What do you think of the voice acting?

If you played any of the missions this beta weekend you noticed that there is voice acting for all of the cinematic’s now. The cinematic’s have also added new sounds and are much better and more complete.
Even though the voice acting is cheesy at points, I believe it really adds to the game. I actually got chills when the king screamed "And you are No longer my son!!" and I've watched that cinematic like 30 times. It’s a neat feature that the team leader talks in the cinematic’s it actually encourages people to lead teams now. With omni as the future of sound effects for GuildWars, I imagine they will be in charge of the sounds in the cinematic's too, So this trend will definitely help the game. I believe that it adds allot to the immersion of the game as well.

Did you like or appreciate the voice acting that is added in the game now?

I do appreciate voice acting in Guild Wars. Voice acting, although not always mandatory, may make or break game immersion. Take Morrowind: not a single NPC has voice acting so you get a feeling that every NPC is the same. In KotOR, on the other hand, the voices of the characters may exhibit a full spectrum of emotions and characteristics of the speaker. You can hear the ironic HK-47, the initially arrogant Bastilla, the scarred Carth... I do like the voice acting in Guild Wars yet I have only one remark: in the Old Ascalon cinematic (the first one), the long pauses between the lines make the speech a little synthetic.

Keep in mine the scope of morrowind, the hundreds upon hundreds of areas and each reply the npc's gave you was based on your class, race, and overall fame. to do voice acting for ALL of that would have taken immense space. Besides, they do talk to you when you walk up to them, but just random lines that are effected by your race, class etc.

*end rant*

As for guild wars...Im kinda torn on it...the overall voice acting, while it does add to it...is kinda....bad. Half the time it sounds like they're reading off a script, or that they're being a little too overpowering in their emotion... working off Synthos' example of the king...that conversation was perhaps too blunt for the extreme change in attitude they both had. To go from being Father/Son King/Prince to complete and utter disownment in a single sentance?

I just don't know what to think of it right now. Overall though it does add nice atmosphere.

The voice acting is much better than many games I have seen. The only thing we need now to make the game truley epic is better background music - which I'm farely sure they're working on.

Sorry, mate, but that's bull.
Morrowind had a built-in encyclopedia in every NPC. The differences between a street commoner and a crucial NPC was one or two lines.

As I said, I am always for voice acting. Sometimes it's V-E-R-Y bad (Kingdom Under Fire: Crusaders sometimes made me regret I have ears) but then you can turn it out. Games with bad acting aren't always terrible (I believe KUF: Crusaders is one of the best Xbox games) and I am not picky when it comes to that. I do believe that people who usually trash game X because a character sounds too excited are looking for flaws on purpose (I don't point at anyone here).

Weezer someone was making fun of your char names in the OT forum

Back OT i really like the voice acting, even if its crappy (which these are not crapy) voice acting always adds to to the feeling that you are a part of the game.

I have several problems with the voice acting in this game. It was very un-emotional at times, and then mid sentence, it would switch to anger or sadness or something. Rather un-tuned in my opinion. And there was this one cut scene, where the image was on the group leader, with the correct text that was being spoken, but it had the wrong name on the subtitles of who was speaking. I believe it even had a mans voice for a woman character, if I remember it correctly. Overall, I think Guild Wars should go back and revise some of this voice acting. But even though this has somewhat poor voice acting, I still love the game.

It's good.

The ghostly hero in Tombs got a little tiring.

The ghostly hero's voice definitely isn't pleasant. I certainly try my best to skip over all the tombs cinematics even faster than before in an attempt to not have to hear the sound clip start at all. Also, every single line of voice was getting cut off because the next one was coming up too fast.

And whose decision was it to hire Richard Karn to play the Ghostly Hero???

I never got a chance to listen to any of the other mission cinematics.

The voice acting isn't bad at all and I do feel that it enhances the story in a positive way. It could've been improved by lip syncing and such, but then I'm picking on other details in the game and not the voice acting itself.

Glad i'm not the only one who thinks there is an eerie similarity between the two. Anywho, I think the single biggest change that could benefit the voice acting is the option to switch it over to the other languages along with the text. Because really, who wouldn't want to do all of the missions again just to hear what it would sound like if Prince Rurik was on Telemundo?

I'm still waiting for the Sweedish Chef voice acting to be put in. Once that's in I'll be all set.

Foo ere-a zee herus thet reech thees secred bettlegruoond.
Bork Bork Bork!

It sounds too modern and not in character. The effort is put in well enough, but they sound more classy then fantasy. Compare something fantasy like eg. LOTR. Those actors don't exactly have that classy air to their voice, yet they have something that makes it sound like it is from the fantasy world. Sci-Fi or Modern World voice acting is much easier, seeing as how you can put more attitude and familiar feeling in your act (bleh, my english sucks).

If you turn off your moniter, and listen to it, you won't really imagine the fantasy world of guild wars. It's more renossaince(sp?) or you know, like I said, classy. Prince Ruriks voice sounds too stale, the effort like I said is put in, but his tone doesn't ever change. From the first time you hear him, to his death speech, his tone is the same.

I don't think it's fair to compare to KOTOR series, since those guys are probably the best there is in the game industry for voice acting. Even T3-M4 has higher quality then Rurik, and he only goes BEEP.

It was fine.

Theres quite a few similarities in some of the voices to other well known characters/people.

I don't mind em, its a definite needed feature in the game.

I skipped the Tombs cine anyways (I like to scout the map and the team instead of watching the cine)... The ghostly hero voice isn't as crucial as the others.

However, I do think overall the voice acting is kinda slow and cheesy.. The way they read the lines directly off the page.. Doesn't seem quite right. Perhaps we will get more elaborate ones with the cd or something.. (otherwise they would be long downloads with the bwe'ers).

I do love this game also, I'd like to get that out first. The voice acting, although great for helping you get into the emotional mood, simply was poor. I hate to say it because someone out there thinks it was great. But I think a first year acting student could have done a much better job. There was hardly any real emotion felt in most of the acting. There was the mission where rurik goes to the big shiverpeak in the sky and almost all of my teamates comented on something along the lines of: " Apparantly, Ruriks' death is supposd to be moving in some way like we are supposed to feel bad "

I have to say we cant blame this all on the acting. Part of it is because they are simply tired of runing after him trying to keep the O'l Prince out of trouble. The comment about how his father suddenly banishes him, and the emotions that go with the kings' voice. It just didnt' fit right. This by no means will keep me from playing. But, I think the voice acting needs to spend a bit more of the kitty and revamp. I cannot honestly believe people sat in the sound room and said : That sounds Great ! cut it and synch it up with the voiceover.

I am not saying you need to go out and get James Earl Jones or Ian McKellen to do the voices, but you could if you wanted I bet .. LOL.

This is of course, all my opinion.

I am not the one.

I guess I am the only one to like the Ghostly Hero voice then.

They removed the lip synch from last BWE. It would make a nice addition for the look and feel of the game.
That reminds me of a time where lip sync was still impossible in games... years ago... when Anet has the time they should do it, because it looks a bit clumsy

But on the other hand, I think the engine is not ready for a decent lip syncing (the lip sync from last BWE was .... not so good ).
I saw some pics of the game as it looked like in the beginning ( http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ead.php?t=3461 ) and Anet did a great job of improving it.
It's not an esential thing, but it looks great when it's well done (I know GW ist not Half-Life )

Agreed with kerionaka - I liked the voice acting, but with the mouths all rigid it seemed a bit odd.