Stellaris Dev Diary #77 - Ethics Voice Packs

[Summin Cool]

snip.

Unless it's shown to me with credible empirical proof I can personally trust then I'm only going to dismiss is as garbage.

 

[Scorchlite]

Unless it's shown to me with credible empirical proof I can personally trust then I'm only going to dismiss is as garbage.

You've really never encountered anything like that before? About how our unconscious influences us? That we have preconceptions and expectation built into us due to upbringing and culture? I'm pretty sure it's been on television even and I watched similar things when I was a kid... I just assumed such thinking as being a basic understanding of how our mind works . Honestly, far, far too many people in the world today are ignorant of such things... I suppose that is why the world is as it is at the moment.

 

[Spidee]

To be clear, what I am saying is not that the Militarist VO is perfect and beyond all critique, what I am saying is that we had a script for the Militarist VO that called for a more 'crazy' approach, and we picked the actor (after auditioning both male and female voices) that did the role best, knowing that picking a male voice would have been a safer bet no matter the quality of the actor. So it's a bit amusing, like I said, to see the backlash and the absence of self-distance and self-reflection coming with it, because we *knew* this would happen and chose to pay that price.

WIIIIIIIIZZZZZZ I LOVE , but listen to yourself. Yes you are paying the price, but the price is for choosing the crazy WAAAGH horde approach. Doesn't fit the lore. Battles take months, the soldiers will be calculating trajectories of their weapons, re-routing energy flows from damaged circuits, performing evasive manoeuvrers over months. Not hack and slash at each other.

Your logic, as I understand it was "let's go with bersekers and cast the female one, we will get more heat, than we would if we gave it to a male one, but we can take it". Now you are getting heat and not one person who criticized here said anything about her gender. You ignore the source of the heat you are getting. And to imply that I have a problem with the militarist being female, after I propose, that you should have taken a Colonel Santiago (a female Hispanic last time I played SMAC) approach and post a link to all her voiceovers from SMAC is a) illogical, b) insulting, c) hypocritical? d) arrogant?
Please take a breather, look at the criticism and maybe create a second militarist? Berserker vs. Soldier? Berserkers in space just make little sense.

 

[Summin Cool]

You've really never encountered anything like that before? About how our unconscious influences us? That we have preconceptions and expectation built into us due to upbringing and culture? I'm pretty sure it's been on television even and I watched similar things when I was a kid... I just assumed such thinking as being a basic understanding of how our mind works . Honestly, far, far too many people in the world today are ignorant of such things... I suppose that is why the world is as it is at the moment.

Credible empirical proof. Or is that too hard for social sciences?

 

[Serenity84]

Battles take months, the soldiers will be calculating trajectories of their weapons, re-routing energy flows from damaged circuits, performing evasive manoeuvrers over months. Not hack and slash at each other.

"The Expanse" did something like such a battle with the Donnager. Time isn't in months, but everyone is just calmly doing stuff without any hurry. No shouting because things take many minutes instead of requiring split-second decisions. A degree of (in this case understandable) overconfidence also plays a role here, but mainly it's because of the distances and time involved.

 

[praftd]

Because it does, in fact, have a lot to do with that.

I'm usually on your side Wiz, but this is honestly just dumb. The vast majority of people don't care whether the voice is male or female. People just think the voice sounds out of place, over the top, hammy, and sort of cringe-worthy.

Compare that to the female voice over in the Utopia trailer. That is much better suited to a militarist. It is regal and sounds like how an AI would sound. The current one sounds like a drooling barbarian. Who would program a computer to sound like that? Sounds like the Tasmanian devil from Loony Toons.

Even if 10%-20% of people who are complaining are doing so because it is a female voice (which so far I have seen none), why does that mean you have to discredit the other 80%? Are you implying the the majority don't matter?

When you do stuff like this, it makes me reaaaally not want to buy the DLC.

 

[Scorchlite]

Credible empirical proof. Or is that too hard for social sciences?

Ignoring your toxic and demeaning tone, I'm afraid I don't keep a track of every bit of knowledge I accumulate in my life. If you are truly open to ideas and new possibilities... and are interested, I suggest you search for such things yourself. I apologise if I came across like a university lecturer or academic journal, but I don't keep a list of references I can just hand out. If that makes my posts instantly untrue to you, then that is your decision, but I think it foolish.

