Guild Wars 2

One of my biggest griefs with the story quests so far is the quality of the voiceover. It generally feels like sitting through a badly rehearsed middle school theatre piece with people reading straight off the sheet, often completely detached from the situation, and with emotional capacity only comparable to the general acting in The Phantom Menace (read: none whatsoever).

A prime example would be the Durmand quest in Maeva’s house and the subsequent Battle for Claw Island, which has the supporting cast in all kinds of misery, but delivering their dialogue lines in a flat monotone that would lull even the most caffeine addled gamer to a soft sleep. There’s also a tendency to Deliver. Lines. Like. Kirk. With. Every. Word. Being. Its. Own. Sentence. which is naturally not helping, plus the general absence of pacing and dialogue sentences cutting smack in the middle of the action or some “in-game” dialogue that has to be read in the chatlog after the sequence has finished.

It’s sadly not like those two quests were the only cases where that happens. To me, it seems like it just keeps getting worse with every spoken line after the intro sequence, and it’s really one of the factors sucking away all my will to invest time in the game, especially after having spent three quarters of a year in a game that excels in story pacing and voice acting.

Just thought I’d mention it.

Voice actors are really just a matter of taste. Some will like them, some won’t. So far I’ve hardly heard any voice acting that bothered me. But then I’m usually more interested in the story and what’s going on my screen – Rather than focussing on audio only, since then you’d be missing out on a lot of the game.

Also, you really need to keep in mind that this is just the vanilla game – No expansions, nothing. And already it’s filled with a ton of dialogue. Had they hired professional and expensive voice actors for each and every sentence in the game, you would not be able to play it. They would’ve gone bankrupt =)

its all a matter of taste just like april says.just like how people like their anime/games subbed vs dubbed

I think Anet spent the money on game choices that actually affect the game’s play.

Spending a ton of money for voice actors isn’t high on my priority list, I applaud them and bear with the poor vo’s.

Couldn’t agree more. Glad they put things in the game that actually matter more than the voices.

Because what’s a game with good voices, and bad-play? I wish the female voices were more cute and the male more exuberant but I guess the bland voices are pretty standard in predominately western-made mmo’s (though GW2 itself is more a mix).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1716744/fullcredits#cast

They hired a lot of professional and very talented voice actors.

Any chances of getting a list of voice actors? I’d be interested in the german ones, too.

Not a fan of Felicia Day. I enjoyed the Asura in GW1 voiced by Maurice LaMarche, voice of The Brain and Kif Kroker.

Golgathoth.3967:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1716744/fullcredits#cast

They hired a lot of professional and very talented voice actors.

Duke Nukem is the sPvP announcer? That’s awesome

BobbyStein.2315:

To the OP: Is it mostly the cinematic conversation VO that bothers you, or all the writing and VO in the game (ambient, event, etc.)?

The most bothersome thing is the flat delivery in the staged cinematics. When coming out of a heated battle, there’s really some emotionless, well, babbling going on that misses its mark completely. For example in the scene on Claw Islandwhen you're racing back to the dying commander, or when Sieran volunteers to sacrifice herself, you’re being ripped out of gameplay that’s supposed to be very dramatic, but the voice acting does not reflect that even in the slightest. There’s also an Ogre called Lagula that’s voiced by Liz Burnette trying to talk way below her range, which to me sounds just weird. Male ogres get the whole post-processing machinery, but she has to do with that ;-)

There’s also some CSI-grade technobabble writing around the Asura that’s not really to my liking, and some lines are just inane or really far off my sense of humour, but after a few decades of watching TV, I’m inclined to look around that.

The ambient voice is mostly fine to me, although a bit repetitive in parts (several threads about that in the Suggestions forum).

The 2-sides stage may be part of the issue, since the voice acting is all the exposition there is. The backgrounds are too stylised to show context, and the “acting skills” (posing, facial expressions) of the characters in there were so far pretty limited. So unless there’s some solid voice acting matching the context the player has just been ripped out of, there’s no way to feel it.

