Of all the BAD decisions in 4.0, the new alliance "conversations" has to be the worst

[Beranzen]

I loved it, i thought it was such a cool throwback to KOTOR,and it didnt break my immersion in any way.

That being said if the story (Chapters 1-9) itself had been like this I might not have enjoyed it anywhere near as much. But seeing as at least for now this is just for the alliance convos I'm ok with it, and it's FAR better than the warcraft style of questing we've had recently.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Beranzen

[Iryfindel]

Please tell me you listen to each conversation every time without skipping a single line even if it's a 2 words phrase and you've heard it 40 times in a row. Otherwise, your argument is invalid. I wonder what kind of person would possibly listen to Ogguroob 40 times in a row everytime you have to give him supplies or click through the exact same dialogue options every time. What kind of sick person would punch himself in the face hearing the same 2-lines conversations over and over?

Or please, tell me you don't/won't spacebar through the gold ship droid daily/weekly mission in the base. The one you need to put stuff in the instanced area and manually go talk to each contact until you get everything in order and repeat this every day/week? That quest became annoying the 2nd time I did it, and I'm all for story. But if it adds none to the story, what's there to lose? Nothing.

 

I'm all but trying to defend BW on their choice, but if they know that people won't listen to 2-lines conversations over and over because they're essentially on par with daily quests and in the long run they'll become boring, why would they waste money with voice acting conversations that adds so little to the story that they can't be even classified dailies or side quests? No matter how interesting the new Alliance system is, in the long run it's just another daily grind disguised as something else.

 

We would all love for everything to be voiced, but SWTOR isn't a hugely successful mmo even right from the start. I'm not saying this isn't sort of a downgrade. Because they are. But given our mmo's modest success, cutting corners like this is inevitable. I'm happy we atleast get more varied dialogue now instead of the same recycled lines over and over again.

 

I don't spacebar anything, unless I am in a group and my group members insist on rushing.

 

Please don't get me wrong, I understand why they are cutting corners on this. My qualm is with the choice they made in this cutting of corners. You make a valid point, why would you fully voice over ever-repeatable daily quests that don't add much to the main story? Then my follow-up question is, why then would you even voice half of them (the NPC part) over? The quest boxes on Rishi, Yavin and Ziost were far less immersion breaking than the current half-assed conversations. In not putting resources in this poor format, they could have been spent on proper conversations with the old companions people are invested in.

 

The fact remains however that this Alliance system is not just a system for daily quest delivery, but also a way to recruit new allies, to reconnect with old companions and to find out what they have been up to. This makes it more than a daily-delivery system but an important part of the companion stories. And that is what I dislike about the choice they made: rolling dailies and companions in one and giving them to us in a neatly wrapped new format. While this new format is insufficient for both, in my opinion, since dailies from a terminal with a quest box are better tailored to spacebar warriors and story immersion alike, while the companion reunions belong in fully voiced over conversations/scenes.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Iryfindel

[Teladis]

It should have been like this in the first place. Know how many times I picked what looked cool, and my guy said something that was not even what the option said? It annoyed me greatly.

[Magnouss]

I don't spacebar anything, unless I am in a group and my group members insist on rushing.

 

The fact remains however that this Alliance system is not just a system for daily quest delivery, but also a way to recruit new allies, to reconnect with old companions and to find out what they have been up to. This makes it more than a daily-delivery system but an important part of the companion stories. And that is what I dislike about the choice they made: rolling dailies and companions in one and giving them to us in a neatly wrapped new format. While this new format is insufficient for both, in my opinion, since dailies from a terminal with a quest box are better tailored to spacebar warriors and story immersion alike, while the companion reunions belong in fully voiced over conversations/scenes.

 

And this is what I am most concerned about. Once we get our old companions back, is this how we are going to interact with them? I will be very disappointed if that is the case.

[Yomitako]

And this is what I am most concerned about. Once we get our old companions back, is this how we are going to interact with them? I will be very disappointed if that is the case.

 

Well they aren't taking out the original conversations with companions, as those are already in the game. As we've seen there are full VO conversations in the expansion, but the only ones that we've seen thus far, are the Alliance conversations.

 

Now I'm just speculating, so take it as you will (and for the love of God, please don't take my word as gospel or as fact), but I'm of the belief that any future content added to the game will still have full VO in the cutscenes, but any conversation pieces that require repetitve use (such as turning in kits to the Alliance members), would have the more classic KOTOR style conversation pieces with partial VO's on the NPC's (which, in all fairness, is still fine).

 

But that's only my own personal observation / opinion.

