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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Love the Voice AI
McShave
Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
It was great to see Intrepid include Voice AI in their recent showcase. I know we talked about it in the forums, and it is great to see it implemented. They did a pretty good job of it too, I'm excited to see where it goes in future iterations.
No question. Have a great day/night everybody!
No question. Have a great day/night everybody!
5
Comments
Plus it sounded pretty great on this first showing.
also, ppl are obsessed with ai. voice actors > ai voices
I understand you can't replace proper voice acting - but if the choice is no voice acting, or AI voice acting and the budget gets to be put into the actual gaming then I don't see an issue. In an MMO I think it's more acceptable where this isn't a story-focused MMO.
I like it more when you can, for people like you, skip the dialog and just get your quest marker. But that Voice Acting is there for people like myself that want to care about the NPC I am helping and each quest has the potential to drop bits of lore that makes the worlds a living breathing place I feel like I am part of. Even if the AI Voice Acting is just an 8 of 10. I will be thrilled it was added.
You might even go as far as GW2 did with Siegemaster Dulfy for the hardworking people
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Siegemaster_Dulfy
What do you think of the AI we heard in the showcase? I thought it was good, but if it was bad i'd like to hear that opinion too. We also only heard voice AI of one race too, so other races will be interesting to hear as well.
However using AI voices sourced from the development team for every other NPC would add an incredible amount of immersion. So I'm all for that.
I hope they can be turned off in the sounds settings if possible. I'd guess that some people would prefer not to have voices every time you talk to a shopkeeper but maybe would like to hear voices from more important NPCs. Nice to have, not need to have.
Not to "create jobs for people", even though it is often necessary to achieve the primary goal.
In past 100-200 years many jobs were replaced by tools, machinery, robots, conveyors etc. So what?
As time goes by, some jobs become less relevant or disappear.
While new opportunities appear.
If you hire real voice actors - multiply their number by 5-10 as game needs to be translated in other languages.
AI effortlessly tackles this issue. The alternative of that? Huge amount of money and unnecessary work hours.
You won't have to deal with problems that you initially managed to avoid.
I would be more the happy to hear Steven be the main character. Or any of the other staff we have come to know over the years.
Yeah no. Steven does not have a good voice acting voice (not to be mean). Margaret did a good job in recent showcase though. My friend Gabe Kunda does the voice for commercials for Marvel films and for many other studios, he also plays the voice of characters in Apex/Valorant/Diablo. It takes YEARS of practice and experience to be a good voice actor. I think important characters in the game should be voiced by experienced actors.
Your allowed your opinion
This is the same argument people make for including lootboxes, battlepasses, macro transactions, P2W. I think everyone's well aware that plenty of companies will put profit over anything else.
Those are all good example of labor that can wreck a person's body, which are wildly different from creative ventures.
Creativity can't be replicated by a machine. Only fools claim otherwise.
The alternative is hiring people who know the language to translate so everyone gets a better more genuine experience.
As I already said, as long as this stays for audio only, I'll only side eye it partially. If it ever creeps into trying to make visuals with AI, then that's solidly into the realm of unethical both because 'AI' can only plagiarize and it uses up an obscene amount of energy and water in order to function. It's genuinely an ecological issue how widespread chatbots and 'art'generators are these days.
And yes, any business or studio is free to choose whichever monetization strategy they prefer. It's the customer's decision whether to use their service/product or not.
I suppose those who invented and started using those tools cared more about their business, efficiency and reducing the expenses.
It can't be replicated by a machine at this point. We don't know how it will be in future.
Exactly, that could be an alternative. Theoretically. Wanna estimate how much time and money would it cost?
Well, this is what this thread is about.
Ethics is always subjective. If it bothers you that much, so be it
So how does it work exactly?
> You: worry about the ecological issue. Fine, understandable
> Intrepid is gonna use AI which might potentially contribute to that issue
> You: still gonna play the game (I assume)
If it is bad and it bothers you, then what keeps you here? How does it all align? A genuine question, I'm curious
Really don't hold much respect for artists, I see. Bad look but thankfully for now not entirely relevant for Intrepid's planning.
Voice 'AI' is a text-to-sound program run only to record voice lines based on one specific collection of sound bites for pronunciation.
Chatbots and 'art' bots are entirely tools of plagiarism and data scraping that cast oit searches on the internet in full to frankenstein a combination together that it thinks you want.
The former is a bit disrespectful to voice artists, who are as much actors as anything. They can make or break a game and bring to life in a way a machine never can. It's not 100% a deal breaker because of the nature of how it works (prerecorded content, not on-demand queuing for a whole new voice-line every time).
