Anyone disappointed with the voice acting? : V - Skyrim

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:42 am

All vendors should have equal functionality. Which means paths like this:
...voice1/vendor_weapon/hello_1.ogg
...voice1/vendor_weapon/hello_2.ogg
...voice1/vendor_weapon/hello_3.ogg
...voice2/vendor_weapon/hello_1.ogg
...voice2/vendor_weapon/hello_2.ogg

Are unavoidable without redirecting too much time and effort.

It's laziness is what it is. I mean, what kind of a food merchant for example, who sells food, says "I sell a bit of this, and a bit of that." when all they sell is food and nothing else? It makes no sense.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 9:02 am

I've never been to Disneyland...Claims of text providing exponentially more dialog opportunities are likely exponentially exaggerated.

It isn't an exaggeration. There is precedent in TES itself. Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion to a lesser extent had text dialogue options. In most instances, common townspeople could discuss a wide variety (at least ten, ranging from politics to rumors to personal inquiries) of topics. Disneyland is worth a trip also.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 2:38 pm

It's laziness is what it is. I mean, what kind of a food merchant for example, who sells food, says "I sell a bit of this, and a bit of that." when all they sell is food and nothing else? It makes no sense.

Sure, laziness. Have you actually worked on voicing a game? Because you should try that to understand why developers are "lazy" if you can't do it on the spot.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 9:26 am

I personally think that voice acting has limitations on how npcs can elaborate more on the specific situation, rather than have a generic all around dialog with a few specifics detailing that quest. Take for instance the choices you have when you have a system like morrowind where you can initiate and investigate more into dialog from multiple npc's. That way when you get into the mechanics of storyline you find that there is more potential for less effort.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 8:29 am

Actors? Some people call them junk. Me? I call them junk.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 9:17 am

Actors? Some people call them junk. Me? I call them junk.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 10:56 am

Sure, laziness. Have you actually worked on voicing a game? Because you should try that to understand why developers are "lazy" if you can't do it on the spot.

That isn't my job.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 6:34 am

No at all, actually i think its really fascinating, mainly after hearing (its not spoiler if i talk about npcs voices, is it?) Paarthunaxx, and Malacath voices... OMG, scary XD. What about Karliah? I love her voice *_*!

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 6:17 am

true! karliah is one voice i like

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:31 am

i hate hate HATE barbos' voice, what were they thinking? also clavicus' too on that matter

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 7:42 am

That isn't my job.

You don't understand how development goes and you don't want to find out how. That's too bad.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 10:35 am

Compare the voice acting to Japanese anime voice acting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO4eC_ZzVBc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=9xLp_B58_jo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V1AEvN8VZs

One does not need to understand their language to get it. Compare these with Skyrim's voice acting. You'll see that there is room for lots of improvement.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 8:54 am

You don't understand how development goes and you don't want to find out how. That's too bad.

A person does not have to be a movie director, to know when a movie is good or bad, the same way someone does not have to taste poison, to know that it can kill you.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 7:05 am

the same way someone does not have to taste poison, to know that it can kill you.

THIS in a voice acting would be great! We should give it a sage tone.... like an old man talking slowly!

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 7:27 am

A person does not have to be a movie director, to know when a movie is good or bad, the same way someone does not have to taste poison, to know that it can kill you.

And neither a person needs to be a game developer to understand certain things are not going to be done just because they are impractical. Yet you refuse to do it.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 2:53 am

The voice acting isn't bad. However, the lack in variety and the horrible fake nordic accents are.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 6:36 am

They are good for american standards, but still pretty crappy IMO. Only one I liked was general tellius (colonel tigh from BSG). ITS THAT FRAKKIN SONG!

I use the japanese voices with the rest in english. They are far, far, FAR better. They take voice acting pretty serious over there. Just switch steam to jp, copy voices and voices-extra bsa's to another folder, revert steam back to english, switch to offline mode, and replace the voices&extra files with the japanese ones you saved elsewhere. Huge improvement. Everything else, including subtitles, is still in english.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 6:52 am

And neither a person needs to be a game developer to understand certain things are not going to be done just because they are impractical. Yet you refuse to do it.

