So World of Warcraft has a new expansion out, and Mr Commando and I have been playing it for the past few days. Why am I writing about that on my SWTOR blog? Because new WoW expansions have a weird way of reminding me of The Old Republic, that's why!
Two years ago I wrote a post about how I keep noticing familiar voices from SWTOR in other media, and I cited the then-new WoW expansion Dragonflight as an example, as it featured the female trooper as a dragon and Senya as a centaur. This new expansion is even worse though, because not only does it feature some familiar voices, but the residents of the new land you travel to call you "Outlander".
What I thought was the ultimate flashback moment arrived when I made it to the second zone and there's this cut scene of a pompous rock dwarf leader making an appearance, and he starts his speech by yelling "Outlanders!". That really took me back right there, as the voice also seemed familiar and I could've sworn that I had the exact same guy yell "Outlander!" at me before in one of the Knights expansions.
I couldn't quite place my finger on it though, and while a guildie had some suggestions as to who the voice actor might be, that still didn't answer my question of which character in KotFE or KotET he reminded me of. It wasn't until the next morning as I was about to get on a train when it suddenly came to me: the leader of the Heralds of Zildrog! I immediately pulled up a YouTube video of the encounter and yep, there was that familiar voice. I guess it makes sense that this would fire up recognition in my brain, considering that he voices what's effectively a conceited cult leader in both instances.
I still can't say with 100% certainty that it's the same guy since I can't find full voice credits for The War Within at this point, but assuming that it's indeed the same voice actor, the Exalted in KotFE is credited as Fred Tatasciore, who was also the new voice for Tanno Vik and apparently... Doctor Oggurobb? Huh!
Anyway, that moment was a particular stand-out but there have been others. Darin De Paul (Valkorion) is as prolific as ever and lends his voice to more than a few random rock dwarves. And just as I was starting to wonder whether they hadn't managed to include Jennifer Hale anywhere this time, she popped up as the voice of a random blacksmith. It's just something that tickles me. Have you encountered familiar voices elsewhere lately?
I will be writing more about the WoW expansion on my WoW blog by the way. Just in case you're interested (and/or didn't know that was a thing).
Always fun discovering voice actors in other games. Recently I played Jedi Outcast and identified one of the characters as being the same as the female Smuggler.
ReplyDeleteHope you have fun with WoW. =) I don't have time for more than one MMO. SWTOR is more solo-friendly, which gives me flexibility to spend time with family and friends. That's become more important to me as I get older. Also, there's no alternative to cool lightsabers.
Playing more than one MMO regularly is definitely a tall order - I only manage it because I don't have a lot of other hobbies beside gaming and writing, and because Mr Commando and I don't have any pets or kids! But even then it feels like I hardly have enough free hours in a week sometimes, haha.
DeleteFred Tatasciore is also the voice of my favorite companion, Blizz! :-P
ReplyDelete(Seems he actually did a bunch of the alien voices in SWTOR.)