Voice Over
Speech is a feature currently undergoing testing in the game, although Jagex has stated they plan on adding more to the game. Most often speech is used alongside text in the chatbox, such as when talking to an NPC, or the text that an NPC 'says' above their head, although it has been used in the cutscenes of the member's tutorial. It was first introduced in-game on 21 April 2010 in the update Slayer Challenges, when voices where added to the (former) tutorial, Unstable Foundations. You can hear Sir Vant, a goblin and several other NPCs talk, along with the player.
The intention of Unstable Foundations was to receive player feedback based on the voices in the tutorial and expand speech to a certain amount of the game based on how players reacted to the update.<ref name:"Developer Blog">Look Who's Talking.</ref> The response to the voices in the tutorial have been fairly positive.
Due to positive feedback from the community, Jagex implemented voices to the release of the member's tutorial. At the time of release, voices were only heard in cutscenes during the tutorial. However, at a later date, most of the npcs found in the tutorial area were given a voice, which was the largest range of voices added at once. Among these added voices, two of the featured voices were those of the voice-acting contest winners, Falcon zb and CielFury, who are also the first members of the RuneScape community to feature in the game or in the official credits on the website.
Places where voices are used
- The Player (certain instances, such as emotes)
Quests and Miniquests
Partly voiced
- Unstable Foundations (Quest Removed)
- Salt in the Wound (Some voices)
Fully voiced
- One Piercing Note (1st Fully Voice Acted)
- Let Them Eat Pie
- Death Plateau
- Druidic Ritual
- Wolf Whistle
- Songs from the Depths
- Carnillean Rising
- Stolen Hearts
- Diamond in the Rough
- What's Mine is Yours
NPCs
- Kennith, Eva, & Ezekial (Salt in the Wound)
- Talent Scout (Laughing)
- Strange face
- All of the Abbey of St. Elspeth Citharede NPCs are fully voice acted
- All of the Burthorpe & Taverley NPCs are fully voice acted
- Unnamed Troll (Troll Warzone Tutorial First Cutscene)
- Major Nigel Corothers (Troll Warzone Tutorial Last Cutscene)
- Sir Rebrum
- White Knights by the Grotworm Lair (if you speak to them no chatbox appears, but they rather have text appear above them and the voice activates)
- Signature Heroes (currently a specific few)
- Ozan (Troll Warzone Tutorial First Cutscene)
- The Raptor (in Songs from the Depths)
Monsters
- Vanstrom Klause
- Hati
- Sköll
- Dungoneering Bosses:
- God War Generals:
- Dominion Tower Bosses:
- Melzar the Mad
- Evil chicken
- Culinaromancer
- Count Draynor
- General Khazard
- Koschei the deathless
- Nomad
- Damis (during his second phase only)
- Black knight guardian
Music Tracks
- Valerio's Song
- Citharede Requiem
- Black Zabeth from the 2010 halloween event has a voice that seems to say "mmm Black Zabeth!".
- Wending through the Willows
Other
- "Hymn To Saint Elspeth" (Altar Room of the Abbey of St. Elspeth Citharede)
- Mos Le'Harmless Records songs (sung by Bard Roberts and the Stanky Penguins)
- Yelps after claiming a Squeal of Fortune Ticket
- Emotes
Trivia
- Players also had a voice during the tutorial, which changed depending if the character was male or female. This has now been removed by Jagex. However, whenever your character is injured in the regular game you will hear an audible "augh". The same is also true when you do damage to a man or woman.
- With the release of the Ancient Prison, Nex is capable of speech, and was the voice that players heard when trying to open the frozen door prior to the release.
- As of 10 January 2011, all God Wars Dungeon bosses now have speech.
- The release of One Piercing Note introduced full voice acting for a quest. The quest along with its audio has been very well-received by players, and Jagex now has plans to introduce more voice acting in future content.
A Jagex Moderator comments on the use of Speech. - In early 2011, a poll was released to see if players would like voice chat for players to allow them to communicate with other players over a microphone. Although the results were mostly positive, no info has been heard about this actually being implemented into the game.
