General Discussion (Original Mod Thread)

[Beiss]

XENOPHONIA - the Native Speech Mod Project

I'm starting this thread to see if there's any interest in a project that aims to provide the players of M2TW with voice packs (one language at a time) designed individually for (more or less) every faction in the game. The voicepacks would feature the faction's native language instead of the shipped "English with accents" voices, and players would replace the "vanilla" wave files with these, custom ones. Read more in this thread. The idea is to enhance the game's immersion by having each faction speak its "own" language just like they have their own troop types and architecture.

The rest of this post's original content has been moved here.

[Der_Zenturio]

Dunno how I can help, but most definitely interested! Good luck, i think it would make a huge diference!

[PurpleScotch]

Good idea, btw just a hint..in medieval ages Arabic in Maghreb and Egypt were the same.

[lth_20000]

very good idea

[KaerMorhen]

Yes definitely I vote for this, I have no idea whatsoever how can I help but this is very good idea!!!

[Beiss]

Anyone who wants to help out would probably help the most by finding sources of information on their respective langauge, or finding actors, people who know things, relevant websites/articles etc.

@ Killerxguy - I'm sure you're right. For Stage 1, I wanted to have two different dialect so that people who speak Arabic can distinguish between the Egyptian and the Maghreb one, for example, if an Arabic speaking person plays the Egyptian, and they speak the Maghreb dialect, they might feel uncomfortable with that, just like I would feel uncomfortable playing the... Germans if they spoke an Austrian dialect (or the English speaking with an Australian one ). Geddit? We need to find dialects of each of these modern languages so that they feel representative for all speakers of those languages. For example, I asked a German guy if there's such as thing as a neutral German dialect, and he suggested the one spoken in Hannover, because everyone who speaks German can understand it.

[Germanicus75]

You've got my vote, for sure!! :-)

[Gamer0104]

Would love for this to happen

[Beiss]

Be sure to tell me if any of the current M2TW mods being worked on are planning on implementing something like this - or if any RTW mod have made soundpacks for any of the relevant languages already.

[Jan Taihwo]

I suppose I could help. :hmmm:
With the Danish voice... (Though it won't and should not sound like modern danish)

[JANOSIK007]

What about adding voice pack for faction that will be represented in medieval mods, like Bohemian, Lithuanian, Serb and others

[John I Tzimisces]

Cilician Armenian will almost certainly be in a future mod (I will learn to skin and model if I have to!)...Classical Armenian would make a good addition methinks. Although due to the fact interest in this faction is rather limited I imagine we may just do it ourselves...hmm...

[Beiss]

Any language is welcome, but I am - naturally - more concerned with the ones spoken by the factions that are included with the vanilla version of the game. I agree that modern Danish will feel rather out of place, but I w... huh?

I suppose I could help. :hmmm:
With the Danish voice... (Though it won't and should not sound like modern danish)

You're not saying you speak non-modern Danish, are you?

Danish, modern or not, must sound very exotic to those who haven't heard it before, which is exactly what I want this mod for - playing a faction who speaks a language you don't understand will make things more interesting, and playing a faction who speaks YOUR language will give you a feeling of... I don't know, it'll be cool either way. :-D

Also, there's a professor in byzantology at my university, and there's said to be people studying medieval French as well, so I might be able to help out some after all - if I can make those people help me. But first, I want the modern languages done.

I got a reply from the guy who heads the Napoleonic TW 2 mod, and he says that all the factions in that mod speak their own language. The ones of interest to us are German and Russian, I guess. We'll see if I can find out more there, but I'd really appreciate if more of you people would offer your services to the project

[NikeBG]

Now if we could find somebody who speaks Old-Bulgarian (aka Church-Slavonic)...

Btw, nice project!

[Beiss]

Now if we could find somebody who speaks Old-Bulgarian (aka Church-Slavonic)...

Btw, nice project!

Is that anywhere near the same as medieval Polish/Russian, by any chance?

[Kopijeger]

This is something I wish CA would have done by themselves, seeing as it couldn't possibly add significantly to development time or cost to record medieval sound samples and give player the option to choose between "authentic" and "english" sound. They had this in Shogun, but these days they delude themselves in thinking that english voices will "help the player", without considering that historically correct speech would immerse players and that it would be easy to satisfy both camps. I could have contributed something in regards to norwegian, but that is not used by any of the playable factions. Perhaps if it is added through a mod.

[Matthæus]

well i wish you luck. idea is good. hope you will finish the project

[hogofwar]

great idea, i am Arab i can help in Arabic, especially that medieval arabic differ from modern average in terms and Vocabulary only, and that can be taken care of easily.

[JHS]

Good luck with the project, I remember the Latin voice mod for Rome really injected more life into the game. This will do the same for Medieval 2

[Beiss]

great idea, i am Arab i can help in Arabic, especially that medieval arabic differ from modern average in terms and Vocabulary only, and that can be taken care of easily.

Awesome. Stick around, lots of people will enjoy playing the muslim factions speaking Arabic - glad you want to help. As soon as enough people join, we can ask Archer for our own sub-forum, and then we can discuss each language separately, which will rock.

This is something I wish CA would have done by themselves, seeing as it couldn't possibly add significantly to development time or cost to record medieval sound samples and give player the option to choose between "authentic" and "english" sound. They had this in Shogun, but these days they delude themselves in thinking that english voices will "help the player", without considering that historically correct speech would immerse players and that it would be easy to satisfy both camps. I could have contributed something in regards to norwegian, but that is not used by any of the playable factions. Perhaps if it is added through a mod.

Can't count the times I've brought this up - some agreed, and some... actually disapproved, incredibly enough. :hmmm:

Good luck with the project, I remember the Latin voice mod for Rome really injected more life into the game. This will do the same for Medieval 2

That's the idea.



Finally - is there a Persian-speaking faction in the game or not? Does anyone know?