[Feedback] Wuk Lamat's English Voice

[Vrahjin]

Basically all the voices in 6.55, and even earlier, for example G'raha in Thaleia - "Servants? What's the meaning of this?", though the Myths themselves sound alright - sound so very, very tired, almost like the actors were just over it and/or wanted to get it out of the way. Bad voice direction? Hell if I know, not my area of expertise, can only comment on the end result.

As for Wuk? She sounded fine in the trailer, mostly okay during the patch and at parts (casual conversation) slightly better than the regular voices - they sounded, again, just so over it - and other parts (stressed moments, combat) less so.
Lived through ARR and took me a while to get used to the HW voices, so I'm willing to give Wuk a chance to grow into and get comfortable with the role.

[Merrigan]

The Venn Diagram of people who play FFXIV and people who watch anime is almost a complete circle, so it's no wonder that people would go out of their way to swap to Japanese.

I think the English voices are stellar (after ARR) including Wuk.

It's not a question of taste for manga, anime or other such media, but rather of keeping the basic language of the game? To me, it's the same debate as the good old "sub or dub". If a film is English/German/Japanese, I'll put it in its original language + subtitles.

Personally, I prefer to go at my own pace, and I find spoken dialogues too long; so I read, and having French spoken at the same time hinders comprehension. The exact opposite of :

I am using the English one. I don't speak Japanese and know from movies etc. that hearing a different language than reading it (in subtitles etc) is extra confusing for me.

So Japanese / French for me (and I tried french voices and found them... Awful, I'll be honest).

[Merrigan]

The other thing with voice acting is its a lot harder to tell if it's bad if you aren't a native speaker.

And that, exactly. Don't understand the spoken language ? Don't have the cringe part. Perfect win.

[Minali]

Basically all the voices in 6.55, and even earlier, for example G'raha in Thaleia - "Servants? What's the meaning of this?", though the Myths themselves sound alright - sound so very, very tired, almost like the actors were just over it and/or wanted to get it out of the way. Bad voice direction? Hell if I know, not my area of expertise, can only comment on the end result.

As for Wuk? She sounded fine in the trailer, mostly okay during the patch and at parts (casual conversation) slightly better than the regular voices - they sounded, again, just so over it - and other parts (stressed moments, combat) less so.
Lived through ARR and took me a while to get used to the HW voices, so I'm willing to give Wuk a chance to grow into and get comfortable with the role.

Tbh I often have the feeling the voices have more "variation" and strive a bit further from the regular voice in the patches, because it's just different if you work several hours each day in voicing the big block of text for a whole expansion or if you come in for maybe 2 or 3 hours once in a month. Reminds me of how surprisingly enthusiastic and vivid Ser Aymeric sounded in one of the Shadowbringers patches. It was a happy and enthusiastic moment, so it wasn't super out of place, but the character himself barely tends to show real excitement, with all the burdens he has to carry. And Cid sounds different in every expansion to me because although the character appears plenty of times, it's mostly in some unvoiced raid series. The post-ARR VA of Cid probably had 20-30 lines to voice for the entire game, all spread out over months, even years. I remember googling if his VA had changed more than once...) Doesn't mean the VAs are bad in general, it's just a different work environment in both voicing and directing I could imagine. (On top of that, as recent interviews show, they rarely have proper context to what is actually happening, unless they play the game themselves. This is imo a point where Wuk Lamat's VA has a really big advantage: She has been playing since 1.0, she's a real FFXIV veteran. She was around when Dalamud crashed.) And no matter who is being casted for this, being new probably adds an extra level of difficulty to this.

[Teah_Kaye]

As someone with libertarian leanings, although very much on the humanitarian side as opposed to the right-wing Objectivist bent that's unfortunately become synonymous with libertarianism, the thought of someone else's religion dictating what I legally can or can't do boils my blood. You can believe what you want at home, but keep your Sky Daddy out of public policy. Also, trans rights are human rights.

With regard to the voice acting, Wuk Lamat's didn't stick out to me in and of itself. There was definitely some awkward voice direction this patch all around, but the line delivery that actually felt so awkward it snapped me out of my immersion for a minute came from Krile.

[Vrahjin]

Tbh I often have the feeling the voices have more "variation" and strive a bit further from the regular voice in the patches, because it's just different if you work several hours each day in voicing the big block of text for a whole expansion or if you come in for maybe 2 or 3 hours once in a month. Reminds me of how surprisingly enthusiastic and vivid Ser Aymeric sounded in one of the Shadowbringers patches. It was a happy and enthusiastic moment, so it wasn't super out of place, but the character himself barely tends to show real excitement, with all the burdens he has to carry. And Cid sounds different in every expansion to me because although the character appears plenty of times, it's mostly in some unvoiced raid series. The post-ARR VA of Cid probably had 20-30 lines to voice for the entire game, all spread out over months, even years. I remember googling if his VA had changed more than once...) Doesn't mean the VAs are bad in general, it's just a different work environment in both voicing and directing I could imagine. (On top of that, as recent interviews show, they rarely have proper context to what is actually happening, unless they play the game themselves. This is imo a point where Wuk Lamat's VA has a really big advantage: She has been playing since 1.0, she's a real FFXIV veteran. She was around when Dalamud crashed.) And no matter who is being casted for this, being new probably adds an extra level of difficulty to this.

Good points, especially about Cid. Poor bastard has so few voice lines it's no wonder he sounds slightly different from time to time - the VA himself probably forget how he sounds between takes

[sindriiisgaming]

the fact this thread spiraled into transphobia accusations and defending of said accusations only tells me that this is the core of the entire issue. and that people cannot talk about this topic without it devolving into that one way or another, or without attacking eachother over said beliefs, which is ultimatley stupid as turning threads into warzones doesnt really accomplish any meaningful change. im actually suprised a GM hasnt shut it down yet because of this -

the case for her voice acting just isnt strong enough to steer this thread alone, which again tells me. it just isnt that big of an issue

[Thurmnmurmn]

the fact this thread spiraled into transphobia accusations and defending of said accusations only tells me that this is the core of the entire issue. and that people cannot talk about this topic without it devolving into that one way or another, or without attacking eachother over said beliefs, which is ultimatley stupid as turning threads into warzones doesnt really accomplish any meaningful change. im actually suprised a GM hasnt shut it down yet because of this -

the case for her voice acting just isnt strong enough to steer this thread alone, which again tells me. it just isnt that big of an issue

You don't have to worry about how big of an issue this is. If you don't think it is, cool, move on with your life and stop reading this thread.
You've said your opinion on this multiple times throughout the thread yet you keep coming back for some reason.

[Karious]

the fact this thread spiraled into transphobia accusations and defending of said accusations only tells me that this is the core of the entire issue. and that people cannot talk about this topic without it devolving into that one way or another, or without attacking eachother over said beliefs, which is ultimatley stupid as turning threads into warzones doesnt really accomplish any meaningful change. im actually suprised a GM hasnt shut it down yet because of this -

the case for her voice acting just isnt strong enough to steer this thread alone, which again tells me. it just isnt that big of an issue

The core of the issue is the voice acting is terrible. People need to stop making it about transphobia.

[lolnotacat]

The core of the issue is the voice acting is terrible. People need to stop making it about transphobia.

But it's easier to call someone you disagree with an -ist or a -phobe.