The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Project: Change the Whiny Utwig Voice. (in the sequel)
Means: Send an e-mail to paul, at toysforbob.com (http://mailto:paul+at+toysforbob.com).
Means (expanded): Tell them how much you hate the whiny Utwig voice and how much you would like to have another voice in the sequel; tell them that the world already has the Dweenle from StarFlight as eternally depressed species, and that the Utwig have a lot of potential as a "serious" race - masks, ceremonies, destiny, the Ultron.
Project participants:
Valaggar the Wackrazy One (sent a mail with all the above, except Dweenle; also told him about Lance's pack)
(Sign up, people! We need more mails!)

NOTE: If you've got a non-webmail, consider using it. For example, if you have Gmail and byu.edu mail, use the latter - it gives the message more power.
NOTE TWO: The best time of day to send a mail to Paul is at about 11:00-14:45 UTC (he checks his mail at 15:00-16:30 UTC). This way the mail ends up as above on the list as possible.


Moderator edit: obfuscated Paul's email address to spare him some spam.

I don't like you. I wish you would go away. You irritate me.

Can we just have a Project: CWV?

Change the Whiny Valaggar?

Don't worry, I'm with you, Val.  The Utwig voice was one of the things I did like in SC-not-really-3.  And also, I agree with letting them NOT RUIN THE BLASTED ULTRON.

Don't worry, sir. You irritate me too.

Have you sent them a mail too? Every bit helps.

Let's have a vote on who's better for the community, Valaggar or Meep-Eep. Loser gets permabanned.

I've had enough of Valaggar, he's far too eccentric, most of his topics are around whining about how he hates the Utwig voice and other voices, distributing his own voice packs, and discussing out of this world theories for a game that wasn't intended to be taken seriously. Look at how this community even frowns on you and looks away in disarray, couple that with the fact you attacked TFB in the 2007 chat, 'down with the horrible Utwig voice!' you said and still, you're digging yourself deeper.

The fact that somebody has done more for the community than another person does not mean that the former is "more equal" than the latter.

Good. I'm making a poll about this.

Uh, yes it does, because people who do more for the community like that certain former person better? Meep-Eep helped to construct this Star Control remake you are now playing now, and the subsequent forum based around this remake you are posting at, so I think that should be enough.


Happy days! More useless garbage!

"other voices"?! I only say that I hate the Utwig voice, that's all.

Then let me rephrase my post... "Being better for the community does not justify abuse. It is abuse to ban someone just because he has not done as much as the other person."
(I was replying to Shiver's post, not yours)

Hi,

I've been reading this board for the last couple of weeks, and I must say I really find Valaggar amusing. He's like the comic relief of this board. So please don't ban him.

Thanks.

I think you've understood it a bit wrongly. It's not about banning me, it's about whether I should continue posting or not. I mean, if people don't like my postings, what's the point in making them?

(Ah, and thanks for calling me amusing!  :D)

NOTE: Or maybe I've misunderstood what this is about.

I'm all for this idea, but only if I can piggyback my personal hobby horse onto it, and... actually, I don't think anyone really wants to hear about that, so I'm against this.


So, since the game's not serious, nobody should... have fun talking about it?  Exactly which topics are Elerium-approved?  I'm all ears.

I'll pretend I don't see the possibility that you're actually pulling the "It's only a game; you should be spending your energy on something more important" card, because that's a sad, sad thing to see in a fandom from someone in it.

Just stopping by to say that I am in favor of Elerium being made a moderator and encouraged to stamp out bad posts with extreme prejudice.

You don't understand.

You see with Valaggar, he puts forward things such as 'would newton's law theory actually work if a Chmmr Avatar did a backwards pelvic thrust towards a planet and would this constitute an X=Y-0 in the part it ran straight into a Supox Blade and lasted long enough to survive?'

Did you understand that? I really doubt it, but that's the level of stuff we are seeing coming from Valaggar. By all means discuss, explore and talk about fandom but jeez, don't take it too incredibly distorted and strange as this in a way nobody really can give a straight answer or understand.

