Im going to open with the main point in this thread, this game has too much text and not enough audible voice.
You get some background noise when you are inside stations about speeding, avoiding collisions and such'n'such but its not directed at the player so doesn't count.
There are only two things in this game that speak to the player to form meaningful interaction. The ships computer (what's her name?) and the traffic controller that gives me docking permission.
Everything else in this game is text. I feel that the balance is not right and it could really do with less text and more voice. I have always found the audio in this game is fantastic, some of the best I have enjoyed from any game and yet it feels like there are a lot of wasted opportunities. With each new update, I notice that the sound for this ship has changed (and I actually prefer the old sound) and the sound for that menu click is a different but I find myself wondering why their sound team are spending their time changing existing audio and not spending it creating NEW audio.
The reason I raise this is becuase voice is a fairly cheap way of adding 'living people' to the game. The computational cost of rendering the polygons, materials, textures and animations for life like characters on screen is very high and this is the reason it is avoided in most games as the better it gets the more it suffers from 'uncanny valley'. Audio however, doesnt suffer from the uncanny valley problem when done right and is very cheap to compute.
There are these very brief moments in game, after I have just requested docking, and the controller responds to my action and directs me in that I feel like I just interacted with a character that actually lives in the Elite world and actually has a personality. The shame is that its so brief and it really contrasts with the whole rest of the game that lacks that personal connection with in game characters.
Npcs have the same scripted messages.. "all that tasty cargo..." "I'm gonna boil you up!".. blah blah but where's the audio? I mean how many games have you played in the last 10 years where the enemies literally made no noise and only sent a brief piece of text. This mechanism is out dated and cheap, I dont think it stands up well against what has been offered by most AAA games in the last 10 years. Even Morrowind had voiced recording for much of the dialogue and that game was released in 2002! It's such a wasted opportunity to give those pirates, wedding barges, police and convoys some actual 'living' personality.
Is addressing this even in the plan or is the current situation how it is 'gud-enuff'? I don't feel it will allow the game to hold up well in 3-4 years time when we are getting through the road map of development if compared to other modern games and the competition. Shouldn't they be focusing a little harder on this now?
You get some background noise when you are inside stations about speeding, avoiding collisions and such'n'such but its not directed at the player so doesn't count.
There are only two things in this game that speak to the player to form meaningful interaction. The ships computer (what's her name?) and the traffic controller that gives me docking permission.
Everything else in this game is text. I feel that the balance is not right and it could really do with less text and more voice. I have always found the audio in this game is fantastic, some of the best I have enjoyed from any game and yet it feels like there are a lot of wasted opportunities. With each new update, I notice that the sound for this ship has changed (and I actually prefer the old sound) and the sound for that menu click is a different but I find myself wondering why their sound team are spending their time changing existing audio and not spending it creating NEW audio.
The reason I raise this is becuase voice is a fairly cheap way of adding 'living people' to the game. The computational cost of rendering the polygons, materials, textures and animations for life like characters on screen is very high and this is the reason it is avoided in most games as the better it gets the more it suffers from 'uncanny valley'. Audio however, doesnt suffer from the uncanny valley problem when done right and is very cheap to compute.
There are these very brief moments in game, after I have just requested docking, and the controller responds to my action and directs me in that I feel like I just interacted with a character that actually lives in the Elite world and actually has a personality. The shame is that its so brief and it really contrasts with the whole rest of the game that lacks that personal connection with in game characters.
Npcs have the same scripted messages.. "all that tasty cargo..." "I'm gonna boil you up!".. blah blah but where's the audio? I mean how many games have you played in the last 10 years where the enemies literally made no noise and only sent a brief piece of text. This mechanism is out dated and cheap, I dont think it stands up well against what has been offered by most AAA games in the last 10 years. Even Morrowind had voiced recording for much of the dialogue and that game was released in 2002! It's such a wasted opportunity to give those pirates, wedding barges, police and convoys some actual 'living' personality.
Is addressing this even in the plan or is the current situation how it is 'gud-enuff'? I don't feel it will allow the game to hold up well in 3-4 years time when we are getting through the road map of development if compared to other modern games and the competition. Shouldn't they be focusing a little harder on this now?
![[VR] Frank_G](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/59/59394.jpg?1553527111){kind=avatar}
