some of the voice acting from the npcs did sound kind of tinny/robotic
2 Likes
Yeah something’s definitely wrong with the female goblins voices. This is stupid and hilarious because we’re playing a goblin themed patch and we got some dumb cost cutting AI. Literally what a greedy goblin would do.
I noticed no one in this thread has cited examples. In fact, a whole lot of it is just tin hat conspiracies of AI.
I thought the voices were fine. I like the lady doing the car missions the most. Just sounds like, well, an old boss lady.
4 Likes
My guesses are the race announcer lady, whos supposed to sound like shes talking through a mic anyway
Or the one I’m pretty sure is tara strong, which makes sense cuz shes terrible anyway
Yeah, like a megaphone or a PA system or something.
I didn’t it notice it being that glaringly bad? I mean, it’s just like…the two lines for the racing dailies?
I dunno, just found the whole VA work to be mostly fine, with Renzik’s absence being the only real glaring flaw.
Okay I have to push back on this.
Not everything computer generated is generative AI. Not everything edited by a computer is generative AI. Blizz has employed hundreds of voice actors over many years and those actors deserve credit as humans. EVEN WHEN WE DON’T LIKE THEIR PERFORMANCE.
It’s fine to not like the sound or (lack of) variety of the Goblin actors. They’re made to be fantasy characters that do not exist in real life, so they’ll sound like something foreign to us.
Well put. Historically, Blizzard has taken pride in having their creativity and art driven by humans. Since not all of WoW is voiced, they can pick and choose when to NOT implement a voice when it doesn’t add to the game.
I’m willing to bet even individual developers would raise a stink - if not public then by a leak. Corporate may push generative AI, but creative game developers don’t want creeping into their territory. As others mentioned: well know voice talent would dry up if they were on the same project with AI. Martin Sheen was Nozdormu. Clancy Brown was Tyrannus. Indira Varma was Katherine Proudmoore. It’s better with humans, and we (players and devs) know it.
Here’s a good thread:
tl;dr: please oh please stop assuming anything you dislike is AI. Humans, even when they don’t bring their best performances, deserve to be recognized and paid as humans.
2 Likes
none of the story npcs sounded like this, but the various voiced generic npcs around undermine
People’s mileage may vary. I am enjoying the voices and the music. It beats DF where every dragon was just so, serious.
1 Like
I just got around to Undermine this morning and I noticed it immediately with the new greetings that a lot of the female goblins have.
You can listen here on wowhead: wowhead link
They have a lot of reverb and almost comes off as if the lines were digitally modulated to give the goblin accent. The second greeting “Welcome to the best place ever” is really bad to my ears.
There were a few lines with a similar sound from some Earthen in 11.0 but I just assumed that’s what they were going for. With the goblins it just sounds wrong and there’s 60+ npcs that now use those lines so it’s unavoidable.
1 Like
One of the voices that they’re using frequently sounds incredibly bizzarely pitched, hence the robotic sound.