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Gamebreaker's Larry Everett: "MMO's waste millions on voice-over"
Karteli
Member CommonPosts: 2,646
ref:
Massively article
July 24, 2012
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/07/24/the-soapbox-mmos-waste-millions-on-voice-over/
Preface:
In the past month of Gamebreaker's The Old Republic show, I have begun to question the sanity of Justin, and sometimes Larry too, because they seem too upbeat about everything being hokie-dokie with Star Wars The Old Republic, despite it being a true game and customer correspondance disaster. Larry I can understand because he loves communities and roleplaying, and his talks about Star Wars are truly expressions of passion. Justin is sort of bonkers with his approach that "everything is fine" (the last episode of Gamebreakers The Republic drove me up the wall) .. he seems more dedicated to his site Darth Hater than to video games in general, or at least so I have noticed.
About the article:
The article was written by Larry Everett, and I suppose this may be the closest gamers get to some form of complaint from true Star Wars fans.
I think Larry summed it up nicely, by saying "players will spend the majority of time building communities within the game. Give us more tools for that before you spend another 10 million bucks on voice-overs, please."
One of the biggest flaws I have with The Old Republic is that semi-uncontrollable dialog cutscnes take the main stage for this "massively" multiplayer game. It's not like other action or space Star Wars games where you get to record and brag about your awesome experiences, where YOU called the shots, YOU performed those deeds. SWTOR is just a simpleton game where you do just enough to get to the next cutscene, with the choices made being only meaningful to the player, not to anyone else (and they all end up the same in the end so no-one really gives a shit).
I think the lesson learned is not necessarily that cutscenes & dialog wheels are bad, but they should NEVER, NEVER, NEVER take main stage and replace a decent game engine, basic UI features, game/player interaction, and a whole sense of belonging here, to make a difference in others lives. Even if the difference that was made is small & annonymous like other MMORPG's, you still influenced something. Influencing anything in SWTOR is just about impossible .. nothing matters.
EA just went OCD on one game feature (among a pool of thousands) with consumers. It's like a grocery store who wants to attract everyone to get more business, but 90% of everything they sell is eggs and milk .. isles and isles of eggs and milk .. all different kinds, but this is the kind of business model that loses investors .. please don't build this kind of grocery store near me .. and also EA please sell games with more diverse elements (or just keep what you are doing and go under, no difference to me).
Side Comment:
The part of the article:
"Star Wars: The Old Republic made a point to tell us that it had over 200 different voice actors (300 if you believe IMDB) with over a thousand recording sessions for over 200,000 lines of dialogue."
Does not jive with Daniel Erickson's statement that SWTOR has 900+ voice actors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgrN5e8XorI
@ time marker 9:30
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
Comments
Yea I think Larry is reaching his breaking point with SWTOR
PM before you report at least or you could just block.
Yup..
what my signature says...
The way mmo's were: Community, Exploration, Character Development, Conquest.
The way mmo's are now : Cut-Scenes,Cut-Scenes, solo Questing, Cut-Scenes...
www.CeaselessGuild.com
Honestly with this being BW's first foray into mmorpgs I am patient with the lack of some basic mmo/sandbox funcionality but certainly hope it will come along sooner than later, having said that he makes a pretty stupid poit because in most mmorpg's your decisions only effect you why is SWTOR being held to a higher standard than the rest of the genre full of games where the only people who know what you do are those who are with you when you do them.
Beyond that why is every negative article that is referenced on mmorp about SWTOR coming from massively?
Not to mention <space bar> <space bar> <space bar> *grin*
Voice-overs are near the bottom of the list for what I care about in MMO's. I think Bioware overvalued VO's as a selling point of their game.
Well for me an mmorpg with every single quest voiced over has actually enhanced my immersion into the game my only problem with it is that voice overs may in fact be the reason that there is really only one leveling path for each faction which is it's only real downfall, if you make an alt republic or imperial character other than the limited class story you are in fact rehashing the same scenes you just went through so as an above poster stated i do spend a fair bit of time spacebaring through alot of the quests next time through unless I'm in a group.
Being that my feelings on it are totally split fifty fifty I can't say they overvalued it because I still love it even with having to spacebar through so much tha I may not at the time want to go through again.
To the poster talking about his sig though please stop looking at the old games through those rose colored glasses alot of those games had shit to do and forced players to rely on each other and further nothing is stoping people from jumping off the "rails" in any of the games that are out today. I'm stuck wondering how you people had such amazing imaginations when it came to games that gave you nothing but big empty worlds with mobs but all of a sudden you find it impossible to jump off the rails/linear paths in games that offer you both options the only difference really is other players arent forced to rely on you and maybe now you guys need to try harder to make friends in game.
my guess since it was http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/12/31/massivelys-best-of-2011-awards/
game of the year from them and now it's being bashed on that site...
