[Feedback] Wuk Lamat's English Voice

Yikes...

Anyway, I found her voice to be pretty decent. Not the worst, not the best. Just fine.

As I say again mate, I care less if they're trans, gay, w/e.

My opinion is the Voice acting is ARR level, it's poor and doesn't fit, lacking emotional responses and expressions, showing no signs in caring about their role like in 90s Anime dubbing for English. If people think it's good then I seriously question the opinion. And I am very aware some are only saying it because they're transgender, and how we gonna follow the twitter post to get clout for 10s. Otherwise, fair your opinion.

For me, I expect at least on par with other voice actors for example Zenos, Emet Selch. Not someone with bare enough experience, podcasts are not experience. You can find Voice actors on Youtube who are seriously high grade, believe me some are REALLY good.

I play in japanese so I didn't listen to her voice in EN until I saw the multiple threads about this.
First I don't think being trans or not, or being from america or not has anything to do with her work, as long as someone does a good work that's all that should matter.

I do agree she sounds a bit amateur compared to the others, but I think people is missing the point here, or maybe just don't know much about how dubbing works.
She's not at fault for anything, the one at fault here would me the voice director, he's the person thal told her how to portrait the character and gave the ok to her performance.

I think she can do a much better dub with some work and a good direction, but she needs proper direction from someone interested in teaching her a bit.

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Originally Posted by MorfineCeres18

I play in japanese so I didn't listen to her voice in EN until I saw the multiple threads about this.
First I don't think being trans or not, or being from america or not has anything to do with her work, as long as someone does a good work that's all that should matter.

I do agree she sounds a bit amateur compared to the others, but I think people is missing the point here, or maybe just don't know much about how dubbing works.
She's not at fault for anything, the one at fault here would me the voice director, he's the person thal told her how to portrait the character and gave the ok to her performance.

I think she can do a much better dub with some work and a good direction, but she needs proper direction from someone interested in teaching her a bit.

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Why can't players demand AAA quality from a game that charges AAA prices? I don't see the reasoning behind this. If I'm paying 40 dollars + a monthly sub for an expansion, I expect the voiced story content to not have a main character that "needs teaching a bit" or "sounds a bit amateur compared to the others".
I'm paying this much for the game, there is an expectation of a certain level of quality. The main characters should be voiced by experienced actors, they should be pretty much up to speed when they get in to record.

After finishing the last few MSQ up, I think there are some fair points made here.

Fact:
Wuk Lamat is a key character in DawnTrail and DawnTrail's plot as has been introduced in the MSQ.
Key character meaning someone who is pivotal or required for a plot to take place.

My thoughts:

• Initially, I never questioned the gender of Lamat's voice. To me, it sounded like a woman so that did not disrupt my immersion. I have never heard of Sena or knew her before this.
  
  
• What I did notice was how the accent was not entirely genuine or consistent. There are a lot of American sounding pronounciations where my brain was actually expecting something different. (What different that is, I don't know, but there are distinct American sounds). But I dismissed it because I'm not hispanic nor do I have a lot of experience with hispanic accents. So again it did not bother me.
  
  
• Upon finishing the MSQ, what really I noticed is that Lamat's voice isn't quite up to par in cadence, nuance, expression, emotion, and a unique identity that reflects their character. Ie the way Estinienne talks is graveled and low, Yshtola is stern and confident, Alphinaud is far too happy that it drives me deeper into despair. Lamat on the other just seems to be a single mode, if this makes sense.

As a key character, Lamat's voice isn't as good in those sections at times. While it's not bad, it doesn't strike me as MC energy. For me, is it a deal breaker ? No, in fact I enjoy the VA for what it is, but I myself do question the hire. But, I do understand why people are questioning the hiring/directing of this VA for such an important character given the quality VA of the scions and other key characters like Emet-Selch. What was the process ? Why is it that a less experienced person who has skills to reflect their experience put in a key character ?

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

Why can't players demand AAA quality from a game that charges AAA prices? I don't see the reasoning behind this. If I'm paying 40 dollars + a monthly sub for an expansion, I expect the voiced story content to not have a main character that "needs teaching a bit" or "sounds a bit amateur compared to the others".
I'm paying this much for the game, there is an expectation of a certain level of quality. The main characters should be voiced by experienced actors, they should be pretty much up to speed when they get in to record.

