Tengu Voice Over Challenge - [Merged]

[Ferin Delanore.2674]

Let me start by saying I adore the new episode and content feels much better than other recent patches we have gotten. Story is moving well and development is moving along faster.THAT SAID! I am a voice actor and I can not understand what quality control went on for the voice of the Tengu in terms of mastering and direction. When creating a character the basics are always, WHO am I, Where am I, and WHAT is my motivation.Guild Wars 2 has had incredible voice talent from day one. They match he body, the intention and the circumstance of the character and create an immersive experience.The TENGU however, feel absolutely distant when matching voice to body. There is not a second I felt like the sound could come out of them. A cheerful young female voice coming out of a 7ft tall humanoid bird just doesn't match on any level.1st: The performance of the actor is sublime! I am in no way degrading her performance. It has nuance and feeling. The voice would fit an Asura or skritt in a heartbeat.2nd: The Attack on the Domain of Winds is absolutely felt in the DRM and it shows through her performance.Now to my solution:Nightmare court style voice acting combined with sound level tweaking so that there is a depth to the voice and status / poise and pride of the avian race would benefit the character of the Tengu greatly.Birds have such a capacity for sound and light bone structure that allows for incredible resonance.IF anyone else has a suggestion please add it in a Comment below and I will try to make voice files in the studio and upload them here based on feedback so people can maybe hear the Tengu character and AS A COMMUNITY try to make it come to life more believably.Every Saturday I will try to follow suggestions and create a different realistic voice for a Tengu .Who's on board?

[radda.8920]

@Ferin Delanore.2674 said:Unneeded comment not helping the discussion here. It may not be the best but the content is widely much better received than previous patches. Could have skipped commenting. I’m genuinely trying to see what people would creatively come up with for Tengu voice inspiration.

@radda.8920 said:

@Ferin Delanore.2674 said:Let me start by saying I adore the new episode and content feels much better than other recent patches

I stopped here, my brain bugged while reading this

I would like to know what is better than the last update for example. The DRMs are much more boring than the previous 4 especially in terms of boss mechanics , the mission with braham is a visual and gameplay purge. And the script / dialogues were made by a 5 year old child.To finish the poor primordius associated with braham, just that could be enough to say that this is the worst chapter in the history of the gameBut yes that's not the subject, I just hallucinated reading this. I tell myself that if even by doing such mediocre update, players find a way to say that it's great, it sucks for the future.

I can understand that we have different tastes, there are a lot of things that I don't like in the game and I know why players like thembut it just seems impossible to me this time

[Danikat.8537]

I'm surprised, I thought this was going to be about the weird filter they put on the tengu voices which made it sound like they were all using broken microphones, not the voice actor chosen for one of them. I don't see why someone who sounds young and cheerful must also be short, it certainly doesn't work that way with real-life humans.

Based on her dialogue she is young for a tengu, she's just taller than humans because they all are. So it seems to me the voice actor chosen is entirely appropriate.

[zealex.9410]

Her voice is warming up to me, however, what i feel like has taken a nose dive in thes of voice acting has been pulling back from accent work. Tengu use to have an asian accent and that seems to just be gone now.

[Fenom.9457]

@radda.8920 said:

@Ferin Delanore.2674 said:Let me start by saying I adore the new episode and content feels much better than other recent patches

I stopped here, my brain bugged while reading this

These DRMs are some of the better ones, possibly the best

[Fenom.9457]

@Danikat.8537 said:I'm surprised, I thought this was going to be about the weird filter they put on the tengu voices which made it sound like they were all using broken microphones, not the voice actor chosen for one of them. I don't see why someone who sounds young and cheerful must also be short, it certainly doesn't work that way with real-life humans.

Based on her dialogue she is young for a tengu, she's just taller than humans because they all are. So it seems to me the voice actor chosen is entirely appropriate.

A lot of the sounds you’re talking about are birdlike clicking sounds and other stuff (I don’t know much about birds). It creates a little more immersion that they’re not just people, their mouths are beaks they don’t speak ‘normally’. It’s the same as charr, sometimes they make that weird sound like they’re chewing or trying to do asmr or something. It’s because they don’t have the usual lips and mouth

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Although the voices were a bit surprising to me, I'm guessing the high pitch is due to the way 'talking' (in real life) birds sound.Seems appropriate to me.

