An Epiphany: Voice Acted content.

[Jessicayla]

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.

 

Seriously. I have grown SO annoyed with the female SI's voice actor. She says everything so slooow and drawn out and dramatic, when not everything needs to be said that way. Some of the voice acting is great, but not all. I just skip through when my character talks as a female SI.

 

I also skip through almost everything but class quest dialogue. I just don't care enough to listen to most of the random quests.

Edited January 28, 2012 by Jessicayla

[ptwonline]

Hey OP, did you know that 60-70% of human communication is non-verbal? There's a lot more being conveyed when conversations are being voice acted and displayed than simply the transcript of the words.

 

That's also why it's not just having things voiced over that is important, but how it is presented to us in total. Skyrim is almost fully voice acted too, but the effect is only a tiny fraction of the effect in TOR because of the presentation.

[traverk]

No, it's brilliant. For once in a MMO, I'm not running up to some guy with a quest mark, hit accept without reading ANYTHING and just wait to see the objective on a quest tracker.

 

And dont give me that ****, that you used to give different NPC's different voices in your head, that's just too far fetched.

[krahar]

Bioware have done more than just voice acting for this game. There is also a cinematic presentation where the characters carry out actions with developer-chosen camera angles. Your argument is exactly like saying that books are better than movies. It's fine if you think that, but there are many people who like movies and that's good too.

[Jessicayla]

Hey OP, did you know that 60-70% of human communication is non-verbal? There's a lot more being conveyed when conversations are being voice acted and displayed than simply the transcript of the words.

 

That's also why it's not just having things voiced over that is important, but how it is presented to us in total. Skyrim is almost fully voice acted too, but the effect is only a tiny fraction of the effect in TOR because of the presentation.

 

http://kevinkeohane.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/debunking-the-communication-is-70-nonverbal-myth/

Nah.

 

Also, are you referring to the very stiff hand gestures that are part of the 3 to 4 animation scripts that are rehashed the entire game?

[Sir_Roderick]

I wouldn't be playing the game anymore without the voice. Text quests just always feel so incredibly empty and meaningless, the actual voiced dialogue is a world of difference to me. I don't mind kill 10 more droids if it's been motivated by that Imperial Intelligence Officer that needs his tracking device planted (made that up).

 

I never understood how people could bear those dreadfully dull text quests.

 

And to people that find the dialogue nice but tend to skip them because of subtitles....turn off the damn subtitles.

Edited January 28, 2012 by Sir_Roderick

[Stejo]

I think it's like the FMV craze of the 90s. Real actors in videos looked cool at first but when the novelty wears off you're left with a terrible waste of space, extremely high production cost and no actual gameplay. Then 3d came along and games started feeling like games again because it's the freedom to explore and do stuff in an open environment that brings entertainment to games, not cutscenes.

 

Maybe when the text-to-speech technology is advanced enough 10 years from now to allow realtime voiceovers with personality, this kind of implementation will make some sense.

[marshalleck]

I can read faster than people can speak, and reading quests is usually a waste of time. Having quests spoken to me, thusly moreso. SPACEBAR!

[CaptRavenous]

I laugh hard when I see these threads.

"Oh, woe is me! I have no patience to be in groups with people who listen to the voice-acting! Take it out now so I can get to lvl 50 faster!"

 

Why don't you ask Bioware to take down the forums? Or get them to streamline posts, so you don't have to waste so much time here reading?

 

"Dear Bioware, posts in the forums are too long, and its wasting my time to come here and read so much. Could you automatically delete posts of more than 100 words? And make sure all words are mono-syllable? Thank you, everything is TL;DR for me."

 

Everyone loved the voice-acting in Mass Effect, but now that it slows your game advancement, you want it out?

 

Your complaints fuel my laughter.

[marshalleck]

 

Everyone loved the voice-acting in Mass Effect,

 

Actually, you can spacebar that too!

[Sir_Roderick]

There basically two kinds of players as far as this point is concerned.

 

-Players that don't care about the storyline or the characters, people and places and just want to level up so they can play the end game.

 

-Players that enjoy the storyline and prefer to play a more "cinematic" game and are in no rush.

 

Neither is wrong, but it is a fact that the Bioware didn't exactly make a secret about what they were planning. Story and fully voiced dialogue as seen in Mass Effect are a central part of this game, you knew that when you got in on it.

Edited January 28, 2012 by Sir_Roderick

[ptwonline]

http://kevinkeohane.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/debunking-the-communication-is-70-nonverbal-myth/

Nah.

 

Also, are you referring to the very stiff hand gestures that are part of the 3 to 4 animation scripts that are rehashed the entire game?

 

Gestures are one but of course they are limited in this game.

 

There are very many different factors that are non-verbal including facial expressions, body positioning, eye contact, volume, pitch, voice quality, and quite a few others.

[Institutional]

Voice acting captures a lot of mannerisms that you couldn't originally perceive through text, such as an accent, volume, inflection, etc. That's assuming it's done right. It ends up trivial when a surprising amount of the conversation options clicked end up giving you another rehashed line.