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I think that's a fair point. I know that extra time was already added to each content patch but perhaps it would be beneficial for the development team to delay things a little further if it allows for more overall polish. This late in the game's development I do not expect a PTR to suddenly be added so although that is something other MMO's benefit from, it isn't applicable here. Granted, my personal preference would be no delays at all.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

Why can't players demand AAA quality from a game that charges AAA prices? I don't see the reasoning behind this. If I'm paying 40 dollars + a monthly sub for an expansion, I expect the voiced story content to not have a main character that "needs teaching a bit" or "sounds a bit amateur compared to the others".
I'm paying this much for the game, there is an expectation of a certain level of quality. The main characters should be voiced by experienced actors, they should be pretty much up to speed when they get in to record.

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2 hours of content in 3 months = ok
Meh/Average voice acting on one character = pitchforks
Priorities

They've changed voice actors before - noticeably in Heavensward. I remember being very put off by new Alphinaud cause I was so used to ARR. If they are unsatisfied with current VA there will be a change eventually. Personally I think the casting is poor but her work is not terrible to me.

Never been a fan of English voice actors ever since FF10 and thank god 14 gives the option to play voices in Japanese. Good professional voice actors will cost and I'm assuming hiring amateurs helps with cost. SE always focus on JP more than EN since 11 and not surprised that the quality of EN voice is way worse than their JP counterparts.

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Originally Posted by VirusOnline

[*]What I did notice was how the accent was not entirely genuine or consistent. There are a lot of American sounding pronounciations where my brain was actually expecting something different. (What different that is, I don't know, but there are distinct American sounds). But I dismissed it because I'm not hispanic nor do I have a lot of experience with hispanic accents. So again it did not bother me.

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I can tell you that Wuk Lamat's accent (which is inconsistent, as you say) is not the accent of any South American or Central American country. It is very much American trying to order in Spanish at a Mexican restaurant/Puerto Rican who thinks they speak with a Spanish accent but actually sounds like a gringa/or Saturday-morning-cartoon/bad-anime-dub level bad, maybe mixed with a tiny touch of Portuguese.

As I said further up in the thread, if they had instructed the voice actor to speak naturally and not in an accent, it would probably have been fine, and she'd likely have given better delivery as well because she wasn't trying to stick all of South America in a blender and produce bad accent paste. But her accent is the equivalent of an American from Idaho making fun of a Japanese accent, and people would definitely not be fine with that.

I legit didn't care about her politics and her acting skills. I think I've heard far worse in EW. The thing that rubbed me the wrong way was her attacking Bridget's (Guilty Gear) VA saying that a "cis woman" shouldn't VA a trans woman.
I don't know about you, but saying that and then accepting a role of a "cis" woman, plus her questionable acting skills, makes me believe she got the role to tick a checkmark instead of being qualified

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Originally Posted by DejikoChocolla

I legit didn't care about her politics and her acting skills. I think I've heard far worse in EW. The thing that rubbed me the wrong way was her attacking Bridget's (Guilty Gear) VA saying that a "cis woman" shouldn't VA a trans woman.
I don't know about you, but saying that and then accepting a role of a "cis" woman, plus her questionable acting skills, makes me believe she got the role to tick a checkmark instead of being qualified

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If that's true, as a hypocrite as it is, I still we should criticize her for her skill in voice acting and her output. I have my own opinion on such issue, but we should focus on her work and the result of her skill.

on the other note, I've tried switching voice to JP to try it out and, man, I can understand the gap in quality between two of them now.

The quality of the Japanese voice is crazy good in comparison. Effortlessly reaches that high energy I wish I heard from the English voice over.

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Originally Posted by NiceNox

If that's true, as a hypocrite as it is, I still we should criticize her for her skill in voice acting and her output. I have my own opinion on such issue, but we should focus on her work and the result of her skill.

on the other note, I've tried switching voice to JP to try it out and, man, I can understand the gap in quality between two of them now.

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It is.
But sure, we should only focus on the skill. All I can say is, it's bad. As people above already stated, is just someone trying to make their worst shot at a fake south american accent.
By the way, south americans don't really want representation, they only want a quality product, their money's worth. They already play this game for what it is, and that should be enough. Half assing representation for the sake of it begat this kind of subpar results in quality. I pray that XIV never gets spanish localization. If they start using gender neutral language, a low tier VA will be just a drop in a sea of cringe.

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Originally Posted by Embran

Honestly, I thought she was fantastic and I feel she will only get better. I do believe this thread is going to age poorly (just as the threads criticizing Lyse and Emet did, lul).

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Lyse is still terrible, sorry.

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Originally Posted by Embran

Her voice work is and always has been great, tbh.

