Guild Wars 2

In detha’s defense, her line " no one is arguing for a need for a plan, yours in just stupid and won’t work!" Is my favorite part of AC, even tho I heard it a few dozen times

Iruwen.3164:

Anyway, I’ve not experienced such problems with the Englisch version. I don’t have a problem with Trahearne as well. Sounds like a Sylvari to me. But maybe what Bobby said comes into play here – English is not my native language, so I just don’t hear the mistakes. I’d still hear a “bad” voice though.

The problem with Trahearne is not WHAT he says but HOW he says them. A depressing monotonous tone. When we were talking about this in our guild, someone wondered if actor was informed that he was dying of an incurable disease right before he went in for the recording.

A depressed tone isn’t entirely wrong considering the circumstances but he uses the same tone even when he is supposed to be giving an inspirational speech! Just because he is Sylvari does not mean he should have the emotions of a block of wood.

BobbyStein.2315:

Svarty.8019:

BobbyStein.2315:

I don’t want Guild Wars 2 to sound like every other fantasy title out there with the standard British accents on every character. So aside from more British accents, what other types of voices would you like to hear?

As a British person, I can tell you that there are a LOT of accents in Britain itself. I wonder if by “standard” British accents you mean either of the ones Americans tend to know; kittenney (Dick van kitten in Mary Poppins), and Posh (the rest of the cast of Mary Poppins) (The filter is stopping my from naming the Dick van kitten accent, but it is a regional accent from London. Oh wow, I can’t even type his name. This censorship is insane). You could also try (and I know I’m lumping a lot of regional variations and/or dialects together here);
Welsh,
Scottish,
Northern Irish,
Geordie,
Scouse,
Northern English,
Midlands,
South-Western English.

By far and away the worst voice acting I have ever heard is Detha in AC saying, “but I have to build them myself”. A completely ridiculous emphasis on the word “build” makes this sound absolutely comical.

I think we’re in agreement that there are many types of British accents—just as there are many types of American ones. I was referring to the common practice and perception that most fantasy games (and films) tend to feature British accents of all types for the cast. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with that, by the way, just that it seems the norm.

We tended to get the best performances from actors who spoke in their native accent. Perhaps it’s a comfort zone thing. There were a few exceptions, though. I thought Jennifer Hale pulled off a great sylvari performance, all things considered. I rather liked Brandon Bales, too. Neither are from England as far as I know. Then again, I’ve never lived overseas so I doubt my ears can detect where our acted British accents sounded “off” as well as you can.

We’ve already made some changes to our casting process since launch, so I’d like to hear your feedback as time goes on and newer performances make it into the game.

did anyone notice the censor of the actors name? Made me lol

As an English person, I can tell you that one of the Sylvari actresses is god-awful.
It’s the one who’s having a discussion about festivals with the Asura in LA. She also voices a prominent storyline character.
It’s a really bad accent and blatantly obvious that it’s not the actor’s native voice.

But I agree that Jennifer Hale’s Sylvari is spectacular. Hers is a standout performance.
“Oh. What’s happening?” is my favourite confusion bark in the game

Regarding accents I’d like to see, I found it very refreshing when playing The Witcher 2 to encounter Northern Irish and Welsh accents.
I’d also be keen to see some accents representative of my own, a West Country rural one (I’m from the original Berkeley, and it’s a bit of a Pirate’s accent). A good analogue of my accent is if you’ve seen Hot Fuzz. That scene in the field where Nick Frost acts as translator for the old farmer was a hoot to me, as I know a lot of people like that. I wish you could hear my friend Ricky speak. He speaks like that at 100 miles an hour.

Geordie would be great, as would a distinctly Glaswegian accent. And Glaswegian is a very particular accent, vastly different to other Scottish ones.

