All this discussion is for naught, because Bethesda will be recycling approximately the same ten voice actors used in Oblivion (and Fallout 3, too, unless my ears deceived me). There will be the occasional unique voice actor, of course, like Patrick Stewart, Liam Neeson or Max von Sydow. Max von Sydow starred in the film adaptation of Stephen King's Needful Things — wonderful actor, that one.

In before someone tells me there are actually twenty-plus voice actors for Oblivion... I'm sure you're right, but after meeting hundreds of characters, they all start to sound like clones; the exact number of actors becomes a moot point. I feel like I'm meeting the same character over and over again.

I'm probably one of the few old-school holdouts left who wishes the dialog was still text-only.

you have been eaten by a grue

I understand your point abou thte numbers game. I really think that a bit of variance is great, but after a while I don't even pay attention to the voices. Then again, maybe it was because of the lack of variety.

Crap! Was it the chicken or the egg!!!

Not at all. A little imagination has always gone a long way with the ES series. With features that are nearly impossible to implement, like unique voices for everyone, sometimes it's better to leave blanks for the player to fill in.

Whenever I pick up Oblivion now (which is probably every few months or so) to take the game for a short spin, I have to turn voices off and stick to subtitles. With no offense intended to the talented voice actors of Oblivion, I'm sick of listening to you.

What they need to do more then anything else with voice acting is to have enough voice actors that they do not have to do more then one or at the very most two NPC's, that in my oppinion was the worst part about Oblivion is the fact that they had so few voice actors that tons of them sounded the exact same....

Kudos! :tops: :rofl:

Today's scandinavian languages has more in common with german than ancient nordic. Make that icelanders and I'm happy.
Also, nords aren't scandinavian or vikings. They are nords. No need to make them even more stereotypical than they already are.

I feel like a lot of you assume that TES Skyrim is supposed to be Europe - it is not. It's a fantasy game drawing off different elements.

I don't mind what they do with the voice acting as long as they keep the original voice actors around as well. They are part of the elder scrolls experience for me, most of them have been around since Redguard!

*edit*
Out of pure curiosity does anyone have photos of the voice actors?

I agree to some extent. I don't like TES becoming too much influenced by the real world, it should still feel like its own universe. The Nord voices from past games suits me just fine. But I still wouldn't mind if they did sound like Scandinavian. And you're right, Icelandic is the lagnuage most similar to ancient nordic, but still there's a long way between Swedish/Norwegian and German (but Danish does sound a lot like German, mostly because of the way they and people in southern Sweden pronounce "r").

Yes, altough I must point out rolling "r", like in the northern swedish, is used by southern germans as well. Some norwegian dialects also use a guttural "r". I've often mistaken some norwegians for germans speaking swedish with a german accent.
The melody of the language is what decides how mispronouciation works, not consonants.

I could say the same about Norwegian and Swedish! (What's the difference, anyway).

It would be nice for them to have some sort of accent, instead of just speaking plain Cyrodilic. And the Old Norse influenced names? You're pronouncing them as if you were American! Blasphemer!

The names are at least going to be influenced, like the name we already know(Esbern), and people from Bruma in TES:IV(like Olav, Jorundr, Skjorta, Olfand etc)

Haha, yeah, Skjorta was awesome (swedish for shirt).

Japp, means the same in norwegian

Yeah, thought of that right after I posted *facepalm* .
Hilarious pronounciation in Oblivion also.

And why not having canadiens?

The accent does matter, they can put caricatural accents of colored people, it wont bother... For the accenr.

Actually, Max Von Sydow is Swedish...

"Skj???rta".

I didn't even notice that her name was "Shirt", because the pronouncation of her name (which I heard before meeting her) made me think of something alien.

About Scandinavian voice actors: Seeing as it's Wes Johnson and not some Italian dude that voices the Imperials, I don't think it's necessary that they bring in Scandinavian voice actors.

:facepalm:

How do you know? All you are going on is the sound of the Oblivion Nord voice actor. That one little fail can't offset the entire ES series. Personally, if they can do it well, I'd love some Germanic/North European voice actors.

Indeed, I never thought about that. The english pronunciation of "Esbern" comes as close to the norwegian pronunciation of the very common name "Asbj?rn" as it is possible to get!

Latin never sounded italian in it's original form though ^^ ...

Well seeing as how all the races are unique to TES even if their architecture might be based on real world peoples, they can sound whatever way Bethesda thinks fit. Nords are not swedish or anything, they are nords! I mean you don't see people asking for a bayou accent for Argonians because they are reptiles from a swamp.

Haha. Thanks for the information.

What was wrong with the Nord voice in Oblivion. I thought it represented Nord's well.

It will only matter because it makes the Nords that much more unique. Rather than simply making them sound like tough American dudes, which I found a bit annoying, why not take the next step? Bethesda seems like they can pull it off in terms of voice actors. (assuming Bethesda is upping the number of voice acting involved)

If not, I won't complain. Despite my annoyances, the Nord voices in Oblivion weren't so bad and fitted nicely.