. You can't. Nobody can, that's the point. BG3 was lightning in a bottle, like Helldivers 2, or World of Warcraft. Just keep making the game you were going to make, grind it out, and believe in it. Jesus Christ. Find your testicles.

Yeah, but you would think this would be a good thing regardless, even if they can't reach BG3s "standards", since it shows that RPG making can and is profitable. I'm sure there are a lot of spillovers too, for gamers that want more. I know I work in that way. However, Owlcat is only whining... It's weird.

The other thing to remember about BG3 is that they started on it in 2017. That's six years of development, at least. I'm guessing only slightly here, but I'd wager that companies of Owlcat's size do not have the luxury of working on a game for six years -- and indeed, it seems like they move at a rapid clip to push games out (which shows). Obsidian was able to push PoE out in three years, which seems remarkable almost 10 years later.

So while BG3 was profitable, let's look at Call of Duty Vanguard again. It was developed in less than 4 years and sold three times as many copies as BG3.

Again I'm guessing here, but if I were a AAA developer/publisher, the success of BG3 would not be blowing any major air up my skirt. It made money, but it took a long time to develop and relatively speaking there are more lucrative genres to chase after. Which means RPGs will likely remain the purview of specialized, smaller development shops who know how to make them.

 

[ZoddGuts]

Shit like AI VO exist to fix this issue.

 

[scytheavatar]

If they are competing with BG3 they already lost, tbh.

Find it amusing how BG3 collectively crushed the confidence of so many other developers. Can't say I have seen that happen before - the resentment for their success.

I was thinking about this as well. It's like nobody has any confidence in their vision for anything they are making. They all think "Oh shit, now we have to compete with Baldur's Gate 3?!?!".

No, you don't. You can't. Nobody can, that's the point. BG3 was lightning in a bottle, like Helldivers 2, or World of Warcraft. Just keep making the game you were going to make, grind it out, and believe in it. Jesus Christ. Find your testicles.

Yeah, but you would think this would be a good thing regardless, even if they can't reach BG3s "standards", since it shows that RPG making can and is profitable. I'm sure there are a lot of spillovers too, for gamers that want more. I know I work in that way. However, Owlcat is only whining... It's weird.

The other thing to remember about BG3 is that they started on it in 2017. That's six years of development, at least. I'm guessing only slightly here, but I'd wager that companies of Owlcat's size do not have the luxury of working on a game for six years -- and indeed, it seems like they move at a rapid clip to push games out (which shows). Obsidian was able to push PoE out in three years, which seems remarkable almost 10 years later.

So while BG3 was profitable, let's look at Call of Duty Vanguard again. It was developed in less than 4 years and sold three times as many copies as BG3.

Again I'm guessing here, but if I were a AAA developer/publisher, the success of BG3 would not be blowing any major air up my skirt. It made money, but it took a long time to develop and relatively speaking there are more lucrative genres to chase after. Which means RPGs will likely remain the purview of specialized, smaller development shops who know how to make them.

Source that Vanguard sold 3 times as many as BG3? AFAIK sales figures for Vanguard was never made public and Activision had to apologize to shareholders for the game underperforming.

Also they did not start development of BG3 in 2017. They pitched BG3 to WOTC after the release of DOS2 but it wasn't until 1 year after the pitch that the contract was signed allowing Larian to make BG3.

 

[Decado]

Actually you are correct and I'm wrong. I mixed up my Call of Doodoos. Vanguard came in at like 12m sold, but that number is not official.

Modern Warfare came in at 30m units sold. But that's actually even worse because that game was in development for 3 years. That's a pretty great rate of return, if you're a shareholder.

 

[Morality Games]

If they are competing with BG3 they already lost, tbh.

Find it amusing how BG3 collectively crushed the confidence of so many other developers. Can't say I have seen that happen before - the resentment for their success.

I was thinking about this as well. It's like nobody has any confidence in their vision for anything they are making. They all think "Oh shit, now we have to compete with Baldur's Gate 3?!?!".

No, you don't. You can't. Nobody can, that's the point. BG3 was lightning in a bottle, like Helldivers 2, or World of Warcraft. Just keep making the game you were going to make, grind it out, and believe in it. Jesus Christ. Find your testicles.

Yeah, but you would think this would be a good thing regardless, even if they can't reach BG3s "standards", since it shows that RPG making can and is profitable. I'm sure there are a lot of spillovers too, for gamers that want more. I know I work in that way. However, Owlcat is only whining... It's weird.

The other thing to remember about BG3 is that they started on it in 2017. That's six years of development, at least. I'm guessing only slightly here, but I'd wager that companies of Owlcat's size do not have the luxury of working on a game for six years -- and indeed, it seems like they move at a rapid clip to push games out (which shows). Obsidian was able to push PoE out in three years, which seems remarkable almost 10 years later.

