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Now that you've played it, do you still think 100% voice is a great idea?

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  • SkillCosbySkillCosby Member Posts: 684

    The story was a good idea. However, it was done wrong. The story made every single player in the game a "special little snowflake". Moreover, there is nothing after the story comes to an end.

  • lalartulalartu Member UncommonPosts: 437

    LOTRO was good at keeping my interested in the story, but I would rarely read the actual quests descriptions

     

    SWTOR is making me listen to EVERY quest and I actually finally know what I'm doing and why. i think it's definitely better...sure, it's expensive, but im sure one day they'll figure out how to make it cheap (maybe use a voice generator or something)

    I review lots of indie games and MMORPGs

  • matraquematraque Member Posts: 1,431

    to OP.

     

    Of course it is.  It's a game changer.  Pay attention to what Blizzard will do next.

    eqnext.wikia.com

  • NormikeNormike Member Posts: 436

    Originally posted by SkillCosby

    The story was a good idea. However, it was done wrong. The story made every single player in the game a "special little snowflake". Moreover, there is nothing after the story comes to an end.

    There's no other way to do a story. Players want to be *the* hero. Also there's quite a lot of story after you finish the main story because all quests in the game are voice acted and have their own story. There's flashpoints and operations that are voice acted. There's even new flashpoints and operations that are being added monthly.

     

    I've been playing like mad for 2 months. I finished my class story but I've only finished about 30% of the planet quests. There's also some flashpoints and operations that I haven't done yet, all of which have a level 50 version. Haven't even gotten the chance to do another class yet either.

  • fonyfony Member Posts: 755

    Originally posted by Keogh

    Not that the original poster really cares. They are doing nothing more than forum trolling.

    Yes, I was looking forward to SWTOR professional voice acting story driven idea, and I am still enjoying it.

    Comparing SWTOR to any other online game, is like comparing a modern (sound/color/sfx) movie to the early black and white silent movies.

     

    rofl, it's not the first by far to use VO, nor is it the best use of it on account of only being in cutscenes and bad writing, despite higher expectations.

  • PhryPhry Member LegendaryPosts: 11,004

    Originally posted by matraque

    to OP.

     

    Of course it is.  It's a game changer.  Pay attention to what Blizzard will do next.

    Blizzard have always been pretty good at staying ahead of the MMO 'arms race' the big question will really be, is Bioware paying attention, because you can be sure, if they arent, then things will not go well. image

  • VandragoVandrago Member UncommonPosts: 230

    Was ok at first, but got old fast.

    image

  • spizzspizz Member UncommonPosts: 1,971

     Actually after a while I really dont care that much, I rather care about the whole missing but important content for a major mmorpg...sadly swtor did forget about it after concentrating so much on voice videos.

    If this game would actually provide huge pve raids with 30+ players the voice acting videos could be a problem.

  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 43,435

    Personally I would just like all the voice acted parts to be displayed 'word for word' on my screen with an option for me to skip the sound while the text remains.  I prefer reading rather than listening, and I really don't enjoy when aliens speak in a bunch of clicks and mumbles, give me my universal translator and have them speak English.  image

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  • meddyckmeddyck Member UncommonPosts: 1,282

    The voice acting and cut scenes are fantastic. I almost never skip through them. They make even the most routine kill 10 droids side quests interesting. I say this as somebody who in past MMOs was not a huge fan of questing. I don't think I would have paid to play the game after the free month if it just had your standard wall of text quest interface. The rest of the game is mediocre at best except for space combat which is a lot of fun.

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  • EnoshEnosh Member Posts: 140

    "Now that you've played it, do you still think 100% voice is a great idea?"
    yes

  • jdnewelljdnewell Member UncommonPosts: 2,237

    No I dont like 100% VO for all quests.

    The main Quests / story quests sure. The side quests no. I dont need to watch cutscenes & listen to someone explain for 5 minutes how I am so important he is going to allow me to collect 10 Mandalorian codpieces for a new type of helmet he is making.

