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[Defianc4]

I actually found the German voice acting combined with subtitles to one of Nehrim's strengths. this is for a number of reasons:

1) The German voice acting was high-quality. This made for an engrossing experience as I enjoyed hearing professionals slide their tongues around the rough German consonants with ease. It was quite a therapeutic during the gentle moments, and rather frightening during the dramatic scenes, akin to Germanic berzerkers charging a bewildered Roman legion.

Which brings me to my next point.

2) In America, the German language is quite exotic and romantic, and thus lends itself to Fantasy. Think of the appeal of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Most Americans speak only English and/or a little of the Latin languages, so the faintly familiar sound of German has its own special appeal. It's more difficult for Europeans to understand the appeal when the border is a daily piece of life only a couple of miles away, but the US is so big that a great deal of people don't visit other countries until they are adults, and that country tends to be Canada, which is not much different. Consequently, other European languages tend to be romanticized, earning titles such as The Language of the Gods. Thank Wagner for that.

3) Mediocre English voice acting is painfully bad. This was one of Skyrim's mistakes; sometimes the voice acting did more harm than good when it came to world immersion, and at best did nothing to help. The Witcher committed this sin on an even greater scale; I literally skipped through half of the game's dialogue because I couldn't bear to listen to the disengaged, dispassionate voices assailing me.

So that's why I found Nehrim's top-tier German voice acting to be far more impactful than the voice acting in games like Skyrim and (god forbid) The Witcher.

Add on top of that the significant cost of English voice acting and you have yourself a win-win decision in favour of German voices.

[iZsoul]

Ahh I must agree on this one.
Instead of making an English voice acting make the landmass bigger !

[Crosshair]

How do the other people here think about this? Please tell us what comes into your mind concerning english voice acting and Defianc4's opinions.
P. S. We plan to offer a german version in any case.

[Nicolas Samuel]

Hi!

we've thought about this quite a lot. For now though, we've decided in favor of English voice acting. To me, it sounds like you're afraid that the quality of Enderal will suffer if we create an English version. I can assure you, though, that this won't be the case, since our translators are not part of the core team which builds Enderal. So, they'll be working on the translation at the same time we'll be working on Enderal. We'll try to achieve a similar voice acting quality like the quality we had in Nehrim, and the German version will probably be released a couple of weeks/months sooner than the English version - So, if you enjoyed the German-speaking voice actors, we might release an English-text only version of Enderal. Shouldn't be too much work.

And, you can be sure, that we'll try to achieve a similar quality for the English voice actors.

All the best,

Latiro

[mandos]

Hmm i must say that now that i think about i can agree with Defianc4. I dont speak german and im not american, and when i was playing Nehrim it came to me absolutely immersive and natural that those characters spoke a language i could not understand at all. Somebody here wrote a piece about it already so i wont go on too much about it, let me just say that it would be neat if you could choose from German or English voice acting (you are making both right?), and with adequate sets of subtitles so that everybody will be able to tune it to their liking

[badgesareus]

Somebody here wrote a piece about it already

Perhaps this one?
http://www.sureai.net/forum/viewtopic.p ... 115#p51108

As an American, I can understand either the English voice or subtitles without a problem. Perhaps it would be useful to hear more from those in other countries who are not native speakers of English but who play the "English" version of the game. Is it easier for them to understand the spoken English or to read the written English? Of course, if you have spoken English and English text as well, it wouldn't matter.

Would it be possible to install the game with German voice and English text, or would English text only be available when installing the English voice version? Or perhaps there is someone who would like the English voice with German text?

[iZsoul]

Well that is a good thing to hear , I wish you a really good and fun process making Enderal , I hope the developers are enjoying it as much as the players do

And back to my old complain , BIGGER LANDMASS !

[Defianc4]

Hi!

we've thought about this quite a lot. For now though, we've decided in favor of English voice acting. To me, it sounds like you're afraid that the quality of Enderal will suffer if we create an English version. I can assure you, though, that this won't be the case, since our translators are not part of the core team which builds Enderal. So, they'll be working on the translation at the same time we'll be working on Enderal. We'll try to achieve a similar voice acting quality like the quality we had in Nehrim, and the German version will probably be released a couple of weeks/months sooner than the English version - So, if you enjoyed the German-speaking voice actors, we might release an English-text only version of Enderal. Shouldn't be too much work.

And, you can be sure, that we'll try to achieve a similar quality for the English voice actors.

All the best,

Latiro

Well, you certainly are dedicated, but if/when it comes down to the wire, I hope that you will consider my suggestion and ditch the English voice acting.

One thing I want to emphasize is the economic law of opportunity costs; the cost of expending time and resources on one part of a project is the progress you could have made by expending your time and resources on another part of a project. For instance, writing and paying a German voice actor to do an extra side quest in German is going to be more valuable than simply paying a US voice actor to re-do an existing side-quest. To chose is to lose, and I think the English Voice acting is something that you can easily afford to lose.

Besides, I just want to hear the words "Für die Freiheit der Menschen!" again.

[badgesareus]

Besides, I just want to hear the words "Für die Freiheit der Menschen!" again.

But what you will probably hear a few thousand times is "Ich bin im Dienst", unless the guards and soldiers learn a few new phrases!

