Narrator guide

Thanks for thinking about lending Lore Forever your voice. This page covers what to record, how to record it and how to send it in. You don't need to know anything about add-ons.

Upload your recordings Download the clip list Ask on Discord

What a voice pack is

A voice pack is a small add-on of its own, installed next to Lore Forever, that holds a set of recorded narrations. Players pick a voice in Options › AddOns › Lore Forever › Narration voice.

When a player picks your pack, every narration you recorded plays in your voice. Anything your pack doesn't cover plays in the default Lore Forever voice, and anything without a recording at all is read aloud in the game voice. So a pack never breaks anything by being incomplete.

The clip list

The clip list is a spreadsheet (CSV) with one row per narration. Open it in Excel, Google Sheets or LibreOffice. It's rebuilt with every Lore Forever release, so it always matches the lore text in the latest version: download a fresh copy when you start a new batch.

Each row has:

id

The narration's ID, for example zone:stormwind or zone:stormwind#faq3 (the third question about Stormwind).

file name

The exact name your recording must have, for example zone_stormwind.mp3.

suggested narrator

Which people the narration suits, for example dwarf for Ironforge. It's a suggestion: one narrator can record everything, and several people can share a pack.

text

The exact words to read.

hash

A short code that identifies this version of the text. You don't need to do anything with it.

Reading the text

• Read the text exactly as written. Don't add, drop or reword anything, even small words: players see the same text on screen while they listen.
• If you're unsure how to say a name, ask on Discord.
• The lore text is sometimes corrected or rewritten. When the text of a narration changes, your recording of it is marked out of date and the default voice takes over for that narration until you record the new text. Everything else in your pack keeps playing.

Recording settings

• Record in a proper recording app (Audacity is free) with a decent microphone, not a phone call, voice message or video app.
• Mono, 44.1 kHz (48 kHz is fine too).
• MP3 at 64 kbps or higher, or OGG Vorbis. WAV, FLAC, M4A (what phone and Windows voice recorders save) and WebM are fine on the upload page too: it turns them into MP3 before they go up.
• Loudness about -16 LUFS integrated, with peaks at or below -1 dBTP. Most audio editors (Audacity, Reaper, Audition) have a loudness normalization option that does this in one step.
• Short silence at the start and end of each file: a second at most.
• Just your voice: no music, sound effects or background ambience.
• The upload page checks every file and turns away ones we can't use, saying why: recorded below 44.1 kHz, phone-call or voice-message quality, heavy clipping, a lot of background noise, or very quiet. A bit of background noise gets a warning instead.
• Record in a quiet room. Soft furnishings help; a closet full of clothes works surprisingly well. Watch for fans, traffic and computer noise.

Not sure your setup is good enough? Upload one narration on the upload page: it checks the file against this list as soon as you drop it in. Or send it for review first and get feedback before you do the rest.

Naming the files

On the upload page you can drop a single file on its line, and then the name doesn't matter. Names matter when you upload a zip or a whole folder at once: then name each file as the file name column of the clip list says, for example:

• zone_stormwind.mp3: the Stormwind intro
• zone_stormwind__faq3.mp3: the answer to the third Stormwind question (note the two underscores)

If you record another format, keep the same name with its own ending, like .m4a, .wav or .flac. Files that don't match a name in the list can't be used: the upload page lists them, with the closest name when there is one, so you can rename them and drop them again.

Partial packs are welcome

You don't have to record everything. A pack with a handful of narrations is useful, and you can add more later. A good first batch is the capitals and starting zones (Stormwind, Ironforge, Darnassus, Orgrimmar, Undercity, Thunder Bluff, and the zones and first areas where each people starts): they're what most players hear first.

Rights and credit

• When you send your recordings, you agree to the narrator release: a short, plain-language page that lets us ship your recordings in Lore Forever voice packs.
• The lore text is adapted from the Warcraft Wiki under CC BY-SA 4.0. A recording of it is an adaptation of that text, so voice packs are released under CC BY-SA 4.0 as well.
• You choose your credit line. It shows in the voice picker and on this site, for example "Narrated by Jane Doe", your handle, or a link to your channel. You can also stay anonymous.

Hear your voice in game

You can play your recordings in Lore Forever before you send them, as often as you like.

1. Upload some lines on the upload page.
2. Press Download my test pack there.
3. Unzip it into World of Warcraft\_classic_beta_\Interface\AddOns. It's the same folder every time, so to update it, download again and unzip over the old one.
4. Restart WoW the first time. After that, /reload is enough.
5. In Options › AddOns › Lore Forever › Narration voice, pick your voice (it ends in "(test pack)").

The test pack has only the lines whose recording matches the current text. A line whose text changed since you recorded it is left out until you record the new text; the upload page says how many were left out. The pack is just for you to test: everyone else gets your voice when you send it and it's published.

Your voice isn't in the list? Restart WoW, and check the folder isn't doubled, like AddOns\LoreForever_Voice_TestName\LoreForever_Voice_TestName: the inner folder belongs straight in AddOns.
A line plays the default voice? That line isn't recorded yet, or its text changed since you recorded it.

Sending your recordings

1. Open the upload page, pick a language and sign in with Google. Your first upload starts your voice; name it whenever you like.
2. Upload your recordings. Drop a zip or a whole folder of named files on Upload many recordings at once, or drop single files on their lines. Every file is checked against the recording settings first, and you see what saving would do before anything is saved: new lines, lines it replaces, files already there, names we can't place, recordings of text we've reworded since, and files that failed the checks. Saving only changes the lines in your upload.
3. Hear it in game with a test pack whenever you like. Fixed a few takes? Drop just those files, or your whole folder again: files that are already saved show as unchanged and are skipped. A test pack you edited can go back the same way.
4. Press Send for review with your credit line. The first time, you agree to the narrator release there. You can come back, add lines and send again.
5. We build the pack, listen to every file and get back to you if anything needs another take.
6. The finished pack is published on the Voices page with your name on it.

Can't upload here? Put the files, named as above, in one Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive folder anyone with the link can view, and send the link with the submission form instead.

Players: installing a voice pack is covered on the Voices page.