BobbyStein.2315:

Also, the game is made in America, we write it in American English, and most of our actors live in Los Angeles. That stated, I agree that we could use some more vocal diversity in the game, but I don’t want Guild Wars 2 to sound like every other fantasy title out there with the standard British accents on every character. So aside from more British accents, what other types of voices would you like to hear?

personally, i always loved the different voices and accents for the characters in Team Fortress 2, because it made every single one of them stand out. you had the scottish demo man, the boston scout, the french spy, the australian sniper, the russian heavy and so forth.
i realize you have to cover way more characters in GW2, so you can’t really compare the games like that. also, my native language is german, so what sounds great and diverse to me, might sound like a bunch of random stereotypes to a native speaker.

but maybe it’d be a good idea to have different (new) races have different accents. the tengu come to mind, those obviously already have a bit of an asian-inspired accent. i’m not entirely sure, but i think one of the largos in the personal story has kind of a russian accent. which i found pretty amusing.

i’m just assuming here, but i think we’ll see more of the tengu and largos and more new races (not necessarily playable) going forward.

I don’t think Trahearne’s acting was bad from the start. I think it got worse as time went on, and of course more recent memories are easier to remember.

I would think that Trehearne had the most lines of any single character (not sure, the Player Characters obviously have a lot, but they have fewer lines as the story progresses into Orr). So I imagine the voice actor was getting rather fatigued, that’s what the tone sounds like to me.

That aside, I look forward to future lines. It was explained that there’s an aim to add more dynamic events so that they can reduce the recurrence of current ones and make events feel increasingly unique. I hope the same plans exist for ambient dialogue, plans to increase the quantity to reduce repetition.

BobbyStein.2315:

I think we’re in agreement that there are many types of British accents—just as there are many types of American ones. I was referring to the common practice and perception that most fantasy games (and films) tend to feature British accents of all types for the cast. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with that, by the way, just that it seems the norm.

We tended to get the best performances from actors who spoke in their native accent. Perhaps it’s a comfort zone thing. There were a few exceptions, though. I thought Jennifer Hale pulled off a great sylvari performance, all things considered. I rather liked Brandon Bales, too. Neither are from England as far as I know. Then again, I’ve never lived overseas so I doubt my ears can detect where our acted British accents sounded “off” as well as you can.

If you want another example of one which was decidedly off, I just played through ‘The Sad Tale of the Ravenous’ in the human storyline tonight and heard the worst ‘British’ accent in the game, or possibly any game. The actress playing First Mate Gaets doesn’t seem to know if she’s doing a West Country or terrible fake *London accent. It’s all over the place. One sentence starts out American and then, as if by compensation, the actress hams it up with the fake accents even more. In the same scene Captain Barnicus is also pretty corny, but at least he’s only murdering one accent and not several at once.

Aren’t all the Sylvari British? I really don’t have a problem with the humans having American accents. Kryta is a country, Krytans have American accents, just like Americans have American accents. It would actually be a bit unusual if they did have a wide variety of accents, given that they have only one major metropolitan area and a few scattered farms. I don’t know what went on in GW1, but I could see them having it so that explicitly Ascalonian descended settlements would have a slightly different accent than Krytans, but there’s no reason for human accents to be all over the place.

Khisanth.2948:

Iruwen.3164:

Anyway, I’ve not experienced such problems with the Englisch version. I don’t have a problem with Trahearne as well. Sounds like a Sylvari to me. But maybe what Bobby said comes into play here – English is not my native language, so I just don’t hear the mistakes. I’d still hear a “bad” voice though.

The problem with Trahearne is not WHAT he says but HOW he says them. A depressing monotonous tone. When we were talking about this in our guild, someone wondered if actor was informed that he was dying of an incurable disease right before he went in for the recording.

A depressed tone isn’t entirely wrong considering the circumstances but he uses the same tone even when he is supposed to be giving an inspirational speech! Just because he is Sylvari does not mean he should have the emotions of a block of wood.

Yeah ok, I see what you mean. The way he speaks is exactly the was I’d expect from this character, considering he’s a firstborn necromancer and the oldest of all sylvari, wandering around Orr alone most of the time and now he has to carry such a heavy burden. But in some speeches he really sounds dull. Doesn’t make it bad voice acting for me though, I’m used to far worse experiences (e.g. the German version =)).

