Past games have had terrific voice acting for the NPCs - any word on whether Bethesda is going to implement voice acting for the player character?

In my opinion, giving a voice on the player character would add more realisim and immersion to the game, as I found that the one-sided conversations we have in oblivion and morrowind were very unnatural.

Choice of several voices based on race. Some voices can be used by multiple races. Oh, for SPEAKING? No, impossible, you'd have to make voice for every part of every single quest for male and female of every single voice (not all races will sound the same, and there will hopefully be much variety even within them). Also, some people, such as myself, would not enjoy it.

Say they have 5 actors for each gender of each race, for example. You'd have to record and store 5x10x2=100 different versions of EVERY INTERACTION IN THE GAME. Plus, it would make modding extra hard, because you can't create consistent speech for the player. You'd change voice part way through when speaking to certain NPCs.

I'm not a fan of that. Then all my characters sound the same. I like being able to imagine how they sound, how they say a certain line, things like that.

To make voice for the PC character isn't really an easy job... That Means adding PC dialogue voices for every race for every male and female of a race. I'm pretty sure they won't add PC voice acting.

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Besides which the PC would have more dialogue than any other character. No way that we'd get a unique voice for each race if the PC was voiced, never mind a choice of voices

No, no. I don't want Mass Effect, Dragon Age 2. No, no.

Rather not, my character doesn't need a voice, I'll imagine one.

Besides all of the above, with a voice most likely comes a personality. I'd rather form my own personality for the player character, rather than having one defined because the voice actor speaks his lines in a certain way.

Sorry, but "immersion" and "realism" are meaningless buzzwords in this context, and voicing the PC, for a game like Skyrim, is a ludicrous notion.

Even if it was technically, financially or artistically viable, it's not going to happen for as long as the protagonist is defined by us and not the developer.

They already have one for the dragon shouts, but thats it. I like to imagine what my guy sounds like, not be told. They go far enough in this to let you craft yourself as whoever you want to be, so why take that away with a voice. Voices only work in games where THEY tell you who you are and where your from, like Mass Effect, etc.

A few times in Fallout 3 I even found myself reading each dialog line I picked aloud before choosing it, just to help. I made my guy sound like whatever the hell I wanted him to. Now THAT was immersive.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the way they did it in Baldur's Gate because really what you had to say was so droll. I don't think we need a voice for everything though just yet. I like the fact at this point and time I can imagine how I ask something. When voice budgets have improved significantly, I'd like it but for now I'd like something like Morrowind's system with follow up statements without voice work from the player character.

Well you kind of need a voice to create a shout. My question isn't "Do you have a Voice?", but "Do you have an accent?" That is, "Will a Nord's shout sound the same as a Dunmer's, Altmer's or Khajiit's?" These races have distinct vocalizations in normal discussions, so they should have a similar difference when performing shouts.

No, no, no. It's better to imagine the voice that goes with MY character. It would be impossible to get it right for everyone, so it's better to imagine.

To keep everyone happy, it's best that there isn't a voice for the player.
I understand that the game needs some realism into it so we feel better more connected into the game, but keep in mind it's still fantasy.

NOT A FAN.

Would require too much storage space for all the race voices. If you had the cookie cutter human only race, then that is do able. But with the breadth of this genre, no..

NOOOOOOOOO!!! :flamethrower: DIE!!!!!! FLAME WARS!!!!! Ok lets stop before someone gets hurt :foodndrink: Now.. Back on topic. I Would rather talk for my character. Because then i can add like a awesome way of saying it. Plus i don't want an imperial that sounds like an orc. And with for example a thing you could say it would say: Where is jack hiding? IRL i will be saying like : ''Tell me where jack is. Now!'' and i did and (Do) that in oblivion still. And it is almost never i will get stupid responces from AI. As long as i dont say for example : ''If you don't tell me where jack is i will f***ing kill you!'' You could get from AI with a calm voice: ''He is hiding at terrorville '' That fails. But whatevs. Just No! I don't want a nice guy voice for a big strong nord and so on whatever.

My posts are always not hanging together and are bad written just ignore my fail english, its not my native language plus im fairly new to this Forum. -L

Protagonist should remain as much as possible an http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AFGNCAAP so I say NO to extensive voice acting for the player.

Of course some specific voices could be done as was said, for example for Dragonshouts to sound better.

Well Shivering Isles in Oblivion had you fight your own clone who had customized lines and spoke based on race/gender, but that aside. Player VOs in too many games have been too cheesy, there have been too many cheesy main character to recount just one... Alternatively I remember in Neverwinter Nights there were lots of options for Voice, but nothing, well just normal.

To many games have ruined the PC voice by basically trying to make it something special, fact is most normal people speak, well normally. I wouldn't mind the feature is a) you could toggle it on/off, b) had selection of several potential voices (rather then race bound) and c) at least one voice was just somebody talking normally/generically... then yes. I'd happily accept this.

Well, I didn't expect such uniform opposition. I definitely agree that technical/resource considerations may nix the idea, and I sympathize with the notion that giving extensive voicing to the player would limit the imaginative input from the player. However, I think you could still give the player more input with voice acting by hyaving the player choosing the timbre/character of the voice initially, and also how the voice sounds from the chosen conversation/response.

It's a very bad idea and it would destroy the Elder Scrolls series if implemented. :brokencomputer:

I dislike voices for the player-characters in RPGs because I believe it takes away a vital role-playing element. I feel that with voiced PC's, you take away the sensation that this is your character, that this is you in another world.

I create the appearance of my character, their personality is often in line with my own. When I choose something to say to another character in game, I know how I would say that in real life, so that is how my character is going to say it. Now, give your character a voice. You have words crammed down your throat for you. While playing Dragon Age 2, I had to disagree with loads of things "Hawke" said, because of how he said it, the tone and such on.

I highlight the name Hawke rather than refer to him as my character because it doesn't feel like my character. It's someone else and all I do is pull the strings for this dummy.

I for one didn't mean to be overly negative, but a voiced PC is more of a statement, than a game feature like any other - it's the developer telling us, "this is what your character sounds like." This in a game where, without even using the available customisation options -- let alone modding -- we're given 20 initial choices in what we are and how we look as a result. Even if the time, budget, and technology was in place to allow the PC's voice to be as customisable as his or her appearance (VoiceGen, eh?), it's highly debatable whether the protagonist of an Elder Scrolls game should be saying much anyway.

Players' preferences for different voice acting are very subjective. Look at Dragon Age 2, for example - I'm sure some people love the PC's voice(s), but I absolutely hate them to the point that -- even if many other factors hadn't turned me off completely -- I wouldn't be able to play the game.

Dragon shouts I can deal with, for a couple of reasons: they are more of a sound effect than a voiced line (dragon language, three words at most); and they can surely be replaced or silenced with minimal effort, and minimal impact on other aspects of the game (for us PC users, at least).

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People have to stop dreaming.

So general opinion, bad idea. Being you're own character's voice seems to be the popular opinion, and I have to agree. I love shouting at the screen when some jerk thinks he has the upper hand, and I love to laugh when I swing my ax around like a drunken fool. In short, Bethesda wouldn't do it.

A voice set for battle shouts/wound alerts etc would be nice to see. A mass effect type voiced character? I'd rather every Bethesda employee each took a turn to punch me in the groin then see that happen.