158 réponses à ce sujet

[Ryzaki]

Dalish elves probably would sound similar due to learning from the same history and passing down the same language. And they don't interact with humans and such so there would be no need for their accents to get mixed with others. Less about them being elves and more about them being isolationsists. Non surfacer dwarves would have the same issue. Tal Vashoth really depends. If bandit yeah but if a merchant or something? Not so much.

That doesn't fly with city elves or any other race that would mix with humans and other species often.

City elves however show they have variations in accents. (Fenris for this is being counted as a CE). Depending on where they grew up and around whom. (Orlesian elves servants clearly speak...orlesian like.)

The Inquisitor has to have been in a group with different species (mostly human) so it's not at all that shocking that he/she might speak similar to them. You do pick up accents from being in a area for a while and can "lose" your original accent (On purpose or not). So yeah to me it's not unbelievable at all that the Inq could just have "2" voices for 4 species. It's not like the male Inq has an obnoxiously high pitched voice or something so deep you wondered if he was a chain smoker.

Modifié par Ryzaki, 05 septembre 2013 - 03:43 .

[Shadow Fox]

Marbazoid wrote...

It would still have to be a retcon, surface dwarves and city elves from Fereldan/Free Marches in both games have had north amercian accents.

Why? Leliana despite being Ferelden by birth has an Orlesian accent.
Why do Dwarves and Elves have to have justications for their accents?

[Ryzaki]

To be fair Leliana was raised in Orlais though wasn't she? She hasn't been in Fereldan long enough to lose her accent.

I do hope they leave the Inq's background open to the extent we can headcanon things such as why he/she has the accent they have.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

She was raised in Orlais. That's also why Aveline has a Ferelden accent when she's ethnically Orlesian. But Orana, who was another elf from Tevinter also had an American accent.

[Ryzaki]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

She was raised in Orlais. That's also why Aveline has a Ferelden accent when she's ethnically Orlesian. But Orana, who was another elf from Tevinter also had an American accent.

which probably just shows BW isn't as anal about that as the rest of us. As long as the VA is good and can do their job it shouldn't be a big deal.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

Indeed. I'd imagine that's the case. Origins also had two examples of Antivans with English accents.

Modifié par Jedi Master of Orion, 05 septembre 2013 - 03:51 .

[Shadow Fox]

Ryzaki wrote...

To be fair Leliana was raised in Orlais though wasn't she? She hasn't been in Fereldan long enough to lose her accent.

I do hope they leave the Inq's background open to the extent we can headcanon things such as why he/she has the accent they have.

That's my point if accents are tied to race why doesn't Leliana sound British?

[Jedi Master of Orion]

I didn't mean to imply that elves are somehow biologically American sounding. But elves from an alienage (or even slaves) have almost always sounded American, even in the English accented Ferelden or Free Marches or Tevinter. I suppose a better way to put what I meant was that it was usually indirectly tied to race. An Orlesian human raised in Ferelden sounded English, but an elf raised in Ferelden sounded American. Most societies in Thedas are recially segregated, so in practice it is often sort of like accents being different depending on a PC's race .

Modifié par Jedi Master of Orion, 05 septembre 2013 - 04:08 .

[Ryzaki]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

I didn't mean to imply that elves are somehow biologically American sounding. But elves from an alienage (or even slaves) have almost always sounded American, even in the English accented Ferelden or Free Marches or Tevinter. I suppose a better way to put what I meant was that it was usually indirectly tied to race. An Orlesian human raised in Ferelden sounded English, but an elf raised in Ferelden sounded American. Most societies in Thedas are recially segregated, so in practice it is often sort of like accents being different depending on a PC's race .

Almost always doesn't equal always though. Not to mention you really think humans looking for any insult whatsoever to throw in elves faces *wouldn't* bring up their accents if it was a difference because of race? Cause I'm not seeing it. "They can't even speak the common tongue properly. Maker knows they've been taught enough." or snide comments about their intelligence since they CLEARLY can't bother speaking like those around them?

