A year or two before the new game release, they should have a competition to voice a few dozen characters. Fans can submit a line that Bethesda releases for each script, and a winner is determined, and that winner voices all the lines for the particular character. For free of course. Then they could have lots more dialogue and many more unique characters for very little money!

I agree totally with this. As an actor myself who has for many years provided character VO work for recorded books, radio plays and TV advertisemants, it has always been a mystery to me why Bethesda's VO artists always manage to sound the same, whichever character they are voicing. It was much worse in Oblivion, but is unfortunately still present in Skyrim - albeit to a lesser degree. It's true that many actors can basically do only one voice (ie their own), but there are also many character actors who are versatile , and can switch voices quite easily. And I'm not referring to the mainstream top names either, but rather to the millions of jobbing actors who are available for hire at reasonable and realistic prices.




These quotes are based on the misconception that anybody can act - which is untrue. There have been a few games released where the developers have not employed professional actors for the VO work and it always shows. You need look no further than Reality Pump's Two Worlds and Bohemia Software's original Operation Flashpoint and ArmA series to see the sometimes hilarious results of that decision.

Although "better" is a subjective term, I broadly agree with what you say here: Oblivion's voice actors were actually very good, the main gripe being that there weren't nearly enough of them. Some of them really lent their personality to the characters they voiced from one game to the next, so I'm very sad that they weren't re-hired, even if they were to voice fewer characters. For the most part, I don't have any gripes about the actual talent of Skyrim's voice actors, but I do think that the directing and casting were rather poor, to say the least. It might've worked in a Fallout game, as I've said elsewhere, but it just sounds wrong in TES.

I'm also a bit perplexed as to the number of comments moaning about English(-ish)-accented Dunmer, since in Oblivion they were voiced by the albeit American (I think) Craig Sechler but had fairly "neutral" accents, and in Morrowind by Jeff Baker who I think is English; indeed about half the voices in Oblivion and Morrowind were English, whereas nearly all in Skyrim with the exception of the "Arnies" have American accents, so it seems a little odd to complain about the few non-American voices. Personally, though I don't mind American accents, I think having pretty much all of the VA done by Americans sounds a little incongruous in a fantasy setting, before even considering its background: for example, Fallout wouldn't sound quite right if everyone had a French accent... or English, or Mexican etc in case someone nitpicks.

BioWare makes games with two dozen or so characters who do a lot of talking. Companions, NPCs, and the world tend to be more fleshed out. Bethesda makes games with sooooooo many more character who don't do that much talking. Companions, NPCs, and the world tend to be thinner. I mean all of that in relation to the actual spoken dialogue. There are codex entries in BioWare games and books in TES games that do help immerse you in the lore, but those are all written.

I like my TES games and I like my BioWare games. I do see what you're saying OP, but I think it's a design choice by each company and, personally, I feel like we're the ones winning since we get to play both styles of game.

The amount of voice acting is fine, but they should have added way more generic greetings. "hello" "hi" etc. It's annoying to hear the same 'unique' greetings all over again and again and again and again AAAAAH!!!

Perhaps it's because they stand out more in Skyrim?

I guess that's a possibility; and I think that's the problem, which is that it seems that not enough of the voices in Skyrim have any real character. I can't put my finger on it, but there's nothing really grabbing me: I actually like the Dunmer because they sound more "human" (yes, I know), I guess because they don't have that "serious business" tone turned up to 11 that seems to be the case with so many other characters. That said, some of the other voices that do have character such as the Breton shopkeepers I don't really care for, which is possibly the same opinion, by and large.

I think we also saw the same thing in the recent fallouts: I found far too many of the voices didn't really add anything and were rather forgettable (again, not a criticism of the VAs necessarily, probably more a problem with the direction) whereas I loved those that stood out, such as Moira's: but her voice work was also the target of a lot of criticism, I guess for the reason of being "too interesting" and standing out.

Voice acting is top-notch I think.
As it should be.

So far, I've come across the voices of:

Minsc
Aerie
Bishop
Daegun
Jowan
Isolde
Fenris
The Asari Consort
and, as always, Wonder Woman

Yep. And this is true for many occupations, isn't it? Particularly in the field of entertainment. I think it's an ego thing. Acting, the sports, singing, dancing, etc. The world is full of people (including game developers) who think they can do the job as well as the pros. Thankfully Bethesda aint one of 'em.

while i do want TES to keep the voice acting (the way it worked in oblivion was great apart from zooms/same voice actors and persuation pie) but Zelda is still doing just fine without it.

I don't think you have any idea how hard voice acting is...

Not only do you have to act convincingly, but you have to do so without the aid of your body and facial movements.

