It will likely be an option in the near future for many MMO's. The text to speech technology is progressing rather fast and I believe it to be a standard addition within the next 2-5 years.
i love tor and i loved the vo in tor. That said if a game has vo and the rest sucks its not gonna matter. Better to make a polished game thats fun and if it has vo so be it.
Do i expect more vo in the future yes. Does it have to be a must have nto necessarily at this time. amaybe in 5 yrs its a must have but right now its not.
Depends on what you are actualy looking for. I'd say an MMO has more in common with a "choose your own adventure book" then it does with a movie. Movie's are entirely passive experiences. MMO's come with a certain expectation of interactivity.
It's far easier to do interactivity with text then it is with voice.
For instance, you can pull an actual player characters name into the dialogue with text. You can let them do things like have personaly named companions or pets or mounts and use that in dialogue as well. You can examine what item they are holding in thier hand, what weapon the use most commonly, thier attributes, skills.....what quests they've previously done... what sort of reputation they have, etc....and use all that in dialogue with text.
All those things are alot more difficult to do with Voice because of the number of takes you would have to do to account for different variables. For example....can you ever have a voice dialogue that refers to the character by his/her own name (and let the player choose that name)? The same thing is trivial to do with text.
VO gives you better presentation values.....but text allows for greater depth and personalization in the dialogue.
Personaly I'll take depth and personalization over presentation values in an RPG any day of the week. YMMV.
Though personaly I don't see why a game needs to make a binary choice..... you can do VO for ambients and some simple dialogue and use text when you want to go deeper/more personalized.
So what you're saying is that when a game studio develops a voice system that can read and vocalize words pretty well without pre-recording the audio (and not sounding like microsoft sam), then voice overs will be able to replace text? Sounds like a job for an mmo developed by google =D
That would be amazing technology if anyone ever managed to pull it off. I don't see it happening any time soon though.
Its a gimmick: I mean, quests are always some sort of "kill for me, bring me or send it" type of thing there is not much you can change here.
That said it does have some advantages and as always disadvantages.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
I've got an odd bias on this because i'm not in anyway a tv / movie person.
I read an order of magnitude faster than a vo actor can talk. While I care about story, I hate waiting around passivley and waiting on an in game process. The voice acting is making me re-consider playing. Its just too cumbersome and slow.
This may be one of those "get off my damn lawn" moments.
Sounds more like one of those "I'm in a rush to get somewhere" moments..:P
I'm with Utharda. I didn't grow up with TV, we had many computers, but no cable, only 3 channels. So it is difficult for me to listen to voice acting. I do read mission text if it is well written. I read everything in AoC and Fallen Earth. But I can read really fast...a novel a week on average.
So I am a rush to get somewhere person, a rush to get to the next story. So if 'story' is the big thing, voice acting hurts my ability to get story.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
I wouldn't say it's the future, but it definitely adds more substance to the exclamation point - skip the text - accept thing that has been rampant recently.
I think most people will agree it's a take it or leave it feature, it's not game breaking.
The question isn't whether VO will eventually come to be standard. The only question is how long it will take. There was a time when it was a novelty to have voice in movies. There was a time when it was a novelty to have voice in single player games. As an industry grows, after the introduction of voice, the percentage of products which aren't voiced progressively shrinks until it essentially disappears. This is because it is simply a more complete experience. The same way talkies replaced silent films, and fully voiced single player RPGs replaced text driven RPGs, voiced MMOs will replace textbox MMOs. It's only a matter of time.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
I think a more important use of sound is as part of the ambients and part of the action in a game. Hearing the sound of the wind, hearing the crucnch of footsteps as you move. If an NPC gets hit, hearing them exclaim in pain. Hearing other NPC's bark out orders...or make small talk.
Those to me are all effective use of voice/sound in a game that add to immersion. Quest dialogue not so much....quest dialogue is something that (to me) pulls you out of the immediacy of the scene and the action. I'd honestly prefer text for VO for that.
