Oblivion interview - hints for FO3?

[Mr. Teatime]

<strong>[Game -> Interview]</strong> - More info on <a href="http://wikipocalypse.duckandcover.cx/in ... e=Bethesda Softworks">Company: Bethesda Softworks</a> | More info on <a href="http://wikipocalypse.duckandcover.cx/in ... le=Fallout 3 (Bethesda)">Game: Fallout 3 (Bethesda)</a> | More info on <a href="http://wikipocalypse.duckandcover.cx/in ... itle=Gavin Carter">Person: Gavin Carter</a>

Whilst a lot of <a href="http://wiki.duckandcover.cx/index.php?t ... 3">Fallout 3</a> is going to be different from <a href="http://www.elderscrolls.com">Oblivion</a>, there are some things that the games will share. A new interview with <strong>Gavin "Kathode" Carter</strong> <a href="http://gamesfirst.com/v4/index.php?m=l&i=419">at GamesFirst</a> gives some hints (well, one, but it's a slow news day):

<blockquote><em><strong> GamesFirst!: How have the NPCs been revamped for Oblivion as opposed to Morrowind?



Gavin Carter:</strong> Reworking our NPCs is a major focus for us with
Oblivion. Everything about NPCs has been redone from the ground up. <strong>For
starters, all of their dialog is fully voiced.</strong> Being able to actually
hear the characters speak out loud really adds to the atmosphere. We're
making revisions to how dialog functions in the game as well. Gone are
the encyclopedic database characters of Morrowind who had lists of
generic topics that scrolled off the screen. We're trying hard to give
all NPCs a sense of personality and keeping their topics down to things
that are interesting and unique. The dialog system itself has been
revamped to remove the hyperlink-style keywords sprinkled in among the
dialog. You're now presented with topics and dialog choices in between
NPC dialogs. We find this helps you focus on the information (as
well as our incredible facial animation system) much more, instead of
just hunting through the dialogs for the colored words like in
Morrowind.

</em></blockquote>
It's hardly likely <em>Fallout 3</em> would have used the pretty terrible dialogue system from <em>Morrowind</em>, so I think the important bit here is the part I highlighted. If <em>Oblivion</em>, with its 100 billion NPCs, is fully voice-acted, it's safe to assume that <em>Fallout 3</em> with "20 to 40 really deep
strong characters" will be fully voiced as well. If they can get the quality of the voice-overs up to the standard of <a href="http://www.vampirebloodlines.com/">Bloodlines</a>, I'll be happy.


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Spotted @ <a href="http://www.nma-fallout.com">No Mutants Allowed</a>

[Fez]

At least with Bethesda they are likely to have enough cash by now to pay for good quality voice acting. I'd rather read silent text than put up with bad VO.

The attempt to get far from the bland NPCs and dialogue of the previous title is promising for Oblivion and their FO game.

[LlamaGod]

I imagine there will only be so many voice actors and they'll be in little 'packs' so each NPC will be assigned a pack so bascially 5 NPCs will all have the same voice.

[S4ur0n27]

Does voice acted mean the NPC will say "Hail, warrior" when you approach him and "Farewell!" when you closethe dialog box?

[Frowning]

Or see you running through a village leaving a trail of NPC's saying they don't have time to speak to you, or that you should make it quick.

[Sovy Kurosei]

I imagine there will only be so many voice actors and they'll be in little 'packs' so each NPC will be assigned a pack so bascially 5 NPCs will all have the same voice.

That is what I am thinking. NPCs in WoW had something like that, except for the bit about being fully voice acted.

They are also doing away with all of the hyperlinks, so that definately looks to be a step in the right direction, away from that dreaded wiki-NPC setup they had before.

[Smiley]

Text only pls. I'm still horrified after playing KoTOR2... The voices! The voices!