All the characters have the same voice (depending on races and gender of course). Would be nice if we could change that and maybe add 3-4 sets of voices for our own characters, maybe choose them, maybe depending on the choices you make at character creation.

I wish I could only have the female voice that that cute /Cheer has… the one that is like, “Yay! ^-^”

I wonder how much the flatness of the personal story dialogue is a result of the casual poses everybody has. Honestly, even the most urgent and animated voice is flattened when they’re just standing around swinging their arms like it’s a calm, breezy day. I immensely enjoy the voices a lot more when I’m not actually watching the characters, and it explains why event chatter is so much more charming.

I haven’t finished the storyline yet, but I’m a little disappointed by the context clues I’m picking up about Trahearne in these threads. If he doesn’t turn out to be a sleeper agent of Zaitan I will be greatly disappointed.

The reason I bring it up, is because I’ve been attributing his weak dialogue as not only slightly sinister, but intentionally lame as a result of being a necromantic minion posing as the original Trahearne as best it could. But now I see that it really may just be poor voicing.

Kain Francois.4328:

Honestly, I don’t understand the complaints with voice acting besides Trahearne. They’re all pretty exceptional and get the job done well, with notable praise to Zojja and ALL Male Sylvari! Their enthusiastic, adventurous, yet cute, innocent voice really stands out, making them a pleasure to listen to! I also have to give some praise to various Asura characters such as Magg.

However, a part of me misses the cheesy voice of Master Togo…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8gHHFWOjHQ

Also, for Detha’s emphasis on build, isn’t she supposed to be a sarcastic character?

Of COURSE Zojja is good, she’s voiced by FELICIA DAY. fanboi

On the accent note, I think that there is something of a necessity for less diversity at this point, since we’re only in the continent of Tyria (aka less population of “Asian” accented characters than Cantha, and less… mid-east? African? accented characters than Elona). That being said, there is still a lot that can be done. I haven’t seen a single character with an American Southern accent, which I think could be awesome if done well. I’d also like to hear more Scottish, just by personal preference.

In my opinion a lot of the criticism has to do with the way the cutscenes are presented. I get it that you were trying to be a bit more artistic but it just doesn’t come off well. In addition to taking you out of the world it just accentuates the voice acting since that will be about the only focus in that scene. I suppose an analogy would be in a play where the actors have the stage and props to work with as opposed to just having the two actors telling lines to each other. The actors have to be extraordinarily good to pull it off.

I generally like the voice acting. I would love it if you could choose different voices for your character at creation.
For example: the male charr voice is fine most of the time, but not if you’re running the old and aged face.
Sometimes voices become too distinctive, and it bothers me when they reuse the voice actor for another character.
The female voice of one of the NPCs in P2 CoF comes to mind. She’s also used a lot for Asura females, and hearing her come from a Norn throws me everytime.
I did notice a female voice coming from a male character, who occasionally would say things in a man’s voice.
That tripped me up too.

In my opinion, the voice acting in GW2 is just…okay. It’s not as bad as WoW, where EVERY character DRAMATICALLY OVER-ENUNCIATES everything THEY SAY in the most AWKWARD possible way, but not as excellent as DA:O, where most of the dialogue is so natural you almost have to stop yourself from replying to the characters out loud. There are good things about it – for example, the characters with deep voices (mostly kodan, norn, and charr) are actually played by people with deep voices, not average people who are awkwardly trying to make their voices sound deep – but for the most part it’s alright.

BobbyStein.2315:

I think we’re in agreement that there are many types of British accents—just as there are many types of American ones.
<snip>
Then again, I’ve never lived overseas so I doubt my ears can detect where our acted British accents sounded “off” as well as you can.

I think the problem is that most American accents really sound alike, at least for us Europeans. And even most Americans even had problem placing my accent. Which happens to be Dutch… And we learned British English at school.

So, it’s not so much a matter of having different accents, it’s more a matter of having different accents that really sound differently. Especially between the races.

This video sums up my concerns with the voice acting and personality of this character.

Azure Prower.8701:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN0W2j-XWR8

This video sums up my concerns with the voice acting and personality of this character.

