Really Awful Narrator

[DEOVONTAY MCSLANGA]

In Civ V the narrator was a pretty cool dude. He was grandfatherly, his words filled with wisdom. His quotes were chosen carefully and were not only relevant, but sort of ironic and humorous. The only way they could have made him better was to hire Ron Perlman or Morgan Freeman. Or both.

In New Civ, the narrator is well... the most annoying accent possible. Let's be real, there are some nationalities with accents that make us all happy. Australians, Brits, Russians, etc.

Then you have ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Indians. Her voice is like nails on a chalk board. Every time I get a new tech it's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ race to click the close button before my brain explodes into migrane confetti. And the quotes aren't even good. I get that they made a bunch up because SPACE HURR DURR, but they definitely could have still used historical quotes or at least hired a writer who wasn't 5. Somehow, the voice actor for the KP leader manages to be even worse. The first time she made planetfall and popped up in my office I literally blurted out "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ SAND♥♥♥♥♥♥S NOT ON MY PLANET" and immediately declared war, not because she was brown but because her voice made a small part of my soul (the part with all the decency and tolerance for other cultures) leave forever.

tl;dr
Can some brave soul please mod in a narrator who isn't terrible, and replace the KP voice actor with literally anything. Suggestions; train noises, random quotes from Sam B from Dead Island, Benedict Cumberbatch, an assortment of cat meows, fapping, a long drawn out fart, and so forth

[Pietato]

Aussie accents are horrendous.

[DEOVONTAY MCSLANGA]

0 ♥♥♥♥♥ to give, the voice acting makes me want to die

[Midge]

Originally posted by BOT Chad:

0 ♥♥♥♥♥ to give, the voice acting makes me want to die

Call a suicide hotline?

Alternatively, turn off the sound?

[sgreco1970]

The grandfatherly "cool dude" was William Morgan Sheppard, famous character actor you might know from babylon 5, star trek, doctor who and other shows and movies. He's been in everything and he's been around a long time. His son, Mark Sheppard, who played the younger version of himself on Doctor who, has been in tons of stuff too, including BSG where he gained notoriety as Gaius' lawyer. ...Just sayin.

[sgreco1970]

Originally posted by Midge:

Originally posted by BOT Chad:

0 ♥♥♥♥♥ to give, the voice acting makes me want to die

Call a suicide hotline?

Alternatively, turn off the sound?

That's what game designers really want to hear...

[❀ MOSOTO ❀]

I'm with you on the stupid made up quotes...

Quotes in previous civ games were great... awesome quotes from throughout history.

These new quotes are just stupid. One states "The five mythical creatures are the dragon, the unicorn, the chimera, the llama, and the centaur"

Like wtf is that??? Seriously?
I loved the quotes in civ games, I listend to them/ read them, and some were even thought provoking. Some were so good I even wrote them down so I wouldn't forget them.

The quotes in beyond earth are on par with what you find written on the side of a taco bell soda cup. Just completely pointless... a waste of space and time.

[VDZ]

Racism aside, I do feel the narrator kind of ruins the quotes. She sounds too silly, with excessive emphasis taking away all seriousness that's in the non-funny quotes. Even in the funny quotes, I feel she goes a bit too far with the excessive emphasis and unserious tone.

What bothers me even more is that most quotes are by the various Civ leaders...so why the hell aren't they voiced by those leaders?

[Wokelander]

I think the main problem with the voice actor is that she's the only voice actor so she becomes the de facto voice of the game instead of just one of eight different faction leaders.

[DEOVONTAY MCSLANGA]

Originally posted by VDZ:

Racism aside, I do feel the narrator kind of ruins the quotes. She sounds too silly, with excessive emphasis taking away all seriousness that's in the non-funny quotes. Even in the funny quotes, I feel she goes a bit too far with the excessive emphasis and unserious tone.

What bothers me even more is that most quotes are by the various Civ leaders...so why the hell aren't they voiced by those leaders?

DC area struggle bro. Spend a few years here and it's an instinctual response, when you hear a brown person you assume it's going to be something absurdly rude. I have the pleasure of working in retail, where every other sentence is "CAN I HAVE DISCOUNT ON THIS? NO DISCOUNT NO BUY". Like I get that in your culture it's normal to haggle for turbans at Raj's turban emporium down the street, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ it gets old fast.

You really can't argue that an awful indian voice actor isn't several degrees more soul crushing than an awful white voice actor. Something about "the gAtes of the prOtEHtorATE are OOOPen" remains me of what hell sounds like.

[Chrille]

ppl always find the most stupid things to complain about. why?

[DEOVONTAY MCSLANGA]

Originally posted by Chrille:

ppl always find the most stupid things to complain about. why?

I mean we could talk about how the AI is still hilariously imbalanced at higher difficulties, the lack of unique or vaguely interesting miltitary units, the way the tech tree is completely random like the programmer vomitted on his keyboard... but that's not what this thread is about.

When half the game is spent listening to the voice acting, be it negotiating with AIs or getting techs or really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ anything, it becomes sort of important.

[andersonm]

Originally posted by Evil Vyse:

Made up quotes are not stupid. Play Alpha Centauri for 5 minutes and you'll see that.
It's just that the made up quotes *here* are uninspired and unimaginative, much like the factions themselves.

Firaxis have been far too concerned with being politically correct and racially inclusive rather than letting the characters flow naturally.
For example, Morgan was from Namibia. But it didn't define him. They didn't go "Hey look this guy is African let's wallow in his.. uh.. African culture!" No, he was a greedy, ruthless but effective plutocrat who just happened to hail from that continent.

Agree a lot. The leaders here seem like cartoon stereotypes. If there was a German leader he'd probably be in läderhosen with a Pythonesque accent.

The writing overall seems to have taken a big drop from Civ.

[ToTo]

I think the voice acting quality and the accent are good. It's just that the writing is not as good and the wise-guy theme suits the role much better than, say, a random indian woman.

[SamBC]

Racism is not acceptable. Thread locked.