While you’re not addressing me, Mr.Stein, I think the problem for me lies in the direction the actors were given in the cinematic conversations more than the actors themselves.

It feels like (to me) that they were asked to downplay on too much emotion as they were in 1-1 conversations and close up without any action going on, but it makes the conversations feel a bit lifeless.

I remember specifically one line that felt like it was better delivered in previous demos that now feels lifeless and it’s this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSM8UqNxODI&feature=player_detailpage#t=817s. I think that’s the same voice actress. You can feel her desperation as she says, “I can’t spare anyone.” but it’s absent from the actual release. She sounds monotone now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW5eFqQD0bY&feature=player_detailpage#t=983s.

I get why they’ve been given that direction (if indeed they’ve been directed to downplay putting too much emotion in their delivery for cinematic VOs), but I prefer it when it has the emotion in.

By the way, looking back on that, good job with the improvements to the cinematics!

Personally the 2-person cutscenes don’t bother me at all. If anything they show the great attention and detail that went into the faces and expressions. The voices, however, are unfortunately lackluster.

It isn’t that the voice actors are bad. Many of the voices are excellent, but seem to lack direction. I began to realize at some point that it was as if actors were given a large list of lines to recite with very little context to the lines. A notable example would be one of the male skritt voice actors, particularly when any line ends in “Yes?” Usually in this situation the intonation goes up and then slightly down at the end before the word yes, but instead in this case the sentences are given an emphatic, almost villainous treatment (but given as a statement) only then followed by a tacked on “yes” like an afterthought. Though the example is minor in the context of the game, it’s a bit bothersome.

In this case I wondered if he really understood the context in which the skritt were speaking in the game and who the lines were meant for. These lines were mostly spoken by friendly NPCs to the player often asking for aid.

Having played a few races and seen various cutscenes, i really feel that direction is a common problem. After you fought a huge army of undead on Claw Island having lines spoken to you like you are sitting for a coffee at Starbucks is just jarring. Some VO’s make better use of it or even nail it sometimes, but it’s rare.

I think it’s also very much a matter of familiarity breeding contempt.
The decision to only have voice actor determined by race and sex instead of further splitting them into race, sex and class results in very homogeneous performances with a lot of repetition. A human thief should sound different to a human warrior or guardian.

This also spreads confusion to general gameplay, with character barks from other players sounding identical to your character’s voice, resulting in confusion when they announce a condition contrary to your situation. This is made worse by the odd bug that occasionally plays back the barks of those nearby as if they were issued by your character.

I know that voice actors cost money, but extending the cast in these circumstances would really help. As it stands, it sounds cheap and generic.

Trahearnes VO… Is he actually an advanced Asuran golem in disguise?
(just read this into the mic please sir, theres no context required)

Have to totally agree on the monotone and bored voices at the Claw Island battle. Also the Tequatl fight.
Mostly every Dragon fight I’ve been to. The soldiers seem to forget that that there is a frigging HUGE DRAGON able to devour them whole, and one that requires soldiers and firepower to take down.

“Watch out. He’s dropping something from his wings.” Notice the dots, no exclamation marks. Hard to bring the same feel of boredom to text, but if you’ve fought a dragon, you know the voice acting.

EDIT: Alas, considering how ‘hard’ the dragon fights are (press 2 to slay elder dragon), no wonder even the NPC’s are not impressed.

Also dungeons. This might go more in the line of story and not audio itself, but the lines are laughable and it feels like our now disbanded group of ultimate dragon slaying heroes are a bunch of 10 year old kids arguing during every single story dungeon run.
Last time an NPC (mind you, it was the huge and powerful Nord lady) ran away from our dungeon story run “just because I don’t want to listen to your crap because boo hoo I’m a big baby and we hate each other” was also when one of our guildmates said “I think this happens every time we go into a story dungeon”.

The two-person presentation certainly was a terrible choice, in my opinion. Hearing the lines over GW1-style cutscenes could go far to make ones I felt were delivered poorly more fun and entertaining.

