are you also waiting for the voice over in the nel living story?

[Cyninja.2954]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

@"Thenme.6491" said:I am delaying my living story play till the voice is coming but now there is a new living story and the old one still doesn't have voice over. i am realy afraid that when i am going to play the map will be empty. I understand that there is corona and Anet are playing it safe. but i see no reason why they don't bring employs one by one to dub instead of doing it all at once. will there ever be voice? will the expansion come out without voice over? is there anyone else who waits?

If you think that voice actors congregate in a studio all at once, you don't know much about voice acting. There's several videos released by ArenaNet on voice acting; you might consider watching them.Even with one voice actor in the studio at a time, there are still studio audio techs and directors there as well, etc. Also, Los Angeles is a hot spot, and much of it under lockdown.

This.

The assumption of TC on how voice acting is recorded is already faulty. The issue here is also not only the voice actor but also:

• availability of transportation, not all voice actors live 5 minutes from the studio they might have to record from. Many actually have to fly in or come for periods of time and prerecord a lot of VA.
• availability and time slots in a recording studio, which are bound to be a lot more limited currently if staffing is affected or studios are unavailable. Also there are other far bigger players, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, etc. who are splashing cash to get their stuff done first
• the far longer work cycles currently which will inadvertently slow every content development
• availability of the actual voice actor to come in and record
• tons of other stuff that does not come to mind or I would not even know about since I am not part of the VA industry

People need to really stop assuming the current crisis affects only 1 single bottleneck. It has an effect on many areas and parts of production. This is not a simple "oh just don't have all the voice actors together in a room" issue.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

The Devs did say that Episodes 3 and 4 would share the same expanded map.
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/97028/a-message-from-andrew-gray/p1

[Bristingr.5034]

@BlackBullWings.2734 said:Don't worry too much, some people managed to map break and the new map has an entire empty area further north. I'm 90% sure the new map is going to be extended, like bjora marches did.

I'm curious how now.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Even with one voice actor in the studio at a time, there are still studio audio techs and directors there as well, etc. Also, Los Angeles is a hot spot, and much of it under lockdown.

Anet is in the Seattle metropolitan area (Bellevue specifically), not Los Angeles.

[Virdo.1540]

we have played the story through ,but only paying half attention to it. We are re-playing it when the voiceover comes :bleep_bloop:

[Teratus.2859]

@Thenme.6491 said:I am delaying my living story play till the voice is coming but now there is a new living story and the old one still doesn't have voice over. i am realy afraid that when i am going to play the map will be empty. I understand that there is corona and Anet are playing it safe. but i see no reason why they don't bring employs one by one to dub instead of doing it all at once. will there ever be voice? will the expansion come out without voice over? is there anyone else who waits?

I'm doing the same thing but you're overreacting a bit at the end there.The VA is going to come in, we just don't know when.

I'm in the same boat as you regarding the map fears though, by the time we actually play these new maps they could end up being dead, or at the very least we will struggle with achievements and other things due to not being able to keep up with what's going on since most will already have months of playtime invested in these maps already.Will we miss out on rewards or at the very least struggle to get them? who knows.

I hope it won't be too long before we can play these episodes, but if the VA is going to end up being a very long way off then frankly I wish Anet would just stop releasing new episodes all together and focus their time and effort on other areas of the game where this isnt an issue.There has litterally never been a better time to go and fix up dungeons, recreate living world 1, remaster Orr as proper endgame content region, upgrade some areas of HoT and PoF and a ton of other things they could be doing to significantly improve the pre-existing game.

I'll forgive 1-2 episodes of no VA living world.. but if this ends up being 3+ episodes released without VA? Nah.. i'm not ok with that and I'll really start to doubt Anet actually cares about the quality of this game.Hell LW1 has been missing for several years.. if you bought a book and started reading it only to find several chaptors had been ripped out of the early pages you'd be pretty kittened off right?Same applies here, and the way I see it getting LW1 into the game replayable in some way or form is a hell of a lot better use of time and resources than released unfinished new content that lacks arguably thee most important element!

