Hopefully we get a companion who doesn't sound incredibly posh

[MyCabbages]

So far in my play through, only Goblins have working class English accents (bordering on cockney parodies).

Your companions are unanimously posh. Even Lae'zel speaks like someone who went to finishing school doing a mean person accent.

Wyll is the closest to having a normal English accent, but still sounds like he spent some time studying at an arts academy in Chelsea.

Player character voice choices are 'posh 1' or 'posh 2'.

I'm not up in arms about it or anything, but working class accents are used as shorthand for stupid and mean in games all the time.

As someone from a fairly grim part of England, it would be nice to have someone with a common accent play a prominent, non-villainous role for a change.

[Reaper]

But then we would need a translator ;) spent time studying at Grimsby college, nowt as Grim as that..

[Gaius]

As a brazilian (AKA someone who has no horse in this race) I think it's simply because a LOT of the world recognize this kind of accent as a comedic accent because of Monty Python, Rowan Atkinson and Ricky Gervais, not a "class prejudice" or any kind.

I didn't even know accents are a sign of social class in Britain, in my country it's mostly by region, no class (of course, people with higher education have better grammar, but that's a whole diferent discussion).

[wtiger27]

Originally posted by Gaius:

I didn't even know accents are a sign of social class in Britain, in my country it's mostly by region, no class (of course, people with higher education have better grammar, but that's a whole diferent discussion).

Same for the US. Lots of different slangs. For example, if you are visiting the heartland of Kentucky and ask someone there if they want a beer, you might get the reply of " I ain't caring. " Translated that would mean, " sure, sounds good. ".

The one thing about some Brits I find annoying, they speak way too fast. Not all of them however. Karlach and Wyll, both have a British accent, but a good pace to their speaking. You see the same thing to a degree in the US. Southerns generally speak slowly. One term for it is the "Southern draw". Or Hillybilly lango. lol.

[MyCabbages]

Originally posted by Dakthar:

But then we would need a translator ;) spent time studying at Grimsby college, nowt as Grim as that..

This is true. I cannot compare where I grew up to the inherent grimness of Grimsby (I actually know nothing about it, I'm sure it's very nice).

Speaking of translators; I still laugh when I remember that in the first of modern Wolfenstein games if you turned off subtitles the Scottish character would still have them on for the sake of Americans who couldn't understand him during focus testing.

But they could go light on it, like Taron Egerton's impression of a Londoner in Kingsman.

[MyCabbages]

Originally posted by wtiger27:

Same for the US. Lots of different slangs. For example, if you are visiting the heartland of Kentucky and ask someone there if they want a beer, you might get the reply of " I ain't caring. " Translated that would mean, " sure, sounds good. ".

Aha yes I remember watching some documentaries set in the South of the US recently and being genuinely surprised at the unintelligible (to me, as someone not from there) slang being used.

[MyCabbages]

Originally posted by Gaius:

I didn't even know accents are a sign of social class in Britain, in my country it's mostly by region, no class (of course, people with higher education have better grammar, but that's a whole diferent discussion).

We have regional accents too for sure. But generally no matter how rich (or poor) you get in the UK, you'll still be immediately marked as 'working class' or 'posh' based upon your accent. And will be treated differently by some people because of it.

I'm actually from a pretty rough area where everyone talks like the goblins, but I had a lisp and a stutter so I had to take speech therapy.

This included elocution lessons which, hilariously, left me as the only person on a rough housing estate with a posh accent.

It led to a fair bit of bullying from the less kind kids growing up, but as an adult in England it's basically a massive advantage for things like job interviews/being treated nicely by anyone in authority.

[sammy.k.jr]

Originally posted by MyCabbages:

So far in my play through, only Goblins have working class English accents (bordering on cockney parodies).

Your companions are unanimously posh. Even Lae'zel speaks like someone who went to finishing school doing a mean person accent.

Wyll is the closest to having a normal English accent, but still sounds like he spent some time studying at an arts academy in Chelsea.

Player character voice choices are 'posh 1' or 'posh 2'.

I'm not up in arms about it or anything, but working class accents are used as shorthand for stupid and mean in games all the time.

As someone from a fairly grim part of England, it would be nice to have someone with a common accent play a prominent, non-villainous role for a change.

I hate the way Wyll and Shadowheart say the word "goblins".

[Gaius]

Originally posted by MyCabbages:

Originally posted by Gaius:

I didn't even know accents are a sign of social class in Britain, in my country it's mostly by region, no class (of course, people with higher education have better grammar, but that's a whole diferent discussion).

We have regional accents too for sure. But generally no matter how rich (or poor) you get in the UK, you'll still be immediately marked as 'working class' or 'posh' based upon your accent. And will be treated differently by some people because of it.

I'm actually from a pretty rough area where everyone talks like the goblins, but I had a lisp and a stutter so I had to take speech therapy.

This included elocution lessons which, hilariously, left me as the only person on a rough housing estate with a posh accent.

It led to a fair bit of bullying from the less kind kids growing up, but as an adult in England it's basically a massive advantage for things like job interviews/being treated nicely by anyone in authority.

Eh, to be honest now that I think of it we have "class" terms and patterns of speech too. I just don't usually think about it (and only recognize those from my region).

[sevenfoothamster]

I mean, Minsc is gonna be voiced by Matt Mercer. I don't think he'll sound all that posh.
Assuming of course he's a companion.

[Lightning Mcree]

Not sure about the companion bits of it, but for the character voices there are going to be additional voices to chose from on launch, maybe there'll be one that's more suited to what you're looking for

[Lightning Mcree]

Originally posted by sevenfoothamster:

I mean, Minsc is gonna be voiced by Matt Mercer. I don't think he'll sound all that posh.
Assuming of course he's a companion.

Minsc and Jahara(I don't remember how to spell her name) are going to be recruitable companions

[cl656]

All the companions we have so far come from backgrounds where they would probably be more educated than the common folk.

[MyCabbages]

Originally posted by sevenfoothamster:

I mean, Minsc is gonna be voiced by Matt Mercer. I don't think he'll sound all that posh.
Assuming of course he's a companion.

I know this is a lighthearted comment which did raise a smile for me so thank you for that and don't take this reply as me being grumpy with you at all: I meant non-posh UK.

American actors doing impressions of Eastern Europeans in one of two flavours (comedic/stoic) is oddly enough a really common companion trope in CRPGs.

[MyCabbages]

Originally posted by cl656:

All the companions we have so far come from backgrounds where they would probably be more educated than the common folk.

Ha welcome to the UK class war where a common accent = presumed less educated by default.

Jokes aside though I do agree in this setting and from who we've met that's completely true, which is why I've got my fingers crossed we get someone who has a non-posh English accent on our companion list.

Something like the northern lad near the start who punches the tiefling if you don't intervene would make a refreshing change for me personally.

[Nimr]

The Witcher did a great job with accents.

First area: English
Skellige: Irish-Scotish
Nilfgardians: German
Ofiri: Arab/Persian

It was cool and gave a lot of personality to the world, the problem is that I couldn't understand a single conversations with peasants, it was astonishing to see the difference between Geralt and the rest of the cast.

Also, I spent one year in northern England and I experienced the same thing, I just couldn't understand people, not even other English people from the south were able to. So many years studying English, only to arrive at England and having to start over again...

You have to take into account that most people playing these games are not Brits, so they have to make sure that the spoken English is accesible to as many people as posible.

I don't want to be looking at subtitles for more than 100 hours.