The lack of voice acting

[EmmetOtter]

Still haven't leveled past Realm Reborn content and I'm hoping that later xpac content improve on this, but I find the total lack of voice acting to be disappointing. I'm not just talking about cutscenes, but in similar MMORPG games if you interact with a NPC of any kind (vendor, quest giver, etc....) in any way, you hear some kind of race and gender-specific voice with a greetings, goodbye, comment and sometimes an interesting insult. And when entering towns/cities, part of the ambient noise are people speaking to each other.

Will later xpac content improve on this?

[Enkidoh]

Welcome to Eorzea!

Unfortunately, no the only voice acting is for important cutscenes connected to the main storyline - general npcs and sidequests do not have voiceacting. The reason for this is because the game's dialogue frequently refers to your character by name, an impossibility with voiced cutscenes which, even in FFXIV where cutscenes with voice acting refer to the player's character in a generic boilerplate name or term. The development team have also explained in the past that voice acting is very very expensive and would have a substantial impact of the game's budget, given the sheer amount of dialogue in the game, as FFXIV is a very story heavy MMORPG.

Personally I dislike voiced dialogue, but that's just me being an old-school FF player used to only having text dialogue (the first FF game to feature voiced dialogue was FFX, and the previous FF MMO FFXI had no voiced dialogue at all other than it's opening movie).

[EmmetOtter]

Thank you Enkidoh. That is unfortunate to hear from the standpoint of "it ain't getting better" and also because the reasons (which are clearly not yours but you are just relaying) are... well... bs. From cost to everything else, the issues faced by FF14 are totally common across all MMO's (and there are many out there) and all but the smallest rinky-dink game shops find ways to solve these voice-related issues in a cost-effective manner.

It's disappointing and IMO detracts from the leveling experience but at the same time it's not a deal breaker. There's enough other things I do like, or at least don't dislike, to keep me playing FF14 over GW2, SWTOR, and WOW and I am going to keep going until I hit the end-game and see if that is as good as I've heard.

[Stepjam]

Voice acting does become a lot more common starting in Heavensward (which incidentally is also when the English dubbing changed studios and replaced all the characters' voices (generally for the better)), though it isn't omnipresent, and outside of MSQ it's still pretty rare. Sometimes there is voice work in optional trials, alliance raids, or rarely normal raids, but generally voice work is just in MSQ related things.

[MistakeNot]

Thank you Enkidoh. That is unfortunate to hear from the standpoint of "it ain't getting better" and also because the reasons (which are clearly not yours but you are just relaying) are... well... bs. From cost to everything else, the issues faced by FF14 are totally common across all MMO's (and there are many out there) and all but the smallest rinky-dink game shops find ways to solve these voice-related issues in a cost-effective manner.

Actually, most MMOs I am familiar with have no more voice-acting than FFXIV has. Several has less.
Only one that came even close to having voice acting everywhere was SWTOR. That was one of the reasons it was one the most expensive MMOs ever to be developed, and even they have had to cut down on the voice acting quite a bit in later expansions.

[ItMe]

In the current expansion it feels like every other major cutscene has voice action.
It's something they add more of as the game's budget gets bigger with each expac.

[Keelath]

I listen to a lot of audio books and always wondered what it would be like to have someone like John Lee do voices for FFXIV. He narrates the Spellmonger series which is just the best fantasy series out there.

[JessP]

Voice acting does become a lot more common starting in Heavensward (which incidentally is also when the English dubbing changed studios and replaced all the characters' voices (generally for the better)), though it isn't omnipresent, and outside of MSQ it's still pretty rare. Sometimes there is voice work in optional trials, alliance raids, or rarely normal raids, but generally voice work is just in MSQ related things.

Thanks- that's great to know. I'm a video content creator and reading all the dialog is very frustrating (& sore throat inducing!).

As for other MMO's in general, I'm not sure where everyone has been playing- but there's plenty out there that have hired vocal actors & the game itself is either free-to-play or one base pay (like Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76 or Neverwinter). The fact that we have to pay for a subscription with FFXIV just means to me they should be able to hire for narrations in at least the MSQ, class/job & grand company quests.

I get it that when they were 1st starting out, they wanted to put more money into the story- but to be honest, a few years back when I first checkout FFXIV I was turned off by no narration & only decided to try again last spring because I love the FF world.

Here's hoping they continuing putting out great content with some vocal narration.

[Coletergeist]

I sometimes prefer no voice acting, only because my brain gives them a voice depending on appearances, and then when I finally hear their voice in a cutscene, it's ear shattering and lame af for the most part.

[Khadorus]

I am with the group that I would like more voice acting in it. I tend to skid through the text if it's there (just like wow). If it is voice acted, I will pretty much let it run its own course.