Voice Actors- Does it Bother you?

AlnilamE

Youyouz06 wrote: »

I say it's time to bring in ze french accent.

'It cud be veri intéressant, n'est-ce pas?'

(PS: I am a Francophone and Francophile)

I'm now wondering what accents they use in the non-English versions.

Drdeath20

HiveMind3006 wrote: »

Drdeath20 wrote: »

I just never imagined people actually getting immersed in dialogue and storylines that is rated E for everyone.

Huh? So if is isn't full of profanity or adult content it isn't worth listening to? Forgive me if I pick you up wrong. I enjoy the story. It's nice to have the VA's. I played LotRO for years and that was all just text, but I read it. I like to know what I am doing and not feel so much like I'm just farming XP.
The majority of the voice acting is good, some of it is a little flat but when accents are just downright cringe it bugs me.
Some of the storylines are guff too, still listen to them.
Like folks have said they have the coinage and means to do it correctly so why not?
I understand North American's not noticing and it not being a big deal but when you notice something you can't un-notice it.

Question did you ever think that maybe your immersion problem is that the dialogue, storyline and context is meant to be followed and understood by a toddler all the same as an adult since it’s rated E for everyone?

AcadianPaladin

I view the accents as being native to Tamriel. That is, Bosmer have a woodelf accent - they don't know or care what 'cockney' is. Reachfolk speak with a reach accent - they don't know or care what a 'Scottish brogue' is. I expect if a Reach witch heard a Scott speak, she'd think he was using a fake Reach accent.

TLDR: I think the accents/voice acting is fine.

twev

The only issue I have with the voice acting is the numerical lack of variety of actors.
There aren't enough different people doing the VA compared to the number of roles for just normal NPCs with speaking lines.

I'm not talking about the few big name *stars* doing the iconic speaking roles.
It's just that every Bosmer is the same guy or gal, every Altmer is a different same guy/gal, Orcs, Khajiit, etc.

There needed to be more variety in the other lesser roles for voice.

Clearly new DLC places like The Reach, for example, have some newer sounding people than earlier maps but other than that I just feel like I'm always talking to the same 6 or 8 people wherever I go.

Nord_Raseri

Drdeath20 wrote: »

HiveMind3006 wrote: »

Drdeath20 wrote: »

I just never imagined people actually getting immersed in dialogue and storylines that is rated E for everyone.

Huh? So if is isn't full of profanity or adult content it isn't worth listening to? Forgive me if I pick you up wrong. I enjoy the story. It's nice to have the VA's. I played LotRO for years and that was all just text, but I read it. I like to know what I am doing and not feel so much like I'm just farming XP.
The majority of the voice acting is good, some of it is a little flat but when accents are just downright cringe it bugs me.
Some of the storylines are guff too, still listen to them.
Like folks have said they have the coinage and means to do it correctly so why not?
I understand North American's not noticing and it not being a big deal but when you notice something you can't un-notice it.

Question did you ever think that maybe your immersion problem is that the dialogue, storyline and context is meant to be followed and understood by a toddler all the same as an adult since it’s rated E for everyone?

Isn't ESO rated M/pegi 18?

DagenHawk

It's really not so much the voice acting (although the accents are so cringe I have to turn off the Voices ) I just can't get invested in the characters, because the writing is for the most part bad.

It is possible to be invested FFXIV has proven that although Anime isn't my cup of tea. SWTOR has it's moments, but again is plagued by bad writing.

Hopefully as time goes on it will improve.

Northwold

DagenHawk wrote: »

It's really not so much the voice acting (although the accents are so cringe I have to turn off the Voices ) I just can't get invested in the characters, because the writing is for the most part bad.

It is possible to be invested FFXIV has proven that although Anime isn't my cup of tea. SWTOR has it's moments, but again is plagued by bad writing.

Hopefully as time goes on it will improve.

A couple of recent threads have been really quite thoughtful about what's going wrong with the writing. I do hope it gets back to where it has been with some past DLCs (my own view is that they would do well to ditch the "year of X" stuff because it's making it almost impossible to tell good stories).

