I am from the Bethesda forums. I am here for your requested voice acting needs.

Absolutely fantastic, well where can I begin. We are almost ready to release the mod to the modding team so that we can start creating NPC's etc. I would advise to have a look around the forum, read up on the latest threads to get an idea of where we are and what we are up to. Mesogea is very much an earth based mod with an ancient world feel to it, but full of magic and mythology. There are so many voice aspects that its really hard to know where to begin. What are your preferences? What accents etc?

Welcome to Mesogea, Nextmastermind!

Do you have any voice samples kicking around? We'd love to hear them, if you do. If not, why not whip some up! It might help us come up with ideas for NPCs and dialogue and such. I find it easier to develop content when I have something to work with. It doesn't have to be anything in particular, just have some fun with it.

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I did those a little while back for an audition. I was quite nervous, but now I am confident. I can do almost any accent /voice, with my natural deep voice some might take some practice.

I have already started working out several things you could do. We have several races in the mod all of which will have accents, even variations upon them as the mod covers some vast distances. Im not sure which accent to use for which nation/race. My ideas are:

Karithian (southern, desert dwellers) something egyptian or similar.
Holorian (City state Imperial) Latin or Greek accent
There are then several other major players in the nations of Mesogea, any ideas for accents? Whats your advice?

Hm...I could give them a go. I am good at the slur and accent Jack Sparrow has in the PoC movies.

His accent is a very exaggerated cockney, Have you ever listened to Sean Pertwee? Have a listen and see if you could do anything similar. The Jack sparrow type would probably be quite interesting in the mod, albeit toned down just a bit so not so obviously Jack sparrow, savvy?

"So we're all men of are word really. I'll see what I can do...Please, though, don't drink all the rum."

I like it.

I will put a link in the other development threads so that the other members can come in here and post up their request lines. How do you want to handle the requests, what info do you need?

Ah, voices, great idea! Welcome, Nextmastermind!

A couple of thoughts about accents in Mesogea:

As Mesogea is being developed primarily in English then perhaps we could make use of the existing range of 'native speaker' accents. If we regard Holorians as the largest linguistic ethnicity of the world, it would make sense to use native English speakers for this. This would still allow a huge range of accents, from Home Counties and Celtic Fringe to New Jersey, Dixie and Californian, not to mention South African, Antipodean, Indian, etc. We could use well-established forms of accents and diction (or at least stereotypes!) to distinguish imperial grandees from unsophisticated peasants throughout the empire. Southwestern English would do well for hammy south coastal pirate speak, aharr! We could use the plethora of non-native speaker accents for the myriad of non-Holorian speakers. That way we could give a strong identity to the various regions that many players could already identify with.

Does this sound viable, or am I just being too culturally boorish?

Sounds pretty good. Some english accents are fairly modern, as is anything strongly north american. Highly posh english is actually a fabrication from 18C onwards, queens english as we might call it. The older dialects are west country and northern english. The strong American accents sound too identifiable with the new world, they are where language is heading rather than from where it has been. Having said that, even my accent, from Yorkshire is more Sean Bean than Cicero. Its an interesting dilema. Having said all of this we are still going to have to use tonnes of existing game speech so this might just be something we have to blend in and accept what is there is there, just not worry too much about it. I dont think youre being culturally boorish, we should talk openly and honestly about it then we have a better chance of getting it right.

Seeing as how Mesogea is set thousands of years ago and involves fabricated cultural groups I don't think we need to worry too much about adopting specific, real-world accents. Accents are strongly tied to particular cultural groups and change significantly over time. Over a period of thousands of years we can reasonably posit just about any kind of accent we like.

What we need to do is pick a sound that fits the image of the people involved and not worry too much about how good an impression it is. In fact, I would go so far as to say that using recognizable, real-world accents is counterproductive and immersion-breaking. I don't want to be playing Mesogea and wondering where the devil the merchant I'm talking to got his Cockney accent! The more neutral and less identifiable the accent is the less likely I am to pick up on it and break immersion. That doesn't mean I think we should abandon accents altogether, I just think they should be kept in check. In many cases, less is more, so long the characters don't sound modern and flippant. A Greek-ish accent, an Egyptian-ish accent, etc., are satisfactory and easier to produce. We have to keep in mind how easy or difficult these accents are for other voice actors, after all. The other thing to keep in mind is that the accents are likely to change over time as different actors lend their own impressions about the character of the people they are portraying. I think its up to the voice actors as a group to come up with something distinctive and workable, using the lore as a base of inspiration.

