Voice overs potentially ToRs downfall?

[chuixupu]

If you want to know where most of the budget went, most likely to the 800 or so people they hired during it's development phase. That's fricken expensive.

[Alec_Fortescue]

If you want to know where most of the budget went, most likely to the 800 or so people they hired during it's development phase. That's fricken expensive.

 

The scale and quality of TOR still isn't justifying the very high budget.

[CelCawdro]

The scale and quality of TOR still isn't justifying the very high budget.

 

In my opinion, the high budget stems from the game serving two masters - BioWare and EA. I was in beta very early on, and was invited back pretty regularly. Nearly the entire beta stage, as I witnessed it, was a tug-of-war between BioWare implementing (or not implementing) things as they saw fit, swiftly followed by a series of changes that made the game more generic (obviously due to a corporate checklist of what makes an MMO "successful"), followed again by an attempt to come to some sort of happy medium between the two extremes.

 

If I recall correctly, beta really opened up right in the middle of when this process was going on for the modding system. The system went from having virtually every item moddable, followed by nearly none, and then only a select few. As the game progressed, the system gradually became more and more open and BioWare crept toward the obvious original intent.

 

The existence of the non-story, one-arbitrary-choice flashpoints also came from this process. BioWare had flashpoints at logical points that filled out the story itself. EA obviously needed flashpoints at every possible level post level 10, and the addition of these flashpoints only served to detract from the overall experience because of the stark difference in quality.

 

It takes a lot of resources to keep going back and forth between two masters, it takes resources to phone in certain content that was entirely unnecessary, and those processes detract from the overall quality of everything in the game because of the distracting and expensive processes involved.

[chuixupu]

The scale and quality of TOR still isn't justifying the very high budget.

 

Exactly, # of employees =/= quality. As they admitted themselves very early on, they hired way too many people and it caused them to be very disjointed and get even less done. They outsourced most of the artwork.

 

So in reality, even though it sucked that a few key people had to go, the overall downsizing was probably a very good thing. It's unnecessary bloat and budget.

 

ArenaNet's entire employee roster is like 1/4 of what swtor's development team was at its peak.

[VegaPhone]

actually I agree with OP to an extent. But the true downfall of this game and then needing to go the f2p option is EA rushing it out the door (i.e. warhammer online) and EA constantly firing the people who had a certain vision for this game when BioWare was BIOWARE and not EAWARE and them dismantling the greatest gaming company that once existed! THATS what ruined this game. BioWare had a vision, before EA. BioWare was making it what the fans wanted. Then EA bought BioWare and EA thought they could make it a cash cow. All they saw was BioWare + mmo + Star Wars= money!!! They don't care about reputations, they only care about money. How cold.

 

EA

 

What was this vision, and how did EA change it?

 

Also, if swtor was not rushed, what more could they have added to make it that much more successful?

 

Ranked team pvp? UI customization?

 

Nope. The only thing that would have made it better was to release the game with the legacy system at launch, and that is not that much from release till today which has only more OPs, FPs, and 1 more WZ to date... and still a broken illum.

 

So Im not sure waiting for BW to add one more WZ and a couple of ops, Fps, ranked pvp, ui customization which 3rd parties could have done... would be worth waiting for a 100-200 million dollar investment not to make money.

 

You have also look at what they released after they launched, and it was not something that was game changing... other than the legacy system to make it better to play alts for example.

Edited October 28, 2012 by VegaPhone

[Kendaric]

In my opinion, the high budget stems from the game serving two masters - BioWare and EA. I was in beta very early on, and was invited back pretty regularly. Nearly the entire beta stage, as I witnessed it, was a tug-of-war between BioWare implementing (or not implementing) things as they saw fit, swiftly followed by a series of changes that made the game more generic (obviously due to a corporate checklist of what makes an MMO "successful"), followed again by an attempt to come to some sort of happy medium between the two extremes.

 

If I recall correctly, beta really opened up right in the middle of when this process was going on for the modding system. The system went from having virtually every item moddable, followed by nearly none, and then only a select few. As the game progressed, the system gradually became more and more open and BioWare crept toward the obvious original intent.