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/599050/greymoor-story/p1

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/599231/is-every-expansion-so-boring-story-wise-going-forward/p1

spartaxoxo

I personally don't really view them as supposed to be authentic to real world accents, so it doesn't bother me that they are "inspired by" but not realistic or authentic accents. I don't think the races of Tamriel are supposed to be analogues to real world cultures, simply inspired by them.

SammyKhajit

You know what’s really annoying? Those children in Skyrim with the American voice acting. Also the whiny dialogue. Nothing wrong with American accent per se but come on, this one can’t understand though why you have those Nordic accents etc for adult NPCs and then these American children all over Whiterun or whatever.

Puts Sammy off from having children

Lonestryder

For me, it’s less about the admittedly awful accents and more about the monotone reading of the lines without any emotion whatsoever. In many, many cases it seems like the voice actor was just handed the lines without any rehearsal whatsoever.

Northwold

Lonestryder wrote: »

For me, it’s less about the admittedly awful accents and more about the monotone reading of the lines without any emotion whatsoever. In many, many cases it seems like the voice actor was just handed the lines without any rehearsal whatsoever.

I love it when they go the opposite way and think it's supposed to be nine-months-pregnant with emotion and the line will be something like "here is a cabbage, adventurer".

newtinmpls

ShawnLaRock wrote: »

The woman giving a tour of the Graht Oak in Elden Root. <cringe>

S.

I actually like her ... I stalled the other day, just listening to her cycle through the "presentation"; and I like that most of the time she is clearly sick of her job - but then when she is talking about the Spinners, there is this shade of something more in her voice.

Katlefiya

AlnilamE wrote: »

Youyouz06 wrote: »

I say it's time to bring in ze french accent.

'It cud be veri intéressant, n'est-ce pas?'

(PS: I am a Francophone and Francophile)

I'm now wondering what accents they use in the non-English versions.

Going by the german-language version: none.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

AlnilamE wrote: »

Youyouz06 wrote: »

I say it's time to bring in ze french accent.

'It cud be veri intéressant, n'est-ce pas?'

(PS: I am a Francophone and Francophile)

I'm now wondering what accents they use in the non-English versions.

The French version of the game is pretty well done, but for accents...yeah they tend to do it less than the English client. I recognize some of the french voice actors from series/others games etc. Generally speaking French clients are quite well done as France has invested a lot into voice acting (obvious reasons).
German client must be pretty good too in that regard.

I did say something about certain English client voices in the past. It didn't go down so well, so I'll pass for now

FluffWit

Most eso voice acting is good but...

-I just skipped all dialogue in The Reach because of the bad Scottish accents.
-Concordia in general but especially Concordia screaming "ARE YOU AN ADVENTURER? HAVE I GOT AN ADVENTURE FOR YOU!" at Wayshrines is so cringe, how the hell did that get written and approved?

HiveMind3006

Drdeath20 wrote: »

Question did you ever think that maybe your immersion problem is that the dialogue, storyline and context is meant to be followed and understood by a toddler all the same as an adult since it’s rated E for everyone?

[snip]

What? First off ESO is 18+ (unless parent consents) So where you getting rated E? And as I pointed out earlier, just because there isn't profanity and sexual content doesn't mean it's aimed at children.
[snip]
[edited for baiting & to remove quote]

Ilsabet

Lonestryder wrote: »

For me, it’s less about the admittedly awful accents and more about the monotone reading of the lines without any emotion whatsoever. In many, many cases it seems like the voice actor was just handed the lines without any rehearsal whatsoever.

To be fair, that's pretty much how dubbing works for things like video games and anime. The actors might be given info about their characters ahead of time, but they rarely get an actual script that they can study or rehearse. They walk into the studio, get the script in front of them, and are guided by the voice director as they go line by line. It's not like a stage play or even movies or television where they get the luxury of practicing their lines over and over until they get the delivery just right.


Using the same actors for many different roles is also just another reality of having a game like this be fully voice-acted. There are probably thousands of characters that have something to say, and it's just much more sensible and efficient to have any given actor cover many roles instead of having to bring in a new person for each handful of lines (especially when you get away from the "marquee names" that they had voicing specific main characters when the game launched). It does get repetitive to hear the same voices, but I consider that a suspension of disbelief thing and don't let it bother me too much. It seems that lately ZOS has been making more of an effort to bring in fresh voices, too - I've seen a lot of announcements on Twitter over the past couple of years about VAs getting newly involved with the game, which I think is great.


