Voices and story. Are voices really that important?

[Lazzer]

To be honest with you, the game itself is a bare bones version of various others out there if you ignore the VO and Starwars aspect, those to me are the draw to this game that and being around from the beginning (I dislike starting to play a MMORPG when everyone is fully equipped and capped as it feels like trying to catch up and lagging behind all the time).

 

My hope is that they continue with the VO and story aspect throughout the game and keep it an MMORPG instead of an MMO. Cater for a different style of player, goodness knows there are plenty of MMOs on the market that your generic MMO player can find. I remember the disappointment that I felt when I got out of the tutorial of AoC to find that all of the fully voiced NPCs were gone, I stopped playing a couple of months later as the game simply lost it's charm.

[Dezzi]

I'll say this, if they ever decided to dump the voice acting for this game.....well...I don't think that this board would be able to contain the concentrated fury, that would come down upon this MMO. SW:TOR would effectively be over, and done with.

 

For everyone one that wold cheer, one hundred would be screaming mad.

 

BioWare has no choice; they marketed this MMO as a fully-voiced experience. That's what players will expect. It's also one of the handful of things they nailed, so to go back on one of the game's successes would be extremely foolish.

Edited May 20, 2012 by Dezzi

[Monoth]

They add a lot to the experience, yes. This is where BioWare innovated, but all innovation comes with uncertainty and hiccups. I'm not sure MMOs are the right medium for fully-voiced story content. Yet. The cost is "too damn high" to ensure the kind of content turn-around that MMOs require--particularly treadmill, themepark MMOs.

 

As it is BioWare is now in an awkward position where their game isn't/wasn't long enough for a good chunk of the players, but the speed at which they can develop new content is slow. With slow development comes discontent, and discontent leads to fewer players. When fewer players are around to pay for development--expensive development like voice over--it gets even harder for the team to keep up.

 

I think MMOs should stay away from voice over for now; it simply isn't cost-effective for a genre of games that requires constant and consistent updating of new content. Just look at how many people use single-player games as examples in this very thread.

 

Long story short: Yes, they're important, but it's too expensive and time consuming for MMOs.

 

I disagree, the difference between SWTOR and older MMO's is not that voice overs hold back how fast they can generate content, it's that the newer MMO's dont force you to grind for days on end just to get one level, Older MMO's slowed down the pace of leveling with mind numbing grinding.... Newer MMO's like SWTOR have reduced the grind, the problem with doing that is people get to the end game much much faster and want more content.

 

What MMO's need to do is put the grind back in but in a way that doesn't make it feel like a form of punishment for playing the game, this is where dynamic / sandbox style content could help..... As it is now every MMO that comes out is going to face this issue....

 

It also doesn't help there is a recession which means lots of free time for people to play a MMO to death quickly.... when people play 8-10 hrs a day there is not way your going to create enough content for them regardless if you have voice overs or not....

[Dezzi]

I disagree, the difference between SWTOR and older MMO's is not that voice overs hold back how fast they can generate content, it's that the newer MMO's dont force you to grind for days on end just to get one level, Older MMO's slowed down the pace of leveling with mind numbing grinding.... Newer MMO's like SWTOR have reduced the grind, the problem with doing that is people get to the end game much much faster and want more content.

 

What MMO's need to do is put the grind back in but in a way that doesn't make it feel like a form of punishment for playing the game, this is where dynamic / sandbox style content could help..... As it is now every MMO that comes out is going to face this issue....

 

It also doesn't help there is a recession which means lots of free time for people to play a MMO to death quickly.... when people play 8-10 hrs a day there is not way your going to create enough content for them regardless if you have voice overs or not....

 

So... we don't disagree. You didn't say anything I didn't say--except for the bit about the recession. I wouldn't touch that topic with a 39 1/2 ' pole.

[gofortheko]

The game itself is good and fine, if you didnt enjoy some of the planet storylines, and some class storylines then you sir/madam have impossible expectation.

 

I love the game, the game isnt the problem, having no one to play with is.

[Bluerodian]

For NPCs, yes. The VO added to the game in significant ways. My own character having a voice though? That instantly made me stop giving a tinker's damn about my own characters because it put a very large mental brick wall between my and the character I'm playing.

[Monoth]

They hired quite a cast of big-name voice artists. There is no doubt in my mind that the voice work on this game cost a pretty penny, and because of that cost and the time it takes to produce voice work, the team had to make constant cuts (remember the Death Star room?). No one can throw around a figure, but you can make inferences based on the cost and time it takes to do voice work for other games and media.

 

Ok for the sake of argument, you take out the voice over budget, so what do you do with this money? Odds are instead of SWTOR costing 150 million it only costs 100 million and you still end up with the same game just no voice overs....

