..American Accents.

to start: I'm buying this game and its going to be fun.

... it just really irritates me that this accent is so prevalent in fantasy and steampunk genre.

ooh wait - this is constructive criticism and could lead to an interesting thread.

-locked in 3 , 2 ....

Says you. Nowhere does it say steampunk has to have British accents.

Fun fact. British accents used to be similar to American accents, so it is the British who diverged away and not Americans.

are you a bit silly?

AT NO POINT DID THE BRITSH SOUND LIKE AMERICANS. - you did that to yourselves.

LOL

This thread is going places.

Steampunk has nothing to do with accents.

Find that last bit hard to believe, especially considering where several British accents are so distinct that an experienced linguist can tell the village that some people come from, while others (seemingly) have changed very little from the 1800's, aside from slang terms.

It's more likely that American accents diverged- we have regional accents, but with the exception of the "Brooklyn" accent, you can't tell what city someone was likely born/raised by how they say their P's and Q's.

You might have gotten confused with a study that determined that a specific American Accent is believed to be spoken in a manner that English was originally spoken before regional accents were developed. This doesn't mean that British English split off from American English, but rather its speakers mostly moved to the United States, while its use died out in Britan. Basically, American English split off from British, just as British split off from this accent, and it somehow managed to survive long enough and prosper once more in America.

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/113640o, Im not "a bit silly". Logic dictates that the way one speaks can have a major effect on how their accent sounds. If you pronounce words "as Americans do" then you will sound American, mostly, so there is a strong support that the early colonists from the UK spoke much like modern day Americans.

This is all a generalization, obviously.

To be honest I see where he's coming from. Especially when you hear the devs talk about how they went to Britain to capture the morphology of British faces and, indeed, the game was originally going to be set in London and is heavily influenced by 1850's London still. I'll be quite irritated if the Bottle Street gang members, who look very dikeensian, sound like they come from Texas. It kind of breaks the immersion for me as I can't help but hear voice actors instead of the world's people when I hear them talk like that. It just seems contradictory after taking all those cultural, architectural, anatomical and historical influences that must have taken so much time to research to not have them sound British.

^ this guy gets it.

I think this guy gets it.

Steampunk is a style of things, not a language or accent.

*gets to vendor in game owing every single aesthetic choice to britain

-"hey y'all I got some real neat stuff for sale dontchaknow"

*shoots self in head

Are we talking about the same game here? I don't remember any ole' western accents.

Also isn't "dontchaknow" canadian?

lol I know it won't be that bad...

but it wont be much better. I could deal with a mix of accents for this setting, sure.
But its really quite jarring to the ears of non-US gamers, instant immersion breaker.

I find it hilarious when I speak to American gamers online that think they dont 'have' an accent....too many facepalms to count.

lol. see above.

so they speak in binary?
I can assure you the accent is quite thick.

this is going nowhere.

the real issue is WHY does it sound wrong to international gamers , not ' IF ' .

who knows, maybe all the poor people will be british sounding- its a step up, we're usually orcs >_>

Sorry buddy, but speak for yourself, and don't asume that every non-american shares your "immersion problem".

And lastly: It's not steampunk

Are you absolutely sure, because the devs have said so plenty of times.

go watch a few vids, off you pop.

Yes, i am ssure.

Just because they say it's steampunk, does not mean that it is steampunk.

Do a google search "steampunk".

I am a non-US gamer, a dane in fact, and honestly? I couldn't give a single thought to the accents AS LONG as the voices are done well and convincing.
I don't know why it should be such an immersion breaker, really. The immersion breaks when they sound flat or unconvincing.

So yeah, don't expect every non-US gamer to have the same opinion matey
however you are entitled to it and we're all different!

ALSO
although they call it "Steampunk", it isn't, which some of the Arkane folks agreed on this very forum,
the only reason they call it steampunk, is because it's the only actual existing theme they're closest to.
I believe they themselves called it "Alt-Tech" or something like that. A few of us went with "Victorian Punk" or the liking.

No it's not really Steampunk, the world of Dishonored really looks like it's own thing that doesn't fit any [insert-genre]-punk category. Steampunk doesn't need to have British voice actors but this isn't steampunk. I would say Dishonored should have British voice actors because it is almost entirely based on Britain; the culture, architecture, the style of the adverts, NPC faces, even the design of some of the enemies. From this point of view it's just strange to hear an American accent, especially considering how much the devs have talked up these NPC conversations: if we're going to hear American accents throughout the game it'll just seem out of place. I'm not against American accents but if all the NPCs talk like that I'll be annoyed.