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On Pronunciation

Kris Takahashi Other 6 Comments

Often times people will hold the mod to a different standard than vanilla Skyrim. One of earliest complaints was the use of the word ain’t. The user(artist rendition above) never even played the mod, but swore it off as the devil based on a screenshot which had the term in the subtitle. His argument was that ain’t and ain’t no were slang phrases, and that he would sacrifice his first born child before I polluted his pure, fantasy playground with my jive-talking cyberpunk NPCs. It was then pointed out that the words are centuries old and are commonly used by vanilla NPCs, and much hilarity ensued.

Of course, there are complaints such as these that are completely baseless, and those that are derived from changes made in Skyrim. One common misconception is Khajiit only speaking in the third person, when vanilla Khajiit, immigrants directly from the motherland of Elsweyr, will never use their first name.

In fact, I too was guilty of this belief. Which is why the early Khajiits all spoke in the third person. It was Dar’Rakki thinks this and Dar’Rakki wants that. Then I overheard a few caravan conversations and realized this third person orgy simply wasn’t happening. Here are some examples for your persual:

Now, it’s entirely possible this decision was made in order to allow various NPCs to use the same voice. Still, it’s a decision that alters the lore nonetheless.  So, when trying to reconcile which NPCs should use the first person as opposed to the third, I decided that some Khajiit were likely Imperialized as a result of growing up outside of Elsweyr. With NPCs like Qa’Dojo, I chose to use first person – as opposed to someone like Dar’Rakki or Gnives, who migrated from warmer sands.

Similarly, the word “N’wah” is pronounced entirely different in Skyrim than it is in Morrowind. This mod being a Skyrim mod, I believe I opted for consistency. So please, send your EN-WAH complaints to Bethesda. Or be like me and shrug it off.

This isn’t to say there aren’t mistakes. The irony is, fewer people notice the actual parts where I screwed up. NeoNudel I believe pointed out that I’ve been calling the White-Gold Concordat the White-Gold Concordant. I’ve also been referring to Thalmor Justiciars(Jus-ti-see-ars) as Thalmor Justicars, and the NPCs reflect that mistake. I blame Mass Effect, of course, because I certainly can’t be held accountable for my own foolishness. Interestingly enough, there are vanilla Nords who also dabble as Commander Shepard in their spare time. So that makes me feel a little better.

Shiiieeet, did you hear that? This here is a vanilla NPC and he said Justicar. Let’s all blame this guy.

Placeholder Audio

Kris Takahashi Other 9 Comments

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When it comes to female Khajiit, there is no actor more authentic than Natalie Loftus. She absolutely nails it. She nailed it so hard it shattered the lumber and has left my face covered in splinters. Which is cool because I’ve always wanted to have a beard, just never knew how.  Then Natalie nailed it, as Natalie tends to do.

Of course, the problem is, it seems nobody knows this but me, for the simple fact that Ms. Loftus is a very busy woman, and is not exactly keen on slavery, which is what the work essentially is. It’s murder on the throat and incredibly time-consuming and there are no rewards to speak of. So the basket full of Khajiit roles sits and waits in her inbox, and I’m okay with her taking all the time she needs, because I’m pretty sure I won’t find a better voice.

The question is, what to do with these characters in the meantime? It’s quite possible these roles will not be voiced until 2018, at which point I will already have moved on to writing Zora/Amalee slash-fiction. No one will want to voice these roles temporarily if it means they will eventually be sucked into Natalie’s gravitational vortex. Well, no one save me.

So, here is a sampling of what can be placeholder audio until these get recorded. If people can stomach it, I’ll record the rest and add it to an update. I can’t act, but I have a decent mic and an idea of what the inflections should sound like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIGfYK9SfxA

Status Update

Kris Takahashi Other No Comments

2013-06-08_00001I’ve been swamped with real life work as of late and have not been able to do much of anything. So while there is nothing more tedious than writing the same articles about car valuations and business insurance over and over and over and over again, without this money I would not have food for me or my computer, which tends to eat bounds of electricity and refuses anything else, such as the bagels I have placed in its optical drive.

The mod is fairly close to being fully voiced, de-bugged and un-beta’d, mostly because I’ve kept the new stuff under wraps in hopes the voice actors would catch up. Unfortunately, the remaining voice actors are the kind that are extremely busy and sometimes do not reply to emails. So…while I do not want to call anybody out just yet, there is a reason the status bar is as such:

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I also want to clean up some of the lower quality recordings from the early days of the mod. Some might require re-casting, depending on the original VA’s willingness to redo the lines. Darksun45230, for instance, has graciously accepted the task of re-recording Larkspur‘s base dialogue, much of which suffers from clipping/distortion. Others have not been as forthcoming, so perhaps you will see some familiar names on the Casting Call section in the coming weeks.