yes, it likely doesn't fully pay to do this work ... (but we payed already) but at least restaurating the existing german VO is actually not *so* difficult to do, and in the spirit of keeping the game alive "in all its glory", this is worth doing, as the original german VOs were actually great.
I recently bought BG2:EE and was indescribably disappointed to find out that the original German voices, which made the game so famous and beloved, are missing!
I can see that they have been kept in BG1:EE, IWD:EE and PST:EE. I would like to know why not BG2 then?
As has already been mentioned, the old files were already of outstanding quality. So is it really so difficult to import them to the new version? I'm not a programmer, but it seems the kind of thing that would require very little work and at the same time achieve a massive effect, which would be immensely appreciated by the German-speaking community.
In this vote, we tried to find out what would be "best" to have for German VO:
- record everything missing, then include the complete thing ... While nice to have, I think as it did not happen until now, it's not going to happen at all ... - include what is there, and fill in the English parts for everything not available in German. that should be rather easy and was proven to work with mods, so please don't ignore the second largest community you have ... - include what is already there, and mute everything that's missing ... That's the easy and non-immersion-breaking variant ... May need some sorting of ressources maybe to make it work reliably?
vote is between second and third option obviously, and it's not hard or expensive to implement, given that Trent said rights a for this are clear ... so please finally do this for 2.4 / 3.x patch ... It was talked about so many times before and seemed clear to happen but it never manifested ... So now is the time! @JuliusBorisov@TrentOster
Honestly? I have not bought a game from you ever since I found this out! And I will continue dont buy your games, until finally the VO is back in the game. You wrote the vo will return with a update!
Beamdog announced a new patch which will have "completed localizations". So fingers crossed this will finally include german voices. Bad communications about this isssue however.
Beamdog announced a new patch which will have "completed localizations". So fingers crossed this will finally include german voices. Bad communications about this isssue however.
@sid6581 Thanks for the info! Could you please share the source?
Thank you all for letting us know this is a feature you're passionate about and sorry for the silence!
We can't promise anything at this point as we're confirming V/O rights and file compatibility, however we’ll include any news we can share on this front in future updates about Enhanced Edition patches beyond the iOS update series.
In the meantime, what are a few of your favorite non-English performances in Baldur’s Gate II? We’re curious what makes them stand out.
@JuliusBorisov Let me just quote what was written in this very thread before to summarize:
Trent: Hey guys. When you refer to dub are you referring to the original localized VO or a fan created set? If you are referring to the original VO, we can definitely do something.
Trent: This is one of a number of features we have in our backlog. At the moment we have everyone in the studio allocated and there is no-one free to handle this work. The German VO ownership is clear, the Polish is not, so we are still looking into that concern. Sadly, legal often moves at a glacial pace.
JuliusBorisov: No, what Trent is saying is that everyone in the studio is allocated at this particular moment, but they have found out the German VO ownership (which is the principal thing here) so as soon as free time appears it will be included into the work.
So speaking explicitely about the original german voice over of BG2, if i get this combination of messages right, it seemed to be clear who was owning the rights for the recordings, and that Beamdog could do something to include them. Technically, there is a mod going around by forum user and modder WhiteAgnus, that take the original BG2 VO and add it to BG2:EE, so file compatibility should be possible to establish (these are no user-recorded additional or alternative voices, it's just a technical conversion from the original sources to :EE ).
So we hope the information above is still correct and going to happen somewhen in future We are well aware there are no recordings for the new content that was added with the :EE (Neera, Hexxat, Dorn, Rasaad), so it would mean the game would either be mute for that new content, or filling in the english voiceovers for all gaps (i personally can live with both options, but having an option to chose between the two would be even better).
It would be a real loss for immersion and nostalgia for german speaking players if they were lost. But from a neutral point of view regarding quality, many considered the german voice acting to be on par or even better than the english ones (if not expressed in this forum, it clearly is in german forums to the game over all the years). The speakers are very professional, they have distinct accents and dialects, but it's not over the top (BG1 did that partially), they adjust to situation well ... i can play the game in english and i like it, but playing it in german just has another quality to us.
Who's definitely outstanding is german Irenicus ... i mean, listen to this and compare it to the english variant ... (also get a glimps of german Imoen sideway) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJBuPVaHtJc
It's also a bit about completeness ... there are german voiceovers for BG:EE, IWD:EE and PST:EE. I understand that voicing SoD is a different kind of effort and likely won't happen, but BG2:EE would be nice to try as it's possible to make it happen, and a gap in our collection ... Also think of this! My children will be at the age to play baldurs gate in about 10-12 years ... the originals for sure won't run anymore then, but there is a realistic chance that the :EEs still could work then ... they won't be able to enjoy an english game, but they'd for sure love the german one. So could anyone *please* think of the children?!