  • DistasteDistaste Member UncommonPosts: 665

    Originally posted by Normike

    Originally posted by SkillCosby

    The story was a good idea. However, it was done wrong. The story made every single player in the game a "special little snowflake". Moreover, there is nothing after the story comes to an end.

    There's no other way to do a story. Players want to be *the* hero. Also there's quite a lot of story after you finish the main story because all quests in the game are voice acted and have their own story. There's flashpoints and operations that are voice acted. There's even new flashpoints and operations that are being added monthly.

     

    I've been playing like mad for 2 months. I finished my class story but I've only finished about 30% of the planet quests. There's also some flashpoints and operations that I haven't done yet, all of which have a level 50 version. Haven't even gotten the chance to do another class yet either.

    You've been playing for 2 months and didn't finish 70% of planet quests? I finished those within 2 weeks in beta. The flashpoints and operations I can understand, but the planet quests? Did you do warzones and space missions from 1-50?

    There is certainly plenty more ways to do story. In my eyes there are 2 main ways of getting a story acrossed: 1. You tell the story to the player or 2. The player lives the story. SWTOR is the player getting told a story and it is so incredibly predictable and dull. Then there is something like GW2's dynamic events where you live the story. You don't need a 10 minute long speech about centaurs attacking BECAUSE THEY ARE.

     

    As for VO in a MMO my opinion has not changed since it was announced. It is a nice feature, BUT if it comes at a cost game mechanics/features then no thanks. I'd rather the game be fun and have mechanical depth than boring and have nice VO. I actually find that mechanical depth is more immersive than VO as once you've heard the VO more than once it breaks immersion, where say a good crafting system can keep you immersed in the game for hours and thats everytime you craft.

  • YamotaYamota Member UncommonPosts: 6,593

    For important story lines yes, I see the benefit, but for your regular trash quests, No. I just space past those anyway. I rather they spent more money on something else like better PvP.

  • baritone3kbaritone3k Member Posts: 223

    Originally posted by Keogh

    Not that the original poster really cares. They are doing nothing more than forum trolling.

    Yes, I was looking forward to SWTOR professional voice acting story driven idea, and I am still enjoying it.

    Comparing SWTOR to any other online game, is like comparing a modern (sound/color/sfx) movie to the early black and white silent movies.

     

    I would say that voice acting every line of dialoque is more like 3D being added than being so dramatic changing from black and white and silent movies all the way to modern movies.

    The voice acting was there before just not for every line.

     

    MY TAKE:

     

    I think that each character should greet you with a voiced line. I am not talking about the simple "How are you?" or "Zug zug." from WoW but a line that introduces that character with either a unique or a rarely used or somehow masked to seem individual voice. That would allow you to read the rest of the lines with that voice in your head and do the job of he voice actor yourself and more quickly.

     

    The problem is that we are not dealing with infinite time and resources, so something (gameplay, graphics, content, etc.) is not going to receive the same amount of funding and time it could if the resources are going to instead go into the voice acting.

    Someone please make a good MMO.

  • Paragus1Paragus1 Member UncommonPosts: 1,741

    It depends on what the trade off is to being voiced.   Yes there is a trade off in terms of money and development resources spent.   If voicing the game is going to costs a lot of money and time that could have been otherwise spent on adding massive amount of content or system to bolster the gameplay elements, then I'd rather have that over voices.   Voices are cool, but a novelty when the game is designed around masking the same type of quest over and over again.    At that point it's not really worth it to me because there are only so many ways you can dress up a kill quests before it gets tedious. 

    To really understand if it is worth it, I'd like to know how much of their budget was spent on this feature.   Only then can we say whether it was worth having in the game.   TOR is lacking badly in a lot of critical areas, and most people I know would have traded the voice overs in a heartbeat for more meaningful content and system to add longevity to the game.