Okay. Valaggar

Noooooo nononono. We do not want to be spamming TFB about the Utwig voice. I guarantee the don’t give a rat’s ass about the Utwig voice – that is a LOW priority for them.  And frankly, we don’t want it to be a high priority. I just want them to make a sequel and for all I care they can hire Donald Duck to do the Utwig.

Do NOT send Paul an email about this (I suspect it’s too late and you have probably already sent him half a dozen).

I would suggest that you would irritate the forum goers less if you dropped all further references to the Utwig and Keel-Verezy in any of your posts . Not good to raise the ire of a prominent moderator.

And as for banning Valaggar I don’t think that’s necessary – he does contribute a lot of stuff, some of which isn’t dross. I like the Mycon voices for one. So he’s uber enthusiastic about Star Control. I guess we all are in our own way. It seems weird to draw a line and say “you are only allowed to be this enthusiastic”.

So you just don't want anything that's "too" weird and/or technical?  Nobody's saying you have to care, or respond, if you're not interested.


That's what I'm saying.  It's all good, except for spammers and trolls.

That's going into my Signature. Now.

Usually I don't post if I don't care and I do like that others are enthusiastic about Star Control, because after all we are all enthusiastic about this game, which is why we're fans, but Valaggar annoys me in the fact that he spams the entire boards, whines over the Utwig voice and posts stuff which we can't comprehend.

I mean look at his post count, 921 (5.060 per day), joined January 03 2007, and it's only now July the 4th. Now lets look at a more contributive member like Shiver:

Posts: 964 (0.592 per day)  Joined: January 17, 2003

So Valaggar has accomplished almost as much posts as Shiver within 5 months as opposed to his 4 years? This marks Valaggar as a spammer, I think.

Just to clarify, by "spammers", I mean "PAD PRINTING MACHINES" stuff.  Off-topic ads.  I don't mean "posting a lot".

I thought so, but still, the principles remain the same.

Nah, I was just being a little melodramatic. :P

By the way, by "amusing" I meant the way you get on people's nerves. It really cracks me up.

Valaggar Must Stay!

Just popping in on one of my hiatuses which makes me seem like I don't remember Ur-Quan Masters at all, and noticed this thread. I like the voices. I also think that the voice acting of a decade old video game is not a high priority for anybody. At this stage of the game, any possible sequel will most definetely have a different voice anyway. What's the big deal?

Yes, a lot of people seem to forget that Star Control 2 is 15 years old, with the voices themselves being 13 years old.  The fact that this game had voices *at all* in 1994 was a very big deal.

Try to remember back to this time and the general quality of games back then.  Games that had voice acting had the voices done usually all in-house, with a handful of people doing a wide variety of character voices.  These were game developers, not professional voice actors, and we can tell nowadays, but at the time we had no litmus test for video game voice acting.

Multimedia gaming was *awesome*.  MIDI music was *great* back then, just because it was music.  Now if a game had music, sound effects AND voices, that was an instant buy.

Now, here in 2007 we can look back and say "Wow the voice acting is pretty amateur and I don't like it," but at the time there was no incentive to produce high quality voice acting.  These voices *were* high quality at the time.

*urp* Just one point five. If you want to torture yourself a bit, here it is (they are?):

MAIL BEGINS
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
FIRST MAIL

Hello Paul,

First I would like to thank you again for everything, and thank you twice for participating in the IRC chat, and for struggling for the righteous cause of Star Control.

The whiny/emo Utwig voice was an interesting take. I don't know why you kept it even after they get their Ultron back and are all happy, even exultant (I see two possible reasons: 1. Because they are still wearing the Mask of Ultimate Embarrassment and Shame, or 2. Because they have been depressed for so long that it's hard for them to recover their normal voice), but the former choice seems like a good idea - i.e., according to the mask they're currently wearing they change their intonation - that is:
- when wearing an Expression of Ultimate Gratitude they have an unnerving obsequious voice
- when wearing a Countenance of Stellar Representation they speak in a sound, arrogant voice etc.

