So, interesting thing I noticed today when I started up Skyrim again is how many things I notice in game that bother me more than it did previous playthroughs. I'm playing highly modded Skyrim, which obviously changes the game quite a bit and makes a lot of stuff better, easier and more fun, but some things can't be really fixed. One of those things is very bad voice acting. Of course we all knew voice acting was not great when we started our first playthrough, but I notice it even more now for some reason and it bugs me so much that it totally breaks the immersion for me. I could skip and forgive the repeatable actors if only they would provide good voice acting and would give each of the characters they voice some unique personality. Every time I do some quests I have to cringe and my immersion breaks when these NPC have no soul andpersonality to them. I just reached the point where Jarl gave me Thane title and assigned Lydia to me. I walk down to Lydia and she is like "Hey Thane I'm sworn to blah blah...". Holy [censored] how depressive she sounds. Why would anyone want to bring her anywhere? I never did. It's very painful to listen to her.

So what's you opinion on this? Does it bother you that much or no? Would you prefer no voice acting over very bad voice acting? What do you think Bethesda should do about this for the next Elder Scroll game?

Wait till you finish clearing out a hole and as you emerge into daylight Lyds goes...."hey look a cave I wonder whats inside"

Lydia's "burdens" line made me LOL the first time I heard it, and I still love it. All the housecarls say it, but only Colleen Delany put that special inflection on it. I like all of her work in the game, including her singing.


I agree that bad voice acting can be immersion breaking. I just disagree that Skyrim has bad voice acting. Bad writing, yes. But the actors delivered their crappy lines well. To me, anyway. Oblivion, on the other hand... ouch.

Oblivion had some bad voice acting aswell do the main quest line and the parts where the blades welcome martin is onr of the most unispired hooray moment in the game.. another is again the main quest after helping bruma after the big oblivion gate shows up after you close that siege machine gate the applause you get is....well sounds phoned home.

I thought Skyrim's voice acting was good. There are exceptions, of course, such as Michael Gough's Heimskr and literally everything Christian Svensson voiced. But, on the whole, I thought they put much more effort into getting voice acting right than in any previous Elder Scrolls game.

A few years ago I counted the number of voice actors in several major role playing games. This was Bethesda's count:

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I would far prefer no voices at all. Good, bad, indifferent.... I just don't want to hear it - because I consider VA to be the bane of the gaming industry. I like reading and hearing the dialog within my mind, in a voice appropriate to the actor. That said, I actually do that - I have subtitles on, and voice volume turned down all the way. AND I have a lovely little mod that shuts the npcs up unless you actually pretty much bump into them - in which case they say their stuff which I see as subtitles.

Of course the mods won't help you if you're on a console.... and I've never owned (and never will own) a game console so I don't know if you can enable subtitles and turn the voice volume off if you're playing on console.

Mods cause an additional problem, and I've had some really bad examples with Oblivion. When a mod adds additional dialog to an existing actor, it's really jarring to have them switch to a completely different voice for the extra lines.

I'd prefer a game that encourages modding to either eliminate voiced dialog, or contract with the voice actors to provide their service to the mod authors too.

Guys, come on, read the whole thing at least, it's not a long post. Literally in my SECOND sentense I said I use mods. And while mods improve a lot of stuff, they can't fix everything. Yes, I could mod Lydia I guess, but it's not about Lydia. Lydia was just one example. I can just ignore her. I don't want to use Lydia. I don't want to use any companion at all. So I won't mod my game just for that one scene when Lydia comes to me and tells me "Hey Thane I'm sworn to carry your burden blah blah..." There are many NPCs like that, they have one or few lines, just enough to break your immersion.

I know some people disagree with me and that's understandable, maybe those who played previous titles feel different, because they see the difference. Skyrim was my first and only Elder Scroll game, so I can't compare, but voice acting seem very bad to me. There are few exceptions, but mostly it's terrible.

I wish they would better sort their resources and dev time and realize if they can't put everything in game, take something out and make what's in game epic. I have same issue with Fallout 4 and their settlers. The settlers are so horrible, so bland, totally empty. It's painful to watch them do anything. Which ruins the experience. If you want to put something in game, at least do it decently.

Even though it's 2016 and I believe every game should strive to have voiced NPCs, I would rather have better story with better, more interesting NPCs, but with no voices, if that's what it would take.

