Why the need for new voices?

General Discussion
#1

I understand that there is/may be a desire to use this game to bring in World of Warcraft players that haven’t played Warcraft 3, or simply to further connect the dots between WoW and Warcraft that has led to maps being redesigned or units having their appearance retooled. What I don’t understand is why this has to carry over to new voice actors/new recorded lines for the units and heroes in the main game and campaign.

In Starcraft Remastered, unless I’m very forgetful, the units and heroes all had the exact same lines as they did in the original, despite several voices being different (Kerrigan most notably). It sounds as though this may be a game on a similar vein to SC:R in that you can play with either the updated or original graphics, so why not have the same voices? I ask this not even out of concern for the “main characters” (Arthas, Illidan, Thrall, etc) but for some of the side characters who have had their voice actors changed so much that the delivery/voice is completely different. Anub’arak, for example.

I’d just hope that the team working on this game consider both fans of the original material, with all the great voice work that went along with it, and WoW fans who would probably understand that it was a different game and thus may not have exactly the same voices they know from their raids or cutscenes.

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#2

if i remember they did say they will have option for old voices too (not 100% )

#3

Well they need new voices so that the voices of the WoW Characters and the Warcraft Characters are the same. Even though in the Remaster in StarCraft at least in german and france it whas sh!tted despite having the same va. Example in the mission where we meet Raynor the whole sentence about that we should not care about the Konfedaration because their brains whas fried to long by the sun is missing and Raynor does not sound sympathic but more like LMAO everyone, just bring it behind us.

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#4

But why do they need to be the same? Obviously WoW is a big deal but they didn’t bother changing the voices of the English version of Starcraft, despite Zeratul, Artanis, Kerrigan, and a few other characters having new VAs.

#5

They don’t have the rights to use the original voices anymore. Not all of them, at any rate. Arthas’ voice files in particular could not be used for Wrath of the Lich King’s Culling of Stratholme dungeon, whereas Jaina’s and Uther’s could. Jaina’s Warcraft 3 VA is probably out of the contract now too which means we’ll probably see Laura Bailey, her current VA, take over the role.

#6

So the suggestion is they had less concrete terms of use with WC3’s original VA’s as in Starcraft? Obviously they had a falling out with Arthas’ VA but it can’t have been that much worse than with Kerrigans, and certainly not something a boat of money wouldn’t fix.

#7

Throwing more money at the problem doesn’t always solve it.

#8

Generally when you hire the VAs for a game most of the time, unless the contract allows for this, you’re only paying them for that one game.

We’re not privy to what the contract allows, but usage patterns can be an indication of how much flexibility Blizzard has with the original sounds. By technicality the original War3 can still have the original voices because it’s still the same game as with the voices were recorded for and that’s not in dispute. The issue is where the Reforged can be considered a whole another game, or some dialogue needs to be re-recorded due to script changes.