Also every Orlesian elf we know speaks...like an Orlesian. Kirkwall elves speaking American can be explained by the massive influx of Fereldan elves and humans fleeing from the blight. They brought their accent with them.
Also which Orlesian human are you talking about?

Considering there's a good case our Inquisitor is used to being around different species (he/she was working with the Inquisition a group that is far likely to be a over whelmingly majority of human). Why should he/she have to speak differently because of his/her race? Especially if he/she has been with the Inquisition (thus around the people in it) a while? if anything he/she should've started picking up the group he/she was around the most speech patterns. As long as the default voice is annoyingly high pitched (which would be unusual but not impossible for a Qunari) or sounds like gravel on the road (which would be deep for an elf not impossible but...unusual) it's not that strange.

And Fae said it better than I did. Dang it.

Modifié par Ryzaki, 05 septembre 2013 - 04:30 .

[MerinTB]

They went all voice in SWTOR, and there are eight classes, two genders. That's sixteen voice actors.

And everyone is running around with their hair on fire. Voice actors aren't paid that much - http://voiceactors.w...ce-actors-earn/ - unless you hire big name celebrities.

The trick would be the "talent", as in "celebrity" voice actors would take on smaller roles, mid-range "professional" voice actors (the ones well known and respected and paid well in the industry) would take on the bigger roles and companions, and then you get talented "newcomers" for the eight MC spots (one of each gender for each race.)

All in total, all that voice acting will be a chunk of the budget--but those eight voice actors for the MC are not going to be a LARGE portion of the overall budget. If each of the eight were paid a year's salary for the voice work (I don't think they'd get nearly that much for the role, as it would not be a year's worth of work, but let's generalize) that would be 8 * 60k = $480,000. Let's round up to $500,000. That seems high, but if the average video game in 2010 cost over $20 million to make, how does that half a million stack up? 3% of the budget?

And then let's get real. The MC voice actor will not be paid a year's salary for their work on DA:I, and DA:I will cost multiples of $20 million dollars.

Getting 8 talented, non-celebrity voice actors for the MC? Not a big part of their budget.

---

That's a lot of educated guessing - I have no knowledge of DA:I's actual budget, or how much is put aside for VA, and I have no idea what BioWare pays it's VA. But I am fairly certain that, unless something VERY RECENTLY change or BioWare is a very progressive developer (and has pull on EA for paying their employees what they want?), video game voice actors are paid LESS than regular voice actors (for commercials, movies, etc.) http://www.polygon.c...s?src=longreads

So, yeah...

they might choose to not spend the budget on eight voice actors, but it's not because it would BANKRUPT them. It would be because they need the extra $250k they'd saved spent on modeling another dragon fight.

Modifié par MerinTB, 05 septembre 2013 - 04:45 .

[Jedi Master of Orion]

Ryzaki wrote...

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

I didn't mean to imply that elves are somehow biologically American sounding. But elves from an alienage (or even slaves) have almost always sounded American, even in the English accented Ferelden or Free Marches or Tevinter. I suppose a better way to put what I meant was that it was usually indirectly tied to race. An Orlesian human raised in Ferelden sounded English, but an elf raised in Ferelden sounded American. Most societies in Thedas are recially segregated, so in practice it is often sort of like accents being different depending on a PC's race .

Almost always doesn't equal always though. Not to mention you really think humans looking for any insult whatsoever to throw in elves faces *wouldn't* bring up their accents if it was a difference because of race? Cause I'm not seeing it. "They can't even speak the common tongue properly. Maker knows they've been taught enough." or snide comments about their intelligence since they CLEARLY can't bother speaking like those around them?

Also every Orlesian elf we know speaks...like an Orlesian. Kirkwall elves speaking American can be explained by the massive influx of Fereldan elves and humans fleeing from the blight. They brought their accent with them.
Also which Orlesian human are you talking about?

Considering there's a good case our Inquisitor is used to being around different species (he/she was working with the Inquisition a group that is far likely to be a over whelmingly majority of human). Why should he/she have to speak differently because of his/her race? Especially if he/she has been with the Inquisition (thus around the people in it) a while? if anything he/she should've started picking up the group he/she was around the most speech patterns.

