EA is essentially meant for play testing various mechanics and features of a game. Voice acting is one of the areas that generally needs little to no testing - record, install and go. I would expect additional voice acting to be at the bottom of the list for EA - something that can easily be handled closer to full release, rather than early on, when the vast bulk of time needs to focus on things that actually need testing and development.
I'd much rather see additional levels, classes, races, spells, feats, skills, items, combat actions, camera and movement mechanics, and a boat-load of other features tested at this stage in development, than more voices.
I disagree. Not about what I'd rather see (cause clearly everything you listed I'd rather have too). But I disagree on the purpose of the EA, or at least of the early EA.
I think that the EA is essentially about raising money, which they have done, and which they should now spend on creating simple straightforward content like Voice Barks. Stuff that would reward us for showing out, testing, bug squashing, and providing feedback for their game for the past 3 months.
We need incentives to keep playing the same material over and over again. Voice set barks are relatively easy, "additional levels, classes, races, spells, feats, skills, items, combat actions, camera and movement mechanics" are much more difficult to implement. Which is why they should get on the phone with the person on their team in charge of the recording studio, and deliver on something that can be done relatively quickly but which will give a decent return from the players' POV, by encouraging engagement in replay.
They should also prioritize patching in additional content which becomes immediately available and is highly visible to the player, like stuff in Character creation or in the UI, or content in the earlier sections of the game when possible. So that their EA players see it right away (not after 2 hours of playing). That way when they see new stuff they will get excited, want to roll new toons, and continue playtesting the game. So its more likely that whatever is actually busted further along into the playthrough gets reported and tested out properly. So I can spend more time enjoyably replaying the actual game, rather than on these forums pining.
But that's just my take. Like honestly, how hard is it get the voice barks done? Why should this wait? Hire some actors hand 'em a single sheet with a dozen bark lines, hit record and lets go.
We don't need cinematics for this, we don't need endgame dialogue to already be mapped out. What little there is of voiced protagonist dialogue isn't synced anyway and its virtually non existent already. They should focus on barks, because that's what we hear first and most often, and its what gives the audible flavor to the custom PC right now. Let them figure out how far they want to take Voiced protagonist later on a year from now or whenever, but in the meantime more barks.
