Hi all. I appear new here because I've had to make a new account. I'm sure I used to have one. Have old accounts been wiped?

I just wanted to say that I love Morrowind and Skyrim (not Oblivion I'm afraid) and I'm already looking forward to the next Elder Scrolls installment, which I always time with my PC upgrade cycle!

Anyway, to the point. There is one aspect of the game that really makes me cringe sometimes, it rudely tears me away from the fantasy world and, in my opinion, damages the overall experience; it's the language. The story is passable, not an easy thing to do! But some of the lines spoken by the characters in Skyrim should not be there.

For example, the whole opening scene in Skyrim is really bad. When you're carried in the back of the wagon to your execution you hear things like "Damn you stormcloak, Skyrim was fine before you came along" - not terrible but a very American turn of phrase. Followed by some quite convincing lines; "oh gods.... hold your tongue"

Then a terrible set of lines; "No. This can't be happening, this isn't happening" - Again, no one talks like that outside of America, it's just a bit weak and a bit trashy-hollywood.

Then some good lines, calling someone a "horse thief", very good, very well placed - as the french would say, good 'terroir'.

THEN THE WORST LINE IN THE OPENING OF THE GAME...... "End of the line" - this really shook my confidence in the script when I first heard it. I think the etymology of that phrase might even come from railways!? but even if it doesn't it's just not fitting for the scene. It's a cheap one-liner that Arnold Schwarzenegger might say, or perhaps something muttered in one of those 'Hangover the Movie' films.

The script begone quite stagnant during the execution scene but I can't recall the specifics....

All in all I thought the script was OK, and the game fantastic but if you could just take the American-ness and the cheap one liners out it would be exemplary!

Does anyone feel as passionately as I do about this?

Well, how should they talk?

Does anyone feel as passionately as I do about this?

No, not really. I tend to look at Skyrim as a very good computer game, not an incredibly accurate screenplay depicting a historical period.

Have you ever been watching a middle-ages inspired movie, where there is a big battle scene with the archers lined up next to their commander, and the commander yells something to the effect of "Fire!" or "Fire Volley!"?

That's a good example of blatant historical inaccuracy that I think only a handful of people will find issue with. "Fire" as a term for shooting ranged weapons came from early firearmss where you would basically stick a bit of fire into the powder and hope that it caught alight and "fired". If you're giving a order to your archers something like "Loose!" or "Release Arrows!" would be a bit more accurate.

...Then again, saying fire is something that people are used to, and I think only a very-very small handful of people would find issue with it. There's also the fact that Tamriel is not a 1:1 recreation of Medieval Europe, so its a lot more passable in this game than some fiction going for complete historical accuracy.

We also have to consider that, this being a fantasy world, what we're hearing may not necessarily be the actual language they speak. http://youtu.be/piQ54E2T_yw?t=11m(audio goes from Latin to English at about 11:15) All (well, most) the Cyrodiilic terms and phrases are replaced by more familiar ones for convenience (at least to an American audience, which makes sense given that Bethesda's based in the US).

Or who knows? Cyrodiilic may actually just be English with another name. If that's the case, I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude that any of these terms actually have a different origin.

This. If gamesas used language realistically for the Elder Scrolls, we'd hear things like:

"ALMSIVI,is that Khajit of a man in Sheo's Court? Taking on that Orcish Numidium as if they were Whitestrake will cause him to end up like Shezarr!"

Now, anybody well-versed in Elder Scrolls lore should largely understand what I said. But a new person who was just introduced to the series, faced with NPCs who talk like that all the time? They probably won't understand, and might end up quitting long before they can actually understand the references.

Instead, the scipting of the lines likely acts as a shorthand for the type of person who speaks it (generally speaking, of course.) A noble, religious person might speak more like we envision someone from the middle ages, while a middle-class city goer has a more "modern" vocabulary and accent.

No. Of all the complaints I have about Skyrim, this is not one of them. I also don't agree that the lines you mention are particularly "American" I live in the USA and we don't all talk like Skyrim characters. But even if we did, Bethesda is an American company, so again, I don't see the issue with their dialog sounding like it was written by Americans.

"End of the line" may be a little too modern, but trying to write dialog in Elizabethan English or some other dialect would have its own problems.

No, I have plenty of complaints about Skyrim, but this is not one of them. The fact that the pacing of Skyrim feels like it is right out of a Die Hard movie or that the banol end of the world theme has been done to death ranks higher than complaints about the idioms used in the dialog.

This:

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9557/?

What sort of language should they use?

As an English person any sort of mock "Ye Olde English" being used in games or films is a real turn off for me

I think the terminology was fine. The way the characters talked was clear, easy to understand. Very few lines felt out of place, though this thread in itself is the essence of nitpicking, so I guess you're set on that. If there is a problem with the voices in this game, it would be that the same voice actors were used for far too many NPCs.