[Ferin Delanore.2674]

Hey that is a good point!I just want to clarify: I didn't say the actor was wrong or short... I meant that the voice quality for a large avian strong and Norn-Elf kind of race (but with Feathers) just didn't fit the tonality of the vocals. So the actor did a great job but I believe ArenaNet may not have communicated direction well (trust me lol I voiced a few video games and I know studios have a hard time communicating what they want end product to be due to NDAs)I enjoyed the bird like sounds on some of the males but they also sound somewhat detached from the body. Charr sound like a beast speaking, while Tengu sound like a human speaking. I hope that makes sense.

@Danikat.8537 said:I'm surprised, I thought this was going to be about the weird filter they put on the tengu voices which made it sound like they were all using broken microphones, not the voice actor chosen for one of them. I don't see why someone who sounds young and cheerful must also be short, it certainly doesn't work that way with real-life humans.

Based on her dialogue she is young for a tengu, she's just taller than humans because they all are. So it seems to me the voice actor chosen is entirely appropriate.

[Ferin Delanore.2674]

I agree that the bird like sounds were nice, but do you think they match the Physique of a 7ft tall avian humanoid shooting a bow at enemies and then chirping with an asuran voice? It is just an observation.What comes to mind are the Great Eagles from lord of the rings who rescue Gandalf. If they had voices they wouldn't sound like a high pitch bird in the first place.Maybe It is just me not being able to see the Face-Voice match yet. Maybe you are right and they are perfect as they are. I am just imagining them being playable and having that voice last for years, so I thought a discussion on what people would enjoy seeing would be fun to try.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Although the voices were a bit surprising to me, I'm guessing the high pitch is due to the way 'talking' (in real life) birds sound.Seems appropriate to me.

[Leo G.4501]

@"Danikat.8537" said:I'm surprised, I thought this was going to be about the weird filter they put on the tengu voices which made it sound like they were all using broken microphones, not the voice actor chosen for one of them. I don't see why someone who sounds young and cheerful must also be short, it certainly doesn't work that way with real-life humans.

Based on her dialogue she is young for a tengu, she's just taller than humans because they all are. So it seems to me the voice actor chosen is entirely appropriate.

I thought that was kind of the Tengu's schtick: kind of like real birds that can mimic human voices, it sounds almost identical...except it doesn't have the same timbre or resonance almost sounding like you recorded the voice and played it back. I think it might just have something to do with our ears but you usually can tell when a bird is mimicking something from the real noise. From a distance, it can fool you but up close, you either know it's a "recording" or get the sensation it's further than the sound source actually is.

[EDIT] Should have prefaced that with the caption that I am a complete noob with regards to audio. I don't kitten with recording equipment or sound systems, I just use headphones and ear buds for anything or just go with whatever default speakers are available lol so take my observations as if from a complete layman.

[Ferin Delanore.2674]

You Literally Articulated what I wanted to say!!!! Haha love it! Exactly my point! It sounds as if I am listening to a recording of someone in a part trying to do the voice and it is not mixed well into the game itself so something sounds off. That is why I said the actress is amazing it just doesn't fit the character of "Tengu" in my brain. Some of them totally do and you can hear it. But A LOT of them do not and it sounds super out of place.

@Leo G.4501 said:

@"Danikat.8537" said:I'm surprised, I thought this was going to be about the weird filter they put on the tengu voices which made it sound like they were all using broken microphones, not the voice actor chosen for one of them. I don't see why someone who sounds young and cheerful must also be short, it certainly doesn't work that way with real-life humans.

Based on her dialogue she is young for a tengu, she's just taller than humans because they all are. So it seems to me the voice actor chosen is entirely appropriate.

I thought that was kind of the Tengu's schtick: kind of like real birds that can mimic human voices, it sounds almost identical...except it doesn't have the same timbre or resonance almost sounding like you recorded the voice and played it back. I think it might just have something to do with our ears but you usually can tell when a bird is mimicking something from the real noise. From a distance, it can fool you but up close, you either know it's a "recording" or get the sensation it's further than the sound source actually is.

