Mackuss Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 (edited) It's completely and utterly useless. What I came to realize is that, it takes the same amount of time, if not SHORTER, (so the attention span argument is invalid) to just read quests instead of hearing a voice actor painfully say it slower than I can read (and in nowhere near as awesome of a voice that I hear in my head. You know, the one that my creativity gave the NPC). And, even on a personal note, it's kind of pathetic that the majority of society isn't interested in something just because they have to read. Not to mention, at some point, most people turn subtitles on anyway to read, then space bar before the voice actor has finished the sentence. Side rant: I know there is a growing majority of people who do not have full use of their mental faculties (I do not mean this in a mean way), one of which being creativity. It reminds me of the case of the child who, before he was exposed to lots of artist's depictions of birds, was asked to draw a bird, and subsequently drew a rather creative bird for a kid. Then, when he was exposed to other people's renditions of birds (i.e. force fed content and have other people's creativity affect his consciousness), he drew very boring "normal" birds. Being force fed such a specific aspect of content in such a big way kind of kills it for me. Though this is just personal and in no way affects my over all post. GREAT post here, found in thread: The voice acting was a massive resource hog for the development of this game. It was a stupid design decision that is only interesting for so long and past that point becomes boring and time-consuming for the player. Anybody who is saying they don't find it boring either hasn't played that much or have a tolerance for boredom that rivals even the most hardcore Asian Lineage players. Voice acting doesn't make a story interesting. An interesting story make a story interesting. It's like special effects in a movie, a particularly salient notion to consider within the Star Wars universe. Voice acting (like special effects in a movie) is a tool used to convey interesting ideas and to enhance them. If the core meat of the story they are telling isn't interesting or engaging to the audience, dressing it up will only impress the stupid magpies who don't like to think about things too deeply in order to understand them. It's pertinent in the context of Star Wars because so many people were mesmerized by the fancy special effects of the prequel trilogy that they couldn't look past it to see the busted, unengaging, illogical mess of a story, poor cinematography and general design of the movies. Special effects didn't make those movies good, and voice acting doesn't make this game good. Uninteresting filler side content where you go kill 10 guys for no reason is not made interesting by voice acting. It's that simple. It spices up the main storyline for each class a bit, but even there things feel token and watered down compared to a traditional cRPG. Once again, in those traditional RPGs, you don't need voice acting to make them good (see Baldur's Gate). The compromise between the two genres leaves hardcore MMO number crunchers with blue balls about a lack of features and hardcore RPG roleplayers with a lack of truly interesting choices, customization and content. Am I getting through to you people at all? Edited January 28, 2012 by Mackuss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marshalleck Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 And another sees through the facade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OmegaMayhem Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 It's called 'immersion'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marshalleck Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 (edited) Incidentally, spacebarring isn't the end of the world, especially if you're playing same faction you've completed before. Dromun Kaas, Nar Shadda, etc. go by quickly. Edited January 28, 2012 by marshalleck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirazy Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 It's hardly useless. You may skip through it because you'd prefer to read it... But if not for the voice acting? How many people do you think would simply click the NPC, find the objectives for the quest, and hit ACCEPT? Do you honestly think people read the block text that comes with most quests in other MMO's? Because I sincerely doubt most people do. I enjoy the voice acting. It's useful to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avesa Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 You have no idea what 'most' people do. The only time I haven't went through the voice over / cut scene was a couple of quests I was doing for the 3rd time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PibbyPib Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 (edited) nowhere near as awesome of a voice that I hear in my head. Well, at least the voices in your head are awesome. Seriously though, this has been argued about forever. The first time I remember seeing it was concerning Oblivion/Morrowind. On the one hand, written dialogue is always longer and more crafted, while spoken dialogue is brief and to the point. Personally, I think the vo is good. There's a codex full of pages and pages of backstory if you want to read details. The one thing I'm on the fence over is characterization. In every other MMORPG I've played, my character really was *my character*. He had whatever voice I gave him, whatever background I gave him, etc. SWTOR often *tells* you a story rather than leaving a blank space to write your own. I do see your point. Edited January 28, 2012 by PibbyPib Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameirus Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 It's called 'immersion'. its called boring as hell. its repetative, and who wants to spend 10mins handing in a quest? There is no real choice or impact of the voice acting, its just a time sink. Its ok for class quests, but I'm damm not listening to the side quests which disguise boring kill X collect X quests and are the same for every damm character. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mdesade Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 I consider myself "most people" as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyersfan Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 I love the voice acting. I rarely skip through any of it unless it's something I've already done more than four times. It's interesting to hear the different responses from the NPC in how they address my Shadow, Vanguard, Scoundrel, or Guardian. There are many, many things that are the same, but not always. Also, Jennifer Hale is enough to make me listen to anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trublmaker Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 Well... Many people didn't care much for "talking pictures" at first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daiyousei Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 It's completely and utterly useless. What I came to realize is that, it takes the same amount of time, if not SHORTER, (so the attention span argument is invalid) to just read quests instead of hearing a voice actor painfully say it slower than I can read (and in nowhere near as awesome of a voice that I hear in my head. You know, the one that my creativity gave the NPC). And, even on a personal note, it's kind of pathetic that the majority of society isn't