Writing/Voiceovers

Zach wrote:

mormon_boy wrote: long dialog cut short i'm of the opinion that the only people who would notice or care about flaws in wcsaga's voice-acting and writing either consume so much content they become connoisseurs or have experience as professional content creators. the average player is just happy that after a long drought they have a space combat sim to play that maybe one of the most polished to date FOR FREE

Sorry, but "its free so shut up" is not a valid criticism of other peoples criticisms.
Whether or not some of us are professional or above-average in things like acting, writing, or whatever is irrelevant to the point of giving feedback.

The criticisms come because we love the game, but had experiences which removed our suspension of disbelief long enough to jar us from the game world.

And I would think as gamers who have been gaming for years (since the game is obviously made for Wing Commander fans first) people have plenty of experience dealing with great games, and less than stellar games, and that experience counts for something. Our feedback helps improve the product.

You'll always have people who criticize for the sake of it, but that is not a defense against any criticism, of any aspect of the game at all.

I agree with you but also believe it isn't wrong to consider a project's provenance and setting your expectations accordingly.

Just to hear a different opinion from a non-native English speaker award winning writer / director and a guy who has worked in the gaming industry for few years; I'm playing with the 18th mission now (Save the Kinney) and all I can say that the writing and the voice over is much better than most of the AAA "made from zillions of dollars" games out there. Trillion times better. You can be really proud for WCS. The story is one of the best that with I played a long time ago, the characters are very memorable and likeable, even if they're just a nickname and a tiny animated head on the top left corner. I care with them, so as I care with the world, which is pretty rare these days when I play with games. Each of the characters has memorable characteristics and different style. I can't tell this about most of the AAA games which was made in the 21st century as you forget those characters after five minutes. And maybe some of the voice acting is not the best comparing to others, but that's making the atmosphere much more life like and the whole story much more realistic and believable in my eyes. Same goes for the writing. It doesn't have to be perfect as the tiny mistakes making it much more realistic and memorable.

Wing Commander Saga is THE game what for a I waited since... I don't know. Freespace 2? Wing Commander: Prophecy? Starshatter: The Gathering Storm? Finally I got tough and well thought out long missions instead of non-sense 2 minutes long console missions, a good storyline and excellent Wing Commander expansion instead of a "Ruined by EA - Challenge Everything" expansion, great memorable characters and decent voice over. And I find all this in a great indie game and not in an AAA overhyped conveyor belt junk. In my humble opinion WCS is a GOTY 2012 material, even if I finished only the 35% of the game. The rest comes tomorrow. Well, it's a pretty long game.

So congratulations and thank you for WCS!

Thanks a lot

I`m not a native english speaker so maybe I`m not too well trained to hear the fine nuances in voice acting. But to me the voice-acting in this game is pretty much brilliant. Even leaving the circumstances of the development aside I must say the voice-acting is way above average.
The writing is also very good. How many games fail to deliver a decent story presented by memorable characters for 4-6 hours? About a 100 generic FPS, even with major budgets. WCS kept me engaged into the story all the way to the end and the characters had a real distinct personality.
Plus: even the characters with an english dialect were easily understandable to me, can't say that I always understand what someone from texas say to me in multiplayer games... . All in all: kudos to all the voice actors.

I'm only on the prologue (4 missions down), but have been quite impressed by the voice acting. Over the years its something I've tried to take notice of in games rather than just take for granted. Ok so I've not heard a James Earl Jones, Morgon Freeman, Brian Blessed or Bruce Campbell type voice yet (i.e. something "distinctive"), but its all been very good acting. This is even more notable given the limitations the project was working within (i.e., volunteer effort, minimal resources).

I've also found the writing quite amusing. Especially the bit where Ninja was disappointed that the pirates didn't say "ahoy matey".
All in all, excellent job!

I like the Ninja/Assasin-Duo, Greywolf, and Psychopath. The best dialogue so far was about using Kettle's toothbrush to clean the closet, I laughed so hard I probably looked like a madman xD