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

[Max_Killjoy]

LOL, 4.0 had a lot of final straws for me and family at least.

 

What you say is true. Also, I wonder what amounts of real money the new / re try players will spend in the CM.

 

There will be an influx of new players, but I wonder how large the universe of prospects is. There are over 14M accounts here and when the game started, I believe that, there were millions of subs (that quickly left). So I am not sure the number of "replacements" for the long-termers will fill the gap especially a few months down the road. It is just my opinion, but I think that the reasons that people left are still there and perhaps worse and the reasons that people stayed have been eliminated or watered down.

 

I have worked for a number of large companies and now have my own business (over 10 years now). One principle that has been drilled into me and has served me well over the years is that the best customer and prospect is your existing customer. The idea of sacrificing long term clients in the hope of getting replacements from the vague sea of prospects seems ill advised.

 

Unfortunately, the video game industry seems to firmly believe the opposite -- that it's the customers they don't have that matter, that there are only those who have already paid, and those who may yet one day pay.

[Gidrea]

I hate it. It looks cheap and cheesy. I don't care if it's an homage to KOTOR, some of us never played KOTOR and don't really care. We are used to SWTOR standards, what's the point in going to something lesser? Don't be so cheap.

[MajikMyst]

I like they way it has been for the last 3 years.. Both sides being voiced..

 

If it isn't broke, then don't fix it..

 

I do see how the new text format can be better.. Give us more clear options.. But both sides should still be voiced.. Part of what I liked about my character was her voice, and also what about the comments from the companions.. Seems like they are just cutting costs.. Bioware or EA??

[Storm-Cutter]

I hate it. It looks cheap and cheesy. I don't care if it's an homage to KOTOR, some of us never played KOTOR and don't really care. We are used to SWTOR standards, what's the point in going to something lesser? Don't be so cheap.

 

 

I'm with you totally -what's next I won?der- 100% text only games like in the early 1980s.

Example:

 

 

RUN NORTH

YOU RUN NORTH

SPEAK TO LANA

LANA HAS NOTHING TO SAY.

SHOUT AT LANA

LANA HAS NOTHING TO SAY.

KILL LANA WITH LIGHTSABER

I'M SORRY, YOU CANNOT DO THIS.

FEED LANA TO RANCOR

I'M SORRY, YOU CANNOT DO THIS.

 

QUIT

BYE BYE.

 

Great times, but this isn't 1982.

AND a lot of people rely on the spoken word (& subtitles) rather than purely written, especially when English is not their native language.

Bad Decision BW. - BAD AND CHEAP! Shame on you.

Edited October 26, 2015 by Storm-Cutter

[DirtyDiggler]

Its not bad, I don't mind it at all, you get use to it.

 

People are just spoiled.

Edited October 26, 2015 by DirtyDiggler

[FlyinSpaghetti]

There is quite literally no excuse to suddenly go cheap on voice acting when this game makes far more money than it ever has on producing items rather than content. When someone can buy a single hypercrate that equates to 3 months of subscription time or a cartel vehicle for 15$. And you know this stuff is selling based off the gtn flood of vehicles and decorations.

 

Bioware works less to make more than they did at launch thanks to cartel items so stop giving them excuses.

 

There's better ways of doing this, they could of just had one lot of dialog and then a single wheel at the end to either start a certain objective/quest, trade or to come back later. Or they could of recycled old voice overs that weren't too specific like a "very well" or something.

[Sttm]

Glad to see I am not the only one who went *** IS THIS????

 

I can only assume they did it this way to save on VO costs. But man does it suck. And they style of it looks really ****** too. At this point I dont care for any of the content after the story, so I think Ill just wait until they get another 9 chapters available, then sub for that month and play through that.

 

 

Though truthfully, this seems wrong for an MMO. I'd rather they just kill this game, and make a new KOTOR using the Frostbite Engine (battlefront and DAI). As these game mechanics are not really well suited for doing this kind of story telling. It begs to be single player. There is nothing in this whole new expansion that calls for MP.

[Daynja]

Voice Actors Strike (negotiations currently ongoing)- Nuff said Edited October 26, 2015 by Daynja

[JeKoCZ]

Glad to see I am not the only one who went *** IS THIS????

