So, I understand the hardship of unique dialogue for each and every NPC. Honestly, I don't mind the citizens or the guards. But I think unique dialogue should be shared amonsgt a greater range of NPCs.

To me this includes:

-Special NPCs, like for example Balgruff, Farengar, or in Oblivion Emperor of Cyrodil, etc.

-Merchants and other services NPCs, IDK about anyone else, but it gets annoying for merchants. People I have to talk to more often than even the special characters to say the same things

Riverwood trader

"What do you have for sale"

"Trinkets, odds and ends. That sort of thing"

Solitude trader

"What do you have for sale"

"Trinkets, odds and ends"

Each Merchant should be unique, in whatever they are selling. Maybe even some of them are more upfront, where as others are not. Some Merchants when you walk in, welcome you. Try to get you to buy an Item on Sale that you don't need.

Riverwood trader would probably have the dialogue

"Some people call this junk, me I call them treasures"

While a Falkearth Merchant would say something completely different

"What I can come by, in these harsh times"

-Quest NPCs

Well this goes into two things. Quest should be interesting. And the NPCs dealing out the Quest should be interesting too. All though he counts as a special NPC, a perfect example is Sheogorath because of his personality, and his oddballness. You don't care that he's putting you on a fetch quest, because he's absolutely balls insane and hilarious.

Or the Wood Elf in Oblivion who is supsicious of everybody and is paranoid about everybody. He's kind of weird, an odd. But you will do the quest because you're thinking, WTF is this guy on, Skooma, Moon Sugar, Spriggan Sap.

In Skyrim, especially Skyrim. They have Quest I am not invested in, Quest I get invested in with anticlimatic almost cliche and laughable ends, and they tend to be characters I am not invested in.

One of the perfect examples of the laziest quest I have ever seen, and what were the devs thinking on this one. Is Falkearth, deliver some ashes to the guy behind the inn.

Seriously. Pointless quest. Pointless NPC. He doesn't make me like him in anyway, or understand his grief.

It be much different if this is the original quest

"Can you do a favor for a disheartened man?"

Dovakhin "What?"

"Deliver these ashes, I do not have the heart for it"

Dovakhin, -.-

Now let's change that quest. You walk into the inn, and hear a man sobbing. At first you ignore him. You walk up to the inn keeper for a drink

Inn keeper says, "Poor old man."

Dovakin, "What's going on?"

Inn keeper, "He lost a family member. Truth I drown my sorrows out too, if I lost someone close to me. What will you have to drink?"

[suddenly that peaks your interest. or it would me]

So you move from the inn keeper to the crying man

Dovakin, "Are you all right?"

Man, "Oh lad [lass] it's a sad story to tell." [sobbing]

Dovakin, "I willing to listen"

Man, [insert how the boy died. Maybe make him a soldier an Imperial or Stormcloak who died in battle. Eh to mirror current events of our own soldiers fighting and dying. coming home to the family dead]

Dovakin, "I'm sorry for your lost" "He deserved it filthy [insert faction]"

Man, "I have his ashes with me. I know I should do something with them. But I don't want to put him in a crypt, it be like loosing him all over again. Look at me, I'm suppose to be a soldier. I'm broken."

And this is the important change

Dovakin, "Let me deliver the ashes" or You walk away from the crying man

Making the quest more optional. But you have some care and feeling in this world. It's more of an optional quest, that wouldn't be part of the "Help Falkearth People so you must deliver the ashes"

Anyway, that's just my two cents. Take it or leave it.

You mean like have a personality and not be a quest giving robot, a vendor robot, a follower robot or an "activate marriage mode" robot? Maybe someday if they can hire 70 actors and have different lines of dialogue. But that could be rather costly ad time consuming. Only seen it in Kingdoms of Amalur where every quest giver (there are a lot of them) has different dialogue lines, each with a unique explanation of the quest given and a handful of "about" dialogue choices.

Errr...it isn't that hard.

Instead of getting a few okay actors.

Get some actors like the Looney Tunes actor. [not him specifically] let me explain. The Looney Tunes a handful of the characters were voiced by one dude. But not one of those characters sound the same.

How about some decent actors who can play multiple roles? With multiple voice quality.

I don't think you understood the intent of that ashes delivery quest -- many, perhaps even the majority, of Skyrim's quests are considered "favors" or "freeform" by intention: small tasks for NPCs for small rewards and a disposition boost for other gameplay benefits. The actual "quests" are the "MS" quests like "Tending the Flames" and the main and faction quests.

If you've issues with them, those are more legitimate, but I don't see why so much effort ought to be lavished on what amounts to a favor...

I don't really know if its really a complicated process. I have only seen the "making of" of some games but from what I can tell it most be hard to give 1 actor a bunch of different characters to do within the schedule they have to follow. Probably what the actor had was a script with hundreds of lines with little direction of how those characters are different from each other. They most likely had no idea how many characters would share the same voice. This is noticeable with the 20+ Farkasesess you have in Skyrim. At one point in Skyrim you talk to Madanach (voiced by Belethor) and then he sends you to talk to someone who is voiced by Belethor and he calls Madanach "Manocnak". I don't think they even know who they are voicing. So I think the distribution needs a little more work.

Maybe not as diverse as Mel Blanc but Belethor guy did voice a couple of characters in FO3 that were different. He voiced the Enclave soldiers which sound exactly like Belethor but you wouldn't notice him when he voices the robots and they sound different from each other. The Mister Handys and the Wadsworths and the other characters are very different from each other.

Because I do not do favors for people I do not like.

"Deliver these ashes"

"F you I am going to go elsewhere now, got better things to do"

I do not care. Why should I do these NPCs a favor, when I don't get the time to know him, when I don't get the time to understand them or their woes. Why should I do favors for bland, vanilla, flavorless NPCs?

I'm sorry that's just an excuse to have these poorly made quest.

You know I find it completely [censored]. That a game like Metal Gear Solid, has more ways of completing something than a [censored] RPG bent on choice and multiple ways of doing a quest.

For example, in MGS, there is a boss name The End. Effectively I know three ways of defeating him:

-The realy hard stragety based boss battle he was designed for

Or you can completely f that choice and either

-Kill him before the boss battle happens

-Wait a week, and The End expires on his own, dies of natural causes

I mean seriously a stealth game, makes things interesting. And a RPG cannot.

edit-

So in context. The Ashes quest should have effectively two ways of handling it.

-You talk to this sad, dude, but don't offer to take the ashes for him. In a weeks time in game, the same guy thanks you for talking, how he was able to deliver the ashes

or

-You offer to do the favor

I want quest that are not bland, boring, flavorless, b.s. Fluff for the sake of [censored] fluff. If you're going to add fluff add the right kind of fluff. Because I can give two [censored] about delivering those [censored] ashes for him.

People raked Bethesda over the coals for doing this in Oblivion. I doubt they're eager to incur the wrath of fans for using one actor in multiple roles ever again, is my guess.

Well good actors.

Like I explained before. Looney Tunes as a kid, as an advlt I cannot even tell its the same dude.

When one actor does play multiple roles, get a good actor who can. Not an actor who can't.

Get a couple of them that can do different accents, different voices, and sound different.

God it's like that animated Adam Sandler movie, where Adam Sandler plays three different characters and you can still tell its Adam Sandler.

Do not hire Adam Sandlers for your game.