That’s just sad…
And I don’t meant Azure’s comment or video…

To Trahearne’s voice actor defence I think he acted that way with a certain sophisticated type of character in mind, but because of the simple style of talking cutscenes, the complete absence of any director’s work, and the character’s simple in-engine character model, the character ended up being just boring.

I’m not sure how to describe my issue with voice and personalities in the game other than this:

If I close my eyes and just listen, I can’t tell if its a human or a grawl or a hylek etc speaking even if you line them up.
They all sound like downtown urbanites with perfect human accent.
Quaggan fare not much better, the only difference being their cooo and foooing.

Skritts are perhaps the only distinctive ones, both in pitch/tone and mannerisms.

And the Risens? Inperceptible audio effect trail, plus they still sound like normal humans reading from a script. The fact that it sounds like that even when they usually say only 2 or 3 words only shows all the more how bad they are.

I was a proponent of the oldschool 1 on 1 cutscene format previously.
But after comparing the quality of what we currently have with those of ambient happenings and scenes, I’d take the ambient versions anyday.

Every line of dialogue in this game was monotonously read into a microphone in one take without even backround noise to make it seem like something was actually taking place. Combine that with a story that makes 70s exploitation movies look like Shakespeare. This thread is akin to opening up a sewage drain and discussing if it smells as good as fresh bread baking in the oven. The separate volume control for dialogue is a god send.

I spoke to a female NPC in Frostgorge sound (can’t remember the name) The NPC’s age looked around 21 but her voice was that of a 70 year old (ish) Lady :/

Bonefield.9813:

BobbyStein.2315:

That stated, all ideas are valid. We had discussed finding ways of giving players new voices, or building a pitch slider for those who wanted such a feature. We settled with what we have now due to time and resource constraints, however.

Is there a possibility that you’ll revisit this in the future? A pitch slider would be pretty awesome.

A pitch slider might be an easier way to give your hero personality than new voice acting… I’m also curious to know if you are considering implementing this, bobby.

BobbyStein.2315:

Malin.2490:

Personal story/cinematics: HORRIBLE
Ambient scenes and events: AWESOME

I still can’t believe the difference. Possibly two different teams?

Yes. Separate teams handled writing the different content types leading up to ship. That is no longer the case. My team is now responsible for the final output of all text and VO in the game, and I am now fully responsible for the quality. As a result of this change, I am now empowered to take the writing and VO in a direction that’s more consistent with the ambient scenes and events.

So what i can take away from this is that your team made the back ground ambient dialogue and another team made the cut scenes….

Wow, do you guys have NO quality checkers? Did you even listen to their work during production? Honestly, i don’t understand how such a large company put out such mediocre work. I play with all sound off now by the way, its too painful to listen any longer.

Hope you guys hire some quality checkers/managers in the future.

I’ve just LMAO’d at the most “EPIC” scenes. Terrible.

I don’t think the voice acting is awful. Some of the voices get on my nerves a bit, but that is more personal preference than because they are “bad” as such. I think the female Asura character voice acting is the best in the game by far though.

BobbyStein.2315:

Malin.2490:

Personal story/cinematics: HORRIBLE
Ambient scenes and events: AWESOME

I still can’t believe the difference. Possibly two different teams?

Yes. Separate teams handled writing the different content types leading up to ship. That is no longer the case. My team is now responsible for the final output of all text and VO in the game, and I am now fully responsible for the quality. As a result of this change, I am now empowered to take the writing and VO in a direction that’s more consistent with the ambient scenes and events.

Bourbz.8712:

Personally, my biggest concern with the voice acting in this game is the lack of variety of accents. EVERYONE in the game sounds american, and they all speak in AMERCIAN english rather than British english, or just pronounce words how people would pronounce them if they had come from the same part of america. Prime examples are “CenTAR instead of CenTOUR” (thats the main one I can think of off the top of my head because it is said so much) but I have noticed many, many others that could have more diversity to them in order to add to the immersion. (Imagine if every english speaking person in the world said things exactly the same)

That’s not entirely true. We have a number of non-American accents in the game that are delivered by natural speakers. Here’s a small list as an example (but there are more).