[Yggranya.5201]

@Thenme.6491 said:I am delaying my living story play till the voice is coming but now there is a new living story and the old one still doesn't have voice over. i am realy afraid that when i am going to play the map will be empty. I understand that there is corona and Anet are playing it safe. but i see no reason why they don't bring employs one by one to dub instead of doing it all at once. will there ever be voice? will the expansion come out without voice over? is there anyone else who waits?

If they stop wasting a fortune on voice actors, the game could be updated in so many ways, so i hope they are gone for good. (they are not)

[miraude.2107]

I don't wait. I just turned on NPCs in the chat in case I miss anything. Though I'm also someone who grew up with games where there were no voices and we had to read (Star Tropics, Chrono Trigger, pretty much most games of the 80s/90s) and in some cases read quickly.Just be glad they don't go the Animal Crossing/Okami route and add in babbling.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

@Bristingr.5034 said:

@BlackBullWings.2734 said:Don't worry too much, some people managed to map break and the new map has an entire empty area further north. I'm 90% sure the new map is going to be extended, like bjora marches did.

I'm curious how now.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Even with one voice actor in the studio at a time, there are still studio audio techs and directors there as well, etc. Also, Los Angeles is a hot spot, and much of it under lockdown.

Anet is in the Seattle metropolitan area (Bellevue specifically), not Los Angeles.

And the studios used for voice acting are located in Los Angeles. Again, mentioned multiple times on the videos released.

[Astyrah.4015]

@Teratus.2859 said:I'll forgive 1-2 episodes of no VA living world.. but if this ends up being 3+ episodes released without VA? Nah.. i'm not ok with that and I'll really start to doubt Anet actually cares about the quality of this game.Hell LW1 has been missing for several years.. if you bought a book and started reading it only to find several chaptors had been ripped out of the early pages you'd be pretty kittened off right?Same applies here, and the way I see it getting LW1 into the game replayable in some way or form is a hell of a lot better use of time and resources than released unfinished new content that lacks arguably thee most important element!

you have to be really extra patient with this, hoping it's not the case but i can easily see having at least 3 episodes without VA if the issues brought about by the pandemic don't ease up... Anet and the recording studios involved do have to care for their people after all.

[Zephire.8049]

@Bristingr.5034 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Even with one voice actor in the studio at a time, there are still studio audio techs and directors there as well, etc. Also, Los Angeles is a hot spot, and much of it under lockdown.

Anet is in the Seattle metropolitan area (Bellevue specifically), not Los Angeles.Yes but they apparently do some/all of their recording in LA, most likely because voice actors tend to live near where there's work for them and neither Seattle nor Bellevue are known for a plethora of voice acting gigs. It's cheaper to fly some employees down to get what is needed than get VAs to fly to Washington on Arenanet's dime.

So they would have to fly people down to LA, hope the VAs are able and willing to record during a short period of time, and fly people back to Washington. That's a heck of a lot of risk for everyone involved for something as small as voice acting. And yes some people can't enjoy or follow the story without voice acting but the need for safety of dozens of people outweighs the wants of voice acting in a video game.

[Teratus.2859]

@Astyrah.4015 said:

@"Teratus.2859" said:I'll forgive 1-2 episodes of no VA living world.. but if this ends up being 3+ episodes released without VA? Nah.. i'm not ok with that and I'll really start to doubt Anet actually cares about the quality of this game.Hell LW1 has been missing for several years.. if you bought a book and started reading it only to find several chaptors had been ripped out of the early pages you'd be pretty kittened off right?Same applies here, and the way I see it getting LW1 into the game replayable in some way or form is a hell of a lot better use of time and resources than released unfinished new content that lacks arguably thee most important element!

you have to be really extra patient with this, hoping it's not the case but i can easily see having at least 3 episodes without VA if the issues brought about by the pandemic don't ease up... Anet and the recording studios involved do have to care for their people after all.

