Starkey said:
Right now, Eder and Co. are developing WC Standoff, which looks like will be amazingly GREAT, and they ain´t using actors, but nicely drawn cartoons which I think will work perfectly in the game...
Not really cartoons, though - 3D models with textures that are either photos of real people (Freyers for instance is JarJarThomas, the guy who did our space background graphics) or crazy faces I've come up with after mixing a few different famous people in Photoshop (Bradshaw's a good example of this). Not the best looking thing in the world, but it's what I could put together without having to buy any new software...
But yes, I see your point. Technology nowadays is enough to get some shitty acting out of CGI characters (or some decent acting, if you're on a high budget)... and personally, I think Freelancer had a good idea which was simply executed very poorly (like most of the game, if you ask me).
The problem with Freelancer's "actors" is that they don't have enough variety - I mean, there were what, like 3 different faces and 3 sets of hair for each gender of each faction? Was that really needed? How about 50 faces shared by most factions, and 10 special faces for factions which have specific needs? At least I wouldn't see two people who look exactly the same in a Navy base just because they're restricted to using the 3 "navy" faces. Sure, so maybe their CG character models had heads which couldn't be cut from their bodies (a big mistake in itself) and attached to other factions' uniforms... but it isn't that hard to at least use a few different textures on the same 3d model, and this can add much more variety than it may seem at first glance.
Aside from that, what really, really, really ruined Freelancer's character interaction part for me was the fact that it has the most incredibly dull and amateurish dialogue I've ever seen in a computer game, period. Sure, all conversations must follow a certain pattern, due to their random nature - but they didn't even try to disguise this pattern... it's left very clear to the players. Also, the sound files themselves had clear flaws. I've heard things like "Well,I Work f <pause> orthe Bounty Hunters" so often it made me turn the sound off after a couple of days playing the game. Really, how hard can it be to fix the timing of a couple dozen sound files? These are things which couldn't possibly have escaped the beta testers.
To sum it up, the problem with Freelancer characters wasn't the fact that they were real or not (for a bunch of 3d models, they had superbly fluid animations, IMO... a big thumbs up to whoever their animation guy is). The problem with Freelancer characters was that everyone in Freelancer looked the same, sounded the same and, in some cases, sounded way too artificial (due to a clear assembly of sentences from various sound files, which didn't always fit in too well). Just my 2 cents anyway.
Starkey said:
...specially if you consider their total lack of funding.
Actually, the other day I found 33 cents on the sidewalk near the bus stop - yay for Standoff's newly increased budget!