[MWidowmaker]

i like it because it gives you more dialogue options some based on your class

[TheSeventhJedi]

Well they aren't taking out the original conversations with companions, as those are already in the game. As we've seen there are full VO conversations in the expansion, but the only ones that we've seen thus far, are the Alliance conversations.

 

Now I'm just speculating, so take it as you will (and for the love of God, please don't take my word as gospel or as fact), but I'm of the belief that any future content added to the game will still have full VO in the cutscenes, but any conversation pieces that require repetitve use (such as turning in kits to the Alliance members), would have the more classic KOTOR style conversation pieces with partial VO's on the NPC's (which, in all fairness, is still fine).

 

But that's only my own personal observation / opinion.

 

Yes, but the ONLY NEW VO we have is part of the direct storyline. The one or two sidequests we have (aside from the alliance ones) are text only. I'm beginning to think that, for me, SWTOR may be something I come back to once a year to play the story through with one toon, and then I drop sub again. I have a feeling that if multiple subs are of my attitude, this game won't have the money to continue producing said story content. It's a damn shame.

[JeKoCZ]

Yes, but the ONLY NEW VO we have is part of the direct storyline. The one or two sidequests we have (aside from the alliance ones) are text only. I'm beginning to think that, for me, SWTOR may be something I come back to once a year to play the story through with one toon, and then I drop sub again. I have a feeling that if multiple subs are of my attitude, this game won't have the money to continue producing said story content. It's a damn shame.

So you would quit the game because even the smallest side quest doesn't have full voice over like it did in vanilla content. You have your priorities right.

 

Also, don't be worried about your useless doom predictions. A quick journey through the various forums/topics will show you that a lot of people are spending 100$+ in packs/hypercrates trying to unlock, without success because RNJesus hates them, an armor set which, on my server, is available for around 2m in total on the gtn. The game will survive even without your precious subscription.

[Iryfindel]

And this is what I am most concerned about. Once we get our old companions back, is this how we are going to interact with them? I will be very disappointed if that is the case.

 

This is my biggest concern as well. I would've loved to re-unite with the old companions now part of the Alliance system through proper conversations/scenes (especially the ones I like a lot, like Forex and Zenith). However, the current old companions integrated in this Alliance system are none of the main 2-3 companions per class. If the Alliance system stays limited to what it is, I can live with it. But I doubt they would have designed a system merely for this select cast of characters.

 

What this system does is setting a precedent. And I would be thoroughly disappointed if my re-unions with main companions (basically all romance interests in the game irrelevant of gender) that are still to come will be implemented in this same format.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Iryfindel

[Derfburger]

Just in case BW actually reads this

 

+1 to getting rid of the 'classic' crap. I find it immersion breaking and distracting. Wouldn't be as bad if the whole game was this way. But BW set the precedence of the wonderful voice acting so it is jolting when they take it away.

 

I tried Wildstar last night and found it unplayable due to the NPC to player interface. Guess SWTOR has just spoiled be to anything else.

 

Am I going to quit... Uh... NO!

 

But it is a minor complaint in an otherwise excellent expansion.

[Talosred]

Hey they did say they where going back to classic style

 

So less voice for the hero

Edited October 25, 2015 by Talosred

[Transcendent]

The game will survive even without your precious subscription.

 

Assuming you factor in the loss of $100's spent by subscribers while playing throughout the year, for in essence a smaller amount once or twice a year, do you honestly think that's sustainable or what BioWare are trying to achieve?

 

They want continuous subscriptions, it's why they're aiming to release the content in a trickle instead of twice yearly larger updates. The new business model of releasing story content on a monthly basis may work properly for story centric single player games, but I'm not so sure it'll work well in an MMO where you can pop in once every 6 months, do the story in an afternoon (literally) and then go play elsewhere and taking that money with you.

 

If BioWare rely on that Cartel Market to prop up the profitability of this product, losing those impulse purchases of Cartel Coins will take a bite out of those profits. So I really hope that all the returning players etc who are here for the story only, manage to negate those lost sales.

 

He's one player, I'm another player who has cancelled my own subscription, and will now only spend a minimal amount on this MMO due to the changes (this subject being one of them). Can BioWare afford to lose any players / paying customers? Time will tell I guess, it's not going to affect me though.

[JeKoCZ]

Assuming you factor in the loss of $100's spent by subscribers while playing throughout the year, for in essence a smaller amount once or twice a year, do you honestly think that's sustainable or what BioWare are trying to achieve?