Yes, it's an understandable situation.. but it does beg questions like "Is pushing ahead with new content without VA the better use of resources?"No quater was already well into development when this all happened which is mostly why everyone was ok with the decision to go without the voice acting.But these newer ones.. they could have been put on hold for now and resources allocated elsewhere until this pandemic is over.

Ultimately what I am most annoyed by is that they're not doing that but rather pushing on with more new content to which there is I believe a sizable portion of the community which is actively not playing it until the Voice acting update.I don't know how many people for sure but I've seen a number on the forums, got a number of guildmates etc as well so it's probably quite common.With more new episodes without VA, comes greater potential for people to miss out on it and to have the content spoiled for them by either mean spirited players or by total accident.

I have to be careful when watching Gw2 streams now because of spoilers, and that's only going to get worse as more episodes come along without the VA.I'm big on the lore and story of Gw2 as well so it sucks that I can't get involved with any of the new lore either, one of my favourite past times on these forums is talking lore and theories with people.

Since the whole reason many of us are not playing these episodes is because we don't want to spoil them you can see why this is a pretty big concern for us.I really appriciate how people on the forums have gone the extra mile to avoid spoiling No Quater for those of us who havent played it.With each new patch though that risk always exists and grows the further behind we fall.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Well, there may be a majority of players that would rather have the new content, sans VO.
It's probably difficult for those without access to the metrics to tell.I know I'd rather the Devs continue in the same vein.

Also, don't forget, Episodes are worked on for 6 to 8 months, so just like No Quarter, the Devs were already working on this next Episode, and likely the one following.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Yggranya.5201 said:

@Thenme.6491 said:I am delaying my living story play till the voice is coming but now there is a new living story and the old one still doesn't have voice over. i am realy afraid that when i am going to play the map will be empty. I understand that there is corona and Anet are playing it safe. but i see no reason why they don't bring employs one by one to dub instead of doing it all at once. will there ever be voice? will the expansion come out without voice over? is there anyone else who waits?

If they stop wasting a fortune on voice actors, the game could be updated in so many ways, so i hope they are gone for good. (they are not)

That is a very subjective and short sighted approach. Nearly every player who has played the new episode has noticed the eerie silence on the map and the lack of VA during the episode. You are very likely in a minority who does not care about VA, I'd wager a lot of players do not share that sentiment. The fact some are even holding off completely of engaging in the content should tell you how important this feature in story telling is to some.

On the same note, bad VA can ruin a game experience just as much or more. That can be seen often enough in other games.

Obviously you are entitled to you personal opinion, I just do not believe this approach to be in the best interest of the game.

[Fueki.4753]

@Cyninja.2954 said:On the same note, bad VA can ruin a game experience just as much or more. That can be seen often enough in other games.

Bad VA is heavily subjective though.

I certainly don't consider the VA's involved with GW2 (and WoW as well) to be all that great.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:On the same note, bad VA can ruin a game experience just as much or more. That can be seen often enough in other games.

Bad VA is heavily subjective though.

I certainly don't consider the VA's involved with GW2 (and WoW as well) to be all that great.

True, but if you do not consider the VA in this game (or WoW) at least adequate, you have not experienced actual bad VA in a game (which is very well possible for people who only stick to mainstream triple A titles). The bottom of the barrel is far deeper still. I guess it then comes down to terminology and how much "worse" VA can get and if one wants to classify this or not. I could have used a stronger word like terrible as well.

[Teratus.2859]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Yggranya.5201 said:

@Thenme.6491 said:I am delaying my living story play till the voice is coming but now there is a new living story and the old one still doesn't have voice over. i am realy afraid that when i am going to play the map will be empty. I understand that there is corona and Anet are playing it safe. but i see no reason why they don't bring employs one by one to dub instead of doing it all at once. will there ever be voice? will the expansion come out without voice over? is there anyone else who waits?

