Leaders speak their own language

There's no point in having subtitles or other languages... it is just an annoyance. If someone can't read, they wouldn't be posting here. Civ 5 will be available in multiple languages, and Civ 5 will not be teaching people how to speak in other languages either, for that go to school or buy Rosetta Stone. I have no interest otherwise when playing Civ 5 to hear other languages, adds nothing to game.

It will be cool initially, but after the 'Wow and Exciting', it was dollars they could have spent better elsewhere in the game development.

Tom
 
Ultimately I question whether the aesthetic will be worth the cost. Having hired foreign language voice actors in my day, I know they don't come cheap, especially with some of the ancient languages that aren't even used today. Depending on the # of civs and whether or not they could got a brilliant contract, I imagine they could have had another full time developer for the same cost.
 
f35acepilot said:
I'd imagine accomplishing things in foreign countries would be easy if they had giant English subtitles floating in front of them. :mischief:
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I would be, hopefully they come out with something like that soon. ;)

I'm not saying I don't think it will be a neat thing to hear. I think it will be a novelty that will quickly become annoying and I would much rather just be able to hear and understand everything.

I just think it's a big waste of the Dev's time to add features that aren't going to add anything to the game, when they could be adding other features that would. It's a personal preference thing. I just don't put much stock in these little add ons that don't enhance gameplay. I'm the same way with graphics and sound, I currently play Civ IV with the lowest graphics setting and I normally play with the sound off, so I would probably wind up reading subtitles anyway.
 
Chimera1804 said:
Yes, well, that would require a lot of extra voice recording...with text you can translate it with the push of a button, but not so with audio...so having them all speak their own languages only requires on voice actor for each...and only one set of recordings.
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Most of this is required with each leader speaking their native language as well. And no you can't translate with the push of a button epically if they are talking about having leaders speak dead and almost dead languages, someone must translate it. Since they are going to have to translate it into all supported languages for subtitles anyway it wouldn't add that much more to have the different phrases spoken in the different supported languages. If they are going to do something they should do it right.
 
I think it is a great feature that I have wanted since Civ 1. Finally!! I think hearing the leaders speak their native tongue would be a real atmosphere enchancer. Just imagine Bismarck yelling at you furiously in German, or Napoleon flirting up a friendship with you in French! This is going to be great! And it would also make the leaders seem even more like the historical counterparts! Thanks, Firaxis!! :goodjob:
 
WeaselSlapper said:
Most of this is required with each leader speaking their native language as well. And no you can't translate with the push of a button epically if they are talking about having leaders speak dead and almost dead languages, someone must translate it. Since they are going to have to translate it into all supported languages for subtitles anyway it wouldn't add that much more to have the different phrases spoken in the different supported languages. If they are going to do something they should do it right.
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I think you misinterpreted what i was saying. If you get a german actor for bismark, you're going to have a different person (a french one for nappy, say), their voice will sound different beyond just the language. So unless you just want a plain ole generic voice-over (which still would require a lot of extra time and effort for all the countries), you'd need 18 actors for EVERY LANGUAGE that this game will be sold in, compared with just 18 actors period.
 
tom2050 said:
There's no point in having subtitles or other languages... it is just an annoyance. If someone can't read, they wouldn't be posting here. Civ 5 will be available in multiple languages, and Civ 5 will not be teaching people how to speak in other languages either, for that go to school or buy Rosetta Stone. I have no interest otherwise when playing Civ 5 to hear other languages, adds nothing to game.

It will be cool initially, but after the 'Wow and Exciting', it was dollars they could have spent better elsewhere in the game development.
Click to expand...

You beat me to the punch, but my sentiments exactly.

Ultimately I question whether the aesthetic will be worth the cost. Having hired foreign language voice actors in my day, I know they don't come cheap, especially with some of the ancient languages that aren't even used today. Depending on the # of civs and weather or not they could got a brilliant contract, I imagine they could have had another full time developer for the same cost.
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I totally agree, personally I would be fine without any voice acting, but if they are going to do it I would rather understand it.
 
Obviously the in-game info comes from the subtitles and not from the spoken word of the leaders. For me the new leaders with their native language is just an element which brings in a bit more atmosphere. Therefore I really like this idea.

