Haven't heard much of his comments in Skyrim, but holy damn, it was a good thing he was immortal and faster than me, or else I'd beat him to death WITH MY BEAR HANDS!

http://wtfoodge.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Bear+Hands_f893f3_2906736.jpg

That's actually a pretty good comparison.

Obviously he's the leader of the Psijiic's. It can't be coincidence that he's in the exact province where the metaphysical tower stone [censored] hits the fan at the right time for over 200 years.

Certainly CHIM. After all, he is never incorrect.

if all explanations fail then just go with viles dog.

How so? His comments don't seem insulting at all to me.

The things he says regarding gameplay changes in Skyrim, like about the removal of spells with multiple effects, spell-crafting, and attributes, all struck me as a bit condescending and weakly defensive.

That's been his entire role in the series since Morrowind. That's what he was put there for.

Yeah... I guess I'm just on the other side of the fence for once. Before I always found his comments amusing, but this time around I'm one of the people those comments are directed towards. I'm part of the "Give us spears and spreadsheet-skills!" rabble.

Actually, having just gone through his lists of dialogue for Morrowind and Oblivion, I feel like that's only been his role since Oblivion. He was just a funny easter egg in Morrowind that humorously addressed subjects left out of the game in development.
In Oblivion and Skyrim he just seems like a jerk trying to convince me that I'm stupid for wanting more than I was given. He's also less funny.
meh, whatever.

Huh, they struck me as funny, and I dislike the removal of spellcrafting and spells with multiple effects.

Attributes I could take or leave, though. I never did like how the game required you to micromanage your skills to get the best attribute upgrades. Removing the entire system strikes me as going pretty far the other direction, though.

Interestingly, I don't particularly care about the removal of those things, but I didn't find M'aiq's comments to be very funny. I think it was mainly the VA's delivery... a lot of M'aiq's lines just sound like straight reads (actually, quite a few of the new VAs seem to have that problem; I'm really sad they didn't keep Jonathan Bryce).

Likewise.
I'd heard that Michael Mack was in again, but I haven't heard him yet and I'm even more disappointed at that.
Granted, I've only encountered a grand total of like three redguards. Two Alik'r warriors and a random farmer. On an aside, the description for the quest that you get from meeting those warriors says that they call themselves Alik'r, not that they're from the Alik'r desert. I got a chuckle out of that, and it made up for the satisfaction I gained from seeing NPCs from that distant region. I thought to myself "What a nice touch, hearkening back to lore that's been dusty since Daggerfall," but apparently it is still largely forgotten. :rolleyes:

The fact that they're read straight is one thing I like about them.

What does bother me is that some of the Argonians don't sound like Argonians (I guess this is where Jonathan Bryce comes in?) or that no one in the Winterhold College noticed that two people had Robert Picardo's voice.

M'aiq is the daedric prince of easter eggs.

Jonathan Bryce helped identify Argonians for me, though I'll admit the new male Argonian voice isn't all that bad (though the female Argonians all sound like grumpy old grandmothers, as opposed to Oblivion's chain-smoker).

Bethesda has had problems with voice acting ever since Oblivion. If you go back to Morrowind and its expansions, or even Redguard, the character voices took on traits of their races (Argonians sounding like predatory lizards, Nords sounding like mead-swilling block-heads, etc), which really helped to make them identifiable. This was absent in Oblivion, despite having largely the same cast, because the voices needed to be shared among races. In Skyrim it's also missing, and I'd blame the fact that they were working with a different VA crew... they mentioned how they went with Hollywood voice directors this time around, which probably explains why it was so lack-luster, and only two actors that started the series with Morrowind remained, with one that started with Oblivion... everyone else is new.

It doesn't help that a number of voices are still shared between races for whatever reason (I know there was no shortage of actors this time around, but I swear I heard the same Robert Picardo voice on a Redguard, Breton, and a Dunmer, and I don't think Imperials have a general voice that isn't also used by Nords and/or Bretons), and a number of races still only have two VAs for general use. They may have had 70 voice actors, but they weren't put to good use to hide the monotony or to make the races unique.

The elves suffered worst, I think.
Thank god the Dunmer this time round had proper voices, but I still miss that raspy lung-cancer growl the men of Morrowind had.

" we greet you warmly, outlander" in the morrowind Dunmer voice still gets to me DUNMER FTW!! .. and "arrow to the knee" seems to be the new "why are you away from your post"

I used to force lame memes on youtube, but then I took an arrow to the knee.

Yeah, Morrowind did have much better voices than Oblivion. I'm still digesting Skyrim, but when I walk by an Argonian and he sounds like some guy I'd meet on the street, it annoys me.

A lot of the Dunmer annoy me too, but it may be that outside of Morrowind they don't need the raspy voices, maybe. I'm unconvinced.



I played all of Morrowind and expansions, and about 1/5th of Redguard before my disk evaporated so I dig what you're saying here. AvD's comment about "We greet you warmly, Outlander" is definitely one of those things that feels like Morrowind, and I haven't heard anything that establishes an ambience like that in Skyrim. I mean, okay, the "Seen any elves?" line from Nords really annoyed me, but I see your point.



Like I said, I swear I heard Robert Picardo's voice on two people in Winterhold College. It seemed rather brazen, in fact. And he always sounds the same - he doesn't seem to have the range or talent that someone like, oh, I wanted to say Jennifer Hale but I also mean a large number of voice actors who do a ton of voice work and actually have different voices for various characters.

A great deal of his comments referred to peoples concerns and issues as foolish and idiotic . The above comments to me did not come out as funny, but insulting and classless jabs at their players. I myself was never vocal about the things they left out (minus the change in Cyrodiil) and it didn't bother me to as great an extent as it did other people, but M'aiq went from a something mildly entertaining in Morrowind to something downright pathetic and rude.

Ma'iq is a really really cool ....... minor daedric prince that we have never heard of -g-

I agree. Though part of me wishes that the Dunnmer male VA, had just dipped an octave lower, and had dropped the british-ish accent.

The females don't have that accent. o_O

None the less they still sound quite sixy....err *cough* and powerful.

Agreed, unfortunately.

Nothing M'aiq has ever said can beat that Bloodmoon classic, and criminally underrated Argonian, Basks-In-The-Sun;

"All I ask for is a pair of boots... How hard could it be?"

Delivered in a perfect reptilian rasp. Laughed out loud the first time I heard that.