They regularly tweak quest texts even when it’s on the PTR, would be a nightmare to have it all voice acted no doubt for them.
That said, it does feel a bit cheap when certain npc’s get voice acted for the big stuff, and then suddenly it’s back to only text for them for other quests.
if they are so unprofessional and cheap it would be better if they used AI for voice acting at least, it’s small indie company all over again, guess they were kinda salty about selling their games to microsoft so they try to kill it all so they won’t regret it??
we don’t need VA, we don’t need relevant open world content we don’t need this we don’t need that then what do we need ? we don’t anything this is just a game. other mmos have VA. even cheap asian mmos have some sort of ai/translate type of VA
i hope the novel will have audio, otherwise you be here talking about that 
i hope so 
Oh, Blizzard actually does excellent audio books. They’ve had the voice actor for Anduin voice an entire novel. The voice actor for Sylvanas has as well. The new novel, Scaleborn, is voiced by the voice actor for Alexstrasza.
So it’s not like Blizzard don’t seem to recognize the talent of these amazing voice actors. They just don’t use them to their full potential, unfortunately.
Honestly, with that attitude I am not surprised you are unhappy with the game.
I don’t see how that is relevant to the discussion.
Blizzard can say a lot, and that’s fine. But they don’t get my money or my praise for saying nice things. They get it for making good games.
So quoting some nice words from Ybarra about the future is all fine and dandy, but it doesn’t change my criticism here and now. If Blizzard does better in the future, then they’ll get my money and my praise then.
The hopium approach doesn’t really serve me as a consumer. That’s blind fanboyism and I’ve been there and it doesn’t really work.
because this is a paid game service. not a free budget studio.
corporate bootlicking doesnt help the game or the player…
Indeed, but I don’t feel I’m in such a position to judge the opportunity of such an investment, for no other reason that without data it would mean nothing.
Don’t get me wrong, if they did more extensive voice acting I would be nothing but happy, and I doubt ABK lacks the resources to make it work. But I also think the turkeys idiom doesn’t work very well here: nobody is harming us, and there will always be features and improvements to be desired, and all the possible, imagined investments would work in our favour. This doesn’t mean that a reluctance to ask for all of them means speaking against our own interests.
As an example, of all the possible improvements to the game, more voice acting is the least of my concerns, not only because I have other priorities, but also because there is the very tangible possibility that voiced quests would impede the writers’ freedom, and force them to be more succinct.
My cynical brain says that Blizzard also likes their written quest text because it steers the game toward a “tell, don’t show” design, which is cheaper to produce than the opposite “show, don’t tell” design.
Whenever Blizzard does use voice acting it’s for dialogue, because the characters are there in the moment. Stuff happens. The gameplay unfolds as the story plays out.
That’s the premium questing experiences that we only get a little bit of here and there. Blizzard reserves voice acting for the special moments, because they’re harder to produce than the good ol’ design of interacting with an NPC that presents you with a text box, and then nothing goes on as you read the text, click accept, and go on your merry way in the static and still world you’re playing in. It’s an old design reflecting an old type of game.
If Blizzard had to do voice acting everywhere, befitting a modern game, then they would have to steer their storytelling toward dialogue, which means that the way of setting up the stories has to come from the gameplay itself, which is way more work than Blizzard probably wants to take on. Which is sad, because it would probably be a cooler game experience. Alas, we get random NPCs littered about the world that the quest designers can just write a bunch of random story text for and add some simple kill or fed-ex objectives for. That makes for easy production, hence why they can make hundreds of quests for each zone, and sheer quantity does help to cover a lack of quality.
But I’d like more than that as a player in 2023. And I think the first step to getting it is to ask for it.
Ironically, Diablo IV is fully voice acted, and it doesn’t come with a monthly subscription. So there’s that.
It’s one thing to ask for reasonable stuff as a customer. It’s a totally different to assume everything in an industry is easy. And game design is never really easy, especially in large teams where creative processes get slown down by the structure of the studio not being efficient (not just meaning Blizzard but many AAA game studios).
I “love” such statements. Why should I believe you? You didn’t show any evidence to support your statement. I may know how much money Blizzard make but “trust me”? Really? 
If one was to be cheeky and engage that whole cost discussion, and we use the figure provided by Heramaar as $1.920.000 in total for voice acting, then the argument as to why Blizzard can afford it is this:
"Demand for Blizzard’s latest virtual items - the Celestial Steed mount and the Lil’XT Pet - has reached unprecedented levels, with queues of 140,000 people forming within hours of the items going on sale.
The two items were released on April 15, with the Celestial Steed selling for $25 on the US Blizzard Store and £17 in the UK.
Within three hours of their release, the queue for the Celestial Steed was seven hours long, with a 140,000-strong queue worth $3.5 million for the one item alone."
Over 140,000 gamers queue to buy WoW Celestial Steed | GamesIndustry.biz
And assuming Blizzard had a profitable business with WoW prior to establishing their Online Store, I think it’s fair to say their profit margin has only increased since they introduced it. That can be further supported by the fact that Activision Blizzard have reported record revenue numbers for World of Warcraft over the years. Assuming operating costs have not skyrocketed (no reason to believe since the product is largely the same as always), it’s more or less raw profit.
So $1.9 million voice acting salaries? Meet that retarded horse that raked in $3.5 million in less than a day. And all its companions on the Online Store.
Edit: Just to cover the “Eh Jito, that’s old, that doesn’t count anymore!”:
Diablo Immortal Earns $1 Million A Day, Data Shows (kotaku.com)
ofc its reasonable to ask voice acting!!! this is a MULTIBILLION DOLLAR company.
It’s up to them to be on time with the text they have to provide. Their Release process is long enough to be ready on time (it’s not like they have 3 weeks to create, check & deliver). Then up to management to understand why such quality corrections are needed that late before a release & perform the corrective actions to ensure it’s delivered & verified on time.
Seems recently they prefer to deliver quantity over quality, the problem with this philosophy is your customers starts to get used to the fast delivery but fed up by the poor quality.
I think it’s rookie numbers because we need to also include many many lines from side characters that voice double of main cast lines, it’ll be around 4 millions minimum
ms bought bethesda for less than 10billion, their game has va, they bought blizz for 67b , wow doesn’t have it in many quests. it doesn’t have to be in all languages if the cost is the issue here. they could just do it in english since it’s the majority language in the game . these are just excuses we’re talking about ABK + microsoft here . ms has its own AI tools too btw.
Cool, ESO also has only 4 languages.
something doesn’t add up.
Ai must not be used in any media that involves actual thing like human creativity
AH, YES!
Let us ruin more peoples jobs by taking them away and replacing them with a machine!
I guess you and the others advocating for AI voices are the same people that didn’t care at all about the walkouts of Story Writers, Actors and Voice Actors this year in Hollywood, eh?
“Oh, it isn’t my issue as a player when they can’t get jobs for their professions. All I care about is that all my quests in my favorite video game are voiced. I don’t care about people literally loosing their foundation for a living they have been executing for years due to a new technology I am advocating for”…
EXACTLY!