[EDIT] Should have prefaced that with the caption that I am a complete noob with regards to audio. I don't kitten with recording equipment or sound systems, I just use headphones and ear buds for anything or just go with whatever default speakers are available lol so take my observations as if from a complete layman.

[Swagger.1459]

@Ferin Delanore.2674 said:I agree that the bird like sounds were nice, but do you think they match the Physique of a 7ft tall avian humanoid shooting a bow at enemies and then chirping with an asuran voice? It is just an observation.What comes to mind are the Great Eagles from lord of the rings who rescue Gandalf. If they had voices they wouldn't sound like a high pitch bird in the first place.Maybe It is just me not being able to see the Face-Voice match yet. Maybe you are right and they are perfect as they are. I am just imagining them being playable and having that voice last for years, so I thought a discussion on what people would enjoy seeing would be fun to try.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Although the voices were a bit surprising to me, I'm guessing the high pitch is due to the way 'talking' (in real life) birds sound.Seems appropriate to me.

The main issue is that not everything has to fit into a box of personal preferences. And it’s not very creative of you to assume an X race or an X size has to sound like what you would prefer an X to sound like...

That was one character of many and voices will differ.

[Ferin Delanore.2674]

Wrong. I did not impose a preference I pointed out that the voice development process that went on behind the scenes on a TECHNICAL level is not appropriate for the Character. You can have a heavy metal loving Charr sound feminine and have a voice actor who has a higher pitched voice o aaallll the acting for that character and IF IT IS FIT appropriately into the story and it makes sense for the character... AND if the mixing of the sound is done with a technical depth that lets the sound resonate FROM the character rather than sound as if the recording is not coming from said character then it is fine.Maybe I didn't express myself properly but I feel like people didn't understand what I was pointing out and they read it as a complaint or me bashing the game, while I just pointed out that several of the Tengu characters have voices that do not fit their character as portrayed by the game itself. The game has a very high quality of voice over talent and a sound team that can produce it, so having 60% be great with Tengy and 40% sound out of place is not a personal preference it is a professional observation.Like having 40 Blood Oranges mixed with 60 regular Oranges. 40 of them do not fit the characteristic THE GAME ITSELF establishes ... not my preference.I hope that clears it up

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Ferin Delanore.2674 said:I agree that the bird like sounds were nice, but do you think they match the Physique of a 7ft tall avian humanoid shooting a bow at enemies and then chirping with an asuran voice? It is just an observation.What comes to mind are the Great Eagles from lord of the rings who rescue Gandalf. If they had voices they wouldn't sound like a high pitch bird in the first place.Maybe It is just me not being able to see the Face-Voice match yet. Maybe you are right and they are perfect as they are. I am just imagining them being playable and having that voice last for years, so I thought a discussion on what people would enjoy seeing would be fun to try.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Although the voices were a bit surprising to me, I'm guessing the high pitch is due to the way 'talking' (in real life) birds sound.Seems appropriate to me.

The main issue is that not everything has to fit into a box of personal preferences. And it’s not very creative of you to assume an X race or an X size has to sound like what you would prefer an X to sound like...

That was one character of many and voices will differ.

[Swagger.1459]

@Ferin Delanore.2674 said:Wrong. I did not impose a preference I pointed out that the voice development process that went on behind the scenes on a TECHNICAL level is not appropriate for the Character. You can have a heavy metal loving Charr sound feminine and have a voice actor who has a higher pitched voice o aaallll the acting for that character and IF IT IS FIT appropriately into the story and it makes sense for the character... AND if the mixing of the sound is done with a technical depth that lets the sound resonate FROM the character rather than sound as if the recording is not coming from said character then it is fine.Maybe I didn't express myself properly but I feel like people didn't understand what I was pointing out and they read it as a complaint or me bashing the game, while I just pointed out that several of the Tengu characters have voices that do not fit their character as portrayed by the game itself. The game has a very high quality of voice over talent and a sound team that can produce it, so having 60% be great with Tengy and 40% sound out of place is not a personal preference it is a professional observation.Like having 40 Blood Oranges mixed with 60 regular Oranges. 40 of them do not fit the characteristic THE GAME ITSELF establishes ... not my preference.I hope that clears it up

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Ferin Delanore.2674 said:I agree that the bird like sounds were nice, but do you think they match the Physique of a 7ft tall avian humanoid shooting a bow at enemies and then chirping with an asuran voice? It is just an observation.What comes to mind are the Great Eagles from lord of the rings who rescue Gandalf. If they had voices they wouldn't sound like a high pitch bird in the first place.Maybe It is just me not being able to see the Face-Voice match yet. Maybe you are right and they are perfect as they are. I am just imagining them being playable and having that voice last for years, so I thought a discussion on what people would enjoy seeing would be fun to try.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Although the voices were a bit surprising to me, I'm guessing the high pitch is due to the way 'talking' (in real life) birds sound.Seems appropriate to me.

