Playing through the game as several different classes you here a ton of different voices used by npcs which is a good thing of course, however the lack of voices options for your own character is very grating phenomina i find in particular the mis matched voice overs (sith warriors posh english accent). In truth i've only found one voice that suits its class - Bounty Hunter.

 

So i wonder from the 'inovative fully voiced' line that bioware has pitched as a defining feature, who here think they have done right/well in regards to class/species voice acting?

 

 

As i said i enjoyed the Bounter Hunter story, but find i skip many of the sith warrior convo's due to the grating voice acting. I feel this aspect has been neglected, perhaps they should have cut back on the random npc voices and given players a choice of voice at the character creatior...? As it is a very heavy aspect of the game.

This hasn't bother me. I never thought about that either. I like my female / female american / british accents. From a Sith Warrior to a Bounty Hunter.

 

They spent a lot of money on voice acting already. So much money that the rest of the game seems to be suffering from bug infestation lol.

I've been okay with the voice acting so far. Played a bunch of different characters and never really felt it was unsuited for the character.

My murderous Zabrak sith lord with an soft posh english accent seems quite lame, theres nothing remotlely bad *** about it... It makes me wonder what they were thinking when making this...

My Sith Sorcerer is a sarcastic pile of Sith, and the voice fits that pretty well on the whole. The Sith Warrior is a bit posh at times, true... but both the male and female BH and female IA are really good for the way that I play those characters.

 

On the Republic side, I found the female Jedi Consular voice to be particularly nice too - just the right mix of warm summer evenings to show she cares, with the slightly clipped vowels to show she is somewhat detatched (typecasting the upper-middle class women who typically clip their vowels there).

 

The Trooper kind of fits too, at least for the apparently green noobling that you start out as. By the time you hit 50 and are a grizzled veteran of countless battles though, the voice seems wrong.

So i wonder from the 'inovative fully voiced' line that bioware has pitched as a defining feature

 

To be honest I think that is just the tip of the iceberg to the lies and deceit that Bioware had in store for us.

It is not full voiced, there are many quests that are not voiced, instead you read them off of a terminal (my guess is they were added after the VAs were released).

It is also not innovative. DCUO was fully voiced and that came out a year before SWTOR. Infact DCUO is actually "fully voiced", no reading from mission terminals in that game.

I think the Sith Warrior has one of the worst performances in the game. His lines are droll one-lines, and his delivery is the same up-down inflection every single time--regardless of the context.

 

I can't remember the specific line off-hand, but in one instance, he doesn't even seem to realize what he's saying. It was supposed be to be an evil, suggestive line, but he delivered it as if he were asking an honest question.

 

I truly believe the Sith Warrior had no vocal coaching in the sound booth. He simply doesn't deliver the lines in an inspired way.

 

And like I said in another thread, it's a shame because the voice actor behind the Warrior was brilliant in Dragon Age.

I did not liek the sith warrior either and posted somewhere about it, just dont see him being a english dude, but once I got a mask on atleast that effected his voice and he started sounding better, so its cool that does effect the way he sounds.

I love the SW "posh english accent".

IMO, it suits him perfectly.

Edited January 31, 2012 by Mechavomit

So i wonder from the 'inovative fully voiced' line that bioware has pitched as a defining feature, who here think they have done right/well in regards to class/species voice acting?

 

They've done alright. I mean, they took a big chance on having EVERYTHING voiced-acted, as that makes it harder to change stuff later on and takes up huge amounts of disk space as compared to textual stuff.

 

Personally, i'd be far more happy if they actually made the choices you get in the dialogue options to match what it actually is your character says. Choosing something like "I can't agree with that" and having my guy actually say "Wow, you're a complete moron, aren't you" (and subsequently getting a dirty look from my companion) detracts far more from the 'story-driven' aspects so heavily advertised than any voice acting would.

 

That said, a friend of mine had a very good idea that I think might be doable for Bioware. The game already has it such that in some cases, such as certain helmets, etc., your character's voice takes on a slightly 'digitized' voice effect. That implies they can make those sorts of changes to the sound file on the fly, and that means it should be potentially possible for them to adjust the regular voice a little. Not a lot, of course, but it might be able to set the character voice for a character to be deeper or higher than the default voice as a result, allowing you to choose different 'versions' of the voice depending on your preference at character creation.

Personally I think the voice acting on this game was poorly done. For all the hype they tried to generate about it, it wasn't half of what I thought it would be. Personally I would have rather been able to pick a computerized voice that said exactly what i picked in conversation. Instead I have conversations i basically have to mute because I am tired of hearing the same one liners ("I will be covered in blood from head to toe", "There will be no survivors", "For the republic") even tho those one liners are not even close to what i picked in conversation. Also it seems like they spent a lot of time on this voice acting that could have been put towards other portions of the game...

I love great voice acting and this game has plenty of it. I like being immersed and the voice acting makes it easier for me to be drawn in to what's going on. I also like listening closely to see if I can recognize the voice actor, though.

 

My favorite is the female Imperial Agent, and my least favorite is female Smuggler. I like Kath Soucie, but I would've went with someone with a smoother voice.

The only two voices that have irked me was the male JK voice and the male Trooper voice.

 

Male JK is too robotic and whiny. I wish they gave him a British accent with more varied tones. When I think of a Jedi Knight, I think of Obi Wan Kenobi speaking, not some American News Anchor.

 

Male Trooper is pretty good actually. My main problem is that American Eastern seaboard/New York type twang in his accent. I wish they went for a South African or Australian accent to mirror the clone troopers in the movies.