So while BG3 was profitable, let's look at Call of Duty Vanguard again. It was developed in less than 4 years and sold three times as many copies as BG3.

Again I'm guessing here, but if I were a AAA developer/publisher, the success of BG3 would not be blowing any major air up my skirt. It made money, but it took a long time to develop and relatively speaking there are more lucrative genres to chase after. Which means RPGs will likely remain the purview of specialized, smaller development shops who know how to make them.

It's a fair point, but any genre that can move 10 million+ units at full price can't really be ignored (or shouldn't be -- publishers can and have ignored anything for any reason), and if BG3 hasn't sold 20 million units yet, it eventually will.

 

[Space Satan]

I ALWAYS approve and like when some niche developer have a success and then can invest in bigger games. Remember hat Larian started quite low and then grew to make a BG3. SO if there will be as much of such devs as possible the probablilityof them making good games increases. There will be failures but there will be successes as well.
So let them make heir own AAA game and we'll see how they'll fare and if they learned from past mistakes.

 

[ArchAngel]

I ALWAYS approve and like when some niche developer have a success and then can invest in bigger games. Remember hat Larian started quite low and then grew to make a BG3. SO if there will be as much of such devs as possible the probablilityof them making good games increases. There will be failures but there will be successes as well.
So let them make heir own AAA game and we'll see how they'll fare and if they learned from past mistakes.

I have yet to see a single studio that moved from smaller games into AAA where those AAA were better than their previous works.

 

[Gargaune]

Obsidian was able to push PoE out in three years, which seems remarkable almost 10 years later.

I don't follow. The original Baldur's Gate was developed in three years, including the Infinity Engine itself, and Shadows of Amn was made in a bit under two. Obsidian taking three years on the less impressive Pillars of Eternity on a middleware engine doesn't strike me as all that remarkable. Comparing to Larian's BG3 doesn't seem appropriate since the scope of the visual work is completely different.

 

[HumanMaleFighter]

If the voices don't have to be perfect -- and let's face it, most voice actors are nothing special at all -- it's just a matter of time before AI-generated voiceovers become the obvious way to go. The tech is almost ready; a year or two from now, rather than spend millions of dollars and countless hours on cringe voice actors, you could just have Nvidia's data center take care of it in an afternoon. It's like a win-win. Except for the voice actors, who should Learn To Code.

In a few years, human-voiced games like BG3 will seem quaint.

BTW, if that piece of shit Solasta was actually voiced by humans, I think that an AI could do a better job today.

 

[Decado]

If they are competing with BG3 they already lost, tbh.

Find it amusing how BG3 collectively crushed the confidence of so many other developers. Can't say I have seen that happen before - the resentment for their success.

I was thinking about this as well. It's like nobody has any confidence in their vision for anything they are making. They all think "Oh shit, now we have to compete with Baldur's Gate 3?!?!".

No, you don't. You can't. Nobody can, that's the point. BG3 was lightning in a bottle, like Helldivers 2, or World of Warcraft. Just keep making the game you were going to make, grind it out, and believe in it. Jesus Christ. Find your testicles.

Yeah, but you would think this would be a good thing regardless, even if they can't reach BG3s "standards", since it shows that RPG making can and is profitable. I'm sure there are a lot of spillovers too, for gamers that want more. I know I work in that way. However, Owlcat is only whining... It's weird.

The other thing to remember about BG3 is that they started on it in 2017. That's six years of development, at least. I'm guessing only slightly here, but I'd wager that companies of Owlcat's size do not have the luxury of working on a game for six years -- and indeed, it seems like they move at a rapid clip to push games out (which shows). Obsidian was able to push PoE out in three years, which seems remarkable almost 10 years later.

So while BG3 was profitable, let's look at Call of Duty Vanguard again. It was developed in less than 4 years and sold three times as many copies as BG3.

Again I'm guessing here, but if I were a AAA developer/publisher, the success of BG3 would not be blowing any major air up my skirt. It made money, but it took a long time to develop and relatively speaking there are more lucrative genres to chase after. Which means RPGs will likely remain the purview of specialized, smaller development shops who know how to make them.

It's a fair point, but any genre that can move 10 million+ units at full price can't really be ignored (or shouldn't be -- publishers can and have ignored anything for any reason), and if BG3 hasn't sold 20 million units yet, it eventually will.

Well, I agree it shouldn't be ignored. I just think it's not likely to influence the major AAA publishers into doing something out of their comfort zone, because it's not a good bet for them financially. Which is, of course, part of the problem.