• Robin Atkin Downes
• Gideon Emery
• Jane Windsor
• Roberto Medina
• Lin Gallagher
• Jenny Veal
• Etc.

Also, the game is made in America, we write it in American English, and most of our actors live in Los Angeles. That stated, I agree that we could use some more vocal diversity in the game, but I don’t want Guild Wars 2 to sound like every other fantasy title out there with the standard British accents on every character. So aside from more British accents, what other types of voices would you like to hear?

I’d love to hear some Brazilian accents. That would be an epic win.

I’d offer my vocal services for free to Anet, but I wonder if many outside the UK would understand a Potteries accent!

“Ow art, duck? Yart awreet?”

To be honest, the voice acting doesn’t bother me at all. Younger players (aka kids) are likely to play this and I expected slow dialogues to make it easier for them (and to read the texts).

I can’t stand Sieran. But Carys? My lord. I’ve never come across a character in any media before whose voice acting and lines make me want to take a running leap off a cliff. I desperately wish I could put her out of my misery.
I know she’s supposed to be thick, but that’s a little ridiculous. She’s articifically bubbly and sweet and reminds me of a grown woman trying to act (badly and stereotypically) like a five year old child. And, spoilers, but how on earth could someone so empty headed lead the Pale Reavers? I know they’re basically just Trahearne’s cannon fodder for the dragons (that is really how it comes across, making Trahearne look like a jerk exploiting his own people to take down the dragons at ANY cost), but you would think a little bit of brain power would be required.
Trahearne himself is generally terrible but everyone is aware of that. He does not bother me as badly as Carys, but it would be quite a feat if he did.
The pale tree is just as emotionless as he is and inspires nothing in me. Seems like a lot of Sylvari suffer. Shame, as they’re my favorite race.

Personal Story voice acting is definitely the worst. Ambient is generally fine. Asura and Charr have the best voice acting, I’ll agree. Human and Sylvari are mediocre to bad. I don’t know about Norn since I don’t play one, I don’t care for the writing for them compared to GW1. They strike me as just being huge drunk humans this time around.

And back to Sylvari, but I have four males and I’ve had to listen to their lines.. a lot. The accent really frequently slips and you can tell the VA is American or Canadian or something. Normally I like the voice, except in those moments. It’s especially bad with the lines “hit me, I dare you!” and “I can FEEL the adrenaline!” (or something similar). The former sounds more like a weird Boston accent, the latter is snarled, near accentless, and doesn’t sound like the usual voice at all. I thought at first those lines were other characters of another race near me, then I realized the audio was my Sylvari. “Shake it off!” sounds peculiar as well. It seems that it just goes strange whenever the VA needs to shout. The guy is fully capable of emoting, though, so good job there. As a disclaimer, I’m not English, I’m American, and I could still hear things off about his accent.

The worst voice acting scene in the game, however, is during Against The Corruption. After Trahearne tries his ritual and fails, he laments the impossibility of the situation.. in the most dry, emotionless voice possible. The writing for the scene is frankly terrible, too.. sorry if that offends, but I have to be honest. You can look up the scene dialogue on the wiki.

Within just a few lines, he goes from completely hopeless to determined again. I understand that during a scene in writing you need to change the mood from beginning to end to keep the audience’s interest, but this wasn’t over just one scene, this was during one brief exchange within a scene. This is not good writing. TVtropes would call this Mood Whiplash, I’m sure. It makes Trahearne even less realistic than he already is, and those lines are read with all the heartfelt emotion of someone going over their grocery list. That, and the answers are just so easy. Trahearne instantly knows what The Source of Orr is, there’s no real looking for it or trying to figure out what it means. There is no tension or worry about figuring it out. There’s no drama, even thought the game’s writing really tries hard to create it. It just falls flat, I’m sorry to say.

I played GW1 for seven years. I really want to love the story/writing/voice acting for GW2, but the vast majority of the time, I just can’t.