Hence, laziness. Bethesda is not a poor, rundown company with little funding. They are swimming in money, and can only gain from doing better quality work, yet they choose to cut corners to maximize profits. Point is, they already have my money, and it would not have killed them to have more pride in their flagship title.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 5:34 am

I accept that in this modern RPG age voice acting is probably necessary, but some of it in Skyrim had me cringing. Mehrunes Dagon sounds exactly like the elevator host in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. The old Blades member is so obviously Max von Sydow it immediately takes me out of the fantasy immersion. That is not to say all voice acting is bad, most of the stuff in the Winterhold College was good. Alduin sounded pretty badass too.

I guess with text you had the option of (1) imagining any kind of voice you wanted on an npc, and (2) exponentially more dialogue opportunities.

A minor issue to an otherwise great game though.

Text will -never- come back, sorry, but it's just going to be like that, personally ithought the acting in this game was EONS better than oblivion.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 8:44 am

Eh. Voice acting isn't that bad. There are a lot of duplicates which are especially noticeable when the actor has a unique voice, but that is bound to happen with the demographics and race\gender combinations - like the Dark Elves in Morrowind. Some of the actors didn't try very hard, and there are a few places where they read their lines with the wrong inflection apparently not understanding the context of what they were reading. The biggest 'gripe' I have about it is that I can't help but laugh when I hear Jim Cummings use his Nega Duck voice.. Other than that I'm curious\concerned about mod implementation, given that all dialogue is voiced, and all voices have already been recorded.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 11:05 am

Eh. Voice acting isn't that bad. There are a lot of duplicates which are especially noticeable when the actor has a unique voice, but that is bound to happen with the demographics and race\gender combinations - like the Dark Elves in Morrowind. Some of the actors didn't try very hard, and there are a few places where they read their lines with the wrong inflection apparently not understanding the context of what they were reading. The biggest 'gripe' I have about it is that I can't help but laugh when I hear Jim Cummings use his Nega Duck voice.. Other than that I'm curious\concerned about mod implementation, given that all dialogue is voiced, and all voices have already been recorded.

most modders want text back anyway, so it will be a bunch of telepathic mutes.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 10:05 am

They are good for american standards, but still pretty crappy IMO. Only one I liked was general tellius (colonel tigh from BSG). ITS THAT FRAKKIN SONG!

I use the japanese voices with the rest in english. They are far, far, FAR better. They take voice acting pretty serious over there. Just switch steam to jp, copy voices and voices-extra bsa's to another folder, revert steam back to english, switch to offline mode, and replace the voices&extra files with the japanese ones you saved elsewhere. Huge improvement. Everything else, including subtitles, is still in english.

Wow,that's actually pretty cool. Thanks.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 1:06 pm

The voice acting is beyond disappointing - it's so bad it makes me want to puke blood.

Why they didn't put the extra time and effort into getting this right, I don't know, as the rest of the game is first class.

Much of the voice acting is, at best, immersion breaking and at worst, so [censored]ing irritating that I have the urge to hurt...something. Anything.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 11:39 am

The voice acting is beyond disappointing - it's so bad it makes me want to puke blood.

Why they didn't put the extra time and effort into getting this right, I don't know, as the rest of the game is first class.

Much of the voice acting is, at best, immersion breaking and at worst, so [censored]ing irritating that I have the urge to hurt...something. Anything.

It will not help Skyrim's voice acting if you now start acting on the forums...

Btw, did you listen to the voices of the Daedra? Clavicus Vile's voice was actually good I thought.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 8:54 am

I personally like the voice acting, including the famous ones. I'm a big fan of Babylon 5, and love to hear Claudia Christian, my favorite character. I was also impressed the first time I saw the opening scene with General Tullius, and thought, "wow, that guy sounds just like Colonel Tigh" (Battlestar Galactica remake). I looked it up, and sure enough, he is played by the same actor. As for famous actors breaking immersion- not at all, at least for me. After all, they don't break immersion for me when I see them in movies or TV shows, and I can actually see the person, instead of just hearing their voice. For instance, when I watched Lord of the Rings, I didn't see Aragorn, and think of Commander Weps from Crimson Tide, or see Gimli, and think of Sallah from Raiders of the Lost Ark, or the Professor from Sliders.

Still, I think a game company would be better off using famous actors much more sparingly (only for special characters with limited lines), and use non-famous actors for everything else, and use the savings to create more voice lines by a larger pool of actors, so there are fewer re-used voices. There are literally hundreds of thousands of actors in the Los Angeles area alone that work pretty cheaply.