An update regarding voice acting in Guild Wars 2

[Carnius Magius.8091]

All this voice acting stuff could have been done at home while in bed with an iPhone. My ears can't tell the difference between studio quality and YouTube quality.

[coso.9173]

I SO miss the old UI for dialogue!I know it had its own issues, but I think they could have been reworked instead of deleting it </3

[DreamyAbaddon.3265]

Please bring back voices asap. I'm holding off from the story episodes until it's added cause I want immersion. :(

[Adibas.6982]

I didnt play any content with no VO and i just know its good!Its hard to dodge the spoilers, and I cant even watch Guild Chat because of that

I dont really understand the urgency with recording voice for cinematics though.The visual part makes a larger impact and they were clearly rendered on home PCs. Wouldn't it make more sense to wait and redo them with proper tools?

[Metasynaptic.1093]

"The blacklist" just released their end of season episode where half the episode was made during lockdown. They used animation to fill the gaps in live action, and appear to have done some recording at home for voices. In some cases, the quality is quite poor, which interestingly works well in the context of those scenes. Somewhere down the line, arenanet decided the compromise to voice quality wasn't one they were prepared to make for their game. If arenanet doesn't want to compromise on recording quality due to lockdown, that is entirely their choice.

[Project exa.3204]

In March it was understandable. In June it was understandable. In July, it was still understandable.

It's August 21st now, and the lack of voice acting makes whatever story is trying to be told now feel completely flat. I don't know if I even care anymore.We're fighting frost legion, ramping up against Jormag, and have sustained some heavy losses...but you feel nothing. You're just going from one green waypoint to the next one and reading dialogue trying to imagine their voices which absolutely kills the immersion. In No Quarters the random cutscene with voices was so out of place that you are taken aback as if "Really??"

If Anet doesn't have the voice acting for the new seasons, STOP releasing them unfinished. Players would rather wait for a finished season, than not wait for an unfinished season and then feel literally nothing at the story along the way. The gem store bones being thrown out there only go so far.

I'm taking a break from Guild Wars 2 PvE again. Whenever the voices come back I'll give the new story a shot, but it would be an absolute waste to ruin the experience without the finished product. The remote recording kits should have been mobilized within the first month of lockdown, but the sense I get is that some people up top didn't think the voice acting was that important & opted to release a 75% complete update. That just goes to show the poor corporate decision making, which makes me want to play less and less.

Thank goodness there's more players in HoTM now to fight, or else I wouldn't be playing at all.-Eros

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

^An opinion shared by some, but certainly not all.

[Super Hayes.6890]

@"Project exa.3204" said:In March it was understandable. In June it was understandable. In July, it was still understandable.

It's August 21st now, and the lack of voice acting makes whatever story is trying to be told now feel completely flat. I don't know if I even care anymore.We're fighting frost legion, ramping up against Jormag, and have sustained some heavy losses...but you feel nothing. You're just going from one green waypoint to the next one and reading dialogue trying to imagine their voices which absolutely kills the immersion. In No Quarters the random cutscene with voices was so out of place that you are taken aback as if "Really??"

If Anet doesn't have the voice acting for the new seasons, STOP releasing them unfinished. Players would rather wait for a finished season, than not wait for an unfinished season and then feel literally nothing at the story along the way. The gem store bones being thrown out there only go so far.

I'm taking a break from Guild Wars 2 PvE again. Whenever the voices come back I'll give the new story a shot, but it would be an absolute waste to ruin the experience without the finished product. The remote recording kits should have been mobilized within the first month of lockdown, but the sense I get is that some people up top didn't think the voice acting was that important & opted to release a 75% complete update. That just goes to show the poor corporate decision making, which makes me want to play less and less.

Thank goodness there's more players in HoTM now to fight, or else I wouldn't be playing at all.-Eros

I sympathize about the immersion but I disagree about stopping the releases. I decided at the first no VA announcement that I would play through the content on my main and look forward to running my alts through it when VA gets added. I have some stressful memories of the content drought back in the day and I dont want to experience that again. Partial content is far better than no content and many of us have been through the no content phase of this game so we know what we are talking about. Good riddance esports days!

[Pyriin.3291]

No anet please save your money, no amount of voice acting can save these terrible episodes

[coso.9173]

please let us know when there's news about it though, I'd LOVE to play the last 2 episodes again with voiceovers <3

[Aye.8392]

Thank you for the update. Please stay safe, sane and sanitized!