 

I can only assume they did it this way to save on VO costs. But man does it suck. And they style of it looks really ****** too. At this point I dont care for any of the content after the story, so I think Ill just wait until they get another 9 chapters available, then sub for that month and play through that.

 

 

Though truthfully, this seems wrong for an MMO. I'd rather they just kill this game, and make a new KOTOR using the Frostbite Engine (battlefront and DAI). As these game mechanics are not really well suited for doing this kind of story telling. It begs to be single player. There is nothing in this whole new expansion that calls for MP.

 

Strange.

I'm usually a solo player, but since ea started I've never had such fun grouping with complete strangers and guild mates alike running around the galaxy killing world bosses and doing random stuff togheter for mission objectives, achievements or just for the sake of it.

 

Plus, since level sync dropped, everytime I visit a pre-4.0 planet there are always people forming groups to take on world bosses and/or champion mobs for the 'Tyrants of xxx' achievements.

 

Operations scaled to 65 are not that hard in sm as people thought, even that green garbage they give you through the lv60-65 quests is enough to clear EV without wiping (Minus Soa bugging himself), for example.

 

I agree that there isn't a lot of new things to do, but the only brand new end game content we got (Star Fortress) is done in a way that can and will keep you busy for a while in order to farm achievements, decorations (And they drop a lot of decorations, got 4 in a single solo mode run), mounts, pets, new top-tier pve gear, influence and all this kind of stuff.

 

Saying that 4.0 is clearly more SP oriented is fine. Saying that 4.0 has nothing to offer MP wise, isn't.

[Blackbird]

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.

 

When replaying content I have seen before, I am much more likely to skip the lines of NPCs which I have heard over and over than I am to skip the lines of my own character. So if the main character's lines were left out because of conversation skipping then BW did it backwards.

[azudelphi]

Honestly, I don't feel it is bad. I would have preferred full VO of course. Not going to call it worst or disappointing; just not my ideal preference. But it's serviceable and doesn't incite any strong negative emotions.

 

I do feel the "homage to KOTOR" is a fancy way of saying, "We found a reason we think we can sell for the change"

[evelynchk]

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.

 

This actually. Every time I click a response I literally hear the lines said in my characters' iconic voice in my head. No VA needed. It's just the way it is after leveling and spending a lot of time nurturing them.

[DirtyDiggler]

This actually. Every time I click a response I literally hear the lines said in my characters' iconic voice in my head. No VA needed. It's just the way it is after leveling and spending a lot of time nurturing them.

 

Yea i like the new scene and it makes sense as to why they did it that way

[JamieKirby]

I still think it is to see if they can accept it, so they can save money and not ask the voice actors to come back, they are likely getting greedy or something.

[DrowNoble]

I have to say I'm rather confused why they so drastically changed the conversation UI. I mean, it worked and worked well. It was one of the main features of SWTOR that it had a lot of voice overs, especially for your character. Why did someone feel the need to fix something that wasn't broken?

 

When I logged in today, I escaped out of a conversation a few times thinking I was bugged somehow. If this is the new way to do conversations, a bland text circa 2003's KOTOR, I am seriously considering moving on to another game. My interest in conversations is now nil with this god-awful new UI.

[TUXs]

These are an awesome homage to KOTOR roots, and the character they are talking to is fully voiced. That we don't have voice isn't a big deal really, its just a bit of fun.

 

Everyone involved in the decision to do this should get a raise an promotion.

I'm with the OP...these suck. Wanna pay tribute to KOTOR? Download it for your tablet...leave it out of this game. I dislike it.

[lorveth]

I'll add my voice here as well and say that this "new" conversation system is just bollocks. I played the old KotOR games many times and still come back to them at least once a year. If I want some KotOR nostalgia, I'll get it there.

 

In an MMO that prides itself until now upon its full voice-over (which was, as no doubt already mentioned somewhere in here, one of it's primary selling points), to suddenly and without any pre-warning introduce a KotOR-style silent protagonist conversation system in virtually the last hours of the (IMHO) otherwise pretty awesome expansion, the entirety of which did feature full VA, is just a very poor design choice and aside from financial reasons, I really can't imagine whatever else might have driven BW/EA to introduce such an arbitrary change out of the blue.

