Maybe i'm not good with accents... that's just how it sounds to me.

Here's an example of the main character speaking in Two Worlds II http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JnLiaH_id8. Sounds more American than English to me (I'm from England). Even if that accent isn't American, you can't deny that that small piece of speech says a lot about the character's personality.

Honestly, it really doesn't matter what country the voice actor is from. The point is, not everyone is going to like it if their character is voice acted.


Yes, absolutely. I never want my character to be voice-acted at all in any RPG. Story-driven action games, absolutely fine... but not RPGs.

I agree, but there's a difference between voicing shouts and Final Fantasy level dialogue.

main topic, im very excited for the game especially the combat mechanics....the new blocking sounds great and i think it was mentioned that you could shield bash and knock people back with your shield after a block or something...sounds awesome to me. That along with the collision attacks or w/e u call it where bodies react to the blows looks awesome....also the finishing moves sound great, they sound similar to age of conan(which i thought did an awesome job with the finishers.) Another thing that sounds great, todd talked about how fire spells could melt the snow around their target area etc....all these mechanics sound great. Most of all though i think the radiant story will be crazy good, one thing i liked about morrowind when i first played through i could just explore everywhere and i had done days of questing only to realize i hadnt even begun the main quest, the radiant story seems like it could just help that exploring aspect that much more as well as making no two players playthroughs the exact same.

@sheograth i thought that dialogue you linked was hilarious and also i can 100% see where youre coming from with the two worlds complaint and i agree that in that case it would be detrimental for a lot of people when trying to get into the game but i dont think that was the case with morrowind/oblivion and dont think it will be with skyrim

also, i think in an interview with the sound designer/director (w/e his title is), i seem to remember him saying for the actors he was looking for he wanted them to have the more( i guess stereotypical would be the best word) gravelly deeper voices nordic voices that come to mind when thinking of that region

edit: for me i agree with what dragonborn said above, huge difference with dialogue and a shout/grunt which i think is perfectly fine for skyrim considering each gender/race combo will have a unique one

I didn't get that impression. I got the impression of a battle cry. Maybe a Danish warrior, or vikiing or something.

Vikings? In my Skyrim?

Fair enough. But what if the player doesn't want their character to sound like a Danish warrior?

More a viking than an American, at least for me.

Hey who knows, maybe it'll be possible to pitch the character voice up or down? With the right settings that could work extremely well, at least for things like shouts.

But anyway, I don't really see the argument about a character's personality. Because in the case of a Dragon Shout, the personality you bring across is very much defined by what you're doing, and that will always be a powerful, booming shout in a strange language, because that's just how they work. So if your character is usually very shy, then maybe you should roleplay that by simply not using dragon shouts. And no, in this case that argument isn't stupid - because you simply cannot shout shyly, ask Fluttershy.

About the voice itself: Well, your looks are also very much dictated by the race you choose, so your voice should as well to some degree. I mean, does it limit your freedom as a player that your Khajiit has whiskers and fluffy pointy ears? Yes sure it does, but it's an interesting limitation. It's the obvious contrasts between the races that make them unique and that allow for a fresh experience with each playthrough. The voice shouldn't be excluded from that.
I for one am very interested in hearing a Khajiit, Altmer, Bosmer, Dunmer or Argonian interpretation of FUS ROH DAH.

10 reasons, I think I have at least 100 reasons why Skyrim will be the best Elder Scrolls game. If Beth doesn't drop the ball then Skyrim will be a GOAT and definite GOTY contender/winner.

What does GOAT stand for? It's not the test in Fallout 3, is it?

@sheogorath or anyone for that matter, wondering your thoughts on fast travel, being good or bad. I thought travel was done extremely well in morrowind with the silt striders being a sort of public transportation and probably wont be using any fast traveling whatsoever myself cause i guess i just like to walk around and explore especially if the game looks as good as most recent games do. And skyrim adding in all the effects of the wind and snowfall piling up and just new wildlife stuff will probably help me lose tons of time zoning out exploring the good lookingness of everything. (hopefully finding a secret cave behind a waterfall because those are always the coolest <_< )
again not really worried about the voicing of shouts etc for me it doesnt really take away uniqueness of character or bother

edit: @sebastianTES - GOAT is greatest of all time

Unlikely to happen.


