The Voice Acting. . .

[Nandina]

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I actually do have a problem with Garleans like Cid not having a different accent. For the sake of the story I ignored it, since he seemed to have been trying to blend in initially. A Garlean accent could sound like anything they want, tbh; but there should be a distinction I feel. The same way they randomly chose the various accents in the UK to represent Eorzea, they could do the same thing with another real life place and Garlemald. But saying that it could be an unknown possibly yet to be revealed reason is an appeal to ignorance fallacy. I can hear the difference between someone from Boston and Staten Island, despite both being in the the US, so why not between someone from Ul'dah and Gridania? It's not like SE hasn't done it before, like with Fang and Vanille in FFXIII.

[Keridwyn]

WoW has some very memorable voice acted boss lines.

And infamous ones like Sindragosa's 'Betray'.

Over all I think they are improving, slowly but surely. Sometimes I don't understand why a replacement was made, other times it's obvious. As long as they continue to improve I will continue to be okay.

[Theodric]

-snip-

Many Garleans do have a distinct accent, though...

Regula and many other Garlean Purebloods talk in a very specific upper class accent, with their voices being distorted slightly by his helmet. This was common in FFXII which had a very distinct 'Imperial' accent as well.

[ElHeggunte]

And infamous ones like Sindragosa's 'Betray'.

Falric: Despair Dis pear... so delicious...!!

[Kurando]

But saying that it could be an unknown possibly yet to be revealed reason is an appeal to ignorance fallacy. I can hear the difference between someone from Boston and Staten Island, despite both being in the the US, so why not between someone from Ul'dah and Gridania? It's not like SE hasn't done it before, like with Fang and Vanille in FFXIII.

How is it ignorance fallacy? I mean we haven't been to Garland so we have no idea how they are supposed to speak or whether SE actually want to give them any kind of unique accent at all. Could Allagan influence effected language and accents on a worldwide scale, no one really knows at least not until we see further expacs exploring it. Not to mention, the accents of a few imperials isn't enough to represent an entire country.

Both Vanille and Fang had Australian accents and without it sounding comedic, I'm not sure how it would fit in to FFXIV now considering the vast majority of the accents are British. I wouldn't want a territory speaking a token accent just for the sake of diversity. From what I hear in the game (as a British speaker) there are essentially just two or three accents, standard, upper class and cockney, so I don't think there is anything too random about it. I've yet to hear any kind of uncommon accent you wouldn't normal hear in the media, so it's disappointing there isn't enough but when catering to an international market some accents will more often than not be ignored.

[Nandina]

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"Upper-class" isn't a regional distinction, and voice distortion via helmet doesn't qualify as an accent; it's just voice distortion. Just about every country with a class divide has an upper-class accent. There are instances where I can't tell a Garlean apart from an Eorzean. In FFXII, the main cast sounded American to me, where as the Archadians sounded British, and Al-Cid sounded Spanish; which highlights the regional distinction I'm referring to. In FFXIV nearly everyone sounds like they're from the UK, though I'm not entirely sure about Fordola. She sounded different to me and was the one stand out I noticed. Like I know there are different accents in the UK, and that some of the NPCs speak in these accents; but it makes sense to me for this to be the case with Eorzeans given the closer proximity, but not Domans or Garleans from much further away.

[Nandina]

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Saying, we don't know to back your argument isn't proof that there is or isn't a distinction. I can't go off speculation of what SE did or didn't intend to do, because neither one of us are a representative of SE. I just know that in real life, when given geographical isolation for a set period of time, accents diverge. Going by the World Map, Garlemald is very far from Eorzea. Now, I'll concede that it may be harder for me to pick up on these slight differences in accent being from America, which is why I'm fine with Eorzea as a whole for the most part (though I wish there were racial differences—like aren't miqo'te supposed to pronounce their H sounds in a different way?) But again, it's just immersion breaking for me that Garleans, Domans, the Xaela from Azim Steppe also sound like they're from the UK.

[Iscah]

Both Vanille and Fang had Australian accents and without it sounding comedic, I'm not sure how it would fit in to FFXIV now considering the vast majority of the accents are British.

I haven't played FFXIII so I don't know what those characters are like, but voice actors doing "Australian" accents usually sound terrible to an actual Australian.

[Cidel]

Ah, the good old voice-acting discussion.

Well since this is still technically spoilers...

I'm going to address this without trying to avoid directly naming the primal/host (plus I feel that it's been long enough). So, keep that in mind:

the English voice actress for the lunar bunny goddess did amazing, like I think she did even better than the Japanese VA, the way she changed her voice during the fight showed how the primal was trying to take full control while our favorite witch tried to take it back.

I can't help but disagree. When I changed the language setting to hear the English VA for Tsukuyomi, all I could hear was Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove or the kid Tina babysits once from Bob's Burgers when she speaks through her teddybear; she was trying so hard to sound sinister with her raspy voice that it almost sounded corny to me. Meanwhile, I like how her Japanese VA delivers her lines like she's toying with/mocking the players which then turns into a more domineering and resentful tone after the second half of the fight starts. And she just sounds more "natural" and less forced.

But of course, there are two different deliveries in the different languages which will cause people to prefer one over the other, understandably. And I noticed ever since Lakshmi, that people prefer the voice if it fits their narrative of how they think the primal/character should sound. I personally found the Japanese VA of Lakshmi to suit how she was described as with her soft and non-aggressive tone while others said they'd prefer her wicked, sinister-sounding English delivery by using narratives of her goals, nature, heck, even the name of her primal song.

I don't quite know what to think about voice-acting with accents based on what would "make sense" (Doman's having accents, etc). But I also realize that some voice deliveries in Japanese aren't as feasible/don't translate quite the same to other languages (and hey, vice-versa). Sort of like English Susano had to go a different direction from Japanese's kabuki flair. And then there's Soroban...

[LeoLupinos]

All I want is fully voice acted MSQ, yet there still ppl complaining about the so little that we have.