Guild Wars 2

Hi,

Was just wondering if anyone has noticed that our player characters haven’t had any spoken dialogue at all for the Living Story. Not sure if there’s a reason behind it but I would like to hear my characters speak a bit more like in the Personal Story cutscenes.

Indeed, but I would say the main reason for that is simply because the Living Story is not about us, we just happen to be there while the real “stars” do their stuff more or less.

I’ve mentioned this before, as well. It’s the #1 factor that makes me feel as if there is no place for my character in the story, and it’s hugely frustrating. We’re not involved in any way in moving the story forward and might as well not even there at all because all the important scenes and conversations happen exclusively between NPCs. All we are is silent, obedient errand runners who MAY, if we are lucky, get a pat on the head in a non-voiced, meaningless one-line “conversation” before the NPCs go back to ignoring us.

It’s really killing any interest I have in what’s going on. The “personal story” is disappointing enough in how impersonal it actually is, but at least there we are some sort of active participant. In the “living” story, Rox’ flippin’ pet is more of a character than we are.

well, there’s plenty of texted dialogue, but now that you mention it, it IS odd that our characters can’t have voiced dialogue anymore. maybe paying all the VAs would be too expensive for temporary updates?

I think the cause is cost-based. Any line spoken by the player character needs to be voice ten times (5 races x 2 genders). And it is unclear to me whether all ten of the voice actors are even available, since there has been NO addition of player voicing AT ALL since the launch date.

Having said that, I would love more player character voice work, as I am especially fond of the sound of my main character’s voice (male sylvari).

As Jorno stated, whenever you make our character’s speak in Living Story, it’s not a case of hiring one actor – it’s a case of getting 10 actors back into the recording studio and making sure that they can all be recorded in time for the Living Story release.

Interesting to note, however, is that they did recently add lines for Belcher’s Bluff for our own characters. Normally, when actors are brought in, they’re very rarely brought in for just voicing lines in a small mini-game. It wouldn’t surprise me if our characters had lines in future living story releases.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

I think the cause is cost-based. Any line spoken by the player character needs to be voice ten times (5 races x 2 genders). And it is unclear to me whether all ten of the voice actors are even available, since there has been NO addition of player voicing AT ALL since the launch date.

Having said that, I would love more player character voice work, as I am especially fond of the sound of my main character’s voice (male sylvari).

Well they had already brought in one of the voice actors to do some lines for the Queens Gauntlet. The dev said it was the same person who did the female Sylvari voice, which did the announcer lines for the QG.

skullmount.1758:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

I think the cause is cost-based. Any line spoken by the player character needs to be voice ten times (5 races x 2 genders). And it is unclear to me whether all ten of the voice actors are even available, since there has been NO addition of player voicing AT ALL since the launch date.

Having said that, I would love more player character voice work, as I am especially fond of the sound of my main character’s voice (male sylvari).

Well they had already brought in one of the voice actors to do some lines for the Queens Gauntlet. The dev said it was the same person who did the female Sylvari voice, which did the announcer lines for the QG.

Read what the dev said again.

Avatara.1042:

skullmount.1758:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

I think the cause is cost-based. Any line spoken by the player character needs to be voice ten times (5 races x 2 genders). And it is unclear to me whether all ten of the voice actors are even available, since there has been NO addition of player voicing AT ALL since the launch date.

Having said that, I would love more player character voice work, as I am especially fond of the sound of my main character’s voice (male sylvari).

Well they had already brought in one of the voice actors to do some lines for the Queens Gauntlet. The dev said it was the same person who did the female Sylvari voice, which did the announcer lines for the QG.

Read what the dev said again.

queen jennah and the sylvari female MC are voiced by the same person.

of course, that’s just one out of 10 VAs to get on seattle for a recording session, including the ever-so-busy nolan north (seriously, that guy’s everywhere).