 

 

As for the Sith Warrior, he's alright. It's not the voice that annoys me, just some of his lines. His lines are too evil and too bloodthirsty. He came across as a horror movie villain rather than a Sith Lord. That said, the lines for a light sided SW are amazing.

The only two voices that have irked me was the male JK voice and the male Trooper voice.

 

Male JK is too robotic and whiny. I wish they gave him a British accent with more varied tones. When I think of a Jedi Knight, I think of Obi Wan Kenobi speaking, not some American News Anchor.

 

Male Trooper is pretty good actually. My main problem is that American Eastern seaboard/New York type twang in his accent. I wish they went for a South African or Australian accent to mirror the clone troopers in the movies.

 

 

As for the Sith Warrior, he's alright. It's not the voice that annoys me, just some of his lines. His lines are too evil and too bloodthirsty. He came across as a horror movie villain rather than a Sith Lord. That said, the lines for a light sided SW are amazing.

 

Possible spoiler...

 

They saved the South African/Australian dialect for Fett's ancestor. I'm guessing it's more of a Mandalorian thing than a tough guy thing.

Edited January 31, 2012 by Dezzi

I agree and disagree to an extent with the OP...

 

To explain, I initially actually HATED the male voice for the Bounty Hunter... I remade the character numerous times, trying to match a 'look' with the voice. I gave up and didn't come back to it until a few days later when I remade the toon once again.

 

Loaded into game once more and watched the intoduction conversation... Quite happily I found the voice just 'clicked' with the look of my character. It seemed natural, fluid, etc, and now it is by far and away my favourite voice acting of all... Followed closely by the male Smuggler.

 

Sadly though, some of the voices I can't find a 'look' for no matter how hard I try...

Female Smuggler especially, which I honestly doubt I will find a look to suit the voice because unless I'm hearing it wrong the tone and style of that voice shifts dramatically between sentences and it is oddly jarring. I found it became quite difficult to tolerate after just a few of the opening Ord Mantell missions.

The bounty hunters voice seems suited to body type 3 toons, it sounds ridiculous on the skinny models imo.

 

When playing through the various stories and hearing the voices of some bosses etc compared to those of your own characters it makes me slightly depressed that i have such a creeping loathing for my own toons while in a convo.

 

The sith warrior seems to have 2 catchphrases, 'I can't wait to start killing' (sounds like a 5yr old playing mw3 in most instances) or 'Anything for a fellow sith' (yeah cause we're one big happy family....)

 

Poor performance from the writers and directors, meesa thinks....

Can't really tell, my spacebar is making voice over voiceover

 

On the serious side, I appreciate the cutscenes on class quest (although I usually spacebar these too, too much B-class storytelling and voiceacting here) but on sidequests...

 

I can't be arsed to _watch_ a video game. I _watch_ movies and TV-programs, games I _play_.

My Sith Sorcerer is a sarcastic pile of Sith, and the voice fits that pretty well on the whole. The Sith Warrior is a bit posh at times, true... but both the male and female BH and female IA are really good for the way that I play those characters.

 

On the Republic side, I found the female Jedi Consular voice to be particularly nice too - just the right mix of warm summer evenings to show she cares, with the slightly clipped vowels to show she is somewhat detatched (typecasting the upper-middle class women who typically clip their vowels there).

 

The Trooper kind of fits too, at least for the apparently green noobling that you start out as. By the time you hit 50 and are a grizzled veteran of countless battles though, the voice seems wrong.

 

Female Trooper hasnt got that problem but then...that IS Commander Shepard

Can't really tell, my spacebar is making voice over voiceover

 

On the serious side, I appreciate the cutscenes on class quest (although I usually spacebar these too, too much B-class storytelling and voiceacting here) but on sidequests...

 

I can't be arsed to _watch_ a video game. I _watch_ movies and TV-programs, games I _play_.

 

Then pray tell...why on earth did you buy this game?

This was one of my bigger concerns when I first played the game in beta. I would create a character having a specific personality in mind and then soon as he opened his mouth I'd just facepalm and delete him.

 

Eventually after some trial and error you manage to match the looks and personality of your character to the voice they have preassigned to him and start playing, at which point you realize that the voice is the least of their problems.

I think that the ability to have a small selection of voices to pick from may have been a cool edition, but overall MOST of the voices don't bother me. I even want to BE a voice actor for this game.

However, what they sometimes gets me. At times it's lame, others way to funny! For example, at the end of a BT run, my OP friends says to the Jedi Padawan "I'm going to kill you, Lady" HAHAHAHA! I missed the start of the fight I was laughing. He's so polite in his proclomation of doom!

Then pray tell...why on earth did you buy this game?

 

Jennifer Hale ftw!

 

I actually saw someone with a female Trooper on Hydian Way EU server, and they named her Femshep.

Can't really tell, my spacebar is making voice over voiceover

 

On the serious side, I appreciate the cutscenes on class quest (although I usually spacebar these too, too much B-class storytelling and voiceacting here) but on sidequests...

 

I can't be arsed to _watch_ a video game. I _watch_ movies and TV-programs, games I _play_.

 

If you've played any other Bioware games, you'd realize that they weave a great story into the game (Mass Effect series, and DAO).

 

IMO the storytelling was great, and allows me to become more immersed into the story (especially with the dialouge choices). But I was the kind of person who LOVED MGS4 because of the long HD cutscenes... but to each their own I guess

Then pray tell...why on earth did you buy this game?

Because I got the cash and they wanted it.

My murderous Zabrak sith lord with an soft posh english accent seems quite lame, theres nothing remotlely bad *** about it... It makes me wonder what they were thinking when making this...

 

My murderous Zabrak Sith Lord with a soft posh English accent sounds pretty damn menacing. Each to their own I guess.