So what do you think? How would you make their voice in the sequel?

FIRST MAIL ENDS
______________
REPLY TO FIRST MAIL BEGINS

Hi Vlad,
 
I think the inherent voice of the Utwig would remain the same, though the vocabulary, tone, volume and emphasis would change in order to convey the change in psychological state.  Any more change than that, and I think you might damage the character construct of the Utwig that forms in the player's imagination.  I might consider one or two lines spoken through a 'special' mask that offered a ridiculously modified voice, though I would play that for humor.
 
- Paul

REPLY TO FIRST MAIL ENDS
_______________________
SECOND MAIL BEGINS

Hello Paul,

It seems that a lot of people don't like the whiny Utwig voice (see here); it isn't what they have imagined when they met them first in the DOS version (and indeed, though it works for before getting the Ultron back, afterwards they are happier, according to the text).

A Star Control fan, Lance Meibos, who happened to also be a beginning, though very talented, professional voice actor, even stepped in and re-recorded the voice; a sample in mp3 format is available here, the whole voicepack is here. The forum thread is here.

So maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea not to use the whiny voice in the eventual sequel, as the Utwig have a very interesting design (their mask philosophy, emphasis on destiny on the Ultron - they also resemble a bit African animists) which doesn't really fit into the emo thing.

SECOND MAIL ENDS
__________________________
REPLY TO SECOND MAIL BEGINS

Cool, thanks Vlad!  I'll check it out in a bit.

- Paul

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
ALL MAIL ENDS (ah, by the way, I had sent another two mails, one before the first one and the other between the first and the second one, but got no reply; the first of them was in fact the first mail I've transcribed here, in a more convoluted form, and the second one was about the Utwig not being emo, and ended in something to the effect of "anyway... HUMOR GOOD!")

So maybe I will stop whining about the whiny Utwig voice, but seeing how very contributive people like alephresh wouldn't like me to do so (keep in mind, contributive by quality, not quantity)... I don't know.


Ahem! Hrrah! Grrah! Did you care, at least, to look at the subject of the thread in which I was posting something vaguely resembling your technobabble?
"Tactics and strategy of SC ships". It was about 3D fleet battles, and it was logical that they should also have realistic physics (except for the case of gravity whips).

Better look at the level of your own postings.

*Sigh*

Changing topic slightly, after having a bit of a play in the full game, I actually think the supox voice is worse.

...And to put an end to all this thing, as we can all see, which voices are good and which are bad is very subjective.
For example, I am annoyed by the Utwig voice because I'd have preferred something which fits their nature more.
Cedric doesn't like the Supox voice because it's too metallic and not vegetable (sic!) enough.

That's what I thought about a couple Vallagar's threads. Although I find him a bit on a crusade for his Utwig voice change opinion, I happily choose to ignore it. I could care less if he stays or goes.

I leave the case of spam/inappropriate content up to the moderators' wisdom and dilligence.

Much like a book turned movie, there are going to be aspects of that the viewer doesn't feel are accurate.  The solution is to enjoy the attempt, as more often than not it isn't a terrible representation;  it just doesn't meet the viewer's standards.  You don't go firing off email to the movie studio asking them to re-do a scene, or change the actor.

After playing through SC3 and reading the posts here, I'll never install the voice pack.  I have a specific idea of what each race sounds like in my head, and I wouldn't want to have that ruined by hearing what Paul and Fred thought they should (jokingly or not) sound like.  If you have a problem with it, maybe the solution lies in fixing it for yourself instead of trying to push something on the community that it obviously doesn't feel is needed (or even wants).

-Kwamp

I was mostly referring to your 'who is more traumatised?' when you enacted all that algebraic technobabble but whatever.


Oh, I do.

Moral of the story Valaggar if you really want to stop annoying people, or me, you know what to do (I assume you know already).