Yep, I agree with all of that. It seems that people are confusing everything from mistimed, unchecked dialog to repetitive usage of actors with distinctive, rememberable voices as being a voice acting issue. It is not. Voice acting is the ability to deliver prewritten lines that convey a sense of realism, with timing and inflection, as pertains to the situation. Truthfully not that many of Skyrims issues in the voice area are attributable to the acting itself.. many are programming, directing, and dialog writing issues that the actor has no control over. It is very difficult to produce lines that work without knowing the context, emotion, and motivation of the situation in which they're to be used in, and I tend to think THAT is more the issue than the acting itself is. It's a balancing act that can give us flat uninspired lines on one end, and overacted Moira Brown from Fallout 3 on the other. Go watch MxR's dive into Enderal ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FHfxdboglI ) and you can see voice acting that is impressive, but it's also acting that you can TELL has been properly directed.

I found most of Skyrim's voice acting really bad most of it lacked emotion. Basically Preston from Fallout 4 with an accent. I would forgive the blandness if they would have some generic lines instead of repeating their life story forever. Oblivion was overacted, but I prefer overacted than having zero emotions any day,there are still some rather cringy lines, most of it being from the main quest.

Really despite Skyrim's bland delivery if the npcs said something, anything else to say it would make going through the cities more enjoyable. Yes I know you don't claim to be the best Cloud district in Whiterun but there's more inside. I heard you say that for the past 500 hours.

I don't see any bad voice acting. I see some inappropriate choices for dialogue at times but thats about it. If you want bad voice acting I can think of some mods... *shudder*

You guys have some low standards I guess or never played any game with decent voice acting, no offense. Skyrim is mix of bad voice acting, lack of dev instruction to voice actors and terrible writing. Some guy above listed Mass effect to have had 74 VAs and Skyrim 90. You know that Mark Meer (Voice of Shepard) voiced also vorchas and mercs? Totally different voices and appropriate, fitting for those characters. That's what it means if dev instructs voice actors and if voice actors are decent.

Now type in youtube "skyrim voice acting" and see all the gazilions of NPCs that sounds exactly the same as Varkas from Companions or Jarl of Whiterun (just two examples).

I'm not saying it's solely voice actors' fault, because they have actually good voices, but delivery is terrible. Which is part their fault (for delivering a line which obviously says something exciting or frightening in a normal tone like it's just another day in the office) and part bethesda's for not giving them instructions. I mean I'm no expert but is it really hard to acomplish that lines would be recorded in some organized order. Get all the lines from NPC A, all lines from NPC B and so on and tell voice actor to change a tone or "personality" or accent a little bit when switching from A to B NPC. That should not be hard for NPCS that have few lines only.

I don't think the voice acting is that bad. Yes, some lines that are said and how they are delivered are somewhat questionable ("death is highly overrated!')...


On the whole, the voice acting gets a seal of approval from me.

I like voice actors and their work on many things, especially anime. However, I have never experienced a video game with no voice acting that "ruined a game" for me. Never.

The thing is imagination. Voice actors tell us what they sound like. Script allows us to imagine what that character sounds like. There are good, bad, and indifferent voice actors and directors. Sure, many memes would never get born with no voice actors to spawn them, but that's a price I'm willing to pay

Today, though, a game must have voice acting in order to sell maximum copies. Players can no longer be "bothered" to read too much. Comments like "encyclopedic dialogue" gets bandied about

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The games with "good voice acting" also tend to be the ones with "a good story", which means that the entire thing is scripted to play only one way. Each line gets said once, because you're not going back there any more, and the circumstances can never change.

TES games aren't like that.

The voice acting is ok for the most part, except Farengar <--that is simply the worst voice acting I have ever heard anywhere.

For the most part I'm okay with the voice acting. In some cases, some voices weren't just limited to one race. I have to say though was definitely not impressed with General Tulius' voice acting. Did not inspire or fit the mood / scene during a lot of the CW. Seemed to be a poorly pieced together character with voicing attempts that sounded more like they didn't care or want to try. Ulfric was done pretty good, but almost trying too hard in some scenes.

That's just general bad follower AI. Not limited to Lyds.

SKYRIM MORNING HERALD

BREAKING NEWS - NEWS FLASH - SCOOP OF THE CENTURY - YOU GET THE PICTURE



The Deception of all Deceptions, For many years Dragonborn's across the world have been deceived, Our reporter Sah has gone deep deep undercover to uncover the truth.