Avatara.1042:

skullmount.1758:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

I think the cause is cost-based. Any line spoken by the player character needs to be voice ten times (5 races x 2 genders). And it is unclear to me whether all ten of the voice actors are even available, since there has been NO addition of player voicing AT ALL since the launch date.

Having said that, I would love more player character voice work, as I am especially fond of the sound of my main character’s voice (male sylvari).

Well they had already brought in one of the voice actors to do some lines for the Queens Gauntlet. The dev said it was the same person who did the female Sylvari voice, which did the announcer lines for the QG.

Read what the dev said again.

Opps, yeah, I got that wrong. I only quickly read it when the redpost was posted. My memory isn’t what it used to be. I just remembered there being something about the announcer and Sylvari female PCs.

Justin.7163:

Hi,

Was just wondering if anyone has noticed that our player characters haven’t had any spoken dialogue at all for the Living Story. Not sure if there’s a reason behind it but I would like to hear my characters speak a bit more like in the Personal Story cutscenes.

There are two reasons behind it: time and money. If they’re going to release new content every two weeks, they’re going to be hard-pressed to pay ten voice actors to come in and do the voice over work. And because they aren’t charging for the Living Story updates, paying ten voice actors to voice some temporary lines of dialogue once a month could be seen as a bad investment.

darkace.8925:

Justin.7163:

Hi,

Was just wondering if anyone has noticed that our player characters haven’t had any spoken dialogue at all for the Living Story. Not sure if there’s a reason behind it but I would like to hear my characters speak a bit more like in the Personal Story cutscenes.

There are two reasons behind it: time and money. If they’re going to release new content every two weeks, they’re going to be hard-pressed to pay ten voice actors to come in and do the voice over work. And because they aren’t charging for the Living Story updates, paying ten voice actors to voice some temporary lines of dialogue once a month could be seen as a bad investment.

They could piece words together from previous cutscenes from the PS. That would be interesting.

They could do a one size fits all ‘charlie brown’s teacher’ voice for whenever our characters have something to say.

I actually enjoyed my voiceless characters over in TSW.

NPC: And then I turned on the TV and watched the Andy Griffith Show.
PC: …
NPC: Okay, okay, I admit it! I ate all the Frusen Glädjé! Now will you shut up and leave me alone!

(Disclaimer: the preceding dialogue was created solely for use as an example and does not at this time appear in any known game.)

This is why it’s a bad idea to hire bigshot celebrities to voice an MMO.

Honestly, did the marketing team believe whether or not people like Nolan North voices the main character, would decide whether or not people buy the game?

Now because of decisions like that, our playable character has to be mute for most the upcoming updates! <_<

I mean, granted Nolan North is a great voice actor, does anyone actually care enough for it to be a deciding factor?

You should have gotten some of the staff (possibly CMs/PR people) to do some of the voices. Martin might have made a good Charr.

BobbyStein.2315:

This is partially true. It’s very expensive to voice the player since it costs 10x (or more in some cases, since some actors are paid above scale depending on ability, availability, etc.) for each line recorded. We also have moved away from using cinematic conversations (the two-shot close ups) which were the primary delivery system of PC VO. Outside of the painterly cinematics and PC chatter (the stuff that’s automatically triggered when you’re low on health, suffering from conditions, leveling up, etc.) we don’t have proper control of triggering PC lines. It’s a technical issue that’s partly tied to having multiple PCs in a party.

So, while we can certainly solve these technical hurdles in the future we currently don’t have support for PC lines outside of the conditions listed above. And considering the fact that PC lines are shared across all races and genders, it doesn’t leave a lot of flexibility for making each PC talk differently. We are considering other ways to let players express themselves in the game through choice (actions, unspoken conversations, etc.), though those discussions are ongoing. Will the player speak in the future? Probably, but how and where are still under debate.

