Crowswood: Voice acting change on the crows/Voice acting in general.

Tapio75 · March 2020

After doing the Summerset, I went to Davons watch to do the Crowswood and noticed, that the crows there don't speak as they used to.

The old ones actually sounded more like talking crows to me than the new one. The change IS kind of subtle if you don't pay attention to detail, but it is there. For me the new voice acting makes the crows sound more like an actor trying to sound like a talking crows when the old ones were like talking crows, if you get what I mean.

There have been some other instances too, where I have noticed some voices change. If they are planning to continue doing this.. "Remastering" of sorts, which seems to be the trend in games now, it is worrying to me, as these subtle changes don't sound much to unpractised eaar, they CAN change the whole aspect of a character from one to another. Subtke changes in pitch and tonal saturations may even change to whole personality of a character.

Personally I think the voices should just leave "As is", exept if there REALLY is some issues with existing ones which in the instance of the crows, there were not, but there are now as voice of the crows chantgd from talking crow to an actor trying to soundlike a talking crow, which is an issue. Voice acting is serious thing and should be left as is to prevent accidental perdsonality changes (Or removal of one) of characters personality.

Tapio75 · March 2020

The Duke of crows especially, is now just a man talking from paper now. Sad. I used to like that bird.

Elsonso · March 2020

A bit of the voice acting these days sounds like someone reading off a paper. A certain well known character in Morrowind sounds like a person reading off a paper to a child. Much worse than the infamous tree in Grahtwood.

I doubt it is a problem that is limited to ESO. It makes me wonder if some actors are just there for the paycheck and really don't care. Maybe they don't take voice overs for video games seriously?

As for the Crows, I guess I will have to go back and listen.

craybest · March 2020

Why are they changing some voice overs? Never heard from it before 🤔

daemonios · March 2020

craybest wrote: »

Why are they changing some voice overs? Never heard from it before 🤔

Some characters were voiced years before original release. When they were featured in later chapters/DLC, the original voice actors couldn't be used for some reason, so ZOS choose to re-record the original dialogue as well as the new lines for consistency.

Tapio75 · March 2020

daemonios wrote: »

craybest wrote: »

Why are they changing some voice overs? Never heard from it before 🤔

Some characters were voiced years before original release. When they were featured in later chapters/DLC, the original voice actors couldn't be used for some reason, so ZOS choose to re-record the original dialogue as well as the new lines for consistency.

Indeed, and I do think this is good for consistency, but the quality of voice acting should at least.. Well keep it voice acting, not just voicing the dialogue because that's just a waste of money these days. Intergration of TTS technology can make a very clear, quality voiceovers with much less trouble and cost that using people to read the dialogue.

Quality of voice acting, may make the difference between the dialogue being boring wall of text or thrilling part of the story. It should be taken seriously by the game makers and the people doing the voice acting. Players should also take some time to give feedback on voice acting to improve overall quality of the game. Performance is not the only thing in the game. Some issues may even be forgiven at least for some time if the game is a thrilling story to play.

fastolfv_ESO · March 2020

the crows are my favorite part of pve in eso sadly, if they screwed that up i'll be really ticked off it was perfect

Tapio75 · March 2020

fastolfv_ESO wrote: »

the crows are my favorite part of pve in eso sadly, if they screwed that up i'll be really ticked off it was perfect

I love them too, and I also love crows in real life. I did redo the crowswood thing. I think the court magister still has the original, but the Duke has changed

PrayingSeraph · March 2020

Hmm someone should find a clip on youtube of the old voice acting and compare it with the new.

RD065 · March 2020

Elsonso wrote: »

A bit of the voice acting these days sounds like someone reading off a paper. A certain well known character in Morrowind sounds like a person reading off a paper to a child. Much worse than the infamous tree in Grahtwood.

I doubt it is a problem that is limited to ESO. It makes me wonder if some actors are just there for the paycheck and really don't care. Maybe they don't take voice overs for video games seriously?

As for the Crows, I guess I will have to go back and listen.

Maybe not the same but in SWTOR it was all about voice acting from the NPC's as well as the players. Once they started to add more levels and DLC the players didn't speak anymore and the story was the same for all, unlike a new one for each when the game started.

Nairinhe · March 2020

They can change good voices for bad voices, but cannot change that terrible Nocturnal?

Tapio75 · March 2020

PrayingSeraph wrote: »

Hmm someone should find a clip on youtube of the old voice acting and compare it with the new.

I did try. At least a bit, but could not find any

Maybe someone else have better luck.

RD065 wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

A bit of the voice acting these days sounds like someone reading off a paper. A certain well known character in Morrowind sounds like a person reading off a paper to a child. Much worse than the infamous tree in Grahtwood.

I doubt it is a problem that is limited to ESO. It makes me wonder if some actors are just there for the paycheck and really don't care. Maybe they don't take voice overs for video games seriously?

As for the Crows, I guess I will have to go back and listen.

Maybe not the same but in SWTOR it was all about voice acting from the NPC's as well as the players. Once they started to add more levels and DLC the players didn't speak anymore and the story was the same for all, unlike a new one for each when the game started.

I loved playing that game and having differenty story with each character and also have my characters vary depending on their personal bio

Have not been playing anything new though. Sounds that game has gone to sad state

Like many others as well. In STO, I do love all the new voice acting from real actors that were on the series as well, but other than them, the voice acting they have been adding is quite terrible in many parts, but im still thankful there iis voice now, as it also helps me to get the story behind what I do. Reading is not an option for me aanymore. Im visually impaired and have been for some years now. No more bnooks so games with voice acting have really been a great place to get some stories

heaven13 · August 2020

Necroing this to say that the same appears to have happened to Count Verandis. I have a character doing the Rivenspire quest line now. Started it a couple weeks back, did some other things on different characters in between. Got to The Concealing Veil today and thought he sounded weird so I googled some videos of Verandis from a couple years back and his voice actor has definitely been changed.

I haven't played either of the Stonethorn dungeons yet but I'd assume that he appears somewhere in there (or might be appearing in Q4?) and the previous actor wasn't available any longer. Either way, Verandis just doesn't sound the same.

Syldras · August 2020

heaven13 wrote: »

Necroing this to say that the same appears to have happened to Count Verandis.

Same goes for Raynor Vanos in the German version. His voice actor changed in Greymoor (the quest in Nchuthnkarst). Although I'm not sure if it's a mistake because he just sounds like Neramo who has a different Dwemer ruin quest in Blackreach. Maybe they mixed up something?