did we say talk ? we meant read a block of text with no voice acting whatsoever . we can’t afford voice acting on important quests because we spend all the budget on great content we create… wait …
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“important”?
I must say it is starting to feel rather criminal that WoW doesn’t have full voice acting at this point in time.
That Blizzard don’t even do full voice acting for everything surrounding their main cast of characters is unbelievable. There are many times in The Emerald Dream where I’m meeting up with Tyrande and she’s about to say something and it’s just text. There’s no voice. And it’s Tyrande. She has a voice.
That really rubs me the wrong way.
It’s one thing when anonymous NPCs you’ve never heard of don’t have a voice and you just have to read the text. It’s another thing when NPCs that have established voices, like Wrathion, suddenly come across as muted and voiceless. That inconsistency is awful.
But like so much else, it feels like Blizzard aims for the minimum viable product approach. What’s the least they could get away with? That’s generally what they’ve done.
It’s a shame.
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I disagree.
They do Voice acting for the main story line and that’s all that is needed.
If voice acting was included in every side quest, I would feel more inclined to stick around and listen to it, when it only takes a quick glance to get a grasp of what’s going on and understand the story.
All I want to do is quickly finish it off and collect the extra rep at the end of it. I don’t need to watch a movie about it. Overall it saves the player alot of time not having to stick around and listen.
It’s not about laziness or cheapness on Blizzes part, it’s about focusing on the core gameplay.
Oh, sorry… How many languages is WoW translated to?
- English
- French
- German
- Spanish
- Italian
- Portugiese
- Russian
- Simplified China (not at the time tho)
- Traditional Chinese (Taiwan) (not at the time tho)
- Korean
That’s 8 active languages at the moment the game is translated to.
If we take Wrathion, Ysera, Merithra, Ebyssian(?) and all the major characters relevant in this patch, roughly around 8-10 individual VA the least, take the maximum average salary per hour for a professional, experienced Game VA (2000$ per hour), estimate a rough 6-12h per full characters dialogue and then calculate the entire cost.
So, in math this means:
8 Languages x (10 VA x (2000$ x 12h per Patch))
8 x (10x(2000x12))
8 x 240.000
= 1.920.000$
1.920.000$ just for the Voice Acting. That’s 1st a 
ton of money and 2nd just MY rough estimate based on quick google information about the average salaries.
Since the Voice Actors are much more senior they will have much higher hour wage than just 2000$. So you should expect the number to be even bigger.
Why should Blizzard waste 1.920.000$ or more on Voice Acting, just because you guys are too lazy to read and create a story chat tab where only dialogue from NPCs is displayed?
Not to mention that waiting for all the VA to finish their work slows down patch releases by a few weeks, since not every VA is available all the time or even works specifically for Blizzard.
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They could AI voice it even
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That is a fraction in what they make monthly in subs and that is just from WoW as a cost centre. They can afford it believe me. It may have been more a case of the project was behind schedule and they had no time to complete it or its very possible they were being cheap.
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While that certainly is true. Do we really need VA outside of pivotal moments? People like me are totally fine with just reading from time to time.
Other, fully voiced MMORPGs, like ESO have less languages and re-use VA even to save costs. Would you want WoW to re-use VA too to save money and have every NPC voiced in the game? Not to mention the data bloat for all the sound files on your hard drive.
Blizzard localizes their games to 8 languages because it’s an effective market penetration strategy. You can engage customers who otherwise wouldn’t be interested in your product, because you’re able to offer it to them in a language they understand.
So the cost of localization is offset by the profit it brings in. That’s the only reason why any company localizes any of their products or services – because it earns them money.
So because Blizzard earns money from their localizations, then they also have more money to invest into their products. If they wanted to. But they evidently don’t.
So what you’re saying is just wrong. You’re suggesting that localization is a liability, but it’s not. Companies do it because it earns them money. More money than it costs to do it.
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Even just text localization is still localization. You can read the game after all, right? There are no VA used in this patch so often in english. So it isn’t different from the other languages either. All of us have the tools to read in our time the dialogues in the game.
As I said, create a chat tab just with the NPC talk enabled and you can even scroll back and re-read what happened.
There are still many great games out there that need no voice acting to be fun to play and enjoy.
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You’re trying to invalidate my criticism about the lack of voice acting (which I would prefer to have) and the lack of consistency in voice acting (which I would also prefer to have) by suggesting that it’s good enough to just read text, that I’m somehow greedy and spoiled for wanting more and wanting something that’s not necessary when it costs Blizzard all this money.
That’s a stupid take. My criticism is my own, and my feelings on the game are my own. And what makes me enjoy the game is for me to say, and you don’t get to argue that. I pay my money for my enjoyment, so I get to leave my feedback about the enjoyment I’m being given for my money’s worth.
I feel more immersed and get a more enjoyable game experience when the NPCs are voice acted and deliver their lines with emotion than when I am presented with lines of text that I need to read on my own.
So obviously my enjoyment of the game is lessened when Blizzard decreases their use of voice acting in the game. And it is indirectly decreased by comparison and in competition to other games when Blizzard relies less on voice acting, because the contrast between Blizzard and other games becomes more apparent.
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The fat marked being the key words here. You said it yourself, it isn’t necessary.