I think the observations about the accents not being meant to be "real" Earth accents and that it probably bothers Americans less because we're not living with people speaking this way are pretty on the nose. It's easy to say "well this is a fantasy setting, have everyone talk British" and then you get something vaguely posh-sounding that probably doesn't match how any actual Brit would speak, and meanwhile the actual Brits are like "there are tons of ways people speak and this isn't any of them."

On the production side, the actors and directors would have to decide if it makes sense to invest the time and research to perfect specific real-world dialects versus just fudging it, which for a non-realistic work of fantasy fiction not set on Earth, it probably doesn't. I guess the counter-argument to that would be to hire actors who naturally speak in those dialects, but even that is more limiting and potentially not really worth it when verisimilitude isn't the point of the work.

On the listener side, we basically just have to decide how much it bothers each of us on a personal level. Using the example of the tour guide in Grahtwood, I never really focused on her accent, because I enjoy how jaded she sounds giving her spiels for the billionth time, which I find hilarious and probably pretty accurate for an actual tour guide. But I can see where someone would find the accent grating for whatever reason, whether they have experience with a "real" comparable accent or not.

Northwold

Ilsabet wrote: »

Lonestryder wrote: »

For me, it’s less about the admittedly awful accents and more about the monotone reading of the lines without any emotion whatsoever. In many, many cases it seems like the voice actor was just handed the lines without any rehearsal whatsoever.

On the production side, the actors and directors would have to decide if it makes sense to invest the time and research to perfect specific real-world dialects versus just fudging it, which for a non-realistic work of fantasy fiction not set on Earth, it probably doesn't. I guess the counter-argument to that would be to hire actors who naturally speak in those dialects, but even that is more limiting and potentially not really worth it when verisimilitude isn't the point of the work.

On the listener side, we basically just have to decide how much it bothers each of us on a personal level. Using the example of the tour guide in Grahtwood, I never really focused on her accent, because I enjoy how jaded she sounds giving her spiels for the billionth time, which I find hilarious and probably pretty accurate for an actual tour guide. But I can see where someone would find the accent grating for whatever reason, whether they have experience with a "real" comparable accent or not.

Yes I think this is why I personally think they should just not have done Scottish in the Reach. I don't think you can add six new actors just for some bit players. That's probably beyond the budget judging by the rest of the game. But a Scottish accent is just too distinctive to be acceptable if they [snip] it up. It can't be fudged. The fake cockney / west country / whatever is irritating. But Scottish is so much more involved that it's a whole different thing.

The closest examples I can think of would be hiring a Parisian to do a Québécois accent -- an absolutely distinctive accent that would be really hard to emulate, or someone from Milan to do Sicilian (which is a whole different language but tonally about as different from the way standard Italian is pronounced as you can get while staying in the same linguistic ballpark). If you're going to do that, the actors need to be trained and trained hard. If you can't afford it, avoid that accent entirely because the result will be atrocious.

[edited for profanity bypass]

EnerG

Oh no, a FAKE accent in a FAKE world how terrible.

Its litterally Tamriel they can use whatever bad accents they want, the whole point is Tamriel ISNT Earth.

Kiralyn2000

Honestly, don't really notice. But, I'm another of those NE American types.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

I'm not that bothered by accents in fantasy settings as long as they are consistent, which they fail at here and there in ESO.
Like there are a couple of Reachfolk who sound nice, then others sound kinda badly exaggerated. Nords are a bit all over the place with their accent. some sound nice, some less so.

But I just can't get why they choose some Cockney-ish accent for bosmer (which is all over the place in consistency). Doesn't help they seem to love treating them badly both gameplay and lore-wise, then on top of that make most of the noticeable characters all cute and "funny" leaning towards comic relief.

Northwold

EnerG wrote: »

Oh no, a FAKE accent in a FAKE world how terrible.

Its litterally Tamriel they can use whatever bad accents they want, the whole point is Tamriel ISNT Earth.

