Friday, October 17, 2008

The lines we’ll never hear again

Time is running out and I’m bidding my farewell to the instances of TBC. It feels a bit strange when I think about that I’ll probably never see them again, at least not for a very long time, until the nostalgia factor has grown strong enough.

I especially think about the voices, those lines you’ve heard so many times that they triggers automatic reactions.

Some of them are so familiar that I don’t have to watch the messages from DBM anymore. My fingers know what buttons to use when they here the shouts from the bosses.

Take for instance my favorite mage of TBC, Shade of Aran.

"Burn you hellish fiends!" means that I freeze at spot like a statue.

"Yes, yes, my son is quite powerful... but I have powers of my own!" means blink to the walls, an arcane explosion is upcoming.

"I'll freeze you all!" makes me start the slow dancing around the blizzard.

Those sayings have become so much a part of my own vocabulary that I have to be alert not to drop them in real life with non WoW players.

“Time for fun!”, said in that special tone, will sound a bit misplaced for anyone who hasn’t dated Blackheart the Inciter.

Oh, I’ll miss you, dear voices. Never more will I hear Maiden, sounding like an insulted school teacher: “This behavior will NOT be tolerated” (Unless some raid leader takes inspiration from her, spanking and yelling at a sloppy, slacking raid in a maiden manner.)

Never again will I hear the charming quarrelling of Dalliah and Soccothrates or the famous gnome Millhouse Manastorm in Arcatraz.

Hard to find
When you think about it it’s a bit strange. There are no lines you hear read by an actor as often as those, and yet we don’t know who’re performing them, while we often can name actors with even very insignificant side roles in a movie we only see once.

Who are the people behind the voices? I’ve been doing some research trying to figure it out, and to see if for instance the actor who makes Aran is the same one who you meet in Hellfire Ramparts (I think they sound a bit alike.) But so far I haven’t found much. A few actors are mentioned at Wowwiki, such as Jeff Bennett, doing the voice of Illidan (which I haven’t heard so far, it remains to see if I will before November 13).

At IMDB there’s a list of WoW actors, but you don’t see which character every actor does.
I was excited to see that I now know that Michael Dorn, the wonderful Star Trek Actor (Lt Commander Worf), is appearing in WoW. But what voices does he make? “Additional voices” is all they say, does anyone know?

Of course I’ve searched the official Blizzard site, expecting them to give credit to those who have participated in making the game – but if there is something they’ve hidden it well.

I wonder why. I guess reading lines in a game it isn’t the most spectacular thing to do as an actor? You probably won’t put it on top of your CV.

On the other hand we shouldn’t pity those guys too much. Even if you won’t gain fame by playing a raid boss in WoW, at least you’ll get decent payment, according to this article from Reuters, published earlier this year.

Will you miss them?
It’s time to say goodbye to the familiar voices of TBC. Will you miss some of them? Or maybe you feel the opposite? Are there voices that make you sick, voices you’re happy are muted forever? Please, tell us about it!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

What I won't miss - Kael. That five minute long speech - ick!

I will miss Aran, though.

Now I'm all curious about the voice actors - time to do some research!

krizzlybear said...

"The menagerie is for guests only."

"...and now, on with the show!"

"Now where was I? Oh yes!"

Probably the most badass voice IMO is van cleef.

"None may challenge the brotherhood!"

"Lap dogs! All of you!"

Anonymous said...

As my mates are gathering on Vent for the social aspect I normally miss most of it...

Thank goodness for the Twisted Neter podcasts.. I have been catching up on what i have missed

Gevlon said...

A couple of guys in the sales department are also playing WoW. So once, after a LONG meeting about how to bring sales up, I sent them to the field to find new customers with the line: "Ride now, ride out there and bring me back some heads!"

The fun point is that those who DONT play WoW find this a very inspiring motto and keep saying it to encourage each other and themselves, for the amusement of the wow-players.

Anonymous said...

You heared Illidan Larisa, in the game cinematics "You Are Not Prepared!!!"

Anonymous said...

@Isisxotic: I hope you'll come up with something more than I succeded with

@Krizzlybear: it's definitly about time I stop doing Kara... I recognize those lines too well..

@Gnomeaggedon: being on vent is no excuse not to hear the voices from the game. I listen to both. They mix up nicely in a sort of choir.

@Gevlon: oh how fun to work with other wow players... must be plenty of opportunities to talk in sort of secret codes..

@Eishen: you're SO right... I'd better erase this stupid post right away... I never know what I'm talking about, do I?

Considering how rediculously quickly we did the 7 first bosses in BT on our first post-patch raid the other night (more about that experience comes in my monday post) I think I'll definitly see mr Stormrage pretty soon. It's just a matter of being able to attend the right raids.

Captain The First said...

Honestly I rather look forward to being able to solo large parts of outland, 2 manning kara as we're planning now should be tremendous fun.

So in all honesty I didn't get to hear a lot of quotes apart from the Kara ones and I am looking forward to hearing them soon.

I suppose that makes me a bit backwards... retro... or whatever term one would prefer.

Chris said...

You can probably 2 man Karazhan now, the nerfs to the game in 3.0.2 made it really silly, we downed 5/9 BT in an hour or so (we lagged out horribly, we had 20 constructs in the raid at one point and no one died :{).

You will see Illidan if you want Lar, but I warn you, it rather a let down pre-nerf, and now its going to be much worse

Anonymous said...

In our guild we have a whole host of unprintable variations on the saying "This Curator is equipped for gallery protection." They're typically worth a laugh, especially when folks try to imitate the voice as well. However, I will *not* miss Magtheridon. I was absolutely rabid to kill him by the time we finally got there, having to listen to him rasp "My blood willbe the end of you" over and over and over. And Millhouse Manastorm. Oh Millhouse, I hope you will fare well in WotLK. BC wouldn't have been the same without you.

Anonymous said...

This is kind of off-topic, but this post reminds me of how much I used to have listening for Michael Dorn's unmistakable voice in the Disney's Gargoyle's cartoon ...

/geek

Anonymous said...

That should have read "how much fun I used to have." >.<

(Sorry! I'm OCD about correcting typos. My backspace key is all worn out.)