How can an AAA title like FF 14 lack voice acting in 90% of the quests?

[Penthea]

They should just decide on one language and add subtitles for the other languages. I have the game in japanese and it feels very true to what the cutscenes, compared to the other languages; so I'd suggest going with that one.

No thanks. I'm a slow reader and not all voiced cutscenes pause animation to wait for you to click the dialogue box before continuing. At least with anime I can always pause the episode or rewind it. Can't really do that with this game. I could use the Unending Journey furnishing but that means literally leaving the quest area to do that which would break immersion.

Additionally it's far easier for me to discern a change in accents with a language I understand. That sort of thing tends to bypass me at times with a foreign language.

Also combat has a lot of audio cues for boss abilities and I wouldn't be able to remember them if they were in a language I don't understand. Sure I can read the text but in combat I'm watching a lot of other stuff already so having audio cues I can understand helps a lot because my hearing isn't already distracted by something else.

[RagingStallion]

I know this is a troll thread but to actually answer.
It's probably because one big reason, you would have to pay EVERY VC for each language.
Think about it, you would to pay the Japanese, English, German,French, Chinese and Korean Voice Actors. (The last two actually not sure if they have to listen in japanese and only read in their language.)

If SE were to have every line voices, they would have to hire subpar voice actors just to voice every NPC you'll talk to or see like once or would have to pay the current VA WAY more due to the sheer amount of lines.

Just don't pay them? Let people volunteer to voice act for this game. I'm sure many fans will want to do that since we all love this game so much.

[Edax]

Just don't pay them?

You get what you paid for.

[Penthea]

Just don't pay them? Let people volunteer to voice act for this game. I'm sure many fans will want to do that since we all love this game so much.

A huge company like SE not paying their voice actors would cause an incredible amount of controversy, and rightly so. SE isn't a charity or a small indie company. They could not get away with that sort of thing without an incredible amount of backlash.

It would cost SE time and money to actually organise something like this, perhaps even more money than they're spending now on professional voice actors. Combing through all the fans who are not good voice actors to find the precious few who are good would be very time consuming. And then there's having to get a legal team to create contracts for them. At least when you get a professional actor you know you're going to get quality, and they already have agents that handle much of the legal stuff. On top of that you cannot trust someone who is just a fan to be able to uphold their terms of the contract because they would frankly be uneducated in that sort of thing. It could quickly turn into a legal mess.

Not to mention how talented qualified people would literally lose jobs because SE decided to go for a very questionable route for voiced dialogue.

And yes I know you're trolling but I answered anyway in case anyone else happened to think that this was a good idea.

[Kuroka]

Still its a waste, all the Omega stories, Eden, etc, stuff where 99% the chars are already involved in the main story yet they cant let them record those 10 more lines lol. Its a waste... you do the ultima weapon story, the relic, eden.... and theres 0 voiceover. And also the ex fights... Its kinda boring if the bossed dont talk at all...

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

This is an old style game (not defending it), even FFX has more voice-overs than this game and that is something they should have learnt from it, I could give up some bland content to make time for more voice acting, dialogs are really boring without voices, it's 2020 and still not many voice-overs.

Yes, but ffx had 0 patches afterward that added more content. The patches we get are on a 4 month turnaround, and I know some of is still going under changes up to the week prior. No way could they get voices done in 4 languages in that amount of time for that amount of content.

[RagingStallion]

A huge company like SE not paying their voice actors would cause an incredible amount of controversy, and rightly so. SE isn't a charity or a small indie company. They could not get away with that sort of thing without an incredible amount of backlash.

It would cost SE time and money to actually organise something like this, perhaps even more money than they're spending now on professional voice actors. Combing through all the fans who are not good voice actors to find the precious few who are good would be very time consuming. And then there's having to get a legal team to create contracts for them. At least when you get a professional actor you know you're going to get quality, and they already have agents that handle much of the legal stuff. On top of that you cannot trust someone who is just a fan to be able to uphold their terms of the contract because they would frankly be uneducated in that sort of thing. It could quickly turn into a legal mess.

Not to mention how talented qualified people would literally lose jobs because SE decided to go for a very questionable route for voiced dialogue.

And yes I know you're trolling but I answered anyway in case anyone else happened to think that this was a good idea.

But they already do it for glamours with the glamour competition so why can't they make voice competitions?

[Penthea]

But they already do it for glamours with the glamour competition so why can't they make voice competitions?

With voice acting you need to do a lot of hours of work in a professional setting, work with other people and listen to your director's instructions all with a very strict timetable. This is not comparable to someone drawing a glam alone at home whenever they feel like it.

Also SE take fan made glam designs and get professionals to create them for the game. The fans are not creating the in-game models and textures. They are only creating concept art. Voice acting is not prep work for a final design like concept art is. The voices recorded are what you hear in the game. You don't get professionals to completely recreate the voices like you do when turning concept art into an actual in-game asset.

[DrWho2010]

also voice actors are part of a union too i think? so there's that they have to deal with as well. union won't take lightly to outsiders taking away work from their members.

[Tint]

They have basically answered this back in 2014:

Q: Are there any plans to add a voice for Hildibrand?

A: Maehiro: Recording voices has to been done way in advance, and for FFXIV we need to record for five languages including Japanese, so we have to record a couple months prior to a patch’s release. While the quality of a cutscene may be enhanced with nice voice overs, the animation and story adjustments become more difficult to work with. We’ve been creating the Hildibrand cutscenes to be funny, and the cutscenes are adjusted by the scenario and cutscene lead constantly right up to the cutoff point. For Hildibrand, we’re prioritizing the quality and entertainment of the cutscenes themselves, so we won't be recording voices for them.

Yoshida: I have to make the final checks, and I’m always wondering how long they're going to keep making adjustments until it’s done. If we record beforehand, it wouldn’t make it in time unless we record extremely far in advance, so just as Maehiro said, we wouldn’t be able to make the adjustments to the scenario for release. As we'd like to prioritize everyone’s overall enjoyment of the story, we’ve decided to do it this way.