The main issue is that not everything has to fit into a box of personal preferences. And it’s not very creative of you to assume an X race or an X size has to sound like what you would prefer an X to sound like...

That was one character of many and voices will differ.

Nah, it didn’t fit into what you assumed and into what your ideal imagined sound would be. That’s a you issue.

Also, assuming a voice needs to sound similar to X because of X size and X race is another problem of yours. And what does a bow have to do with a voice a creature has anyway? It doesn’t.

Again, not very creative or imaginative of you when you are stuck in X should sound like X mode. And acting like it’s improbable for a female avian humanoid to not have a similar voice is silly.

And if you think you can do better at voicing Tengu then make a YouTube video and show Anet and the community how it should be done properly according to you...

[Ferin Delanore.2674]

You are very aggressive and don’t really seem to get what I am saying nor read my posts. None of what you wrote applies to what I said. I commented on the technicality of the sound of the voice and you are acting like I’m attacking gender norms and assuming what females should sound like lol. Idk if you are trolling but yeah I am working on some voices with some voice actors I know who actually came to the same conclusion as I did: the technical sound of the Tengu voices in guild wars 2 do not live up to the standard of sound quality as other characters in the game. TECHnically as in ... the technology of the sound of the voice and the way it is mixed into the game is not on par with what a charr or skritt of the same voice would sound like. For example if 4 characters in a movie had quality mics and Angelica Jolie came on sounding like she’s in a corridor with a voice quality of sound that didn’t match her appearance on camera. Yet in real life she would sound just fine.Again you aren’t following what I wrote so I think it’s quite strange for you to make such aggressively negative comments when I was just trying to make a point and have a healthy discussion. Not impose any X or Y opinion of mine lol

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Ferin Delanore.2674 said:Wrong. I did not impose a preference I pointed out that the voice development process that went on behind the scenes on a TECHNICAL level is not appropriate for the Character. You can have a heavy metal loving Charr sound feminine and have a voice actor who has a higher pitched voice o aaallll the acting for that character and IF IT IS FIT appropriately into the story and it makes sense for the character... AND if the mixing of the sound is done with a technical depth that lets the sound resonate FROM the character rather than sound as if the recording is not coming from said character then it is fine.Maybe I didn't express myself properly but I feel like people didn't understand what I was pointing out and they read it as a complaint or me bashing the game, while I just pointed out that several of the Tengu characters have voices that do not fit their character as portrayed by the game itself. The game has a very high quality of voice over talent and a sound team that can produce it, so having 60% be great with Tengy and 40% sound out of place is not a personal preference it is a professional observation.Like having 40 Blood Oranges mixed with 60 regular Oranges. 40 of them do not fit the characteristic THE GAME ITSELF establishes ... not my preference.I hope that clears it up

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Ferin Delanore.2674 said:I agree that the bird like sounds were nice, but do you think they match the Physique of a 7ft tall avian humanoid shooting a bow at enemies and then chirping with an asuran voice? It is just an observation.What comes to mind are the Great Eagles from lord of the rings who rescue Gandalf. If they had voices they wouldn't sound like a high pitch bird in the first place.Maybe It is just me not being able to see the Face-Voice match yet. Maybe you are right and they are perfect as they are. I am just imagining them being playable and having that voice last for years, so I thought a discussion on what people would enjoy seeing would be fun to try.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Although the voices were a bit surprising to me, I'm guessing the high pitch is due to the way 'talking' (in real life) birds sound.Seems appropriate to me.

The main issue is that not everything has to fit into a box of personal preferences. And it’s not very creative of you to assume an X race or an X size has to sound like what you would prefer an X to sound like...