When I think about the use of sound/voice in games that I really enjoy....say Skyrim or Halo or something like that. It's the voice acting that happens as part of the action or the ambients in the world that make the real difference in immersion...not whether the quest dialogue is voiced or text.
For instance in the origional Halo one of the things that really struck me was the way some of the Aliens would scream to each other in panic or fear when your character was firing at them.
i hope voice overs become a standard in mmos... at least the game will feel more enjoyable with voice interactions (as long as your character also has voice overs, not only npc) im fine with it
The question isn't whether VO will eventually come to be standard. The only question is how long it will take. There was a time when it was a novelty to have voice in movies. There was a time when it was a novelty to have voice in single player games. As an industry grows, after the introduction of voice, the percentage of products which aren't voiced progressively shrinks until it essentially disappears. This is because it is simply a more complete experience. The same way talkies replaced silent films, and fully voiced single player RPGs replaced text driven RPGs, voiced MMOs will replace textbox MMOs. It's only a matter of time.
The same way betamax replaced.....oh wait.
There are plenty of things that may look like they show some promise in a specific implimentation.....or may look like they have the possibility to start a trend that end up going nowhere.
Personaly I think it's a little premature to be predicting the death of text in MMO's or the inevitability of voice.
Heck, TOR hasn't even been released yet...let alone been around long enough to draw any conclusions about the long term impact of full VO.
There are plenty of things that may look like they show some promise in a specific implimentation.....or may look like they have the possibility to start a trend that end up going nowhere.
Personaly I think it's a little premature to be predicting the death of text in MMO's or the inevitability of voice.
Heck, TOR hasn't even been released yet...let alone been around long enough to draw any conclusions about the long term impact of full VO.
True, it hasn't been released yet, but I must say in my experience in game, it felt revolutionary which is why I was interested in speculating on what might become of it.
Comparing it to the Tortage area of AoC, as many others have, I must say that even the mundane fetch or kill quests felt different and more robust than most of Tortage, and I think I attribute that to the "choice matters" element of the voice scenes (darkside/lightside choices, and certain decisions actually altering the direction of the quest), and to something about AoC's voice acting and character faces seeming distinctly in the uncanny valley for me. SWTOR to me looks more like a well drawn cartoon, and so the uncanny valley effect doesn't occur, despite the facial movements actually being better than in AoC.
Also, AoC didn't keep the voice acting up, so a feature which could have been good fizzled. I guess to me it seems that TOR has got the Voice Acting right, at least for my tastes, and that is why for me at least this might taint my tastes for mmo's in the future. I don't think it's purely VO's that are the reason, but moreso the Bioware flavored execution of them that do the trick for me.
I would like to think the question should read, "Do you want Voice Overs as a feature in your MMOs?"..
Which I'd answer.. yes. Yes I would. I actually gave a crap about the story in the beta because the voices just immersed me more. I like the subtle tones people give when they crack wise on you or get annoyed. Emotion helps run that game, and my choices, and it would in other MMOs.
Imagine the insane crap spewing from NPC and quest givers mouths in say, WoW. All you "Wow'ers" would just poop smiles and think it was the best thing since the internet. But since it was a new game (Which shows great promise) and that will drag others away from whatever else they are playing, its suddenly a no no.
200 hours of unique gameplay would be better than voice-overs.
Since we cannot demand UNIQUE gameplay, uncommon gameplay for MMOs would be fine. Something like RealTime Strategy, RoundBased Strategy or even Shooter-like.
To me Bioware was known for tactical group-combat. They threw away this opportunity. Cutscenes or multiple textbars is not gameplay.
Another thing to point out it that they've pre-selected to a particular audience. They've hit heavly upon both VO and Story when marketing thier games strengths....and it's also something that has been a hallmark of past Bioware titles.
It should be no surprise that many of the people who tried TOR (or will buy it) would comment favorably on it......it's part of the reason those people went to play...and Jim Bob didn't.
In order to become a "must have" feature for MMO's.....it needs to have an audience appeal that is significantly broader then just TOR or Bioware fans.....one that justifies the cost to include in MMO's, in general.....even ones designed to appeal to significantly different audiences then TOR is targeted at.