 

[SolSys]

I understand entirely where Wiz is coming from.

They could have simply said "we needed to make them distinguishable from authoritarian" and most [logical] people would have responded with "ha, that's a good point".

I didn't think it even sounded that "crazy". Overly dramatic at best would be my say on it.

Not my word, but it does seem inappropriate for modern disciplined armies - alas, they need to be distinguishable.

When I imagine someone quoting lines from a play before giving a serious order I think to myself "someone, get them away from the console".

 

[HAL.9000.1]

I also agree that when I first though of militarist, before hearing anything, i thought of a cold professionalism. However, both that and the Klingon style are equally valid for militaristic ethics depending on your empire. Furthermore, no other ethic could really justify such an aggressive style. I expect authoritarian to fulfill the cold flavour I initially thought of and think having both in the game - so that fanatic purifiers have a representation - is more desirable over several variants of 'cold and professional'. I actually really like all 3 and find the 'she is frothing at the mouth' comments to be gross hyperbole. It is slightly Klingony yes, but far from demented.

Since the scripts are tailored to the ethics, and authoritarians like slaves and a caste system, I highly doubt that the authoritarian script is going to fit well with a militaristic ethos. Someone who wants a professional military flavor for his version of VIR is probably not going to get one. And thinking that the Klingons or this over-the-top voiceover are equally valid for militaristic ethics indicates a complete ignorance of all things military. In pretty much every organized military force, if an admiral or general started spouting off like that at the start of an engagement, a double shot of Haloperidol and quick trip to the booby hatch would be in order.

 

[Insane Commander]

"The Expanse" did something like such a battle with the Donnager. Time isn't in months, but everyone is just calmly doing stuff without any hurry. No shouting because things take many minutes instead of requiring split-second decisions. A degree of (in this case understandable) overconfidence also plays a role here, but mainly it's because of the distances and time involved.

This and the Star Wars empire would be my choices for militarists. If the authoritarian VO fits, I don't care if there is a Klingon like one.

 

[Gaen]

It's both. We'd be having this discussion regardless but it would not be nearly as pronounced. There's been a few comments about Xenophobe tone, there would likely have been more if we had cast a woman in the same role (but not as many, since it's a more 'appropriate' tone for a woman)

Appropriate would have been a commanding military leader, this is more a bad joke on why misogynist dont think females can be great military leaders. Not to mentions the expectation from tropes of military sci fi and smilliar on female carer officers from militarist empires. On the other hand lets withhold final judgment until we heard all of it.

 

[Summin Cool]

Considering the current issue with Blades of Stellaris, the recent mess that paradox have done with the pricing recently, and this garbage fire it's probably better to reconsider just exactly where I spend my money for the time being.

 

[Scorchlite]

Since the scripts are tailored to the ethics, and authoritarians like slaves and a caste system, I highly doubt that the authoritarian script is going to fit well with a militaristic ethos. Someone who wants a professional military flavor for his version of VIR is probably not going to get one. And thinking that the Klingons or this over-the-top voiceover are equally valid for militaristic ethics indicates a complete ignorance of all things military. In pretty much every organized military force, if an admiral or general started spouting off like that at the start of an engagement, a double shot of Haloperidol and quick trip to the booby hatch would be in order.

I agree, but that is one take of militarism. To the other extreme, a race of aliens who love nothing more than battle and hunting other species... reveling in the glory of battle.... might not have a strict military heirarchy - which is in itself authoritarian. It could easily be a horde of warriors on a ship lead by a 'chief', the strongest warrior who proved themselves in mortal combat with their rivals back on the homeworld. This race would fit the more aggressive and bloodthirsty voice over. Perhaps they decided to reach out into the stars because no creatures on their homeworld provide a challenge anymore - perhaps they hunted them all to extinction.

 

[Everstill]

I dont post, in fact had to go about actually activating my account just to make this post...

