Wouldn't it be nice if your ship would verbally prompt you when important info needed your attention.

examples:

"WARNING… you are about to impact with an asteroid!"

"Missles approaching from above/below/etc. Impact in "x" seconds"

"You have entered into "X" controled territory, be careful, you are not liked in this area" (in reference to your faction standing)

"Transport "x" has left from "x" station towards "x" station."

"Your cargo bay is "x"% full"

These are just examples of possible voice promps from the computer. Also you could change the voice between male and female for preference. Would add some dynamics to the game. There is barely any sound at all other then explosions and picking up of cargo.

"Impact in 5 seconds, it's been nice knowin you guys"

"What are you doing dave?"

"I want a cheeseburger!"

I dunno if this would ever be implemented, but it would be fun to have each type of ship have a different voice. A poorly computer-synthesized lo-fi voice for the bus or a silky smooth voice for the valk. Maybe a terse gutteral one for the prom.

I dont' see this as a hard thing to do, the voice software is already out there, would just need to be implemented and have a database of responces that it accesses.

It'd also greatly increase the size of the game download, slow down the game, and be annoying. This isn't a slow-paced strategy game, this is a fast paced action game. Generally, there isn't enough time when you're in a fight for voices.

I disagree completely rogue, if the little informatoin needed to create the voices were on the clients side then there is no slowdown, it also adds a level of emmursion to the game that it does not have now. And you dont' have to necessarily look at a particular stat to see info if your verbally being prompted allowing you to focus on the tast at hand, such as combat. Other games are adding voiceovers and I see this becooming a standard in games to come, it would be neglagent for them NOT to consider adding voices to the game.

Dude?

Please do not construe this as support for the idea, but:

It could be done client-side ala "taunts" that are stored in the client and triggered from the server or opponent in other games (though we would be excluding the opponent for this discussion). It wouldn't be much of anything server-wise if a voice was triggered by the client in response to taking damage, for instance.

Voice data would certainly increase initial download time.

It could be annoying and I'd turn it off or replace the sounds.

"Self destruct in 10 seconds"
9
8
6
"Six? What happened to seven?"

"Just kidding"
7
6
5
4
... etc

I'd see it as something useful for a beginner, that advanced folks would switch off, and that ultimately would *add* to the overall first impression of the game. So if it was easy to do I'd say "cool, that might impress new players".

Once again any implementation would be a tradeoff between this and other new stuff.

I want my ship to say "OW!" whenever it takes a hit.

"DOH!"
"OWWWWWW! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?"

Anyone remember Quake I after mods began adding in custom sounds? Vendetta would certainly get a boost in annoyingly repetitive hilarity by following the same route.

In other words please don't ;P

Interesting, not neccissary, but at some point in time may be good to add for effect and retaining customers.

This is a really cool idea. I have many times died while slaying bots one after another, and not paying attention to my shields. Suddenly I get destroyed my one good shot. I thought a alarm that went off at 10% shields would help, but a voice saying "Shield down to 10% would be even cooler.

As far as Personality for the Ship AI, That could get pretty complicated. I certainly think it would be cool to create a custom AI for you ship, but that is pretty far off right now. Great Idea though!!! I hope we see the first stages tward a ship AI soon.

I like it very cool idea ! I Got some .wav files just for that.
And there in a females voice.
To program your own custom ships Voice as Shock as suggested would be sweeeet.
Or how about movie characters ? Dennis Hopper, Bobcat Goldwaith-
(spell check) Barry White, Morgan Fairchild ! yea yea Morgan Fairchild thats it. lol

It could also say: OucH THATS going to leave a mark !
(fat guy in a little ship)

EROSBUG: Copying dialog from movies and implementing them in a game you have to pay for is probably illegal. You have to get permission from the actor and the associated studio, I believe, and there are royalties and things involved.

Safest way to avoid lawsuits (and the subsequent bankrupcy of Guild Software) is to hire voiceactors (or just have the devs and their families and friends contribute their voices for free) and record all new sounds.

I can think of one good use for the player to player version of this: A pirate could hail his victim with a mighty YARRR!

I'd drop my cargo.