If player feedback helps, I don’t mind unspoken conversation options or actions. IN many ways I prefer them. Although I enjoyed the cinematic conversations of the personal story, they never particularly invested me in my character. They felt more like a movie than something that belonged to me. I’m sure that other people will feel much differently, but I prefer to make up what my character is saying myself. That said, if you ever add more personal story steps, I do think that you should continue in the style that you started with — simply because it would feel strange for new players to have the story style change drastically once you’re done with the Orr story.

Speaking of stories though, I enjoy reading in-game or out. I always read quest text, in game books/item text, and lore stories too. I rarely read ‘my own’ in-game responses because I prefer to dream up what my character is saying (hence my ambivalence re: the personal stories). I’d like to see the charm/ferocity/dignity be more meaningful in game because it’s a cool idea, but having multiple conversation options ultimately fulfills the same purpose and is just as satisfying because being a Diplomat doesn’t seem to do anything for me ingame.

If you’re looking for ways to make the unvoiced conversations be more visible it might be nice to have a standard emote from NPCs that have conversation options to encourage people to actually try to talk to them (eg like the “Could I have a moment” voiced text that some characters say when you go past them).

I’ve read a lot of posts about getting more of the lore or background for the story ingame. I would love to see backstories be brought into the game after a living story completes as books in / journals / newspapers in an archive room at the Durmond Priory. I’m sure that many of us would even volunteer to put the material in that format if someone at ArenaNet would be willing to create a library. After the library is coded in it might take an hour a week to read through submissions and then another hour to plop any decent ones in. They could contain historical essays (ie GW1 campaign stuff) and modern material (a write up about each living story campaign after it ends). It would be the perfect place for creative community members to come together and build something really impressive. Actually, I’d just love to see the Orrator as an ingame news sheet, maybe just hire him instead.

Ultimately, for as many people that don’t read in the game, there are a surprising number that seem to find out about the things that are said in-game from sources outside of the game (fan sites, the wiki, reddit). I wonder sometimes whether using ingame metrics to figure out whether people like flavor text and lore are accurate. I’ve never watched a dungeon cutscene ingame (because my group always wants to get going) but I’ve watched them all at my leisure on youtube. I didn’t stand around in front of each of the singing NPCs at the Labynthine Cliffs to find their full song, but I’ve watched the user compiled full song quite a few times (and I enjoyed that they did spontaneously burst into song while I was playing). And once I’ve read a text or quest prompt, I tend to not read them again (unless it’s Tybalt… because… Tybalt), because I remember what the NPC said (although I have checked to see if some say different things at different times, and am always excited when I find some that do change their conversations depending on my character’s personal story, race choices, or whether I’ve just helped our with an event (I’d love to see more of that btw).

Thanks in advance!

I personally prefer non spoken. The voices selected for my character are way off what I want for them and this gets round this for me.

Gaming needs proper voice synthesis, able to simulate speech cadence, and emotions and all that stuff.

Then devs could simply talk to a micro, the cadence is recorded, and used to generate the lines along a predefined voice pattern, like in those fancy voice synthesizers they use in near-future sci-fi.

It’ll be nice, if, at least, there was a slider for pitch in character voices in character creation, provided it didn’t make voices sound unnatural. I’ve seen it in several games, but pitch effects often result in echoes, reverberations and other unwanted effects.

I though Guild Wars already used something like that, at least for orrians and hylek, as I heard their lines a without the effect a few times, an after retrying they said the lines with their voice effects again. It was weird. I guess it was a glitch, or maybe I didn’t hear right or my brain ‘corrected’ the effect making me hear it without it.

BobbyStein.2315:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

I think the cause is cost-based. Any line spoken by the player character needs to be voice ten times (5 races x 2 genders). And it is unclear to me whether all ten of the voice actors are even available, since there has been NO addition of player voicing AT ALL since the launch date.

Having said that, I would love more player character voice work, as I am especially fond of the sound of my main character’s voice (male sylvari).