Anyway, the main takeaway for BG3 -- from a business perspective -- is that it was a very rare situation, a combination of many factors that is not likely to be repeated anytime soon. You had a developer who was already making RPGs, working with one of the biggest licensing brands in the world (Hasbro/Wizards), on a beloved game that has reached mainstream popularity (even though its current form is pure libshit propaganda), and leaning heavily on the nostalgia promised by its forbearer that happens to be regarded in many circles as the best RPG ever made.

I mean, I think there's a reason Sven doesn't want to make BG4.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

Reject endless walls of text and failed dev novella excerpts that add nothing of value. Retvrn to oral tradition. The human voice is the best conveyor of emotion and conviction. If developers want to compete with the big boys they cannot ignore this reality going forward. The talkies are here, silent is dead, get with the fucking times.

Nothing to do with whether one can stomach reading, have done for years, have done with and without voiceover available. I'm also not in the business of dismissing tiny devs who can't afford more than concise well-written text for their games, however, I'm also not going to pretend like their games wouldn't be massively elevated by having good voice acting. If you can afford it, do it. Don't give a shit about mo-cap or Hollywood retards, that's irrelevant fluff. It isn't new tech, it isn't a bold new frontier in games, it's shit that's been around since the late 90s. If you're an established entity, pay an intern to hold tryouts, create your own little rollodex of 20-30 talented no-names to call up. Guaranteed there's many people in pointless positions that can be fired to cover the cost. Start with the DEI department.

 

[Fedora Master]

Knowing Owlcat, half the time the dialogue wouldn't match the actual line until 10 patches in.

 

[Cryomancer]

I have yet to see a single studio that moved from smaller games into AAA where those AAA were better than their previous works.

Yes. Larian.

DOS2 is much worse than BG3.

Anyway, after Rt I don't wanna OwlCat to make their own system anymore. I wanna them adapting a retroclone

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

No, not Larian. Divine Divinity is better than any of their slop released in the last 10 years

 

[Baron Tahn]

Was that the Dragon Commander one? That was their best that I remember. I might not have played Divine.

 

[VerSacrum]

I told you they would take the wrong lessons from BG3.

You never take the right lessons mate. It's just not the way it works.

Morrowind saved Bethesda from bankruptcy. And what did they do with Oblivion? Everything opposite.

Obviously Oblivion was decline but from a financial perspective a big success. And Skyrim truly made them a shitload of money.

 

[ArchAngel]

I have yet to see a single studio that moved from smaller games into AAA where those AAA were better than their previous works.

Yes. Larian.

DOS2 is much worse than BG3.

Anyway, after Rt I don't wanna OwlCat to make their own system anymore. I wanna them adapting a retroclone

If both are bad that is not a positive example. Larian was making bad games before moving to AAA.

 

[luj1]

I told you they would take the wrong lessons from BG3.

You never take the right lessons mate. It's just not the way it works.

Morrowind saved Bethesda from bankruptcy. And what did they do with Oblivion? Everything opposite.

Obviously Oblivion was decline but from a financial perspective a big success. And Skyrim truly made them a shitload of money.

And what? It could have made them a shitload of money whilst actually being good.

 

[scytheavatar]

Swen talking about wanting to make "the very big RPG that will dwarf them all" makes me wonder, does Owlcat aim to do the same thing? Cause you can shit on Larian for not innovating and just improving the packing of their products, but you cannot deny that they are constantly doing the latter. They are sending the production values of their games to the next level and constantly adding new tech to their engine. Meanwhile Owlcat seems happy to be hiring more and more people to produce games that don't actually look more impressive than Kingmaker.

 

[Robber Baron]

The problem with Owlcat graphics is not the graphics itself but the shitty mobile tier artstyle (because they were MY.COM at their origin member?) - it's generic, it's safe, it's trash and it's everywhere nowadays. You can have low end graphics but still save it with artstyle - but they dont, worse thing they have great portraits but they NEVER do them justice in 3d. Such a waste. I really wanted to like Rogue Trader but after Darktide you just can't take their decision of 3d art direction seriously, they simply didn't respect the source material enough to bother with anything more than a simple Kingmaker model swap

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

This is pure incline, full voiceover will force them to contain verbal diarrhea to minimum.

Change my mind.

 

[d1r]

The problem with Owlcat graphics is not the graphics itself but the shitty mobile tier artstyle (because they were MY.COM at their origin member?) - it's generic, it's safe, it's trash and it's everywhere nowadays. You can have low end graphics but still save it with artstyle - but they dont, worse thing they have great portraits but they NEVER do them justice in 3d. Such a waste. I really wanted to like Rogue Trader but after Darktide you just can't take their decision of 3d art direction seriously, they simply didn't respect the source material enough to bother with anything more than a simple Kingmaker model swap

Nearest neighbour low poly 3d graphics were absolute incline.