Too many quests or too many VO for world quests?

grimal · February 2013

Think it may be a combination of the two. But it seems like too much, for me at least, when I get to the middle planets and beyond. I applaud the dedication, but I think they could have done them more moderately.

Psychow · February 2013

I agree. Main story quest and main planet quests would have been enough. I'd include the flashpoints too. At least for the first playthrough before everyone screams "hit the spacebar!!"

grimal · February 2013

Perhaps this will be addressed in the future. I wouldn't mind them removing a good percentage of the VO from the trivial quests. This would also help the game feel more consistent throughout if they lessen the reliance on VO work for future content.

ktanner3 · February 2013

Originally posted by grimal
Think it may be a combination of the two. But it seems like too much, for me at least, when I get to the middle planets and beyond. I applaud the dedication, but I think they could have done them more moderately.

Yeah, it does get to be a bit much at a certain point. They should have kept it to class and maybe even world story. Leave the side quests for the terminals. For each faction I did one character that did every single quest and for the others I sprinkled in PVP as a subsitute to the side quests.

I still think it's much better than all boring text all the time like other games, but they should have toned it down a bit. The good thing is the class quests is all you're forced to do if you want to take an alternate leveling path.

Karteli · February 2013

The amount of quests was good, the idea of having the story acted out in front of me was cool, and the general plot themes were interesting ..

But I think the thing that gets to me the most is how dialog scenes effectively lock a player outside the game world while it runs it's course (provided it's not skipped completely, which defeats the purpose of VO anyways).

So play for 10 minutes, get locked out for a few minutes to turn in the quest .. get locked out some more while new quests are picked up, rinse / repeat.

I think a more real-time NPC interaction within the breathing game world would have been more interesting .. something like how Half Life 2 did. For world quests, I imagine this either would play out like WoW NPC's, when they run around and do stuff while chatting with a player, or it could be done by phasing only the NPC, to not break immersion, but while still keeping a player the center of an NPC's attention.

Just a HL2 example, for those unfamiliar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w3rLWp1qc4 ..(Eli's Lab) .. the overall feel is very fluid and immersive, as you may notice. The player is free to move around, view the action from any angle, or fidget around with inventory / companions, whatever.

edit: While it would be nice for future games, it is too late for SWTOR to implement new gameplay. With that, a high level of quest availability and variety is going to be necessary to the health of this game. Replayability might be an issue, but still I'll watch the full scene 1 or 2 times before I consider skipping. With text based questing, I won't read the block of text completely even the first time - it seems boring, especially with recent voiced MMORPG's.

simplius · February 2013

actually, the number of quests is too small,,any respectable mmo have a surplus of PVE

to create alternative levelling paths

and yes , there are way too many VOs ,,they should just have made storylines with VOs

as it is now,,the storylines doesnt feel that special,because most other quests have VOs too

way too expensive,,and it diminishes the impact of storyline VOs

Draemos · February 2013

No. It's fine. Swtors problems have nothing to do with its questing or VOs, which are both extremely good and provide for one of the best leveling experiences in MMOs

simplius · February 2013

Originally posted by Draemos
No. It's fine. Swtors problems have nothing to do with its questing or VOs, which are both extremely good and provide for one of the best leveling experiences in MMOs

really?,,i hack my way through hordes of mobs to quest point, do the quest, and now i have to hack my way back through

respawns?,,not to mention the cheap bonus missions

the levelling in this game is almost as grindy as eastern mmos,,,the only things that keep it alive are the name and

lightsabers

without those, this game would have disappeared in the first year

lets see if they can carry it through the second year

i believe this was meant to be a single player game a la kotor, but then the suits wanted a piece of the mmo pie

it feels a lot like dragon age 1,just with poor mmo mechanics , and without a save button

if levelling was so good, then they would have kept more players,,even increased sub numbers

the levelling is prolly the best part of this game,,but its still not good enough to hook a lot of new players

they had to hide the numbers in the last 2 reports

enik3 · February 2013

Originally posted by Karteli
I think a more real-time NPC interaction within the breathing game world would have been more interesting .. something like how Half Life 2 did. For world quests, I imagine this either would play out like WoW NPC's, when they run around and do stuff while chatting with a player, or it could be done by phasing only the NPC, to not break immersion, but while still keeping a player the center of an NPC's attention.

