Voice acting for player characters and NPCs - Your opinion?

I have been giving it some thought as of late and I don't believe I have seen any information on the subject. This brought me here to see if my question could be answered.

As the title states I am curing about voice acting for players and NPCs. Will both have voice acting? I believe it is a safe assumption that players will have the usual grunts and battle cries for during combat but what about during quests? I personally prefer my players character to be text only for immersion and RP reasons. While I like to have NPCs voice acted for the same reason, being able to listen to the NPC tell me their woes and why they need me to help in this quest has always been big for me when playing an MMO. I was never a fan of the whole - walk up to NPC, select talk, they say "hello there!" then text is brought up with the real info on the conversation.

What are your opinions on the matter? Has any info on this been released and I missed it? If you could have it your way, what would that be and why?

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Comments

CaptnChuck

Its a lot of work, so I don't mind them foregoing it for now. They'll probably add it later on.

Undead Canuck

Our opinion will not matter. Voice acting is very expensive in games. Intrepid has stated that there will be some, but not a huge amount.
I assume that the only way they can afford more voice acting is if they double the subscription cost.

Urgrosh

It's cool and all, but I can't see them doing much more than a line or two when you click on an npc.

ButterMeWaffle

Undead Canuck wrote: »

Our opinion will not matter. Voice acting is very expensive in games. Intrepid has stated that there will be some, but not a huge amount.
I assume that the only way they can afford more voice acting is if they double the subscription cost.

This is a very good point, I didnt think about the expense of voice acting. I of course am understanding on the matter and limited voice acting wouldnt sway my current opinion of the project. I hope we do end up with at least a little voice acting, maybe for major quest lines

Leroher

This is exactly something I wanted to ask (as after finishing my major I will dive into voice acting), but yeah, as said before, it's too expensive, but maybe big npcs within the nodes could have voice acting.

Xenantaya

I agree with the other comments. Voice acting is nice to have, but it's very expensive and not something necessary to have in this kind of game, especially at launch. If the game launches and is a success, and Intrepid determines that voice acting would make it an even bigger hit, then it could start to work in voice acting.

NelsonRebel

Voice acting in ESO is a great example to look at.

Character NPC movements and voice acting in PvE content and open world is one of the things I can attest that they do very well.

That being said, it is expensive. But hearing Kate Beckinsdale on my screen ingame is still pretty cool

I hope they can incorporate it, but its not a game breaker

ServNiQ

In a nutshell, what they said. For me it's enough for my cute little dragon pet to say 'kyuu' and a big dragon to say 'ROAR', a little bit of scenery music, and let the players fill in the rest.

Yuyukoyay

They should do it for every quest that matters. I don't care what the npc has to say about killing 10 wolves though.

ServNiQ

That's true as well. If they're including cinematic scenes I feel like it's a must have, at least for the narration.

NelsonRebel

As long as the main quest has one it'll be enough until they can incorporate more

xXBelocXx

There was another thread about this last week. The impact to release time, cost, continued development, etc outweighed adding voice acting. I agree it would be a "cool" thing to have but for me I am not worried about it. AoC is shaping up to be a great game with or without it.

And this is coming from someone who has about 400 hours clocked in on The Witcher 3 cause I like to watch the cut scenes like a movie.

Valento92

Truth be told I don't really want our character to have voiced lines at all. When GW2 introduced that I ended up hating my characters, especially my human characters as humans are just regular and asura are cute. The point is that it ultimately breaks the immersion A LOT. For other NPCs I don't mind, I even enjoy it! The FFXIV approach is the one I personally love the most as my character never speaks, he either gesticulates to represent him explaining something or just text answers.

Aspiring Voice Talent

Im not only a long time avid rpg mmo fan, but have been fallowing the progress if this amazing game since its inception, and I would love an opportunity to help bring more life to a character or character(s) in this game. If anyone knows who I can reach out to to provide some voice samples, ect please let me know! Thanks much

Virulent

There won't be any. And I'm glad there won't be.

Vhaeyne

I don't want any voice acting ever. It is a waste of money, and something that I will just mute.

WhitneyHagasMatsumoto

Personally, if voice actors are hired, I prefer the style of SEGA's Yakuza mob characters, where they only emit a very short voice as an expression of emotion.

Well, to be honest, I'm not in a position to give a fair opinion in this discussion.
I can't listen to English so ...... lol

Kionashi

I would really like it to have some voice acting, I don't need every little quest to have voice, but voice acting really helps giving life to the main story...

Hellfar

In a world that is built more so by the players rather than outside forces, I don't really see the need for much voice acting. The normal NPC greetings and goodbyes along with some good dungeon boss taunts and death cries will suffice for me.

Although, if they bring the gods into the fold per the lore, they should do those characters justice and give them good voices. I do think a game with literally no voice acting is pretty dull, so I hope they invest in it to a degree.

There may even be a voice acted intro for when your character enters the world for the very first time, explaining some backstory about your race, class, current events etc.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

I don't want any voice acting ever. It is a waste of money, and something that I will just mute.

I agree.

The cost of voice acting an MMO like this just isn't worth it imo. If Intrepid have the funds to do something like that, there will always be something else they could do that would make the game better.

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