Here's the real thing.... your initial statement on this matter was *in fact* in error, as there was only one post I saw that had any complaint about the gender of the voice over. You instead however decided that the best course of action in responding to the critiques of the VO not fitting the role would be to make a blanket accusation of sexism towards your customer base. Ok, great, you are a wiz (no pun intended) at whatever you do involving video games... No sarcasm, I am taking it as fact that you know what you're talking about on the matter of producing video games, or coding them, or whatever it is you do...

Let me in turn advise you on what I'm a wiz at... business. You. Do. Not. Insult. Your. Customers.

You do not insult them to their faces, you do not hit them with veiled insults. You do not disparage them, you do not mock or belittle them. You do not make them the butt of a joke at their expense, even if it's in good faith and humor. You do not do these things because if you want to keep making money with your business, you need your customers to provide the money part of that "making money" equation. You will find that if you habitually disparage your customers, you will soon have few, if any customers.

You also do not do these things because that is not what decent people do. And that should be a consideration that goes above being good to just your customers.

Ok, that being said.... You leveled a blanket accusation of sexism towards your audience. Ok, you made a mistake, it happens... But you doubled down, then tripled down on your error rather than apologizing for speaking poorly of the people who buy your products.

You do *NOT* know how much "complaining" you would have gotten had the VO talent had dangly bits instead of inny bits. Sorry, you do not have the ability to see the future like that. Nobody does. And again, rather than accepting the critique of the VO not matching the ethos the VO was assigned, you insult your customers again by belittling their critiques as complaints.

And yes, you made a very clear judgement on the character of your customer base. You made a nasty one at that. That you also claim that you accounted for the ability to insult your customers is just.... well, why do you still have a job levels of amazing. You leveled a very serious question of character upon your customer base, and you've made it clear that you actually do hold a VERY low opinion of them.

The vast, overwhelming, 99% unanimous factual content in this thread is critique on the flavor of the VO matching the ethics it was assigned. It had nothing to do with the quality of the VO itself, which does sound like very professional work, just simply more fitting for a different ethic/civic such as fanatical purifiers. It had nothing to do with the sex of the VO talent, and numerous posters have pointed out examples from other games with "strong female characters" who fit the role far more suitably. Nobody is saying the VO doesn't fit because it's a woman. People even pointed out a more suitable VO for the military ethic from not only your own studio, but VO already associated with THIS very product. It was female, it was strong and military minded, the quality of the acting was excellent...

And that you then turn to say "well you're all just sexist, we counted on that"... Why do you still have a job interacting with the customers when you demonstrate an almost obsessive desire to insult them in every other post?

And finally... a question related to the 10-20% remark....

What's 10% of 1 post?

I don't read reddit, so I cannot account for whatever content is there, but I can account for the content on this very thread.... one post complaining about the VO being female that I found, and judging by another poster's statements, he found the same results. So if the VO was male, you state quite clearly that the "complaints" would have been 10-20% of what you have now in reality about the female VO... Is 10% of one post going by word count? If so, the post in question had under 100 words, so.... letter count maybe? Which are the offending letters? Are they contained within the same sentence, the same clause, the same word?

Will you continue to double down, or will you do the right thing and apologize to your customers for making unsupported and unsubstantiated accusations on the quality of their character? This is actually the most important one. It is only fair to your customer base that they know up front if they are going to receive a good customer experience, or if they will have to be willing to endure slander as part of the price of your product.

I agree with a lot of things you said here, but I don't agree in the part where Wiz is supposed to lie and/or not say what he really thinks just because of business reasons.

This is a forum, we debate things here. If he thinks like this, so be it, I defend his right to say this as much as I defend the right we can disagree with him and tell he's wrong. Don't want a censorship to people because of money or business and much less start banning people that disagree with the devs.

 

[CrowScape]

You've really never encountered anything like that before? About how our unconscious influences us? That we have preconceptions and expectation built into us due to upbringing and culture? I'm pretty sure it's been on television even and I watched similar things when I was a kid... I just assumed such thinking as being a basic understanding of how our mind works . Honestly, far, far too many people in the world today are ignorant of such things... I suppose that is why the world is as it is at the moment.

