I demand that they fire whatever gymrat they hired to moonlight as a voice actor and get the real malganis with that dark, deep, almost… sensuous… voice. This one sounds like the butcher cosplaying as a dreadlord. It’s awful and utterly kills part of the fun of being malganis.
the REAL malganis
They work with what they got, and Michael Barken hasn’t appeared in anything since he did Mal’ganis in WC3, and that was his only role. He has supporting work on Starcraft as well, but other than that, there’s no info about him anywhere since then.
So they did the next best thing and got Christopher Corey Smith, who did his voice in WoW. It’s not the best voice, but neither are a lot of other actors that have replaced the voices of characters since the earlier games. If they can’t get in contact with the original VA’s for various reasons, or they have a perfectly good current one for characters still relevant in their games, what can you do.
Honestly, the type of voice effects they use can also determine how a character sounds. I mean, Tassadar sounds absolutely atrocious in HotS.
Union crap is why Illidan lost his good voice actor after WC3/BC trailer.
I’m thankful as hell Maiev got her voice actress back, even if all she got in Legion was a 5 minute cameo and then it was back to pretending she never existed.
ok so use some Adobe Premier and tweak the voice a bit, or at least get someone less… GROK SMASH to do his (shtty) lines
Idk I kinda prefer the current Illidan voice but that’s just my preference, I would have liked the WC3 Mal’ganis or even the WoW ones voice over what we got.
She got more than 5 minutes to be fair lol, she’s also got a little bit in BFA coming up but nothing big as far as I know.
Tassadar’s bad voice is the fault of voice actor. Tassadar normally do not talk that slow.
The voice isn’t that bad but the fact they didn’t use dreadlord jaina’s echo to improve his voice is beyond me.
Then again Dreakth’ar’s voice was a disagrace since Alterac Pass and the filter never got changed so…
that’s what I’m saying - doctor it up a little. Dreadlords never sounded like a natural, human voice in wc3 or wow, and that’s fine, it works. His current voice actor is terrible but if you’re going to go that route at least use some Adobe Audition or something and tweak it.
Wow it really does sound like he’s saying, “I AM MAL’GANIS! I AM A TURTLE!”
I was hoping Maiev would actually have a bigger role. It’s always felt like they squandered all of her lore (like Slyvanas… disappearing all of Legion).
But I digress: WoW has run with low-tier fanfiction-levels of writing for some of their major characters (lelThrall).
Wow’s garbage writing is one thing, but at least get an intern that’s worked wit Adobe Audition (hell I’ll volunteer) to add some echo and reverb, along with some lines that are at least slightly more in tune with Mal’ganis more… subtle nature. GROK SMASH is fine for butcher or stitches, Mal’ganis should sound a little more like Kelthuzad or Mephisto in terms of actual lines.
Saving wow’s absurd, fanfiction webcomic level lore is a task far too big for me to ask for, so just go over the malganis voice in hots is all I’m asking.
I am too a bit disappointed by his voice. I’m so in love with it original voice (both from WC3 and HS) that it was really disappointed by founding how “uninspired” is his announcer (I was ready to istant buy it).
My favourite line - “I am Mal’ganis. I. Am. Eternal.” - sounds so… wrong actually with the new voice.
very much coughs
Ruined Voice line? Really?! How could it happen?
yeah I agree they ruined Tassadar too, but at least they made some effort to add reverb and “dress up” his voice in HOTS. Mal’ganis sounds like a gym rat trying out for theater arts 101, without any cool sound SFX to at least try to make him halfway intimidating or cool.
Turtle power 
Get in line kiddo. Tassadar:
Fenix:
These are valid and relevant observations, but I don’t see why Mal’ganis can’t get just the minimal touching up that they gave to Fenix and Tassadar to at least attempt to get them to sound like something vaguely resembling their in game voices
Literally came to the forums to check on this exact issue. I remember his lore voice being manipulated so much more than it is in Storm, and had much more authentic voice for something named a “Dreadlord”. Not sure why they put zero effort into even recreating the way he enunciates either.
You have a biased attachment to Mal’Ganis, and some of us have a biased attachment to Tassadar and Fenix. Let’s just all agree that these 3 heroes had far better original voices, and the new ones for HotS are barely to not at all tolerable. Fenix is bad because the original was so good. Tassadar 's voice in HotS is pretty much not tolerable. I’d rather he was mute.
I think the new voice is alright, but you’re right, his voice is much more dark and menacing in WC3, I wonder if they could rip some WC3 audio and put it on him for a skin or something.