And Fae said it better than I did. Dang it.

I was referring to Aveline. She was Orlesian born. I thought the Orlesian elves we've seen were all servants raised in the houses of the nobles. Fenris and his sister were raised in Danarius' household too weren't they? I think every other elf we've seen from Tevinter had an American accent too: Orana, Tallis, Alarith, Devera.

There have been exceptions to the rule but I've usually figured most of them are just oversights or cases where the voice actor just fit the character better with the accent they had.

I suppose part of my belief that all races should have different voices was that I assumed that the differnet races would have different origins. It's pretty hard to imagine all 11 race/class combos having the same backstory. For a Qunari in particular, they have essentially a different speech pattern than the other races in Thedas. And there were the rumors of the elven mage being dalish.

Modifié par Jedi Master of Orion, 05 septembre 2013 - 04:40 .

[RavenScath]

Can we actually wait until we know more about backgrounds before discussing whether or not we have multiple voice actors? I mean if we have an Antivan or Orlesian background and we were raised there, I wouldn't imagine the Inquisitor having an English accent. And if Bioware wants to use multiple voice actors let them, afterall they have a year to work it out.

[Ryzaki]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...
I was referring to Aveline. She was Orlesian born. I thought the Orlesian elves we've seen were all servants raised in the houses of the nobles. Fenris and his sister were raised in Danarius' household too weren't they? I think every other elf we've seen from Tevinter had an American accent too: Orana, Tallis, Alarith, Devera.

There have been exceptions to the rule but I've usually figured most of them are just oversights or cases where the voice actor just fit the character better with the accent they had.

I suppose part of my belief that all races should have different voices was that I assumed that the differnet races would have different origins. It's pretty hard to imagine all 11 race/class combos having the same backstory. For a Qunari in particular, they have essentially a different speech pattern than the other races in Thedas. And there were the rumors of the elven mage being dalish.

She clearly had lived in Fereldan for a while. People can lose their original accents. It's not something strange or unusual.

As for elves from Tevinter with American accents. Is it really that difficult to believe that side characters didn't have that much effort put into their VA's? Devera was in DAO where Merrill's clans VA wasn't changed. Do you think if she was in DA2 she'd still have an american voice? Despite the fact that she considers herself a tevinter first and an elf second?  Alarith is surronded by denerim alienage elves not that strange he'd pick up the dialect. That happens. Orana really has no excuse but she only has like 3 lines so it's not that strange that the devs just had someone who did a lot of side characters voice her too.

And Talis...well she has Felicia Day all over her.

Pretty sure we can choose whether or not we're dalish. And you think they'll bother giving city elves and mage elves a different voice? VA's aren't exactly cheap.

Modifié par Ryzaki, 05 septembre 2013 - 05:42 .

[Ryzaki]

MerinTB wrote...

They went all voice in SWTOR, and there are eight classes, two genders. That's sixteen voice actors.

And everyone is running around with their hair on fire. Voice actors aren't paid that much - http://voiceactors.w...ce-actors-earn/ - unless you hire big name celebrities.

The trick would be the "talent", as in "celebrity" voice actors would take on smaller roles, mid-range "professional" voice actors (the ones well known and respected and paid well in the industry) would take on the bigger roles and companions, and then you get talented "newcomers" for the eight MC spots (one of each gender for each race.)

All in total, all that voice acting will be a chunk of the budget--but those eight voice actors for the MC are not going to be a LARGE portion of the overall budget. If each of the eight were paid a year's salary for the voice work (I don't think they'd get nearly that much for the role, as it would not be a year's worth of work, but let's generalize) that would be 8 * 60k = $480,000. Let's round up to $500,000. That seems high, but if the average video game in 2010 cost over $20 million to make, how does that half a million stack up? 3% of the budget?

And then let's get real. The MC voice actor will not be paid a year's salary for their work on DA:I, and DA:I will cost multiples of $20 million dollars.