As for accents I’d like to see, if Elona is ever released in an expansion or campaign, I’d really love to hear African and Middle East type accents. It greatly helps with immersion. Ditto with Cantha, I’ve noticed that Tengu have accents and it sounds wonderful.

Egon Vidar.9125:

I played GW1 for seven years. I really want to love the story/writing/voice acting for GW2, but the vast majority of the time, I just can’t.

As for accents I’d like to see, if Elona is ever released in an expansion or campaign, I’d really love to hear African and Middle East type accents. It greatly helps with immersion. Ditto with Cantha, I’ve noticed that Tengu have accents and it sounds wonderful.

I loved GW1 but some of the voice acting was pretty terrible, particularly Prophecies. I can’t recall specific examples but it seemed to improve gradually with each expansion. Nightfall wasn’t too bad (with the exception of Varesh) and EOTN was fairly natural. I preferred the in-game cutscenes.

quickthorn.4918:

Egon Vidar.9125:

I played GW1 for seven years. I really want to love the story/writing/voice acting for GW2, but the vast majority of the time, I just can’t.

As for accents I’d like to see, if Elona is ever released in an expansion or campaign, I’d really love to hear African and Middle East type accents. It greatly helps with immersion. Ditto with Cantha, I’ve noticed that Tengu have accents and it sounds wonderful.

I loved GW1 but some of the voice acting was pretty terrible, particularly Prophecies. I can’t recall specific examples but it seemed to improve gradually with each expansion. Nightfall wasn’t too bad (with the exception of Varesh) and EOTN was fairly natural. I preferred the in-game cutscenes.

Yeah, Prophecies itself had a lot of VA and timing issues. I particularly remember a lot of scenes with Prince Rurik that were just horrendous. Really cheesy and amateur sounding. It vastly improved with each campaign/expansion, and the in-game cut scenes made everything feel much more natural even when the voice acting was really off.
The story writing for GW1 was vastly superior imo, though, even if the dialogue writing was sometimes pretty wonky.

Rather than generally bad, I’ve found it more hit and miss. Most of the voice work I’ve heard so far is pretty good, though does suffer from the actors talking at eachother as opposed to speaking with eachother. Some, however, is definitely cringeworthy.

The only thing that ever really bugged me was the dude that gives orders at The Shatterer’s event saying “They’re about to explode!”. It just seemed so out of place and almost happy sounding.

As everyone else has said, the ambient conversations that you run past in towns and stutff are great, but your own character’s voice for some races/genders and those 1 on 1 scenes are absolutely atrocious. Humans and Charrs are okay for me but the Norn voices are too high and I wonder if you got your own kids to voice the Asura?

Also I feel that I must mention every time I get that Charr Ascalon whatever Fractal and I get to the final boss, I burst out laughing when he says that ‘yarrr’. What the hell is that? Is that meant to be a ferocious or a pirate noise? He sounds like a drunk angry German trying to order a pizza.

It’s such a pity because almost every other aspect of the game is awesome. And I shouldn’t have to punish Jeremy Soule and his amazing compositions just because I cringe every time I hear a twelve year old behind me go ‘More violets I say, less violence’ or a woman who sounds like a man saying ‘I could outrun a sandtarrr’. Also some of the shouts your characters make a half-arsed effort to shout (to be more accurate, Shouts should be renamed to Deadpan Utterances) isn’t even proper English, like “For Great Justice!”

I’d be greatly amused if Aussie/Kiwi accents are added sometime later on. We might not have an Oceanic server but we should at least have one or two representatives in the game. Nevermind that none of the Americans would understand what they’re saying without subtitles. Someone brought up Norn Iron (AKA Northern Ireland) before and while the English/Welsh/Irish/Scottish blokes wouldn’t have too much trouble with it, there’d probably be a lot of people who have to read the dialogue to decipher what the VAs are saying. Same with the regionals like Scouse or Geordie.

My personal opinion is the VO work in the cutscenes is the worst of the lot, while open world VO seems to be average, if not slightly above.