Yes, I've encountered something like that. As overt racism and sexism receded, the institutions that were built on fighting racism and sexism did what every institution does when their raison d'etre ceases to be: they invent a new reason to keep collecting checks. Viola! Unconscious biases are born! It's impossible not to be sexist, sexism infuses everything around you, you cannot be free from it. It's the new modern original sin! Except, while in the old religion you could be saved through baptism and confession, nowadays there is no water to wash you clean and confession just means we get to savage you all the more. You cannot be saved! You are forever condemned, and you must be made to suffer to appease the unappeasable gods.

This is basically what Rousseau taught, embodied in his "noble savage" myth. You would have thought 20,000 headless bodies would have corrected that error. Instead, people keep taking it as a challenge.

 

[Kinkness]

The militarist one sounds really bad. The other ones sounded excellent. Seriously though.. The female one sounded like a 80 year old smoker. I'd suggest lightening up on the "Gravel" in the voice.

You can make her sound like a hard ass without making her sound like an 80 year old smoker/drinker that didn't take care of herself.

-----------

Also.. time to rip out the audio from Red Alert 2, and Command and Conquer: Generals for their units.

"Troop Crawler SIgning in"
" Booom! Ahahaha!"
" The Glow! The Wonderful Glow!"

 

[Insane Commander]

Since the scripts are tailored to the ethics, and authoritarians like slaves and a caste system, I highly doubt that the authoritarian script is going to fit well with a militaristic ethos. Someone who wants a professional military flavor for his version of VIR is probably not going to get one. And thinking that the Klingons or this over-the-top voiceover are equally valid for militaristic ethics indicates a complete ignorance of all things military. In pretty much every organized military force, if an admiral or general started spouting off like that at the start of an engagement, a double shot of Haloperidol and quick trip to the booby hatch would be in order.

That is a good point. If the authoritarian VO makes references to slaves it won't suit democratic crusaders. The militarist doesn't suit. So, if the xenophile is too pacifist, democratic crusaders would have no options. Considering this, the VOs will probably be as generic as possible, so I imagine that the authoritarian can be used by militarists. I think this was implied earlier, anyway.

 

[Summin Cool]

That is a good point. If the authoritarian VO makes references to slaves it won't suit democratic crusaders. The militarist doesn't suit. So, if the xenophile is too pacifist, democratic crusaders would have no options. Considering this, the VOs will probably be as generic as possible, so I imagine that the authoritarian can be used by militarists. I think this was implied earlier, anyway.

Another way to do it is to record some extra lines in relation to specific circumstances and then don't use them if they are not relevant

 

[HAL.9000.1]

I agree, but that is one take of militarism. To the other extreme, a race of aliens who love nothing more than battle and hunting other species... reveling in the glory of battle.... might not have a strict military heirarchy - which is in itself authoritarian. It could easily be a horde of warriors on a ship lead by a 'chief', the strongest warrior who proved themselves in mortal combat with their rivals back on the homeworld. This race would fit the more aggressive and bloodthirsty voice over. Perhaps they decided to reach out into the stars because no creatures on their homeworld provide a challenge anymore - perhaps they hunted them all to extinction.

I disagree. What you describe has nothing to do with militarism. It is cartoon militarism. It might more accurately be defined as a "warrior ethos", although in the context of the game that's just a trait, not an ethical choice and certainly not a part of reality since the barbarian hordes were defeated here on earth. No civilization describing itself as militarist and choosing, say, citizen service and meritocracy or distinguished admirals would ever have anyone in a position of responsibility that would be as unhinged as the character in that voice clip, yet that is (apparently) what we will be saddled with as the default for a militaristic ethical choice.

 

[Spidee]

Ok....question, that might save this whole thing. We need to wait for the whole voiceover, maybe only this one line was s step into poop. If the whole militarist voice is along the horde style, I want to ask - do you have the script/draft/initial recordings of a cool calculating grand strategist, which we could pick alternatively?

If you do and they are of a female character, you could actually run a double blind study to confirm your hypothesis. If we as a fan base pick none, we hate women. If we pick the calculating one over the berserker, than all the heat you get is really about the directorial mistake, rather than your assumed misogyny. Actually, that would be interesting data to see. Do you agree?