Who's definitely outstanding is german Irenicus ...
I can wholeheartedly agree to this. German voiceover work has always been great, coming from a long tradition of movie voiceovers, often leading to better voices than in the original versions. Definitely the case in BG2. Plus, having german voices doesn't leave you with a gap between spoken english voices and german text. The game would finally feel how it shold be. Right now it's a bit off for german players who play it out of nostalgia or maybe even for the first time. We are all aware of Beamdog's tight schedules but don't be thrown off by a lower post count in the german forums (most of us are rather proficient in the english language), the german fanbase of the IE games is huge. And we would be happy to get those voiceovers.
I can wholeheartedly agree to this. German voiceover work has always been great
Weeeeell, let's not give praise where it's not deserved. While generally German dubs usually tend to be at least okay, we also got cases like the super trashy BG1 dub and the famously awful dub of Metal Gear Solid. And there are more out there, though nothing specifically comes to mind right now.
Either way, BG2's dub is one of the better dubs out there and as I stated before, people are missing out without it.
Weeeeell, let's not give praise where it's not deserved. While generally German dubs usually tend to be at least okay, we also got cases like the super trashy BG1 dub
I would kind of disagree with you. As strange and bizarre the German voices in BG1 may sound, I have grown to like the different dialects. I've never come across any other game that has made use of such a variety of German and Austrian accents. That really makes BG1 stand out compared to other RPGs.
Weeeeell, let's not give praise where it's not deserved. While generally German dubs usually tend to be at least okay, we also got cases like the super trashy BG1 dub
I would kind of disagree with you. As strange and bizarre the German voices in BG1 may sound, I have grown to like the different dialects. I've never come across any other game that has made use of such a variety of German and Austrian accents. That really makes BG1 stand out compared to other RPGs.
I wouldn't call it a good thing when in a game that takes itself somewhat seriously there are elves that speak with a saxon accent Also, I said trashy, not bad. Trashy is a "so bad it's good" and/or "it's fundamentally flawed but enjoyable in it's own right" type of situation.
I'd even miss the german bg1 voices ... But there it's primarily for nostalgia and some oddities. In bg2, it's about atmosphere, they add to the experience and and are never off.
I can not understand why this grandiose German synchronization has not inserted into the EE. That's makes my Baldur's gate feeling! If I hear the original, I get goosebumps every time. With the English synchronization this feeling is simply gone. I can not understand why something important is left out Why is this so unimportant to you? We have grown up with it, and that is an important factor why we buy it again!
there's some legal obstacle. maybe german distributors own the rights to the VO, and it must be bought from them, so maybe they ask a lot of money or communication has been extremely slow...who knows
More like the real obstacle up until now was being understaffed. Trend Oster already confirmed that the ownership of the German VO has been made clear. So it's not a legal obstacle per se. All that's really needed is for some of the beamdog employees to finally sit through it till the end. Luckily, there're now at least two more people officially hired at beamdog. Which theoretically should make room for someone to handle the remaining official VO's in honest. Whenever it's German dub or Polish dub.
Honestly, I can't blame other German players for getting impatient here either. I do as well after all. Seeing as it's already been almost 4 years since the release of BGII:EE. It is understandable that there's an end to anyone's patience.
Planning has started on the next round of patches for the Enhanced Edition games on all platforms. We're currently going through all the reports on Redmine and evaluating each bug and feature.
For a better end result, our developers comment on Redmine if they need more information from bug reporters. In cases where we have had no reply to requests for follow up, the appropriate reports may be closed.
There's not much I can really say on the topic that I haven't said already. It just kinda makes for a really bad precedent in regards to how much Beamdog seems to care about their non-english speaking audience. There has been another incident, but I am not sure I am allowed to talk about that given that I am still under an NDA (though that alone should ring bells with the people who should know what I am refering to).
I know Beamdog is just a small studio, but given that WotC have been working on expanding more strongly in the non-english speaking markets, one has to wonder why they wouldn't put more money into localisations such as these.
As this thread shows, people are disapointed about the strong delay (three years now). Like, I wanna be happy that this is finally happening, but A. there was no reason that this was delayed for so long besides disinterest from the devs' side (since there where no legal issues that needed resolving like with the Polish dub) and B. this is still not a full dub.
Comments
yes, it likely doesn't fully pay to do this work ... (but we payed already)
but at least restaurating the existing german VO is actually not *so* difficult to do, and in the spirit of keeping the game alive "in all its glory", this is worth doing, as the original german VOs were actually great.
I can see that they have been kept in BG1:EE, IWD:EE and PST:EE. I would like to know why not BG2 then?
