When will QFG II Trial by Fire VGA + final be done?

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Grand Dad
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#226 Post by Grand Dad » Fri Nov 23, 2007 7:51 pm

rabadi wrote:
Grand Dad wrote:Well yes that's precisly my point. Am an old man, with my time running out! Will it be released in my lifetime? |I  :)
OT: Hi, do you happen to be the same Grand Dad from Abandonia forum?
Yes the very same  :lol and also QFMG! Good to see you here :)!

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#227 Post by Fribbi » Mon Nov 26, 2007 8:01 am

You'll find quite a bit. I know I sure did!

Yes I have seen that gamelist before. Most of them who was working on those game has quited.
Speech for QG2 would be odd, especially considering just how many characters there and the team would have to hunt down voice actors from QG5  
It is 2007 so everthing are possible now so the voicepack can be done but it will still take a lot of times but I agree it would be weird if Quest for glory had voicepack but it can also be great, don't you think?

QG1VGA with no voicepack
Qg2VGA with voicepack,
Qg3 with no voicepack,
Qg4VGA with voicepack,
Qg5VGA with voicepack.

I mean who cares if there is voicepack or no voicepack included in those games. If you don't like the game with voicepack then don't download it then. Simple!
______________________________________________________

So my old friends from AGDinteractive are still working on the game hehe. I just hope I don't have to wait another year for this for nothing. Just to remind you my friend the times are running out if you are going to release it in this year. ;)  Don't disapoint me again!
___________________________________________-

Hey guess what I have be seeing a old collection games from Sierra in icelandic computergames's store lately like King Quest, Leisure suit Larry and Space Quest. But I didn't see any Quest for glory collections.  I saw too old classic Lucasarts games like Monkey Island and The days of Tentacle.
________________________
So that means you won your fight for justice hehe. The old classic game are back on store in Europe.  And that is what you always wanted right?

I think all Sierra fans should thank AGDinteractive team and their fans for this because that was our own goal to rewoke all of those classic game again and get them back to resale. Hip hip hip Hurray for AGDInteractive team and for U2. ...huh oh you misunderstood me again. I ment not the Irish music band U2, I ment for you all.

Now where is the exit button again..oh here it is. See ya again in December wich is btw my own favourite month..and you should already know why...welll if you don't know me ..my birthday is on 10 december hehe. :lol  and then I will finally get my PS3 as a present gift whoooohooo! :p

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#228 Post by Grand Dad » Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:57 am

Yes a Voice Pack is not really necessary and it'll further delay it's release. After all we've playing QFG I to IV (mine is the 'floppy' version) without any Voice :)!


PEACE!!!

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#229 Post by Fribbi » Tue Nov 27, 2007 1:57 pm

It is not really necessary yes but I believe there are some people in this world who would like the game with voicepack but they in AGDI could make that voicepack when they have finally finish working on the game itself. Don't forget they are maybe working on more than one game right now. ;)

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#230 Post by Kurdt » Tue Nov 27, 2007 6:25 pm

I always push for voice packs in games. The added dimension of hearing that character's voice, of seeing how that actor's interpretation of that character fits in with the character and the tapestry of the game's world and adds to the deeply rich experience of a good game, is highly appetizing to me. It's also the area in which I shine and the area in which I work professionally, so I tend to focus on that (along with the writing, my other professional area) whenever I play or produce any game. A game without a voice pack that wasn't made before their advent just seems quiet to me. I had that problem with SQ5, actually.

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#231 Post by greensenshi » Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:42 pm

And for those of us who are nearly blind, the voices let us hear what's being said without having to put our faces against the screen.  But that is completely up to AGDI.  I would be happy without a voicepack, and they've already said they wouldn't because of the massive amount of dialog in the game.

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#232 Post by Erpy » Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:14 pm

QFG2VGA won't have a voicepack. For normal adventures, where clicking on an NPC results in one to three lines of dialogue, this is fairly feasible, but for a game with dozens of NPC's, each with dozens of dialog lines, the amount of work is simply not worth the time it'd take to produce.

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#233 Post by antonyo » Wed Nov 28, 2007 12:07 am

Plus it would be VERY wierd if QFG2 had voice, when QFG1 and QFG3 do not.
Weirdness is not a reason to level downward.

Speech would be great, but to respect those who gave their time to voice characters, a speech pack must be released at the same time as the game, not a couple months after, to benefit from the hype and coverage, and we have waited too long for qfg2vga already to add more delay, I would rather play it earlier and without speech than wait an additionnal 6 months to have speech.

