Off Topic Productions

Jetsetlemming wrote:Yardbomb's voice is seriously the worst in TNM. There's a whole lot of faked accents in TNM for some reason, but that cajun one takes the cake.

Yardbomb's voice, in real life is quite... difficult to pin down of it's own.

And I don't think he'd be against seeing the south rise again.

Touch of southern, knows a bit of french. Cajun is the natural endpoint of that.

A southern accent on its own is infinitely easier to imitate than a cajun one. For one thing, it's much easier to go hear a real example of a southern accent, most of the cajun accents you hear on TV and in movies is faked. It's a very specific regional sound, and somewhat rare, especially in modern times since TV and movies produced in Hollywood and New York are slowly wittling away at US regional accents for a generic American one. Last time I visited Virginia only about 1/3 of the people I talked to had a really noticeable accent different from my yankee one.

Pretty much the only really good faked Cajun accent I can think of is Gabriel Knight's, and then that's very soft and not very stereotypical. Closer to a standard southern accent than a cliche cajun one, with just that hint of twang on the right words.

admiraljustin wrote: Yardbomb's voice, in real life is quite... difficult to pin down of it's own.

It's called Baltimorese, apparently. And as I've said in irc, thanks to TNM my internal dialogue has become a quite proper southern gentleman. And I've amassed a few white suits and an impressive mint julep recipe, although I have no idea from where they came.

Personally I thought the ones that seemed most 'off' were Digital Ronin and Pimp-Jojo.

Aww come now, Digital Ronin is hilariously OTT.

Yardbomb's voice is seriously the worst in TNM. There's a whole lot of faked accents in TNM for some reason, but that cajun one takes the cake.

I kinda liked it, to me it sounded a bit Asian if you as me.

I kinda liked Jonas, Phas voice, think it was the whole English accent. After playing the game for a long while, I started speaking like him for no reason and realised I could not stop, guess I just pick up accents really easily.

Personally I'm quite fond of Slicer's voice. The accent is perfect. To be honest I would've liked that exact voice for Phasmatis, it's just a great, confident North English voice.

Anybody noticed we have a surprising amount of Danish accents in this mod, btw?

I had no problems with the voice acting in TNM. It's brilliant. Even the amateurs are great, 'cause it adds to the whole "forum" flavour of it; normal people in a virtual world and all that jazz.

It's also nice to hear genuine aussie accents for once.
*cough* Valve *cough* TF2 *cough* Sniper
Yes, you guys kicked Valve's ass by getting real australians.

teknikal wrote: It's also nice to hear genuine aussie accents for once.
*cough* Valve *cough* TF2 *cough* Sniper
Yes, you guys kicked Valve's ass by getting real australians.

Retric? And you believe it?


sic

I'm sorry but I think the voice acting really spoiled something that otherwise could have been splendid.

Actually the voices, particularly the english (and I am english) actually made it unplayable.

What a real shame.

A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link...

Yes, I agree it would have been so much better if it had been without voices and we had the delight of reading everything. Oh the jarring horror of a few faked accents, how oh how can you sleep at night after putting me through such torture?!

Thankfully this is forum, or else I probably would have murdered yokuoh with the horribly sarcastic posh English accent which accompanied the above statements. Exactly what was it that bothered you? I'm no voice acting expert, but I'm sure there are certain descriptive words which can be used, like: Static-y, voice cracking, over theatrical, fake accent, loud and obnoxious, no emotion, no sense of context, etc. Not just: "It was bad, especially the English."

Remember there is a speech volume control option where you can shut off the voices.

It's worth mentioning that every English accent in the mod was recorded by an English person: Deus Diablo, Silver Dragon, Phasmatis, Slicer - all recorded by English voice actors. Even Alpha Operator's awesome Scottish was recorded by a Scotsman.

If it makes you feel any better, there's a good chance that we'll have a wider variety of professional voice actors on our next game with voice acting

Jonas wrote:It's worth mentioning that every English accent in the mod was recorded by an English person: Deus Diablo, Silver Dragon, Phasmatis, Slicer - all recorded by English voice actors. Even Alpha Operator's awesome Scottish was recorded by a Scotsman.

I've no doubt about it - I know the accents of the UK very well... They're just not very Deus Ex. A male northerner or scotsman is no more appealing than say a black country accent (if you don't know what that is look up black country alphabet on youtube).

And frankly I'm not surprised at the response - people don't like being criticised and I would be the same.

But.. UK accents are not a good idea for games, not unless it's a really distinct voice.

I certainly wouldn't recommend a voice that would sound more at home on the TV show Shameless than a DX type game. Sorry.