This is partially true. It’s very expensive to voice the player since it costs 10x (or more in some cases, since some actors are paid above scale depending on ability, availability, etc.) for each line recorded. We also have moved away from using cinematic conversations (the two-shot close ups) which were the primary delivery system of PC VO. Outside of the painterly cinematics and PC chatter (the stuff that’s automatically triggered when you’re low on health, suffering from conditions, leveling up, etc.) we don’t have proper control of triggering PC lines. It’s a technical issue that’s partly tied to having multiple PCs in a party.

So, while we can certainly solve these technical hurdles in the future we currently don’t have support for PC lines outside of the conditions listed above. And considering the fact that PC lines are shared across all races and genders, it doesn’t leave a lot of flexibility for making each PC talk differently. We are considering other ways to let players express themselves in the game through choice (actions, unspoken conversations, etc.), though those discussions are ongoing. Will the player speak in the future? Probably, but how and where are still under debate.

I don’t know if I am he only one (or in the minority), but tbh… I don’t mind the two shot close ups, for conversations. Why? if it is just a conversation (ie. nothing but talking is happening) it doesn’t really matter in my opinion whether it is in world or as a close up. If something is happening (like in the QJ LS instance with Jennah and the PC is not really relevant… or he is only being addressed without any cause for response then the new style seems appropriate.

Both approaches have their pros and cons in my opinion. I personally don’t mind mute player character in LS, if we ever get a direct continuation of the Personal Story, then yes PC’s should be talking (it is called personal after all, living story not so much).

BobbyStein.2315:

And considering the fact that PC lines are shared across all races and genders, it doesn’t leave a lot of flexibility for making each PC talk differently

For the records: IMO, it was not worth it. We can see in the personal storyline how the plot had to be adapted under the idea of making our characters talk as little as possible. I have a strong feeling that one of the reasons why so many players complain that Traheane steals our spotlight is due to how he spoke a lot, in order to convey dialogue that our characters would have said, had it not been too expensive to record those lines 10 times.

In other words, voice acting, instead of being a tool to improve storytelling, actually became a deterrent, making the story worse. How could this be allowed to happen?

I would glady have all characters of a given gender sharing the same voice, regardless of race, if that resulted in a better personal storyline. With only two voice actors, maybe we would have seen PCs with personality who do actually act in the game, as opposed to just being told what to do and nodding half silently.

BobbyStein.2315:

Kain Francois.4328:

This is why it’s a bad idea to hire bigshot celebrities to voice an MMO.

Honestly, did the marketing team believe whether or not people like Nolan North voices the main character, would decide whether or not people buy the game?

Now because of decisions like that, our playable character has to be mute for most the upcoming updates! <_<

I mean, granted Nolan North is a great voice actor, does anyone actually care enough for it to be a deciding factor?

A couple of things here:

• Marketing had no involvement in casting the player character. This was a design-driven decision.
• The unfortunate side effect of having the player speak with 10 different voices is that it is cost prohibitive, and that the lines are shared. Dialog does not deviate, which means that a charr male PC says the same line as a sylvari female in cinematics in circumstances where any player can talk.

Something that’s interesting to note is that, if I recall correctly, throughout the first half of GW1 the male PCs were voiced by Steve Blum (massive name in the voice acting industry), but was later replaced by some completely different, likely far less costly guy.
In fact, it may have only been the base game campaign that used Steve Blum.

BobbyStein.2315:

Will the player speak in the future? Probably, but how and where are still under debate.

This is exactly why I’m against the Living Story. With the Living Story – as with much of the Living Story content – the developers simply can’t deliver the same level of quality they worked so hard to achieve with the original game. If waiting four to six months – a year, even – between content updates meant the content, the dynamic events, the immersion and the ambiance, the polish and QA, and even the voice acting were given the same care the original game was given then I’d happily forgo the updates we’re getting every other week.

you could simply ask for volunteers to voice characters! id voice act for free if given the chance! im sure others would as well!

Dante.1763:

you could simply ask for volunteers to voice characters! id voice act for free if given the chance! im sure others would as well!