You may think you can voice act no problem, but in reality if you tried doing it yourself, it would most likely sound awful and forced. Especially if you think of it as "just reading some sentences".

Just saying :shrug:

I prefer voice acting than reading lines. Reading lines is so boring and unpersonal. Hearing awesome voices is fun and it can add so much depth and believability to the characters. With such a big game like this, not having detailed conversations with all of the thousand NPCs if very understandable.

This far from a downfall... lol, but rather a minor downside.

People seem to complain about almost anything on these forums.

Yeah, this, and other similar comments. Both I and others have mentioned Two Worlds as an example of what can happen, and that's one of the better examples. Whilst there are many amateur voice actors who are astonishingly good, there are many more who, well, their confidence exceeds their ability. Personally, I wouldn't even consider trying to do my own voice work, and one of the biggest headaches of the modding community is finding good voice actors with the time to read their lines: there aren't too many of them and it's a time-consuming job, not least because it's not the sort of thing where someone can think "I fancy doing a couple of lines, I'll just squeeze them in before going for lunch": it takes time to set everything up, and even more time and effort to psych oneself up for it, I dare say.

As with (almost) anything else, "how hard can it be?" (© Jeremy Clarkson) is likely to lead to "interesting" results...

As an amateur voice actor myself, it's nice to see someone who really understands and appreciates the work that goes into voice acting. :foodndrink:

Wow, I missed this doozy, earlier. Here is a guy who certainly doesn't know anything about acting. I could at this point deliver a lecture about the art and intricacies of creating and building a character etc, but I will resist. Suffice to say that if you simply "read sentences" and call it acting, then you probably hail from the Arnold Schwarzenegger or Keanu Reeves School of Acting.

In my profession, I have personally done VO work for Radio, TV and Audio books, but never a game yet. I would love to though. They're considered much more mainstream now than they used to be.

Shameless Plug Mode activated ...

The closest I've come is the voice overs for my Oblivion mod Werewolf: Legends of the North.

Shameless Plug Mode deactivated ...

Most of the voice acting I've heard in computer games is a bit lame. There are some good actors in Skyrim and some poor ones. It seems like more effort is placed in the graphics and programming than in the acting. Hopefully this will improve in time.

At a guess I'll say they probably didn't spring to get anybody to actually serve as a director for the voice acting - they probably just rented time in a recording studio, hired a sound engineer to record them and handed the actors their scripts. I'm pleasantly surprised by most of Skyrim's VO work; Oblivion's could be pretty bad. Everybody sounded like they were reading something, which of course they were. It's like Harrison Ford said to George Lucas during the shooting of Star Wars: "George, you can write this [censored], but you can't say it." Or words to that effect.



lol

If you want to hear truly embarrassing VO, get a copy of Sins of a Solar Empire. It's an excellent game, but the voice work is just bad. I mean embarrassingly bad - as in I won't play the game without headphones if there are other people nearby it's so ridiculous.

EDIT: Oooh, I just thought of another good one. This one's a bit older, but go back and watch the opening cinematic for Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares. Excellent game, but the VO on that cinematic is just stupid. Every time I watch it I just assume they went to the closest Trek convention, rounded up some guys in Starfleet uniforms and handed them scripts.

Also, a comment on the Scandinavian accents used in Skyrim. Yeah, I know they might not be real Scandinavian accents - or they might. I, like most people playing this game, don't speak a word of any Scandinavian language, so I couldn't say. The important question is: does it fit the popular image of a good Viking accent in the public imagination? Real Scandinavians didn't run around with horns or wings on their helmets either; that comes from much later trends established by artists painting scenes from Norse folklore and mythology. But, to the modern person, Vikings ran around with those long beards and horned helmets, and the armor in Skyrim reflects that and fits well with the popular image of a Viking. The accents do the same thing; they might not be any more real than the horned helmets, but when I hear it my brain immediately says "Viking" and that's good enough.

I love the voice acting except a lot of the guards in different areas say the same things. i think it brings more life to the world. i like how you walk by people and they say things. although at times it could be simpler things like a hey or how you doing. i like how people comment on things i have on me thats pretty cool. it makes the npcs seem to have somewhat of a intellegence about them. i turn on the subtitles mostly to keep track of names mentioned in the game because of the different spellings of them and know how to pronounce them when i see them later in a book or something.

I also think that every college kid in the quad playing guitar could play for Dragonforce.

:facepalm:

The Boethiah priest in the Molag Bal quest, yeah? Forget my character. *I* felt sorry when beating that guy to multiple deaths. Kept expecting a miniature giant space hamster to jump out at me.

Not to mention following you into your home when they're talking to you. I have to keep telling them to get out.