If voice overs are really so expensive then how does...

[-Me-]

So much has been said about the price of TOR and the majority going into voice overs but is it really? I don't have all the facts so I'm laying the question out here. Are voice overs really so expensive that they are the main reason for such a large budget and now the reason updates are far, few and small in between?

 

Take DCUO, the other fully voiced game that claims to be an MMO or not really, think I...well anyway, move along. I don't have the budget for DCUO but I'm fairly certain it is nowhere near what TOR is. I think DCUO even has more bigger named actors such as Mark Hamill (The Joker). DCUO has been F2P for over a year now, I have that right? Am I also right that updates come more regularly in size and scope especially concerning voice over work?

 

DC Comics I'm sure comes with it's own hefty licensing agreement which I bet is on par with TOR and Lucas Arts or EA wouldn't of let LA extortion the license for much more.

 

Just form glancing at DCUO I get a feeling that voice overs are not such a determining factor as so many have claimed. If I'm right then what is the real reason this game is what it is and so reluctant to improve while some of the fans say it's the price of voice overs?

 

Edit: I forgot to mention that DCUO is also available in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian where as TOR is only English, French and German. That's 2 whole languages over TOR, 2 whole sets of actors more than TOR. That is a stat not to be taken lightly at all.

 

 

Disclaimer: I am not a player of DCUO, I am not here white knighting DCUO, I am simply asking questions based on what I have seen and heard in comparison of TOR and DCUO. Please don't accuse me of being some SOE paid troll

Edited December 24, 2012 by -Me-
previvous edit placed in wrong location

[ElitehunterDS]

DCUO have decent update? WHEN was that? its been out since 2009 and SWTOR beat the hell out of it when it come to content, not to say the balance is horrible and they found a way to make the unreal engine crash lol.

 

But comparing DCUO voice over to swtor is not really fair since it got only 5% maximum of what SWTOR have.

Unless we get the % for voice over and full real cost of the game we cant say.

Edited December 24, 2012 by ElitehunterDS

[-Me-]

DCUO have decent update? WHEN was that? its been out since 2009 and SWTOR beat the hell out of it when it come to content, not to say the balance is horrible and they found a way to make the unreal engine crash lol.

 

But comparing DCUO voice over to swtor is not really fair since it got only 5% maximum of what SWTOR have.

 

DCUO Release Date: January 11, 2011

 

DCUO has had 21 updates and if you will look, there are content additions in the majority of those. There are even bug fixes but please I'm trying to stay on topic and not get into TORs bugs.

 

Don't mean to sound insulting but please know your facts a little better or all your doing is sounding like a biodrone in a panic because someone else is questioning something about TOR.

[ElitehunterDS]

DCUO Release Date: January 11, 2011

 

DCUO has had 21 updates and if you will look, there are content additions in the majority of those. There are even bug fixes but please I'm trying to stay on topic and not get into TORs bugs.

 

Don't mean to sound insulting but please know your facts a little better or all your doing is sounding like a biodrone in a panic because someone else is questioning something about TOR.

Was sure it came out before that but hey, still 21 update to be that worthless.

Edited December 24, 2012 by ElitehunterDS

[Jeweledleah]

I haven't played DC online, so tell me. are most quests there - fully voiced? are they structured as a conversation with multiple possible options and branching dialogue? is there such thing is a class in DC online and if there is, how many of them are there per faction and is every single one of them voiced by a unique actors of both genders?

 

I think you are hopefully starting to see where I'm going with this. now. if answers to my above questions are yes, then you may have an interesting point. however, I'm fairly sure that SWTOR is unique in MMO world when it comes to quest acquisition and amount of voice work that went into that. and even in single player world, bioware games, whatever issues I may have with them (and trust me, I have plenty) - are one of the very few that work on a structure of fully voiced conversation, with multiple answer choices. in fact, I think the only other company that tried something similar was CD project red. Bethesda sticks to unvoiced PC's and games that do have a voiced PC's, have fully scripted conversations you don't get to steer, you just listen in.