interested in something just because they have to read. Not to mention, at some point, most people turn subtitles on anyway to read, then space bar before the voice actor has finished the sentence. I'm sorry but I'm a fan of both. I didn't start using space bar until I hit dailies at 50 or to skip the repetitive alien languages. It's great for immersion and it gives the game a mass effect feel. SWTOR to me plays like a single player game in terms of storyline quality and a mmo for everything else. Having seen how much of a difference the dialogue and choices makes, I have difficulty even thinking about playing a game with regular quest text boxes. Where are the choices anyway? In swtor I can choose who I fight, how I fight, why I fight, or to not fight at all. You can fight or avoid fights through conversation alone multiple ways. You can change your entire story with a single conversation choice. The immersion is something you must not be able to appreciate yet. Play a couple characters to 50 and you will understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OmegaMayhem Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 its called boring as hell. its repetative, and who wants to spend 10mins handing in a quest? There is no real choice or impact of the voice acting, its just a time sink. Its ok for class quests, but I'm damm not listening to the side quests which disguise boring kill X collect X quests and are the same for every damm character. That's 'your' opinion. I love the voice acting and I really get into the game with it. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it should be eliminated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samborino Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 I'm sorry but I'm a fan of both. I didn't start using space bar until I hit dailies at 50 or to skip the repetitive alien languages. It's great for immersion and it gives the game a mass effect feel. SWTOR to me plays like a single player game in terms of storyline quality and a mmo for everything else. Having seen how much of a difference the dialogue and choices makes, I have difficulty even thinking about playing a game with regular quest text boxes. Where are the choices anyway? In swtor I can choose who I fight, how I fight, why I fight, or to not fight at all. You can fight or avoid fights through conversation alone multiple ways. You can change your entire story with a single conversation choice. The immersion is something you must not be able to appreciate yet. Play a couple characters to 50 and you will understand. I agree, it pisses me off when i see people who clearly havent played through the game more than once say that the choices you make dont have any affect. Its simply not true. In my smuggler storyline i know for a fact in a few different ways how i could have changed my story. I could have chosen to kill someone for instance, that played a pivotal roll in my story and became the second in command in my criminal empire. Their are also lots of options that i probably didnt even realise made a difference. Choices you make in act 1 can affect your story in act 3. Also choices you make in the planet wide story line can affect that differently as well. Its nice to see someone who has multiple 50's come out and say this! thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caelrie Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 I love the voice content, but in the end I have to say it's a negative. It's patently obvious that voice acting and cut scenes took up most of this game's budget, leaving it the most expensive MMORPG to date but also the one with the least amount of actual game features. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mackuss Posted January 28, 2012 Author Share Posted January 28, 2012 It's hardly useless. You may skip through it because you'd prefer to read it... But if not for the voice acting? How many people do you think would simply click the NPC, find the objectives for the quest, and hit ACCEPT? Do you honestly think people read the block text that comes with most quests in other MMO's? Because I sincerely doubt most people do. I enjoy the voice acting. It's useful to me. The point is that with the former, you have the option to pick up and go. Having to wait for a conversation to load (even if it's fast), and then space baring through a conversation gets old. Because in the end, other than class quests, I still space bar through everything because I know the menial quests still ask the same thing the other MMOs do, and do not affect anything in anyway what so ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mackuss Posted January 28, 2012 Author Share Posted January 28, 2012 There is no real choice or impact of the voice acting, its just a time sink. You know, I bet a lot of people are going to overlook your comment, but that's a very very very good way of putting it. That's all it honestly is. Quite honestly, there's nothing better than reading something, and how your creativity can interpret it, instead of being force fed something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth_Urtani Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 It's KOTOR/Mass Effect meets World of Warcraft. What did you expect? It's still a fantastic game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJediKnight Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 It's useless. I particularly hate the disparity in voice acting talent. For example, the female Jedi consular sounds like she is comotose all the time. The female Jedi knight, however, is passionate and upbeat when she speaks, and damned dark when she wants to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwigMcJigger Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 I made a macro on my G700 that spams spacebar+1 so I skip the entire dialogue almost instantly. It seems like filler and the characters hardly react appropriately to the selections I choose anyways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erix Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 I absolutely love the voice acting! However, with the addition of subtitles, I tend to space bar through a lot of content I have already seen because I can read quickly. I do worry for the future of the voice acting. I foresee expansions making use of more mission terminals, and previously recorded voice over lines being repeated more frequently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronamo Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 Well... Many people didn't care much for "talking pictures" at first. Or television. Television won't last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night. Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
areto Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 (edited) I would of loved it if the voices were more lugubrious but they're what I expected which is fine I guess. Edited January 28, 2012 by areto Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aussircaex Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 I haven't read the entire thread, but to the OP: Not everything about gaming is about efficiency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mackuss Posted January 28, 2012 Author Share Posted January 28, 2012 I haven't read the entire thread, but to the OP: Not everything about gaming is about efficiency. MMOs have made that quite obvious. Efficiency means more time(money) for the developer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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