 

Personally I'd rather have something like metal gear solid 1 where you have a comm link with their portrait, so you don't have to deal with these incredibly awkward robotic interactions in the conversations.

[Gokkus]

Really...you would read it all if there was no VO? Because i certainly would not. Immersion is a bonus but I much rather sit back and listen than read every single quest story. I read enough IRL thank you.

 

Nice you had an epiphany, now stop acting like its a universal truth...

Edited January 28, 2012 by Gokkus

[ptwonline]

I think it's like the FMV craze of the 90s. Real actors in videos looked cool at first but when the novelty wears off you're left with a terrible waste of space, extremely high production cost and no actual gameplay. Then 3d came along and games started feeling like games again because it's the freedom to explore and do stuff in an open environment that brings entertainment to games, not cutscenes.

 

Maybe when the text-to-speech technology is advanced enough 10 years from now to allow realtime voiceovers with personality, this kind of implementation will make some sense.

 

There's more to a game than simply gameplay.

 

Know why the character you control looks even vaguely like something human (or whatever race you chose) instead of just being any sort of symbol on the screen? What your character looks like on the screen has actually nothing to do with gameplay in most games. It's done that way for reasons of aesthetics and immersion. You know, the same reasons why you have real actors in voiced-over and acted/re-created cutscenes.

[Kellogg]

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.

 

 

Oh! I see now. Walls of text aren't repetitive.

[krookie]

The thing about voice acting is that it's a waste for the most part. Yes, it's kind of cool when you first start playing but eventually it gets boring so you start spacebar-ing through all of the side quests.

 

Then you realize that all of that voice content and the money spent on it, which considering some of the actors had to be expensive, is ultimately wasted because you can ever only experience it once per character. It's basically content that cannot be repeated, if you're someone like me and usually concentrate on one character.

 

It's a huge waste of resources, in my opinion. Instead of spending it on voice content that can never be repeated, the money could've been spent on more man hours to develop better game play with more content and better systems, like UI, LFG tool, etc.

[marshalleck]

There basically two kinds of players as far as this point is concerned.

 

-Players that don't care about the storyline or the characters, people and places and just want to level up so they can play the end game.

 

-Players that enjoy the storyline and prefer to play a more "cinematic" game and are in no rush.

 

Neither is wrong, but it is a fact that the Bioware didn't exactly make a secret about what they were planning. Story and fully voiced dialogue as seen in Mass Effect are a central part of this game, you knew that when you got in on it.

 

You forgot people who can read/comprehend faster than you, who are interested in story (but don't require exposition be delivered at a snail's pace in order to enjoy it) and in endgame as well.

Edited January 28, 2012 by marshalleck

[Arkerus]

Personally, I love it. Instead of pounding the accept key, I listen to everything. I actually feel involved in the story.

 

But, if you don't like it, skip it. Stop trying to be an armchair developer and telling bioware to spend the money elsewhere. You can't just shift money and BOOM, new stuff.

Edited January 28, 2012 by Arkerus

[AJediKnight]

Seriously. I have grown SO annoyed with the female SI's voice actor. She says everything so slooow and drawn out and dramatic, when not everything needs to be said that way. Some of the voice acting is great, but not all. I just skip through when my character talks as a female SI.

 

I also skip through almost everything but class quest dialogue. I just don't care enough to listen to most of the random quests.

 

Have you noticed that the SI seems to change her 'approach' to the character on a whim? For example, on Korriban she was kind of light-hearted and sarcastic. But the moment I got on Dromund Kaas, she turned really slow and kind of slurred... like she was trying to sound uber dark but just couldn't pull it off.

[DorkTrooper]

I enjoy the voice acting and cutscenes in each quest. The OP does not speak for me.

[Kellogg]

The thing about voice acting is that it's a waste for the most part. Yes, it's kind of cool when you first start playing but eventually it gets boring so you start spacebar-ing through all of the side quests.

 

Then you realize that all of that voice content and the money spent on it, which considering some of the actors had to be expensive, is ultimately wasted because you can ever only experience it once per character. It's basically content that cannot be repeated, if you're someone like me and usually concentrate on one character.

 

It's a huge waste of resources, in my opinion. Instead of spending it on voice content that can never be repeated, the money could've been spent on more man hours to develop better game play with more content and better systems, like UI, LFG tool, etc.

 

 

You don't think they talked about LFG tools, UI customization before?

 

With or without voice overs they wouldn't currently be in the game.

[Kellogg]

You forgot people who can read/comprehend faster than you, who are interested in story (but don't require exposition be delivered at a snail's pace in order to enjoy it) and in endgame as well.

 

I love foreign movies, Sub-titles and all.

 

But I don't pretend for a second most people like them.

[areto]

I love foreign movies, Sub-titles and all.

 

But I don't pretend for a second most people like them.

 

It's a sad world where people pick and choose based on whether or not there's reading involved.

[daeseer]

I completely disagree, OP. You're so wrong it's hard to know where to start.

 

What you're saying, basically, is that movies would be better if you simply read the script while you watch the screen where the actors are just standing there.