EverQuest Sequel Gives Voice To NPCs, Original Turns Five 30
Thanks to GameSpot for its feature discussing plans to give full-audio speech to non-player characters in PC MMORPG sequel EverQuest II. The article points out this is "a first for online role-playing games, which have previously only featured silent characters that interact with players by sending them text chat messages", and elsewhere, a Grimwell Online article mentions a new PC Gamer magazine article specifying "an expected 130 hours of speech across 70,000 lines of dialogue", and revealing that "EQ2 is a $25 million dollar project." This new information comes as EverQuest celebrates its fifth anniversary with a multitude of developer interviews on the official site, as well as the re-activation of all old accounts until April 15th.
Re:Shhyeahhh... Rrrrright.... (Score:3, Informative)
It might be annoying if... (Score:2, Informative)
Everquest's quests are a joke, and their vendors are largely ignored. Adding voice is just throwing more money into development, in an attempt to make its competitors seem less up-to-date.
It'll be interesting to see if they are spending for the kind of voice talent that they managed for Lords of Everquest [imdb.com], or if they're just doing it half-assed to say they did it.
*bzzzt* wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Actually this isn't a joke (Score:3, Informative)
You'll have to be a member (free membership) to get it there, but it's mirrored at other places around the web, including a few fan sites (such as EQii.com [eqii.com]).
I watched it yesterday -- it's quite excellent.