Ditch the voiceover for all future expansions

[SnapWolf]

I disagree with everything the OP said.

 

For most of the casual gamers, VA was a dramatic and decising factor. Telling them the story through cutscenes is more appealing than a wall of text. It feels more interactive, and you feel like your character is in the center of the story.

 

Of course, I understand all the people who are more PVP-centered and could care less about story and PVE... But understand that the vast focus of this game is on the PVE.

 

I'm afraid that VA isn't going anywhere.

Edited March 12, 2012 by SnapWolf

[chaosdefined]

This is YOUR feelings and YOUR opinion. Please do not pretend you are speaking on anyone's behalf.

 

Which is just what you did as well.

 

Just because a game was packaged and sold as being full of voiced content doesn't mean that's what most players wanted.

 

Like I said I like the voiceovers too, I'm just not arrogant enough to state that most people do without solid facts.

[TyHeaton]

How are people still impressed by voiceovers telling you the story of unimportant sidequests after 100+ hours of it? How do you not grow tired of spending exorbitant amounts of time on things that aren't interesting? Voiceovers and cutscenes work for main story quests and class story quests, but they represent an enormous time sink for both the player and the developer as well as a money sink for hiring voice actors for thousands of dialog lines that don't make boring sidequests any more interesting.

 

It's like people don't understand that intrigue in a story line doesn't derive from it being voiced. Certain tasks in an MMO will always be tedious and uninteresting. We've accepted that fact by playing it. But adding voiceovers doesn't make that any less tedious and uninteresting (it actually makes it MORE, especially when you level through the SAME quests on an alt). You cannot make the task of thinning the ranks of enemy soldiers or killing arbitrary numbers of manka cats interesting with voice acting. You can supplement emotional events within the game by voicing them, but tedious BS will forever and always be tedious BS.

 

It would actually be much better if they reserved voice acting for special occasions when they knew they would be telling a story that wasn't MMO filler content. Whenever a cutscene or voice acting started in the new old world of WoW or in the Cataclysm zones, I knew **** was getting real. It meant that they were telling a story that they felt deserved more than text to tell it. Made it more special, made it more interesting. The fastest way to spoil your pleasures is to make them routine.

 

Just because you don't find it interesting doesn't mean that's true for anyone else.

[TyHeaton]

Which is just what you did as well.

 

Just because a game was packaged and sold as being full of voiced content doesn't mean that's what most players wanted.

 

Like I said I like the voiceovers too, I'm just not arrogant enough to state that most people do without solid facts.

 

Why would they buy it if they didn't want it?

[TyHeaton]

The fanboys are gonna ruin any hope this game has of being good.

 

 

"No, we don't want better gameplay and more features, we want more Voice Acting!"

 

"People like things that I don't? MUST BE FANBOYS"

[chaosdefined]

Why would they buy it if they didn't want it?

 

Because of all the other parts of the game. Did you buy it solely for the voiced content?

 

All I'm trying to say here is people shouldn't immediatly assume that most people share their opinion.

[Tentlord]

FANBOYS!! bah

 

The whole point of MMO`s IS end game !! not the leveling process or VA, atm the end game is lacking and what we do have you end up having to skip the same un needed VA everytime you do it. KEEP IN MIND the HM are daily things you do, so what EVERYONE is saying is NOT remove VA but for gods sake keep it out of end game content or just occasionall or give the option of SKIPPING out of VA when you start any HM content.

 

One example is in Karagas Palace 1st boss on HM after a wipe I dont want the same stoopid cutscene repeated every wipe for gods sake its enough having a wipe and running back but you then have to watch this VA`d custscene again and again thats what most people are moaning about.

 

Keep VA for normal mode stuff but remove for endgame Hardmode, people do hard modes for the lootz and glory of doing the harder modes not the VA !!!

Edited March 12, 2012 by Tentlord

[Alexi_son]

I can't speak for everyone, but the reason I bought SWToR is because my brother got it and drug me away from WoW if i wanted to continue playing with him. The VO stuff is a neat gimmick, but it is by no means anything i ever asked for or cared about as a feature.

 

I also happen to like Star Wars as a universe and a genre, so i was cool with a good amount of the ongoing bugs and general lack of features as MMOs go.

 

But I agree with the OP that going forward, I would much prefer the dev team to put their resources into actual features instead of more videos.