I know people have strong feelings about her actual character, so I won't comment on that. But I do believe a lot of the dislike for her VA unfairly stems from peoples' disliking of her character.

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As a character, yeah, she's terrible. Her voice work was fine though.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I haven't gone through MSQ yet so I haven't had the opportunity to hear Wuk Lamat's voice for myself. That being said, I rarely set my expectations for voice acting very high in this game and I usually put the fault at the direction rather than the voice actors themselves.

I swear this thread wouldn't be happening (not directed at OP) if Wuk Lamat was voiced by a cis woman. Because there are dozens of other characters in this game who sound as flat as a Lalafell's chest (forgive the expression), and none of them have elicited a 20+ page thread on their voice acting. So she has an inauthentic-sounding accent? Where was that criticism with Varsahn and a bunch of the other Thavnair characters? Why is it suddenly a problem now?

I was over the moon to find out that Wuk Lamat has a trans voice actress, and I look forward to hearing her in game. At the very least I'm hoping that in Dawntrail she'll have found her groove with her and deliver a better performance.

I apologize if I come off a little heated, the transphobia I have seen over this is infuriating. I want to be clear that I think people are allowed to not like the voice acting, nor do people have to support a character just because their actor is LGBTQ+, but all these bad-faith criticisms and blatant misgendering of the actress is crossing the line.

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Originally Posted by Destati

In any case I'd like to apologize for my previous post, I saw a bunch of screenshots elsewhere that were probably taken out of context. Didn't think I was playing that card, but yikes. I'm sorry.
/gen

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Originally Posted by Destati

I'm going to preface this by saying that I haven't gone through MSQ yet so I haven't had the opportunity to hear Wuk Lamat's voice for myself. That being said, I rarely set my expectations for voice acting very high in this game and I usually put the fault at the direction rather than the voice actors themselves.

I swear this thread wouldn't be happening (not directed at OP) if Wuk Lamat was voiced by a cis woman. Because there are dozens of other characters in this game who sound as flat as a Lalafell's chest (forgive the expression), and none of them have elicited a 20+ page thread on their voice acting. So she has an inauthentic-sounding accent? Where was that criticism with Varsahn and a bunch of the other Thavnair characters? Why is it suddenly a problem now?

I was over the moon to find out that Wuk Lamat has a trans voice actress, and I look forward to hearing her in game. At the very least I'm hoping that in Dawntrail she'll have found her groove with her and deliver a better performance.

I apologize if I come off a little heated, the transphobia I have seen over this is infuriating. I want to be clear that I think people are allowed to not like the voice acting, nor do people have to support a character just because their actor is LGBTQ+, but all these bad-faith criticisms and blatant misgendering of the actress is crossing the line.

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oh please stop with the constant victimization already, like acually for real, saying a voice actor sounds too manly after doing a transition M to F or that they have a voice too deep and it doesnt sound right is not transphobia, just stop it

I already had them take away Gun breakers original SFX and then deleting Kaiten. I'm tired of receiving a subpar product. This new voice hire is just the next step in a terrible expansion with questionable decisions and no content.

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Originally Posted by DejikoChocolla

It is.
But sure, we should only focus on the skill. All I can say is, it's bad. As people above already stated, is just someone trying to make their worst shot at a fake south american accent.
By the way, south americans don't really want representation, they only want a quality product, their money's worth. They already play this game for what it is, and that should be enough. Half assing representation for the sake of it begat this kind of subpar results in quality. I pray that XIV never gets spanish localization. If they start using gender neutral language, a low tier VA will be just a drop in a sea of cringe.

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This is kinda the standard for a typical perpetually online twitter user imo, absolutely unhinged takes and double standards. lol

If one made a comment that a black person sounded too white, I think most would agree that is a racist comment. Likewise saying that a trans woman sounds too manly is pretty implicitly transphobic.

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Originally Posted by Destati

I'm going to preface this by saying that I haven't gone through MSQ yet so I haven't had the opportunity to hear Wuk Lamat's voice for myself. That being said, I rarely set my expectations for voice acting very high in this game and I usually put the fault at the direction rather than the voice actors themselves.

I swear this thread wouldn't be happening (not directed at OP) if Wuk Lamat was voiced by a cis woman. Because there are dozens of other characters in this game who sound as flat as a Lalafell's chest (forgive the expression), and none of them have elicited a 20+ page thread on their voice acting. So she has an inauthentic-sounding accent? Where was that criticism with Varsahn and a bunch of the other Thavnair characters? Why is it suddenly a problem now?