 

You guys act like more money would of created a different game.... Bottom line is you have a set of Dev's who choose which direction this game was going to go content and mechanic wise, throwing more money at them wouldn't of changed that, they had there vision and went with it....

 

Removing Voice Overs does not mean this game instantly becomes a sandbox game or some new generation of MMO thats completely different from all the other MMO's out there.... Bioware / Lucasarts decided from day one they were going to make a WoW clone with a Star Wars theme slapped on it.... Throwing more money at it wouldn't of made any difference... The game could of cost 500 million and we would of still had the same style of game, maybe the roller coaster ride would of been a bit longer but it would of been the same game.

[JediElf]

My hope is that they continue with the VO and story aspect throughout the game and keep it an MMORPG instead of an MMO. Cater for a different style of player, goodness knows there are plenty of MMOs on the market that your generic MMO player can find. I remember the disappointment that I felt when I got out of the tutorial of AoC to find that all of the fully voiced NPCs were gone, I stopped playing a couple of months later as the game simply lost it's charm.

 

Yep, as I said in my above post, I shared the exact same AOC experience as you did.

 

Voices may not be important to all MMOs, but they are vitally important to this MMORPG. ^_^

[Dezzi]

Ok for the sake of argument, you take out the voice over budget, so what do you do with this money? Odds are instead of SWTOR costing 150 million it only costs 100 million and you still end up with the same game just no voice overs....

 

You guys act like more money would of created a different game.... Bottom line is you have a set of Dev's who choose which direction this game was going to go content and mechanic wise, throwing more money at them wouldn't of changed that, they had there vision and went with it....

 

Removing Voice Overs does not mean this game instantly becomes a sandbox game or some new generation of MMO thats completely different from all the other MMO's out there.... Bioware / Lucasarts decided from day one they were going to make a WoW clone with a Star Wars theme slapped on it.... Throwing more money at it wouldn't of made any difference... The game could of cost 500 million and we would of still had the same style of game, maybe the roller coaster ride would of been a bit longer but it would of been the same game.

 

I have no clue what you're trying to say...

[Monoth]

I have no clue what you're trying to say...

 

Most of the people in here think that if this game had no voice overs the money could of been used to make SWTOR into some sort of new cutting edge MMO that would of crushed WOW....

 

My opinion is: If they didn't spend money on Voice Overs we would of still ended up with the same game, it just wouldn't of cost as much....

[Herbey]

If they can do quality VO and still have a robust pve and pvp system, then by all means do the VO. However, we all know the swtor has failed on pvp and perhaps pve, not to mention there is nothing much to do once you are 50, no need to farm resources, no reason to explore and revisit all the lush planets. the list goes on and on....

 

All the voice over in the world hasn't saved me from feeling that this game is shallow.

[Wraiven]

I have to be honest, if it were not for the voice acting, I believe I would have been long gone by now.

[FeelFlow]

I think that they are really important!

 

I'm really enjoying the class stories and find it hard to imagine playing another MMO that doesn't do this.

 

I get your point about the voice acting and silly 'Go and kill/collect X for no particular reason whatsoever' quests. This is just an MMO thing (filler quests) and there's 3 points that I want to make about it:

 

1) Correct me if I'm wrong, but you could do your class quests and any other quests that you thought that were interesting as well as Flash points etc. and still be able to level i.e. this isn't a grind heavy game re. levelling.

2) Following on from this, simply don't do the boring quests!

3) Some of the voiceovers and characters are funny in these quests so it livens it up

 

The story is a great part of the game. Perhaps the thing that's difficult is the MMO 'most level to max ASAP' mentality that a lot of players have (including me sometimes) and that makes us all want to skip the stories because we MUST get to max level instead of enjoying the ride...

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

Every MMO which is coming out now is fully voiced, except the Korean ones.

 

Not every MMO needs 8 unique class stories and voiced sidequests though.

[USMCjv]

I really enjoyed it only problem is that I have to do every quest, with the exception of class quests which are far and few between, in just about the same order every time I level. This got old real fast no way to change my story makes it feel as though it isn't my story anymore.

[Korusus]

Ignoring the VO aspect of it for now, I totally agree with you OP as far as the streeeetttccchhhing out of the experience, but I don't think that's a symptom of the VO work. That's a symptom of the class stories being AAA quality (complete with action packed cinematic sequences in some cases) compared to the BORING, LIFELESS, UNINTERESTING, UNINSPIRED side quests that make up 80% of your leveling time (voice acting is wasted on these quests). It only serves to highlight how this game could have been soooo much better had it never been conceived of as an MMO in the first place.