 

I know we're all different. It's clear some of you think the current features and content are fine. I think the game is lacking depth and breadth, and no amount of cutscenes can make up for that. As such, I would prefer the dev team to focus resources on additional features, vs. additional cutscenes and voiceovers.

[Kindara]

Keep Voice Acting just as it is especially for future content. For people who only want to concentrate on the end instead of the journey... USE THE SPACE BAR.

 

Just because you don't want to immerse in the world doesn't mean you have to remove it for everyone else. Use the Space Bar and get over it. THere's what dozens of MMO games that dont use voice acting and immersion at all and are made for people who only care about the end. Try one of those or just get used to this game being made for the Immersion, the Journey, and the End and not just the End.

[soep]

Yes please, ditch the ongoing story all together along with the voice cinematics.

 

Start making a good guild vs guild PvP planet. One planet that had guild vs guild PvP, similar to Shadowbane, would keep me subbing for years. I don't need the story, I don't need the voices; what I do need is good guild PvP, namely asset destruction and city management.

 

go buy a shooter and leave this game,we don't need you!

[Emencie]

I liked the VO/cut-scenes at first...

 

But after many end game characters, alts, and the same exact linear path of questing over and over again on top of the exact same NPCs saying the exact same thing. Not to mention Pet affection grind (Esseles / black talon) and social grind (Esseles / black talon), the daily hard-modes of the same instances. over and over again, its feels a bit overwhelming. If I never see those 2 instances again it would be great. but I'm going to be there again tonight

 

I think some games (GW comes to mind) did fully voiced story mode great! Because only the main story were fully voiced and animated. While the day to day grind was not so the burn out on all the cut-scenes took a lot longer. And even then, by your 2nd /3rd alt you were skipping scenes.

 

With the way the game is now I'm not sure my spacebar can take much more.

[chaosdefined]

go buy a shooter and leave this game,we don't need you!

 

That's a really poor attitude to have. This game needs players to keep it going, so in fact yes it does need him. It needs everyone. It currently does not have the luxury of having 10million subscribers and so losing a few hundred thousand wouldn't make much of an impact.

 

Keep Voice Acting just as it is especially for future content. For people who only want to concentrate on the end instead of the journey... USE THE SPACE BAR.

 

You completely missed the point of the original post. He's not saying he's bored of the voice content and skipping through it...he's saying he'd rather they spent more time, money and resources on developing other parts of the game.

Edited March 12, 2012 by chaosdefined

[Master-Nala]

If we have a choice between all the features we expect in an MMO or slick voice over cinematics for the missions then I choose the MMO features.

 

I would rather have the following at the expense of voiceovers and cinematics

 

Day/Night cycles

More planets to level up on in the same bracket so rolling alts is not boring.

Killable npc's in each factions base

All invisible barriers removed

Ability to level up with friends without having to do each class quest numerous times

Faster future content as I am sure creating cinematics for each quest takes ages and costs a fortune.

Remove the instancing while you are at it

 

Thanks

 

No. Go play something else.

[Kindara]

That's a really poor attitude to have. This game needs players to keep it going, so in fact yes it does need him. It needs everyone. It currently does not have the luxury of having 10million subscribers and so losing a few hundred thousand wouldn't make much of an impact.

 

Despite bizarre player beliefs...MMOs don't need 10 Million Players or even 5 Million players to survive. Infact WoW is not considered the "norm" when it comes to player base size. Games that need 10 million players to survive have an inflated budget somewhere and someone should be fired. Not evenWoW needs its 10 million, its budget doesn't even take advantage of that at all, infact alot of that money from the 10 Million goes to other projects and Activision's pockets.

 

 

So this game doesn't really need players that "don't get it". I'm all for if the devs want to give people a way to skip it but I don't think they should remove it or cut it from the budget because some players prefer the old school way to do things.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Kindara

[Master-Nala]

FANBOYS!! bah

 

I am a fanboy. What of it?

 

The whole point of MMO`s IS end game !!

 

No it isn't. Believe it or not, people can play a MMORPGs for years without feeling the need to raid to get more gear to raid to get more gear to raid, et. al.

[archifikoss]

FANBOYS!! bah

 

The whole point of MMO`s IS end game !!

 

Speak for yourself.