It would seem to me that some of you fellows are taking Valaggar just a wee bit too seriously. If you don't like his topics, why read them at all? I mean, even with his crazy amount of postings, it's not like he's flooding more interesting and mature threads such as "I R INTERNET" and "MONKEY MONKEY" off the first page. If he'd be doing that, then I'd understand your ire.

And even though his posts may at times seems rather nonsensical and odd, they are still connected to the topic. It's not like he's posting "I am the rainbow machine, religion is sex, beer and pot" in every thread on the board.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly see how he might feel amusing. He posts a huge amount, and his type of writing is somewhat light-hearted, and can even be construed as silly if you're in the right (wrong) frame of mood. But if any of you were here for Z-man and monkeyboy, or even for good old Term, you should have the good sense to recognize some harmless silliness. Reply in spirit if you feel necessary, or just don't reply. But all this whining is really getting annoying.

Of course, if you're desperate for a solution, I suppose meep could overhaul the software to add an ignore option? It's a question of effort versus usefulness.

You mean like this (http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/forum/index.php?topic=708.0)?

Except here. (http://uqm.stack.nl/forum/index.php?topic=3657.msg47182#msg47182)

I'm not even sure why you're replying. Yes, just like that, only there used to be dozens of the things over here after we neutered him over at SCDB. (Without a moderators help no less).

And I said your not pushing worthwhile thread off the front page. Not that your not posting in them. I think this is exactly the sort of thing that confuses and annoys people.

The time you spent looking for Zanthius's post on another forum probably could have been better spent completing something that might actually help your arguments.

I really don't see the big deal here at all. You already have a project going that changes the voice yourself, so props for your own initiative there. If the voices irk you so much, can't you turn them off? My interests in acting and writing have evolved into me turning the voices off of characters in other games portrayed by very skilled actors and simply murmuring them to myself in the voice I want. I've never written any letters to Stephen King for the poor performance of the bit actors in "The Stand" (honestly, why are they so bad? D: ), so I don't see why you have to write letters to Paul Reiche about the Utwig.

1. What arguments?
2. I already knew Zanthius' post.

The arguments you're making about the Utwig's voice being of poor quality.

Meh... after all, that's just a question of opinion. I can't convince anyone that it's bad (and I've already pumped out lots of arguments).

Fact is, he's annoying a lot of people.
I think it is a valid position to argue that if someone's presence is detrimental to the community, even though he means well -- or at least, doesn't mean ill -- he should go.

Now I'm not sure I adhere to that position entirely. I want this to be a board where noone should be afraid to say what he thinks, even if that means tolerating some undesirable behaviour. That's why I try to keep moderation to a minimum. (That's not to say I don't wish Valaggar got bored and went elsewhere.)

But we were too late acting with Zanthius. I myself still found him tolerable, after he agreed to stick to a few specific threads in the off-topic section. But he chased away a few valued members of the community, and we shouldn't let that happen again.

So please, give me your input.

Assertion: Feeling experienced by majority of units identified as UQM forumers equals annoyance towards system unit.
Conclusion: System unit's presence equals inopportune plus unwanted.
Directive: System unit is directed to initiate warp engines.

<As the chaotic, swirling energies subsided, a heavy silence settled over the UQM forum.>

This isn't the first post in which you pretend to be a computer, and it's still too ambiguous to make sense.

EDIT: Though, after a few read-throughs, I think it is him leaving the forum and stating that it will die without him. Heh, right.

I've got to reply for Valaggar, he's at the moment at the insane asylum.
So... well he's not pretending to be a computer, just a Daktaklakpak (from SCNot3). See here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRKMljvb19Q).

Ah, and he's not stating that the forum will die without him, he's just trying to make himself a dramatic leave, poor Val. Some of you may recognize his last line as the beginning of the epilogue of vanilla StarCraft.



Yay my English has improved!

That doesn't do much good if you're the same person as he is.

You know, all this stuff saying "Valaggar ahould be banned" and whatever is really off-topic. I don't want to offend anyone, but if you're talking about his posts being stupid/nonsensical/off-topic is rather redundant  seeing as you're being rather off-topic here  :P. Unless he starts posting obscene material, give him a break. Besides, I haven't read all 900+ posts he's made in the time shorter than I've been here, but I actually think his posts are often witty and amusing in and odd way.

