Thursday 26 January 2012

Voices

A member of our Worlds Away community has posted that the voices in SWTOR are off-putting to her enjoyment of the game.

I have to admit that I wasn't sold on the voice acting in the run-up to the game (I'm on one of the podcasts on here asking something along the lines of 'don't you think you'll just turn that voice stuff off?'). And I'll be honest, I'm a rapid 'spacer' through most of the dialogue - I do read it, I just don't listen to it. I swiftly turned on the option to be able to read through the conversations. Does make me a nightmare if I'm in a group with someone and they get spectator mode though...

I do have issues with voices in games. There have been characters of certain classes/races/genders that I have quite simply deleted after building in the character creator my vision of awesomeness, and then had it matched with the most profoundly irritating voice imaginable. Or an inane giggle... No! Just nooooo! Gah, it must be serious if I've resorted to exclamation marks.

In TOR I had never expected to play a trooper. In my head, it was quite clear I'd be a consular. I'd read the reviews, spoken to people, looked at posts - had it all straight. Then I rolled a consular in beta, and somehow her voice didn't quite gel for me. But I thought, this relationship will develop, we will grow in our mutual affection.

But then, because I knew that the real game would be launching in the next few weeks and retreading old ground so quickly might be uninspiring, I decided to go play a class that I would not roll in the main game. And trooper Bram appeared. And she sounded fabulous. Just the right mix of husk and attitude for the character that I had in my head. (Thanks to everyone who has told me of Jennifer Hale btw.)

Someone might need to correct me, but I think it was Age of Conan where we had a choice of different voices for our characters (as well as breasts bigger than the character's head). I really liked having that little extra element of control on the character creator. And I know that for a game voiced to the extent of SWTOR that's just not practical. But still...

So I understand how important the voice can be in a game. But I would not find it so disruptive that I would consider leaving the game altogether. But then, as I said before, I often choose to speed through the text option anyway. Perhaps I am too bookish by nature, I always prefer the voice in my head to any other...

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