[chaosdefined]

Despite bizarre player beliefs...MMOs don't need 10 Million Players or even 5 Million players to survive. Infact WoW is not considered the "norm" when it comes to player base size. Games that need 10 million players to survive have an inflated budget somewhere and someone should be fired. Not evenWoW needs its 10 million, its budget doesn't even take advantage of that at all, infact alot of that money from the 10 Million goes to other projects and Activision's pockets.

 

 

So this game doesn't really need players that "don't get it". I'm all for if the devs want to give people a way to skip it but I don't think they should remove it or cut it from the budget because some players prefer the old school way to do things.

 

You totally missed my point.

 

WoW has 10mil subscribers. It can stand to lose 200k players or so. No problem.

 

SWTOR has 1.7million players roughly (on last announcement). If it lost 200k players there'd be problems.

 

So all these negative attitudes of "you don't like a small aspect of the game, YOU SHOULD QUIT THEN!" are really, really poor. Thank god you lot aren't part of the Dev team or the game would be screwed.

 

It needs players and it needs to keep them if it's going to succeed. Having hostile attitudes from other players telling them to quit doesn't help the game retain players!

[dontknowdoya]

If we have a choice between all the features we expect in an MMO or slick voice over cinematics for the missions then I choose the MMO features.

 

I would rather have the following at the expense of voiceovers and cinematics

 

Day/Night cycles

More planets to level up on in the same bracket so rolling alts is not boring.

Killable npc's in each factions base

All invisible barriers removed

Ability to level up with friends without having to do each class quest numerous times

Faster future content as I am sure creating cinematics for each quest takes ages and costs a fortune.

Remove the instancing while you are at it

 

Thanks

 

Uh... no. I like the voice overs.

[Tentlord]

If end game isnt the MMo thing,

 

Prey tell me what your going to do when you have played the 4 classes to level 50 on both sides, that will maybe take 8 -10 months then what ARE you willing to keep paying a monthly sub till the next major expansion to level 60. Or are you like the rest going to be doing end game content ??

 

Feels like all the Kotor fan base playing for the single player experience and the they dont realise the need for end game content is what keeps the game alive and healthy and making enough money to actually warrant an expansion or for people to stay with the game.

 

Keep the VA but not in Hard mode flash points and operations, that is what im saying as you will have seen those in the normal modes already.

 

BTW better tell Bio ware to not add in more ops or raids as the posters here dont think thats what MMO`s are about.

[Cerion]

If we have a choice between all the features we expect in an MMO or slick voice over cinematics for the missions then I choose the MMO features.

 

I would rather have the following at the expense of voiceovers and cinematics

 

Day/Night cycles

More planets to level up on in the same bracket so rolling alts is not boring.

Killable npc's in each factions base

All invisible barriers removed

Ability to level up with friends without having to do each class quest numerous times

Faster future content as I am sure creating cinematics for each quest takes ages and costs a fortune.

Remove the instancing while you are at it

 

Thanks

 

Apart from the fact that I love the VO work and think it absolutely needs to stay, the rest of these original suggestions are lame, pure and simple.

 

All invisible barriers removed

How on Aldaraan does THAT happen? Really? Nearly every single game in existence has a finite space, and thus needs a barrier to define the playable area. Suggesting otherwise is beyond naive. I can name only 1 single MMO that has a circumnavigate-able world without barriers.

 

Remove instancing

Again, another b.s. suggestion. How do you think BW would be able to offer individualized or group stories w/o instancing? Eh?

 

The OP is living in 1990's MMO land, stuck in the nostalgia of a world that will not be seen again.

[archifikoss]

If end game isnt the MMo thing,

 

Prey tell me what your going to do when you have played the 4 classes to level 50 on both sides, that will maybe take 8 -10 months then what ARE you willing to keep paying a monthly sub till the next major expansion to level 60. Or are you like the rest going to be doing end game content ??

 

Feels like all the Kotor fan base playing for the single player experience and the they dont realise the need for end game content is what keeps the game alive and healthy and making enough money to actually warrant an expansion or for people to stay with the game.

 

Keep the VA but not in Hard mode flash points and operations, that is what im saying as you will have seen those in the normal modes already.

 

BTW better tell Bio ware to not add in more ops or raids as the posters here dont think thats what MMO`s are about.

 

I'll either quit because I absolutely hate raiding with a passion and have no interest in PvP, or I'll hang around for RP, crafting, space combat (if expanded upon meaningfully) and whatever solo activities exist.