True, I can always not use the shouts. It wouldn't be the first time i've absolutely hated a prominent feature of an Elder Scrolls game and avoided it (Oblivion gates - thank god for console commands). Maybe I am overreacting a little bit... I just hate the idea of a fully voice-acted player character, and this seems like a step towards that.


This depends on your view. If start the game with your heart set on being a Khajiit for example, then yes your looks are going to be dictated to some extent. If however you start the game and simply pick a race based on which base appearance you like most (which a lot of people do) then you shouldn't then be bound to a certain voice that matches that race. Someone may pick a Nord as a base appearance, but imagine their character as being something different entirely.

I rarely use fast-travelling in open-world games, but I don't have any problems with it being included. I just ignore it most of the time. I liked how it was implemented in Morrowind a lot more than how it was implemented in Oblivion though. Simply clicking where you want to go on the map seemed like a bit of a cop-out to me compared to the silt striders. Nehrim had a simple fast-travelling system which I really liked, whereby you can use teleport runes and cast spells to teleport to a small number of specific locations on the map.

I didn't care about a single one of those reasons. No, the reason a game is the best in the series is because it has character, memorability, re-playability, and just downright good gameplay. Not "left vs right" or boomarks for your weapons. Those are very small things in the scope of the entire series.

And until I play Skyrim, Morrowind is still the best game in the series for me.

I could never understand why my male character in New Vegas had the voice of a woman, while my Fallout3 one didn't.

the replayability is another huge thing for me as well and i can see the radiant story helping that exponentially. Morrowind would probably be the best for me as well mainly because they left you completely on your own not really telling you where to go or anything right from the start. Although, one of the things i liked the most about morrowind was how the atmosphere was very gloomy, foggy, mysterious, used lots of darker greyer colors...and i doubt they could do that in the area of skyrim but im sure it will be just as fun exploring.

One thing I love about features from these mainstream gaming sites is that they make virtually no effort to relate Skyrim to Daggerfall or Morrowind. Item bookmarks are an improvement over Oblivion, but that doesn't really mean the game will be the best. If anything it only brings Skyrim's UI back to par with Morrowind's. At least it beats Daggerfall, which still had the most dreadful inventory to date with 4 items visible at a time. But nobody wants to read about that: at least Skyrim's is an improvement over Oblivion's! After all, Oblivion is the only TES game that left any sort of legacy and every subjective thing about Skyrim should be compared to TES IV and not any other game in the series. :facepalm:

To those opposed to the Dragon Shout (I'm assuming for RP reasons), why can't you just come up with a reason why that's not the character's voice, the same way you come up with a backstory for every character? Can't you just say that when your character uses a Dragon Shout, it makes their voice more thunderous, because you're harnessing the power of a dragon? If something is hampering your creativity, work around it with MORE creativity.

Comparing Skyrim to Daggerfall would be a depressing reminder of how small Elder Scrolls games have become in terms of map size. I still see Daggerfall as the benchmark for what Bethesda should be aiming for in the future when technology can handle a gameworld that big without sacrificing much in terms of graphics or detail.

I was hoping to see somewhere on that list things like:

- deeper, more compelling stories with plot twists
- increased choice/consequence
- multiple endings

.. but I guess inventory bookmarks are more important than game play

Every time someone says "epic", Homer's bones dust turn somewhere...

Sounds like story-driven games are more your thing than open-world RPGs...

I have to agree, even in Oblivion when your character grunted it had the same voice as the race that you were playing as.

It seems like a laundry list of revealed features rather than an actual argument as to why they expect it to be the best. I'm very excited and I hope it will be the best but I don't understand the point the article is trying to make.

Yeah, not going to get too hyped over that. The reviewer keeps using "streamlined" in a positive connotation. Thats not a good sign. I got hyped for Oblivion. I won't be making that mistake again. Hopefully Bethesda will actually prove me wrong here this time.

I was hyped up for Morrowind after Daggerfall and was let down so to speak. I have supreme confidence in BGS and Skyrim though.