Originally Posted by Isaac Springsong
Originally Posted by vometia
Originally Posted by Aurgelmir
Seems to me it's mostly Americans who find it "off putting"? I guess to them it's something exotic, where as us Europeans are more used to British accents?

I think it comes down to a mistaken belief in there being a "standard English" that has no accent; for Americans, it's an American newsreader accent and they don't seem to understand it simply sounds like a generic American accent to everyone else, not an English one.

Obviously it's not only Americans who do this. As a Geordie who spent some time living in Hertfordshire I never heard the end of how outrageous it was that I had an indecipherable provincial accent compared to their no-accent-at-all. It was quite amusing listening to them having the same argument with Cockneys who also used the same argument, with everyone being largely incomprehensible to each other.

It's slightly tiring seeing all British accents described as "posh" and "snobby" though: I mean considering my PC is a rough-as-a-badger's-arse Cockney who I'm sure is about to yell "gercha!" at someone.


As someone who wrote the first thread about the massive over-abundance of British accents in the game, I can categorically say that is *NOT TRUE*.

I *do not* have a problem with there being characters with British accents in the game.

I *DO* have a problem with seemingly *EVERY* character in the game having a British accent. Why, on all of Faerun, would a goblin grunt pronounce words with the same tones and phrases as someone from a completely different plane of existence (Githyanki)??

There is no excuse for this. At all. Watch the video below, I've included links at the relevant time stamps. For those that don't recognize it (as I suspect many will not) this is literally the first few minutes of gameplay of Baldur's Gate 2. Within the first few minutes we get *five* different and distinct accents, which is pretty much more than exists in the entirety of BG 3 EA.

Irenicus (British) - https://youtu.be/RRSMCuJISdw?list=PLzw_r3FRBpcMejn_maOZjBKo51RkDue_3&t=530

Golem (flat mechanical) - https://youtu.be/RRSMCuJISdw?list=PLzw_r3FRBpcMejn_maOZjBKo51RkDue_3&t=563

Imoen (mid-western/California American) - https://youtu.be/RRSMCuJISdw?list=PLzw_r3FRBpcMejn_maOZjBKo51RkDue_3&t=599

Jaheira (Eastern European/Arabian mix) - https://youtu.be/RRSMCuJISdw?list=PLzw_r3FRBpcMejn_maOZjBKo51RkDue_3&t=807

Minsc (Russian) - https://youtu.be/RRSMCuJISdw?list=PLzw_r3FRBpcMejn_maOZjBKo51RkDue_3&t=981

About 5 minutes worth of gameplay. Already more audible diversity than all of BG 3. There is no excuse for BG 3, made 20 years later and with access to phenomenally greater resources, to have the same voices for characters from entirely different backgrounds, races, and planes of existence. Heck the voice actor for Astarion (Neil Newbon) did a Russian accent for a recent Resident Evil game, so it clearly isn't a technically issue. This is a design issue.



Your viewpoint is valid but this is just personal preference. There are no set rules for accents in a fantasy setting. This is far from the only fictional world to have aliens that speak in the same/similar accents to the main character. I'm enjoying the abundance of British accents immensely. But I'm sure they'll introduce more as the game goes on since we don't even have all of the main cast introduced.