I so agree with you. I too prefered the GW1 style of cinematic. It was more of a story than two peoples standing and talking.

I was really looking foward to GW2 for the lore, having played the story of the first one over and over again plus the 2 books that I read at least 3 times each (can’t wait for the third), but I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed now. Sometimes, I just don’t even listen to the story just because it’s boring as hell to see two peoples standing there talking. Between that and just have to read the text, I’d rather read, it would have been a lesser task for ANet.

I hope that in an eventual expansion, ANet could come back to the GW1 style.

To offer a contrasting opinion, I’ve been pretty happy with the voice acting in GW2 overall. We’ve had much worse examples from GW1 in terms of poor voice acting. …plenty of the voiced cut scenes from Prophecies come to mind – not to mention Danika Zu Heltzer from Factions… :P I’ve actually never felt that the voice acting in GW2 was particularly off, but maybe I’ve been lucky?

I also personally enjoyed the “two people in front of a backdrop” thing, as it made the dialogue feel a bit more like a theatre narrative to me – and I thought that was a playful and fresh thing to do for a computer game. A little less serious for sure, but in return – a lot less pretentious. It also makes it more clear who is talking to who. However, I can see where it’s not necessarily everyone’s cup of tea.

I’m really starting to dislike the cutscenes. Since the animation is so stiff it’s pretty much like a glorified audiobook. That and if there are more than 2 people in the conversation it breaks immersion and sense with all that disappearing in and out bullkittens.

Might as well do without it.

I honestly think it’s the writing, and not the voice actors. A voice actor is only as good as his/her direction and writing.

Felicia Day causes me physical pain.

Which is a shame, since Zoijja is my favorite character at the moment.

You will never top Mauriche LaMarche as Vekk, he was awesome.

To be honest, my only real disappointment with the voice acting is that the Norn are red, white and blue American…they should sound Scandinavian. At the very least, like Jora.

There’s a few lines that are a bit odd, but unlike Dragon Age the good vastly outweighs the bad.

I’ve found the voice acting to be pretty decent. It’s not perfect, but it’s far from the worst I’ve seen in a game.

I have mixed feelings about the voice acting in the game. There are times it’s great, and there are other times I just feel like it’s pretty cheesy. Overall, I like the majority of it, although as others have stated, it is still “vanilla” and there is always room for improvement in the future.

I’m glad they put more into the gameplay rather and just focusing on voice-acting, though. Heck, I’m just happy Nolan North is part of the casting.

JayMack.8295:

While you’re not addressing me, Mr.Stein, I think the problem for me lies in the direction the actors were given in the cinematic conversations more than the actors themselves.

It feels like (to me) that they were asked to downplay on too much emotion as they were in 1-1 conversations and close up without any action going on, but it makes the conversations feel a bit lifeless.

I remember specifically one line that felt like it was better delivered in previous demos that now feels lifeless and it’s this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSM8UqNxODI&feature=player_detailpage#t=817s. I think that’s the same voice actress. You can feel her desperation as she says, “I can’t spare anyone.” but it’s absent from the actual release. She sounds monotone now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW5eFqQD0bY&feature=player_detailpage#t=983s.

I get why they’ve been given that direction (if indeed they’ve been directed to downplay putting too much emotion in their delivery for cinematic VOs), but I prefer it when it has the emotion in.

By the way, looking back on that, good job with the improvements to the cinematics!

I have the opposite opinion on this particular example. I much prefer the “release” VO as opposed to the one from beta.

I hear a sense of frustration instead of desperation in the updated one, and I feel it suits the situation just fine. She is frustrated that there is no one she can spare, and then relieved when you volunteer.

That being said, I do feel that some VO’s are really underwhelming (the hylek anyone?), but for the most part I think it is satisfactory and suits the game just fine. Just my opinion of course

How dare anybody speak ill of Felicia Day!!!!!!!?? jk but really, I think she plays Zojja perfectly.