Voice actors are unionized, and union rules make this almost impossible for a non-indie developer to do.

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

Dante.1763:

you could simply ask for volunteers to voice characters! id voice act for free if given the chance! im sure others would as well!

Voice actors are unionized, and union rules make this almost impossible for a non-indie developer to do.

oh well thats stupid then!

Dante.1763:

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

Dante.1763:

you could simply ask for volunteers to voice characters! id voice act for free if given the chance! im sure others would as well!

Voice actors are unionized, and union rules make this almost impossible for a non-indie developer to do.

oh well thats stupid then!

It’s not just a general “they’re unionized” that’s the problem, it’s the specifics of their union rules that’s going to cause problems. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe voice actors have to be paid a minimum of about $800 for a four hour session and an addition $250ish for each additional voice after the third. This, along with the quick release schedule of Living Story content, means they A. can’t justify paying ten voice actors $800/each (it’s going to be much more for established voice actors) to come in for a few lines of dialogue and B. can’t let content pile up before bringing in the voice actors to knock out a bunch of work all at once.

darkace.8925:

Dante.1763:

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

Dante.1763:

you could simply ask for volunteers to voice characters! id voice act for free if given the chance! im sure others would as well!

Voice actors are unionized, and union rules make this almost impossible for a non-indie developer to do.

oh well thats stupid then!

It’s not just a general “they’re unionized” that’s the problem, it’s the specifics of their union rules that’s going to cause problems. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe voice actors have to be paid a minimum of about $800 for a four hour session and an addition $250ish for each additional voice after the third. This, along with the quick release schedule of Living Story content, means they A. can’t justify paying ten voice actors $800/each (it’s going to be much more for established voice actors) to come in for a few lines of dialogue and B. can’t let content pile up before bringing in the voice actors to knock out a bunch of work all at once.

would that also apply to volunteers? i mean if you are by yourself volunteering to take time out of your own schedule to come down and voice a character, wouldnt that be our choice as a volunteer? you as a volunteer are aware that you wont be paid

Dante.1763:

darkace.8925:

Dante.1763:

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

Dante.1763:

you could simply ask for volunteers to voice characters! id voice act for free if given the chance! im sure others would as well!

Voice actors are unionized, and union rules make this almost impossible for a non-indie developer to do.

oh well thats stupid then!

It’s not just a general “they’re unionized” that’s the problem, it’s the specifics of their union rules that’s going to cause problems. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe voice actors have to be paid a minimum of about $800 for a four hour session and an addition $250ish for each additional voice after the third. This, along with the quick release schedule of Living Story content, means they A. can’t justify paying ten voice actors $800/each (it’s going to be much more for established voice actors) to come in for a few lines of dialogue and B. can’t let content pile up before bringing in the voice actors to knock out a bunch of work all at once.

would that also apply to volunteers? i mean if you are by yourself volunteering to take time out of your own schedule to come down and voice a character, wouldnt that be our choice as a volunteer? you as a volunteer are aware that you wont be paid

I’m just speculating here, but I’d imagine the use of volunteers could cause friction with the SAG and thus hamper the ability to use unionized (i.e. professional) voice actors going forward.

Dante.1763:

would that also apply to volunteers? i mean if you are by yourself volunteering to take time out of your own schedule to come down and voice a character, wouldnt that be our choice as a volunteer? you as a volunteer are aware that you wont be paid

Yeah, labor laws don’t easily allow for “volunteer” work for a for-profit business (unless it’s a small family business or self-employed, etc.) There would be too much room for exploitation.

There would be SAG issues too if ANet bypassed using their talent for non-union actors.

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

Yeah, labor laws don’t easily allow for “volunteer” work for a for-profit business (unless it’s a small family business or self-employed, etc.) There would be too much room for exploitation.

