Men ♂

[backthere]

You modders suck.

 

Okay thats unfair, you don't suck. I suck, a lot. And....that is a bit of a problem.

 

See there are at least five voiced female companions that I can name that are interesting and have some kind of functionality other than being a generic pretty girl Skyrim sperm depository.

 

Conversely...there are absolutely no interesting males other than Inigo.

 

What the hell is wrong with you people? This community is full of men (and women, don't get me wrong, I know that digital sexuality isn't a single sex pursuit) that not only have the skills but they have the capability to take their own "character" as such, invest it into a companion...and give me someone that I might really really really want to fuck in the land of Skyrim.

 

But NOOOO I'm just stuck with dumb stock companions that are about as interesting as cattle.

 

Skyrim modders....you suck because you pander too much to male mentalities. Yeah its nice that there are pretty girls that are almost human in the very basic methods the Skyrim AI allows for, I enjoy them thoroughly, having a BFF to murder people with is awesome....but I need some men. Men that aren't just pretty, but interesting...men that might actually serve some kind of purpose.

 

Its pretty damn sad that the best male companion in Skyrim continues to be Onmund,...who is absolutely boring, this many years past release, when there are so many men that play Skyrim and mod Skyrim and could actually voice a character of their own...that spend so much of their time focusing on female characters and female content that is male centric in design.

 

And yeah "do it yourself" becomes an answer obviously. I'll do that as soon as I can chain down a man with an interesting voice to do the VO work.

 

We need a male Sofia. I'm drastically sad there isn't one.

 

I guess I'll keep chewing Khajit cock til you people work something out....seriously. I'm sure Inigo won't complain.

[DocClox]

I do have some male NPCs in QAYL, if that helps any. Hopefully they'll be interesting; if not it won't be for lack of effort.

 

None of them intended for a companion role though

 

As for the "do it yourself" option: Make an interesting NPC and you'll find people asking if they can do the VO work. It's hard getting people to invest in vaporware, but show them a cool role with lots of great lines and all that changes.

 

If you build it, they will come.

[backthere]

Interesting NPC's is alright but they lack the depth of say Sofia.

 

I mean seriously guys, this is your chance to be Romeo/Batman....why no interesting men?

[Phygnos]

One big difference between genders is that women love to hear themselves talk so a self-voiced companion feeds a biological imperative.

Also, it will always receive 50 billion endorsements because it resembles contact with a real life female to us social rejects.

 

Finally, tesgeneral has some companions that are male and voiced/unique/etc. I don't think female interest was one of the concerns, however.  http://www.tesgeneral.com/#!npcs/c1sr9

[Vaelorian]

The thing about us men is that at least some of us hate our own voices. I can't stand mine. I find it annoying in the worst way possible, and if I have to give a speech I end up wondering how did everyone suffer through it without interupting me to tell me to shut up.

 

If my voice wasn't so god-awful I'd have offered to try to do the voice work if you'd have found a modder to get the rest of it done. Because that's the second problem; such a mod takes at least hundreds of hours to make, which is a notion that will turn off most people from even starting to think about it.

This could be cut down significently if you could get permissions from one of the "interesting" companions you mentioned, but I doubt those will be granted (fact is, most people who spend hundreds of hours on a thing don't want to share the rights to it).

 

So this is where the "Do it yourself" part can actually come into play; you can try to get permission to use assets (as in scripts and triggers) from one of those mods. Once you have those, getting a modder interested might be easier. Once you have the technical side done, you'll want a writer (or you could do the writing yourself). Once that's done and you only need a voice actor, you'll find it's much easier to get one.

Hell, if you get all that done then I'd be willing to try, even if it'd hurt your ears a bit at worst or give you a cheap laugh at best.

 

Now, for the record, I recall being told by one of my friends that Oblivion had one "interesting" male companion. A quick search yields the name of Dairanath Avari. Other than that, though, I believe there have never been any other "interesting" male companion mods.

I could, of course, be wrong, and I can't say I looked too hard, but I thought I'd mention that one in case you wanted to try it (if you happen to have Oblivion).

[Ernst1]

90% players of skyrim are male straight, what do you exspect.