That was one character of many and voices will differ.

Nah, it didn’t fit into what you assumed and into what your ideal imagined sound would be. That’s a you issue.

Also, assuming a voice needs to sound similar to X because of X size and X race is another problem of yours. And what does a bow have to do with a voice a creature has anyway? It doesn’t.

Again, not very creative or imaginative of you when you are stuck in X should sound like X mode. And acting like it’s improbable for a female avian humanoid to not have a similar voice is silly.

And if you think you can do better at voicing Tengu then make a YouTube video and show Anet and the community how it should be done properly according to you...

[Obfuscate.6430]

@Ferin Delanore.2674 said:A cheerful young female voice coming out of a 7ft tall humanoid bird just doesn't match on any level.

I recommend looking for videos of various bird species mimicking human speech on Youtube. Ravens which many people associate with dark, gothic things can sound like breathless excited cheerleaders. So I think it's unfair to assume an avian species wouldn't or shouldn't have the voice of a young woman based on height or just ideas about the race in general.

To be fair to you, I admit I was also surprised by the voice they used but not because it was such a young, high pitched voice. It just didn't have the same cadence or manner of speaking as the other Tengu we've encountered. B-but also it sounded exactly like various Quaggan to me, not only in sound and pitch but...character-wise. It was kind of unnerving.

[Ferin Delanore.2674]

I think the young girl voice quality I described wasn't the right way to go. What you are saying is more on par with what I meant to express. The pitch isn't the issue I saw, it was the quality of the voice connected to the character WITHIN the universe of GW2 where we have seen such voices on Quaggan, Skritt and maybe Asura female. What mostly stuck out to me as I mentioned above is that somehow the sound team didn't master the sound files to sound like part of the game but rather a corridor or distant sounding voice not attached to the speaker (The Tengu) if you listen to their other characters they make more sense even if the voice is a pitch I woulnd't exactly attach to that specific character I still buy it on a fantasy level. I just know I joined that DRM 6 times and 4 times someone had a wtf moment in chat about how they found the sound strange.That's why I kind of wanted to get inspiration from here and see what players have in mind when they think 7ft tall Avian bird people and imagine some cool voice over scenarios where even the high pitch bird like voice makes sense and sounds like ... well like the Raven you described... rather than a young lady.PS.: I totally saw some raven vids of them speaking and that is so fun! I almost wish they would take recordings of birds and make that the speech patters! Maybe it is mostly based within the speech pattern and accent. Notice how they don't say a full sentence yet you know what it means by association. That would be a cool thing for Tengu tbh!Thanks for the comment!

@Obfuscate.6430 said:

@Ferin Delanore.2674 said:A cheerful young female voice coming out of a 7ft tall humanoid bird just doesn't match on any level.

I recommend looking for videos of various bird species mimicking human speech on Youtube. Ravens which many people associate with dark, gothic things can sound like breathless excited cheerleaders. So I think it's unfair to assume an avian species wouldn't or shouldn't have the voice of a young woman based on height or just ideas about the race in general.

To be fair to you, I admit I was also surprised by the voice they used but not because it was such a young, high pitched voice. It just didn't have the same cadence or manner of speaking as the other Tengu we've encountered. B-but also it sounded exactly like various Quaggan to me, not only in sound and pitch but...character-wise. It was kind of unnerving.

[Frostfang.5109]

I imagine a rather gender-neutral (NOT female) voice for an avin race, not entierly smooth but not too rough either.... a crow/raven sounding one rather of that of a parrot... Hard to descrobe this in english...

[Teratus.2859]

I found it fitting actually.

Birds often have a high range of sounds.. chirps and calls etc are often higher than they are lower so I thought it makes sense for Tengu voices to be a bit higher.

It also potrayed well the naivety of this particular Tengu who came across as very young and ignorant which considering the dialogue seems to be what they were going for here.

[Swagger.1459]

@Ferin Delanore.2674

“Again you aren’t following what I wrote so I think it’s quite strange for you to make such aggressively negative comments when I was just trying to make a point and have a healthy discussion. Not impose any X or Y opinion of mine lol”

I know exactly what you wrote. Your “healthy discussion” is you assuming you know how a female avian humanoid should and shouldn’t sound. Even going as far as saying... “Every Saturday I will try to follow suggestions and create a different realistic voice for a Tengu.”... All because the current character didn’t fit your preconceived notion.

