EJedi Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 This thread is stupid, and was written by someone who has obviously never touched the Dragon Age: Origins toolkit. Voice-over content is trivial to make with the tools from that game, and I doubt the tools for TOR are any less capable. If you want to talk about something, try looking at soap operas. They can churn five entire episodes a week, and that includes the script-writing process. Voice acting isn't the problem. It's probably the least problematic part of this game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CosmicKat Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 This thread is stupid, and was written by someone who has obviously never touched the Dragon Age: Origins toolkit. Voice-over content is trivial to make with the tools from that game, and I doubt the tools for TOR are any less capable. If you want to talk about something, try looking at soap operas. They can churn five entire episodes a week, and that includes the script-writing process. Voice acting isn't the problem. It's probably the least problematic part of this game. Don't be silly. They have to match the Lucas standards, and all the grade 3 drama club kids are back in school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heydiddlediddle Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 Maybe this is a silly question, but does anyone know how much was spent on voice acting for the game? I can't recall ever getting to see numbers or anything, but am the first to admit I'm not very familiar with this stuff... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vandicus Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 Maybe this is a silly question, but does anyone know how much was spent on voice acting for the game? I can't recall ever getting to see numbers or anything, but am the first to admit I'm not very familiar with this stuff... Nope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urael Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 (edited) Voice overs have nothing to do with the failure of this single player online RPG. SWTOR tends toward this because one need never group to get to level cap. Repeating this tired canard (especially while maintaining a sub) shows how little weight anyone should give to your ideas. Valid viewpoint is valid since it is held by more than one person. It may not seem that way to YOU but it does lean heavily in this direction ( as most new generation "mmorps" seem to tend these days ). MMO is = having hundreds or thousands (considered massive) of people all online at the same time playing with each other in a world/universe. That's an mmo. You described "massively" but not "multiplayer". Sure there is a "multiplayer" aspect to SWTOR but no more so than any "lobby" game. There is something missing in SWTOR and other new generation MMORPGs. I haven't fully defined it, and it may be subjective, but, I just don't have the "wow factor" I had when I first logged into EQ. Maybe I am jaded due to years of playing MMORPGs but, that feeling was never recaptured (not even in SWG). Edited September 4, 2012 by Urael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heydiddlediddle Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 Nope. lulz Well either way, you just gave me a good chuckle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vandicus Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 lulz Well either way, you just gave me a good chuckle. 90% of what we do on these forums is speculate wildly about things of which we know nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heydiddlediddle Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 90% of what we do on these forums is speculate wildly about things of which we know nothing. Well I will be more careful what I say then; wouldn't want to spoil the lively debate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urael Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 90% of what we do on these forums is speculate wildly about things of which we know nothing. Hush You!! Lol. These forums are worth the price of a subscription. They are the SWTOR Mini-game! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NycHeretic Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 So many reasons for the downfall of SWTOR....sTORY AND immersion of GAME IS DOWNRIGHT SPECIAL....UNFORTUNATELY WHAT MOST COME TO EXPECT FROM AN MMORPG IS ABSENT... tHINGS LIKE GUILD RANKINGS, EVENTS, TRUE OPEN WORLD PVP, a simple battle arena where players can hone there skills against members of the same faction..... aN EXAMPLE OF HOW Guild Rankings COuld work in swtor - Players receive points for PVP kills - Total tally of ALL guild members points is what determines guild rank - Guild Flash points/Ops completion also determine Guild Ranking -Top Guilds Banners will decorate Republic Fleet for example/Top Guilds are Calculated on Monthly Basis - based on pvp points/Guild flash points. JUST AN IDEA, BUT SOMETHIGN SO SIMPLE CAN really TRANSform a game.....its all about imagination at the end of the day.....swtor has so many things in place that arent being utilizied yet....