Getting 8 talented, non-celebrity voice actors for the MC? Not a big part of their budget.

---

That's a lot of educated guessing - I have no knowledge of DA:I's actual budget, or how much is put aside for VA, and I have no idea what BioWare pays it's VA. But I am fairly certain that, unless something VERY RECENTLY change or BioWare is a very progressive developer (and has pull on EA for paying their employees what they want?), video game voice actors are paid LESS than regular voice actors (for commercials, movies, etc.) http://www.polygon.c...s?src=longreads

So, yeah...

they might choose to not spend the budget on eight voice actors, but it's not because it would BANKRUPT them. It would be because they need the extra $250k they'd saved spent on modeling another dragon fight.

So what was with Gaider's comment that adding a voice for the warden (and I assume he meant two) would've halved the dialogue? Clearly it has some effect. (oh and before you say it yeah DAO's dialogue is repetitive. So is every single BW game I've ever played. Even if DAI had all 8 VA's and cut back dialogue they'll STILL have dialogue that repeats things you already know.)

The money doesn't come out of thin air. It comes from other parts of the game budget (which is most likely the dialogue budget). I'd rather have more dialogue and dialogue options than more VAs saying the same thing in different ways any day.

But that's just me.

Modifié par Ryzaki, 05 septembre 2013 - 06:22 .

[Jedi Master of Orion]

Ryzaki wrote...

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...
I was referring to Aveline. She was Orlesian born. I thought the Orlesian elves we've seen were all servants raised in the houses of the nobles. Fenris and his sister were raised in Danarius' household too weren't they? I think every other elf we've seen from Tevinter had an American accent too: Orana, Tallis, Alarith, Devera.

There have been exceptions to the rule but I've usually figured most of them are just oversights or cases where the voice actor just fit the character better with the accent they had.

I suppose part of my belief that all races should have different voices was that I assumed that the differnet races would have different origins. It's pretty hard to imagine all 11 race/class combos having the same backstory. For a Qunari in particular, they have essentially a different speech pattern than the other races in Thedas. And there were the rumors of the elven mage being dalish.

She clearly had lived in Fereldan for a while. People can lose their original accents. It's not something strange or unusual.

As for elves from Tevinter with American accents. Is it really that difficult to believe that side characters didn't have that much effort put into their VA's? Devera was in DAO where Merrill's clans VA wasn't changed. Do you think if she was in DA2 she'd still have an american voice? Despite the fact that she considers herself a tevinter first and an elf second?  Alarith is surronded by denerim alienage elves not that strange he'd pick up the dialect. That happens. Orana really has no excuse but she only has like 3 lines so it's not that strange that the devs just had someone who did a lot of side characters voice her too.

And Talis...well she has Felicia Day all over her.

Pretty sure we can choose whether or not we're dalish. And you think they'll bother giving city elves and mage elves a different voice? VA's aren't exactly cheap.

For the record, I do think that if she was in DA 2 Devera would still have an American accent, she wasn't part of the retconed group of elves. Merrill was around alienage elves for 6 years and her accent didn't change. Neither did Feynriel's mother. There have been more examples of american Tevinter elves than not, although Tevinter and Marcher humans seem to have the same accent as Ferelden humans.

Modifié par Jedi Master of Orion, 05 septembre 2013 - 05:58 .

[Ryzaki]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...
For the record, I do think that if she was in DA 2 Devera would still have an American accent. Merrill was around alienage elves for 6 years and her accent didn't change. Neither did Feynriel's mother. There have been more examples of american Tevinter elves than not, although Tevinter and Marcher humans seem to have the same accent as Ferelden humans.

Ah but no way to tell for sure.

Merill wasn't around alienage elves. You learn this by talking to her. She ignored them. She didn't learn about their culture, she hardly interacted with them. There was no opportunity for her accent to shift. She stayed in that room most of the time with that creepy mirror unless Hawke and/or Varric dragged her away for a few hours before she went back.