As has already been mentioned, the old files were already of outstanding quality. So is it really so difficult to import them to the new version? I'm not a programmer, but it seems the kind of thing that would require very little work and at the same time achieve a massive effect, which would be immensely appreciated by the German-speaking community.
See the German thread here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/23869/deutsche-sprache-in-bg-2-ee/p5
In this vote, we tried to find out what would be "best" to have for German VO:
- record everything missing, then include the complete thing ... While nice to have, I think as it did not happen until now, it's not going to happen at all ...
- include what is there, and fill in the English parts for everything not available in German. that should be rather easy and was proven to work with mods, so please don't ignore the second largest community you have ...
- include what is already there, and mute everything that's missing ... That's the easy and non-immersion-breaking variant ... May need some sorting of ressources maybe to make it work reliably?
vote is between second and third option obviously, and it's not hard or expensive to implement, given that Trent said rights a for this are clear ... so please finally do this for 2.4 / 3.x patch ... It was talked about so many times before and seemed clear to happen but it never manifested ... So now is the time! @JuliusBorisov @TrentOster
We can't promise anything at this point as we're confirming V/O rights and file compatibility, however we’ll include any news we can share on this front in future updates about Enhanced Edition patches beyond the iOS update series.
In the meantime, what are a few of your favorite non-English performances in Baldur’s Gate II? We’re curious what makes them stand out.
Let me just quote what was written in this very thread before to summarize: So speaking explicitely about the original german voice over of BG2, if i get this combination of messages right, it seemed to be clear who was owning the rights for the recordings, and that Beamdog could do something to include them.
Technically, there is a mod going around by forum user and modder WhiteAgnus, that take the original BG2 VO and add it to BG2:EE, so file compatibility should be possible to establish (these are no user-recorded additional or alternative voices, it's just a technical conversion from the original sources to :EE ).
So we hope the information above is still correct and going to happen somewhen in future
We are well aware there are no recordings for the new content that was added with the :EE (Neera, Hexxat, Dorn, Rasaad), so it would mean the game would either be mute for that new content, or filling in the english voiceovers for all gaps (i personally can live with both options, but having an option to chose between the two would be even better).
It would be a real loss for immersion and nostalgia for german speaking players if they were lost.
But from a neutral point of view regarding quality, many considered the german voice acting to be on par or even better than the english ones (if not expressed in this forum, it clearly is in german forums to the game over all the years). The speakers are very professional, they have distinct accents and dialects, but it's not over the top (BG1 did that partially), they adjust to situation well ... i can play the game in english and i like it, but playing it in german just has another quality to us.
Who's definitely outstanding is german Irenicus ... i mean, listen to this and compare it to the english variant ... (also get a glimps of german Imoen sideway)
It's also a bit about completeness ... there are german voiceovers for BG:EE, IWD:EE and PST:EE. I understand that voicing SoD is a different kind of effort and likely won't happen, but BG2:EE would be nice to try as it's possible to make it happen, and a gap in our collection ...
Also think of this! My children will be at the age to play baldurs gate in about 10-12 years ... the originals for sure won't run anymore then, but there is a realistic chance that the :EEs still could work then ... they won't be able to enjoy an english game, but they'd for sure love the german one. So could anyone *please* think of the children?!
Either way, BG2's dub is one of the better dubs out there and as I stated before, people are missing out without it.
I appreaciate the effort, but save it for when the thread hasn't posted in for weeks or month, and not for the same day
In bg2, it's about atmosphere, they add to the experience and and are never off.
I can not understand why this grandiose German synchronization has not inserted into the EE.
That's makes my Baldur's gate feeling!
If I hear the original, I get goosebumps every time.
With the English synchronization this feeling is simply gone.
I can not understand why something important is left out
Why is this so unimportant to you? We have grown up with it, and that is an important factor why we buy it again!
Honestly, I can't blame other German players for getting impatient here either. I do as well after all. Seeing as it's already been almost 4 years since the release of BGII:EE. It is understandable that there's an end to anyone's patience.
I've even found my old redmine entry on this, are these still considered for the new patches?
https://support.baldursgate.com/issues/24764
Look in the sixth paragraph.
I know Beamdog is just a small studio, but given that WotC have been working on expanding more strongly in the non-english speaking markets, one has to wonder why they wouldn't put more money into localisations such as these.
As this thread shows, people are disapointed about the strong delay (three years now).
Like, I wanna be happy that this is finally happening, but A. there was no reason that this was delayed for so long besides disinterest from the devs' side (since there where no legal issues that needed resolving like with the Polish dub) and B. this is still not a full dub.
This small victory tastes very very bitter.