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urael Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 So many reasons for the downfall of SWTOR....sTORY AND immersion of GAME IS DOWNRIGHT SPECIAL....UNFORTUNATELY WHAT MOST COME TO EXPECT FROM AN MMORPG IS ABSENT... tHINGS LIKE GUILD RANKINGS, EVENTS, TRUE OPEN WORLD PVP, a simple battle arena where players can hone there skills against members of the same faction..... aN EXAMPLE OF HOW Guild Rankings COuld work in swtor - Players receive points for PVP kills - Total tally of ALL guild members points is what determines guild rank - Guild Flash points/Ops completion also determine Guild Ranking -Top Guilds Banners will decorate Republic Fleet for example/Top Guilds are Calculated on Monthly Basis - based on pvp points/Guild flash points. JUST AN IDEA, BUT SOMETHIGN SO SIMPLE CAN really TRANSform a game.....its all about imagination at the end of the day.....swtor has so many things in place that arent being utilizied yet....... You're Malkavin right? Mah eyes!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommot Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 I think they would have been better off using voice over work for class story and companions as well as major world arc stories. I think all the side quests they should have just been like a terminal or the standard text box. This would have saved them in budget and time and those resources could have been allocated elsewhere. I dont expect to see the same quality as we had at launch, in the future. I agree with you completely on this. The story/voice overs are by far and away my favorite part about this game, but none of the side quests are really worth watching. I only ever watch the main story quests and the main world arcs, but I play this game entirely for it's story. Something is wrong there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkasdorf Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 I think the conversation needs to stop being approached as if it was one entity's decision to have voice overs drive the game. When this game was being developed, there was already a MMO that was Star Wars themed, and the motivations for EA, Bioware, and LucasArts were most likely different in nature. LucasArts already had an MMO Star Wars game, but obviously there was room in their eyes for improvement because SWTOR exists... they had to give the go-ahead. EA obviously saw a cash cow, and wanted to make a game that could capitalize on the gigantic size of the potential audience (an existing Star Wars MMO audience, plus any new Star Wars gamers they could get). I also want to preface that I in no way view EA as a bad guy in this. Seeing a cash cow is not a bad thing; an idea needs to make money to become a game, and I truly believe that EA tried to do right by the game by throwing money and resources at one of the most respected development teams in the RPG field to make this. They were not "phoning this in". So what most likely happened is EA had a discussion with LucasArts (well, a lot of them, but lets simplify this) where LucasArts probably asked why should we license you guys to create a game that competes with our currently licensed game? EA says we make lots of MMO's, we know what we are doing. LucasArts says that Sony also makes those games and knew what they were doing. EA says that they have Bioware to make it. LucasArts probably asks for a refresher on who Bioware is. EA says that they made the Mass Effect games. LucasArts knows that it's that highly popular sci fi game, jots down some key components that make up why mass effect is so popular (narrative, voice overs, choices that affect your character and the story, romance options). They get back to EA and say for them to give the new Star Wars MMO the Bioware treatment and we have a deal. From here, there may have been some interpretation, EA manages Bioware to create a multiplayer Bioware game in the Star Wars universe and then to add all of the popular MMO trappings. Mix it all together, and you have SWTOR. Now, why do I think it happened this way? Because that's usually how business between companies goes; you find out what your client (LucasArts) wants and then you do it; it is now part of the spec and there's no more discussion about it because the bottom line becomes "the client wants it, so if we want to do this, it needs to have it". I don't think this is bad, and really the narrative is what seperates this game from others. People are playing this MMO for the star wars story, and the narrative is really the driving force behind this; and the narrative is as powerful as it is because of the voice acting. One last thing though is that I feel that the OP's statement about Voice Overs being the potential downfall of SWTOR is silly; Bioware and EA knew this was the direction they were going in from the beginning, and because of this, they had to have taken steps to make sure that new content could be added easily as anyone doing a brief analysis of the MMO landscape can tell that users outgrow original content, and frequent updates are needed to keep players interested. It's the same thing that is said by each developer of these games; that their game is going to have regular and substantial updates to set them aside from their competitors. We get told that this is why the subscription happens and why we're paying monthly. And to dispel one more comment about the voice overs; this game was actually successful at launch... there was a good subscription base and initial sales were great for an MMO now a days. No, it wasn't the WOW killer; but no company makes an MMO with the requirement that it be a WOW killer or else it gets shut down, that's just foolish. Somewhere along the way the updates ball was dropped. If it is for some unlikely reason the fault of Voice Overs, then the ball was dropped when either Bioware didn't tell EA that this would be cost prohibitive and time intensive, or when they didn't build their tools around updating the most unique portion of their game. I would like to think Bioware did not neglect to tell EA something like this, nor build their