What's interesting about your post is that HL2 is what I always refer people to when I talk about telling a story while keeping the player immersed. There are so many games today that use endless cutscenes that pull you completely out of the game world (Alan Wake and Max Payne 3 are two that come immediately to mind). That drives me completely crazy because they seem more like interactive movies than games.

Karteli · February 2013

Originally posted by enik3
Originally posted by Karteli
I think a more real-time NPC interaction within the breathing game world would have been more interesting .. something like how Half Life 2 did. For world quests, I imagine this either would play out like WoW NPC's, when they run around and do stuff while chatting with a player, or it could be done by phasing only the NPC, to not break immersion, but while still keeping a player the center of an NPC's attention.

What's interesting about your post is that HL2 is what I always refer people to when I talk about telling a story while keeping the player immersed. There are so many games today that use endless cutscenes that pull you completely out of the game world (Alan Wake and Max Payne 3 are two that come immediately to mind). That drives me completely crazy because they seem more like interactive movies than games.

Aye, Valve's HL2 was literally SRS BSNeS when it came to game quality. Steam was introduced as a requirement to play the game, and since the EULA was good (annoying but not invasive), people didn't really have a problem. Play an awesome game and deal with Steam on the side.

I'd argue that this was one of Valve's core successes with regards to Steam. Steam generates more money currently than a video game, so, sadly I don't think a HL3 is happening .. but I can hope.

To contrast this with EA .. SWTOR isn't a very compelling reason to support their Origin direct download service. Origin's EULA is invasive (less now than it was 1.5 years ago, I'll give them that, but still not very good). The name "Origin" is a bit of a smear though on a great company EA acquired 20 years ago, Origin Systems, Inc [Founders of the popular Ultima series], along with many other classics.

Valve had a masterpiece on game design. I wish it could be translated to MMORPG's. I would live in a video game world of wonder if it could.

GW2 took a small step towards this, with NPC's tracking players to call for help (fully voiced). It was minor, but notable for MMORPG's. It wasn't story though, and most of the time I'd want to kill the NPC, because they were so repetitious [every few minutes when you were in the NPC's range] :P

nate1980 · February 2013

Originally posted by grimal
Think it may be a combination of the two. But it seems like too much, for me at least, when I get to the middle planets and beyond. I applaud the dedication, but I think they could have done them more moderately.

The VO's are fine. The problem is that you're swamped by a buttload of side quests. Side quests in MMORPG's generally are obviously just filler content, and I say obvious due to the poor story writing involved and the simple tasks or chores you have to do to complete them.

That's why when I play SWTOR, I don't do any side quests. I'll tell you how.

1. Figure out which stories you want to see completed. In my case, all of them.

2. Roll a new character for each class story you want to see completed.

3. Now...alternate between all those characters. Meaning, play 1 character until the rested xp is used up, then move on to the next and rince and repeat.

4. Do your FP and PvP dailies.

5. Do the planet arcing quest. The one started in the spaceport on each planet.

6. Do the class quests.

7. Using this strategy, you'll always be anywhere from 1-3 levels below the content, so the content will remain challenging (thank god) , you'll get to skip all the side quests, and you'll finish the class story for each character by lvl 47 or 48.

waynejr2 · February 2013

VO are nice but IMO a poor ROI. And perhaps problematic for fixing and adding new ones. Money should have been spent elsewhere such as more content or the third faction that many clamoured for.

The number of quest are fine. There could other issues with quests outside the quantity.

Karteli · February 2013

Originally posted by waynejr2
VO are nice but IMO a poor ROI. And perhaps problematic for fixing and adding new ones. Money should have been spent elsewhere such as more content or the third faction that many clamoured for.

The number of quest are fine. There could other issues with quests outside the quantity.

Every modern MMORPG now has or will have voice. Even TES.

The thought of not having voiced quests in SWTOR is problematic, to me. Thanks to SWTOR, I can't go back to wall of text quest games like WoW. If EA stops investing in story, this will impact me.

waynejr2 · February 2013

Originally posted by Karteli
Originally posted by waynejr2
VO are nice but IMO a poor ROI. And perhaps problematic for fixing and adding new ones. Money should have been spent elsewhere such as more content or the third faction that many clamoured for.