I hope I'm not sounding too heavy-handed (this is just my opinion, after all; it's always up to the group to decide), but I think the key is keeping voices sounding natural and clear. You might not win any accolades, but at least people will be able to understand what you are saying.

I see your point, the current range of accents of modern English already has too much association with the real world and could interfere with immersion. I was always amused how in the vanilla game the cockney/celtic beggars would switch to posh in mid conversation! I'm of the opinion that all accents are fairly modern, just the current state of linguistic evolution; if we could go back in a time machine we'd find things very different all over the place. Think how old movies and newsreels have vowel sounds and other vocalisations that just don't exist any more, and that's in less than a century.

However, I still like the idea of regional accents within the Empire - perhaps we could come up with a few ideas for that. It would make sense that all the native inhabitants of one city or region would have a similar accent. Diction we can do easily, but that's quite distinct from accent and is more to do with economic class and education. Well, I think I could do generic celtic (though my voice skills are probably rubbish), and since the earlier post I've already got a well-spoken native Arabic-speaking friend interested. She is going to suggest it to a few friends from the eastern Med, and I reckon I could maybe drag up a few others from Europe, Middle East and North America. Hmm... I know a genuine aspiring thesp too, though don't know if he'd do it for free; maybe a bit of flattery and ego-boosting might work there- "dahling, luvvie!" Oh, and if we do pirates from the coastal strip, then I think everyone will be queueing up to give it a go! "Shiver me timbers, ye swabs, splice the mainbrace! Can ye get this black spot to Blind Pugh...?"

However, I think we'd need the dialogue fairly finalised before we implement voice, at least for one distinct quest or speech realm. It may be a hassle to keep bringing back individuals to do a bit more...

...Yeah...

Anyway for providing me lines this is the basic setup in order

Emotion(opitional)
Accent
Improvise Y/N
Line

Ok, we have a plan then.

Nextmastermind, thanks for laying out what you will need. Would you be happy if we provide some generic lines from the mod for you to take a shot at? Some simple things fairly commonly spoken but which are Mesogea specific. Shall we open a new forum for voices etc? You could, if you wish, have moderator settings to adjust things as you prefer? Let me know.

My idea would be to open a seperate forum thread, then divide it up into threads. As we develop each NPC we could open a sub forum then a thread for each NPC to add detail and place voice requests? Is that ok or do you prefer a different approach.

I am just adding several more models and a little more content before releasing the entire mod as a modders engine for Mesogea. This is how it has worked so far and here is the plan, so you know where we are and where the mod is heading.

CURRENT RELEASE. First release a tourists Mesogea. All landmasses and 90% of regional content including grass, trees, plants, rocks, variety of beasts to enable players to take a tour of Mesogea to understand its size and potential. To enable modders to decide to join Mesogea and to get a feel for it so that a small core of modders could begin to put flesh on the bones and to work out what the modding content will be.

NEXT RELEASE: The modders engine so to speak. All models, textures, most interiors, street decoration, weather, some basic locations with pathgridding. Will also include new distant land production. Will again be a master file of large size plus distant land, models, textures. This will enable modders to begin creating their own towns, cities, locations, adding NPC's and linking the interior and exterior world. To implement the plans the main core of modders have developed in the forum. To identify further additions that require to be made and to do these as plugins that can be shared and moved between modders who can add and adjust based upon the master file. When each plugin is complete they can be merged to master for the next release. This state should allow claims to be made and for individual models and items to be added as plugins. Basically the mod broken down into workable parts.

PLAYABLE RELEASES: Each plugin now merged to the master or combined into large plugins to reduce load. All models and textures complete and distant land produced. Playable state releases that will allow players to create a character in Mesogea and to advance the character as further plugins are added or entire plugins combined and master file releases. The limit is that distant land can only be produced from master files so large scale changes of distant land in any plugin will force their merge into a master file.

So, as you can see we are moving quickly now from the planning stage to implementing. I foresee that we will soon after the next release start having NPC's cropping up all over the place and the voice requests may well suddenly landslide. I just didnt want you thinking we were not doing anything, now is the deep gasp before the plunge as Gandalf said.