This one's name is Reporter Sah and has gone deep deep undercover and tracked down the man that every one thought was dead, millions & millions of Dragonborn have killed him for stealing all the money and even valuable stuff from the Thieves Guild Vault using the Skeleton Key. Yes beloved readers this one is hot on the tracks of Mercer Frey the man believed to have been killed by you, but you never recovering any money or even valuable stuff that went missing so where did it go?.


Taking the AKA name of Alice & with the assistance of her trusty side kick Reporter Piper, and posing as a 200 year old frozen Popsicle that was way way past her used by date, and and pretending to be searching for her kidnapped baby....this one managed to track down Mercer Frey to Diamond City where he is posing as the synth detective called Nick Valentine!!!!


But it was not as simple as that, this one had to make sure that it was him, yes he voice was sort of the same, but having half of Irkngthand falling on his head his face and body was all deformed. It was essential the truth was uncovered, this one posing as a desperate mother looking for her kidnapped baby convinced Mr Valentine to help her.


So we set out to find a man called Kellogg's? Corn Flakes, along the way this one noticed that Mr Valentine had the skill of knowing how to open doors that are inexpressible and its was dead give away the went on bragging about how easy it was that he must have been a member of the Thieves Guild ............ it was all the prove this one needed.


Risking life and limb or the other way around and reaching level 42 and playing DiD (on easy difficulty but ohh sooooo fun) this one can now without doubt reveal to her beloved readers that Mercer Frey is still alive, and and is posing as the synth detective called Nick Valentine................so there you have it beloved readers you make your own conclusions

NEXT WEEK


As soon as you thought that the mystery was solved it came to this ones attention that trusty Codsworth may be implicated in the plot and that just because he recons he has the best geraniums in Sanctuary Hills is enough to avert suspicions that Mercer Frey has no Ethical boundary's.......... but that's another story

PS ...........the part about where this one talks about the money and where did it go ...........was a typo ...............just forget this one even mentioned it

I wanted to amend my previous thought...

Where I do enjoy voice acting in video games is the life that gives to a world through NPCs sans "dialogue potions." Walking around a city or in the wilderness or on the road and hearing NPCs "chat" amongst themselves helps bring a world to life. Without voice acting as background noise, the world is eerily quiet.

I still don't like voice acting in dialogues, but the ambiance of the game needs it as "background noise." My opinion, of course

ALBQ.....background ambiance...ha....like standing outside an inn...maybe....the Four Shields. You can hear the couple of dozen pvssyring customers, laughing and bantering as a muffled hubbub.....go inside.....Hey! Where'd they go? you're the only customer in the place! That always makes me laugh.


General npc banter amongst themselves is now essential to convey realism.....unless in High Hrothgar I guess I love listening in....some of it is funny and some of it pertinent to current events or Lore.



Sah... Hi

Hi

Other than occasionally noticing the shared voices between certain NPCs, Skyrim's voice acting doesn't really bother me. I think you've nailed the core limitation that the dialogue system of TES games faces though.

It's simply not feasible for NPCs to have a unique line for every possible variation of the situations these games allow for. If it weren't going the way of silent movies when it comes to big studio productions, going to all text-based dialogue might theoretically add more variety by cutting the time and money requirements to have the lines recorded. However, it would still have the same ultimate limitation. The lines would have to be written ahead of time by a developer and programmed to trigger under certain pre-defined conditions thus being quite finite in number. An AI that reads the entire context of a situation and makes organic conversation on it like an actual human simply doesn't exist yet and the few that can make a good approximation don't seem particularly close to being incorporated into video game engines. Until that technology grows by leaps and bounds, there's going to be limits on the level of immersion that the dialogue can provide.

With regards to the repetition of voice types: Elder Scrolls games generally set dialogue up so that it's automatically "inherited" if an NPC meets certain parameters -- being a certain race, class, voice type, et cetera. This allows the world designers to easily populate the game, because of a large pool of shared resources.

It's possible to create a potential spouse, a potential follower, a merchant, a farmer, or other roles without having to create unique dialogue for everyone.

By and large, most people that you can talk to have something unique to say. If the file space for those lines had to be used for unique dialogue (every NPC has battle cries, reactions to the player committing crimes or knocking things over, for example), you'd be able to interact with far fewer characters, which would stymie the appeal of the series.