As for the actual topic of this thread, I think The Utwig voice is fine and doesn't really need changed.

I suppose you're right. Different things will annoy different people. I myself find some sort of child-like innocence in Valaggar, which makes him seem sweet rather than annoying. But the forum is under your jurisdiction, and if enough people complain, steps will have to be taken. I was unaware of any "agreement" with Zanthius. At the very least, he seemed to have no trouble entering new threads (such as the religion one). Perhaps you should work out something similar with Valaggar. Just a simple agreement that there will only be one Utwig voice thread where all posts concerning complaints, remakes, and other things are kept would probably remove a lot of the irritation most forumgoers feel.


This doesn't really help your case in any way.

Okay Meep-Eep, here is my input

Valaggar is not abusive, offensive, disruptive or antagonistic and he does not delight in putting others down. There are some perhaps more highly regarded forum members who are some of the above and no-one is asking for them to be restricted.

Valaggar is polite, friendly, self-effacing and loves Star Control. He can be good for the forum.

Valaggar needs to post less frivolous and “what if” threads. I would REALLY like to see the Utwig thing put to rest. I firmly believe that there is nothing to be gained in the
Utwig voice crusade. Emailing Paul about the voice is not a good look for the UQM forum, but banning him won’t necessarily stop that.

Valaggar needs also to be a bit slightly less weird and ditch his alter-egos.

Valaggar posts less now than he used to because of a Meep-Eep request. I don’t see why Meep-Eep or another moderator cannot kindly ask him to abide by a reasonable set of guidelines/restrictions. I have no doubt he would comply. I don’t think you can stop all his craziness, but I don’t think there is any need to.

I agree with Lukipela in that it is very easy to just ignore his threads completely. I always read them for amusement’s sake as much as anything else, but I don’t usually dignify them with a reply.


In conclusion:
Send him a list of dos and don’ts and leave it at that.

Wham, Bam, thank you Ma'm, you have this all wrapped up in a neat, uniform message there Cedric.

Pretty much what Cedric said.

ETA that the Utwig thing hasn't annoyed me, but I suppose it's getting to be a bit much... especially with the email.  It's a good thing tfb are good-natured about this.

Oh my, how I would have liked to make myself a dramatic return...
now this entire plan is ground to dust.

Cedric: you actually want me to make a list of don'ts including "Don't be so weird"? Because ofcourse Valaggar will interpret "weird" in exactly the same way as you and I do... Yes, that's going to work...

No I was thinking of more of a list of specific things like perhaps
1) Please don't mention Utwig voices
2) please don't post under an alter ego
3) Please dont post ala Daktaklakpak
4) Please post less that 4 posts per day
plus whatever else - others might have other suggestions

You requested some input so I have offered the best i could come up with. Sorry if I wasn't specific enough. Others might offer better solutions, or you might have other ideas.

5. Do not make unneccesary threads for the same subject over and over again.
6. Keep your thread creation to 1 per week tops.

the FAQ could contain something along the line of: Use general etiquette on the forums. We wouldn't have a silly forum rules thread then and still covered some of the bases. And give the mods a reason to hand out some whippin'  for apparantly no reason.  :D

7. Thou shalt not make too long first posts in your threads.
8. Thou shalt not impersonate moderators.
9. Thou shalt not post Syreen pr0n (unless it's well-drawn  ;D).
10. Thou shalt not make polls with too many options.
11. Thou shalt not make three posts in a row.
12. Thou shalt not spell the awful name whose initials are G.J..
13. Ignore all rules. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:IAR)

 - The Thirteen ( :-\) Commandments, given by the God meep-eep to the prophet Valamoses on Mount UQM.

Ah, and a slight change to 6.:
6. Thou shalt keep your thread creation to at most 1 thread of yours in 7 threads.

EDIT: God uses smileys...