There would be SAG issues too if ANet bypassed using their talent for non-union actors.

aw alright, wasnt sure and thank you both for the answer

BobbyStein.2315:

A couple of things here:

• Marketing had no involvement in casting the player character. This was a design-driven decision.
• The unfortunate side effect of having the player speak with 10 different voices is that it is cost prohibitive, and that the lines are shared. Dialog does not deviate, which means that a charr male PC says the same line as a sylvari female in cinematics in circumstances where any player can talk.

Well thanks for clarifying. And sorry, I hope my complaint didn’t come out the wrong way.

Also, I kinda wanna see Martin voice a Charr.

lol better than having our characters be voiced by text to speech software… like microsoft anna

entropyblade.5682:

lol better than having our characters be voiced by text to speech software… like microsoft anna

Oh, we have experienced that in the pre-release demo’s (if you got far enough during the time you had).

Erasculio.2914:

For the records: IMO, it was not worth it. We can see in the personal storyline how the plot had to be adapted under the idea of making our characters talk as little as possible. I have a strong feeling that one of the reasons why so many players complain that Traheane steals our spotlight is due to how he spoke a lot, in order to convey dialogue that our characters would have said, had it not been too expensive to record those lines 10 times.

In other words, voice acting, instead of being a tool to improve storytelling, actually became a deterrent, making the story worse. How could this be allowed to happen?

A very good point! This game and its story are, sadly, a prime example of how the industry’s ever-increasing trend towards fancier windowdressing hurts storytelling quite badly. Voice-acting is meant to increase immersion, but if its inclusion leads to shallow writing and exclusion of the player character in order to keep costs under control, it only achieves the opposite.

BobbyStein.2315:

We are considering other ways to let players express themselves in the game through choice (actions, unspoken conversations, etc.), though those discussions are ongoing.

Please do! I just want to be a participant in the story instead of a mute servant. I’m someone who still happily plays ASCII games, so fancy bells & whistles like voiceacting are not even on my priority list when it comes to enjoyment and immersion. Let’s have more (and longer and deeper) interactions between the player character which allow us to actually be involved and acknowledged in what’s going on. It would make such a huge difference.

Maybe they could commission hobo-tron to voice-o-tron, to voice the playable characters.

BobbyStein.2315:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

I think the cause is cost-based. Any line spoken by the player character needs to be voice ten times (5 races x 2 genders). And it is unclear to me whether all ten of the voice actors are even available, since there has been NO addition of player voicing AT ALL since the launch date.

Having said that, I would love more player character voice work, as I am especially fond of the sound of my main character’s voice (male sylvari).

This is partially true. It’s very expensive to voice the player since it costs 10x (or more in some cases, since some actors are paid above scale depending on ability, availability, etc.) for each line recorded. We also have moved away from using cinematic conversations (the two-shot close ups) which were the primary delivery system of PC VO. Outside of the painterly cinematics and PC chatter (the stuff that’s automatically triggered when you’re low on health, suffering from conditions, leveling up, etc.) we don’t have proper control of triggering PC lines. It’s a technical issue that’s partly tied to having multiple PCs in a party.

So, while we can certainly solve these technical hurdles in the future we currently don’t have support for PC lines outside of the conditions listed above. And considering the fact that PC lines are shared across all races and genders, it doesn’t leave a lot of flexibility for making each PC talk differently. We are considering other ways to let players express themselves in the game through choice (actions, unspoken conversations, etc.), though those discussions are ongoing. Will the player speak in the future? Probably, but how and where are still under debate.

Let me just chime in and add that I have no problems with the Personal Story cinematic style in principle. In fact, I love the animation quality, and I sorely miss the focus on characters’ and NPCs’ body language and facial expressions in the new “panning cinematics”. In my opinion, the Living Story cinematics need both more close-ups on speaking characters, and more utilization of the subtle character animation technologies developed in the Personal Story cinematics.

Therefore, I hope that any future Personal Story (involving other Elder Dragons) will use a decent mix or an amalgamation of the two cinematic styles, and that it will also allow for more voicing of player characters.