I don’t understand the people saying Zojja’s voice work by Felicia Day was terrible. Granted, I haven’t played a personal story past level 35 or so, but I have 2 Asura in that range and all of the beginning level stories were voiced perfectly. Inflection, emotion, punch lines. It seemed like everything was delivered perfectly. Maybe once she starts getting into more Destinys Edge situations that changes? But from what I’ve experienced, I think Zojja is one of the better voices in the game.

Actually most of the Asura voices in general seem to fit really well, with one minor annoyance: not all of the exclamations seem to be using the same voice actors, or if they are, they’ve been sampled dramatically different. A single NPC sounds like they have 2 or 3 voices when interacting with them for any length of time, and it is a bit jarring. I apologize I can’t offer specific examples because I haven’t notated them as they occur.

Overall I’ve been fairly impressed. Thank you, ArenaNet.

One of my favourite voice actors in the industry is featured quite heavily (though not, alas, as Trahearne … why is he so bad?) in the game, mostly as Sylvari but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard him voicing other races too on occasion. Is there any way of finding out what his name is? He’s done work in LotRO too but their IMDB entry is ludicrous. In short, is there a full cast list anywhere? If not, can there be one please?

Well, it’s all still better than Danika in GW1…

And yes, a large part of the problem is the way the cutscenes are done. There’s just zero immersion and to me the facial expressions don’t weigh up against that- especially since the characters are constantly wobbling back and forth as if they’re drunk. For the love of coffee, just STAND STILL.

(This, incidentally, is also a serious issue in character creating, where it really gets in the way of designing a face. I actually got nauseous once.)

The two-shot cinematics leave a lot to be desired in terms of actual cinema in most cases. I don’t feel it’s even worthy of term.

You can have a talented set of voice actors, but really, they must not have been very inspired while working on this game because a lot of the voice acting is just terribly blank and empty sounding. The only time I was impressed with the voice for the human female player character was in the street rat quest chain whereQuinn dies. She legit sounds whipped into a vengeful fury.

As far as the youtube links above go, they’re both bad. There’s a little tension in the beta version, but even it doesn’t deserve that credit.

Insinuating that it’s the presentation of the cinema that makes the voice acting seem bad is also nonsense. Visual novels and a plethora of jRPGs would like to have a word with you.

Also, Crispin Freeman popping up everywhere in the game is kind of genuinely awful.

BobbyStein.2315:

Also, some of the actors would have benefited from better contextual notes, which is why some of their lines sound “off.”

Any plans to “fix” this in the future?
It’s a shame to hear genuinely talented actors like Nolan North performing so woodenly.
Compare and contrast with Nolan’s exceptional work in Uncharted or Alpha Protocol, and the difference is startling.

I also previously, during beta even, advised against the use of your current cinematic style, as it frequently crosses the line, something you learn about in your very first week of cinema studies if you’re trained even remotely in how to shoot a conversation.

The cutscene style doesn’t make the voice acting itself any better or worse, but when the voice acting is sub-par then a poorly styled cutscene will only make it stand out more.

So, 2 issues here:

1) Voice acting has been poorly directed and is less than convincing.
2) The style of cutscenes severely disrupts immersion.

The cutscenes break immersion even more because of poor / poorly directed voice acting, and the poor voice acting is in turn underlined even more because the cutscenes are not immersive.

Closely entangled but not the same. Ultimately they both need work.

BobbyStein.2315:

I think part of the issue some people have with cinematic conversation VO is the presentation. There are some folks who can’t get past the two-shot, stage play view, so that ruins it for them. Also, some of the actors would have benefited from better contextual notes, which is why some of their lines sound “off.”

Yes, I think that’s probably the real problem here rather than the quality of the voice actors per se. I’ve noticed several occasions where lines just aren’t delivered in a context-appropriate manner, or where one line has a different emotional tone from the line following.

I think the cutscene delivery method thing is a real matter of taste. I actually think it’s very good bang for buck (considering it’s a “cheap” way of doing it).

