First off, i got to make it clear I absolutely love this game, however...

I watched a video a while back, and they talked about how they wanted to improve the amount of voices(voice actors) in Skyrim in comparison to Oblivion. They said it would be a "night and day" difference.

To me im honestly hearing the same voices over and over again. You know the Arnold Schwarzenegger guy? I relatively far in the game as in terms of quests done, but maybe im over looking the subtle changes. What do you guys think?

there are way way waaaay more voice sin this than any other TES game.

Perhaps you should play Oblivion again to realise the magnitude of the improvement.

Yeah I haven't played Oblivion in awhile, maybe im forgetting that they had the same voice actor for 90% of the males in the game haha

Yeah, you recognize some of the guards later in the game. But the improvement from previous games is just enormous.

I love the different voices alone at the Companions′s hall in Whiterun. Hell, my girl even married Farkas just because she loves his voice so much ^^ That is really one big improvement over Oblivion!

I have not been to the Companion's Hall yet, but when I do, I will copying this dude's voice for the rest of my life. It seems the females on this board seem to love it.

Well, It's not as bad as oblivion but it pisses me off some of the Jarls have the same voice. 70+ voice actors and you couldn't get the jarls to have unique voices?

Hearing "Let me guess, someone stole your sweetroll" for the first time was funny as all get out. The voice acting is much improved in Skyrim for sure.

The problem is that you really only notice anything at all if two voices ARE the same. When the voices are different we tend not to pay attention, because that's what we expect in the first place.

The voicing in this game is miles beyond Oblivion. Oblivion had like.. 9 voice actors. This game I've noticed dozens of different varieties. I love it.

I agree.

Exactly...when you now hear a duplicate voice, it makes you think of where you heard it before. In Oblivion you just expected to hear the same Redguard voice from the last 2 games if you saw one.

There are definately a ton more voice actors than in Oblivion.

But I think they didn't utilize them as well as they could. The guards for example, use the same few phrases all across Skyrim.

The most distinct voice-actor who constantly pops up everywhere is the nord female voice actor. It's such a unique voice that if it gets recycled twice, you will remember it. In Skyrim, many many nord women have her voice.

Can't say I've noticed any other voice repeating itself though.

have you noticed that beggars dont change voice mid conversation?

I actually agree with OP. There's a lot of re-used voices all over the place and while there is more voice diversity than Oblivion, it's really a pain in the ass when I just finished talking to an NPC that sounds like Randy Quaid and immediately speak to another NPC with the same voice afterwards...

There's at least 6 voices for the Nord race alone; I'd say that's plenty in itself.

You seriously expect only 70 actors can make the thousands of NPCs in the game sound unique?

The one thing I've noticed last night is that I've encountered countless male orcs and they all have the same voice.

the thing is, they got a bunch more voice actors, but none of them have any range. in oblivion every actor did a whole race, so you kind of got used to it because at least the voice made categorical sense. in skyrim, NPCs mostly have one voice per race with some exceptions, and those exceptions stand out all the more.

instead of "imperial voice" and "beast race voice" where we mentally categorized it as a trait of the race, now we have "ahnold voice" and "sixy swedish chick voice", where we are explicitly noting them as unique voices. we hear the voice and dont think "hes a nord" but "he sounds the same as that other guy".

moreover, the vast majority of NPCs are nords, and there is only so much vocal variety amongst scandinavians. what they should have done is kept the racial categorization, and have a few voice actors for each race; obviously more for the nords. that way we just associate multiple voices with a race as opposed to one: a linear increase in voice actors, and a damn straight mathematical improvement over oblivion.