Text-to-speech has been removed from the game.

The developers said on the Steam forums that there is an issue with the TTS servers and they have no ETA on when this feature will return. Apparently it's still in for premium users. This is the whole reason I wanted to play the game in the first place! Such a bummer.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

That's not a server issue

Fuck Boyle

Well, it could be if they are having load issues. I'm sure only a tiny fraction of people who play the game are premium users, it's a lot easier to manage 500 connections than 5,000.

@angethedude: Yeah it was removed two or three days ago. Sucks. As soon as I went to play it and saw the message I was like "Nope."

Yeah, it definitely sounds like a server issue. I think the best evidence is in the Quick Look, where the speech lagged for about 15 seconds or more half the time.

That is heartbreaking. Hopefully they can resolve the issue soon.

Yeah, been that way for a while. The influx of Steam users and GB duders broke this already broken game almost beyond repair.

Shit. Never got around to playing it but it seems like the gaming equivalent of Birdemic: it's a total fucking travesty of a game, and yet it's all the better for it because it's so goddamn weird. I doubt that anybody's gonna continue playing this anymore unless the devs fix the bugs in it and bring text-to-speech back for free users

thats what that patch notification was at the end of the QL. i went to play it that day and sure enough, the T2P was gone. its absolutely useless now and im not paying to have it.

Big shame for the devs, I hope they get it fixed quickly. They have a bit of momentum at the moment. It would be a shame to waste it.

They use someone else's server system to do the text to speech stuff and because the influx of people was so large and so sudden they were not prepare and are working to get it fixed. These guys aren't being shady, you've seen the game. They just aren't great developers (yeah I said it) so it's gonna take them a while to get that stuff fixed, at least their trying. :)

http://community.velvetsundown.com/index.php?topic=191.0 - RIGHT NOW: Text-to-speech feature temporarily unavailable

Unfortunately we are facing some issues with the text-to-speech feature so there are no voices in the game at the moment. We have contacted our text-to-speech service operator and they should be able to fix it soon.

UPDATE: We had to disable the voices temporarily. ETA is currently a couple of hours according to our text-to-speech provider.

UPDATE2: Unfortunately we can't provide ETA at the moment - this is taking longer than we expected.

UPDATE3: We have re-enabled the voices but it seems that the TTS server is down again. So no voices for now.

UPDATE 4: It seems that the TTS server is down again. So no voices for now. We'll keep you updated.

UPDATE 5: We had to disable the voice system for free games for the time being due to the high demand. This is not a permanent decision and we are currently discussing with our TTS provider for a solution. Voices are available for premium users.

I just listened to the Bombcast and they mentioned this issue. Still bummed! I will not bother to play without this feature since that is the main selling point of the game for non-crazy people.

I AM TENNIS

Its probably a server load issue, if it still exists for premium users. Not enough servers, so they prioritize paying customers, seems fair.

That's really unfortunate! Hopefully they figure something out soon.

Well, that game is dead to me now then. *uninstalls*

yep, that was pretty much the one thing the game had going for it.

Though why the hell didn't they put the text to speech engine client side? makes no sense to me, it's not like voice recognition that benefits from a central database or anything, it's just freaking text to speech... maybe it has to do with licensing or something.

The TTS stuff is pretty decent it seems to be handled out of house, it does sadly make the game lose something.

Downloaded the game instantly after the quick look. Thanks for the heads up, I may never play this game now.

Fix this, developer. Thanks.

I mean, their business plan is complete garbage. They're giving away half the game for free, and if you don't like that half, you can wait a week and play the other half when they swap scenarios.

If they wanna break out the text-to-speech stuff to make any money at all, good for them.

How much does the premium service cost?

@veektarius: 5 bucks a month

@bocam: 5 bucks sounds pretty reasonable to me for some stupid entertainment...

That's a huge disappointment. I hope they can get it back online soon because until then this sucks for everyone involved.

Don't get why it's a subscription - I imagine they plan to add more scenarios but I'd rather just pay a flat fee and buy extras as DLC or something.

But he's opening a club. A drug club. 50 might be there. "In Da Club."

Ummm, it fairly obvious that GB, taking about and showing off the game, increased demand on the servers by 10,000%. It probably also means a 10,000% jump in sales...but, well, we will see how this pans out.

Well there goes any hope that I'll play it...

@bollard said:

This whole thread is about how their servers are being overloaded by the amount of users. The more paying members they have, the quicker everyone else gets to hear the speech.

Preeeetty sure you misunderstood what I said.

It's kinda weird that it's a subscription, but if you wanna mess around with the TTS stuff then 5 bucks for a month seems perfectly reasonable to me. Bear in mind if you didn't subscribe you only have access to one scenario, so you'd probably get bored fairly quickly. If you don't care about playing the game and just wanna type dumb stuff for a computer to read, there's plenty of easy and free options available to you elsewhere.

Well no voice means no slice for this game. I'm done.

I don't think asking you to pay them any money to use the voices is some travesty like some people's reactions seem to suggest.

@bollard: You were talking like the subscription pays for content, when it really mostly just supports the server stuff.

Paying the 5 bucks or whatever for a month seems reasonable. You will get the ridiculous text to speech and 12 year olds yelling dirty words over and over again don't tend to pay for stuff so you won't get matched with them. Win win.

I was saying if they had made the game paid rather than F2P with a pointless subscription model I'd be more interested, and they'd probably have a better turnover rate. Right now what they offer for the subscription is terrible value for money. If I paid to unlock everything say for $20 and they released new levels at $5 a pop then it would surely be more sustainable, and better value.

I tried a game yesterday (no voices) and I haven't been that bored by a game in a long time.

@bollard said:

Oh, I didn't know you were talking about it from their side of things. Right now, what would be best for them is for everyone to move to the UK, because due to their currency stuff, I'm paying what I think is closer to $10 per month. Other than that, I have no idea what would be best for them financially.

Follow me to bone town.