And this is you not “imposing any X or Y opinion”...

“The TENGU however, feel absolutely distant when matching voice to body. There is not a second I felt like the sound could come out of them. A cheerful young female voice coming out of a 7ft tall humanoid bird just doesn't match on any level.”

“I meant that the voice quality for a large avian”

“do you think they match the Physique of a 7ft tall avian humanoid shooting a bow at enemies and then chirping with an asuran voice? It is just an observation.What comes to mind are the Great Eagles from lord of the rings who rescue Gandalf. If they had voices they wouldn't sound like a high pitch bird in the first place.”

That is exactly you assuming X should be like your assumed X, followed up by Saturday lessons to show people your X should be the standard. All because you feel it improbable for a 7’ avian female with a bow to ever possibly sound a certain way... No, the voice has to sound your certain way.

[Danikat.8537]

A big part of the problem here is you're mistaking your personal opinion for a fact and as a result assuming that everyone else will agree with you.

One of the tengu does not sound how you expected them to. Instead of reconsidering your personal biases (like assuming a tall woman cannot sound young or cheerful) or asking if anyone else feels the same way you declared that because she doesn't sound like you expected Anet must have made a mistake in creating the character's voice, followed that up by announcing that you can and will do a better job and asked us to support you in that with suggestions for how to fix it - all of which hinges on other players having the same reaction to the character you did, which doesn't seem to be the case.

So sure, go ahead and record your own versions of the dialogue and share them so people can give their opinions on how they compare to the original, as long as you're prepared for the fact that some people will prefer the original (and others may not like either) but the whole process would go more smoothly if you asked us what we think instead of starting from the assumption that we all agree with your opinion.

@Leo G.4501 said:

@"Danikat.8537" said:I'm surprised, I thought this was going to be about the weird filter they put on the tengu voices which made it sound like they were all using broken microphones, not the voice actor chosen for one of them. I don't see why someone who sounds young and cheerful must also be short, it certainly doesn't work that way with real-life humans.

Based on her dialogue she is young for a tengu, she's just taller than humans because they all are. So it seems to me the voice actor chosen is entirely appropriate.

I thought that was kind of the Tengu's schtick: kind of like real birds that can mimic human voices, it sounds almost identical...except it doesn't have the same timbre or resonance almost sounding like you recorded the voice and played it back. I think it might just have something to do with our ears but you usually can tell when a bird is mimicking something from the real noise. From a distance, it can fool you but up close, you either know it's a "recording" or get the sensation it's further than the sound source actually is.

[EDIT] Should have prefaced that with the caption that I am a complete noob with regards to audio. I don't kitten with recording equipment or sound systems, I just use headphones and ear buds for anything or just go with whatever default speakers are available lol so take my observations as if from a complete layman.

That's probably the intention, but to me it sounded like two separate things - the actor's voices and then the effect overlaid on top, like listening to an old cassette tape which will crackle sometimes. I don't get that with the charr and other characters where effects are used to change their voice, or other tengu in the game (who as far as I remember just sound like people speaking). Maybe it's because this effect included adding noises, instead of just changing the way their voice sounds but it made it sound too artificial and separate to me.

Also if I was going to make them sound like actual birds mimicking human speech I'd make them all sound slightly sarcastic or like they've just told a joke and are waiting for the reaction. But that might just be the speaking birds I've known, all parrots and all only spoke English to get a reaction from someone, which was usually getting told to stop whatever they were doing. (Parrots are sometimes said to have the intelligence of a 4 year old human, and certainly have the mentality of one...except they can also fly.)

[Ferin Delanore.2674]

Honestly my bad for expressing myself wrong. I tried to give details on what I thought would allow other's to understand what I meant by the voice not entirely fitting. What you describe here fits exactly with what I mean to say. The effects don't add up to the quality of voices the game has produced and even if the actress did a great job an it DID sound appropriate for the bird... the resonance of the voice didn't sound edited properly to fit the physical needs of he BIRD part. You mention birds mimicking human speech perfectly in the way I would have like to see naive nuances and sarcastic undertones. The voice itself fir the character just maybe the sound mastering and the qualities added weren't on par with what they made their other Tengu sound like.I apologize if I came off as assuming everyone would jump on board and praise my opinions lol I truly meant to just express something I found that Anet has done better in the past and find ways to improve it.

