Maybe during the introduction but other than that I think it's a waste of time and resources.
If they insist on using it allow me to turn it off.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
I dont mind it in single player games but dislike it in a MMO....FOr me it takes away the multiplayer experience....I see some referenced TSW, but I thought the voice acting in that game was way overdone and really ruined it.....ALso I dont want a 30 gig download that is mainly voice acting and cutscenes instead of actual content.
Going on GW2 as an option, VA seems ok in most of the story quests, though some can be cringe inducing, it's a hit or miss thing for me.
However, I love VA in the general world. Seems I'm one of the few people around that sees sound as an important and integral part of the experience of gaming, and always plays with both sound and music on... and one of the things I love about GW2 is to be able to walk around the towns and cities and overhear the NPC conversations.
Originally posted by Ginaz For an important storyline, like your class quests in SWTOR, then I would say yes. For the more mundane and generic quests, I would say no. Text only would be fine for those.
I agree with this.
But aside from the voice acting, the story for the quests was just of better quality in TOR and TSW. Before those games (and even some recent alternatives), I literally struggled to pay attention to the story (and I am a person that likes story).
Going on GW2 as an option, VA seems ok in most of the story quests, though some can be cringe inducing, it's a hit or miss thing for me.
However, I love VA in the general world. Seems I'm one of the few people around that sees sound as an important and integral part of the experience of gaming, and always plays with both sound and music on... and one of the things I love about GW2 is to be able to walk around the towns and cities and overhear the NPC conversations.
Little things like npc conversations are something I enjoy too but I think ramming it down the throat of gamers by making 99% of quests with voice acting and the ridiculous amount of choice wheels that swtor had killed the immersion.
Voice acting (plus animated cut scenes) is to MMOs as 3D is to movies. Put the money spent on voice actors into making the rest of the game better and players would be far better off.
Originally posted by meddyck Voice acting (plus animated cut scenes) is to MMOs as 3D is to movies. Put the money spent on voice actors into making the rest of the game better and players would be far better off.
Agreed.
Obviously dropping all voice acting budget into other parts would be silly because they should be a reasonable not excessive amount to help with immersion and role playing.
In some cases, in my opinion, it can be a nuisance.
Voice acting adds a great deal of immersion, if done right. But for an MMO, they really shouldn't limit the voice actors to one per race/gender, or anything. There needs to be a number of different voice options available, because if I'm hearing my character talk all the time, I'm gonna want to LIKE the sound of it.
This is where GW2, SWTOR, etc., go wrong. They have set voices for each race/gender and some can be a major turn off and force me to select a race I didn't particularly want to play simply because I can actually stand the voice.
Funcom did it right in The Secret World by making your character silent and giving the NPC's monologues. This is my overall preferred method. If the game itself was actually fun, it would have been awesome.
Going on GW2 as an option, VA seems ok in most of the story quests, though some can be cringe inducing, it's a hit or miss thing for me.
However, I love VA in the general world. Seems I'm one of the few people around that sees sound as an important and integral part of the experience of gaming, and always plays with both sound and music on... and one of the things I love about GW2 is to be able to walk around the towns and cities and overhear the NPC conversations.
This. For immersion, total immersion, nothing beats voice acting. I'll give you a little anecdote, because anecdotes are fun.
I never fully played Guild Wars. For a Guild Wars 2 fan, that's a huge setback if you're interested in the lore, storyline, and plot of the play world. But I'm all about getting lost in a game, and even though I don't know the backstory, GW2 does an absolutely great job at that (along with a 20+ inch monitor, but I digress).
There are times, however, when I just don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing; or why the state of the GW2 world is the way it is; or why this character is important. Sure, I could go read it all up in a wiki, but that's such a disjointed way of gathering information. It feels too meta; I'm not playing the game that way, I'm just doing research.
So I absolutely love it when, walking through Lion's Arch - the central hub of the game - I can eavesdrop on NPC children pretending to be their racial heroes, roleplaying the parts and repeating history for me to listen to; or, when taking a stroll through the Asuran homeland of Rata Sum, their race's mentality of intelligence above all is driven home when I hear "your momma" jokes being thrown back and forth.
On the other hand, I can completely understand where the other side of the fence is coming from. There's only so many times you can hear "I can run faster than a centaur" before you lose it.
Voice Acting improves immersion. And i dont talk about cut scenes(they are more immersion breaking). But the much better question would be, are they the price worth? Or are they worth to neglect other features for it?
swtor failed not because of voice acting, it failed becaue everything else was just not good enough. (especially gameplay wise)
Voice Acting improves immersion. And i dont talk about cut scenes(they are more immersion breaking). But the much better question would be, are they the price worth? Or are they worth to neglect other features for it?
swtor failed not because of voice acting, it failed becaue everything else was just not good enough. (especially gameplay wise)
The excessive voice acting didn't help their cause much.