  • RaijukinRaijukin Member Posts: 63

    READING MAKES YOU SMART!!! :p

  • yaminsuxyaminsux Member UncommonPosts: 973

    Originally posted by Raijukin

    READING MAKES YOU SMART!!! :p

    This I can agree, also CAPS makes you feel important.

  • Creslin321Creslin321 Member Posts: 5,359

    Voice acting can be great, but in the end, it's only as good as the script.  If you have a fantastic or memorable script, then an excellent voice over can really take your game to the next level.  But if you have a boring script, then no amount of VO is going to make it better.

    IMO, the paragraph above describes my experience with SWTOR.  When I'm doing an interesting class quest, or one of the decent side quests, I loved the VO.  But when I did a boring sidequest, it was spacebar all the way.

    Unfortunately, IMO the majority of side quests were fairly boring, and some of the class quests were dull as well.  I think VO should have been used more "strategically" in SWTOR.  Don't use it if you know the quest is bad.

    Also...there's opportunity cost to consider.  If so many resources are being spent on VO, then they can't be spent in other places.  Once again, if a game is great, VO can enhance the experience.  But if a game is poor, then no amount of VO can save it.

    Sometimes I felt that SWTOR's focus on VO cost the game in other areas.

    Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?

  • hyllstarterhyllstarter Member UncommonPosts: 203

    I enjoyed the voice acting. But I also feel it caused there to be alot less content for as many years they put into this game andI feel it might slow down future content if they feel the need to add it in the future.

    image

  • DistopiaDistopia Member EpicPosts: 21,183

    The voice acting is the least of TOR's problems. So to answer the question yes, I do think it was a good idea.

    For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson


  • RobsolfRobsolf Member RarePosts: 4,607

    Originally posted by Normike

    Originally posted by Methos12

    Like I've said before, VA is just window dressing and nothing relevant gameplay-wise, but I think the problem lies with abysmal fan fiction level of writing present in TOR that we're somehow still supposed to take seriously. This was personally my reason why I skipped through a good deal of the its voiced dialog, something I would never do in, let's say, Legacy of Kain games despite them being verbose like hell. Why? Mainly because they actually feature GOOD writing.

    I disagree here. The voice acting is gameplay. If it wasn't part of the gameplay then I would probably have skipped most of it. If you are playing an MMORPG with your character in mind then the things that they say are actually a little important to you. There's also the light side and dark side points that can alter your appearance and gear appearance. And third the social points gained in dialogue give the character access to items, gear, and customizations. These are some parts of gameplay that people may or may not be interested in but it's still gameplay. I don't think SWTOR would be as fun for me without those parts of gameplay.

    Exactly.  For me, this is the first time actual ROLE PLAYING has been incorporated into an MMO's quest mechanics(save for, maybe 2 missions in Tabula Rasa). 

    Before this point, your options for role playing were, do the quest, or don't.  That's NOT role playing.  And sure, having just a few options to choose is still somewhat limiting, but it's at least finally close to the standard in most RPG's, excepting maybe Witcher 2.

    As far as VO being in almost every mission, I do think it can get tedius at times, particularly when you're advancing class and world missions, then have 2-3 sidequest dialogues waiting for you. 

    Thing is, I think they were a bit stuck in an "all or nothing" situation.  It wouldn't feel natural to have voice in class and world missions, but then have text in sidequests given by a living being.  Unless they had ALL sidequests come from a mission terminal, it wouldn't seem right, IMO.

  • VorthanionVorthanion Member RarePosts: 2,749

    Originally posted by baritone3k

    Originally posted by Keogh

    Not that the original poster really cares. They are doing nothing more than forum trolling.

    Yes, I was looking forward to SWTOR professional voice acting story driven idea, and I am still enjoying it.

    Comparing SWTOR to any other online game, is like comparing a modern (sound/color/sfx) movie to the early black and white silent movies.

     

    I would say that voice acting every line of dialoque is more like 3D being added than being so dramatic changing from black and white and silent movies all the way to modern movies.

    The voice acting was there before just not for every line.

