Been playing a lot of TSW 3 these days and I've seen a lot of improvement on some routes but the voice overs mixing part really needs to be looked at. Most of the time when you start an engine in tutorials the voice over get's drowned by the noise of the engine. You need to mix these so the voice doesn't get drowned. Consistency is another issue I have with voice overs. I always cringe when I hear Matt introducing a German route. I don't have this when I hear Matt on an English route so it's not down to the voice. It's just more authentic when I hear a German route introduced with a German accent like on the base routes. Another gripe I have with voice overs is the lack of voice overs in scenarios. We get all these text boxes to read. The text is very small on a large screen. But it seems DTG knows how to do good voice overs on scenarios. I never played the GWE remake until yesterday and immediately said "that's how it should be". Please take better care on how you handle voice overs. Ask the person that was in charge of the GWE voice overs for advice.
When asked on a stream, they said that V/Os required significant planning very early in development, so the ability to change scenarios or add new scenarios later down the development stages was very difficult or even impossible. So they decided to remove them so that they had more flexibility.
Voiceovers are fine, but the triggering of them becomes tricky, especially when things get updated (and those triggers don't then get moved) Personally I don't really care about the voice, who's reading what or whether it's regional or not, but I understand the preference
I do understand it is difficult but than I also understand they want to earn money the easy way It's all about presentation and immersion. The price tags are hefty so the presentation of the products should also be in line with those price tags. I do understand the problems that can arise with changes in development are a bit weak. It's not like we are inventing video games here. There is not much to perfect on audio in video games besides realistic lip sync so it's not like it's an impossible task to get voices right in video games nowadays. I play games because they are difficult, not because they are easy
The voiceovers are great, especially the random trivia. Except for the guy talking over Cornwall (and others?) because he talks really really slowly
What’s a bit silly is that the intro/tutorial scenarios have voiceovers but none of the others do. In truth though I can probably speed read the instructions quicker than the aural read back anyway. In fact sometimes I wish they would clear off out the way so I can get on with the task at hand. I would not be averse to more voice in other areas of the game, for example when you contact the signaller have a pool of 6 or 7 voices that can speak the message as well as display on the screen. We are now getting scripted scenarios where you interact with NPC characters - let’s hear them speak.
We stopped doing VO on the scenarios because it massively hampers the ability to actually make adjustments to make sure it's fun. For there to be VO, the scenarios have to be designed and scripted before there's a usable train and likely before the route is particularly usable (it'd be fairly bare bones). We'd get VO artists in to do recordings (or muggin's here would lock himself in a cupboard, one of the two) and then drop it in the game. Cue a little later when the train is fully playable and route is where it needs to be and you realise it needs more, it isn't quite right - there's zero window now to change any of the text at all. So you either drop the bits that get changed and it looks odd or you just do without it in the first place. I'm encouraging the team to look at TTS like the one from 11labs because it sounds natural enough to me and there'd be very little lead time required so it could be dropped in right at the end once the scenario has been through several iterations. So don't be surprised if there's an experiment or two with it in the future to see how it goes. To get VO in the wider gameplay it needs much longer iteration cycles and frankly, more cost, "proper" (not me) VO isn't cheap (and neither should it be). Here's an example I just whipped up on ElevenLabs... TTS has come on a very long way. https://1drv.ms/u/s!AkDzwnnKDK9shtpWnT__-dwxU45PSw?e=sw9H3N
We have come a long way from the Amiga Voice Emulator that sounded like one of the Cylons from (the original) Battlestar Galactica!
I'm really glad you are looking in that direction as I did not want to start a debate about AI myself. TST should be able to do the job these days. Make it sound like an intercom like on GWE please and I don't know if AI can already do accents but look into that too for the German routes
Oh I have a lot of reservations about AI but only in the way people are using it. I think legality and ethics of AI will be tested (because frankly they're shocking right now), and not by me, over the next couple of years - already plenty of lawsuits springing up. BUT, it IS in a good place for experimenting, for research, to find a place. Matt.
As long as the TTS sounds better than the god-awful robotic-Valleygirl stuff you get on TikTok/Reels/Shorts videos...
