Anyone agree Barbarian speeches are bland?

[unseen11]

I noticed whilst playing as Britannia that the Barbarian speeches don't differ that much for every new battle. Hell I notice whilst using a captain that his speech was the same as a Generals.

Seems CA didn't make the barbarian speeches as diverse as the Roman ones, anyone else notice that?

[Mikeus Caesar]

CA didn't make any of the speeches diverse apart from the Romans.

[Rodion Romanovich]

CA didn't make any of the speeches diverse apart from the Romans.

Correct, but I still like the few phrases the barbarians have... However, when you've heard "bite the shield rim" etc. 100 times, you tend to skip the general's speeches for the rest of your campaigns...

[unseen11]

Correct, but I still like the few phrases the barbarians have... However, when you've heard "bite the shield rim" etc. 100 times, you tend to skip the general's speeches for the rest of your campaigns...

Exactly, and the whole "Gut your target like a fish" is only amusing so many times. At least they could of made the barbarians give a certain speech for different factions/cultures, like when attacking the Romans.

[Craterus]

Yeah, I like to listen to speeches before battles, but I think I've heard just about every barbarian one and they're boring now.

[The Stranger]

i agree with Mikeus and the barbarian speeches are one of the worst

[Brutus]

Ever heard the Greek ones? Those aren't even funny the first time.

[Conqueror]

The Greek speaker sounds like they just hired some random shmuck off the street and told him to speak a few lines "like a foreigner" :furious3:

[Colovion]

There's a reason why the EB mod is so vehement about creating a historical reality for the game, it's more interesting (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=47406).

[Colovion]

oh and loads of people have already complained about this, not to weaken your resolve - just to let you know that you aren't alone in your struggle against meagre results

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=37509&page=1&pp=30
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=37894
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=394597

but then Giljaysmith (CA) did post this in the last thread there, to give a personal view of someone who works on the games (though not an official statement).


Disclaimer: personal opinion only - NOT a statement about how RTW is being voiced...

In my opinion, you need not just the right language and the right idiom, but the right idiomatically-versed voiceover artist.

Finding a good voiceover artist is time-consuming and expensive. The common industry joke is that a lot of games companies save money by getting the guys from QA to do the voice acting. You've probably played some games where this is the case. It took a lot of effort and auditioning to find the three voices used in Medieval, and I seem to recall some people here still dissed them. (I think Sean Pertwee's voiceover work caught some flak for sounding like a Dalek, which seems rather unfortunate, given how long his father spent fighting them :-)

So: while in theory it might be nice to have all this stuff sounding 'authentic', in practice it's expensive, and if something expensive can't be done *absolutely brilliantly*, it's generally better not to do it at all. No-one's ever (noticeably) complained about the pervasive use of English in games like "Age of Mythology", "Zeus", or "Emperor", nor for that matter in "Warcraft III". I strongly suspect that it doesn't hurt a game as much, in the reviews or in people's practical experience, to have good voice acting in English as it does to have rubbish voice acting in the historically correct language.

However, please remember this is just my opinion, and I haven't just told you that RTW is being voiced entirely in English, or anything like that. In point of fact I don't know, but I think that the above is something you should bear in mind :)

Gil not CA

There was an outpouring of grief, gnashing of teeth and sack-clotch and ashes all up in the Org back between the Demo release and the Full release (and onwards). There was thoughts that the voices can't be the actual ones, they must be placeholders. This was a thought which gave them the benefit of the doubt, but was proven false in the end.