What I don’t get is why we have the two-person-max "cutscenes" when there are plenty of examples / instances of a more GW1-style cutscene playing out in so many of our story missions.

Just freeze my character in place so I don’t go goofin’ around when I am meant to be talking and let me and the NPCs have our talks. The meetings with the order reps in the home instance, for example, are abysmal when it cycles around to show two at a time. What is this, a Hall of Monuments trophy shelf with a max size of 2?

---

In any case, now that I’ve finally gone through most of the asura stuff, I think I have to conclude for now that the worst VA work is mostly in norn areas. I am not a fan of Felicia Day, but Zojja is pretty kitten well done. They sylvari have mostly been a treat, and I really like the Charr acting overall. Those norn, though, they easily sound like the most bored, reading-from-a-script people a lot of the time -- at least the women do, that is (don’t get me wrong, there’s good work there, this is just a high-level generalization).

Female norn NPCs are so meh.
"I pray to the spirits, but they seldom/rarely answer." OK so apparently there are multiple actresses who deliver this line. But one of them, oh man, one of them sounds like she’s so out-of-her-mind bored, delivering this line as flat as possible. This is on top of how... odd this is as a greeting. "OK, thanks for telling me, I guess? Can I buy that salvage kit now?"

I am runnin’ around Hoelbrak now and not getting the line to trigger off an NPC, but there’s that one where she basically sounds happy and then more or less goes "Oh, it’s you, what do you need?" haha wow what a jerk

synk.6907:

I am not a fan of Felicia Day,

Heretic! Blasphemer!

Female Norn… ugh. I’m sorry, they just sound WAY too butch. That’s irritating enough playing a heavy armour class, but for dainties like Mesmers and Elementalists…

I can see why they would go for deeper voices, but they took the wrong voices to try and get their desired effect.

I kinda have to agree with the OP. There are some spots that just make me cringe.

Example: At the end of Cadeceus' Manor Story Mode, the interaction between Queen Jennah and Logan hurts. The way he just flops from one decision to another feels wrong. There are several instances like this throughout these story quests.

It reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN1Qc6M-z2w

i think some of the ambient dialogue in cities and towns is pretty good. i especially like the children playing outside the Busted Flagon – the pew! pew! bits crack me up; some of the political conversations are also hilarious.

that said, i agree with the OP regarding the cinematic VOs. i am especially disappointed with Felicia Day, who i am a big fan of. sorry, Felicia!

Yeah…. I’ve gotta add my two cents here. The NPCs in town are usually well done.

Most of the PCs are pretty good, although the godawful Norn woman has me THISCLOSE to rerolling that character. The worst part about it is that it doesn’t sound like her normal speaking voice; it sounds like she is trying to lower her voice to sound “tough”.

There are several NPCs who, I agree, could have benefitted from someone explaining the context of their lines. I noticed several things like the skritt “yes” mentioned above, where the actor clearly had something different in mind than the character should have been conveying.

The latest one I encountered was when my [spoiler=Sylvari meets] the guy who doesn’t remember the grove[/spoiler] (I forgot his name); his lines start out in a near-monotone bellow like he’s shouting orders through a bullhorn. They did improve the further I got into the quest, probably because once he had done a bunch of lines, obviously he would get a better idea what was going on.

On a side note, unrelated to acting per se, I love listening male Charr. It was very clever the way they added in the snarls in JUST the right way that I can honestly believe a cat-voice would snarl as they spoke it.

I really think the cutscenes are a bad design because they are a jarring de-emersion. This is especially felt after a massive battle.

The voice acting varies, some goodsome bad. The reality of the emotion animation though is horrible. However, as most have said the bad quality isn’t I think because of the voice actors but the direction they were given.

Why hire great voice actors but substandard director(s)???

As for me I’ve taken to using the cutscenes to take a break. Turn up the volume so i don’t miss the gist of what is being said then go get a drink or something. It is that bad.

BTW – I like Felicia Day and I think those who don’tlike her scenes should blame the director/scriptwirter.