Furthermore I'm really interested in the dialect of Bismarck. I have seen so many movies where actors tried to speak some sort of german and failed epical :D
I guess that a lot of Civ-Gamers whose native language is not english are curious to hear their mother language in a Civ game. ;)
 
Chimera1804 said:
I think you misinterpreted what i was saying. If you get a german actor for bismark, you're going to have a different person (a french one for nappy, say), their voice will sound different beyond just the language. So unless you just want a plain ole generic voice-over (which still would require a lot of extra time and effort for all the countries), you'd need 18 actors for EVERY LANGUAGE that this game will be sold in, compared with just 18 actors period.
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Why would they do so? I understand that they have one actor for one leader, and they use one sound for every different language ciV is published. Just the subtitles would be different. Why would they have to sound different? I don't think that Bismarck sounded any different in France compared to Germany.
 
I can imagine something like this happened someday at Firaxis:

One of the devs: "Hey... why don't we give voices to the various leaders?"
The other devs: "Yes... so we would need to record all their speech in a dozen of different languages... that needs a lot of resources which could be better spent on gameplay!"
The first dev: "Uhm... you are right... so why don't we make them speaking in their native language? We could call it a feature and not a money saver and people would be happy!"
 
Danielos said:
I think it is a great feature that I have wanted since Civ 1. Finally!! I think hearing the leaders speak their native tongue would be a real atmosphere enchancer. Just imagine Bismarck yelling at you furiously in German, or Napoleon flirting up a friendship with you in French! This is going to be great! And it would also make the leaders seem even more like the historical counterparts! Thanks, Firaxis!! :goodjob:
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hell yes i want to hear bismark talk dirty. teach me a lesson otto :blush:
 
@Newcomer24: :lol: funny and probably true!

Perhaps what they should have done, is have them all speak in their own language, with no sub-titles. This way it would be really authentic! And it would force everyone to learn 17 new languages to play the game. What a culturally positive thing that would be.

They should go 'all out' if they are going this far. Otherwise, they should have nerfed it.

:mischief:

Tom
 
It matters not what the uncultured tongues of the post-cataclysm barbarians utter. None shall impede the Atlantean Remnant from reclaiming their birthright of greatness!
 
I feel that the addition of leaders speaking in their native languages, even if I can't understand them verbally, constitutes a breath of fresh air and cultural flavor that can only enhance the series and my enjoyment of the diplomacy game.
 
aajiix said:
I, for one, was very pleasantly surprised when I read about the leaders speaking their own language. I think it's great and definitely adds to the game. I always think it's stupid that in movies and TV series some non-English speaking characters speak English between themselves with some silly accent. :rolleyes:
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First I thought - ok, why not, but it's really a great idea which adds to the immersion of the game. There's not enough of this stuff in entertainment, but when you encounter it - in movies most of the time - they're always better because of it. Maybe except Swedish action movies... Now I'm really looking forward to hearing Julius speak Latin, Napoleon French and Katarina Russian.

The more I hear about decisions they make for this game, the better the game sounds.
 
It's a cool feature. Nothing gamebreaking, but I don't see how it'd be annoying.
 
WeaselSlapper said:
This quote is from the recent IGN article about Civ V:

"The diplomacy screen is now a full 3D environment complete with animated leaders speaking in their own language."

Am I the only who who thinks it's going to be really annoying hearing leaders speak in languages I don't understand? I really hope they have an option to have all the leaders speak their own language.
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There's not only the English language in the world. You won't get by with intellectual laziness. Open up.
 
I think it's really cool, though I can understand how Tom2050 could be annoyed as I'm the exact opposite.
I can't stand English voice acting in games, if I can't understand it it means I can't recognise bad voice acting. There is never good voice acting in games.
Hopefully they'll have an option to turn off the voice acting for units too, only when I'm playing as the Americans or English though!
 
WeaselSlapper said:
On top of that what are they going to do with countries that spoke on language in ancient times that eventually transformed into another like Greece? Will they have the Greek leaders speak Greek or Latin?
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Don't the Greek speak Greek to this day?
 
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