If they stop wasting a fortune on voice actors, the game could be updated in so many ways, so i hope they are gone for good. (they are not)

That is a very subjective and short sighted approach. Nearly every player who has played the new episode has noticed the eerie silence on the map and the lack of VA during the episode. You are very likely in a minority who does not care about VA, I'd wager a lot of players do not share that sentiment. The fact some are even holding off completely of engaging in the content should tell you how important this feature in story telling is to some.

I agree, if VA wasn't important then there wouldn't have been any need for so many games to embrace it as a core gaming feature thus creating the market for Voice actors in the games we have now.

I'm a big fan of old school RPG's as well, specially the old Final Fantasy games which never had voice acting until the PS2.It can be done sure but without voice acting you need other ways to convey passion and emotions to the player, and that was largely done via cutscenes and animation instead.Even Gw2 has those big cutscene moments when it needs to (Like Rytlock and Bangar back in the prologue of Icebrood saga)That kind of expressive animation doesn't really exist in the open world game and would probably be much harder to do and much easier to be missed by the player as well, the Voice Acting on the other hand is a far better tool at expressing these characters emotions and feelings in the game, that's why I personally feel it is neccessary for this game and why I don't want to play the new patches until they have it.

We can go back to Gw1 with all those big quest log's and general NPC pop up text box's and stuff and see exactly how the lack of Voice acting fails to convey those emotions very well.But even then Gw1 did have fully voiced cutscenes for those big story moments, it just is that important for modern games.

[Fueki.4753]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Fueki.4753 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:On the same note, bad VA can ruin a game experience just as much or more. That can be seen often enough in other games.

Bad VA is heavily subjective though.

I certainly don't consider the VA's involved with GW2 (and WoW as well) to be all that great.

True, but if you do not consider the VA in this game (or WoW) at least adequate, you have not experienced actual bad VA in a game (which is very well possible for people who only stick to mainstream triple A titles). The bottom of the barrel is far deeper still. I guess it then comes down to terminology and how much "worse" VA can get and if one wants to classify this or not. I could have used a stronger word like terrible as well.

I do know that some games, like the Neptunia series, have actually terrible (English) dub.But others being worse doesn't make the ones in GW2 (or WoW) something I'd call good.I didn't call them bad either though. They are somewhere in the middle.

[Dreams.3128]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Fueki.4753 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:On the same note, bad VA can ruin a game experience just as much or more. That can be seen often enough in other games.

Bad VA is heavily subjective though.

I certainly don't consider the VA's involved with GW2 (and WoW as well) to be all that great.

True, but if you do not consider the VA in this game (or WoW) at least adequate, you have not experienced actual bad VA in a game (which is very well possible for people who only stick to mainstream triple A titles). The bottom of the barrel is far deeper still. I guess it then comes down to terminology and how much "worse" VA can get and if one wants to classify this or not. I could have used a stronger word like terrible as well.

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Fueki.4753 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:On the same note, bad VA can ruin a game experience just as much or more. That can be seen often enough in other games.

Bad VA is heavily subjective though.

I certainly don't consider the VA's involved with GW2 (and WoW as well) to be all that great.

True, but if you do not consider the VA in this game (or WoW) at least adequate, you have not experienced actual bad VA in a game (which is very well possible for people who only stick to mainstream triple A titles). The bottom of the barrel is far deeper still. I guess it then comes down to terminology and how much "worse" VA can get and if one wants to classify this or not. I could have used a stronger word like terrible as well.

SWTOR has already proved that they had the best when it comes to VA, so idk why it would make sense for GW2 to try and push that right now, when they have better priorities. If their VA was SWTOR tier, then sure, but it's not, so I feel they could get away with this for a couple of episodes. Their writing has always been better more than their VA, anyways.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@Thenme.6491 said:but i see no reason why they don't bring employs one by one to dub instead of doing it all at once.Because that would be ridiculously more expensive.

will there ever be voice? will the expansion come out without voice over? is there anyone else who waits?Yes. Depends on how bad COVID-19 lasts in the US, sadly, but all things considered the expansion (likely to be released September or November 2021) will no doubt have VA. Yes there are, but not large enough to merit risking health or spending a lot more money than necessary.