 

was that a good choice for bioware, to invest all that money in all those voice overs. that depends on whom you ask. personally, voiced conversations are one of my favorite aspects of SWTOR. they keep me interested in a story, keep me involved. in most other games, I often end up spacing out, not even caring why I'm killing those next 10 fozzles.

Edited December 24, 2012 by Jeweledleah

[AboB]

Very suspicious that you would have that specific of a disclaimer. . . .

So much has been said about the price of TOR and the majority going into voice overs but is it really? I don't have all the facts so I'm laying the question out here. Are voice overs really so expensive that they are the main reason for such a large budget and now the reason updates are far, few and small in between?

 

Take DCUO, the other fully voiced game that claims to be an MMO or not really, think I...well anyway, move along. I don't have the budget for DCUO but I'm fairly certain it is nowhere near what TOR is. I think DCUO even has more bigger named actors such as Mark Hamill (The Joker). DCUO has been F2P for over a year now, I have that right? Am I also right that updates come more regularly in size and scope especially concerning voice over work?

 

DC Comics I'm sure comes with it's own hefty licensing agreement which I bet is on par with TOR and Lucas Arts or EA wouldn't of let LA extortion the license for much more.

 

Just form glancing at DCUO I get a feeling that voice overs are not such a determining factor as so many have claimed. If I'm right then what is the real reason this game is what it is and so reluctant to improve while some of the fans say it's the price of voice overs?

 

Edit: I forgot to mention that DCUO is also available in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian where as TOR is only English, French and German. That's 2 whole languages over TOR, 2 whole sets of actors more than TOR. That is a stat not to be taken lightly at all.

 

Disclaimer: I am not a player of DCUO, I am not here white knighting DCUO, I am simply asking questions based on what I have seen and heard in comparison of TOR and DCUO. Please don't accuse me of being some SOE paid troll

 

...but whatever.

[opriv]

I have to assume that they shelled out too much money for special voice acting contracts. I'll be honest, I'd love to see an audit report of how they spent the money.

[JowyyKazza]

dcuo voice overs are more you zoom in kinda on the hero or whatever talking, and they just flail there arms or make hand gestures or whatever while the voice track plays, but i can imagine some of the voices cost a bit to record, mark hamill, kevin conroy etc

 

although i dont have a problem with this kind of "cut scene" it sorta fits with the games style anyways

[Jumajin]

are they structured as a conversation with multiple possible options and branching dialogue?

 

What branching dialogue? I'm sorry, but after about level 25 a vast majority of my dialogue resulted in my character simply reciting one of roughly a dozen canned phrases.

 

Not to mention the amount of missions where the voice over resulted in "alien speak" that then resulted in us having to READ the quest anyway . . . but with the awesome star-warsy alien jibberish all voiced out.

 

The canned phrases ad nauseum and the over use of alien languages actually made me a lot less of a fan of the voice-overs in here, than in games that simply get in, give the point, and get out of the way of game play.

 

Oddly, it made me appreciate DCUO even more. Sadly, even some of the quest "cut scenes" in TSW go on a bit too long.

[Woimy]

What branching dialogue? I'm sorry, but after about level 25 a vast majority of my dialogue resulted in my character simply reciting one of roughly a dozen canned phrases.

 

Not to mention the amount of missions where the voice over resulted in "alien speak" that then resulted in us having to READ the quest anyway . . . but with the awesome star-warsy alien jibberish all voiced out.

 

The canned phrases ad nauseum and the over use of alien languages actually made me a lot less of a fan of the voice-overs in here, than in games that simply get in, give the point, and get out of the way of game play.

 

Oddly, it made me appreciate DCUO even more. Sadly, even some of the quest "cut scenes" in TSW go on a bit too long.

