Did that really happen? I'm not in the Discord group for the Falcom fandom and apparently it seemed to kind of fade away. The rumor seemed to get the fanbase split up all over the place irrc reading some tweeters.
Yes. Sean Chiplock posted a link to it in the official Falcom discord channel I think or it was the Trails Discord. It wasn't up for very long and it was asked to be taken down and all links removed from the Discord an hour or two after posting. While I don't visit the discord channel, I did manage to procure the link and read it with the official signatures. I believe I mentioned it here previously around that time but purposely did not link to it. I mentioned some of the people who signed it and what characters they played. Off the top of my hand I only remember the voice actors who did Rean and Fie/Alfin.
Now whether or not it was actually sent, I have no idea. I know Sean started getting a lot bigger work as a voice actor after Cold Steel as he's relatively newer to the industry. Plus he interacts a lot with the Trails community and is always willing to quickly do short lines in the characters voice for kicks. He seems to have a lot of respect for XSeed, so I could see him not reprising his role.
As for the whole fandom split, I'm not sure what you're talking about. A good deal of them were NeoGAF members and when the recent fiasco happened, they all moved over to ResetEra. During this time I think a secondary invite only discord channel was created. I could probably join it if I asked, but eh, I'm not that worried about it. All the important information still surfaces in the usual places I get my info from regarding Trails/Falcom.
Xseed's been rather quiet and I believe certain active projects are coming to a close? Zwei Arges Adventure is out in a couple of weeks. I'm sure Cold Steel II is going to be out soon...wouldn't be surprised if it comes out by early February.
With XSeed's PC releases, they have some of the worst marketing ever. They announce its release two weeks before it actually releases and mentioned it on their twitter and facebook pages. That's it. Nothing else. I'm not even sure they use an official press release for it, just announce it on their twitter/facebook pages and send out one newsletter related to it.
Half the time it feels like they don't even say they're working on a PC release for a game and the first time anybody hears of it is two weeks prior.
I wonder if there's sorta a monkey wrench in the works though...that is the "Kai" version of Cold Steel I and II. How's Xseed going to handle that on PS4? Personally I'd actually like them to add the additional lines to the "remaster" version. Heck if there are higher res textures I'd love to see those added to retroactively added to the PC version...oh the dreams that I have that typically don't come true!
The fast forward the PS4 port will have is not the same as the PC version, so just a heads up there. As for the voice acting, the Japanese version will not include new voice overs. Since XSeed doesn't do any programming for their console games to my knowledge, I don't expect Falcom to port it with extra voice hooks just for the English port. I fully expect the port to be localized though.
If there are higher resolution textures with the PS4 version, XSeed typically will add them to the PC versions of the games.
By the way, voice actors in Japan are quite expensive with ridiculous contracts much like their music industry. Falcom often uses big name voice actors that cost a lot of money. It's speculated that it's what caused voice lines to be cut in the base game for Rean because he's apparently pretty big/expensive. Which is also why they're not adding in new lines for the PS4 port in Japan.
Hmm...there's some sort of a stream from Xseed today. Wonder if they'll drop a bombshell announcement tonight. Should make a bet with Drakeon a bottle of that FFXV Orange soda that they will.
I'm not expecting anything remotely bombshell worthy from them anytime soon. I wouldn't be surprised if they show off Zwei though. It starts in roughly ten minutes but I don't really ever bother watching their streams.