Tapped-Repeatadly: Vocal Coaching Article

Tapped-Repeatadly has again released an article broadly discussing the topic of voice acting with a comparison of how GW2 is performing to other games.
A highlight:

Quote:




That isn�t to say all acting is poor, because it isn�t (see Wild and Natural), but if we are to move the genre forward as much as ArenaNet hopes, then surely placing emphasis on what is evidently a pivotal aspect of the game must be greater than what it currently is.
Thankfully even with this criticism, ArenaNet have already achieved a standard far greater than any MMOG on the market. However, this still doesn�t quite wash away the fear that if Guild Wars 2 were to fall down on anything, money firmly remains on its voice talent.




Have a read at the full article here, and comment on this editorial. Do you agree or disagree?|||Exactly, could not agree more with most of the article.

Quote:




[...], even worse actors and a lack of emotion or direct animation from the character you’re talking to shatters any immersion you may have initially had.




I deleted poor dialogue in the quote because I don't really find that an issue. The voice actors (the main characters have great voice actors from what I've heard so far) has me worried, especially for the amount of recorded material they say they have; I just hope it is not quantity over quality, because if it is, it is really going to kill immersion of the game (imo).
For now the lack of emotion of direct animation from characters you are talking to (especially in the cinematic parts) I will assume is still being polished up; and not fully done. The painterly vision: I do not mind how Anet has decided to go with those segments, I like it. It's just that there hopefully will be hours of emotional "movie" animation to go with all those hours of voice acting recorded. For right now, thinking of playing the whole game with the current state just feels like it would be frankly brutal.
If the money is spent on voice acting so far, there is still the chance for animation to help where the voice acting may not come up to par; and animation/art is one of Arenanet's strong points. Hopefully some of the bad voice acting is salvageable and does not naturally lead to weird facial contortions. If the personality of the voice is bad, I can see where it could also possibly make the animated personality reflect the same.
Oh, and I totally agree with what the article author said about recording whole segments together, because splicing lines together for a whole dialogue does loose a sense of naturally belonging together. The same as hearing a recorded dialogue where the silence is replaced by dead silence.