[RunicGray]

Not tried these yet, but a few I found that are fully-voiced companions, some are marriageable and some are quest-aware:

 

The Return of Thorald Grey-Mane (expanded and re-voiced vanilla NPC)

Hoth

Atvir Dres

Valfar (not a new voice - dialogue from game has been rearranged and tuned for him)

Odvar the Afflicted

Harv

Deadpool (Hey, he IS voice-acted...)

 

Making a generic follower is easy - I've done it, and that's not saying a lot. Making ones that have presence, personality and an awareness of their surroundings is not easy. It takes work. Modders work on what interests them - if no one has had interest in making an in-depth male follower (which they have done, judging by the list above), then that's their prerogative. In all honesty, if you made a voiceless companion as in depth as you like, it wouldn't be very hard to find a budding amateur voice actor of the Skyrim mod community willing to lend themselves to it. So in the "do it yourself" camp, don't be so concerned with finding someone to voice it straight away - you need to write and then code the compelling character first.

[Adorkable]

...You say that like there are interesting female companions.

ALL the NPCs/followers in Skyrim are awful, INCLUDING most of those created by the community. I have yet to find an interesting follower, male OR female. (Especially a female that doesn't look horribly anime-ish or out-of-place.)

 

*sigh* I long for a Skyrim companion mod that reaches the insane awesomeness of the Willow mod for Fallout:NV. Now THAT was quality work.

[Monsto Brukes]

...You say that like there are interesting female companions.

 

I think it's less about individually interesting than it is about having an interesting selection.  The sheer numbers of available female npcs is quite large.

 

 

 

I think you should define "interesting"... as in back story? to look at? unique accouterments?

[Jexsam]

Shit, if I had an interesting voice and a mic worth a damn I'd be down to VO a male companion.

[Scythion]

So you suck a lot.

[Azolgar]

You modders suck.

 

Okay thats unfair, you don't suck. I suck, a lot. And....that is a bit of a problem.

 

See there are at least five voiced female companions that I can name that are interesting and have some kind of functionality other than being a generic pretty girl Skyrim sperm depository.

 

Conversely...there are absolutely no interesting males other than Inigo.

 

[...]

 

Modders create the content they want to create, then they post it online for free. Nobody is under any obligation to produce something for anyone and frankly I'm not sure what your post is supposed to accomplish. You complain about the lack of X, but instead of asking politely if any might want to work on something like that your post sounds like a list of complaints and demands.

[Swiftstep]

Having an interesting male follower would be interesting in another perspective, too: it's hard to find a person for the female avatar to marry. Because all the NPCs get boring pretty fast after they've played their part. Sure, there is a limit to everything. I guess, having a NPC with it's one lines to speak is not all; to become interesting (or maybe even vivid) he would need some features others do not have. Like special animations and gestures. Small things (scratching, coughing, snoozing in cold areas and little stuff like that). And lot's of them.

Hm, maybe, just maybe, some sort of FNIS plugin for the males to make them more distinguishable. I mean, if you look back to companions from Baldurs Gate - they had their attitude towards every action. And they talked to the hero on and after every occasion that made a difference. So, what I'm trying to say: maybe we don't need new voice actors (which is always difficult as it always sounds difficult from vanilla quality), but the possibility to give every NPC an attitude and a number of animations especially for his "role". If that is even possible.

[sorsharavenwing]

It's true that there aren't as many male follower mods as females. But they are out there. And some of them are fully voiced or, at least, have unique dialogue. I did a quick search on Nexus which revealed this:

 

Throthgar - fully voiced male follower - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/48797/?

Pelinal Follower - fully voiced male follower - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/54966/?

Sayid the Mercenary - male follower will eventually be fully voiced - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/53530/?

Akrioh - the Hunter of the Undead - male follower will eventually be fully voiced and have quest - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/55980/?

Ragnar Lodbrok - male follower with quest and gear - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/55340/?

Boromir Companion - male follower w/ unique dialogue and quests - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/39919/?

 

There are more. You just have to be willing to dig for them.