The number of quest are fine. There could other issues with quests outside the quantity.

Every modern MMORPG now has or will have voice. Even TES.

As I siad, they are nice. Not sure about the ROI as the cost seems high.

DrunkWolf · February 2013

This game killed my space bar.

Sevenstar61 · February 2013

I would not change in any way the quests in SWTOR. They could add more area quests and mission box quests though. I enjoyed and ejnoy every darn quest no matter how unimportant.

It is impossible to come back to walls of texts quests after playing SWTOR for me. Any game I tried after playing SWTOR faced uninstall in less then 5 minutes if I see the text quests. I am spoiled. TSW is the only MMo playable for me atm, though I stopped to play it after 2 weeks, too boring comparing to SWTOR or maybe just too many zombies... one of these.

simplius · February 2013

you pretty much have to accept text in mmos,,or drop mmo play

this game and TSW have shown , that story doesnt belong in mmos

and it also makes sense, since a mmos story is created by the players actions in the game world

a good gamemaster says" there are bandits to the east, wolves to the north, and centaurs in the east,,

which way do you go?

a bad gamemaster just teleports the player to a dungeon with a dragon inside

superniceguy · February 2013

Persoanlly I do not think there is enough, as this is what SWTOR is all about - STORY STORY STORY - whether it is in the main quests or the harder group orientated quests in Flashpoints, Operation, Heroics, Warzones etc. Once you are done with it all then there is not much left of the game There are no other MMO features in game like Beast Master, Player housing, mission creator, creature harvesting, complex crafting, fishing etc

They should make them repeatable, and that would get plenty of enjoyment from them all for long periods of time - it gets boring doing all the starting quests over and over and over, and the same goes for the Flashpoints etc it does not take long to do each one once, and then everything is repeatable, but there as there are so many of the main stories, it will take a lot longer to get bored of repeating them than Flashpoints etc, especiallly if you get more up to date rewards from repeating them at max level in a low level starting area. Some quests are fun and enjoyable, and the odd one or two you could do forever and ever, but it does not make it viable when you have to wade through a tonne of quests you do not particularly want to redo.

The good thing with instanced missions is that all the mobs are for you or your group to kill, world quests are for everyone, and when there are mass loads of people on them, it makes long waiting times for them to respawn and thought of slugglishly progressing puts me off playing. STO, SWG, CoH all give missions / mobs that are unique to the player or the group. They are repeatable and get predicatbale but it is random enough to make you wonder what you will get, and you can keep doing them if you desire, but SWTOR is one long line of quests that end, and the Flashpoints etc are just predicatble, you know what you are going to get after you have done one. I used to hate the caves quests in CoH but loved the building ones and if I got a cave one, then did it any and hoped that the next one would be a building one or something. In STO I do not like the ones where you have to kill 5 mobs, and the last one is always more tricky, and the first 4 are too easy, by the time you get to last one you get cocky and die and then have to run through the map again, but I like the others, and then do it again, and hope I get one of the others. In SWG the missions are more or less the same but where it makes it unique is it depends where the mission will land. If it lands in the middle of other generic spawn then it can make things tougher.All the repeatable stuff in SWTOR is just so predictable, and gets boring a lot quicker.

If they added a generic random mission giver, it would make things a bit more interesting, or better yet redo many of the quests already in game, either by choice or by random. There are so many that you can not remember them all (except the beginning ones which you do more of on other chars and then you get sick of them and stop whereas the later missions are less played and more fresh and maybe some not even played as fed up of redoing earlier missions and just stop playing), and are just being wasted.

simplius · February 2013

yes , STOs random cluster missions are the best end game content ive played so far

simply because they have a random element

and story is the exact opposite of that,,play it once or twice,,spacabar the rest

and that is a bad investment for mmos,,the more players to use any content, the better

in swtor,,,when i choose a race and class, i automatically get locked out of 83 % of the story content

does that sound like a good way to make money?

