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My Main Complaint of the Beamdog Content for BG2

gugulug5000gugulug5000 Member Posts: 248
in Troubleshooting
So I just barely got around to playing the new quests that Beamdog added for the enhanced edition for Dorn, Rasaad, Neera, and Hexxat and there is one thing that is driving me crazy: the audio sounds like complete crap! The written dialogue isn't the best out there, and the quests are really simple and easy, but they entertained me for a few hours so that doesn't bother me so much. The audio however sounds like they either put the microphone too close to the voice actor/actress's mouth or something went horribly wrong when mixing the recordings, and the problem is that every new recorded line is affected for every character. It sounds out of place and just flat out bad. I don't recall BG1 having this issue. Would it be possible for the team to go round up the previous sound files and make them sound more normal? Having any of the new NPCs in my party is just annoying at this point unless I mute the game.
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Comments

  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,754
    I didn't notice it.

    Maybe it's a problem related to this: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/31413/voices-too-quiet
  • lunarlunar Member Posts: 3,460
    edited June 2016
    I never noticed this in my game, either. It may be a local problem with your gaming pc. Maybe try watching a few youtube videos with ee npcs in, and compare that with what you hear in your game? Is it any different?
  • gugulug5000gugulug5000 Member Posts: 248
    Hey guys, thanks for trying to help. I just tried switching my speakers around and I fiddled with the settings to see if I could fix it, but it still sounds bad. I checked out some of the Youtube videos and I still hear it. My brother also has the same issue on his vastly different PC. The voices just sound like lower quality, almost like something an amateur could record. It's weird, the voices sound just fine in BG1:EE and SoD, but in BGII:EE they sound bad. I haven't given ToB a shot yet, but I guess I'll try it and see what happens. The poor quality really is just so distracting to me though that I pretty much can't stand to use the EE NPCs.
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    I agree with you. The voice acting is not that bad, it's just far from being as immersive as that of Minsc or Jaheira, and I'd say this has to do with mixing mostly. I feel this is especially true for Rasaad and Hexxat (Vampire. Human sounds rather well considering its context). Both could use some more intonation so that they don't sound like Google's Text-To-Speech.
    Dorn and Neera are fine, IMHO. Not perfect but still fine compared to the other two, and this is a major reason for which I prefer these two to Hexxat and Rasaad.
  • gugulug5000gugulug5000 Member Posts: 248
    @Arunsun To me, Hexxat seemed the most tolerable, then Dorn and Rasaad, then Neera and Clara. You can really hear the low quality when Neera says "I'm ready!" It's really a shame that every Beamdog added character seems to have this problem though.
  • xzar_montyxzar_monty Member Posts: 631
    Very strange. I haven't noticed this in my game - and I have actually worked with audio-related stuff for quite some time. (This is not to say that I'm on the same level with the late Sir George Martin.)

    My main complaint for the Beamdog content would have been the fact that all dialogues seem to contain an option to say something that has nothing to do with the thing in question but is, in fact, a very, very, very forced joke.
  • bob_vengbob_veng Member Posts: 2,308
    it's true. some voices are badly recorded. same problem occasionally plagues sod, mainly some of the characters in the camp afaicr.
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    xzar_monty said:

    Very strange. I haven't noticed this in my game - and I have actually worked with audio-related stuff for quite some time. (This is not to say that I'm on the same level with the late Sir George Martin.)

    My main complaint for the Beamdog content would have been the fact that all dialogues seem to contain an option to say something that has nothing to do with the thing in question but is, in fact, a very, very, very forced joke.

    I don't know who's the humor specialist at Beamdog but he must be the type to say "OW" very loudly every time someone says "Yellow" (Yell Ow). That's how forced their jokes feel.
  • lunarlunar Member Posts: 3,460
    edited June 2016
    Well, the main reason of the witty and sarcastic reply options are to annoy the npc you are talking to. They *are* annoying and thus serve their purpose well, I think. :)

    I believe you have a very sensitive ear. Tbh I feel nothing out of sorts with the ee voice records, even on my tablet which I am sure some data has been made smaller to fit it all in.
  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,963
    I haven't made it to BG2EE quests but man was the actor for Duke Entar Silvershield "le ter-ri-bull" in SOD. Complete turn off as soon as he started voicing his lines.
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,754
    smeagolheart said:

    I haven't made it to BG2EE quests but man was the actor for Duke Entar Silvershield "le ter-ri-bull" in SOD. Complete turn off as soon as he started voicing his lines.