[Taven]

I don't want to sound like a high-and-mighty person among humble people, but I actually like the sound of my own voice, and I would very much like to voice a follower..if I knew how to..and had the tech to. And another thing, I'd probably be kinda picky about the character I'd voice. Not that I'd want the character to be like me, it's just that I don't know where my voice would even fit. ><

[Swiftstep]

I don't want to sound like a high-and-mighty person among humble people, but I actually like the sound of my own voice, and I would very much like to voice a follower..if I knew how to..and had the tech to. And another thing, I'd probably be kinda picky about the character I'd voice. Not that I'd want the character to be like me, it's just that I don't know where my voice would even fit. ><

 

The voice-recording technique of a video game is probably similar to a Hollywood movie. So you would need a professional studio to record something in Skyrim vanilla quality. If you take mods like Falksaar and Inigo you'll notice the different sound quality. Therefore I take it that a professional recording is way to expensive. That is if you want your avatar to blend 100% into the game. Plus you would need someone skilled to create a unique look for your avatar. Wouldn't make sense to put that much effort in creating a voiced follower if he looks like a Whiterun city guard.

 

One thing I always wondered about: why is there no attempt to "import" the voice acting from other video games? There once was someone on the nexus who created a Dunmer follower that used the voices from TES: Morrowind. If you played this game on English (my first game ever played on English <3) you might remember the very remarkable sound of the Dunmer. That mod disappeared from the nexus very fast. So im guessing there might be legal issues. But that sounds weird to me since there are so many mods with followers who look like real persons or characters from other video games (Sheppard and Geralt for example).

[TechPrince]

It takes sh!tload of time just to write dialogs and record it. You can ask the mod authors of those voiced companions.. some of them took a year. I dont think most of the authors have that much time and interest to do it.

[RunicGray]

I don't want to sound like a high-and-mighty person among humble people, but I actually like the sound of my own voice, and I would very much like to voice a follower..if I knew how to..and had the tech to. And another thing, I'd probably be kinda picky about the character I'd voice. Not that I'd want the character to be like me, it's just that I don't know where my voice would even fit. ><

 

There's a lot of sources for tips - I'm pretty sure there used to be a voice actors guild for Oblivion with a huge list of tips and tricks, demo reels, roles looking for VAs, etc. A quick google for "Skyrim voice acting community" yields a few results as well.

 

Basics:

1) (USB Condenser) Microphone - sets you back about £70-£130, depending on the one you get. You don't need one fancier than that to start out with. If you can't splurge out for one, don't worry about it too much in the beginning - it's just a good starter mic for voice quality. But a lot of the people on Youtube whom do voice capturing or voice acting started out with regular mics and bought USB condensers when they could later on.

2) Pop-filter - not expensive at all, so don't forget to get one. It helps keep those harsh P and S sounds from booming into the mic. It really helps the quality to feel more natural. If in a pinch, pantyhose stretched across a wirehanger. Not even kidding.

3) Avoid putting the mic near anything that makes a lot of noise - this means fans, including your PC tower. It will pick up the hum, if you're not careful.

4) Familiarise yourself with an audio editing program - Audacity seems to be a popular choice, since it is free. Because so many use it, there are also quite a few tutorials on using it for voice acting, such as clip editing and noise reduction.

5) If you're going to be doing any sort of voice with screaming, yelling, etc - warn the people in your house, so no one thinks you've just been stabbed, runs into the room, and ruins your recording.

 

There's a video by Lanipator of TeamFourStar, whom does DBZ Abridged, on what they try to concentrate on when they do their voice acting. It goes over the voice stuff itself, as well as the environmental (where you record, what you use, etc). Might be helpful?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't want to sound like a high-and-mighty person among humble people, but I actually like the sound of my own voice, and I would very much like to voice a follower..if I knew how to..and had the tech to. And another thing, I'd probably be kinda picky about the character I'd voice. Not that I'd want the character to be like me, it's just that I don't know where my voice would even fit. ><

 

 

 

The voice-recording technique of a video game is probably similar to a Hollywood movie. So you would need a professional studio to record something in Skyrim vanilla quality. If you take mods like Falksaar and Inigo you'll notice the different sound quality. Therefore I take it that a professional recording is way to expensive. That is if you want your avatar to blend 100% into the game. Plus you would need someone skilled to create a unique look for your avatar. Wouldn't make sense to put that much effort in creating a voiced follower if he looks like a Whiterun city guard.

One thing I always wondered about: why is there no attempt to "import" the voice acting from other video games? There once was someone on the nexus who created a Dunmer follower that used the voices from TES: Morrowind. If you played this game on English (my first game ever played on English <3) you might remember the very remarkable sound of the Dunmer. That mod disappeared from the nexus very fast. So im guessing there might be legal issues. But that sounds weird to me since there are so many mods with followers who look like real persons or characters from other video games (Sheppard and Geralt for example).