I personally think it's a great step forward for themepark games. It takes the "grind" out of leveling, and adds a whole new dimension of entertainment.
I don't know if it will become a standard, at least for a good while, due to the costs of implementing it.
I agree with you on that one point, it is a good step forward for themepark games, as they're generally a linear progression. The same can be said for games like Call of Duty, they all have voice overs and cut scenes, but are also very linear.
And that's where I hope it doesn't become a standard. Stories are nice n' all, but they should really stay in books and movies and the odd RPG. But overall, I'd really like games to become more open and involved, not a straight line story from A-Z. Looking at FPS games, Doom 2 had so many different ways of approaching levels, lots of open areas to roam around, tight corridors to get ambushed in, etc. Now those same types of games funnel you forward down a small tunnel, shooting at whatever pops up in front of you as if it were an FMV game of old. Remember FMV games? Basically movies that had a crosshair over the top so you could shoot things.
I personally think Bioware have swung too far over into movie making rather than making games. Neverwinter was one of my favorite games of the time, it had less interaction and more gameplay. Now Bioware games have less gameplay and more interaction. Take a look at Mass Effect - they might be my favorite RPG's of current times, but wow do they talk a lot. It feels like the game gets in the way of the story, like they threw an encounter in the middle because, "Oh yeah, this is supposed to be a game.".
I'm hoping developers, one day, eventually realise that they are actually making games, not interactive movies. Let us play a game, if you want to tell us a story then make a movie. Hell, I'd love to see SW: TOR done as a movie with the quality of the cinematics they've released.
Voiceovers always have been a dumb gimmick. They will remain as such until they can talk comprehensibly and without sounding rushed about as quickly as players can read. I hope that day never comes, as it would mean players are largely illiterate.
Okay, so a few voiceovers are fine, but it should either be very short (<5 seconds) or for something special. As in, congratulations, you've beaten the game, now here's a long voiceover as part of the ending.
What does a design choice have to do with player literacy?
You know how players skip reading quest text because it takes too long? Listening to a voiceover takes several times as long for exactly the same jabbering, unless you're a really slow reader.
I tried the voiceovers in Wizard 101. The only redeeming quality of voiceovers in that game was the ability to turn them off entirely.
I think Guild Wars figured out the right way to do cinematics with voiceovers when Eye of the North launched: let players go watch the cinematics later. When some people in a group want to skip a cinematic and move on and others want to listen to it, they can all skip it right then, and then those who want to see it can go back and listen later.
VO should have been left for the class quests only. Right now the VOs are a waste of time and take away from the game. They are used to cover up the actual lack of content in the game.
200 hours of unique gameplay would be better than voice-overs.
Since we cannot demand UNIQUE gameplay, uncommon gameplay for MMOs would be fine. Something like RealTime Strategy, RoundBased Strategy or even Shooter-like.
To me Bioware was known for tactical group-combat. They threw away this opportunity.
Cutscenes or multiple textbars is not gameplay.
I think it might be a bit difficult for them to translate their normal tactical group combat style to an mmo. I think really, it doesn't suit the genre well since instead of controlling the whole group like in Mass Effect of Dragon Age, you are now just one of the members of the group, and you play your part.
Comments
It will likely be an option in the near future for many MMO's. The text to speech technology is progressing rather fast and I believe it to be a standard addition within the next 2-5 years.
i love tor and i loved the vo in tor. That said if a game has vo and the rest sucks its not gonna matter. Better to make a polished game thats fun and if it has vo so be it.
Do i expect more vo in the future yes. Does it have to be a must have nto necessarily at this time. amaybe in 5 yrs its a must have but right now its not.
At first I thought VOs were stupid... now after playing Skyrim I never want to read quest text ever again.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
Does anyone actually read text quests? i dont i look at map in skyrim and went where the dot told me to lol
I didnt like skyrim but thats me That said its true of most games now. U never actally read the quest text so its not so bad
That said i loved vo it made me pay attention to why my character was doing something.
