Now, when it comes to Guild Wars 2 I try to give them a certain level of leeway because of the fact that the game will be free-to-play. However, the voice acting so far has been lackluster. With voices sounding too similar, out of place, or simply unimaginative. The last one being the case when it comes to Sylvari.
I’ll disregard the silly writing and focus simply on the sound of the voice. What I do know about Sylvari I will try to apply to my logic here. The Sylvari are comprised solely from plant matter in the visage of human structure. They are given gender by the Pale Tree. We have a diversity of male and female voices, but everything is plant based. The importance of this lies in the sound created when speaking. Skipping through all the nitty gritty anatomical details… Human voices are the result of flesh membranes, air, and vibrations.
Sylvari don’t have flesh, which would change how their voices sound. They could, assumedly, recreate the entirety of a human inside and out. But because of the materials they are made from the sound would be strange and otherworldly.
Rubi Bayer addresses this in a Massively podcast (@23 minute mark). In the discussion held they were curious why: If the Sylvari take in the knowledge of the environment around the Pale Tree while they sleep (before they emerge), why do they have British accents?
I think they did a great job of sculpting how the Sylvari should look, but they need to perfect how the Sylvari should sound. Noise with the illusion of voice.
There’s also a community discussion going on in regards to this topic.
thrangisthered.wordpress.com 
Hunter
/ August 15, 2011I think questioning an accent in a game or movie, is simply thinking too hard about something. Suspend your disbelief and move on, that is the point of fantasy.
Thrangis The Red
/ August 15, 2011It’s not a game breaking niche that I’m nagging about, just an aesthetic one. It’s easy to right it off as fantasy, but when they are wanting to base a world on their own lore I would think they would want to strive for something beyond silly accents. At least I would if I were developing the Sylvari.
kaboobie
/ August 15, 2011My initial reaction to this post was that you were being too damn nitpicky…however, after giving it a few more moments thought I can see where your coming from. However, in asking for this, are you willing to push the release back further? (I know we don’t have a release date, but you have to understand that any extra development takes time, manpower, and cash) So what I’m basically saying is do feel it’s worth the added development time that it will take to implement such a change?
Thrangis The Red
/ August 15, 2011In total, I want Anet to succeed. Personally I don’t mind having to wait a little longer for the game in order for them to make improvements. It does sound a little nit picky and I am going to the over analytical depth of physical composition for the Sylvari. But, again, there are some things that Anet could improve upon and it would only benefit them. Regardless of the audio I’m still going to play though. :P
kaboobie
/ August 15, 2011I feel you I kind of agree that it would be a nice change but at this point I would rather they implement it as a patch or something after the game has released. lol I’m tired of waiting :) The questions I asked were just see how much you really cared. Thus the whole would you be willing to see the game pushed back further for it.
Thrangis The Red
/ August 15, 2011I know the delay is certainly taxing. We don’t even have a release date and we cling to the hopes of beta discussion come Gamescom. Though, my date of release guess will be for fall or winter of 2012 with beta starting up in spring of the same year.