Feynriel's mother I'll give you that is fair enough. Though she could just be one of those people that don't lose their original accent.

There's only a handful of american sounding tevinter elves to begin with. (and all of them are minor characters).

Modifié par Ryzaki, 05 septembre 2013 - 06:03 .

[Jedi Master of Orion]

True, but they are all we can use for reference of their accents.

[Ryzaki]

True but we do have reason to believe an elf can speak like the humans surrounding him/her. So it wouldn't be that strange for the Inquisitor to be such.

[MerinTB]

Ryzaki wrote...
So what was with Gaider's comment that adding a voice for the warden (and I assume he meant two) would've halved the dialogue?

The money doesn't come out of thin air. It comes from other parts of the game. I'd rather have more dialogue and dialogue options than more VAs saying the same thing any day.

I don't know where David Gaider's comment you are referring to came from.  Even if, say, another voice actor only adds $15k to the budget, maybe they don't have the extra to squeeze after dividing up the money.  It's a matter of priorities.

VA isn't cheap - each new actor you add to reading the SAME set of dialog increases the cost.  1 to 2 is doubling it, 1 to 4 is quadrupling - it's not like you can get eight voice actors on discount because you bought them in bulk.  So if you have, say with DA:O, the possibility of a different male and female set of VA's for each Origin (six * two is twelve), each line of dialog you write has to be read, on average, twelve times.  THAT's probably why more actors would seem to drastically reduce the number of lines they want to pay for... but I think it depends on how they pay the voice actors (by line?  no, by hour is more likely as that's industry standard) and how you want to spend your budget.

When DA:O was being made, originally, think back - how much voice acting was in games?  In RPG's with dialog options?  Think of how much game budgets have risen since DA:O was started to now.  Think of how many more resources BioWare, part of EA, has compred to BioWare, pre-Microsoft owning them?

Big games pre-2000 cost like a million dollars to make or less.  You could make a Warcraft 2 for under a million, diablo for just over a million.

Budgets are now expected to be higher.  Cinematic storytelling expects voice, it expects movie-like presentation as opposed to novel-like presentation.

Developers can get away with putting up a budget that will cost $50 million or more, with maybe a million or a couple million for VA, where in the past they couldn't put up an ENTIRE budget for a couple million.

DA:O development to DA:I development is close a decade (if you think DA:O started around maybe 2003-4, DA:I starting roughly 2011, that's at least seven years) and in that decade what do you think has happened to the budgets of video games?



Yeah.

I don't know the BioWare dollars, what the budget is or where it goes.  They can have very real, very good reasons for not spending the money on multiple actors for the main character, and shaving the tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of dollars off might keep in a few dozen more lines of dialog or another couple cut scene animations that, in the balance, are deemed more worthwhile.

---

Let me be clear - I'd rather there was a silent protagonist.  I'm not arguing for more voice actors.

I just have a problem with all the people claiming how ungodly expensive more actors for the MC would be.  Would it cost more?  Yep.  Would it be THAT big a part of the budget?  NO.

[Ryzaki]

Let's not forget what all those sky high cinematic budgets have lead to. Microtranscations, day one dlc, disc locked dlc content that we have to pay for, paying for CHEATS, in game DLC advertisements, online passes (EA's not doing them anymore but still...) among other fun stuff. The sky high rising development costs are not a good thing. Edit: And no I'm not saying EA are doing all of the above they're doing some of them (most probably) but I know they're not making us pay for cheats *looks at SR4*

EA owning BW didn't make ME3 have hordes of dialogue and wildly varied outcomes. There's limits. And their budgets have limits.

I just have a problem with all the people claiming how ungodly expensive more actors for the MC would be. Would it cost more? Yep. Would it be THAT big a part of the budget? NO.

Fair enough. I just feel it'd result in less choices and more autodialogue.

Hopefully BW if they decide to do the 8 VAs will prove me wrong.

