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[PODCAST] Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 193: "Inconsequential Conversation!"

midniteshadow7midniteshadow7 Member Posts: 787 Arc User
Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 193: "Inconsequential Conversation!" has been published on Holosuite Media, you can download and stream it from: http://bit.ly/1PL6DR0

Captain MidNite Shadow discusses all the news from Star Trek Online and Star Trek with the crew of the USS Tribble in the longer than usual episode full of Trek conversation:
  • Hearts and Minds,
  • Weekend Upgrade Event,
  • Pop Culture Hero Coalition,
  • Defiant Giveaway Winners,
  • the new Role Playing Blog,
  • Retiring Glossy Photos,
  • Trait System Improvements,
  • Dry Docking,
  • STO Release Notes,
  • October Screenshot Contest winners,
  • Internity,
  • 5th Passenger,
  • Star Trek Renegades,
  • Star Trek: Captain Pike,
  • Star Trek Anthology,
  • and more!

Please help friend of the show and fellow Star Trek Online player and podcaster Mav with donations to support his recovery with his current health situation here: http://www.gofundme.com/tomsrecovery.

Comments

  • alex1geralex1ger Member Posts: 141 Arc User
    edited November 2015
    Hello there.



    Internity crowdfunding:
    Uhm. Well, that went... not as well as it could have. Again, I'm not hating on them, their campaign just didn't do anything for me. I still would have liked them to get their funds. Maybe the final product would have... okay, probably not, but you know the phrase: "Never say never."?



    sunseahl, borticus, passion and food:

    Okay, sunseahl, I'll try to be as precise as I can. Let's stay with the burger analogy.
    You are frustrated because you want Cryptic to upgrade your hamburger to include... what exactly? 33% tomato slices? let's just say more tomato slices. At launch, Cryptic offered this hamburger with a single slice of a cherry tomato. That was definitely too little. They upgraded it over time to include something between 1 and 1.5 slices of a regular tomato. I'd call that a huge improvement, you call it a disappointment and feel ignored. (If they did in fact ignore you, you would still have a cherry tomato slice...)
    Now, I would argue that the STOburger could use 2 slices of a regular tomato. But it won't ever contain 33% tomato slices.

    You then stated that if they can't offer 33% tomato slices, they shouldn't put any tomatoes onto the burger at all. And I can't follow that logic. Because not even the source material ever gave you that much. So... how do I put this... your Star Trek seems to be quite different from the Star Trek I saw on TV.

    Now back to borticus. The way I understood it, he was not frustrated because people ignored the part of the burger he worked on.
    He got upset because people did not like the particular brand of pickles that has been used and instead of offering constructive criticism, they pulled down their pants and did disgusting things to that burger.



    Voice acting:
    Okay, let's get this party started.
    Some time ago, CaptainGeko tweeted about how this guy who played a role on some... Spartacus TV show thingy... I don't really care... anyways, this guy had expressed his willingness to do voice-over work for Star Trek Online.
    Later on, Kestrel tweeted about the fact that that particular voice session had just taken place. Okay, that's nice. I mean, even if he has nothing to do with Star Trek, the fact that he approached Cryptic (or rather their voice director) is definitely a nice anecdote and something to be proud of.

    Then (I don't remember whether it happened before or after that, but I think after...) CaptainGeko tweeted about some guy who voiced some gorilla villain on The Flash, who was about to do voice work for Cryptic. Okay, another actor I suppose?
    Seems like actors tickle Cryptic's fancy while voice actors... just exist.

    Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago. I replayed the Iconian story arc. You know, the first time around I will read all of the options and since I tend to read faster than the actors talk and since I'm not good at multitasking, on my first playthrough I tend to catch most of the story, but not necessarily the voice acting. Unless something really bugs me about it.

    So I was replaying "Uneasy allies" and when I warped into the... Hobus system (iirc) and listened to the distress call by Lt. Cmdr. VanZyl I started thinking to myself:
    - Mmh. I could have sworn that sounded like Laura Bailey. I'm pretty sure she never sounded this much like Laura Bailey before...
    So I got to the second part of her distress call and listened more closely. (Btw. the first few voice-over parts in the Hobus system in Uneasy Allies were still hooked up incorrectly...) And that's when I got excited and curious and just had to "Alt Tab" out of the game to open my browser to figure out who voiced VanZyl. And guess what I found? Someone tweeted at Laura Bailey whether she was voicing VanZyl and she answered that she did. And I was like: Yay, I was right about it!