I just completed the Misfit story line with the Netherdrakes and at the end the scenario and cutscene had voice acting all the way. The former parts of the quest chain didn’t. Still a compelling story. Still being told efficiently to you as a player.
I never said you are not allowed to criticize and suggest things. All I did is to tell you reasons why there is not much voice acting in WoW, why it doesn’t really need it and even suggested solutions for a better readability of the text dialogue in the game.
Why are you so offended by this? Can’t handle different opinions?
AH, the first relatable point you made.
You do remember that WoW has more than just “not enough voice acting” as issues, right? There is soooooooo much more wrong with WoW compared to modern games.
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Yeah, and I named it aptly:
And I of course do not applaud this, because I am the customer. I pay money to be entertained as much as possible, not as little as possible.
I want Blizzard to give me as much as possible for my money, that is in my interest. I don’t want them to give me as little as possible – why would I want that?!
It strikes me as weird, that you, also a customer, argues a point that is detrimental to your own interests as a customer.
And it would be better if it was fully voice acted from start to finish.
That would satisfy me.
And if you don’t want voice acting, then you could ask Blizzard for an audio option to mute it, so you could enjoy 100% text-driven storytelling.
See how this can satisfy both of our needs?
I am not offended. I am just firm in my language. There’s a difference. I think your take is terrible, and I have told you so. That’s all.
Yeah, and Activision Blizzard has a net profit of ~$2 billion every year, so I’m sure they can afford to do something about all those issues if they wanted to. But they don’t.
As a customer, I’m of course not going to applaud that decision. But you do you.
Activision Blizzard doesn’t exist anymore soon. With 1st January they all are just Studios in Microsofts Portfolio.
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It is a ton of money to working class joes like you and me, but to a multi billion dollar compagny it is a drop in the ocean. Perspective is important.
That was a weird way of trying to excuse game issues that have existed for years that Activision Blizzard could easily have afforded to address if they had wanted to. But they didn’t.
That Blizzard Entertainment is now owned by Microsoft doesn’t change the fact that current game issues – at least as it pertains to a lack of voice acting – only exist because of a chosen business strategy of profit maximization through investing the least possible into the product. Hence those ~$2 billion a year I mentioned.
If it’ll be any different under Microsoft remains to be seen. That’s not relevant for my current standing criticism on the matter.
This reasoning is a bit faulty. Localisations may bring in profit as of now, but it’s not guaranteed: if it becomes less profitable they can’t just roll it back, they’re committed to it even if a particular demographic declined over the years. Think of Italian players with their two little servers, I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t cover the localisation budget. But even if they do, if Blizzard decides to multiply it tenfold, it’s not like a few tens of thousands of Italian players are going to suddenly spawn and play the game. They’re going to stay roughly the same while localisation gets more expensive.
Granted, I would very much like to see more voice acting, but there’s this other matter: WoW already has more voice acting than most MMORPGs even without considering localisations. It’s not a part of the game I can criticise in all honesty.
Quest text has always said that.
What wording would you expect to see on quests that aren’t voiced over?
I respect some people prefer voice overs, I don’t. You read far faster than people talk and it sometimes irks me in verbal communication that people are so slow to get to the point. Blizz’s stories are no exception.
I didn’t try to excuse the game issues. Actually the opposite. Mike Ybarra (Blizzard CEO) even said he expects more creative and studio-wide freedom in decision making for their games now that they don’t have to justify and push up every little feature and decision up to Activisions management that did slow them down or deny ideas in the past.
So you might actually see what you want in the future.
While I certainly don’t need every major NPC voice acted all the time, I am not against it (mind you!)
Sure. That’s absolutely true. I’ve heard the French community mention that the quality of their voice acting has declined over the years, likely the result of Blizzard cutting costs (plus shutting down their French office and firing all their employees and all that stuff).
But it’s more nuanced than such. Localization is also a long-term investment that goes beyond the individual product and is more rooted in general market strategies.
Blizzard have a global reach and therefore want a global presence with a global customer base. A good example of that having worked out for them would be South Korea. Localization for South Korea has made Blizzard a monolith in that country. That initial investment in StarCraft has paid itself off a thousand times over.
And I’m sure with World of Warcraft the localization investments Blizzard have made have been more than worth it, because they have such a strong brand and reach today compared to 2004. For all their products.
I meant, put on a point, I think it’s wrong to argue that Blizzard’s investments in WoW and its localizations, haven’t paid off over the years. They have more than paid off. Blizzard have shoveled money into the bank in wheelbarrows for 20 years now.
Fair enough if Activision Blizzard’s finance department wants to tell me that they can’t find the money for this voice acting in their budget – all the while they shovel another $2 billion into the bank – because business is business.
But I shouldn’t hear that argument be put forth from fellow players who are also customers who pay for Blizzard to deliver them a premium entertainment product for their money.
Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas as they say, but sometimes reading the WoW forums you get the impression that they do.
I would say that as well if a microphone was put in my face during my company’s advertising convention where I’m trying to hype my customers to make them buy my products. Because saying that is what they want to hear. So I would say exactly that.
I no longer really care for what Blizzard says. I care for what they do and what they have a history of having done.
Pushing the hopium is tiresome.
Blizzard can put up or they can shut up.
Voice act everything and add a mute button in the audio settings. Everyone is happy. And Blizzard can definitely afford it.
(but it won’t happen, ergo I levy my just criticism)