I was over the moon to find out that Wuk Lamat has a trans voice actress, and I look forward to hearing her in game. At the very least I'm hoping that in Dawntrail she'll have found her groove with her and deliver a better performance.

I apologize if I come off a little heated, the transphobia I have seen over this is infuriating. I want to be clear that I think people are allowed to not like the voice acting, nor do people have to support a character just because their actor is LGBTQ+, but all these bad-faith criticisms and blatant misgendering of the actress is crossing the line.

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For the love of God, stop that card. We speak about not good VA job to CENTRAL character. Not side characters. We all know about Nidhana incident, and all Elephant incident. Feedback was heard by Localization team and voices been better in 6.x. Now we have a problem with some aspects. We post feedback for improvement in future. But get attacked by people with card "YOUARETRANSPHOBICARARARA". Maybe if you want use that card, then we need to use card about some Sena questionable stuff and opinions earlier? Not, we dont, we speak about voice right now, not any other things.

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Originally Posted by Theozilla

If one made a comment that a black person sounded too white, I think most would agree that is a racist comment. Likewise saying that a trans woman sounds too manly is pretty implicitly transphobic.

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No it isnt.

I think certain posters are coming up with increasingly bizarre arguments to deflect away from any and all criticism.

You're perfectly free to disagree with the criticism being put forward, though suggesting that everybody critical of the voice acting is either openly or subtly transphobic is just...utterly bizarre and disingenuous.

Some posters are quite obviously setting the table in such a way as to turn every bit of criticism into some sort of 'gotcha' moment.

As a gay guy I would note that one's sexuality or identity is not a shield in which to avoid criticism altogether.

There's still quite a bit of time until Dawntrail is due to launch and there is the possibility that the character will be around longer than the base MSQ's for the expansion itself. With that in mind, this is the perfect time for feedback to be provided. Whether the development team choose to do anything with it is another matter entirely though I think it's better to relay any concerns sooner rather than later.

Maybe the character wasnt voiced by a Brit because we're going to the Americas? They've correctly casted everyone else, I dont see the reason to not cast a South American/Hispanic individual for a South American character. Yeah, it's different because we mostly had a UK cast for a fictional country set in the European area of the world but I highly expect majority of VAs for Dawntrail to be NA and/or hispanic as it's literally Etheirys North and South America. If anyone from the UK is cast for Dawntrail characters it's a massive miscast honestly.

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Originally Posted by Destati

I swear this thread wouldn't be happening (not directed at OP) if Wuk Lamat was voiced by a cis woman.

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How would anyone know from her accent that she's trans? Do you think the accent would sound better if she were cis? What?

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Originally Posted by Folsom

How would anyone know from her accent that she's trans? Do you think the accent would sound better if she were cis? What?

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Her being trans and her accent were meant to be two separate points.

In any case I'd like to apologize for my previous post, I saw a bunch of screenshots elsewhere that were probably taken out of context. Didn't think I was playing that card, but yikes. I'm sorry.
/gen

I'm not surprised that people are trying to rile folks up with out of context screenshots and trying to frame a thread about bad voice acting as being transphobic. It's sad that we can't have an honest discussion on the quality of the voice work without people trying to dismiss it and claim it's all just anti lgbt. :(

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Originally Posted by Destati

Her being trans and her accent were meant to be two separate points.

In any case I'd like to apologize for my previous post, I saw a bunch of screenshots elsewhere that were probably taken out of context. Didn't think I was playing that card, but yikes. I'm sorry.
/gen

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No, this is the internet. You need to double down and fight to the death!

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Originally Posted by Destati

Where was that criticism with Varsahn and a bunch of the other Thavnair characters? Why is it suddenly a problem now?

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I think that's an apples to oranges situation here.
With Wuk Lamat, she's slated to be the next Lyse of Dawntrail. Receiving a huge amount of screentime. We're given a glimpse of her character before the expansion, which Varshan didn't have. Varshan is also a character that we grow attached to through his actions in the story before we have a chance to notice that he's an important character. (plus, this is a weak defense, but Varshan's broken accent was a bit endearing because it actually is a fake accent) If they only revealed Wuk Lamat after the expansion's launch, then there's nothing to do. No one's going to ask them to redub an entire expansion, but there's a chance the work isn't done yet, and they might be able to find someone better to record the lines before Dawntrail's final release. We heard like three lines from her before 6.55, all neutrally said. Not enough to gauge how well the voice acting is, but now she actually emotes and goes on monologues. Wuk Lamat is center stage, and wants us all to know about it. Part of it also might be the writing. I'll be honest, only one of her jokey-jokes actually landed for me.
I don't want her to get fired exactly, I just want the best voice possible for such an integral role.