    Finally, two (?) weeks ago, I went through IMDB to figure out if I might know someone else who did voice work for STO. Mmh...
    - That gorilla voice guy seems to be more of a voice actor than a "real" actor. Oh... he even voiced Azmodan in Diablo 3. Nice.
    - And the guy who voiced Kagran? He's Vol'jin in WoW. Interesting.
    - And... are you serious? You got Liam O'Brien to voice Gaul? And nobody at Cryptic got excited? I only got one thing to say here: "YOU! are NOT! PREPARED!" And I don't even like Illidan as a character. But for some reason there are a lot of rabid Illidan fanboys out there... I mean, that guy was dead before the end of Burning Crusade and he's still coming back for the next expansion... I guess: " 'Tis but a scratch."
    - And just fyi: Laura Bailey is Jaina Proudmoore in WoW and the female Demon Hunter in Diablo 3 and if you prefer SWTOR, she's got you covered, too. May I introduce you to the Jedi Knight companion Kira Carsen?

    Seriously, some of these people get their own Q&A sessions at Comic-Cons and nobody at Cryptic gets any shivers?
    But hey, now I'm just talking about the new voice actors that came in after Cryptic got SAG-affiliated. What about the "old guard"? Well, there seem to be people who really like that Gaius Selan character for some reason.
    What do you mean? That's not the same voice actor anymore because of the SAG-affiliation thing? Oh... You know, when SWTOR did their most recent expansion and there were talks about being able to get rid of some old companions and earning some new companions instead, BioWare had to clarify that they would get every single companion voice actor into the recording booth again. So... I guess some people actually do care about voice actors... But then again, SWTOR made a big deal out of being "fully voiced" (and then they got androids beeping and wookies doing their thing and some aliens speak huttese and you still have to read the translations yourself...).

    But don't worry, I got a few more of the "old guard" coming up.
    I will pick two who came to mind easily.

    First: Dave Rivas. The guy voiced Hakeev, Dr. Eric Cooper and Captain Va'kel Shon. Now, if you listen really closely, you could notice that Hakeev and Cooper sound somewhat similar. But I will admit, I did not notice it right away. And I would never have believed that the same guy voiced Captain Shon. So, this guy can be used to voice multiple people without drawing too much attention to the fact that it's the same guy.

    Second: Lani Minella. And here is the part where I have a problem. She's definitely good. I do not doubt her qualifications. I mean, I could believe that Lt. Jhu Terel and Admiral T'Nae were different people. (Yes, if you listen closely, you can notice some similarities.) The problem is, her voice is pretty recognizable. And she voices so many characters... I mean, Taris has a distinctly different speech pattern, but I still thought: "Oh, hello romulan T'Nae." And it got worse from there.
    I cannot recall every incident, but I will talk about the ones that I remember:

    - During Delta Flight. The bajoran ship/shuttle thief in Paris' task force. That was her. "Oh, hello bajoran T'Nae."

    - I will admit, I did not recognize her through all the voice modulation as M'Tara. Then we got Midnight, beamed down to Iconia, there was much less voice modulation involved and suddenly: "Oh, hello iconian T'Nae."

    - And the revamped Cardassian arc? That was the worst part. On Bajor and on Mirror Bajor... run up to the female bajoran militia member not far from the beam-in point. Listen to her one line or maybe two lines... "Oh, hello another bajoran T'Nae." And not even 5 minutes later, the Vedek? "Oh, hello... wait, seriously? AGAIN?"

    I don't know about you, but when I notice that, it just takes me out of the story immediately. Just like Iconian idiocy during the Iconian war story arc...

    What I'm trying to say is... Cryptic definitely overused her. Now, I'm not saying she shouldn't get many lines. Give her a recurring character. Someone who gets a lot of lines and we won't need to look at the screen and still know who's talking. But for the love of all that you hold dear, do not use her to voice a thousand "extras". Get someone with a less memorable voice/broader range to do that.

    PS: Since I had IMDB open to make sure I did not mix up something... Lani Minella supposedly also voiced T'Ket. I guess I just spaced out during Midnight after recognizing M'Tara as being voiced by her. *shrug*
  • mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
    The voice acting thing you mention there alex1ger is quite amusing to me, because i also recognized a few actors again. I think Kal Dano is also Dr.Cooper. Never saw the similary of Cooper and Hakeev, have to listen more closely. (Both seem a bit overacted for my taste.)

    I wonder if everyone has a different way of listening to and recognizing voices, so that sometimes we recognize a voice someone else might not, despite us all being familiar with them...
    Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
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