How many of us that played actually liked hearing a story then having 4 wheels worth of choice to hear "go bring item x to this guy outside". They overdid it and it went from a cool feature to the feeling of shut the hell up and get to the objective of the quest.
SWTOR was a story driven MMO...they needed voice acting but I think they abused it and tried to use it to "sell" the game...like hiring voice acting made your game credible or higher status. I don't buy games because of voice-actng! I remember during my first play last december and I think I got a survey asking me about the voice-acting but no comments or concerns about the actual game play, lol.
Voice acting is simply a tool to enhance the presentation.
As long as you're not just sitting locked in some cutscene, it can be a lot of fun. SWTOR for example has its flaws and IMO fails as an MMO, but one feature it has that works exceptionally well in the game is the addition of dialogues. In most MMOs when talking to an NPC you either get a big text monologue or are forced to watch a cutscene where you're essentially waiting to get back to the game. SWTOR changed that and made NPC talk interactive and engaging - you're still actively playing the game while it takes place.
You can add voiceover to a monologue, but it's still going to be a sequence where you're "waiting to get back in the game." So I think voiceovers only fully come into their right in interactive dialogues like what SWTOR offers. In fact I'd prefer textual dialogues to voiceover monologues.
For the developer however, choosing to have voiceovers is going to bring some additional challenges whether you have interactive NPC talk or not.
No matter how many bells and whistles you add to a bad game, it's still a bad game. But if it is a good game to begin with, then adding voice acting does improve the game. Cut scenes are something that should only happen in solo games, not mmo's and even then I find them annoying; detracting from the experience, rather than adding to it.
YES! But not every quest has to be fully voiced. The most important quests (story quests, epic quests or whatever) should be fully voiced and for side quests it is enough if every quest npc only says one or two phrases but not the whole questtext.
It just makes the world so much more lively and vibrant!
When done tastefully and in moderation - it's a great way to enhance and emphasize the story line and draw the player into the game.
When abused and overused it just becomes background noise and detrimental.
Like so many technologies - it has it's place, but is often abused and overused.
That's the biggest problem. It's so sad to see the disconnect between the developers and the fans. Who in their right mind could ever think the masses want nothing but talking and choice wheels?
Better is subjective. Does voice acting make a game better for me? No, in most cases it does not.
Used sparingly it's a nice touch. Force me into watching mini-movie cut-scenes to advance a storyline, and it's an unwanted intrusion into my gameplay.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
Originally posted by Thorbrand If we gamers wanted to play games with cuts scenes all over the place Dragon's Lair would have been more successful in the 90s than it was.
Not cut scenes voice over.
Mass Effects have tons of voice overs .. very successful. So does Dead Space .. there are a thousand games with full voice overs and very successful.
Comments
Maybe during the introduction but other than that I think it's a waste of time and resources.
If they insist on using it allow me to turn it off.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Depends.
Going on GW2 as an option, VA seems ok in most of the story quests, though some can be cringe inducing, it's a hit or miss thing for me.
However, I love VA in the general world. Seems I'm one of the few people around that sees sound as an important and integral part of the experience of gaming, and always plays with both sound and music on... and one of the things I love about GW2 is to be able to walk around the towns and cities and overhear the NPC conversations.
What can men do against such reckless hate?
I agree with this.
But aside from the voice acting, the story for the quests was just of better quality in TOR and TSW. Before those games (and even some recent alternatives), I literally struggled to pay attention to the story (and I am a person that likes story).
Little things like npc conversations are something I enjoy too but I think ramming it down the throat of gamers by making 99% of quests with voice acting and the ridiculous amount of choice wheels that swtor had killed the immersion.
Express your opinion
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/371172/Poll-Most-hated-MMORPG.html
DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer
Agreed.
Obviously dropping all voice acting budget into other parts would be silly because they should be a reasonable not excessive amount to help with immersion and role playing.
Express your opinion
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/371172/Poll-Most-hated-MMORPG.html
I like voice overs. To me they do make a story more interesting, however they are such a small part of a game that it's not a big deal.
They won't save a bad game.
In some cases, in my opinion, it can be a nuisance.
Voice acting adds a great deal of immersion, if done right. But for an MMO, they really shouldn't limit the voice actors to one per race/gender, or anything. There needs to be a number of different voice options available, because if I'm hearing my character talk all the time, I'm gonna want to LIKE the sound of it.