@Healix.5819 said:At the current rate the US is going, expect it to be voiceless for another year. Considering there will likely be a long gap between the end of the season and the next expansion, that'll be their best opportunity to re-release the episodes.

I wouldn't say another year, but I'd expect up to and including Episode 6 to be voiceless (6 more months, for clarity). Or at least mostly voiceless. They did include one voiced line in Episode 3 for dramatic impact, after all. Unclear if they were able to get that before quarantine, or if that particular voice actor has the equipment and setup to do quality voice acting from home or something (some VAs do, some do not, which I imagine is why they decided to do no VA, as I doubt they don't have any lines but that one done).

[voltaicbore.8012]

@"Lilyanna.9361" said:If their VA was SWTOR tier, then sure, but it's not, so I feel they could get away with this for a couple of episodes. Their writing has always been better more than their VA, anyways.

GW2's VA is literally SWTOR tier, in terms of many of the people involved:

Jennifer Hale (Satele Shan, fem trooper in SWTOR; Queen Jennah and fem sylvari PC in GW2)Troy Baker (Theron Shan in SWTOR; Logan Thackeray in GW2)Tara Strong (RIsha, Holiday in SWTOR; Scarlet Briar in GW2)Nolan North (male consular PC in SWTOR; male human PC in GW2)Steve Blum (Baron Deathmark and a ton of others in SWTOR; Rytlock in GW2)Yuri Lowenthal (lots of imperial voices in SWTOR; Lord Faren and others in GW2)Misty Lee (tons of work in the Fire Emblem franchise, lots of npcs in SWTOR, some named role in KoTET that I can't remember; Rox in GW2)

There's also other overlaps as well, but I think the ones I listed prove the point sufficiently. The above list also leaves out a few other names, including (perhaps less financially powerful but HUGELY influential in nerd-dom) several cast members of Critical Role (Matt Mercer, Sam Riegel, and Liam O'Brien). The female human PC, April Stewart, has done VA for a long time (and many might recognizer her as Sharon Marsh from South Park - I certainly did. Every time she says "Braham" in exasperation, I hear "Randy!").

These are some of the biggest names in VA. Absolutely top shelf. GW2 VA is as about as premium as it can get. If you don't think GW2's VA is good, you just don't know who's who in VA.

To the extent that the VA might feel weak to you in GW2, it might have more to do with directing. It certainly cannot be attributed to the lack of talent, especially relative to SWTOR.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@Teratus.2859 said:I hope it won't be too long before we can play these episodes, but if the VA is going to end up being a very long way off then frankly I wish Anet would just stop releasing new episodes all together and focus their time and effort on other areas of the game where this isnt an issue.There has litterally never been a better time to go and fix up dungeons, recreate living world 1, remaster Orr as proper endgame content region, upgrade some areas of HoT and PoF and a ton of other things they could be doing to significantly improve the pre-existing game.

I'll forgive 1-2 episodes of no VA living world.. but if this ends up being 3+ episodes released without VA? Nah.. i'm not ok with that and I'll really start to doubt Anet actually cares about the quality of this game.Hell LW1 has been missing for several years.. if you bought a book and started reading it only to find several chaptors had been ripped out of the early pages you'd be pretty kittened off right?Same applies here, and the way I see it getting LW1 into the game replayable in some way or form is a hell of a lot better use of time and resources than released unfinished new content that lacks arguably thee most important element!

While I agree that now is a pretty good time to put serious effort into adding Season 1 into the story journal (and not locking it behind Season 5 story or fractals!), though stopping in the middle of a storyline is kinda eh, I think you're over-exaggerating about ANet not caring about the quality of this game because they're maintaining precautions against a pandemic that is killing hundreds on a daily basis in America.

And thanks to our government's continuous failures in regards to coronavirus, not only is the virus on a rise with the number of cases this past month, but it seems like it'll be lasting for quite some time. I am expecting it to last until March 2021 at least, and that's assuming Trump doesn't remain president. I would rather have 6 LW releases without voice acting, than half of ANet's employees and favored VA being hospitalized.

