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.

– Thrangis