New Borg voice-overs

posted on April 3rd, 2012, 4:33 pm

Hey all,
The disclaimer: I have searched a little before posting this topic. I have also expressed interest in this idea before in a short thread about voiceovers before: Voice Acting Showreel

The proposal:
We get as many of the fleetops community as possible to read and record from a list of borg statements needed in-game.

The reason:
The currently used borg voices sound like a single voice with lots of reverberation added. Compared to the Borg voice from ST:Voyager it is somewhat lacklustre.



The commune;
Let's see what the response is first then maybe we can talk about contributing to the community voice-overs 

posted on April 3rd, 2012, 4:54 pm

sounds interesting, i'm in.

posted on April 3rd, 2012, 5:18 pm

How do you want to make sure everyone has the adequate technical equipment? It's not just like here is your microphone and start acting... I tried myself and had to admit that I was not able to deliver the quality the devs need for the game. btw... the dude from the other thread has potential for Klingon voice acts.

posted on April 3rd, 2012, 5:26 pm

It's fine to record and then submit entries .
By the way, if you have recordings and would like to see if they preliminarily match up with our quality requests, feel free to send them to my email.

posted on April 3rd, 2012, 6:45 pm

i don't think quality will matter a huge amount as i think the op's idea is to take dozens of people speaking the line and mash it together, to get the sound from the show of multiple voices speaking in unison. quality issues should be hard to hear over all the voices.

posted on April 3rd, 2012, 8:41 pm

i don't think quality will matter a huge amount as i think the op's idea is to take dozens of people speaking the line and mash it together, to get the sound from the show of multiple voices speaking in unison. quality issues should be hard to hear over all the voices.

I agree. At least worth a try... collective speaking could even become special when there is some "undistinct" noises involved.

posted on April 3rd, 2012, 10:01 pm

But shouldn't the borg only hear the voice of the Borg Queen? I always found that a little weird.  in TNG they were portrayed as a collective but in First Contact appear the Queen and that changed everything IMO.

posted on April 3rd, 2012, 10:27 pm

But shouldn't the borg only hear the voice of the Borg Queen? I always found that a little weird.   in TNG they were portrayed as a collective but in First Contact appear the Queen and that changed everything IMO.

depends. sometimes they wouldn't hear anything at all because they think as one and don't need to speak. hence examples exist where the queen just thinks (visually shown by her turning her head/focussing eyes/etc) the orders to the collective.

other times there is speech in the collective voice. and other times its just the queen's voice.

what the borg say in fleetops is sometimes stuff that they would broadcast to enemy ships like "resistance is futile" hence the collective voice is the better choice. for simple "we will comply" messages, it's kinda silly as the borg don't need speech.

[Haemoclysm]

posted on April 4th, 2012, 12:41 am

Last edited by Haemoclysm on April 4th, 2012, 12:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

These are good points which are easily overlooked.  The idea in my mind is that there are two parts to this understanding for consideration:
The Hive Mind (Murmuring of voices, could be used for ambience)
The physical speech of a number of drones (acknowledgement of commands to player)

The majority of the Hive Mind interactions between drones would be silent just as our own thoughts aren't vocalised.  There is also an audible component coming from all the drones communicating their own will/intentions to the others in a sort of conversation and heard as a murmuring (Picard hears this in First Contact when approaching the Cube for example).  The countless voices in this 'conversation' are just another level of complexity that the Hive Mind comprises.

This complex sum of minds culminates in a single impetus, a single idea and a single goal. Each drone then acts to accomplish this goal, in whatever way is possible.

Then there is the physical speech of a number of drones talking to outsiders; voices that we hear in the game is the Hive Mind speaking through some drones in unison to communicate with the unassimilated/player.

From the game point of view there is the sound of countless voices representing the Hive Mind as a whole, which can be used as a sort of ambient background noise.

Then there is the voice of the Borg drones communicating physically with outsiders, which we hear in game as each ship confirming the orders given by the player (essentially the player is treated as an outsider by necessity and for effect)

posted on April 4th, 2012, 11:39 am

your post looks like an xmas tree

posted on June 13th, 2012, 3:31 am

If approved, then I'd like to be part of it. It would sound a lot better then anything else, and at least I wont get hit with the old 'you need better equipment' speech.

I'm in.