That would be amazing technology if anyone ever managed to pull it off. I don't see it happening any time soon though.
Its a gimmick: I mean, quests are always some sort of "kill for me, bring me or send it" type of thing there is not much you can change here.
That said it does have some advantages and as always disadvantages.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
I'm with Utharda. I didn't grow up with TV, we had many computers, but no cable, only 3 channels. So it is difficult for me to listen to voice acting. I do read mission text if it is well written. I read everything in AoC and Fallen Earth. But I can read really fast...a novel a week on average.
So I am a rush to get somewhere person, a rush to get to the next story. So if 'story' is the big thing, voice acting hurts my ability to get story.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
Voice overs are part of the future. This future should though have more than three options.
I wouldn't say it's the future, but it definitely adds more substance to the exclamation point - skip the text - accept thing that has been rampant recently.
I think most people will agree it's a take it or leave it feature, it's not game breaking.
Let us try not to forget that SW:TOR wasn't the first to try this. Though they may have actually accompished it.
But Everquest II attempted the same level of voice inclusion in their product back in the early 2ks.
Voices in video games IS SUPERIOR to no voices.
But it doesn't mean a game is better.
The question isn't whether VO will eventually come to be standard. The only question is how long it will take. There was a time when it was a novelty to have voice in movies. There was a time when it was a novelty to have voice in single player games. As an industry grows, after the introduction of voice, the percentage of products which aren't voiced progressively shrinks until it essentially disappears. This is because it is simply a more complete experience. The same way talkies replaced silent films, and fully voiced single player RPGs replaced text driven RPGs, voiced MMOs will replace textbox MMOs. It's only a matter of time.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Honestly,
I think a more important use of sound is as part of the ambients and part of the action in a game. Hearing the sound of the wind, hearing the crucnch of footsteps as you move. If an NPC gets hit, hearing them exclaim in pain. Hearing other NPC's bark out orders...or make small talk.
Those to me are all effective use of voice/sound in a game that add to immersion. Quest dialogue not so much....quest dialogue is something that (to me) pulls you out of the immediacy of the scene and the action. I'd honestly prefer text for VO for that.
When I think about the use of sound/voice in games that I really enjoy....say Skyrim or Halo or something like that. It's the voice acting that happens as part of the action or the ambients in the world that make the real difference in immersion...not whether the quest dialogue is voiced or text.
For instance in the origional Halo one of the things that really struck me was the way some of the Aliens would scream to each other in panic or fear when your character was firing at them.
i hope voice overs become a standard in mmos... at least the game will feel more enjoyable with voice interactions (as long as your character also has voice overs, not only npc) im fine with it
The same way betamax replaced.....oh wait.
There are plenty of things that may look like they show some promise in a specific implimentation.....or may look like they have the possibility to start a trend that end up going nowhere.
Personaly I think it's a little premature to be predicting the death of text in MMO's or the inevitability of voice.
Heck, TOR hasn't even been released yet...let alone been around long enough to draw any conclusions about the long term impact of full VO.
True, it hasn't been released yet, but I must say in my experience in game, it felt revolutionary which is why I was interested in speculating on what might become of it.
Comparing it to the Tortage area of AoC, as many others have, I must say that even the mundane fetch or kill quests felt different and more robust than most of Tortage, and I think I attribute that to the "choice matters" element of the voice scenes (darkside/lightside choices, and certain decisions actually altering the direction of the quest), and to something about AoC's voice acting and character faces seeming distinctly in the uncanny valley for me. SWTOR to me looks more like a well drawn cartoon, and so the uncanny valley effect doesn't occur, despite the facial movements actually being better than in AoC.
Also, AoC didn't keep the voice acting up, so a feature which could have been good fizzled. I guess to me it seems that TOR has got the Voice Acting right, at least for my tastes, and that is why for me at least this might taint my tastes for mmo's in the future. I don't think it's purely VO's that are the reason, but moreso the Bioware flavored execution of them that do the trick for me.
EQ II's VO was nothing close to what SWTOR's VO and cutscenes are today. Besides, its a stapole of all of BW's games and its why millions love them.