I think the cutscene style makes the voice acting sound even worse than it should, simple because theres a clear pause between every line of diaglogue… Theres no flow, no rythm or natural imperfections in the way sentences are tied to one another.

A very cheap fix would be altering the cutscenes and adjusting the dialogue pace.

I for one really dont like the artisitic backdrop style, would prefer the open world bubbles and VO all round.

I don’t think that the voice acting of the ps is as devastatingly horrible as some of the comments suggest. However, I agree that this part of the game is very inconsistent. I think Brandon Bales did a great job and I also enjoyed Nolan North’s performance (“When we find Kellach, I swear, I’m going to stick a bag over his head, beat him with a shovel, and bury him in a hill of fire-ants.” – great delivery), though I understand that it is impossible for a voice to meet everyone’s taste. So naturally there are and will be different opinions about that. In my opinion the ps could use some improvement in terms of the writing and presentation. Often there is no real sense of an actual conversation between the player character and the npc. To say that all of the voice acting is bad is an exaggeration though. Constructive critisism is more likely to add to future improvements.

I don’t mind most of the voice acting. But the Sylvari at Ogham Wilds puts the wrong tone in to his sentences at exactly the wrong times.

Arias: Once turned, the Mossheart would never have broken free from the vile hatred of the nightmare. We had no other option but to destroy it."

His tone makes the death sound completely trivial, as it rises at the end of the second sentence. I cannot believe a professional VA would choose to speak that line in such a way, and I’m disappointed if he was told to do so and refused. It sounds completely wrong.

Likewise, also in Caledon Forest, there is an event where you have to protect a Sylvari and his Drake Broodmother pet while he destroys some Risen. If you fail, he is so cut up about his loss that he cannot bear to destroy his own Risen pet, then completely incorrectly voices the next part where he retrieves an egg from the corpse to try and raise another Drake…

…then what comes next is ludicrous. The egg transmorphs into a new Drake and, less than 1 minute from the death of his beloved former pet, he is excited, almost giddily so, as his new pet emerges. The dialogue is.. ok, but the VA is just absolutely dire.

I’d have loved if female human’s were voiced by Laura Bailey. She’s very talented. Probably could have provided a few different voices to give more variety, even.

And I kinda wish Norn had an Irish kinda accent. If Sylvari can have British, why can’t Norn have Irish?

Otherwise, I have no complaints. No more that come to mind, at least.

In my opinion the main topic of this thread is still a large issue, so why has noone posted here since 4 months?

Astucious.4973:

In my opinion the main topic of this thread is still a large issue, so why has noone posted here since 4 months?

The main reason is that Anet cant change current content(Voice and Dialoges), they can only think about improving when adding new content and so far we didnt get any expansion to personal story.

In general in mmo business you can only hope that you did your best from the start cus you wont have enoug money and time to fix really big issues(VA for the whole story part of the game) after you released the product on the market

Cold Hearted Person.6154:

Astucious.4973:

In my opinion the main topic of this thread is still a large issue, so why has noone posted here since 4 months?

The main reason is that Anet cant change current content(Voice and Dialoges), they can only think about improving when adding new content and so far we didnt get any expansion to personal story.

In general in mmo business you can only hope that you did your best from the start cus you wont have enoug money and time to fix really big issues(VA for the whole story part of the game) after you released the product on the market

That I understand, but I really would like to know if ANet has learned the importance of VA for their Success and what they plan to do better in future content.

I did see some interest in the whole aspect, with ANet asking questions, but they never said anything nearly concrete about what they plan do to improve VA for future content.

I think the biggest problem is that the quality of voice acting is severely limited by the quality of the lines. I’ve heard most of these voice actors in other places, and they sound great there. But in GW2, they sound flat and stiff.

I loved most of the voice acting. In particular Zojja and Tybalt. Their voices fit the characters they represented like a glove.

I actually loved the Destiny’s Edge characters – I also watched the video of the voice actors representing it, and in both the video, the trailers and the ‘’I am X. I represent the X race…’’ they sound amazing. Steve Blum, Felicia Day (<3), LoganIforgotHisName, Caithe and probably Eir (never heard her like that) all fit great with their characters.