 

Even the quests with unique dialogue, most are not actually branching...you may get a different response to one line, but it just jumps back to the trunk of the tree after that, choosing one or the other option may net dark or light points, but won't change the actual quest, rewards, or objectives. Some of the choices may affect things (i.e. the Captain's death in BT, spacing the engineers in Esseles) but the vast majority...don't do anything except alter the response you get, after which the cut scene goes on exactly the same.

[Jumajin]

Even the quests with unique dialogue, most are not actually branching...you may get a different response to one line, but it just jumps back to the trunk of the tree after that, choosing one or the other option may net dark or light points, but won't change the actual quest, rewards, or objectives. Some of the choices may affect things (i.e. the Captain's death in BT, spacing the engineers in Esseles) but the vast majority...don't do anything except alter the response you get, after which the cut scene goes on exactly the same.

 

Exactly. While I enjoyed my time in The Old Republic (sub ends Dec 24th as I'm done giving EA money for their current direction), the "branching dialogue" in SWTOR really failed to impress me as the supposed "holy grail of MMO gaming".

Edited December 24, 2012 by Jumajin

[-Me-]

What branching dialogue? I'm sorry, but after about level 25 a vast majority of my dialogue resulted in my character simply reciting one of roughly a dozen canned phrases.

 

Not to mention the amount of missions where the voice over resulted in "alien speak" that then resulted in us having to READ the quest anyway . . . but with the awesome star-warsy alien jibberish all voiced out.

 

The canned phrases ad nauseum and the over use of alien languages actually made me a lot less of a fan of the voice-overs in here, than in games that simply get in, give the point, and get out of the way of game play.

 

Oddly, it made me appreciate DCUO even more. Sadly, even some of the quest "cut scenes" in TSW go on a bit too long.

 

I played DCUO for about a month, maybe, strictly F2P and yeah I noticed it too. For all that's bad with DCUO I think it handles VOs much better. The VOs do not break the flow of the game, NPCs are talking to you as you are on the move and the cutscenes are mainly just before and after a boss fight and short and sweet at that.

 

In TOR the cutsences pretty much do nothing but break the game flow and to the point of some people raging in groups if someone wants to watch them.

 

By the time I'm off the capital world I can guess which canned response my character is going to say. It's more like the same 4 responses not a dozen like you said. A dozen would go a long way in it not being so noticeable.

 

Back on topic, something with this game and the claimed cost of VOs verses DCUO seems way off kilter. Like I said in the OP, I think DCUO has more known talent and 2 additional languages over TOR. Something has to be wrong.

[urukuexone]

I think voice-overs this good do cost quite a bit. Comparing to DCUO is... wrong. Those voice-overs are awful, with the exception of Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy. Most sound like they just found people on the street, or from some anime, where the voice-overs are almost always terrible.

[Marak]

Honestly I doubt the voice acting is that expensive. If you look at the imdb of those voice actors they are normally working on like 10 projects at a time. That leads me to believe that these guys are probably making good money but not great money. And honestly how much work is there? Jennifer Hale is a big name voice actress, especially with Bioware (maybe she's got a bulk contract with discounted rates at this point) and how many hours of voice acting did she put into this game? And she's 2 primary characters (Satele and Fem Troop) with a couple small Bastilla cameos. A dozen hours maybe and that's pushing it.

 

Do you think these voice actors are making $500k an hour? They would have to if we are going to assume that Bioware spent "most of their money on voice acting" ($500,000 x roughly 200 hours = $100 million). Which is of course absurd.

 

Jennifer Hale probably made $100k tops. David Hayter, Nolan North, and the other "big name" guys that were the class actors probably made $50kish. Lacey Chabert and all the small work side characters probably made less than $10k. Then there is probably a staff of background noise guys that we hear over and over again that make a modest yearly salary. Maybe some percentage based yearly royalties thrown in for everybody. And I feel these numbers are being generous given how many other projects these guys all work on. We aren't talking about Tom Hanks and big screen box office draw here.