@Danikat.8537 said:That's probably the intention, but to me it sounded like two separate things - the actor's voices and then the effect overlaid on top, like listening to an old cassette tape which will crackle sometimes. I don't get that with the charr and other characters where effects are used to change their voice, or other tengu in the game (who as far as I remember just sound like people speaking). Maybe it's because this effect included adding noises, instead of just changing the way their voice sounds but it made it sound too artificial and separate to me.

Also if I was going to make them sound like actual birds mimicking human speech I'd make them all sound slightly sarcastic or like they've just told a joke and are waiting for the reaction. But that might just be the speaking birds I've known, all parrots and all only spoke English to get a reaction from someone, which was usually getting told to stop whatever they were doing. (Parrots are sometimes said to have the intelligence of a 4 year old human, and certainly have the mentality of one...except they can also fly.)

[Blur.3465]

Lately I can't help but wince at the choice of voices.That Deer spirit in the new Canthan Fractal...why? Why does that deer sound like a little girl? Why is its voice so high-pitched and out of place? Why doesn't the creature sound wise and soothing?What's with the Tengu voice from the new story bit too? She sounds high-pitched again and annoying. Most of the birds are very appealing and like music for your ears. Why must the voices be so out of place and annoying?

Lately all I'm hearing in GW2 are annoying and high pitched voices.Heck even my parents roll their eyes, asking if it's some kids' cartoon or something.Quaggan, new Tengu, deer Spirit, Taimi (who used to talk non-stop when doing story), Skritt.

[Ferin Delanore.2674]

To clarify, I feel like lot's of those voices you mention are appropriate at times and I got a lot of heat for suggesting they don't fit.SO I just want to maybe ask you this... do you think the voice doesn't fit the Characters or maybe that the way it sounds out of place from the game as a whole makes you go Hmmm ... why does this deer sound like a small girl and this Tengu as well? For me it was the fact that the sound itself was so high pitched it didn't melt together with th game environment and I felt it was out of place in a way. So a high pitch Tengu sounding youthful could be totally cool but maybe with a different Dialect or speech pattern to match a talking bird.Even if not soothing, the bird sounds could almost be annoying and they can talk as if they try hard to communicate in your language or something. I am just trying to find creative ways to make this AWESOME race sound just as cool as the Charr for example or the Skritt. Notice how when skritt talk they stutter sometimes and talk fast like a mouse running fast into a wall lol :DIDK I love exploring that side of a game to try and make it as realistically rooted in nature as possible so that it feels real. For now.. some voices just lack that.

@Blur.3465 said:Lately I can't help but wince at the choice of voices.That Deer spirit in the new Canthan Fractal...why? Why does that deer sound like a little girl? Why is its voice so high-pitched and out of place? Why doesn't the creature sound wise and soothing?What's with the Tengu voice from the new story bit too? She sounds high-pitched again and annoying. Most of the birds are very appealing and like music for your ears. Why must the voices be so out of place and annoying?

Lately all I'm hearing in GW2 are annoying and high pitched voices.Heck even my parents roll their eyes, asking if it's some kids' cartoon or something.Quaggan, new Tengu, deer Spirit, Taimi (who used to talk non-stop when doing story), Skritt.

[mindcircus.1506]

Here's my issue with this post....

@"Ferin Delanore.2674" said:THAT SAID! I am a voice actor and I can not understand what quality control went on for the voice of the Tengu in terms of mastering and direction.No where at all in any of your posts do you mention a single thing about actual mastering and what the issues you have with it are. Your post, (from the perspective of someone with an actual background and training in audio engineering) comes off as a hobbyist using a few semi-technical terms in order to give largely uninformed opinions some weight.For those keeping score, this is as if you had come on to this forum and said you were a software engineer, made complaints about the game's balance and then said "spagetti code". Or as if you had presented yourself as a game designer and talked about how easy it would be to add S1 back to the game as "cut and paste assets".I'm not saying that your concerns aren't important to you, but you are trying to give your post a weight it does not have with out of place jargon.