 

The existence of the non-story, one-arbitrary-choice flashpoints also came from this process. BioWare had flashpoints at logical points that filled out the story itself. EA obviously needed flashpoints at every possible level post level 10, and the addition of these flashpoints only served to detract from the overall experience because of the stark difference in quality.

 

It takes a lot of resources to keep going back and forth between two masters, it takes resources to phone in certain content that was entirely unnecessary, and those processes detract from the overall quality of everything in the game because of the distracting and expensive processes involved.

 

That definitely explains a lot of design changes that we see when comparing old statements about features from BioWare and the actual implementation in the game.

I really wish they'd kept to the original concept rather than trying to emulate WoW in virtually every aspect apart from the cutscenes and voiceovers.

 

As for the voiceovers themselves...

 

I think they are one of SWTOR's greatest features along with the cinematic cutscenes. That being said, a lot of the side missions could have been handled via mission terminals/bounty boards rather than needing voiceovers for everything without detracting too much from the experience.

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

they could have dumped voiceovers for sidemissions completely and have mission terminals instead.

 

More VO would have been nice for random chatter in the world and different sentences when handing a present to a companion.

 

it's just a little unbalanced, too much VO where it's not needed, VO lacking where it would have been necessary.

[Chiltonium]

most people in this thread gravely overestimate a voice actors salary.

[Cross_Fade]

Have any of you worked with 3ds Max? I'm going to assume that SWTOR models are made in that, or Maya(both Autodesk programs) and there is a plug in specific for voice acting that auto-syncs it up to save time AND money.

 

So really, it isn't going to be SWTOR's downfall, if anything crap management and customer service will be the downfall.

[Darth_Urtani]

Voice overs were and are the least of this game's problems.

It's unfortunate the fanboys can't see that.

[hooty]

Keep the voiceover BioWare. It's your special sauce. Keep working hard to improve other aspects of the game , but DO NOT diminish one of your greatest strengths in the process. Stay the course. I could never be satisfied with a non-voiced game again. That would be a step backward. A step forward is far better.

[Soluss]

Have any of you worked with 3ds Max? I'm going to assume that SWTOR models are made in that, or Maya(both Autodesk programs) and there is a plug in specific for voice acting that auto-syncs it up to save time AND money.

 

So really, it isn't going to be SWTOR's downfall, if anything crap management and customer service will be the downfall.

 

Apparently you were not in beta when stuff wasnt synched very well. Apparently auto synch must not do to good a job

[Goretzu]

most people in this thread gravely overestimate a voice actors salary.

 

I don't think it's really that cost that is the bugbear (although it all adds up), it's the time (and money) in recording (people don't say a line once and that's it done and dusted), but more than that it's the the work in animation, synching things up, in writing the dialogue etc.

 

Compared to a text quest it IS very expensive in money and development time, and slow to create new stuff because of that.

[Nyla]

I don't think it's really that cost that is the bugbear (although it all adds up), it's the time (and money) in recording (people don't say a line once and that's it done and dusted), but more than that it's the the work in animation, synching things up, in writing the dialogue etc.

 

Compared to a text quest it IS very expensive in money and development time, and slow to create new stuff because of that.

 

While it costs more than a simple window with a text for quests, it's not a heavy burden.

 

First, animation and sync aren't done by hand for each line of dialogue, they made a tool for the cutscenes and apply sounds, animation, emotes on a timeline, it's not really complicated and something Bioware had already done for their previous games so it was not unknown to them.

 

Second, yes dialogues are more elaborated that most simpler text quests but in both cases you need a writer and again they have done it before.

 

Third, no it's not expensive in development time because once you create the proper tools (and it happens early in the development cycle) there's no more development, it goes from programmers (for the tools) to content creators.

Adding a new quest doesn't require a programmer, thoses guys can develop new systems, fix bugs, ... while writers write the dialogue, while some others people (probably an external recording studio) records voices, while world builders create the place, putting props in the world game...

 

It's made in parallel, it costs more as it needs teams working on the VO but it's not that costly or time consuming.

 

 

In my country, everything is translated and recorded in our language for the mass market. Movies from Hollywood that costs millions are often recorded by local actors 3 weeks before release for a cost quite negligible compared to the overall production.