 

Could that all total up to a few (operative word being "few") million? Yes. Is that easily affordable for a game of this size? Yes.

[-Me-]

I think voice-overs this good do cost quite a bit. Comparing to DCUO is... wrong. Those voice-overs are awful, with the exception of Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy. Most sound like they just found people on the street, or from some anime, where the voice-overs are almost always terrible.

 

I'm not so sure about this. I think quite a few of the main heroes and villains are voiced from the same actors as the animated series. What someone's personal taste are is all opinion and DCUO is done in a completely different VO style than TOR but I have to give the known talent title to DCUO.

[Jeweledleah]

there are canned responses. but there are also new pieces of dialogue. there are conversations with companions. there are subtle changes to the dialogue based on your race and gender. they might end up proceeding to say the next part of the dialogue that is pre scripted, but how they respond at first to what you say is different. that first part of the sentence. and then there's companion commentary. both when you enter/leave various areas and during actual quest conversations. usually they pipe in during personal quests, but I've seen them make comments during planetary quests as well. I know, because I tend to abuse escape button a lot and redo conversations.

 

the fact that people are space bar happy is unfortunate. I happen to enjoy those cutscenes, even when I've seen them before and space bar rush rush rush epidemic is why I rarely pug.

 

I believe there's something like 90 voice actors in SWTOR, I cannot remember exact number, but I enjoy both the conversations my characters get to participate in as well as the conversations you can overhear on various planets (and there are plenty and they are often fabulous)

 

again, YMMV on whether it was worth the investment. but even with salaries not being as high as you think ,I can still see why VO's, processing of VO's and programming of all the responses to fire off at the proper time would have taken a great deal of time and money. just the sheer amount of dialogue if you think about it - is mind boggling.

Edited December 24, 2012 by Jeweledleah

[aeterno]

It's not as cheap as a wall of text but I think VO cost is being over-estimated and blamed for everything around here.

 

Fact is BW has made a very tidy living producing games heavy with VO and cutscenes for a long time. They wouldn't have kept making them if the cost was insanely prohibitive. The fact they were already well versed in doing cinematic VO, with the facilities and know how already in place at the studio, also makes for lower production cost than one might expect.

Edited December 24, 2012 by aeterno

[Zoiks]

If I recall correctly the numbers floating around for the DCUO budget were in the $30-$80 million dollar range, when it was released I believe it was the highest budget, for an available MMO, SWTOR had probably already passed that amount 1 year before release.

 

As far as quality of VO, I would say DCUO wins by a mile. Just look at the names involved in the two projects.

 

For cost of VO, SWTOR wins hands down by nature of the sheer quantity. Again, look at the names, how many there are this time.

 

For better use of VO it's more of a toss-up. I think DCUO used the less they had more effectively, it ONLY adds to the game, it never gets in the way. But SWTOR used it to create a much more meaningful, and involving, storyline in my opinion.

 

But as someone else said, VO work was likely not that much of the budget of either game. In SWTOR's case I think the reason their budget was so ridiculously high had more to do with how long the game was in development, far longer than any other MMO I know of.

[Glorthox]

Granted I see what this person is saying. Like so many, he is asking himself why they are wanting people to pay for nothing more than a content patch. Whereas they could have taken this time and hired more voice actors ( There are plenty that will do it for free ) and actually created an expansion. If they would have made a TRUE expansion, they would have made more money on it. A true expansion is what the game needs! Not some lame content patch that your are forcing people to pay in order to continue leveling.

[Jeweledleah]

It's not as cheap as a wall of text but I think VO cost is being over-estimated and blamed for everything around here.

 

Fact is BW has made a very tidy living producing games heavy with VO and cutscenes for a long time. They wouldn't have kept making them if the cost was insanely prohibitive. The fact they were already well versed in doing cinematic VO, with the facilities and know how already in place at the studio, also makes for lower production cost than one might expect.