The whole issue is that it ISN'T a fake accent. It is a highly recognisable regional accent from the real world done very badly and inconsistently.

Khajiiti is a fake accent and works absolutely fine because it is its own thing (also because the actors do a MUCH better job of holding it -- I don't think I've ever come across a Khajiit slipping from Khajiiti into High Elf in the middle of a sentence, for example, AND because different actors are recognisably using a similar accent).

Shawn_PT

English is not my first language so accents don't much bother me unless they're either extremely over the top, or make it nigh impossible to understand what's being said.

That said, it bothers me so, so much more the fact that many lines are read in a deadpan tone. This happens far more in the base game, and I know the work conditions of those actors back then were not the best. But when I hear some flat, unenthusiastic delivery, it always defaults my mind to Farengar.

Oh. A dragon. How exciting. I wish I could study it. Have you come to Dragonsreach to discuss the ongoing hoshtilities...?

spartaxoxo

Northwold wrote: »

The whole issue is that it ISN'T a fake accent. It is a highly recognisable regional accent from the real world done very badly and inconsistently.

It is a fake accent that is inspired by a highly recognizable regional accent. The Reachman aren't analogous to any real world group, only inspired by them.

morrowjen

HiveMind3006 wrote: »

Yea but the Wood Elves arrrrrgh!! Cheesy Peeps its frickin BAD ! I'm Scottish, so I am used to terrible Jock impersonations from an early age (Russ Abbot anyone or am I just showing my age here?)
https://youtu.be/m9iaEWrYv3k

*edited 10k times to figure out how to add video - yup sometimes the simplest things....


[quote="

But the Scottish accents in the Reach were a whole new level of atrocious and I had to turn the sound off.

I haven't spent much time in the Reach. I am currently 'mopping up' missed quests and other bits n bobs I've missed throughout the zones so I shall definitely make that my next port of call. Thoughts shall be shared.


[/quote]

If you think that's bad you should hear what my fellow Americans in media do to US Southern and Appalachian accents (which ironically descend from Scottish and Irish ones albeit closer to what those accents sounded like when Shakespeare was alive). Thank God that those aren't used in-game because it would be as bad or worse than the Reach. And speaking of the Reach accents... while it's clearly Scottish in a manner it is different enough that I kind of think of it as a different accent altogether (one that sounds like a Scottish accent or is inspired-by but isn't quite). That helps me keep some sort of immersion there without the accent bothering me too much.

I think certain areas in the US simply can't hear the differences in certain accents (sort of like the pin/pen distinction that many southerners can't hear) and honestly don't know that what they're putting out there is terrible sounding to those that have an ear for certain accents and/or are native to where they are spoken. I say that because I've noticed that non-US actors (even Canadian ones) have tended to do a better job with Southern and Appalachian accents than many (and I do mean MANY - prob. most) American actors that aren't from those regions and/or have had little exposure to them.

Just as an observation.. All of the accents in question have a certain rhythm or melody to how sentences sound -- I don't think it's the words themselves that the actors are saying wrong but rather they're screwing up how the sentence or paragraph sounds when it's all together. Much like being able to get the notes right individually but not quite being able to put the song together. And given how both movies and games are edited and put together in post (chopped up, rearranged and inserted), that may be why certain accents give big media such trouble.

SydneyGrey

ShawnLaRock wrote: »

The woman giving a tour of the Graht Oak in Elden Root. <cringe>

S.

I was going to comment on this exact same NPC. I actively try to avoid triggering her speech every time I'm near Elden Root.

shadyjane62

I have learned to never have the sound on.

Lumenn

If I can live through the original R.E. there's nothing in this game that bothers me regarding voice acting. Besides, I'm from the deep south in the U.S.A. guess how often OUR accent is mangled. Even if it's on point the character is always some corn fed, single digit I.Q. (with fewer teeth) moron, or a "southern Bell" type.

Hapexamendios

At least I can understand the accents in the Reach. I don't think I'd be able to understand a real Scottish accent.

Sylvermynx

A "real Scots accent" is the sexiest accent in the world. Okay, it's actually equal in sexy with Aussie....