 

 

The problem with TOR is not the VO but something quite common in software development when design and goals are changed too late in a project. It's quite visible (and known) because of the lack of coherence between many systems. There was a first design, development started, goals changed, they had to cut some developments, make some changes with an axe to make old code fill it's new purpose, ...

In the last part of the project before release, there was 2 visions for the game, with people fighting to bend it one way or the other, some meetings must have been quite crazy.

 

BW had the original vision, EA went and changed it. I don't blame EA to have their own goals but I blame them for the way they made the shift.

First, I doubt their way is a good way to make a MMO but well, I don't pretend to know the truth.

Second and way more important, the way they managed people, their own teams and us is one of the more stupid thing I ever see in video game business. They lied to us, they lied to their own employees, probably asked them to lie too. They made people work in a direction thoses people didn't wanted to go and not the one they were hired for.

 

There's quite a bunch of people in this industry that think you can apply a few recipes and cook the next #1 MMO but it never works that way. MMOs are about long term, coherent vision, using some special flavors and focussing on thoses to make them excellent and then you attract masses for the excellence in thoses areas.

SWTOR is quartered in many different directions, trying to please a bit everyone but no part reaches excellence, it's always hindered by some other aspects, it leaves a strange taste and many people didn't liked it.

[JimG]

I enjoy the voice overs. But...

I agree that if they spent as much time as they did perfecting the voice over content and spent 100,200 mill on the core of the game itself we would have a full flight space game, chat bubbles, customizable ships, more planets, faster load speeds, more classes, races, more spaceships to choose from, more things to encounter, and they could have had every planet being level 1-50 content. Want to level on Hoth? BAM! Want to level on Tatooine? BAM! Want to level any planet any time? BAM!

 

They never intended to have a full flight space game....this isn't a flight-simulator game. They don't need more classes. There's 4 classes and 8 advanced classes on each side. That's more than enough and they need stick somewhat within SW lore here....they aren't going to add Orcs or Pandas as a class, lol. The playable species has nothing to do with voice. Yeah, they could add Wookies and Jawas as a playable race without voice but there's 20 other races they could add right now (Togruta, Nautolan, etc.) without needing any changes for voices. Not sure why they haven't added more...but it's not because of voice. There wouldn't be leveling on every planet for 1-50. That would be a sandbox game and this was never intended to be a sandbox game, regardless of the voice acting. So what level would the mobs be on Hoth? How would a level 4 and a level 39 player be able to level on the same planet? You're describing a sandbox game, not a leveling game. A leveling game has to have "zones" which have mobs set at a certain difficulty. They could certainly add more zones to different planets so you have alternative planets to go to in your level range but there is no realistic way to set up every planet as a planet where everyone could level no matter their current level unless you had like 99% of the planet instanced.

 

While I understand the OP's concerns about the potential restrictions on future content due to the voice-acting (although they've said previously that they recorded a ton of dialogue for future content), it sounds like you're talking more about wishing they made a sandbox game or a flight simulator game. This game was never intended to be or represented as being either.

[CosmicKat]

They never intended to have a full flight space game....this isn't a flight-simulator game. They don't need more classes. There's 4 classes and 8 advanced classes on each side. That's more than enough and they need stick somewhat within SW lore here....they aren't going to add Orcs or Pandas as a class, lol. The playable species has nothing to do with voice. Yeah, they could add Wookies and Jawas as a playable race without voice but there's 20 other races they could add right now (Togruta, Nautolan, etc.) without needing any changes for voices. Not sure why they haven't added more...but it's not because of voice. There wouldn't be leveling on every planet for 1-50. That would be a sandbox game and this was never intended to be a sandbox game, regardless of the voice acting. So what level would the mobs be on Hoth? How would a level 4 and a level 39 player be able to level on the same planet? You're describing a sandbox game, not a leveling game. A leveling game has to have "zones" which have mobs set at a certain difficulty. They could certainly add more zones to different planets so you have alternative planets to go to in your level range but there is no realistic way to set up every planet as a planet where everyone could level no matter their current level unless you had like 99% of the planet instanced.