Sovrath · February 2013

The voiced quests, to my taste, is what made the "trash quests" if you will more palatable.

Unfortunately it's one of those things where it's "in for a penny, in for a pound".

Remember, in Age of Conan, people really noticed when the voice acting "stopped" and there were no more voiced quests. The timbre of the game changed.

ktanner3 · February 2013

Originally posted by simplius
you pretty much have to accept text in mmos,,or drop mmo play

this game and TSW have shown , that story doesnt belong in mmos

and it also makes sense, since a mmos story is created by the players actions in the game world

I'd say in the future it's going to be the opposite: that if you want no VO that you will just have to drop MMO play. In the last year we've had TOR, GW2 and TSW release with VO and even STO went back and added it in. There are some sandbox games coming out that obviously won't have it, but for future thempark games I think it's safe to say that VO is here to stay.

NC-John · February 2013

Even though I thought it was great to have your average random quest voiced, i thought it was an amazing waste of resources. Primary story arc's which (Not all were that great) could have used the misplaced time and resourced used to make a better class story. mind you some of those class storys were pure awesome, the consular which was ok, seemed like it wasn't that great. Inquisitor and agent and jedi knight were really amazing class storys. the big let down for me was consular and bounty hunter. such a waste of story, and terrbad ending i felt ripped off with those two.

But it's a lesson i'm sure that was learned for EA and lets hope that when new MMOs start boasting class storys, they focus making class storys top notch if that what people are in to.world quest could be text, since odds are you will be rushing them next alt.

MightyChasm · February 2013

Originally posted by grimal
Think it may be a combination of the two. But it seems like too much, for me at least, when I get to the middle planets and beyond. I applaud the dedication, but I think they could have done them more moderately.

I agree, I get slightly irritated at the resources spent on Vo's and animated cut scenes effectively telling you to kill ten rats. I can't help but think that the time/ money/ effort could have been better spent on more mmo-y features.

simplius · February 2013

Originally posted by ktanner3
Originally posted by simplius
you pretty much have to accept text in mmos,,or drop mmo play

this game and TSW have shown , that story doesnt belong in mmos

and it also makes sense, since a mmos story is created by the players actions in the game world

I'd say in the future it's going to be the opposite: that if you want no VO that you will just have to drop MMO play. In the last year we've had TOR, GW2 and TSW release with VO and even STO went back and added it in. There are some sandbox games coming out that obviously won't have it, but for future thempark games I think it's safe to say that VO is here to stay.

VO,,yes,,and its fine,,a little story too

IMO GW2 hits a good balance

but having almost every sidemission VOed too is way over the edge

its too expensive,,and it actually reduces replayability

better use the resources on a big and fluffy world, with lots of varied mobs,,thats where the real things happen

not in 2 min cutscene, that you often can imagine better yourself

MightyChasm · February 2013

Originally posted by simplius
Originally posted by ktanner3
Originally posted by simplius
you pretty much have to accept text in mmos,,or drop mmo play

this game and TSW have shown , that story doesnt belong in mmos

and it also makes sense, since a mmos story is created by the players actions in the game world

I'd say in the future it's going to be the opposite: that if you want no VO that you will just have to drop MMO play. In the last year we've had TOR, GW2 and TSW release with VO and even STO went back and added it in. There are some sandbox games coming out that obviously won't have it, but for future thempark games I think it's safe to say that VO is here to stay.

VO,,yes,,and its fine,,a little story too

IMO GW2 hits a good balance

but having almost every sidemission VOed too is way over the edge

its too expensive,,and it actually reduces replayability

better use the resources on a big and fluffy world, with lots of varied mobs,,thats where the real things happen

not in 2 min cutscene, that you often can imagine better yourself

I agree but would remove the word 'fluffy'. I think even fans agree it was money poorly spent. GW2 hits a good balance but the story they have is horribly amateurish.

simplius · February 2013

yea,,its more funny, than its actually good

swtor did show some glimpses of an epic game,,but too few

like the first time you see the jedi temple on tython,,that was a real treat

also the imperial agent story,,prolly the best storyline in any mmo

and i have never been so scared of an npc, as when i made kaliyo mad

those things were the BW quality we know and love

sadly the rest wasnt

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