    Interestingly, I really enjoyed the VO work on Entar Silvershield. It gave me one of the strongest impressions. Maybe I just like a French accent.
  • gugulug5000gugulug5000 Member Posts: 248
    smeagolheart said:

    I haven't made it to BG2EE quests but man was the actor for Duke Entar Silvershield "le ter-ri-bull" in SOD. Complete turn off as soon as he started voicing his lines.

    YES! I hated that guy. It sounded like such a forced accent that it just didn't fit well with the rest of the game. The voice actor for Belt seemed really mono toned, but was no where near as bad as Entar. When I heard him talk all I could think was "Well it's no wonder Skie is trying to get away from him!"

    It's interesting that some people seem to know exactly what I'm referring to and others have no idea. Makes me wonder what everyone is playing on (and with what sound systems). My brother and I both noticed the terrible audio quality playing the Steam version on Windows 10, but we have vastly different sound systems.
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    @gugulug5000 Even more interesting is the fact that even among those who agree there is a problem, we do not agree on what NPC is worst.
  • DJKajuruDJKajuru Member Posts: 3,300
    edited June 2016
    smeagolheart said:

    I haven't made it to BG2EE quests but man was the actor for Duke Entar Silvershield "le ter-ri-bull" in SOD. Complete turn off as soon as he started voicing his lines.

    I actually thought it was an amazing initiative to give npc's european accents, so it breaks the idea that your accent has to be either english or oriental. Historically at wars europeans from different nations fought together ( as either allies or hired mercenaries) so it wasn't uncommon to hear people speak with a german, french or dutch accent in the same army.
  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,963
    DJKajuru said:

    smeagolheart said:

    I haven't made it to BG2EE quests but man was the actor for Duke Entar Silvershield "le ter-ri-bull" in SOD. Complete turn off as soon as he started voicing his lines.

    I actually thought it was an amazing initiative to give npc's european accents, so it breaks the idea that your accent has to be either english or oriental. Historically at wars europeans from different nations fought together ( as either allies or hired mercenaries) so it wasn't uncommon to hear people speak with a german, french or dutch accent in the same army.
    I don't mind a European accent - I do mind a stereotype of a French accent. If they wanted a French accent they should have hired a French guy and had him speak normally. It would be different enough and cool.

    Instead we get what sounds like an English speaker trying to sound like Pepe Le Pew. A stereotype of a bad English speaking French person. It's frankly offensive and really took me out of the game.
  • bob_vengbob_veng Member Posts: 2,308
    yeah they went a bit overboard with it
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    @smeagolheart Not all of us Frenchies are that bad at English, I assure you. Though a French voice actor could easily speak with a stereotyped accent.
  • GallengerGallenger Member Posts: 400
    I've noticed the same thing - the thing that's strangest to me is that Neera, Rasaad, and Dorn's voice lines in BG:EE sound perfectly fine audio quality-wise, but in BG2 their voice files sound really distorted to me - like the audio file itself was rendered in a lower quality setting or perhaps compressed in such a way as to make them louder (they seem much louder than my other companions). I began to think this was the result of my steam installation (being as I have BG2:EE on steam) whereas my BG:EE installation was direct from beamdog - so I snagged my BG:EE key and redownloaded the game through steam - and again Neera & co sound just fine in BG:EE - so I dunno what the deal is :/.
  • lroumenlroumen Member Posts: 2,538
    The worst part is that Skie has no accent, why would her father? Kids pick up some intonation of the parents.
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,212
    edited June 2016
    lroumen said:

    The worst part is that Skie has no accent, why would her father? Kids pick up some intonation of the parents.

