WOTLK Classic Gold presents something that still isn't seen in the modern version of Blizzard's MMORPG: full NPC voice acting.
Those who play WoW or have during the past are likely way too familiar with reading massive walls of quest text, with voice acting typically being accessible to faction leaders, raid bosses, or single lines of dialogue when a lot more important minor NPCs. Though more modern expansions, like Dragonflight, do feature more cutscenes and dialogue compared to WoW's birth, almost all the game's NPCs and quests usually are not voiced.
That's the location where the fan-made add-on called VoiceOver will come in. Created by Evan Pierce (who moves MrThinger), the free VoiceOver addon for WoW Classic adds "high-quality AI generated voices for NPCs," and is a bit of your game changer. The add-on accounts for race and gender with the NPC giving quests when generating voices and overall creates a more immersive, less text-heavy version of Blizzard's old-school MMO. Players will even replay NPC dialogue through the quest log, allowing users to pay attention to their next objective during the move with no need to scan paragraphs of text for where they should go or what they have to collect.
The add-on happens to be only available to the vanilla version of wotlk classic boosting, but on Pierce's Ko-fi page, it looks like a version for that game's The Burning Crusade and Wrath in the Lich King expansions is actually a possibility in the foreseeable future. Pierce is seeking a fundraising goal of $2,000 (which currently is 35% funded) to be able to expand the project. Pierce writes how the add-on may be ported to the current, retail version of the game, however, the retail port would only support voice lines on the original version of WoW, The Burning Crusade, and Wrath with the Lich King.
AI voiceover has been a hot-button issue in the game industry in recent times, with concern that the technology could replace voice actors who earn money breathing life into iconic gaming characters. In the case of the VoiceOver add-on, it appears to be extremely unlikely that Blizzard would return and add full voice acting to some nearly 20-year-old game, making the fan project an exciting novelty that will not step on the toes of actual voice actors seeking work.
WoW, Classic happens to be seeing a boom in popularity due to the rise of a fan-made "Hardcore" game mode that includes permadeath. The popularity of the Hardcore playstyle has ended in speculation that Blizzard might soon debut official Hardcore WoW Classic servers, a notion that is held by evidence coming from a recent WoW public test realm build.
When it comes to today's version of WoW, Blizzard has kept the revolutionary content flowing for Dragonflight as part of their 2023 content roadmap. Dragonflight's next major update, Embers of Neltharion, will introduce a brand-new underground zone, and raid, and can include the long-awaited arrival of cross-faction guilds when it arrives on May 2.
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