NinjaKnight.1340:

BTW – I like Felicia Day and I think those who don’tlike her scenes should blame the director/scriptwirter.

very good point.

Thadeus Ghostrite needs some quality of life changes. It’s a menacing spirit that is supposed to be taunting you but his taunts sounds like he’s having a discussion over tea.

Deputy Mira needs to show some desperation and (extreme) pain in her voice when she suffers her war injury.

I think many are missing a big part of the VO problem. The thing about the VO here is it’s painfully obvious that it was recorded in a studio whereas good VO would generally sound like it was recorded in the open or at least sound appropriate for wherever their character is at that point. Currently it sounds closed, tight, restricted.

Tad.4109:

NinjaKnight.1340:

BTW – I like Felicia Day and I think those who don’tlike her scenes should blame the director/scriptwirter.

very good point.

Not necessarily. I’m definitely not Felicia’s fan, but I think Zojja’s VO is brilliant.
What bothers me more are fem!sylvari. While it’s always fun to have Jen Hale around, after some time I lost interest in playing my salad.
I can’t quite put my finger on it. But I felt more fascinated by asuras, charr, and grew nostalgically more fond of April Stewart.

All matter of taste and variety, I guess…

Or just that Commander Shepard sets the bar reeeeally high for me.
Edit: spelling -.-

I actually agree. The voices of all of the main characters are fine. However, I also feel that most of the VA’s had horrible contextual notes. Having just done Battle for Claw Island Yesterday, I feel that the actors behind the voices didn’t REALLY know what was supposed to be happening in the story.

The game’s writing is phenominal, but some of the voice acting kills it for me… until I go back to being immersed in the beautiful world.

The game’s story is really good, but sometimes it gets trampled on my spotty VO’s.

A lot of the primary dialogue is good, but some of the VO’s for the world’s Scouts are really bad.

Also, the cinematic (not stage dialogue clips) scenes really lack contextual voice (as I mentioned above.).

It’s not enough to destroy the game, but it is enough for some of us to say: “Sell me something cool on the Store so that I can help you guys pay for better contextual notes and VA’s for expansions.”

Also, and this needs to be mentioned: Sometimes voice’s stop playing for me. Some kind of bug. This happens for sound effects too. Occasionally they just stop working. I will see floating text, hear no voice. When I’m fighting, sometimes my bow shots stop making noise, my axe will stop making sounds, my sword…etc.etc.

Don’t know what causes that.

EDIT: A comment above made me remember: When i watched the Anet-release Video About Voice acting, I remember the Sylvari Female Voice actress had NO-CLUE the real story of Caithe. I think most of the VO problems were due to poor backstory and context. Either on the part of A-net or the Actors not reading their info.

This is a problem. Albeit not a game destroying problem, it is slightly disheartening that the actors do not quite convey the amazing written story. Suggest A-net improves this in Expansions. If they do, the problems will be forgotten.

The one voice I hate in the game is what sounds like a southern accent (there is another name for it but I changed it so I don’t get an infraction for it). It just does not fit in a game like this. It doesn’t even sound like a typical Asura.

I forget which npc it is, but it’s in the Metrica Province area, around the auction guy.

Plus I have heard old lady voices on young looking women in the game.

I must say that the portrayal of the main quest-lines step by step progression is very offsetting and often leaves me just skipping through it. This frame of certainty, uninterest and lack of emotion has certainly stolen the ferocity from the game.

I made a suggestion of how the story mode could be fixed a wile ago, while trying to keep in mind that the changes shouldn’t be to extreem. Aparently nobody even bothered to look at it including A-net, since I didn’t even recieve the usual “you suck” answers.

IMO the problem is that A-ne hitted here the midle ground of expectations…
MMOs rarelly have any story beyond some text in some questlogs, or some naration on their intro, and on the other hand the games (usually non-MMO) that DO have stories are now delivering them expertly.

A-net hit that midle space, where they actually tromised and gave us a story through the game, yet the story ended up being badly delivered with little emotions or direction, and minimal branching.