This weekend I didn't spend much time in Eve. Most of my Eve time was spent watching the New Eden Open, listening to Arydanika's interview of CCP Fozzie on Voices from the Void #60 or doing a research project. So when I logged into games this weekend, I chose Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Guild Wars 2 isn't a stretch because I've been playing the ArenaNet game for a few hours a week but I logged into SW:TOR to see if the free-to-play implementation is as bad as I've heard. One thing they both have in common is some bad voice acting.
Why is the voice acting important? Because I wound up playing female characters in both. Now, I do have a history of playing female characters. In EverQuest 2 I played a female wood elf because I really wanted to play a wood elf ranger. But when I rolled a male wood elf, the character looked so much like a female that I decided to just go ahead and roll a female character. When I went back to take a look at World of Warcraft, I rolled blood elf females because they looked like they could easily beat up their metrosexual male counterparts. At least in Eve Online I didn't create a female pilot because of the way the men looked. I was creating a CEO for my personal corporation and since the lore states that Vherokior women are very good at business I decided to go that route.
I really wanted to play a male Imperial Agent in SW:TOR. The thought of the whole cold blooded secret agent with a British accent concept is really appealing. Too bad that when I played a male Imperial Agent before the game became free-to-play that the actor's voice just drove me crazy. He sounds like a giant prick. So I currently have a level 3 female Imperial Agent with a voice that sounds the way I think a secret agent should sound. The actress who does the voice, Jo Wyatt, also does the voice for the female Hawke in Dragon Age 2. Maybe I should pick up that game instead of continuing with SW:TOR.
Speaking of bad voice acting, I just have to say that Guild Wars 2, while a game I'm enjoying, does have some really bad voice acting. I deleted the first character I rolled, a male Asura Engineer, because I just couldn't stand the sound of my character's voice after 5 minutes. I wound up playing a female human ranger because while her voice is sometimes annoying, at least I don't relate the voice as coming from me.
I really like the concept of story and voice acting in video games. I am, however, beginning to despise voice acting in MMOs. When the voice acting drives me away from content, that's when I start getting irritated with a game.