 

While I understand the OP's concerns about the potential restrictions on future content due to the voice-acting (although they've said previously that they recorded a ton of dialogue for future content), it sounds like you're talking more about wishing they made a sandbox game or a flight simulator game. This game was never intended to be or represented as being either.

 

They have 8 advanced classes that play almost exactly the same in PvE. The levelling is enormously simple and repetitive with any class. There is one levelling path per faction, no choices, no alternatives, and no variety. Adding more races is entirely a cosmetic thing. The "story" is the only difference you will see between classes and those differences are usually of the "take the left fork and go kill boss for magic item instead of the right fork". Story quests make up maybe 10% of levelling content.

 

It's not a levelling game. It's not an exploration game. It's a space game without space. It's not a sandbox RP game. It's not a crafting game. It's not an open world PvP game. Maybe they should have picked even one of those things and concentrated on it?

[DarthMeerkat]

Maybe they should have picked even one of those things and concentrated on it?

 

I'd rather have a weak mixture of what we have than something like GW2, where if you don't like WvWing all the time than you're SOL.

 

Had they picked one thing and foucused on it than this game would go the same path as WAR or GW2. What they have now allows for growth of all MMO aspects.

[CosmicKat]

I'd rather have a weak mixture of what we have than something like GW2, where if you don't like WvWing all the time than you're SOL.

 

Had they picked one thing and foucused on it than this game would go the same path as WAR or GW2. What they have now allows for growth of all MMO aspects.

 

Well the difference there is that GW was originally designed as and sold as an exclusively rapid action PvP game alternative to tradtional MMOs. It's only now that traditional MMOs have been so watered down that GW is even considerd to be an actual MMO.

[Bojangle]

What ToR should do is go to the local colleges/universities and get students who are pursuing the radio/television field and have a sign up sheet on who would be interested in this. Let them know there is no pay though but something like this does start of their resumes and will be good experience as well.

 

This solves the cost issue and of course it takes time to edit etc. but doing something like this I think will get a lot done vs. scheduling times for paid actors to come in.

 

And those who don't think this would work or draw students in because it is free wouldn't know the field then. I took it in college and would have signed up for something like this in a heart beat. Your voice will be heard by thousands to hundreds of thousands people. I did internships at a popular Los Angeles radio station during college and never got paid but you do it for the experience. At least in this case your voice will be heard.

[Foobert]

What ToR should do is go to the local colleges/universities and get students who are pursuing the radio/television field and have a sign up sheet on who would be interested in this. Let them know there is no pay though but something like this does start of their resumes and will be good experience as well.

 

This solves the cost issue and of course it takes time to edit etc. but doing something like this I think will get a lot done vs. scheduling times for paid actors to come in.

 

And those who don't think this would work or draw students in because it is free wouldn't know the field then. I took it in college and would have signed up for something like this in a heart beat. Your voice will be heard by thousands to hundreds of thousands people. I did internships at a popular Los Angeles radio station during college and never got paid but you do it for the experience. At least in this case your voice will be heard.

 

Say what? This idea is almost as bad as going to comicon and having a signup sheet filled with all the fans who "want to get into voiceacting" and ask the same stupid questions over and over at panels. At best, you end up wasting Producers' time- that's a lot of time spent listening to demos. Why would they do this when they already know VAs' agents, can call someone up on the phone, fax over an NDA and script then have them come in and do it?

[Andryah]

The way SWTOR implemented VOs costed so much, that they could focus on MMO features that would make this game re-playable for a long time.

 

Just because it's almost Halloween, does not mean you should be running through the forum digging up corpses for your amusement.

Edited October 29, 2012 by Andryah

[Eillack]

Hello NECRO'D thread...

[CelCawdro]

Hello NECRO'D thread...

 

A month or two is hardly a necro, particularly when the discussion is still relevant.

[Andryah]

A month or two is hardly a necro, particularly when the discussion is still relevant.

 

One must consider both the topic and the fella with the shovel.

 

TL;DR This thread was necro'ed

[MOPSFounder]

A month or two is hardly a necro, particularly when the discussion is still relevant.

Thank you!