    This is one possibility, but it's also very common (possibly more common even) for parents to retain accents while their children adapt.
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    lroumen said:

    The worst part is that Skie has no accent, why would her father? Kids pick up some intonation of the parents.

    That's not shocking. A friend of mine whose parents are both English has lived his entire life in France and he speaks French with no accent.
  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,963
    Arunsun said:

    @smeagolheart Not all of us Frenchies are that bad at English, I assure you. Though a French voice actor could easily speak with a stereotyped accent.

    I know. And I wouldn't at all mind an unobtrusive or a realistic accent. That would make the character more "worldly" and would be fine. I think they just went too far with it. Oh well. It is what it is, a poor decision in my opinion and grating to listen to, but not the end of the world.
  • rapsam2003rapsam2003 Member Posts: 1,636
    lroumen said:

    The worst part is that Skie has no accent, why would her father? Kids pick up some intonation of the parents.

    Or don't, depending. Her father was likely originally from a different region and never fully lost his accent. Skie was born and grew up in Baldur's Gate, where the intonation is more akin to a neutral British accent.
  • VbibbiVbibbi Member Posts: 229
    rapsam2003 said:

    lroumen said:

    The worst part is that Skie has no accent, why would her father? Kids pick up some intonation of the parents.

    Or don't, depending. Her father was likely originally from a different region and never fully lost his accent. Skie was born and grew up in Baldur's Gate, where the intonation is more akin to a neutral British accent.
    Although this raises the issue of her American/Canadian accent :D
  • mf2112mf2112 Member, Moderator Posts: 1,919
    Vbibbi said:

    rapsam2003 said:

    lroumen said:

    The worst part is that Skie has no accent, why would her father? Kids pick up some intonation of the parents.

    Or don't, depending. Her father was likely originally from a different region and never fully lost his accent. Skie was born and grew up in Baldur's Gate, where the intonation is more akin to a neutral British accent.
    Although this raises the issue of her American/Canadian accent :D
    Maybe she watched a lot of foreign shows on the farsight box while growing up. :/
  • BaptorBaptor Member Posts: 342
    Jokes aside, I'm having this issue as well. The soundsets for the new content sound like everyone has a bit of water in their mouths when they talk or that the sound file has been corrupted. I've made two posts about it that for some reason got no blue love whatsoever. I'm glad a blue at least LOOKED at this one.

    Here's what I've noticed:

    The problem is only in BG2EE. The sounds in BGEE and SOD sound fine.
    The problem seems worse with headphones, and I've tried multiple headphones.
    The sound distortion is so bad it makes the new content unplayable for me.

    And, most importantly....

    The issue did not start until after one of the early patches. When I first bought BG2EE, the new content sounded fine. Then, after one of the patches (I think the one that introduced the coloring to scrolls to indicate if you could use them or not) I loaded my game and Rasaad sounded terrible. I soon found that all the new content sounded like that.

    Please, can someone look into this?
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Weird that only some people have this problem.
  • gugulug5000gugulug5000 Member Posts: 248
    thedamages said:

    Weird that only some people have this problem.

    Yeah it is, but the issue could a number of things. Maybe most people just don't notice it. Maybe it has to do with the sound system the people are playing on. Maybe it's the computer build. Did you have any problems with it?
  • BaptorBaptor Member Posts: 342
    argent77 said:

    You are right. I have just compared old (v1.2) and new (v2.3) sound clips for the new NPCs and there is a big difference in quality. The sound clips were originally encoded in 132 kbps average (48 kHz, stereo), but have been downsized in later patches to 24 kbps (24 kHz, mono).

    You can compare it by yourself with Neera's intro talk where the difference is quite audible: neera-soundclips.zip

    First, sir, I tip my hat to you! Thank you for proving I am not crazy. I listened to the clips and can tell a big difference.

    Second, Beamdog, why oh why did you do this? To save a small amount of space? I do not see how you profited from doing this.

    Third, Beamdog, will you now please FIX this? All you need do is patch the game to restore the larger, better quality audio files.

    Fourth, community, since I have long since lost faith in companies, is there anything we can do to restore the old files?
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