I would suspect that the dialect such hillfolk use would be quite different from the Southern drawl we are all familiar with and might not make a bad dialect for a fantasy game. Just like some folk/bluegrass music I have heard might make for a good soundtrack in a fantasy game setting, while Nashville country music would not.


Well, I agree. I am not advocating for a historically accurate medieval accent. I am advocating against any type of accent that is recognizable as coming from a particular region of a country that can only trace its history back 200 years (okay, 400 years if you take it back to Jamestown). The hillfolk accent you are suggesting is not something that is going to be recognized by a majority of viewers as belonging to the Southern US, so that sounds fine to me.

Ideally, we would have unique and interesting accents for these types of games/films that would not necessarily be based on any particular country/region. I remember the original Highlander movie featured a main character who had an accent that was not instantly recognizable because the character was 400 years old and had lived in many places before settling in New York City.

EDIT: Here is a link to a video with "mountain talk" of Appalacian America. This would not be a bad accent for a fantasy setting but it sounds nothing like a stereotypical Southern drawl. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03iwAY4KlIU

Im fine with British accents being used in fantasy. It's a little annoying that we are always the badguys.. but i hate hearing american accents all the time. . (also- A song of ice and fire or "game of thrones" was Originally going to be a historical fiction. It was a very good series until prophecies told me everything that was going to happen. Now i don't even believe in Snow's death)


American (and australian) accents don't suit any Race. Not even high elves. African american redguards were alright though. I would prefer them to stereotypical Middle eastern failed impressions.

Dumner need their own voices.. morrowind voices

that isnt a good thing

Because Radiant Quest svcks hard.

Pretty much this. Can someone make the Jersey Shore intro using Skyrim and all Dunmer characters now please?

See.... when you have voice acting... people don't like the voices! we should all be playing skyrim with subtitles and no sound! every time you swing a sword it will say " whoosh" perfect!

Let's be clear - the Dunmer do not sound cockney. The only person in the game who sounds at all cockney is Delvin Mallory.
If Bethesda want to have English accents, I'd like to hear some northern accents. These colonials seem to think we're all bloody southerners.

Does not sound cockney? I pretty sure they sound exactly like dike Van Dyke's Cockney accent.

Fixed it for you. They do NOT sound British. They sound cockney!!! LOTR was invented by an Englishman, directed by an New zealander, with a mostly New Zealand and British cast and NOT made by America. In Spartacus many of the actors are English or Scottish or whatever. What other accent are they going to use than their own? They can hardly speak in Latin. America didn't USE British voices just because they were British. Have you even seen LOTR?

I love it when I find a seven page thread about something that bugs me, I heard the gravely preview voice and cheered but those new accents are definitely Cockney, bit of a shame but oh well, they've been living in Skyrim a long time now, good clean mountain air does the lungs a world of good, that's how I rationalise it anyway

Okay guys, lets change some of the voices to american accents:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9A-5hH3dsk (New York)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPmJK7iDL84 (Tennessee)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlPDVmgpXzg (North Carolina)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdVF_2WbRgQ&feature=related (California)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb9aAXo-u78 (Parts Unknown...I think thats in Delaware or something?)

That last one is worth its weight in gold, btw.

Would you want dunmer sounding like any american?

This is one of the reasons why it would be a phenomenally bad idea to have a voiced player character - can you imagine the problems that would cause?!

But I agree with Myrhn - (sorry I missed out some middle bits) - whatever Dunmer should sound like, and Mary Poppins era DVD is fine with me actually, they absolutely should NOT sound like any of the ones in his/her post.

And BTW Myrhn; that last one - is he for real?

The Ultimate Warrior...oh man, DESTRUCITY!!

Aren't Bretons the ones that are supposed to be British/Celtic?

Oh, I don't think so, otherwise they wouldn't look way they do. I miss the Morrowind Dunmer voice--it was deliciously menacing.

Celtic yes - but french celts... I always thought.
(i.e. Gauls)

I believe the term to describe the dunmers accent is 'mockney'.

No shame in mistaking it for An Aussie/Kiwi accent though, there are marked similarities.

That was the Ultimate Warrior, perhaps one of the strangest pro wrestlers to ever exist. The guy actually had his legal name changed to "Warrior" and now writes a conservative blog online. I could spend an hour on youtube watching nothing but clips of him.

I think some people that aren't american don't realize that when you watch an american movie or even a newscast, they often work with vocal coaches or practice a lot to "remove" any localization out of their voice. They want to sound neutral, vanilla. That clip I showed of Jeff Hardy (North Carolina) he had a hard time getting over in pro wreslting because when he first started, he had a much, much thicker North Carolina southern-style accent. I guarantee you he worked at "toning down" his accent.

Maybe the Dunmer in skyrim aren't even voiced by British/Australian/NZ/whatever actors, they could be Americans or Canadians doing their best accent because someone at some point decided Elves in Skyrim = British voices?

I've heard people suggest it would be cool to give the Altmer a Japanese/Asian flavoring to their voices, would be interesting to hear that.

You can't tell if a imaginary race talks with a British accent or not, as they're not real and we can't find out what they sounds like. Trololo

The actor that voiced the draugrs should have done also the Dunmers.

No, the Dunmer are Reapers. Don't believe me? Take a look:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaRdcVYTjRw

Next time they pick a 'british' voice actually get someone from Britannia to do the VA please.

They are now.

I find the Cockney Dark Elf voice's funny.

LMAO! your so right! I HATE!!! the Elf Voices.... the wood elves too... they arent the shrimpy squaky voices we heard chirping around in Morrowind.... Bethesda dropped the ball...