 

while I don't think VO's are that much of a bulk of development, consider this - SWTOR is essentially about 4 games in one, give or take. why not 8? because there are 2 planetary stories to 8 much smaller personal stories, so I'm rounding off. when bioware released Dragon Age 2 with less then 2 years of development, remember what was the biggest complaint? rushed and lack of polish. time wise, programming all of those planets, all of those stories, writing all this dialogue, animating, etc etc etc... when you start to think about it, really think about it? you understand why this game took so long and still felt rushed a bit as well and why developers said that 1.2 patch was supposed to be the launch state, not the way game actually launched.

 

SWTOR is a very VERY ambitious undertaking, with a lot of nuances that more then 80% of the player base most likely will not see, because they won't use a particular companion or play a particular class a certain way.

[Kenlonis]

I haven't played DC online, so tell me. are most quests there - fully voiced? are they structured as a conversation with multiple possible options and branching dialogue? is there such thing is a class in DC online and if there is, how many of them are there per faction and is every single one of them voiced by a unique actors of both genders?

 

I think you are hopefully starting to see where I'm going with this. now. if answers to my above questions are yes, then you may have an interesting point. however, I'm fairly sure that SWTOR is unique in MMO world when it comes to quest acquisition and amount of voice work that went into that. and even in single player world, bioware games, whatever issues I may have with them (and trust me, I have plenty) - are one of the very few that work on a structure of fully voiced conversation, with multiple answer choices. in fact, I think the only other company that tried something similar was CD project red. Bethesda sticks to unvoiced PC's and games that do have a voiced PC's, have fully scripted conversations you don't get to steer, you just listen in.

 

was that a good choice for bioware, to invest all that money in all those voice overs. that depends on whom you ask. personally, voiced conversations are one of my favorite aspects of SWTOR. they keep me interested in a story, keep me involved. in most other games, I often end up spacing out, not even caring why I'm killing those next 10 fozzles.

 

DC online does have good classes and you can pretty much design the class you want and the way they look and on top of that there is armor in the game that can even change that look if you want.. there aren't a Gazillion choices of course but if you take your time to make yourself look special you will be very hard pressed to find anyone else in the game that looks like you do unlike here.

 

Also not trying to get in to a which is better was just providing info for a question both games have there really good points and there really bad ones.

[Jeweledleah]

DC online does have good classes and you can pretty much design the class you want and the way they look and on top of that there is armor in the game that can even change that look if you want.. there aren't a Gazillion choices of course but if you take your time to make yourself look special you will be very hard pressed to find anyone else in the game that looks like you do unlike here.

 

Also not trying to get in to a which is better was just providing info for a question both games have there really good points and there really bad ones.

 

I think I need to clarify that question. do each of those classes have their own dedicated voice actor? per gender? do they have companions all of whom have both developing relationship dialogue as well as general planetary commentary? I'm not trying to compare which game is better or worse here, all I'm comparing is amount of voice overs. not even quality (though if DC online VO quality is is similar to that in their cinematic trailers, then well.. IMO its not very good)

Edited December 24, 2012 by Jeweledleah

[Darka]

I honestly feel Voice overs can not be used as an excuse for anything.

When they decided to go with VO work I do not believe they would not have looked at consequences down the line from doing it. They would have looked at all angles then decided to go with it, and should back it up.

 

However they lost faith early, threw in the tell right after launch so who knows what the future holds

[Evgen]

This game has 10 times the voice acting of any other game if it has a word. And ALL of it is good.

You don't need famous actors like Mark Hamill when he has nothing to do with any of the characters. And I believe actors get royalties, so they are still getting paid.

DCUO felt like too much of a button masher for me.

[AshlaBoga]

This game has 10 times the voice acting of any other game if it has a word. And ALL of it is good.

You don't need famous actors like Mark Hamill when he has nothing to do with any of the characters. And I believe actors get royalties, so they are still getting paid.

DCUO felt like too much of a button masher for me.

 

DCUO is a button smasher.