However, when it comes to the actual dialogue, the same characters say something, usually pretty emotionless, and after a short pause, the dialogue continues. This makes it feel unnatural.

I don’t know whether they were told to do it like that or the editing and putting it together ruined it; but something ruined it and made it feel forced. The dialogue needs a LOT of work, even though the voice actors are amazing. Oh, and Trahearne feels kind of dead as well.

To be specific, the part in my personal story that bothered me most so far was the death or Sieran. Everybody was like ‘’meh, she died… okay… let’s not let it go to waste, though.‘’ And that’s a real shame because, albeit she was over-exaggerated, I liked Sieran. Only Gixx showed some minor emotion.

The voice acting isn’t the best i’ve ever heard- but MMO VO’s in general are not as felt as they can be for other games. Lines are written to appeal to the broadest terms of audience with multiple backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultural differences- things end up sounding passive or robotic.

The VO most guilty of this is Tara Strong in my opinion, she just throws on a voice- which already belongs to 5 other characters and says the line, I doubt she even feels her character anymore. She’s talented in the way of how many voices she has- but they hold no weight to me anymore.

Compare this living story Scarlet to Hyden Walches Harley Quinn, and you can see who delivers from the heart. Tara makes a voice what sounds crazy, Hyden embraces the character that is crazy.

Other that that I would like to be able to choose my characters voice within a selection, all Im asking for is 3 voices- make us not all sound like clones- since we all look pretty unique.

Frayta.4816:

The voice acting isn’t the best i’ve ever heard- but MMO VO’s in general are not as felt as they can be for other games. Lines are written to appeal to the broadest terms of audience with multiple backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultural differences- things end up sounding passive or robotic.

The VO most guilty of this is Tara Strong in my opinion, she just throws on a voice- which already belongs to 5 other characters and says the line, I doubt she even feels her character anymore. She’s talented in the way of how many voices she has- but they hold no weight to me anymore.

Compare this living story Scarlet to Hyden Walches Harley Quinn, and you can see who delivers from the heart. Tara makes a voice what sounds crazy, Hyden embraces the character that is crazy.

Other that that I would like to be able to choose my characters voice within a selection, all Im asking for is 3 voices- make us not all sound like clones- since we all look pretty unique.

Have you ever seen her in interviews? It’s like… kinda 100% obvious that each role is just another paycheck. Mind you, I really liked her voice acting in some things (Tales of Symphonia), but… I don’t think she really gives a hoot what she’s voicing.

Then again, I haven’t noticed a large repertoire of voices for most voice actors, which I think is what makes them immediately recognizable to me. A lot of the really famous ones that the anime kiddies go crazy about have like.. one to two voices each.

Speaking of Tales of Symphonia… a LOT of the voice actors from that game are in GW2.

Huh.

I don’t like the human female player character voice, it just doesn’t fit

Best voice acting: Faolain, Caithe, Rytlock, Zojja, Scarlet, King Adelbern, Dessa, maybe even Eir.
Worst voice acting: Trahearne, Queen Jennah, Rox, Braham, Anise, Gaheron Baelfire.

Btw. why Morrigu from TA has Caithe voice?! That’s absurd. Or a charr scout somewhere in Ascalon has Eir’s voice….

The small discussions around the world and the dialogues in Events are brilliant! And they are MANY – me like that!!!

The only thing I find lacking is the cutscenes where 2 characters stand facing each other and talk. That lacks “the right feeling” a bit….. I Think there is 2 things that does this.
1. the movements (or lack of the same) of the characters in those face to face dialogues. This is like body language not saying the same things as the character – signals “not true”/“lie”/lack of importance/ignorance?

2. the voice acting itself (maybe it would meke more sense and need no change at all if only the movements (an perhaps even enviroment) werer correct to what was actually said).

I Think these cutscenes would be more interesting if they were made more like small film clips – as other parts are done. One could also make other party members visible in the background – makes the part of the story feel less egoistic. WE do this, not only HIM/HER… (even though he/she LEADS the operation).