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
This game will never be sandbox .. get over it. It's not being planned, it won't happen. Even the next planet / expansion has ZERO sandbox elements and that is half a year or more away. If you want to keep being patient, by all means then, wait a few years .. but this game is designed to be fully themepark.
As to why every negative article comes from Massively .. umm the author of the article was one of SWTOR's biggest fans .. Hi, welcome to reality. Did you know that Massively, along with other sites played a big part in the promotion of SWTOR over the last year and beyond? :P I'm guessing you knew that already.
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
I enjoy voice overs and cut scenes for key plot oriented quests and good story arcs. That written, I am not sure that every single quest needs them or should have such very long ones. After the first few times everyone just spaces through them. The thing that leaves me perplexed is how the development team for SWTOR could spend so much money on voice overs and cut scenes yet get so little in return for it outside of the neat intro and two starting faction movies. Compared to games like TSW and particularly the upcoming Blade & Soul, SWTOR’s in game voice work and cut scenes are really kind of lacking. Neither of these two games had half the budget EA Bioware burned through.
Massively publishing negative sounding stories about SWTOR doesn’t surprise me. The fact that seemingly every SWTOR article they post makes its way to the forum “here” for comment is a little interesting...
Voice overs are ok, but maybe they should be presented differently. For example in the form of a narrator that explains things to you as you are on your way to the destination or something...
For years i got annoyed by having my "flow" broken by more and more cutscenes. I don't have a problem with them per se, to me they are like salt. Many dishes taste horrible without salt, but everyone knows that there is something like too much salt ...
There are movies and then there are games. I play games, i hardly ever watch movies. Two different genres, two different audiences. Mix them up in your product and you limit yourself to a subgroup that enjoys both ... at the same time.
He has a point. Voice-Overs are expensive tools to tell a story which those who are interested will go through like they would text, those who want to skip it always will.
I would much much rather see just a few handefuls of voice overs and the rest invested in more important structures e.g. the engine.
And I completely agree with other posters his cracks are beginning to show. There is only so long you can be a fan of manure before you get a bad taste in your mouth.
Voice overs/cinemtics for class quests are very ok. They can carry a great deal of impactful decision making, and decisions that last.
Voice overs/cinematics for more fleshed out story quests are ok. One bright example is Czerka quesline on Tatooine. Though its pretty lonesome out there.
Voice overs/cinematics for generic MMO quests (which >90% of SWTOR quests are) are completely redundant and wasted.
Quite some time before launch, when their stance had started to change from "you can level to the cap on class story with optional group content, no quest hubs and few generic world quests" to "generic MMO fare with generic quest hubs and quests" i wrote that its all wasted/redundant if they intend to use it on that. That was some > 2 year-ish ago.
Ah well.
VO, cut scenes, personal instance and ultra linear solo quests should be a part of the game to enhance the experience and immersion but NEVER EVER should be the core of the game.
When these things became the core of the game, it simply takes away the longivity of the game, it literally weaken the "M" in MMO genre, unless you're WoW with millions of sheeps willing to pay fifteen bucks with barebone MMO experience. I mean WoW theseday is not much difference than regular multiplayer lobby game.
Keep VO but don't use big name and big fee actors. Simple really.
I think this applies much to Bioware RPGs these days:
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Hahaha indeed.
I used to love the old Bioware RPGs like BG2 where you just had this huge area to explore, and there were tons of things to find even if you ignored the main quest. But more recent Bioware titles seem so railroaded...you can stil explore a little, but the exploration is no where near the levels of BG2.
And SWToR is really the king of linear Bioware RPGs.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
cut scenes & voice acting in mmorpg's are waste of time & ressuorces ,they doing great work but it is crap for an mmo
Drop CS & VA & focus on social content ,it is way for good mmo
For the record I haven't played swtor but voice over's aren't a bad thing. One of the problems with such a large company doing them is they probably didn't do it efficiently. Thats basically what I do for a living record vocals and I would bet they spent a ton of money in fancy studios to use the mic a preamp and a protools rig. Not including what the actors are being paid I am sure they spent alot more then needed in this area.
wow larry thanks for the hot tip , you mean over-spending on VO is a bad move financially ....how come....
I been hearing this for years along with its wow in space , dunno why this is some sorta of major relevation.