BobbyStein.2315:

skullmount.1758:

You should have gotten some of the staff (possibly CMs/PR people) to do some of the voices. Martin might have made a good Charr.

Martin would make an awesome charr, but he’s not a SAG-AFTRA member.

Ahh, that doesn’t matter. Just tell him to do it, its part of his job. I’m sure he could do it. Just think of all the extra voices you could have in the game if you had some of your employees do some voice work.

Kain Francois.4328:

Maybe they could commission hobo-tron to voice-o-tron, to voice the playable characters.

There’s an idea. Have him always with us in the story instance part, and voice our characters.

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

Dante.1763:

would that also apply to volunteers? i mean if you are by yourself volunteering to take time out of your own schedule to come down and voice a character, wouldnt that be our choice as a volunteer? you as a volunteer are aware that you wont be paid

Yeah, labor laws don’t easily allow for “volunteer” work for a for-profit business (unless it’s a small family business or self-employed, etc.) There would be too much room for exploitation.

There would be SAG issues too if ANet bypassed using their talent for non-union actors.

So ANet can never use their staff to do voices? That seems wrong. I could see a problem with SAG if they changed the voice of an existing character that already utilized a union member, but for new voices it doesn’t seem like they would have to use a SAG person.

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

Dante.1763:

would that also apply to volunteers? i mean if you are by yourself volunteering to take time out of your own schedule to come down and voice a character, wouldnt that be our choice as a volunteer? you as a volunteer are aware that you wont be paid

Yeah, labor laws don’t easily allow for “volunteer” work for a for-profit business (unless it’s a small family business or self-employed, etc.) There would be too much room for exploitation.

There would be SAG issues too if ANet bypassed using their talent for non-union actors.

While I don’t know that volunteers would be the answer, I think there is a bit of short-sightedness if SAG does not allow for some minor non-union work in the game. By limiting voice work to SAG-only, it can limit the kinds of interactivity and customization available. Interactivity and customization that could, in turn, have made players happier and/or brought in more players. More players could mean more money which would mean more resources to do complex things later which could mean more work for SAG.

BobbyStein.2315:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

I think the cause is cost-based. Any line spoken by the player character needs to be voice ten times (5 races x 2 genders). And it is unclear to me whether all ten of the voice actors are even available, since there has been NO addition of player voicing AT ALL since the launch date.

Having said that, I would love more player character voice work, as I am especially fond of the sound of my main character’s voice (male sylvari).

This is partially true. It’s very expensive to voice the player since it costs 10x (or more in some cases, since some actors are paid above scale depending on ability, availability, etc.) for each line recorded. We also have moved away from using cinematic conversations (the two-shot close ups) which were the primary delivery system of PC VO. Outside of the painterly cinematics and PC chatter (the stuff that’s automatically triggered when you’re low on health, suffering from conditions, leveling up, etc.) we don’t have proper control of triggering PC lines. It’s a technical issue that’s partly tied to having multiple PCs in a party.

So, while we can certainly solve these technical hurdles in the future we currently don’t have support for PC lines outside of the conditions listed above. And considering the fact that PC lines are shared across all races and genders, it doesn’t leave a lot of flexibility for making each PC talk differently. We are considering other ways to let players express themselves in the game through choice (actions, unspoken conversations, etc.), though those discussions are ongoing. Will the player speak in the future? Probably, but how and where are still under debate.

I have a simple solution to that There are 3 million GW2 players. I can bet you 2 million of them are willing to do this for free. Just hold a contest with some lines, and pick a couple of good ones that are going to have their voices forever attatched to the game they love. I was discussing this with my BF he immidiatly called out “I WOULD DO IT FOR FREE”. And he does some incredible voices and impressions of Modnir hehe.

BobbyStein.2315:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

I think the cause is cost-based. Any line spoken by the player character needs to be voice ten times (5 races x 2 genders). And it is unclear to me whether all ten of the voice actors are even available, since there has been NO addition of player voicing AT ALL since the launch date.