The later is a complete and utter disregard for creatives entirely, along with harming the environment to boost profits. If Intrepid started using the plagiarism bots in either their art or their witting, that's a hard no. I'm never gonna put money toward a company that would use tools like that when they do nothing but steal.
We're on the same side buddy! I am PRO AI Voice Acting I think you misunderstood
For me, the RPG aspect is just a bit of flavor; most players skip through quests and cutscenes anyway. Let’s be real—nobody is getting attached to NPCs they’ll forget after a few minutes. It’s the MMO side of things that’s most important. AI voice acting allows developers to shift their focus from overdone storylines and put more effort into what really counts: combat balance, dynamic gameplay, and world-building.
I’d much rather see resources put into refining live combat, making it engaging and balanced for all players, rather than hiring expensive voice actors for stories most of us won’t remember. Crafting, fishing, blacksmithing, and other life skills are much more interesting to me than another grand, forgettable storyline. The real value in an MMO is the multiplayer experience, not feeling like the "main character" in some outdated RPG trope.
With AI voice acting, we can streamline development, freeing up time and resources for improving the game’s world and mechanics. That’s what makes a great MMO—where the focus is on the group experience and how we, as players, influence the world around us. It’s about creating a living, breathing world that evolves with us, not just following a scripted narrative where one player saves the day.
Was inventing and using advanced machinery and conveyors on factories disrespectful to workers? Obviously not
Was inventing engines and cars disrespectful to bicycles? Obviously not
If tomorrow AI saves your relative from a disease by providing a more accurate diagnosis compared to a human, all your virtue signalling will evaporize on the spot. Even it takes 10x more water and energy than it does now
It's called technologic progress and it's a part of reality
And reality doesn't care about your feelings
I don't care how the end result will be achieved when it comes to Ashes. The only thing that matters is whether that result will be good or not
Machinery doing physically harmful menial jobs is directly good for people as a whole. Predictive technology that is used by experts to save lives is directly good for people as a whole.
Replacing artists with soulless machines that are literally not capable of creative thought and further devaluing artists of all types is bad.
It's bizarre that either of these are controversial statements to anyone. Same as cryptocurrency is just a scam that got popular, or those random images people paid thousands for. Change isn't always progress.
And not ALL jobs that disappeared were actually harmful. They disappeared because they could be replaced - that's the primary reason.
There are many things that are "good for people as a whole" that, unfortunately, also bring negative consequences. Invention of an engine and cars is good, but burning huge amounts of fuel is not. Same applies to AI.
According to whom? So-called AI "art" has it's niche. It can't be compared to human artists (at least for now) in terms of quality, but it may still be pretty helpful in some cases.In many cases, actually.
You used the argument that "machinery reduced the amount of harmful menial jobs". Well, AI removed some boring and repetitive jobs - isn't this "Good" for people? And if it's not - how come?
Exactly, but not for the reason you imply. The world is not "good" or "bad" with rare exceptions, there is plenty of shades of grey. Dividing everything in good and bad only is kind of childish.
A conclusion of a true expert, I see.
Art is not a 'boring repetitive task', it's a creative process, but congrats, you've definitely shown me that you can't be counted on to respect artists if that's how you'll openly talk about their work. That you fell for techbro traps hook, line, and sinker isn't a good look either. Oh well, the Noanni treatment was long overdue anyway.
This is a fact, whether you like it or not.
This is where I mention the difference between AI "art" and human art and state that humans are still better at this point.
And this is a COMPLETELY different paragraph, where I talk about BORING and REPETITIVE jobs. I never said art was one of them.
But you imply that I did lol.
What kind of clownery is that?
I couldn't care less about your opinion about me. You're a naive chlldish soul and I have no desire to ruin your delusional mindset.
I assume Noaani is tired of declining yours and Zehlan's threesome invitations, huh? A literal echo chamber
What AI does to expand things in the future, who knows. Artist may have even greater opportunities because they aren’t as limited by the technology, which I think AI makes an even greater contribution. So a voice actor could utilize AI and their own creativity to produce games and movies and other things we haven’t even thought of; all on their own. They can focus on the creation and the AI can cover the engineering, programming, marketing and business operations. And likewise for each of the other disciplines who may not have the creative skills. The technology can also make productions that cost millions for almost nothing but the license fee for the AI. That same AI may get to the point where it develops its own tools and game engine.
That’s why I am not as gloom and doom as some on the AI question. There will be displacement, but also opportunities that could dwarf what we have going on today.
The choice for AI voice over where there was no plans for voice over work on the project is a positive for most players, and didn’t take a dime away from voice actors. Eventually AI NPCs will be very much part of MMO RPGs simply because if there’s a way to fill content procedurally with limited resources and it’s as good if not better than PC game play, you go do it. Rushing it when the tech isn’t ready can result in absolute garbage.