 

They want continuous subscriptions, it's why they're aiming to release the content in a trickle instead of twice yearly larger updates. The new business model of releasing story content on a monthly basis may work properly for story centric single player games, but I'm not so sure it'll work well in an MMO where you can pop in once every 6 months, do the story in an afternoon (literally) and then go play elsewhere and taking that money with you.

 

If BioWare rely on that Cartel Market to prop up the profitability of this product, losing those impulse purchases of Cartel Coins will take a bite out of those profits. So I really hope that all the returning players etc who are here for the story only, manage to negate those lost sales.

 

He's one player, I'm another player who has cancelled my own subscription, and will now only spend a minimal amount on this MMO due to the changes (this subject being one of them). Can BioWare afford to lose any players / paying customers? Time will tell I guess, it's not going to affect me though.

 

By doing a simple math, if I pay 13€ per month (Using european prices) for 12 months, BW will earn something like 156€ from me. If someone spend 100$ (Which is something like 70-80€) by buying only cartel coins and spending them all in the cartel market, in 1 day alone that person already gave BW half my yearly subscription.

 

To that, you have to add that same person is probably another yearly sub like me as you have to be really stupid to spend 80€ in 1 day for a completely cosmetic item if you don't play this game "seriously" (Or any game for that matter).

 

I think you are underestimating the number of people actually spending those amount of money (50€ and above on cartel coins) every 3 or 4 months whenever a new hypercrate is released. The world is full of people who like to play Virtual Barbie and dress up their characters (And in this game also their companions) even if at the end of the day, nobody cares what they look like except for the ones dressing themselves up. Take a look at the gtn, it's flooded with items and packs coming from the cartel market and someone had to pay a lot of cartel coins for obtaining them in the first place.

 

For example, not so long ago there was another topic by another user complaining that he had bought 3 (Three) hypercrates and got nothing he wanted. 3 hypercrates are around 5.5k cartel coins each if they're on discount and 5.5 cartel coins equal to a lot of money coming either from montly subscription or cartel coins cards.

 

So in the end, yes. They can survive without the money coming from a part of the subscribers who drop their subscriptions because they have the cartel market that can provide them the profit they need.

[WingsofCrystal]

......So in the end, yes. They can survive without the money coming from a part of the subscribers who drop their subscriptions because they have the cartel market that can provide them the profit they need.

 

There is very little information with respect to the number of subs and the game income. I may be wrong with respect to the following.

 

I think I read somewhere that about half the income of the game came from subs and half from the CM. I also believe I read that the lion's share of the CM purchases are made by subs.

 

If things shake out after a few months that there has been a drop in the net number of subs and/or the new subs that replace the old leaving ones are less attached to the game and spend less in the CM then the overall game revenue may take a hit.

 

It is my understanding that the mind set at EA is not if something is making a profit, but rather how much of a profit is it making. If a product is not performing up to expectations or desired goals, it is not past EA to shut it down or at the very least pull back resources and leave it on life support.

 

So before any assertions are made, it probably behooves us to wait a few months and see what occurs. The typical pattern of expansions is to see a large uptick in players, a peak, and then a large downtick which is often ends in numbers below where the game was before the expansion. So we will see what we see.

[Max_Killjoy]

So before any assertions are made, it probably behooves us to wait a few months and see what occurs. The typical pattern of expansions is to see a large uptick in players, a peak, and then a large downtick which is often ends in numbers below where the game was before the expansion. So we will see what we see.

 

Because the MMO publishers can't get their heads around the fact that people who rush to try / retry their game because of some expansion, aren't their long-term customers, and will be gone again in a few months. Meanwhile, each major change is the final straw for some number of their existing, long-term customers.

[WingsofCrystal]

Because the MMO publishers can't get their heads around the fact that people who rush to try / retry their game because of some expansion, aren't their long-term customers, and will be gone again in a few months. Meanwhile, each major change is the final straw for some number of their existing, long-term customers.

 

******

Edited November 1, 2019 by WingsofCrystal

[Sindorin]

While I don't like them, they're a far better way to do quests/etc, than the way they did all those side quests in SoR: just a plain mission text ala 2004.

 

I think it's a good compromise between that and cinematic cut-scenes of the base game, in whatever financial reality exists that caused them to move away from cinematic cut-scenes for everything.

 

Speak for yourself. I'd rather have no new quests rather than half ***, cheaper ones with poor camera shots and half dialogue. This is a continued trend of cost cuts. It needs to stop. We need to make it clear to bioware that we want less story if it means it is higher quality.

[Jnaathra]

Threads like these really show those who never played the original RPG titles.

 

I am fine with it. Not everything in the game needs to have a VO and my imagination still functions.

