I hope with all the money Bethesda makes they'll be able to : V - Skyrim

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 10:44 am

I think Christopher Plummer did ok, but Joan Allen, who's a top notch actress, really doesn't shine at all in this game. She sounds like she's just reading down the list of dialogue, which is what the 'behind the scenes' video seemed to show. Granted, without any visuals or real context it must be hard to nail it, but I think less expensive talent could have done a better job. And anyways, I'm sure most of us didn't buy the game for the celebrity voices.

And besides that, the material is pretty bad. I mean, the story is fine, but the writing really isn't that impressive.

Agreed...

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 2:57 pm

I wonder how much larger the budget will be with the sales they've had.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 8:51 am

Also, wtf is with the bad Australian accents for the Dunmer? It may not be as bad as the puncy Altmer voices in Oblivion but was it really that hard to find an actual Australian voice actor?

I wonder how much larger the budget will be with the sales they've had.

Without two Fallouts, Brink and Oblivion alone I'd say they have almost unlimited money for developing

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 6:10 am

By the time next TES game comes out maybe they will use some of the advances in voice synth software.
Like having 30 VAs and then using some kind of software to adjust pitch curves and phenomes or something.
Then maybe they can make tons of unique sounding voices from a smaller sample of spoken dialogue.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:30 pm

The problem isn't the number of voice actors, it's their management. They take good Voice Actors like Wes Johnson and give him like THREE characters in the entire game. Meanwhile, Arnold Schwarzenegger, that Romanian woman, the voice of Sven, the voice of Ysolda and the voice of Belethor are freaking EVERYWHERE.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 5:50 am

I'm just glad that they didn't use the same voice actors that they did in the skyrim demo that todd howard did.

Hod, Alvar, and Sven sound terrible!

They don't even have accents.

youtube..com/watch?v=ZMNuvMKoPD4

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 6:11 pm

The reason some may think there aren't a lot of VAs is that you hear the generic NPCs a lot more than the unique ones.

Then of course there are the really BAD voice actors who sound like they're reading the dialog off a card and have ESL. At release, Farengar was one of those...it's been improved a bit (When did he get a San Francisco lisp?) but there are still a few NPCs who just make you laugh.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 4:45 pm

I like how the guards all speak like the Terminator.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 12:32 pm

This is what I hope they do with the next game-

Make the game with all text. Once the game is "finished" then hire the voice actors. That way, all the changes have been made, all the characters are fleshed out, the writers are happy with how they matured and developed the dialog, and the actors read their lines then the game is released. I have read currently they hire voice actors and then they are locked into what they have done in the event someone wants to make changes. They have to either stay with what they have or rehire the actors to update lines.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 6:26 pm

I agree...we need a different voice for every single character...every single one...drunks and all need a different voice

I remember in new Vegas how I loved sunny smiles and spent hours with her during tutorial and in goodsprings and then on my first adventure outside of goodsprings I travel yo primm and low and behold I hear sunny smiles at a table talking to me and I thought...hummm...why are you here and then I realized it was just an average Joe npc with sunnys' voice....killed the immersion

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:12 am

I hope they go back to text dialogue.

^This. Fully voiced dialogues sacrifice too much content and options. Voiceovers should be limited to ambient voices - battlecries, greetings, NPCs talking to each other, laughter, etc. Combined with good animations, this gives enough "feel" of the character, enables more dialogue options and content, and makes modding much easier.
Besides, just imagine how many differenct ambient voices they could have done with the same amount of voiceactors. Greetings for every race, disposition, class, ... The world would feel a lot more alive.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 5:42 pm

Bioware and Rockstar both handle voice acting much better than Bethesda. It's not that Bethesda is bad, they're imbalanced. If they are going to set an accent for the Nords (germanic/scandanavian) then they need to stick with it. Half of them have this accent, then all their children sound like they walked off the set of Hannah Montanna. I think rule of thumb with fantasy settings, don't have American accents.

Max Von Sydow and Christopher Plummer were awesome, but Joan Allen was horrible; however Lynda Carter is always the worst.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 10:32 am

I think the voice acting is alright but your always going to have characters with the same voice as another in a game like skyrim because there are so many characters in it

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 12:31 pm

They could always voice main characters + the random banter(could use a bit of toning down on that though) instead of voicing every single line of dialogue from every NPC, which TBH doesn't add that much and most of us skip a lot of it anyway once we've heard it once already.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 8:37 pm

I hope they go back to text dialogue.

Honestly I'd be fine with that. Spend that cash on bugs, polish and content.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 9:07 am

More VA's, I would rather have less but more talented VA's like what Morrowind/Fallout 2 did.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 12:32 pm

I'd rather they hire more people to actually test before release.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 11:52 am

The writing and voice acting are some of my favorite parts of the game. I think most characters sound great.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 8:24 am

I see all the Daedric lords get their own actors for maybe 3 lines during a single quest, while all the day to day vendors and guards get the same voice. I don't think Esbern has said more than two things to me since he cut me out of the Blades; waste of money to pay these guys.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 6:03 pm

The voice-actors also need better scripts to work with. I am sure they must struggle to put any feeling into most of the lines, since a lot of the casual dialogue is more like strings of information than conversation.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 2:41 pm

I hope they go back to text dialogue.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 8:05 am

I hope they invest the money to develop a real radiant AI, like in the demo for Oblivion.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 10:18 am

Actually I think they hired 70 for the game. Maybe do some research before using incorrect facts to make your arguement.

Well if that's true then they over-use a small number of actors for key characters far too often. Maybe it's just that "one" guys voice that's incredibly abundant; the guy who does the Jarl of whiterun and about 20% of skyrims population.

Radiant AI is also a myth, it's just a hype engine. AI and Bethesda is like oil and water

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 3:58 pm

I hope they invest the money to develop a real radiant AI, like in the demo for Oblivion.

That Radiant AI in the demo was all scripted dialogue, I don't think we ever actually saw Radiant AI in all it's "glory".

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 5:58 pm

I hope they go back to text dialogue.

This,

Spoken dialogue heavily dumbs down exposition and forces every npc to "get to the point" as soon as possible.