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#234 Post by Kurdt » Wed Nov 28, 2007 3:36 am

Erpy wrote:QFG2VGA won't have a voicepack. For normal adventures, where clicking on an NPC results in one to three lines of dialogue, this is fairly feasible, but for a game with dozens of NPC's, each with dozens of dialog lines, the amount of work is simply not worth the time it'd take to produce.
Well, I personally would disagree with this, but in the end it's always up to those developing the game. Anyone who would fault a company for artistic preference is a tool. AGDI's made its stance on the voice pack known since before production started on this game and they're ones to stick with what they say. I was simply giving my views on voice packs in general. I never think it's too much work. I used to think the file size was something to worry about, but I think enough people have high speed internet or are able to utilize programs like GetRight these days to where that should never be a deterrent. To me, an actor's vocal expression connects me to the characters in a much deeper level. Sometimes, that's the only reason I care about them.

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#235 Post by Anonymous Game Creator 2 » Wed Nov 28, 2007 4:32 am

Most likely, we'll set the game up for the possibility of using a voice pack in the future, but without making the promise of ever releasing one.  We never originally had plans to make a KQ2VGA voice pack either. So it's good to keep the option open, just in case the situation ever changes.

I would not have any personal problem with adding voices to this game, and I actually believe of all the games we've remade so far, this one would be the one that justifies having speech the most. But as Erpy says, there's a LOT of lines and it would be an immense amount of work to implement.  The main issues with a voice pack would be:

1) Having learned what we've learned over the years from making games, I'd want to record the dialogue professionally and get actors to do the voices, not people from the Internet who's recording quality levels vary too greatly. To do QFG2VGA justice, voice recordings would have to be treated from beginning to end as a totally professional production. If you compromise on the quality of something like voices or take shortcuts, then it's not worth even doing a voice pack.

2) Speech would have to be lipsynched. I just can't get used to hearing and seeing voices playing out-of-sync with the characters' mouth movements anymore. With the amount of spoken dialogue lines QFG2VGA has, this would be a monstrous task (It probably contains roughly about the same amount of spoken dialogue as Al Emmo, which took about 2 months of daily work to lipsynch).  Lipsynching QFG2VGA's speech lines would take quite a long time.

The only way all of the above would really be possible for a free game, is if it were a funded project, to justify the extra work it'd take and for hiring actors and studio time etc.  So let's just hope I win the lottery (and I don't think there's a high chance of that, since I don't buy tickets).

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#236 Post by Gronagor » Wed Nov 28, 2007 7:22 am

There you go... you just gave the fans a reason to help with funding... for voice actors!

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#237 Post by MacGyver » Wed Nov 28, 2007 5:29 pm

I wonder what Vivendi will say about the funding. Perhaps a prior approval from them before you could consider it.

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#238 Post by Anonymous Game Creator 2 » Wed Nov 28, 2007 5:58 pm

Well, we're allowed to pay other people to work on the games for us, we're just not allowed to profit from them ourselves.

So theoretically, it wouldn't matter where the money came from, just as long as A) we weren't keeping it as reimbursement; and B) that 100% of it was channeled into the voice production costs.

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#239 Post by Erpy » Wed Nov 28, 2007 6:21 pm

Personally, I wouldn't feel very comfy about it...it would blur the line between profit and non-profit a tad too much. And then there'd still be the lip-syncing. I prefer bugfixing far and wide over THAT activity.

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#240 Post by Anonymous Game Creator 2 » Thu Nov 29, 2007 2:20 am

AGDI's a registered non-profit LLC, so any money that would come in from such sources would have to be accounted for, and IMO, this would be proof enough that the money's being used only for a legitimate non-profit purpose which can be proven in the accounting/tax records etc. It's really not that different to someone having a "donate to keep our website running" button on their page.

I can handle some lipsynching, and money could also be used to pay others to do some lipsynching too. But the fact that it's an unfavorable job is the same reason why I mentioned a voice pack would not really possible unless it was a funded project. I couldn't really justify all the extra time it'd take to put the work into something that's going to take many extra months, and also end up being out of pocket from it.

But, I'm guessing we won't even have to worry about any of this. I'm sure people will be satisfied with the text-only game version once they've played it. :)

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#241 Post by greensenshi » Thu Nov 29, 2007 3:47 am

Oh yes, I know I will.

Just out of curiosity, when you talk about lipsyncing, is part of that work involved redoing the mouth animations in the close-ups to match the words being spoken?  Did you already add in mouth movements in the game for the sake of giving the illusion that they're talking?

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#242 Post by Anonymous Game Creator 2 » Thu Nov 29, 2007 4:34 am

Yes, there are mouth movements in QFG2VGA. But for lipsynching purposes, a certain procedure must be followed which differs from regular dialogue portraits.

