OUR VOICE

[Callinon]

Has there ever been an MMO with a voiced player character? Genuine question, never played or otherwise investigated enough to know. I would expect the broader character customization gets, the less likely voice acting becomes.

Star Wars: The Old Republic had fully voiced PCs. One for each class and gender. So the female Chiss agent sounded exactly like the female Human agent. Still that's 16 voice actors reading thousands of hours of lines to cover everything the PC needed to say out loud.

[Lambdafish]

Star Wars: The Old Republic had fully voiced PCs. One for each class and gender. So the female Chiss agent sounded exactly like the female Human agent. Still that's 16 voice actors reading thousands of hours of lines to cover everything the PC needed to say out loud.

And if I remember correctly, that feature was a huge spend from the budget. I'd rather the XIV team focus the budget on other areas. This game has excellent characters, voice acting and story, it doesn't need a significant budget spent on making the PC talk within that

[Misutoraru]

SWTOR is made by BioWare and it is hugely main story focus MMO so I guess they should have the high standard VA, while FFXIV I don’t think they are as strong as SWTOR on how “chose your own path” in main story and I have to say FFXIV VA is quite poorly perform, I think they should priorities getting better VA for MSQ and spending on other stuff and giving VA for our character

[Callinon]

And if I remember correctly, that feature was a huge spend from the budget. I'd rather the XIV team focus the budget on other areas. This game has excellent characters, voice acting and story, it doesn't need a significant budget spent on making the PC talk within that

It was, yeah. Their budget was enormous and most of it went to this. It's why there are no separate class storylines for any of their expansions.

Personally I don't especially care about voice acting for my character. There's no possibility it'd sound like my character sounds in my head regardless. It'd be Generic English Guy #659 and who needs that.

Frankly, while we're at it can we talk about how people from literally different continents have the exact same accents as each other? Eorzea and Doma are quite far apart from each other with different cultures... why do they all sound like they're from London?

[Kalise]

Frankly, while we're at it can we talk about how people from literally different continents have the exact same accents as each other? Eorzea and Doma are quite far apart from each other with different cultures... why do they all sound like they're from London?

I believe that's attributable to the Echo.

Our Echo allows us to understand all languages (Which is why we can walk into Doma and be able to speak with everyone despite never studying the Doman language)

It's possible that it will also translate other languages into specific accents too.

Kind of like the same reasoning used in Doctor Who with how the TARDIS automatically translates everything into a British accent.

[Seraph522]

I believe that's attributable to the Echo.

Our Echo allows us to understand all languages (Which is why we can walk into Doma and be able to speak with everyone despite never studying the Doman language)

It's possible that it will also translate other languages into specific accents too.

Kind of like the same reasoning used in Doctor Who with how the TARDIS automatically translates everything into a British accent.

I'm actually fairly certain the Echo isn't involved with translating Doman language; Lyse and Alisaie have no problems speaking to any Othardian people they encounter, and the Echo doesn't impart linguistic translation to nearby companions like the TARDIS. Moreover, Yugiri and Gosetsu similarly have no issues speaking to Eorzeans when they first arrive. I can't check the lorebook right now, but I think all the peoples at least speak 'the Common tongue' (probably not the right term) that's spoken throughout Eorzea and the Garlean Empire, presumably as a trade language and/or because of Garlean occupation.

In regards to the accent, Hien and Gosetsu at least have a slight tonal difference to their speech that suggests an East Asian accent, though I may just be hearing things. They probably didn't bother with outright East Asian accents because it might have come across as silly if they couldn't pull it off, and it's not like everyone sharing the same accent doesn't happen in other media works; I'm pretty sure none of the Japanese voice actors are effecting a British accent, for instance.

[Kalise]

I'm actually fairly certain the Echo isn't involved with translating Doman language; Lyse and Alisaie have no problems speaking to any Othardian people they encounter

Alisae specifically mentions that she actually studied the Doman language though.

It's only Lyse that is questionable in her ability to speak to the Othardians. However, one could pass it off as maybe Alisae taught her the basics of the language during the voyage over.

As far as Yugiri and Gosetsu go - Yugiri is one of the Shinobi, so it wouldn't be particularly out of the ordinary to have learned to speak other languages so as to better infiltrate and spy on enemies such as the Imperials (Who'd likely have Eorzean conscripts in their ranks so use a common Eorzean tongue). While Gosetsu worked directly for Lord Kaien whom may have occasionally used some Eorzean languages while dealing with the rebellion against the Imperials so Gosetsu may have picked up some (While not being particularly fluent, so using that stereotypical "Talk louder and hope people understand better" thing that tourists do)

Since, it's given in the lore that the Echo provides us with the ability to understand and speak all languages. Including that of the Ascians (Back in ARR there were times where the Ascians would use their native tongue and only us and Minfilia, whom have the Echo, could understand them)

[Seraph522]

Snip

Yeah, I think I phrased that incorrectly in my initial post. The Echo certainly translates Doman, Hingashi, etc. for us. That being said, from some digging on the lorebooks, Eorzean is at least spoken in Kugane (which makes sense, as Kugane is a major international trade port), though it isn't their native language. Doma is more questionable; Oboro and Tsubame from the Ninja job questline are able to speak Eorzean, but express lack of familiarity with it in the initial quests, suggesting that most Domans do not speak Eorzean (although they also hail from a somewhat isolated ninja tribe/clan, so who knows). Lyse being able to speak well with the Domans could definitely be explained away by Alisaie teaching her, though the real problem arises on the Azim Steppe, where everyone seems to be able to talk easily with one another despite the lore stating that the tribes mostly speak Auri and, presumably, are not as familiar with Eorzean. We can cheat with the Echo, but I don't think Alisaie ever learned Auri (though I could just be forgetting it).

The Garleans are where things get interesting: presumably, Eorzean is spoken rather widely due to the absorption of various provinces into the Empire and the high level of conscript forces, similar to how Greek remained a common trade language in the Eastern Roman Empire, but it's not clear if the Garlean elites still speak or even have their own native language (our lore on Garlemald is still somewhat lacking, probably intentionally so). Most languages in the three great continents are descended from Ancient Allagan anyways, but multiple millennia of divergence has no doubt allowed for significant linguistic differences to arise.

In general, though, the game glosses over a lot of linguistic differences in a lot of instances, no doubt for the sake of expedience in terms of storytelling.

[Kurando]

It Frankly, while we're at it can we talk about how people from literally different continents have the exact same accents as each other? Eorzea and Doma are quite far apart from each other with different cultures... why do they all sound like they're from London?

Some NPCs have varying accents that probably only a Brit themselves could distinguish where there are from, but definitely not all of them are from London. The capital doesn't have dibs on those kind of accents after all, usually just association.