 

I'm too old and have played too many boring MMOs in the last decade to put up with the contrast between the awesome, excellent quality solo class stories and the comparison to every other boring same-old, same-old MMO-ish aspect of this game. I've already rerolled 4 classes to experience their stories, but I'm done. I have no interest in playing WoW's endgame 2.0 and I can't tolerate anymore filler missions.

 

I don't know what the answer is short of making some radical changes to the game, but I think the game needs some radical changes in one direction or another to survive.

Edited May 20, 2012 by Korusus

[drfirewater]

welcome to the club .. i said that voice acting would be the bane of this game.

 

How many people have actually listened to all the story of there class .. how many people listen to all the story in FPs or raids . I would wager the majority of players dont listen to the FPs or raid scenes the FIRST TIME let alone afterward.

 

That being said .. to change it now would also be silly. Its a situation they are gonna have to live with now .... a needed cost to keep up appearances. That being said .. they kinda found a way to avoid alot of chatter.

 

Look at 1.2 dailies ... 1 voice acting quest and the rest are just mission box and area quests.

[PanthersSolo]

welcome to the club .. i said that voice acting would be the bane of this game.

 

How many people have actually listened to all the story of there class .. how many people listen to all the story in FPs or raids . I would wager the majority of players dont listen to the FPs or raid scenes the FIRST TIME let alone afterward.

 

That being said .. to change it now would also be silly. Its a situation they are gonna have to live with now .... a needed cost to keep up appearances. That being said .. they kinda found a way to avoid alot of chatter.

 

Look at 1.2 dailies ... 1 voice acting quest and the rest are just mission box and area quests.

 

I disagree. Every single person I know that has played has payed attention to the story for their class and FPs/Ops

 

Yes after the first time its repetative, but that first time adds a great deal of immersion. I dont think anyone complains about that aspect of the game. Story has made this my favorite MMO by far.

[VanderII]

For me voice is important because the voice make the difference. It's an innovative element. I like it I love listening conversation and wacthing cinematic action, I've never touched spacebar.

So, we are finding a player who has never skip cinematic video and has listened all quest class story......now here we are.... I AM THAT PLAYER

Edited May 20, 2012 by VanderII

[Frostvein]

Class quests or world event type things (like the Plague) would have been more then enough and probably would have allowed them to spend more resources on the MMO part of this game as well as allowed for more freedom in planet choices.

 

Every single quest though? Overkill.

[gurugeorge]

Short version:

Voices? Worth it? Idunno

Story good? Some of it. Spread way too thin. Too much "filler".

Companions too silent and spread thin too.

 

Voices definitely worth it. For the first time in an MMO I find myself knowing what my quest is, instead of clicking through text and bumbling along wondering what I'm supposed to be doing. (I am of course exaggerating to get a point across.) Great VO definitely adds depth to immersion, and there's a lot of great VO (and digital puppetry) in this game. In an MMO context, the amount of VO this game has really does add a whole new feel to the MMO genre.

 

Yeah, there are a few bald patches in the story, but generally most of the stories are at the very least competent, and occasionally brilliant (like the BW single player games really).

 

Companions aren't as interesting and in-depth as in some of BW's previous single-player games. They're ok, but more could have been made of them.

 

The problems this game has aren't really in these areas, these areas consist in whatever strength the game does have. The game's weakness is in 1) making it easy for people to play together, 2) creating as polished and immersive an MMO experience as it does a single-player experience, and 3) too much linearity in the non-story parts of the game, both solo and grouped - the game feels claustrophobic in some respects, rather than expansive. It doesn't feel like a virtual galaxy.

Edited May 20, 2012 by gurugeorge

[cyberfreaq]

Yes they are important. Very important and good thing we had these in TOR. It made the game feel more alive than any other mmo. The problem is that they failed to deliver online, multiplayer features on top of the good voices and story. Edited May 20, 2012 by cyberfreaq

[Kaisernick]

mass effect and DA2 i felt more conected and was genualy consirned about them simply due to the fact that having a voice gave them much more of a personality then simply pressing text.

 

TOR has become the same it has given my character life and i would hate them to take it away.

[KhamG]

Not as important as actual quest design.

 

And VO should never have been used on dailies that by their nature will be repeated dozens of times. The Corellia box was a relief to see and that says something.

[Lunazen]

"Are voices really that important? "

 

Yes. I'm much more likely to pay attention to the story told via VO. If I have to read, and unless the story is incredibly engaging, I end up clicking through until I can go.

 

Love the voiceovers. Hope they continue with it in future content.

Edited May 20, 2012 by Lunazen