     

    MY TAKE:

     

    I think that each character should greet you with a voiced line. I am not talking about the simple "How are you?" or "Zug zug." from WoW but a line that introduces that character with either a unique or a rarely used or somehow masked to seem individual voice. That would allow you to read the rest of the lines with that voice in your head and do the job of he voice actor yourself and more quickly.

     

    The problem is that we are not dealing with infinite time and resources, so something (gameplay, graphics, content, etc.) is not going to receive the same amount of funding and time it could if the resources are going to instead go into the voice acting.



    That would depend on the size of the development team.  The more resources a company has, the more employees that are hired and can be applied to the various systems being worked on.

     

    I love the style of game play found in Bioware games and as far as I'm concerned, it translated well into an MMO.  There are a lot of power gamers out there and they despise that kind of game play and more power to them, but why do you guys need to whine about this being in a Bioware MMO?  You did the same thing with Blizzard when they implemented so many features that were prevelant in their RTS games into their MMO.  We got your points a long, long time ago.  Move on please, you're starting to really show your psychotic natures and it's embarrassing.

     

    They said it from the very beginning when they first announced the game.  This is a Bioware MMO and it's primary target is Bioware gamers first, then MMO fans second.  It's not their fault nor Bioware fans' that you didn't or wouldn't pay attention to those details.  It's not like vairious other game systems weren't already giving you apoplexy, yet like a moth to flame, you buy and play the game anyway.

    image
  • Whiskey_SamWhiskey_Sam Member UncommonPosts: 323

    Waste of money.  Those cutscenes are interminable.  Within a few days I had turned on the subtitles and started space barring through them since I could read them faster than they were speaking.  I don't log in to stand around watching cartoons all night; I log in to actually do something.  The gameplay really suffered from all the resources blown on VO, and it seems gameplay lost out to story every time they had to make a choice in design.  That's another thing that hurts the game: the VO would at least be tolerable if the stories weren't so mundane.  They are so intent on forcing it down everyone's throat that it becomes oppressive.  Why not an option to simply take a quest with a second option to get more details that expands into the current cutscene format for those who want to experience it?  And this game is not fully voiced despite Bioware's claims.  There are a number of quests on every planet that come straight from a terminal that are text-only.  There's no reason many of the side quests couldn't have been handled that way.

    ___________________________
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  • ZhauricZhauric Member UncommonPosts: 292

    Originally posted by arieste

    First of all - if you're like me and you've always thought that wasting most of the game's budget on voice was a terrible idea, then you need not reply, i already know your opinion :) 

     

    What I'm curious about is the updated opinions of the folks that - prior to the game's launch - thought it was going to be a game-changer and the greatest thing since leia's slave outfit.  

    - *laughs* Not sure anything can top that outfit. Never thought it would be a game changer. I really wasn't sure how I'd feel about it but have to say I'm surpringly happy it is implemented in this game. Only now do I realize how many times I have skipped through text dialogue in other mmo's and feel I lost a sense of the story. Not the case now.

     

    I'm seeing more and more people - people who're avid fans of the game - admit that really, having every single dialogue voiced gets to be a bit of a drag (at best) or downright annoying (at worst).

    - Not myself. Still enjoying every moment of it so I definitely give a thumbs up to this feature.

     

    So, to you that were excited the voicing, are you still excited about it?  Are you looking forward to LISTENING to 200 more "kill 10 rats" quests with generic dialogue that is fully voiced?   Or would you rather see the dialogue scaled back to the more important & interesting areas of the game, parts that actually have interesting story and characters whose names you might actually remember?  

    - Hmm, maybe I am wrong and there are some but I have never had a quest that was voiced over that was a 'kill x many'. That is generally a bonus quest and just dialogue on a screen. So honestly I say they already have voice overs for storyline, important themes of the game. It's not just about your main storyline but the depth of the world that you are existing in. You have to know what is taking place around you after all and (for me at least) the voice overs give me the immersion.

     

     

     

     

     

     

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