Originally Posted by Uncle Lester
I have no problem whatsoever with British accents. I wouldn't mind English accents from all over the world, but I'm not a huge fan of mapping real-life countries on fantasy ones. I didn't like how in Dragon Age there was a France rip-off with heavy French accents and Italy rip-off with heavy Italian accents. I know Forgotten Realms are largely based on the real world, but it doesn't need to be further reaffirmed with accents. Besides, there is a lot of diversity just among British accents (as already seen in the game). There isn't one British accent, not to mention other European English accents.

I wonder if people would be as bothered if all the characters spoke like Americans.


For what it's worth, I would 100% be just as bothered if American accented Goblins sounded basically the same as American accented Tieflings, etc.

There is, undoubtedly, mapping of real life accents to fantasy areas in Faerun. Scottish Dwarves, Arabian Calimshan, Latin American for the shining city of Amn, Rasheman are Russian (aka Minsc) etc. But if Larian wants to divert from that, I'd be more than happy to see what they come up with. But to my original point, that doesn't exist when the same underlying accent is used by *everyone*. When creatures from another plane of existence have the same basic tone as a band of isolated goblins, or Drow from miles beneath the surface, etc.

I don't particularly care *which* other accents they use, I just want to see the same diversity of voice acting that was present in BG 1 and BG 2. Seriously, there are more diverse accents in the first 1 minute of gameplay in BG 2 than is in the entire EA. There is no excuse for that when even the voice actors that were used can have more diversity than was presented in 1/3 of the game.

For example, Neil Newbon (the guy who voices Astarion) has been paid to do a good Russian accent before (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYwN1yDKvYE). It doesn't matter if suddenly new accents pop up in Act 2, that the fact that 1/3 of the game, that covers an immensely diversity set of races and backgrounds, all sound like they grew up on the same block.