That and honestly I'm selfish. Of all the voices in TOR I only like 3. Male Inq, Fem Warrior, Male Agent. I can *tolerate* Male Con, Fem Smug, Male BH, Male SW and I can't play Trooper because I despise both the female and male voices I tried got to lvl 5 before going screw it. I didn't even get to lvl 2 with the male smug, female BH I didn't make it out of the cantina and so on.

I'm okay with the male Inq's voice so far I don't want to run the risk I'm trying to play an elf and then end up throwing my hands up and restarting the game because the voice hits all my "Nope" buttons.

But yeah the 8 MCs being voiced would be enough for me to go W&S just to be sure. Fool me once and all that.

Modifié par Ryzaki, 05 septembre 2013 - 06:49 .

[LucianaIV]

That and honestly I'm selfish. Of all the voices in TOR I only like 3. Male Inq, Fem Warrior, Male Agent. I can *tolerate* Male Con, Fem Smug, Male BH, Male SW and I can't play Trooper because I despise both the female and male voices I tried got to lvl 5 before going screw it. I didn't even get to lvl 2 with the male smug, female BH I didn't make it out of the cantina and so on.

I'm okay with the male Inq's voice so far I don't want to run the risk I'm trying to play an elf and then end up throwing my hands up and restarting the game because the voice hits all my "Nope" buttons.

But yeah the 8 MCs being voiced would be enough for me to go W&S just to be sure. Fool me once and all that.

I'm guessing you never touched Fem!Shep then, since both Fem!Shep and the Fem!Trooper are voiced by Jennifer Hale.

I for one like most of the voices in SWTOR.

As for voice differences for DA:I, I personally find it more important that for example Dalish Elves make as much use of their Elvish language as possible, then how they sound, though I did like the DA2 Dalish elf accent retcon.

Modifié par LucianaIV, 05 septembre 2013 - 07:36 .

[DragonAgeLegend]

The Inquisitors voice isn't Orlesian. It's English. You can hear him speak in the PAX demo.

[Ryzaki]

LucianaIV wrote...

That and honestly I'm selfish. Of all the voices in TOR I only like 3. Male Inq, Fem Warrior, Male Agent. I can *tolerate* Male Con, Fem Smug, Male BH, Male SW and I can't play Trooper because I despise both the female and male voices I tried got to lvl 5 before going screw it. I didn't even get to lvl 2 with the male smug, female BH I didn't make it out of the cantina and so on.

I'm okay with the male Inq's voice so far I don't want to run the risk I'm trying to play an elf and then end up throwing my hands up and restarting the game because the voice hits all my "Nope" buttons.

But yeah the 8 MCs being voiced would be enough for me to go W&S just to be sure. Fool me once and all that.

I'm guessing you never touched Fem!Shep then, since both Fem!Shep and the Fem!Trooper are voiced by Jennifer Hale.

I for one like most of the voices in SWTOR.

As for voice differences for DA:I, I personally find it more important that for example Dalish Elves make as much use of their Elvish language as possible, then how they sound, though I did like the DA2 Dalish elf accent retcon.

Nope. Can't play her either because I just can't stand Hale's voice. (Which is odd because I like her just fine in Metal gear...) But as the protagonist? No thanks.

I wish I did. I'd play more of the classes. Instead I got like 3 snipers, 2 ops, 4 warriors, 3 assassins, 2 sorcs and 1 of smug (female), Conc (male).

Worst part is I have beaten the game class storyline with all the snipers, ops, warriors and assassins almost done with the sorc. It took me almost a year to get smug to act 2 cause I'm meh on her voice for long periods of time and I just finished the consular's story (I made my consular the 3 months after my smug).

I had a male BH but I didn't even bother with the story. And once they nerfed him in pvp there was no reason for me to have him so deleted he was.

So yeah a voice I don't like can make the game unplayable as that class to me. Which is why I'm gonna review the voices. As long as 2 species voices I can tolerate/like I'll get it. I just don't wanna buy the game and then hate every voice but the human's.

...what would be nice is even if the voices are species strong allowing us to pick which voice for the Inquisitor. More RP options that way too.

Modifié par Ryzaki, 05 septembre 2013 - 02:06 .