The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Does anybody else find the speech characterization of the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za a little...lacking?  I mean sure, they definitely sound evil, but why do the "thinkers and planners" talk more slowly than the "warriors and laborers"?

I was playing around in my favourite free audio editor, Audacity (http://audacity.sf.net/), when I came upon their "Change Tempo" filter -- it allows one to alter the speed of playback without altering the pitch (i.e., no "chipmunk effect")  I tried it on the Ur-Quan speech files, and a speedup of 45% is quite provocative:

Before:  http://www.submedia.net/~nic/uqm/before.mp3
After:  http://www.submedia.net/~nic/uqm/after.mp3

To my ears, increasing the speed alters the performance in a few ways that are important to the character of the Ur-Quan.  It makes them sound more authoritarian, more "ruthlessly efficient", less patient for disobedience, and when discussing the Doctrinal Conflict, more desperate.

I have created a content add-on pack that uses the "faster" speech files, you can grab it and drop it in-place from here:

http://www.submedia.net/~nic/urquan-faster.zip

no, I do no think they are talking too slowaly. I think  that "after" they are talking too much funny. As if Galaxy Masters have just smoken something weird  ;D

Because they think before (and while) they speak?
In my experience, often the more people say, the less they have worth saying.

It's not the Ur-Quan that talk so slowly. It's their talking pets.  ::)

I like how the Ur-Quan talk slow. It means that they really want you to understand what they're saying.  The Ur-Quan Kzer-Ah make sure you understand that if you don't give up and follow their rules, they'll kill you. It also shows that they are really patient with getting their point across, and they've been really patient with some races. (*coughcough, Spathi? ;))

Their slowness and patience also fits in well with the "bad hangover" scene. Who knows how long the Kzer-Ah have been trying to talk to the captain, after he simply wanders into Ur-Quan territory.

Clearly the best option is to turn the third-rate voices off all together.

to me, there slow, methodical talk fits who they are. they probley told the same old story a hundred times over. it might be that over the years with each telling of "how things are going to be done", it became tiresome or bothersome to tell each race the same old demands. so each telling was a drawn out process.

nic, i do like there new found authority, but its almost too fast. maybe 30% or 25%, would serfice. id like to hear that percentage if you dont mind emailing me a copy. good job by the way. ;D

~DEFIANT

They just seem to lose all their menacing tone when when you speed the Quan up =\

WoW!  I'm really liking the new speed.  Sure, the original is perfectly fine IMHO but, this new does seem to fit and sound better too IMHO.

Something I didn't realise until now: the Ur-Quan sound so powerful mainly because of their music.
I hope that the new Precursors' remix is equally powerful...

It does sound pretty nice. The slower voice is more... Evillish.. The faster one is more authoritizing (or something like that ;) )

However, the music should change too, when you want this faster-mode (music should be faster then too).