 

Won't necessarily disagree about the hard modes, they're geared towards MMOers anyway supposedly.

 

And MMOs are about whatever you want them to be about. Or should be, given enough and varied activities. If all they're about is horrible raiding and PvP well they're not worth the effort.

 

EDIT: That's not to say raiding should not exist. People love it, hence it should be given love. But it shouldn't be the only meaningful thing to do in PvE.

Edited March 12, 2012 by archifikoss

[Darnu]

I personally like the voice overs. But I think they should have cut it down to 25% of what they have. Keep voice overs for Class Quests and the main line "important" quests of each zone. I don't need a 3-4 minute dialog with a guy that is just asking me to go kill 10 boars.

 

I do agree with OP that there should be more alternate ways of leveling to keep interest. Right now there is a little bit of this with the Bonus Series. But every time you level a toon from 10-20 on Republic you know for damn sure you're going to be running the streets of Coruscant killing Black Suns and etc, followed up by a trip to lovely Taris. /sigh

 

 

 

I think to attract and keep long-term players in the numbers needed to make an MMO viable without sacrificing features within and aspects of gamers people are used to they are going to need a bigger budget to pull it off. More like a larger investment and a parent company willing to hand over the $$ no questions asked and no strings attached. The payoff could be massive, but not without a price. VO's alone will attract and retain people - for a while, I can't lie about that. But once people have completed the storylines and are no longer doing new missions and going through new stories how much of an attraction will VO's be? Levelling in an MMO is such a short time most people when judging a game don't even think about the levelling process and reserve all judgements for max-level, and each and every opinion related to the game while you level is literally "hmm, I wonder what it will be like playing at max-level with/without this?". I mean, don't get me wrong, the sub-max level is the first look at a game new players will ever see unless they've looked the game up before trialling/buying, so it can't ever be neglected.

 

It just felt to me that each and every single mission no matter how trivial came with a long story rather than a couple of sentences, and after listening to what's being told to you you're expecting a pretty major mission which seemed like the start of an important chain-mission. Only to read the log, see how trivial it is, turn it in and that be it.

 

 

 

 

No it isn't. Believe it or not, people can play a MMORPGs for years without feeling the need to raid to get more gear to raid to get more gear to raid, et. al.

 

As of yet I haven't found anything else to do in this game besides pvp dailies and Belsavis daily missions and levelling alts, which doesn't really count. What do you do? I'm asking because I'm genuinely curious, by the way.

 

 

I for one would love to see the double-sunset of Tatooine. You know how some planets have multiple moons? I would love to be able to look up into the sky and see that. Coruscant at night with lights? That could be amazing. Same as Corelia. Those giant cannons firing at night? yes please. Taris at night complete with bugs and crickets and beasts in the night sounds? I would like that. And I don't care if daytime cinematics look out of place. Not everything needs to be perfect - just polished. At the moment everything seems shiny but incredibly raw, even for a launch. And snow on Hoth? Of course the pristine clarity looks stunning, and hopefully it would stop snowing, but no snow on Hoth other than what's on the ground ever, just seems wrong. Things like snow and rain etc could affect performance and could be technical restrictions for both server and client-side unless the coding's tight, but things like night and day wouldn't be.

Edited March 14, 2012 by Darnu

[SnapWolf]

If you're limiting yourself to Endgame, there's a damn problem.

[Kungpaoshizi]

But if they take away vo's, then all my homosexual conversations would just be text!

[DarkCarnage]

FANBOYS!! bah

 

The whole point of MMO`s IS end game !! not the leveling process or VA, atm the end game is lacking and what we do have you end up having to skip the same un needed VA everytime you do it. KEEP IN MIND the HM are daily things you do, so what EVERYONE is saying is NOT remove VA but for gods sake keep it out of end game content or just occasionall or give the option of SKIPPING out of VA when you start any HM content.

 

One example is in Karagas Palace 1st boss on HM after a wipe I dont want the same stoopid cutscene repeated every wipe for gods sake its enough having a wipe and running back but you then have to watch this VA`d custscene again and again thats what most people are moaning about.

 

Keep VA for normal mode stuff but remove for endgame Hardmode, people do hard modes for the lootz and glory of doing the harder modes not the VA !!!

 

they might not allows a auto skip due ot the social points sub system in place. my advice it got to game prefs, and turn voice over volume to 0. this fix your VO issue. you sitll how to deal with the CS however.