Granted, I would rather see the next 3-4 releases feature a proper addition of The Lost Shores -> Festival of the Four Winds 2014 placed into the story journal more than 5 more LW releases without VA.

[Teratus.2859]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@"Teratus.2859" said:I hope it won't be too long before we can play these episodes, but if the VA is going to end up being a very long way off then frankly I wish Anet would just stop releasing new episodes all together and focus their time and effort on other areas of the game where this isnt an issue.There has litterally never been a better time to go and fix up dungeons, recreate living world 1, remaster Orr as proper endgame content region, upgrade some areas of HoT and PoF and a ton of other things they could be doing to significantly improve the pre-existing game.

I'll forgive 1-2 episodes of no VA living world.. but if this ends up being 3+ episodes released without VA? Nah.. i'm not ok with that and I'll really start to doubt Anet actually cares about the quality of this game.Hell LW1 has been missing for several years.. if you bought a book and started reading it only to find several chaptors had been ripped out of the early pages you'd be pretty kittened off right?Same applies here, and the way I see it getting LW1 into the game replayable in some way or form is a hell of a lot better use of time and resources than released unfinished new content that lacks arguably thee most important element!

While I agree that now is a pretty good time to put serious effort into adding Season 1 into the story journal (and

not

locking it behind Season 5 story or fractals!), though stopping in the middle of a storyline is kinda eh, I think you're over-exaggerating about ANet not caring about the quality of this game because they're maintaining precautions against a pandemic that is killing

hundreds on a daily basis

in America.

It's not quite as you say there, I understand the pandemic issues and I agree with them taking these precautious to protect the voice actors and employees.What I don't agree with is their decision to keep releasing new episodes of unfinished content that's lacking a pretty significant feature.

What I specifically mean by my doubts about "not caring about the quality of their game" is half to do with this decision to keep releasing new content unfinished and half to do with not taking advantage of an understandable opportunity to delay new episodes/content and allocate resources to improving areas of the existing game that could really benefit from it and have really needed some TLC for years.

Even if they didn't allocate the resources to that and just decided not to release new episodes i'd be happier with that decision.It's not my call though, Anet's decision whether I agree with it or not and I know there are a number of people who both agree and disagree with me so it's really a matter of opinion more than anything.

But it has nothing to do with the pandemic situation specifically, I fully support protecting employees and voice actors at the expense of the game and even our enjoyment.I just don't agree with continuing to release unfinished content, I feel it spoils it.. and that Anet is wasting a good opportunity to make their game better, hell they could even use the time to even make the new episodes bigger, longer, better, more content packed etcAnything would be better really.

I'm not going to get into any of the political stuff in your comment though, even if it is relevant or associated with the pandemic issues I just don't want to see anymore fighting here between Gw2 fans, already been far more than enough of that on other threads.Can of worms we should all want to keep shut lol

[Thenme.6491]

This merge kinda reveals why they reopened the living story forum after no quarter, they knew many people would have problems and this is a way to silence us. this forum is inactive and no one will come in and read it..............

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

No one? Seems some people came in and not only read it, but posted, as well.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@Teratus.2859 said:Even if they didn't allocate the resources to that and just decided not to release new episodes i'd be happier with that decision.I imagine that the number of people who would be satisfied with this would be minimal indeed.

Besides, you don't need voice over for open world content that most players gravitate towards. Certainly benefits it, but how much would voice overs actually add to Drizzlewood Coast?

Keep in mind, I do agree that taking a release or two to bring back S1 properly, or improve older content (e.g., dungeon revamp) would be better. Perhaps ANet will consider such for the November release, since by the time the quarantine hit, Episode 4 was already a two and a half months in progress.

The fractal update coming in September will be the first update worked on entirely from quarantine, so if they delay developing Season 5 episodes due to quarantine, then Episode 5 will be the first one hit.