As a final note: Why are you commenting so vehemently on the situation when you admitted to not having heard the voice acting in question?

Felt like they were trying to hard to be funny with the dialogue in the solo duty bird fight and it fell flat. I personally hope I don't have to listen to it for more than half of the next expansion. Wouldn't be my ideal for a summer vacation. More like that uncomfortable feeling when you wanna leave from a family gathering but one of your family members starts making everything awkward.

To be honest, I'm starting to believe that this is actually just SE testing the waters to see how low they can go with the game's quality before the playerbase revolts en masse and seeing how they still get tons of people defending them and making mental gymnastics all over the place the answer is A LOT.

I'm sure they'll continue trying to cut corners where they can. I know Sega did the same thing by hiring YongYea for Yakuza.

I don't know what a hispanic or brazilian accent is supposed to sound like so I'm not going to agree or disagree about the caricature part.
The performance did bother me a lot. I'm just repeating what I said in other threads but I haven't heard voice acting this bad in this game since 1.0.

No, scratch that. Honoroit's was also real bad in 3.2.

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Originally Posted by Karious

I'm not surprised that people are trying to rile folks up with out of context screenshots and trying to frame a thread about bad voice acting as being transphobic. It's sad that we can't have an honest discussion on the quality of the voice work without people trying to dismiss it and claim it's all just anti lgbt. :(

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even if it wasnt absout transphobia, insinuating shes a racist characture is honestly completly over the line, youre going to loose your own cause here

I'm still waiting for people to be up in arms over erenville being from the new world. He has an Icelandic accent after all.





Also, for those saying wuk has an "American accent" whatever that means, one thing she absolutely does not sound like is a white woman from Kentucky. I feel like people don't actually understand how varied American accents are.

Are we still going on about this?

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Originally Posted by LillyWandsworth

Are we still going on about this?

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Yeah because the FFXIV forum community are so starved for content that were now reduced to complaining about VAs.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Also, for those saying wuk has an "American accent" whatever that means, one thing she absolutely does not sound like is a white woman from Kentucky. I feel like people don't actually understand how varied American accents are.

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I love this video. I believe Singer is a very well known voice coach/dialect expert.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1KP4ztKK0A

There's a part in this series where he goes on to talk about the latino american accents and it's very interesting. Soft l pronunciations, the 'd' and 'th' pronunciations, and all that. I have only a little exposure to spanish from school but I think these are the sounds I was coming to expect which is why I'm thrown off by Lamat.

IE a few of her lines sound off to me...

"Sorry, sorry, it's just so different here."
"But he raised me as his own."
"You weren't exaggerating."
"And I have every intention of winning."
"You'll come to Tural, yes?" This line sounds odd. It has the accent but it's lacking something that I can't quite put my finger on.

Most of these have standard american undertones to me.

Some of her lines are brilliant like when she introduces herself and where she came from. Now that sounds so good in my ears. But there are a lit of fall in quality, again her accent is not consistent.

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Originally Posted by GartredZW

I think that's an apples to oranges situation here.
With Wuk Lamat, she's slated to be the next Lyse of Dawntrail. Receiving a huge amount of screentime. We're given a glimpse of her character before the expansion, which Varshan didn't have. Varshan is also a character that we grow attached to through his actions in the story before we have a chance to notice that he's an important character. (plus, this is a weak defense, but Varshan's broken accent was a bit endearing because it actually is a fake accent) If they only revealed Wuk Lamat after the expansion's launch, then there's nothing to do. No one's going to ask them to redub an entire expansion, but there's a chance the work isn't done yet, and they might be able to find someone better to record the lines before Dawntrail's final release. We heard like three lines from her before 6.55, all neutrally said. Not enough to gauge how well the voice acting is, but now she actually emotes and goes on monologues. Wuk Lamat is center stage, and wants us all to know about it. Part of it also might be the writing. I'll be honest, only one of her jokey-jokes actually landed for me.
I don't want her to get fired exactly, I just want the best voice possible for such an integral role.

As a final note: Why are you commenting so vehemently on the situation when you admitted to not having heard the voice acting in question?

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The funny thing here is about going "We grew to know Varshahn" like my friend no, people didn't care, people STILL complained non-stop about Varshahn with the exact same crap we're seeing with Wuk Lamat. People did the same thing with Zero, people do this whenever there is a new character.