Kaludy Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 (edited) We haven't introduced playable species such as Wookiee and Trandoshan because of their inability to speak Galactic Basic. Early in our development, we experimented with playable alien species that could not speak Basic and... well, let's just say you can only listen to so much alien VO in cinematics before you want to re-roll. source: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/feature/7403/Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-Cathar-Update-21-Free-To-Play-.html Personally, you should have "experimented" with a test server to the public. I am sure you did in house testing and as usual, think you know best.. I know a lot of people who would probably resub if given the chance to play an another race besides what available...regardless of voice acting. It's not the player's fault your company shot themselves in the foot with class stories and voice acting which further prevents you from doing a lot of new things and bring the players things they want. The flair of voice acted cutscenes wore off a long time ago. just my 2 credits. Edited May 14, 2013 by Kaludy
JPryde Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 (edited) yes this is for real, and while I do miss playable honorable hunters (Trandoshans), I am glad that half-intelligent barking mammals (aka Wookiee) are never gonna be playable. Would be better to allow playing a mouse droid, at least they are "clean", if you know what I mean Edited May 14, 2013 by JPryde
Darka Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 There is a video floating around of alien species speaking basic
atschai Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 We haven't introduced playable species such as Wookiee and Trandoshan because of their inability to speak Galactic Basic. Early in our development, we experimented with playable alien species that could not speak Basic and... well, let's just say you can only listen to so much alien VO in cinematics before you want to re-roll. . Well at this point in the game there are very few people who do not skip the class missions cinematics. So your argument is invalid. I would happily roll an alien alt just for the sake of it. And there still is the possibility of race change via cartel market...
OddballEasyEight Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 Well at this point in the game there are very few people who do not skip the class missions cinematics. So your argument is invalid. I would happily roll an alien alt just for the sake of it. And there still is the possibility of race change via cartel market... Actually your argument is invalid. There are plenty of new players since the F2P that have not played through all 8 class stories. Hell, ive been here since before launch and i still havent played through all 8 stories. So no, there arent "very few" people who do not skip through class stories.
Darth-Obvious Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 source: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/feature/7403/Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-Cathar-Update-21-Free-To-Play-.html Personally, you should have "experimented" with a test server to the public. I am sure you did in house testing and as usual, think you know best.. I know a lot of people who would probably resub if given the chance to play an another race besides what available...regardless of voice acting. It's not the player's fault your company shot themselves in the foot with class stories and voice acting which further prevents you from doing a lot of new things and bring the players things they want. The flair of voice acted cutscenes wore off a long time ago. just my 2 credits. It's just their PR line about other races. The real reason that races like Wookies aren't available is because they don't match the existing body types which nearly every aspect of the game is built around. In order to include a race like Wookies they would need to redo all the armors, animations, and reframe all the cutscenes. Same goes for any other race with different body types, ie Jawas.
DarthDymond Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 Actually your argument is invalid. There are plenty of new players since the F2P that have not played through all 8 class stories. Hell, ive been here since before launch and i still havent played through all 8 stories. So no, there arent "very few" people who do not skip through class stories. ^ This.
Krewel Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 It's just PR, of course. Exotic species like Wookiees require completely different body types, it's a nightmare from the development point of view. It took them more than a year to implement an additional species of humans with feline heads aka Cathar. No new animations or dances, just a slightly different head.
Jarnaktane Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 Actually your argument is invalid. There are plenty of new players since the F2P that have not played through all 8 class stories. Hell, ive been here since before launch and i still havent played through all 8 stories. So no, there arent "very few" people who do not skip through class stories. ^^^This
Kolskeggur Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 Frankly, I agree with Bioware on this subject. One would get hella tired of them talking nonsense constantly. Plus, all things considered, while a Wookie or a Trandoshan makes a good sidekick, I can't see either the Republic or the Empire employ some nonsense-speaking alien to do any kind of important business.
Koolthulu Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 The Clone Wars had pretty much all the "alien" species speaking Basic. So this excuse doesn't really hold up.
yoshua Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 Best part is they have the last boss on Makeb, who is a Hutt, speaking Basic. Give me some Wookiee Love
TUXs Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 It's just PR, of course. Exotic species like Wookiees require completely different body types, it's a nightmare from the development point of view. It took them more than a year to implement an additional species of humans with feline heads aka Cathar. No new animations or dances, just a slightly different head. This! A full year for a slightly different dome would mean like 3 years development for anything nearly as complex as a Wookiee.
ekwalizer Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 Simple solution: Make it an unlock after completing all 8 class stories. Too much? ok make it a factional unlock after completing the 4 stories for a side.
Crashedhardrive Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 This! A full year for a slightly different dome would mean like 3 years development for anything nearly as complex as a Wookiee. I like to think they spent the whole year doing more than just the head. Like Voice Acting for all possible quests.
Repman Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 To be honest, people spacebar through even "basic" speaking lol They could of had their basic speaking companion talk for them if, and I say if, that's the reason why they didn't ad wookiees etc. to the game... But I seriously doubt thats why...
TUXs Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 I like to think they spent the whole year doing more than just the head. Like Voice Acting for all possible quests. Uh....I may be incorrect, but I thought they already stated that it had no audible changes - voices are tied to you CLASS, not your species.
SupremeLegate Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 Personally I agree with BW on this. I don't even listen to my companions who don't speak basic, I hate having to look at my chat box to know what they are saying.
BadOrb Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 It is real but it seems to have been changed , the end of the quote was more along the lines of , in an early build on tython and after 3 missions you wanted to smash your head against the keyboard or monitor. Cheers, BadOrb.
Arlon_Nabarlly Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 Well at this point in the game there are very few people who do not skip the class missions cinematics. So your argument is invalid. I would happily roll an alien alt just for the sake of it. And there still is the possibility of race change via cartel market... Really invalid. I don't know of anyone that skips class story cut scenes (even if they've completed that class already) FP, OP, Planet, etc stories, absolutely, but not class, that's the only good ones (for the most part). I still hold that there's a common sense solution to this (which admittedly would take some work). Add options to toggle basic class dialog and naitive class dialog on non-Basic speaking characters. That was if you don't ever want to hear a Wookie playable character speak Basic, then your toon won't, but someone else can have it set the other way and hear wookie's speak Basic. As long as those who care about lore have the option to make lore correct to their experience this seems doable. There wouldn't even be that much additional VO work, just use some of the non-Basic sound files in the game today and use them, or if need be make 10-50 sound bites and play them randomly. Done.
StavinskyElyas Posted May 14, 2013 Posted May 14, 2013 It's just their PR line about other races. The real reason that races like Wookies aren't available is because they don't match the existing body types which nearly every aspect of the game is built around. In order to include a race like Wookies they would need to redo all the armors, animations, and reframe all the cutscenes. Same goes for any other race with different body types, ie Jawas. Add the access to various Datacron and other such things, that some of the biggest body can cause troubles already. But what they are even more afraid is the 'interacial' things that could be said about a wookie Romancing someone, or others such situations. I would really love to play a Wookie scoundrel or Jedi
Recommended Posts