[Jnaathra]

Speak for yourself. I'd rather have no new quests rather than half ***, cheaper ones with poor camera shots and half dialogue. This is a continued trend of cost cuts. It needs to stop. We need to make it clear to bioware that we want less story if it means it is higher quality.

 

I don't need to make any crap like that clear. I am fine with the main story being voice and other lesser activities not. I don't feel the need to cheat myself out of extra content because you have no imagination. Did you not play either of the RPG titles that birthed SWTOR? KOTOR and KOTOR2 both function this way.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Jnaathra

[JeKoCZ]

Speak for yourself. I'd rather have no new quests rather than half ***, cheaper ones with poor camera shots and half dialogue. This is a continued trend of cost cuts. It needs to stop. We need to make it clear to bioware that we want less story if it means it is higher quality.

 

And exactly how higher can the quality go in this game without a bigger budget or at least a new engine (Which has been confirmed it will never be changed)? The expansion has a good main story so far, the cinematics are almost all well done with just some minor graphic glitches here and there with characters teleporting in some shots, the graphic has been enanched at least for main protagonists (Valkorion and Arkaan looks like they are part of another game entirely because of how well they're modelled and rendered ingame) and the Alliance system can theorically sustain the end game for a bit as with all the possible companions to recruit and other stuff such as the new Star Fortress flashpoints and planet objects and quests, there is actually something new to do at lv65.

 

Plus, that new smaller faction, the Heralds of Zildrog, is a strong hint at what could possibly be the new operation for next year as they state multiple times in the dialogs that they're waiting for the old snake (Zildrog) to come back and that its living/hiding somewhere in the Endless Swamps. As you never encounter it while normally playing, it's not to be excluded that it may become a raid boss in the future.

 

You are crying and moaning and whining about something that is completely optional. You don't want to look at cutscenes that were done in a throwback style for both nostalgia feeling and costs cutting? Fine, don't play them or spacebar through them. If it bothers you that much, it's your problem. A lot of people don't like them, but a lot of other people don't seem to mind them or actually like them. And no matter how hard you shout, if there isn't the budget to do full voice overs even for the smallest and less important dialogs, there is nothing to do.

[Celise]

admittedly i miss hearing the male sith warrior stating sarcastic comments at a perfectly timed moment just to get the most fun out of the brutally honest moment ("He's lost his mind.") or a female sith inquiisitor ready to make a bloodthirsty anticipating comment ("Murder and mayhem await.") however, a lot of work went into this expansion, i can see that, so i have no real complaints that could counter the content so far, even with the lack of voice over for the kotor inspired alliance thing.

[Beltane]

I don't mind at all that our characters don't speak for the alliance conversations.

 

However, I really hate the letterboxing and the fact it removes the chat box. It's very distracting.

[VanCali]

I say their budget ran out and they had to go this way. I agree, I think they are horrible. The only reason the original didn't do full voice for the main character is likely because of budget constraints. Full voice in all instances is the way to go and it worked up until they implemented 3.0 when they started to give out missions without convos. I don't care for them one bit.

[ArcharLord]

It's the only way to explain all of this... Bioware ran out of budget money... Lol

[Transcendent]

By doing a simple math, if I pay 13€ per month (Using european prices) for 12 months, BW will earn something like 156€ from me. If someone spend 100$ (Which is something like 70-80€) by buying only cartel coins and spending them all in the cartel market, in 1 day alone that person already gave BW half my yearly subscription.

 

To that, you have to add that same person is probably another yearly sub like me as you have to be really stupid to spend 80€ in 1 day for a completely cosmetic item if you don't play this game "seriously" (Or any game for that matter).

 

I think you are underestimating the number of people actually spending those amount of money (50€ and above on cartel coins) every 3 or 4 months whenever a new hypercrate is released. The world is full of people who like to play Virtual Barbie and dress up their characters (And in this game also their companions) even if at the end of the day, nobody cares what they look like except for the ones dressing themselves up. Take a look at the gtn, it's flooded with items and packs coming from the cartel market and someone had to pay a lot of cartel coins for obtaining them in the first place.

 

For example, not so long ago there was another topic by another user complaining that he had bought 3 (Three) hypercrates and got nothing he wanted. 3 hypercrates are around 5.5k cartel coins each if they're on discount and 5.5 cartel coins equal to a lot of money coming either from montly subscription or cartel coins cards.

 

 

So in the end, yes. They can survive without the money coming from a part of the subscribers who drop their subscriptions because they have the cartel market that can provide them the profit they need.

 

I think you missed the point I was "attempting" to make about subscribers being the ones who buy a lot from the Cartel Market. I probably lost train of thought somewhere or got distracted