[Strixxe.2019]

Honestly i stopped playing gw2 all together to avoid any spoilers in regards of story or maps. Still waiting for VA..

[Ashantara.8731]

I missed this announcement completely. Fortunately, someone linked to this thread.

These are exciting news indeed! <3

[kratan.4619]

@ollbirtan.2915 said:really shows where the priorities are....

With all the kittening on the forums about it being missing I guess they are listening the the playerbase.

[Crafterofstars.4512]

So glad to hear this, I've stopped playing because of the lack of voice acting. I understand their reasoning for making that decision, but I also feel that If I tried playing through those episodes without voice acting, I would really be missing out on what makes Gw2 such a unique experience compared to other mmos out there.

Can't wait to come back and play through it all.

[RedCobra.7693]

I would be nice to get some update on this. while im sympathetic to the VA's I've avoided playing the living story as I would like to experience it as a whole. we're late September now and still haven't had any word on this.

[Odin.8270]

I also wanted to know when the voice update for the storyline, getting really impatient here, its like taking forever, if anyone know about the update please share, with a date of the update kindly.

[Tyson.5160]

@Odin.8270 said:I also wanted to know when the voice update for the storyline, getting really impatient here, its like taking forever, if anyone know about the update please share, with a date of the update kindly.

Don’t think they gave one, Anet advised that they are recording ep3 and 4 in September.

[sewenewes.4176]

Ah, people are experiencing a slice of the hearing impaired life. Going to grab this opportunity to campaign for better readability.

Back when we had the talking heads in front of a tangentially related background, I could actually read the dialogue and keep up with the story. Since that got done away with I'm trying to keep one eye on the chat window (forget about constantly angling the camera to see the chat bubbles above the NPCs) and one eye on the combat or other important visuals so I keep missing story beats.

Could we get some improvement in this regard?

[Yggranya.5201]

@ewenness.6482 said:Ah, people are experiencing a slice of the hearing impaired life. Going to grab this opportunity to campaign for better readability.

Back when we had the talking heads in front of a tangentially related background, I could actually read the dialogue and keep up with the story. Since that got done away with I'm trying to keep one eye on the chat window (forget about constantly angling the camera to see the chat bubbles above the NPCs) and one eye on the combat or other important visuals so I keep missing story beats.

Could we get some improvement in this regard?

I usually don't have voices on, so i know what you are talking about. When the dialogue continues during the fighting, i'll be focusing on surviving instead of trying to follow their inane mumbling. It's true you can just read it all afterwards, but why not just design it better instead? Really, i don't even care about the story that much but since you can't really get away from it, might as well see what it's all about.

[Super Hayes.6890]

@ewenness.6482 said:Ah, people are experiencing a slice of the hearing impaired life. Going to grab this opportunity to campaign for better readability.

Back when we had the talking heads in front of a tangentially related background, I could actually read the dialogue and keep up with the story. Since that got done away with I'm trying to keep one eye on the chat window (forget about constantly angling the camera to see the chat bubbles above the NPCs) and one eye on the combat or other important visuals so I keep missing story beats.

Could we get some improvement in this regard?

I second this. My yougest was born deaf and even though he has cochlear implants now the amount of sound input in the room sometimes means what's coming from the speakers doesn't get past his processors over everything else. Having to search for the dialog on screen or read the fast scrolling print in the chat window is not very effective. I would like to see an option to turn on and off a form of subtitles for the top of the screen.

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

@ewenness.6482 said:Ah, people are experiencing a slice of the hearing impaired life. Going to grab this opportunity to campaign for better readability.

Back when we had the talking heads in front of a tangentially related background, I could actually read the dialogue and keep up with the story. Since that got done away with I'm trying to keep one eye on the chat window (forget about constantly angling the camera to see the chat bubbles above the NPCs) and one eye on the combat or other important visuals so I keep missing story beats.

Could we get some improvement in this regard?

The snark in the first sentence is out of place, but the rest of the post is definitely worth supporting.

[TeeracK.3601]

So any chance we can get an update on when it might be expected if the voice lines didn't make it in September? ^^'

[Linken.6345]

@TeeracK.3601 said:So any chance we can get an update on when it might be expected if the voice lines didn't make it in September? ^^'

Id say before 2021

[Thorgald.2485]

@Steve The Cynic.3217 said:The snark in the first sentence is out of place, but the rest of the post is definitely worth supporting.

Snark is never out of place..

Also, voice overs please!!