This is where GW2, SWTOR, etc., go wrong. They have set voices for each race/gender and some can be a major turn off and force me to select a race I didn't particularly want to play simply because I can actually stand the voice.
Funcom did it right in The Secret World by making your character silent and giving the NPC's monologues. This is my overall preferred method. If the game itself was actually fun, it would have been awesome.
This. For immersion, total immersion, nothing beats voice acting. I'll give you a little anecdote, because anecdotes are fun.
I never fully played Guild Wars. For a Guild Wars 2 fan, that's a huge setback if you're interested in the lore, storyline, and plot of the play world. But I'm all about getting lost in a game, and even though I don't know the backstory, GW2 does an absolutely great job at that (along with a 20+ inch monitor, but I digress).
There are times, however, when I just don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing; or why the state of the GW2 world is the way it is; or why this character is important. Sure, I could go read it all up in a wiki, but that's such a disjointed way of gathering information. It feels too meta; I'm not playing the game that way, I'm just doing research.
So I absolutely love it when, walking through Lion's Arch - the central hub of the game - I can eavesdrop on NPC children pretending to be their racial heroes, roleplaying the parts and repeating history for me to listen to; or, when taking a stroll through the Asuran homeland of Rata Sum, their race's mentality of intelligence above all is driven home when I hear "your momma" jokes being thrown back and forth.
On the other hand, I can completely understand where the other side of the fence is coming from. There's only so many times you can hear "I can run faster than a centaur" before you lose it.
Read my blog where I write about games and stuff.
Voice Acting improves immersion. And i dont talk about cut scenes(they are more immersion breaking). But the much better question would be, are they the price worth? Or are they worth to neglect other features for it?
swtor failed not because of voice acting, it failed becaue everything else was just not good enough. (especially gameplay wise)
The excessive voice acting didn't help their cause much.
How many of us that played actually liked hearing a story then having 4 wheels worth of choice to hear "go bring item x to this guy outside". They overdid it and it went from a cool feature to the feeling of shut the hell up and get to the objective of the quest.
Express your opinion
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/371172/Poll-Most-hated-MMORPG.html
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
I wouldn't want voice acting gone just because swtor messed it up badly because it does add to the game.
Swtor is a cautionary tale of how not to do voice acting in Mmorpg's.
Express your opinion
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/371172/Poll-Most-hated-MMORPG.html
Voice acting is simply a tool to enhance the presentation.
As long as you're not just sitting locked in some cutscene, it can be a lot of fun. SWTOR for example has its flaws and IMO fails as an MMO, but one feature it has that works exceptionally well in the game is the addition of dialogues. In most MMOs when talking to an NPC you either get a big text monologue or are forced to watch a cutscene where you're essentially waiting to get back to the game. SWTOR changed that and made NPC talk interactive and engaging - you're still actively playing the game while it takes place.
You can add voiceover to a monologue, but it's still going to be a sequence where you're "waiting to get back in the game." So I think voiceovers only fully come into their right in interactive dialogues like what SWTOR offers. In fact I'd prefer textual dialogues to voiceover monologues.
For the developer however, choosing to have voiceovers is going to bring some additional challenges whether you have interactive NPC talk or not.
my 2¢:
No matter how many bells and whistles you add to a bad game, it's still a bad game. But if it is a good game to begin with, then adding voice acting does improve the game. Cut scenes are something that should only happen in solo games, not mmo's and even then I find them annoying; detracting from the experience, rather than adding to it.
When done tastefully and in moderation - it's a great way to enhance and emphasize the story line and draw the player into the game.
When abused and overused it just becomes background noise and detrimental.
Like so many technologies - it has it's place, but is often abused and overused.
YES! But not every quest has to be fully voiced. The most important quests (story quests, epic quests or whatever) should be fully voiced and for side quests it is enough if every quest npc only says one or two phrases but not the whole questtext.
It just makes the world so much more lively and vibrant!
That's the biggest problem. It's so sad to see the disconnect between the developers and the fans. Who in their right mind could ever think the masses want nothing but talking and choice wheels?
Express your opinion
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/371172/Poll-Most-hated-MMORPG.html
Better is subjective. Does voice acting make a game better for me? No, in most cases it does not.
Used sparingly it's a nice touch. Force me into watching mini-movie cut-scenes to advance a storyline, and it's an unwanted intrusion into my gameplay.
Not cut scenes voice over.
Mass Effects have tons of voice overs .. very successful. So does Dead Space .. there are a thousand games with full voice overs and very successful.