Hello! I've yet to get past the copper age in my Vintage Story adventures, but I've been greatly enjoying the game. At the same time, there's some shortcomings to accessibility that exclude many people in multiplayer settings, including people with reading disabilities and nonspeaking AAC users such as myself. I use a macbook with specialized text-to-speech software to communicate with people, and in present times there's no straightforward way to integrate such technology into existing voice chat software, which means I'm left out in multiplayer settings where people are using VC.
A good text reader, then, should be considered an essential feature of the game to work towards, as it's necessary to ensure everyone can understand the content and communicate with other players. With that in mind, I must strongly caution against implementing the TTS voice used in Discord and Certain Other Games -- because it is terrible. It's quiet, mumbling, and difficult to understand. It often fades into the background music and goes unheard by other players.
The most ideal option would be to implement a customizable text reader. Customizability is a basic feature of most TTS software; at the bare minimum, you're able to modify the speed, pitch and volume of your voice. I really like the set of "voice" options for the wah-wahs your character can make in the character creation interface, but I'm hoping in the future this can be expanded from wah-wahs to actual synthesized speech with a diversity of voices, so I can have a distinct and recognizable spoken voice in the game. I believe such an approach could improve the immersion factor even for people who don't need TTS, especially if you include options to limit the distance at which one character's voice can be heard by another.
I have a group of friends hoping to start a server at some point, and when that happens I'm hoping I can fully participate. For that to be possible, I need a good text reader! Please take this into consideration as you continue developing the game, and thanks for reading!