With normal dialogue portraits, you can get away with using 4 or 5 mouth frames per character. The thing I don't like about this approach is that the same sequence of frames are repeated over and over, and they always loop at the same speed. Lip movements don't match the sound the characters' voice is producing at the time, the character's mouth doesn't stop moving when there's a pause in their speech, and certain lip positions are not held in place for the duration of the sound that's being spoken.  Basically, it looks like the character it chewing gum, rather than speaking, and a voice is merely playing alongside it. (This is how it looked in KQ1VGA and KQ2VGA).

Lipsynching the lines, on the other hand, requires that 9 mouth frames be created for each character. These 9 frames represent phonemes (i.e. phonetic sounds which are produced when we speak). The lip positions in each frame are representative of these sounds. For example: A, E/I, U/W, O, Z/T/S, C/K/G, L, B/M/P and ZH (which represents the "mouth closed" position) .  In reality, there are many more than 9 phonemes, but for the sake of lipsyncing a game, many phonemes can share the same frames where the mouth positions look similar.

That's the easy part. The hard bit is using a program called Pamela to individually and manually add each mouth position (phoneme) to every single speech line in the game. On average, it takes 5 minutes or so to lipsynch a line that runs for approximately 5 seconds. The general rule of thumb is to allow one minute to lipsynch one second of audio (but the longer a line runs for, the more time this process inevitably takes, as more phonemes have to be placed and moved into position).

Then, if you take into account that there's literally thousands of speech lines in the game AND the fact that the Pamela program is unstable and prone to frequent crashes (often resulting in the loss of work),  you begin to comprehend why it's a frustrating and time-consuming process.  If you thought watching grass grow or watching paint dry was a good definition for the word "boring", well, lipsynching makes both of those things seem like a day at the Playboy Mansion.

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#243 Post by Blackthorne519 » Thu Nov 29, 2007 5:15 am

This is a great conversation about game development.

And, just to say, I'd donate money to pay for the reecording of a voice-pack.  Anything to encourage and further game making of this sort.


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#244 Post by Gronagor » Thu Nov 29, 2007 1:01 pm

Hmmm... good. So... which celebrities can we consider for which characters? :P

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#245 Post by techie775 » Thu Nov 29, 2007 9:53 pm

well you'd have to get john rhys davies. He was awesome as the narrator.

Yeah I know he didn't enjoying doing qfg4 but since this is all hypothetical why not say that?

I really liked Jennifer Hale too. She did an awesome job with Katrina. Maybe she could do Zayishah?

I'm sure you could have someone famous do Alicha and Ali Farik (think that's his name) someone who's really funny and could talk fast. Their only there for three days.

Who was the guy who did Ad Avis in qfg4? That be awesome if he could do qfg2.

Whatever, just the fact that you guys are still working on qfg2vga is awesome.

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#246 Post by DrJones » Fri Nov 30, 2007 10:52 am

How about Groucho for the Saurus Salesman? It will be difficult for him since he is dead, but the fortune that would be spent on him could be used in writing a speech program that got his voice from clips of his movies/radio serials. :p

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#247 Post by rich_eter » Fri Nov 30, 2007 11:01 am

I'd love to see a voice pack... but then... I would with any game... lip sync or no. (Is Al Emmo the only AGS game to actually utilize full lip sync?) Nevertheless, I guarantee that this game does not need a voice pack. Even without a voice pack... it will be the best free downloaded game of all time! I am 100% positive of this. You are all in for a treat.

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#248 Post by Grand Dad » Fri Nov 30, 2007 2:51 pm

I honestly feel that all the above is good for discussion, but I'd rather have the VGA game than voice which must either be very good or not at all.
I wish the Producers all the LUCK and wishes!

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#249 Post by gamecreator » Fri Nov 30, 2007 5:20 pm

Grand Dad wrote:I'd rather have the VGA game than voice which must either be very good or not at all.
I strongly agree with this.  If the voices are amateur or "wrong," it drops my immersion in the game completely.

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#250 Post by Anonymous Game Creator 2 » Fri Nov 30, 2007 6:09 pm

I think that only applies if you're being forced to listen to the voices. If you have the option to turn them off, then that's really a moot point.

However, if voices were done for this game then we would want to get them recorded properly, hence my earlier statements. Somehow I don't think John Rhys Davies would be affordable (especially not after his LOTR appearances). And I don't think he'd particularly suit the brighter atmosphere of QFG2 as well as he suited the Gothic and darker one of QFG4.

I also think getting it right has much more to do with matching the voices to appropriate actors over getting big names. Most big name actors are not actually voice actors, and many trained voice actors  get pretty agitated when their potential jobs are constantly being snapped up by popular Hollywood actors.  Many talented voice actors aren't well-known at all, but they can often match and exceed well-known actors at voice talent. That's the fun of a casting process - finding the right person for the job, not the most well-known.

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