tools to not take into account the foundation of their game's uniqueness. So somewhere else the ball is being dropped on content updates. I doubt it's the voiceovers, and I doubt voiceovers are the future reason for this game's downfall, if it happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darka Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 EA was not involved when TOR was started on. The reason hey paid so much for Bioware was because of TOR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imraziel Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 (edited) If their smart they will be able to continue the level of emersion by making everything but main story lines not in English. If 90% of convos are talking to alien Same emersion, no extra recording. Edited September 4, 2012 by imraziel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkasdorf Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 EA was not involved when TOR was started on. The reason hey paid so much for Bioware was because of TOR Ok, well the jist of it is there. My mistake. Bioware was the one that had to convince LucasArts then of the idea, or it was more first hand knowledge and actually makes me believe even more firmly that Voice Overs can't be the reason why the content ball has been dropped. Bioware says we'll give it the ol' Bioware treatment, LucasArts likes the idea, and yeah, Bioware knows from the beginning that the client wants it to be a Bioware game with all the fix'ns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soluss Posted September 4, 2012 Author Share Posted September 4, 2012 Oh I welcome the legitimate criticism. It's all the dramatic predictions and hyperbole that I think we could all do without. Fair statement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soluss Posted September 4, 2012 Author Share Posted September 4, 2012 This thread is stupid, and was written by someone who has obviously never touched the Dragon Age: Origins toolkit. Voice-over content is trivial to make with the tools from that game, and I doubt the tools for TOR are any less capable. If you want to talk about something, try looking at soap operas. They can churn five entire episodes a week, and that includes the script-writing process. Voice acting isn't the problem. It's probably the least problematic part of this game. So where is all this new VO/cutscene content? I mean its easy to make so why are the new dailies terminal quests? Why is the new expansion comming without new class stories... even though there is a level cap increase? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkerus Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 We, as the gamers, cannot control this decision and future content. It has already been stated several chapters are done. When they run out, if they money is there (because they had subs), voice acting is pretty damn easy to obtain (unless a voice actor dies or doesn't come back). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soluss Posted September 4, 2012 Author Share Posted September 4, 2012 You described "massively" but not "multiplayer". Sure there is a "multiplayer" aspect to SWTOR but no more so than any "lobby" game. There is something missing in SWTOR and other new generation MMORPGs. I haven't fully defined it, and it may be subjective, but, I just don't have the "wow factor" I had when I first logged into EQ. Maybe I am jaded due to years of playing MMORPGs but, that feeling was never recaptured (not even in SWG). I knew we would agree on something eventually : Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soluss Posted September 4, 2012 Author Share Posted September 4, 2012 If their smart they will be able to continue the level of emersion by making everything but main story lines not in English. If 90% of convos are talking to alien Same emersion, no extra recording. I dont know about you but I personally hated watching cut scenes in alien language. Those were the first ones to hit the space bar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackavaar Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 Once again for those that apparently missed my first post in here... The devs (Reid and Ohlen) said early on that they have recorded enough voice over work to make years worth of content. They thought ahead. The path is planned out. The game is not going to need any new voice over work for years to come. Voice overs or the lack thereof will not be the death of SWTOR, at least not anytime soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xanikk Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 (edited) I don't understand why they had to pay millions of dollars for voice work. They could do auditions for try out voice actors and pay them LOTS less. Voice acting is not the same as acting. It can easily be trained. Good sounding voices aren't that hard to find. Really don't need big name celebrities for just voices. Edited September 4, 2012 by Xanikk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackavaar Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 I don't understand why they had to pay millions of dollars for voice work. They could do auditions for try out voice actors and pay them LOTS less. Voice acting is not the same as acting. It can easily be trained. See above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xanikk Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 (edited) See above. Well they should have done that initially. I really don't understand why they needed celebrity voice actors at all. Edited September 4, 2012 by Xanikk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts