Request for silent protagonist.

[Follyfoot.2803]

The one reason I won't play some races and genders is because I really dislike the voice acting.  So I would request that you would consider giving us a option in future patches to  silence our characters?

You will never find a voice that pleases all but with a silent protagonist your character will always speak with the perfect voice.

[Danikat.8537]

Do you mean just disable the voice acting and still show the text? Or a true silent protagonist like some games have (the Legend of Zelda series for one well known example) where you don't even see your character speak in text?

 

The first is probably relatively simple, they've already given us check boxes to silence certain types of dialogue so they could probably add one to silence only your character.

 

But the second would be more difficult because then you're missing half the conversation and the other character's dialogue would need to be re-written so the conversation still makes sense, otherwise the entire game would be like listening to someone on the phone where you cannot hear the other person. In a game with a silent protagonist everyone else tends to spend a lot of time "repeating" what they've just been told as if they're not sure they heard it correctly so the player gets a summary of what their character just said.

[Jukhy.2431]

Sound options: disable player chatter & turn the dialog volume all the way down. Not ideal I know but at least your character will be silent.

[Mungrul.9358]

Yeah, it's particularly noticeable when playing human males thanks to them being voiced by the omnipresent Nolan North.

His voice is fine for cis white males, but really doesn't suit any other configuration. And as it's too expensive to record multiple voiceovers for each race and gender, a silent protagonist option is the best compromise.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Mungrul.9358

[Jin.8501]

Yes please. I play human female and it's so bad it actually makes the story less enjoyable for me. 

 

I don't even want to mention my female Charr. Shivers... 

[Dante.1763]

2 minutes ago, Jin.8501 said:

Yes please. I play human female and it's so bad it actually makes the story less enjoyable for me. 

 

I don't even want to mention my female Charr. Shivers... 

This is why i play with the sound off unless im doing something that needs it.

 

All for more options(graphics, sound, what have you), more is always better when it comes to settings.

[Jin.8501]

1 minute ago, Dante.1763 said:

This is why i play with the sound off unless im doing something that needs it.

 

All for more options(graphics, sound, what have you), more is always better when it comes to settings.

At least I could mod the voice off from Fallout 4. Going with voiced protagonist is never a good idea in an RPG with customizable character. 

 

Wish it was that easy for me to play without sounds 😂

[Dante.1763]

Just now, Jin.8501 said:

At least I could mod the voice off from Fallout 4. Going with voiced protagonist is never a good idea in an RPG with customizable character. 

 

Wish it was that easy for me to play without sounds 😂

Oh i agree!!

Neverwinter knights did it best i think. They have Sooooooo many voices and options. If options cant be made as to what voices sound like(and they could have done this.) a way to toggle the player characters voice off, while leaving others on is a better solution.

[Mungrul.9358]

From completely out of left-field, The Sims also offers a great variety of tools for customising voices, adding sliders and options for things like pitch and timbre. This leads to an almost infinite variety of voices, and they all sound pretty good (although being in Simlish probably helps 😄 )

[Blur.3465]

+1 
Would be quite a lovely option.
I can't stand male Charr voice, he sounds like he's about to vomit anytime...it's over the top. 
When I play him, I just want to mute sound entirely.

On the other hand, I'm enjoying male Norn voice so much, could listen to him all day!

[Howluffu.7259]

I like that. I even like the grunts and noices instead of VA.

[nosleepdemon.1368]

4 hours ago, Mungrul.9358 said:

Yeah, it's particularly noticeable when playing human males thanks to them being voiced by the omnipresent Nolan North.

His voice is fine for cis white males, but really doesn't suit any other configuration. And as it's too expensive to record multiple voiceovers for each race and gender, a silent protagonist option is the best compromise.

 

Cis white males? Are you suggesting that race implies how someone sounds? Because that's... Well, racist.

Edited August 17, 2021 by nosleepdemon.1368

[Dante.1763]

2 minutes ago, nosleepdemon.1368 said:

 

Cis white males? Are you suggesting that race implies how someone sounds? Because that's... Well, racist.

Er..accents are a thing. Maybe they wanted to use an african esque voice on their black character.

[Mungrul.9358]

 

8 minutes ago, nosleepdemon.1368 said:

 

Cis white males? Are you suggesting that race implies how someone sounds? Because that's... Well, racist.

 

Uh, you DO know who Nolan North is, don't you?

 

I can't easily think of a single character he's played that isn't cis white male. And he himself is.

 

It's very hard to project a different gender or race on to a voice when it's so widely known. Nolan is so predominant in the industry now, his voice conjures (rightly or wrongly) certain preconceptions.

Most of the time when I hear his voice, I hear Nathan Drake. And I'm willing to bet that's true for the vast majority of gamers out there.

In GW2, he does little if nothing to disguise his normal talking voice. The human male's voice is simply Nolan's.

He's not playing The Penguin or David from The Last Of Us here.

 

And as Dante points out, well, accents are a thing.

[Vayne.8563]

Good idea. I like it.

[Danikat.8537]

7 minutes ago, nosleepdemon.1368 said:

 

Cis white males? Are you suggesting that race implies how someone sounds? Because that's... Well, racist.

It can do. It seems to be more common in America and there's a lot of information online about black and white American accents, dialects etc. but I know the same is true in the UK and probably other countries too. Black or Asian British people, even those who were born here and lived in Britain their entire lives will often have a slightly different accent to white people from the same area.

 

But it's purely cultural, rather than generic. These days most teens in Brixon (area of South London with a large Black population) have the same mix of West Indies and London accents no matter where their family is from or what their skin colour is.

 

So that's my rationale for my human male character sounding like Nolan North - he might call himself Istani because all his grandparents are from Istan but he was born and raised in the Salma District of Lion's Arch so he's going to sound like someone from there, just like in real life I sound like I'm from "Surrey, but not the posh bit" even though my family is from all over the place.

[nosleepdemon.1368]

2 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

It can do. It seems to be more common in America and there's a lot of information online about black and white American accents, dialects etc. but I know the same is true in the UK and probably other countries too. Black or Asian British people, even those who were born here and lived in Britain their entire lives will often have a slightly different accent to white people from the same area.

 

But it's purely cultural, rather than generic. These days most teens in Brixon (area of South London with a large Black population) have the same mix of West Indies and London accents no matter where their family is from or what their skin colour is.

 

So that's my rationale for my human male character sounding like Nolan North - he might call himself Istani because all his grandparents are from Istan but he was born and raised in the Salma District of Lion's Arch so he's going to sound like someone from there, just like in real life I sound like I'm from "Surrey, but not the posh bit" even though my family is from all over the place.

 

Almost entirely off topic, but your "Surrey, but not the posh bit" reminded me of a friend of mine who is from Exeter. Everytime anyone asked where he was from I'd butt in and tell them he was from the posh part of Essex. It used to drive him up the wall.

[nosleepdemon.1368]

42 minutes ago, Dante.1763 said:

Er..accents are a thing. Maybe they wanted to use an african esque voice on their black character.

Phwoar that's dangerous territory.

 

I actually also avoid the human male characters, they're almost comically gungho or plastic baby dolls. Nothing inbetween.

[Mungrul.9358]

Yeah, I live in London (South East), but am from Gloucestershire originally, so I sound like a pirate.

I've not really picked up a London accent at all since moving here 14 years ago. If anything, sometimes I think my Gloucestershire accent has gotten stronger.

And as Danikat points out, there's very definitely a South London Black accent.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Mungrul.9358

[Crono.4197]

Sometimes I wonder if people in the forums of other games complain about every little thing as much as the people on the Guild Wars 2 forums do. The game has voice acting for characters, which is something you rarely find in an MMO and you guys want it removed? What's next? "Shut down Guild Wars 2 because it's not like other MMOs and I don't like that" topics?

[Mungrul.9358]

We don't want it removed, just an option to turn it on or off.

It should be a relatively simple quality of life fix to implement, and if it helps some people's suspension of disbelief, all the better.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

1 minute ago, Crono.4197 said:

Sometimes I wonder if people in the forums of other games complain about every little thing as much as the people on the Guild Wars 2 forums do. The game has voice acting for characters, which is something you rarely find in an MMO and you guys want it removed? What's next? "Shut down Guild Wars 2 because it's not like other MMOs and I don't like that" topics?

 

The forums is definitely nitpicky, and this topic is one I personally don't find an issue--however, I can see some of the disparity coming from the various diversity and inclusion themes present in the game but without proper voice backing for the main character.  

 

I don't want a silent protag though, it feels way too disjointed to me.  Games like monster hunter do this, and it feels so odd where you character can't speak but everyone else is having a full on conversation as if they can.  I'd rather a pre-determined hero over customization options if it means voice acting or not.  

[Danikat.8537]

Strangely enough I've had the opposite problem to many people in this thread. I think the voice actors are fine, or at least it doesn't bother me any more than any of the other character creation limitations, but I found it really weird when I replayed Knights of the Old Republic because I couldn't stop hearing Bastilla Shan as my sylvari doing an impression of Queen Jennah. 😄

 

All 3 are voiced by Jennifer Hale, who is a great voice actress and can sound different on each character, but her voice for Bastilla was so perfectly a mix of those two that I couldn't stop hearing it that way.

 

But things like this are one reason I often re-make my characters in games and spent most of the GW2 betas experimenting with options. I don't want to get too attached to a certain type of person and then find it's not possible to make a character like that or it won't really come across. Sometimes I've had entire character concepts I saved for a different game because it wasn't going to work in the one where I first had the idea. But with me it's usually more to do with dialogue and story choices than voices or appearance. For example I wouldn't make a GW2 character who is always carefully to fully consider the consequences of their actions before making a decision because they...don't do that.

 

I don't mind working within limitations like only having 1 voice actor per race/gender, but if they can add an option to disable the voice acting just for the player character I think it could open up more options.

 

5 minutes ago, nosleepdemon.1368 said:

 

Almost entirely off topic, but your "Surrey, but not the posh bit" reminded me of a friend of mine who is from Exeter. Everytime anyone asked where he was from I'd butt in and tell them he was from the posh part of Essex. It used to drive him up the wall.

Yeah I get the opposite of that from a few friends, if I say I'm from Surrey they helpfully inform people it's "not the posh bit of Surrey, it's the other bit". 😄 (Which is...not untrue.)

 

1 minute ago, Mungrul.9358 said:

Yeah, I live in London, but am from Gloucestershire originally, so I sound like a pirate.

I've not really picked up a London accent at all since moving here 14 years ago. If anything, sometimes I think my Gloucestershire accent has gotten stronger.

And as Danikat points out, there's very definitely a South London Black accent.

I once overheard a teenager in a Vauxhall supermarket loudly arguing with her friend that she can't be 'from Africa' because she's "never even been to Africa!" and thinking to myself no matter what she looks like as soon as she opens her mouth there's no doubt she's from London.

 

(Also I'm now wondering if Black South London may have been a bad example, even if it's the one I'm most familiar with, because a lot of people are probably imagining received pronunciation mixed with African-American Vernacular English.)

[Chichimec.9364]

1 hour ago, Mungrul.9358 said:

 

 

Uh, you DO know who Nolan North is, don't you?

 

I can't easily think of a single character he's played that isn't cis white male. And he himself is.

 

It's very hard to project a different gender or race on to a voice when it's so widely known. Nolan is so predominant in the industry now, his voice conjures (rightly or wrongly) certain preconceptions.

Most of the time when I hear his voice, I hear Nathan Drake. And I'm willing to bet that's true for the vast majority of gamers out there.

In GW2, he does little if nothing to disguise his normal talking voice. The human male's voice is simply Nolan's.

He's not playing The Penguin or David from The Last Of Us here.

 

And as Dante points out, well, accents are a thing.

Actually, I had no idea who Nolan North was. Now I do.  🙂

(3) The Many Voices of "Nolan North" In Video Games - YouTube

[Mungrul.9358]

Yeah, probably a bit presumptive of me to assume people know who he is, especially in an MMO, where people are less likely to play other games.

But yeah, he's EVERYWHERE.

There was even a video of him having a conversation with himself in Mafia 2. Even Nolan North can't escape Nolan North.

 

Edited August 17, 2021 by Mungrul.9358