Having said that, I would love more player character voice work, as I am especially fond of the sound of my main character’s voice (male sylvari).

This is partially true. It’s very expensive to voice the player since it costs 10x (or more in some cases, since some actors are paid above scale depending on ability, availability, etc.) for each line recorded. We also have moved away from using cinematic conversations (the two-shot close ups) which were the primary delivery system of PC VO. Outside of the painterly cinematics and PC chatter (the stuff that’s automatically triggered when you’re low on health, suffering from conditions, leveling up, etc.) we don’t have proper control of triggering PC lines. It’s a technical issue that’s partly tied to having multiple PCs in a party.

So, while we can certainly solve these technical hurdles in the future we currently don’t have support for PC lines outside of the conditions listed above. And considering the fact that PC lines are shared across all races and genders, it doesn’t leave a lot of flexibility for making each PC talk differently. We are considering other ways to let players express themselves in the game through choice (actions, unspoken conversations, etc.), though those discussions are ongoing. Will the player speak in the future? Probably, but how and where are still under debate.

Really depressing to see the questionable choice of adding 4 new player races in transition to GW2 negatively affecting the whole experience, from scraping PC voicing, to much fewer, more generic animations, to fewer dances, to fewer emotes, to fewer armors/costumes, to more clipping bugs, to cartoonification (of enemy factions) and stereotyping of the races for “recognition value” , to wholly botched aesthetics (Charr armor). etc.
Especially the 3 new races that got conjured out of thin air, just because that’s what the fantasy MMO market “demands” (or so you thought).

Jornophelanthas.1475:

I think the cause is cost-based. Any line spoken by the player character needs to be voice ten times (5 races x 2 genders). And it is unclear to me whether all ten of the voice actors are even available, since there has been NO addition of player voicing AT ALL since the launch date.

Having said that, I would love more player character voice work, as I am especially fond of the sound of my main character’s voice (male sylvari).

Belcher’s brawl occasional banter when using signature moves sounded new to me.

Jamais vu.5284:

Really depressing to see the questionable choice of adding 4 new player races in transition to GW2 negatively affecting the whole experience, from scraping PC voicing, to much fewer, more generic animations, to fewer dances, to fewer emotes, to fewer armors/costumes, to more clipping bugs, to cartoonification (of enemy factions) and stereotyping of the races for “recognition value” , to wholly botched aesthetics (Charr armor). etc.
Especially the 3 new races that got conjured out of thin air, just because that’s what the fantasy MMO market “demands” (or so you thought).

I agree with you that it’s disappointed to see our characters relegated to silent protagonists, but I think the Living Story – not the addition of four new playable races – is to blame. If there was no Living Story – if the developers were pouring all their resources into a single expansion – I think the voice acting, as well as everything else, would be on par with what we got with the initial release.

Another reason to dislike the ‘industry’. We can’t support our game for free because some union decides we can’t? What utter tripe…

BobbyStein.2315:

• The unfortunate side effect of having the player speak with 10 different voices is that it is cost prohibitive, and that the lines are shared. Dialog does not deviate, which means that a charr male PC says the same line as a sylvari female in cinematics in circumstances where any player can talk.

I made a post about this back in dec about this, i can understand cost is a factor, but are there any plans adding more personality too each race in the future, or any wishful thinking at the very least?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/story/Lack-of-Racial-identity-after-order-quests/first#post936715

Just do the voices with internal employees. You never know if the cleaning lady or the storage keeper can be a good voice actor. I bet they would be proud to participate to the game in this way. Besides, this wouldn’t cost extra money and it will fit into their job description easily

They should all be voiced by Miku.

Problem Solved.

so i undestood it right, that we wont get in the near future some things like, that your Charakter say liveing Story related things(for example if you get chilled on wintersday that you Charakter say something like: I hate those cold Wintersday)