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sixto · 03-18-2025, 12:03 AM

Long-time OOTP player/new FHM player here. I enjoy 2D mode (I also play out my games in OOTP). Sorry in advance — I tend to write long posts.

I love the TTS feature. I think this feature is great, and could be awesome with a few tweaks.

Some observations:

- Would be great if the text PBP told us who scored a goal.

- I think it would be worth the cost to upgrade the TTS announcer to a human-sounding voice. Not a real person's voice — not necessary or advisable! But a voice that doesn't sound like a TTS voice from 1992 would be amazing. Probably need different voices for different languages, but still, even going as inexpensive as possible on a decent AI voice, I think would deliver a more immersive TTS experience.

- There are typos. But I don't think the developers should take time to fix it — they are busy enough! If the commentary text could be made available as txt files, I believe the community would jump on the chance to not only tweak but also enhance the commentary — probably in many languages!

- TTS omits some lines of PBP, probably because the text comes too fast for the speech. If every line were read, regardless of lag, though, I think it might be better.

- Then again, some lines of PBP like the calling of a play — which often get repeated 2, 3, even 5 times — might not need to be read at all. For accessibility reasons, of course, these PBP lines should be included. But if a user is interested in TTS for immersion and not because of vision challenges, an option to omit certain categories of PBP text would be welcome.

- The AI voice does a great job with names overall, but it's far from perfect. I'm a Flyers fan from way back, so I'm getting used to names like (Rick) Ticket, (Ilkka) sy-NEES-a-lo and "W. Gretzky" (because his brother Keith is also in the league, so the TTS always uses Wayne's first initial).

I'm guessing that creating a new database field for name pronunciation would be very difficult — not least because the pronunciation would be different in different languages. But what if you enabled a text file that could be read upon loading the game, where users could define pronunciations?

Andreychuk, "anndrichuck"
Krushelnyski, "crewshulnisskee"
Tocchet, "tocket"
Zezel, "zezzl"

Then just code the txt files to belong to various countries, so that North American pronunciation of Finnish names aren't hideous to Finnish ears. Users can fill in the rest, or just not care about the pronunciations because they a) almost certainly aren't using 2D mode and b) are definitely not using TTS mode!

Thanks for reading!

03-18-2025, 12:03 AM	#10
sixto Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 2,262	Long-time OOTP player/new FHM player here. I enjoy 2D mode (I also play out my games in OOTP). Sorry in advance — I tend to write long posts. I love the TTS feature. I think this feature is great, and could be awesome with a few tweaks. Some observations: - Would be great if the text PBP told us who scored a goal. - I think it would be worth the cost to upgrade the TTS announcer to a human-sounding voice. Not a real person's voice — not necessary or advisable! But a voice that doesn't sound like a TTS voice from 1992 would be amazing. Probably need different voices for different languages, but still, even going as inexpensive as possible on a decent AI voice, I think would deliver a more immersive TTS experience. - There are typos. But I don't think the developers should take time to fix it — they are busy enough! If the commentary text could be made available as txt files, I believe the community would jump on the chance to not only tweak but also enhance the commentary — probably in many languages! - TTS omits some lines of PBP, probably because the text comes too fast for the speech. If every line were read, regardless of lag, though, I think it might be better. - Then again, some lines of PBP like the calling of a play — which often get repeated 2, 3, even 5 times — might not need to be read at all. For accessibility reasons, of course, these PBP lines should be included. But if a user is interested in TTS for immersion and not because of vision challenges, an option to omit certain categories of PBP text would be welcome. - The AI voice does a great job with names overall, but it's far from perfect. I'm a Flyers fan from way back, so I'm getting used to names like (Rick) Ticket, (Ilkka) sy-NEES-a-lo and "W. Gretzky" (because his brother Keith is also in the league, so the TTS always uses Wayne's first initial). I'm guessing that creating a new database field for name pronunciation would be very difficult — not least because the pronunciation would be different in different languages. But what if you enabled a text file that could be read upon loading the game, where users could define pronunciations? Andreychuk, "anndrichuck" Krushelnyski, "crewshulnisskee" Tocchet, "tocket" Zezel, "zezzl" Then just code the txt files to belong to various countries, so that North American pronunciation of Finnish names aren't hideous to Finnish ears. Users can fill in the rest, or just not care about the pronunciations because they a) almost certainly aren't using 2D mode and b) are definitely not using TTS mode! Thanks for reading!