Not wanting this thread to sound like a critical piece, I thought I would start off on a strong positive and praise what we already have. I love having a number of named interactable NPCs who we can strike up a conversation with, and depending on the character, learn knowledge or buy things from. I remember my first one when I started playing Conan Exiles way back in 2018 how I became enthralled in a conversation with Arcos the Wanderer, then later Conan in Spermeru. I loved hearing lore about the gods from the religion trainers. And this is one area I genuinely feel has grown for the better since the Ages began. From the addition of the Khitan Witchhunterâs and the now emancipated âPrincessâ in the Age of Sorcery, to the Bloody Tongue & Herald of Jhebbal Sag, Xil the Hunter, Iscaar the Sellsword and our trusty Bartender in the Age of War, and for that matter ALL other conversable NPCs in between. In this regard, Conan Exiles has never felt more alive and interactable.
While the joys of a simple conversation are generally in great shape in Conan Exiles, there are but a couple of exceptions to this otherwise fantastic norm which feel incongruent with all other NPCs past and recent. And I politely and respectfully feel that this inconsistency does us a slight diservice. I am referring more specifically to Shamalla the Pirate Queen and Harpagus the Hatcher. While all other named Merchant and important story NPCs have conversation in the form of spoken dialogue, these two unique, interesting, mainstay characters do not, and stand in clear contrast to all other non-hostile, interactable NPCs. Shamalla the Pirate Queen has dialogue, BUT it is only written and delivered via subtitles. No voice acting. Harapagus the Hatcher however fares even worse, he has no spoken dialogue or voice acting, and no written/subtitle dialogue or âTalkâ selection box. This makes the implementation of voice acting feel inconsistent and incomplete, and it feels like we are staring at unfinished work or a bug. So what would I like to humbly request? Consistency. Please, please give Shamalla the Pirate Queen and Harpagus the Hatcher voice acting and dialogue. It doesnât have to be A-list celebrities, even if we just get Funcom CMs or their friends to provide the voices. Bring these two characters in line with their counterparts and with all other interactable NPCs in our amazing game.
If you mean Thorngar who gives us the Pride of Aesir recipe after we collect all of its fragments then sure. Happy to make this request inclusive of him too.
Another possibility if Funcom does not wish to use the voices of CMs or friends or families would be to use fans from the playerbase. Perhaps this even presents an opportunity for a contest. I am sure we can find a few fans out there who would roll up their sleeves and enter.
Hadnât thought about it but given the inconsistency of those dialogue NPCs⌠maybe they do have voices and it is really a bug⌠Iâm all for them finding their voice.
As far as files go in the devkit, there specifically 4 or 5 different âVAsâ who does all the voices.
But I dont think that is a âconcernâ on it. When I started playing, I really thought that the guy saying âsome notesâ and Arcos were meant to be the same person, but when I saw other notes and the Warmaker, I just realized it was probably âserious budget restrictionsâ or something.
Then you go through the list, and it mostly has âadditional voicesâ to everybody:
Arcos the Wanderer/Warmaker/Additional Voice - David Sobolov
Player Character and Faction Voices - Veslemøy Mørkrid
Player Character and Faction Voices - Sara Baban
Player Character and Faction Voices - Henrik Ărdal
Player Character and Faction Voices - Emil Bernsten
Player Character and Faction Voices - Ingvild Haugstad
Chieftain and Faction Voices - Karl Andre Bertheussen
I dont know if this list is âcorrectâ in terms of who and links, but it is in terms of how many voices you find in the devkit files.
But I dont really mind the voice. I think that it is ok being a mostly silent game with voices being âambience onlyâ, while I also think that if then you decide to have voices, you should then do a better job than just âhaving thenâ.
For example: When you have thralls fighting, they throw lines, but they speak as if they were talking in a bar, not as if they were fighting. Some of the lines do not make sense inside the triggers. NPCs are dismembered and sometimes have their heads cut, but still âtalkâ.
People criticize FFXIV when half of the dialogue is silent, but people seem to dig it better than some voice work out there.
I like the way CE does dialogue in that it feels true to form; no long winded emotional crap, nothing that sounds like someone is looking for an award; just straight up conquerer and wanderer talk. Games where they wax philosophical bug me and in those, Iâd rather the NPCs stay silent. The dialogue in Conan, including the barroom brawler, flex talk in the fights seems pretty spot on and appropriate⌠now the headless talking may need some workâŚ
I agree, but I doubt funcom does⌠Issues and inconsistencies with the game are still here 6 years later with no evedince that they will be corrected.
Unfortunatly, I think people are shouting at clouds at this point.
Theyâre practitioners of the good olâ Monkey Island âinsult duelingâ. You lose if you cannot come up with a witty retort to parry âLike the cobra, Exile, my bite is death!â and riposte with an insult of your own.
There are some people who enjoy the FFXIV style of dialogue to the point they wait to talk to Urianger with a passion. I ask myself âpray tell why, oh universal alchemy ?â.
I always was more fond of Alisaie, not because she is a teenager with daddy issues, who is impatient like such. But because her part on the story was always more straight forward.
But the game is not based on âone or otherâ player preference, it is based into two things:
The less important âwhat most players preferâ
The more important âwhat can players get over by and can be paid from the money the players give to the gameâ
I have worked in projects with human VA and I gotta say, sometimes I understand why certain developers talk what they talk about VA. The âtwitter adâ VAs are often very reasonable with their demands and their prices, but certain VAs are âa little betterâ but charge way too much and top it off with demands that if they hadnt wrote themselves, one would doubt they really demanded it.
I even concede if the VA in question is like Christian Bale, or Shohreh Aghdashloo, not for the âfameâ, but Christian Bale has a iconic way to make voice acting that is really worth some weird demands, and Shohreh has a unique voice that makes the team save on digital effects, on top of a very good control of her voice.
But I would not pay Conan Exiles for that kind of voice acting. Maybe Dune, but CE is not a game I would pay for the cast. I even paid for the freaking Elevator everyone talks about, but I would not pay the increased price of tons of voice overs from âamazing voice actorsâ given that most of the time playing you are not making use of it.
Thankyou kindly for your support darthphysicist. I firmly believe it should be consistent across the board and either 'all of one or all of the other. By this I mean that either ALL of the interactable non-hostile and Merchant NPCs have voice dialogue or NONE of them do. To have part some of them with and some without looks like an oversight or a bug, which it may well be.
Strongly agree. It never comes off as a sob story or onerous, but gives a peek behind the veil and offers some juice lore and backstory tidbits.
Except Conan Exiles is not Final Fantasy. This is irrelevant and digressive. Please refrain from derailing the thread.
It is not a case of what I want, it is a case of having the game look finished, polished and consistent. Let us try a handful of examples. Should the first half of any game have voice acting then the second half have none? Should on 1 out of 2 main characters have spoken dialogue while the other makes lip movements and no sound is emitted? Should one faction in Conan Exiles such as the Dogs of the Desert have voice and dialogue while others such as the Voltaries of Skelos do not? Like I said to darthphysicist, the experience and delivery needs to be presented in a consistent and uniform manner. Not a disjointed piecemeal presentation. That is part of delivering a coherent and accordant gaming experience. Standardisation and congruency are important in a product, otherwise it gives the consumer, even if not deserved, the impression of oversight or carelessness.
