NPC Audio: Too repetitive/loud or simply overacted "placeholder" audio?

There's been several posts over a few releases about the "annoying" audio coming from NPCs in various scenes. Ardoris moaning, barfing in Brittany Estates, etc...

The more that I think about it, the more I believe the real issue might be that we are in need of a quality pass on vocal audio assets.

Note: I do like the barfing one though because it sounds the same as the one they used in Space Ghost Coast to Coast. I laugh every time I /puke and the sound triggers.

I was going to make a post about the "nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah" and whimpering in sieges that I dread when coming from or leaving the city gateway... but it's more that these sounds come off as overacted and dare I say... "placeholder"? They sound like mimicry of the actual activities they are trying to represent.

For example, you could argue the same thing about the male jump sound.... "Hggghhnnn!" or perhaps even the bandits' constant... "Hah!" "Huh hah!" "Huh!" "Hah hah!" The exaggeration stings sometimes.

It reminds me of when I was leading teams of Game Dev students for their Final Project courses. We would suggest that our students use ridiculous placeholder audio in their projects to "trigger" our in-house audio team so they would replace them with quality assets asap. It turned out to be very effective for our unique situation.

If these sounds are not placeholders though, perhaps we just need some more variety to random through?

Every bear I fight, my significant other always turns to me and says, "that sounds just like the bear from WoW."