 

 

Witcher is a special case, if I remember correctly, because the studio gave permission for their assets to be imported for mods. I believe TERA has done the same. Most games (studios), like 99%, have not done that and will not. So Geralt is a special butterfly. Shepard, on the other hand - I'm not sure if his head mesh and texture were ported or recreated. If the latter, it's fine - no game assets were used. If it was the former...well... Using audio from other games/media, unless permissions is given by its copyright owners, isn't allowed because it is an asset from an outside media, the same as porting meshes or textures from another game.

 

In short - ripping/porting graphics and audio from a game = bad. Re-creating assets from scratch or over Skyrim assets to seem/look from a game = okay.

[Just Checking]

I once started making little companions.  Appearance was easy, inventing the character was fun, but trying to make the dialogue work the way I wanted frustrated me since there were a couple things I just couldn't figure out about it.  I shelved the project since if I couldn't even figure out the dialogue, more complex things I wanted to attempt were probably out of my league for the time.  Then I lost my data and haven't tried to remake it yet.  Reading over this thread makes me want to retry that stuff.  Maybe actually go somewhere with it.

 

But yeah, more companions with just a bit of personality would be pretty cool.  Characters are most of the reason I play games anyway.

[SquallPT]

Playing with Throthgar and Sofia must be very cool

[alpalia]

imo, the fact is male have not enougth (or maybe not at all) cosmetic shit... i mean, women have clothes,armor,body,hair,makeup,tits,pussy ,etc..but what have men ? 10% of the mods...(sound like everybody want the same thing, an skyrim bitches perfect)

i know its rude for ladies player because of this, sexual stéréotype idea of women....

 

who is the fault ? the modder that create armor ? the modder that create body ? bethesda for have create sooooo ugly women and cool men in their game ?

 

idk, but its true, sometime i likely have a nice guy mod. but its look like all modders prefer create women shit, again, and again, and again.. even if its 50 times the same mods but create by others modder or different color/shape..well, i m with you ( even if i m a male, i likely have some nice guy in my game..no, i m not what you think ^^)

[Swiftstep]

 

In short - ripping/porting graphics and audio from a game = bad. Re-creating assets from scratch or over Skyrim assets to seem/look from a game = okay.

 

Thank you very much for your detailed explanation of the problem. Ain't much left to tell on this subject, I guess. Just one more question, if you allow me to further require your expertise:

 

What about the games whose rights are in the hands of companies that went bankrupt? I mean, there are very famous movies in HD quality on Youtube (like "Highlander" or "Once upon a time in the west" etc.) that you can watch / download for free. Is there something like this for games? Can one simply salvage such data from the game?

 

Surely this is very specific. But I think, in order to make a new approach on the whole subject, one must think in every direction. And the current situation of male followers is ... terrible (when compared to the female followers on the market).

[RunicGray]

 

 

In short - ripping/porting graphics and audio from a game = bad. Re-creating assets from scratch or over Skyrim assets to seem/look from a game = okay.

 

Thank you very much for your detailed explanation of the problem. Ain't much left to tell on this subject, I guess. Just one more question, if you allow me to further require your expertise:

 

What about the games whose rights are in the hands of companies that went bankrupt? I mean, there are very famous movies in HD quality on Youtube (like "Highlander" or "Once upon a time in the west" etc.) that you can watch / download for free. Is there something like this for games? Can one simply salvage such data from the game?

 

Surely this is very specific. But I think, in order to make a new approach on the whole subject, one must think in every direction. And the current situation of male followers is ... terrible (when compared to the female followers on the market).

 

 

To be honest, I'm not sure on that front. I would think it depends on whether the copyright has lapsed on that intellectual property or not. Given video games aren't very old, I doubt any of them would have lapsed yet. But don't quote me on that. It may be more up to the hosting site for the mod if they'd allow a derelict game's assets to be used or not, like Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines.

[Sorus]

as much as i'd like more options for men in general with this whole modding thing, you have no right to say modders suck because they create what they want to

[Taven]

Holy crap, a studio..and all this kind of tech?  I was right, unfortunately, I mostly a po-boy, and I wouldn't be able to get ANY of this stuff..at least any time soon. >< I'd do better trying to audition for a character for Interesting NPCS, and even then the only thing close to a mic I have now is a headset mounted one.