I don't know, it was kind of annoying that male Dunmer really couldn't shout or have any particular emotion in their voice.

Agreed, anytime they tried to have any sort of emotion, particularly cheer or warmth, always sounded utterly ridiculous.

Voices that are low and gravelly are fine...but Baker's is overdone.

I'm so happy to see you, I could burst!


Try reading that in a MW Dunmer voice instead of the Oblivion Bosmer one.

Imagine that voice for the male Dunmer Dragon Shouts. Would be bad ass.

Tribute video of what I'm talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG8OjKiGAvE

Dark Elves shouldn't sound like they did in Oblivion. That's Wood Elf voice. While on the subject Altimers should have more nose up voice as well, sort of an imperial sound to it, but I digress, this is another topic about Jeff Baker, the voice actor of Dark Elf males in Redguard and Morrowind.

Arguments against:
But they don't breathe the ashy volcano air of Morrowind, they shouldn't sound like they drank 300 gallons of whiskey and smoked every cigarette they could find.
- There were characters in Oblivion who were from Vvardenfell, more specifically characters who were in Morrowind who didn't have that rough voice. All the dunmer of Oblivion sounded the same.
That was because they were so far away from Red Mountain.
- The Dunmer henchman in Redguard was even more far away from red mountain than Dunmer of Cyrodiil. Yet he still had that specific voice.
Bethesda can't afford more voices
- They can, and they should enlist more voices. It's not like Jeff Baker is the most expensive voice actor. I'd happily drop out Nicholas Gage from the voice acting role and hire 4 lesser known actors to do more voices.
Doing that voice for many characters can make one lose their voice for a long time
- They can also hire other actors who do that voice. It's not like Jeff did the voice for every ghoul in the new Fallouts.
The actor died
- He did voice for Oblivions expansion and Fallout 3. He is not dead.

I would have to say, I hope he doesn't return. And that is not because I dislike his Dunmer voice, I think the Morrowind Dunmer voices are fantastic. Talk about character and atmosphere. I still get almost shivers down my spine walking in Vivec and hearing that "We're watching you... scum". But it fit perfectly in Morrowind because there were only some spoken dialogue. In games like Oblivion and Skyrim, where the games are fully voiced, that will simply become annoying and grating on my nerves. It will be too much. Having that said, I wouldn't mind if they found someone else than the Oblivion voices (although I am one of those weirdos who don't mind those voices either).

Had Skyrim had the same amount of dialogue as Morrowind, and not being fully-voiced, I would happily sign a petition to bring Jeff Baker back.

Then why not only have certain Dunmer speak like that?

That could be one solution, of course. It might seem out of place if they sounded very different from all other voices, but it could work. But then it should only be to some NPCs that doesn't have much dialogue. To me, the great impact and mystic of the voice will disappear if I hear it too much.

Then read my post above it basically says only the Dunmer who recently fled Vvardenfall after the destruction of red mountain should have the ashy voice. Imagine walking into a refugee camp and hearing some badass Vivec guards talking with the Morrowind voice