For context, Larian Studio founder Swen Vincke predicted that the game could reach 100,000 peak concurrent users during its debut period, and that was a fairly optimistic prediction. I work in IT, and really feel for those folks. I hope they designed their infrastructure to scale!
And that’s only Steam, not including GOG, or the influx of PS5 users next month. Let’s take it to 1 million!
I still think having it fully voiced makes it lighter than it could be if conversations were entirely text. Even the longest speeches in BG3 pale in comparison to random idle banter found in a tavern of BG2. There’s just more of it. More dialogue, more lore, more background… If they could do that, and still have that density, that but still be fully voiced, that would be the dream.
Would need to lean on AI for something like that, I think. Keep the normal human-acted main cast/supporting characters, delegate everything else to AI.
It’s already been done with a Skyrim mod.
I mean, good compression and a huge budget for VAs would also accomplish it. The limiting factors are really just cost and storage space of the files. Like they probably pay the devs $35/hour and that sounds good; but a big name actor like JK Simmons probably gets like $1000/hour for his work as Ketheric.
Personally, I don’t mind reading and I wish we’d get more games that don’t require voice acting for everything. It’d allow them to do so much more with a lot less. I do think at some point we’ll get that that point with synthesized voices, but it isn’t quite there yet. I’ve used several in Ludum Dare games, and they sound great but not perfect. Still, even as they are if they let devs write more and create more options, I’d take it. Adding options with voice acting balloons work required fast, so that’s why it’s so often fake choice but the other person responds similarly no matter what you say.