[Defianc4]

And there won't be more than one line spoken by the guards if SureAI diverts its time and resources towards translation, which is part of the reason why I am writing this post.

[Bastion of Reason]

Definitely agree, German voice acting was what made Nehrim unique. It sounded exotic, I'm used to subtitles and plus I learned some German.

[evercharmer]

It was nice, playing Nehrim and hearing a language I don't speak. If there's English voice acting I'd play with that, but what I'd rather see as a priority over English voices is a full translation of in-game texts.

[Hazzmat]

If English voice acting is on par with the German then I'm okay with it.

[ChrissyP]

I actually found the German voice acting combined with subtitles to one of Nehrim's strengths. this is for a number of reasons:

1) The German voice acting was high-quality. This made for an engrossing experience as I enjoyed hearing professionals slide their tongues around the rough German consonants with ease. It was quite a therapeutic during the gentle moments, and rather frightening during the dramatic scenes, akin to Germanic berzerkers charging a bewildered Roman legion.

Which brings me to my next point.

2) In America, the German language is quite exotic and romantic, and thus lends itself to Fantasy. Think of the appeal of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Most Americans speak only English and/or a little of the Latin languages, so the faintly familiar sound of German has its own special appeal. It's more difficult for Europeans to understand the appeal when the border is a daily piece of life only a couple of miles away, but the US is so big that a great deal of people don't visit other countries until they are adults, and that country tends to be Canada, which is not much different. Consequently, other European languages tend to be romanticized, earning titles such as The Language of the Gods. Thank Wagner for that.

3) Mediocre English voice acting is painfully bad. This was one of Skyrim's mistakes; sometimes the voice acting did more harm than good when it came to world immersion, and at best did nothing to help. The Witcher committed this sin on an even greater scale; I literally skipped through half of the game's dialogue because I couldn't bear to listen to the disengaged, dispassionate voices assailing me.

So that's why I found Nehrim's top-tier German voice acting to be far more impactful than the voice acting in games like Skyrim and (god forbid) The Witcher.

Add on top of that the significant cost of English voice acting and you have yourself a win-win decision in favour of German voices.

Here, in Europe foreign languages aren't just a "couple of miles" away and moreover, the landmass of Europe is similar to that of America, we're just more sophisticated generally speaking and can handle a world where there are multiple languages involved. Quality voice acting doesn't have to be expensive or difficult to attain, in parts of Skyrim the VA was good, Ulfric Stormcloak for instance, and do you think English is his native tongue? No.

The fact that this is based in Europe actually allows for something special, it allows for accents to show through, regional accents and there's something beautiful about English being spoken by someone who's native language is another one. That's why I think with a broad range of voices available the English VA could be really really good.

[Starac]

I prefer English.

And that quality is important i don't need to say.

[badgesareus]

(we) can handle a world where there are multiple languages involved.

OMG, you're from Brooklyn NY!

[GreenWitcher]

How do the other people here think about this? Please tell us what comes into your mind concerning english voice acting and Defianc4's opinions.
P. S. We plan to offer a german version in any case.

Hey there, long time lurker/viewer here. Back in 2010/11, upon watching Nehrim Let's Plays, I was always on the edge of downloading this immediately and playing it. The world looked incredibly fleshed out, detailed, and even more organic(?), I dare say, than Oblivion itself. However, the German voice overs always discouraged me from playing this wonderful looking mod.

Just hearing about the sequel, and on the Skyrim engine no less, I must emphatically disagree with the notion of no English voice actors.

I am definitely a supporter of the original purpose of games. (This may seem irrelevant, but I'll use the Dark Souls 2 difficulty choice argument as en example. I am definitely NOT a proponent of any difficulty modes on Dark Souls. Just want to make it clear that I'm not one of "those people" who do not understand the points of original games.) That being said, I'd also like to point out that giving the player a choice to choose his/her language is indeed something that even a wide variety of Indie games have. I don't believe any sort of originality, or original "point" to the Nehrim universe is being compromised with the inclusion of English voice actors. The other reason, of course, is that I do not have any knowledge of the German language, and do not wish to JUST read subtitles during the game as opposed to listening to dialog I can understand.

I hope the team considers this point of view. I do believe that Nehrim was most likely the most impressive mod the internet has ever had the grace of hosting. However, I believe you limit your audience, and your...ehem..."employment possibilities" by limiting the game to German only.

If the team reads this, then thanks for making it this far.

[Hazzmat]

If the English voice over doesn't work out after all I can live with it if only they translate all subtitles and texts from ingame in English. ( so no leftovers like in Nehrim! )

[Daniel]

If the English voice over doesn't work out after all I can live with it if only they translate all subtitles and texts from ingame in English. ( so no leftovers like in Nehrim! )

I agree. Those left overs were frustrating when my German skills weren't good enough. But there are so many players that play and don't voice their experiences and opinions which probably suffered that frustration even worse than me.

If there would be any need for volunteer voice acting, I can probably add 1 male & 1 female voice though. We'll see what the misses says in the future about it.

[badgesareus]

I just realized I am making an assumption that might not be correct. If Enderal has English voices, will it also have English subtitles? There are quite possibly many people who can read English well but have difficulty understanding spoken English.