Guild Wars 2

Were you OK with two characters speaking against an animated backdrop, or would you have preferred a more cinematic conversation and dialogue style, a la Mass Effect?

Personally, I was alright with the cutscenes as they were, but I kept telling myself that many of them would have been much more dramatic or gratifying if they were storyboarded then rendered in a cinematic approach. It’s obviously a lot of work and I don’t expect it to retroactively happen, but in future installments of Guild Wars 2, I think this would go a long way with solving two issues:

1. Voice acting complaints

2. Player immersion

I think this would help make the voice acting better (and seem more appropriate), since it would have more context. If the voice actors knew that they were to read lines in the middle of a proper battle cutscene, they would be more motivated to speak with the appropriate emphasis. Likewise, concerning player perception, delivery of such lines would seem more congruous if it were occurring in the middle of a battle cutscene, as opposed to an animated background.

As for player immersion, if a character is about to sacrifice himself or herself, or otherwise make a dramatic statement, having them stand against an animated backdrop with little gesturing seems a bit strange (i.e. CM story mode, Logan yelling that he suspects Jennah has been killed while he's just standing there seems a bit strange, likewise Sieran about to sacrifice herself while just standing there seems decidedly unheroic).

I’ve had no complaints about the format so far – if anything it works better than the Battle of Claw Island cutscenes where the graphical quality starts to look like I’m watching a GW1 cutscene again.

The main immersion issue I see is railroaded dialogue. After level 30, the quest chains merge together and racial distinction is lost – as an example, it doesn’t really work to have a charr go with Trahearne on that little vision quest in the Pale Tree without one mention of how hocus-pocus this all seems. If the dialogues with Trahearne weren’t so strictly business I think he would have looked like a deeper character.

Trahearne’s VA might have seemed pretty monotone, but for a sylvari I think he kind of makes sense. Wasn’t too happy with the female charr PC voice particularly towards the end where my charr seemed like a human in a fur suit, but the male has been solid all the way so far. Other than that I don’t have any complaints – I’ve been quite happy with the Asura NPCs in the dialogues so far.

I have enjoyed the backdrop idea, it is nice to see my characters armor up close but yes i believe they need a little polishing, no doubt about that. I whole-heartedly agree with the fact about making them speak in a way that they acknowledge their own surroundings, be it a war, a dinner party or death. They smile like village idiots the whole way through, i wonder do they actually understand what they are doing?

Turial.1293:

I whole-heartedly agree with the fact about making them speak in a way that they acknowledge their own surroundings, be it a war, a dinner party or death. They smile like village idiots the whole way through, i wonder do they actually understand what they are doing?

Absolutely. There’s some terrible cognitive dissonance when the words and tone just don’t match the situation.

Personally, I love the idea. And in large part it’s executed well.

I do wish my female Charr’s voice was more snarly and growly, but I wish that for ALL the female Charr. The males sound great, the females mostly sound too smooth and soft. Just a little SFX pass would do wonders.

I personally like the female charr voices. It’s hard for human female voice actors to sound deep and snarly without also sounding incredibly forced, trying to sound “male,” and just generally bad. It’s just hard to do that sort of voice when your natural timbre is relatively high pitched and decidedly un-growly. Take it from a girl; males are just always going to be able to do that thing better.

So to me they sound like a good balance of “still being able to keep a natural range of emotion” and “intimidating.”

As for the actual topic though, I like them. I think having actual Mass Effecty cutscenes might get distracting in an MMO. Plus, you get the nice painterly backgrounds. I do love GW2’s art style.