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[King Cousland]

El Mito wrote...

ClaomhScathach wrote...

So long as the Irish accents for the Dalish are better I don't mind. Those were shockingly bad in DA2.

That's because they weren't Irish, dummy.

Um, sorry to tell you this, but yes, they were. The Dalish had a mixture of Irish and Welsh accents in DA II. 

[kin23g]

I honestly couldn't stand the French accent in both DA games. But Leliana was fine, awesome, in fact. And DA3 taking place in Orlais << (spelled it right?) is a big worry for me. I don't think I'll be able to survive listening to ( at 2:56) this horrible accent all day. Isn't there a way around it?

And Origins was 10/10 thx Bioware .. specially you David Gaider and your great writing.
Sorry for my bad English.

Modifié par kin23g, 23 septembre 2012 - 01:06 .

[Potato Cat]

kin23g wrote...

I honestly couldn't stand the French accent in both DA games. But Leliana was fine, awesome, in fact. And DA3 taking place in Orlais << (spelled it right?) is a big worry for me. I don't think I'll be able to survive listening to ( at 2:56) this horrible accent all day. Isn't there a way around it?

And Origins was 10/10 thx Bioware .. specially you David Gaider and your great writing.
Sorry for my bad English.

(Yes it is spelled right )

A lot of the French accents in DA so far have been to poke fun at the Orlesians, especially with the de Launcets. There will be some more down to Thedas ones in there and remember there's a war going on, so there'll be more than a few non-Orlesians in Orlais.

[nijnij]

Being French, I would say the trick is not just to have native French VAs, but to have native French VAs with actually decent English pronunciation. Sure, you could tell Leliana' accent, but it wasn't exaggerate (unlike a few accents in the games). She wasn't going out of her way to make every pronunciation mistake the average French person is supposed to make.

An accent that's too exaggerate, even performed by a native speaker, breaks our suspension of disbelief because it just sounds like an actor trying very hard to sound a certain way, rather than a character trying to efficiently communicate with other characters. The worst case of this I can think of is in Master and Commander with Russell Crowe ; the French captain is no doubt French, yet he just sounds like a dude who was told by the director to go out of his way to sound extra French, not like an actual educated captain addressing an enemy crew and giving a damn whether they'll understand what he has to say or not.

The suspension of disbelief is even greater when the character has elaborate or even just normal vocabulary ; you just seldom find someone who's bilingual and still pulls off having an improbably untrained accent. If the game takes place in Orlais yet is in English, then Orlesians will most likely have flawless English since it will have to be assumed that they're speaking in their own language. In that case, the French accents would only be there to add some flavour, and the more moderate they are, the more effctively they'll achieve that.

Modifié par nijnij, 24 septembre 2012 - 12:23 .

[Galatean]

BlenderisedMind wrote...

Red Templar wrote...

Orian Tabris wrote...
Is it just me, or do people actually believe that BioWare would hire actors to do cheap imitation accents?

To be entirely fair, Bioware has done exactly that. The South African accent in the Mass Effect 2 Kasumi DLC was utterly, unequivocally abysmal. Having been performed by a Canadian voice actor.

ME was done by a different Bioware division, but I have no idea how centralized or decentralized the matter of voice acting is for the company.

Wait, there was a South African accent in the DLC?? Why, oh why haven't I heard of this! Off to youtube...

Edit: So, I watched it and we don't sound like that. Still pretty cool though that we at least got some sort of SA accent put in a game.

Eh, maybe it's just because I have a very strong suspension of disbelief. It takes a lot to break immersion for me, especially when I take into consideration that accents can and will change in 200 years. For all we know, that is exactly how an Afrikaner accent will sound in the year 2185 or whenever.

That is the point of view I took, and that's probably why it doesn't sound awful to me.

[Palipride47]

Can't say anything about European accents (I'm more familiar with Southwest Asia and Middle Eastern regional differences) but I have no complaints with voice acting, because Bioware has excellent voice actors and they INVEST in it. Which WILL make or break an RPG.

I just don't want this :

[Das Tentakel]

nijnij wrote...

Being French, I would say the trick is not just to have native French VAs, but to have native French VAs with actually&nbsp;decent English pronunciation. Sure, you could tell Leliana' accent, but it wasn't exaggerate (unlike a few accents in the games). She wasn't going out of her way to make every pronunciation mistake the average French person is supposed to make.

An accent that's too exaggerate, even performed by a native speaker, breaks our suspension of disbelief because it just sounds like an actor trying very hard to sound a certain way, rather than a character trying to efficiently communicate with other characters. The worst case of this I can think of is in Master and Commander with Russell Crowe ; the French captain is no doubt French, yet he just sounds like a dude who was told by the director to go out of his way to sound extra&nbsp;French, not like an actual&nbsp;educated captain addressing an enemy crew and giving a damn whether they'll understand what he has to say or not.

The suspension of disbelief is even greater when the character has elaborate or even just&nbsp;normal vocabulary ; you just seldom find someone who's bilingual and still pulls off having an&nbsp;improbably untrained accent. If the game takes place in Orlais yet is in English,&nbsp;then Orlesians will most likely have flawless English since it&nbsp;will have&nbsp;to be assumed that they're speaking in their own language. In that case, the French accents would only be there to add some flavour, and the more moderate they are, the more effctively they'll achieve that.

That is exactly my thought on the subject. In general, the better somebody’s English, the weaker his or her accent.
There are some exceptions to this, however. A lot depends on an individual’s ear for languages and flair for learning them. Mother tongue may have some influence as well (the phonetics in particular). And try talking in four languages all day long while being busy with the organisation of an international event, you get tired and your accent starts to become noticeable…

Anyway, we may have to look at it pragmatically. The only ones to really notice this, are people who talk to, or listen a lot to, non-native speakers speaking English. At least when it comes to European (-derived) languages you’ll find most of them in Europe. And DA is dubbed into the major European languages like French and German. So the only ones to notice it and possibly get annoyed are a small fraction of the player base. Some Scandinavians here, a few Belgians or Dutch there, the occasional Frenchwoman or German preferring the English-language version over there.
For the native Anglophone gamers, the important thing is that the accent sounds foreign.

There’s a scene in Game of Thrones were Tyrion talks with Shae, and asks what her ‘interesting’ accent is from (the actress is German of Turkish descent). She merely answers ‘foreign’.
And that’s all the information you need, I guess.

Galatean wrote...

* snip *

Eh, maybe it's just because I have a very strong suspension of disbelief. It takes a lot to break immersion for me, especially when I take into consideration that accents can and will change in 200 years. For all we know, that is exactly how an Afrikaner accent will sound in the year 2185 or whenever.

That is the point of view I took, and that's probably why it doesn't sound awful to me.

 

Good point. But bad accents do destroy the suspension of disbelief of a lot of people. So what to do? Maybe dispense with accents altogether? It’s a double-edged sword in my opinion, especially if you lack the resources to do a thorough job. Hollywood usually screws this up as well, and I doubt EA BioWare can match Hollywood’s resources in this area. Even if they sometimes spend money on a Hollywood scale (SWTOR…)

[nijnij]

Indeed, I always choose the original version when I get the chance. Video games are actually a very underrated way to improve your language skills . Steam is very cool in that regard because it lets you download the game in whatever language you want without having to pay for each version like you would with a physical copy of the game.

[LilyasAvalon]

... People though Merrill didn't sound welsh? I just thought she was ****ing adorable.

[ShaggyWolf]

Edit: Somehow I replied to the wrong thread. Disregard this post

Modifié par Valadras21, 25 septembre 2012 - 06:37 .