I do not post often, but I have to give my opinion on this one...

I kind of like Vallagar, the man has brought some spirit back to the forums, and after all, every community needs their "fool" (no offense)  ;D

But I am getting a bit tired or hearing his rant about the Utwig voice. PLEASE STOP!

Also, writing e-mails to TFB about a subject that is clearly irrelevant for most of the people (besides what you might think, IT IS) is not going to help anyway.

C'mon Vallagar, please stop talking about this (or at least do not open any new threads about the subject, nor mention it every other post), its enough.

You are a valuable asset to the community, don't ruin it by being annoying.

Thanks.

I'll agree, Valaggar's constant senseless questions HAVE helped, especially with the novelization I'm working on (which I'm getting back to shortly. This is taking waaay too long), though many of his suggestions on things make no sense at all. A mathematical equation on wheter the Kohr-Ah or the Kzer-Za are more traumatized? Psychology doesn't work quite so well when turned into algebra.

I second the motion that we just let the voice-thing die. It should be obvious after the twentieth thread where people say  "I really don't care", that people really don't care.

definitely annoying.
--

Maybe defenetly, yep, but not definitely.

Valaggar does annoy me at times, but I don't think he's done anyhting ban-worthy. He's not actively trying to hurt the community. That said, you need to stop beating the Utwig dead horse into the ground. It's really, really obnoxious how much you go on and on about their voice.

However, while I don't think he deserves a ban, a suspension for a week or so might be good next time he gets out of hand.

To be honest, I doubt any rules would work at this stage. Like it or not, Val has built up quite a reputation for being repetitive, obsessive and annoying. At this stage, even if he stops spamming Utwig threads, ceases his dummy accounts (why is that even allowed?) and refrains from posting insanely long and silly posts, the image of him as such a poster will likely always remain with him.

Like I said earlier, I don't really think it's hurting the community. I do notice quite a few members who seem to be doing their best to shift our "friendly open and accepting" tradition though. Maybe we should also have just one thread for complaining about other posters?

EDIT: Along with not having many Utwig threads, I don't suppose we could try to keep just one picture thread as well, instead of filling the forum?

Ok. It's hard to qualify all the things Valaggar does that irritate people (how much is too much?). But he seems to have a good idea of some the things he does that irritate people. So I'd just say, try not to do that.

A few hard rules I would want to set:

• No more complaining about the voices. If you make another voice pack or something similar, don't make a new thread about it, but use one of your old ones.
• No more sock puppets. I'm deleting Galvenmeister and Lucas Mattheus. I should have done that the moment I realised they were sock puppets.
• No impersonating people, moderators or not.

Received, Valaggar?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/definitely

I motion we add a rule where he doesn't correct people's spelling in an attempt to be a smartass.

I had already deleted them before you posted this.

When I posted that, he hadn't modified his post and it read "defenetly". What I did was correct his spelling. "Maybe defenetly, yep, but not definitely" means "Maybe I am defenetly annoying, but not definitely annoying" (i.e. I'm not annoying), it was a joke.
You know, people shouldn't run around quoting postings and replacing their text with "bla bla bla" on the grounds that they are "defenetly annoying".

...

Greg Johnson developed Starflight. That game was a major inspiration for Star Control II; it pretty much defined the genre of games that Star Control II would later occupy. He wrote the dialog for several of the alien species in Star Control II, and designed some (by some accounts, most) of the spaceships in the game. Greg and Paul have great mutual respect; Greg has called Paul "one of the greatest game designers ever", while Paul has referred to Greg as a "game design god". However, since you don't like his voice acting of one alien species in Star Control, his name must not be uttered?

What colour is the sky in your world, Valaggar?

Valaggar, I'd rather see you go back to posting your crazy theories about dimensions and other SC2 fluff, rather then more Utwig voice complaints. You don't like the voice, you want it changed. We understand. Go make a website with its own petition and link it in your sig lol.

He is stopping. He'll be banned if he doesn't. Please don't bring it up again.

Edit: locking this thread.