BTW, it does make the game better for a lot of people. By how much, is matter of opinion.
I would like to think the question should read, "Do you want Voice Overs as a feature in your MMOs?"..
Which I'd answer.. yes. Yes I would. I actually gave a crap about the story in the beta because the voices just immersed me more. I like the subtle tones people give when they crack wise on you or get annoyed. Emotion helps run that game, and my choices, and it would in other MMOs.
Imagine the insane crap spewing from NPC and quest givers mouths in say, WoW. All you "Wow'ers" would just poop smiles and think it was the best thing since the internet. But since it was a new game (Which shows great promise) and that will drag others away from whatever else they are playing, its suddenly a no no.
I think SWTOR voice over is very well done. I think it allows for much deeper quest immersion, and I hope it is a future trend.
DEFINITELY gimmicky. Game still feels extremely non-immersive and themeparky.
200 hours of unique gameplay would be better than voice-overs.
Since we cannot demand UNIQUE gameplay, uncommon gameplay for MMOs would be fine. Something like RealTime Strategy, RoundBased Strategy or even Shooter-like.
To me Bioware was known for tactical group-combat. They threw away this opportunity.
Cutscenes or multiple textbars is not gameplay.
Another thing to point out it that they've pre-selected to a particular audience. They've hit heavly upon both VO and Story when marketing thier games strengths....and it's also something that has been a hallmark of past Bioware titles.
It should be no surprise that many of the people who tried TOR (or will buy it) would comment favorably on it......it's part of the reason those people went to play...and Jim Bob didn't.
In order to become a "must have" feature for MMO's.....it needs to have an audience appeal that is significantly broader then just TOR or Bioware fans.....one that justifies the cost to include in MMO's, in general.....even ones designed to appeal to significantly different audiences then TOR is targeted at.
I agree with you on that one point, it is a good step forward for themepark games, as they're generally a linear progression. The same can be said for games like Call of Duty, they all have voice overs and cut scenes, but are also very linear.
And that's where I hope it doesn't become a standard. Stories are nice n' all, but they should really stay in books and movies and the odd RPG. But overall, I'd really like games to become more open and involved, not a straight line story from A-Z. Looking at FPS games, Doom 2 had so many different ways of approaching levels, lots of open areas to roam around, tight corridors to get ambushed in, etc. Now those same types of games funnel you forward down a small tunnel, shooting at whatever pops up in front of you as if it were an FMV game of old. Remember FMV games? Basically movies that had a crosshair over the top so you could shoot things.
I personally think Bioware have swung too far over into movie making rather than making games. Neverwinter was one of my favorite games of the time, it had less interaction and more gameplay. Now Bioware games have less gameplay and more interaction. Take a look at Mass Effect - they might be my favorite RPG's of current times, but wow do they talk a lot. It feels like the game gets in the way of the story, like they threw an encounter in the middle because, "Oh yeah, this is supposed to be a game.".
I'm hoping developers, one day, eventually realise that they are actually making games, not interactive movies. Let us play a game, if you want to tell us a story then make a movie. Hell, I'd love to see SW: TOR done as a movie with the quality of the cinematics they've released.
You know how players skip reading quest text because it takes too long? Listening to a voiceover takes several times as long for exactly the same jabbering, unless you're a really slow reader.
I tried the voiceovers in Wizard 101. The only redeeming quality of voiceovers in that game was the ability to turn them off entirely.
I think Guild Wars figured out the right way to do cinematics with voiceovers when Eye of the North launched: let players go watch the cinematics later. When some people in a group want to skip a cinematic and move on and others want to listen to it, they can all skip it right then, and then those who want to see it can go back and listen later.
VO should have been left for the class quests only. Right now the VOs are a waste of time and take away from the game. They are used to cover up the actual lack of content in the game.
I think it might be a bit difficult for them to translate their normal tactical group combat style to an mmo. I think really, it doesn't suit the genre well since instead of controlling the whole group like in Mass Effect of Dragon Age, you are now just one of the members of the group, and you play your part.