 

It ruins immersion and makes the expac's primary selling points - companion interactions and player story - feel like a farce, as, after having heard my Inquisitor quip his arrogant threats at fools for hundreds of hours, to have them suddenly turn mute for no apparent reason is just a serious turn-off for me.

 

I do NOT mind that type of dialogue system. it has its pros, it has its cons. So does the dialogue wheel with full VO we are accustomed to. I don't even mind the UI change (even with the UI, you can still voice all the dialogues. The Witcher 1 did exactly that.) To simply mix and match a game that entirely relied on the dialogue wheel with voice-over thus far with sudden bouts of silent protagonism and black bars is, however, not okay. It is confusing, it off-putting and just far too random and not everyone has an imagination bright enough to be able to "hear" their character's voice as they read the lines of dialogue without voice-over. That's the beauty of voice-acting, it adds a unique flair to the characters, it gives them life, it adds nuance through accent and tone.

 

Text simply cannot convey these things, at least not as well as speech can. So yeah, unless BW changes their course in this matter back towards the good ol' voice-acted protagonist, I probably will simply have to stop at Chapter IX of KotFE and never talk to Oggurobb.

 

It's simply that much of a turn-off for me.

[Nefla]

I don't really like them either but they're a lot better than the daily missions where it's just some text and "accept" and that's the alternative. They were never going to make the grindy collection side missions with fully voiced cinematic conversations.

[Miscue]

Adding my voice to the many that are not happy with the change. While I am not overly upset, it was a rather disappointing shock when I saw the old style conversation pop up and no voice from my main character of the my game.

 

Over all, what turned this from an amazing expac to one that is just really good is this. (Small thing I know) It broke me 100% out of the immersion of the story. I was wandering around with a smile on my face while meeting people and doing things all expac long, then this hits, right at the end and it broke my smile.

 

I know I am one of many, and just a small voice, but I hope this gets read.

[Maalus]

I'm a player who took a break from the game (though still kept subbing for some reason). I've been pretty much out of the loop and read nothing about the future of the game. The hype about returning to BW roots with story telling got my attention and a review some guy made listing some of the positive changes particularly about being able to play with any companion caused me to jump in for KOTFE. I always dreamed to play Master / Apprentice with Jaesa Willsaam and this was my chance to do it outside of the cut scenes.

 

I was blown away by KOTFE from a 'single player' story experience perspective. Absolutely loved playing through it, though I did feel they tried to pad out the 'duration' by putting enemy NPC's at every turn which made some parts rather tedious. I kept telling myself that if anything, treat it like a KOTOR experience so I did but during the experience I came to the conclusion I loved it and would continue to play on in the MMO side of it.

 

THEN.....

 

*MILD SPOILER* After arriving at the alliance stronghold and seeking out my first 'contact', my jaw almost literally hit the floor when I encountered the traditional style 'silent' replies from my character. At first, I thought it was a bug. It looked so basic from the original choice wheel and I considered it might be something they patched over due to time constraints or something which would be fixed in a future patch. Then it dawned on me that this might be how they plan to do things going forward. I found this thread which confirmed it.

 

I cannot emphasise enough how this utterly, utterly, utterly deflates me. The voice over epicness was one of the most amazing and defining aspects of why I stuck with the game and in fact, I would often seek out side quests JUST so I could see my character interact. This isn't SWTOR, I thought. This isn't what made SWTOR stand out from all the others. I can't believe it.

 

In short, I litterally went from 'OMG OMG this is so good', to now, not knowing if I have the enthusiasm to play on.

 

Most likely, I'm going to be the guy who de-subs, then re-subs when they add new chapters.

 

I know it seems silly to base so much on this, but I didn't realise how important the voice acting was to my enjoyment of the game until it was gone. I really hope BW reconsider this approach.

 

Edited October 30, 2015 by Maalus

[Anzel]

Yeah, these are super terrible. I read the dev update on why they did this but the end result is miserable. I hate it.

[Braize]

There is nothing to hate. You're going to space bar through it anyway so why put all the resources into something that most people won't bother listening to anyway. People will cry about anything these days

[Gauthism]

While i really like the cinematic feeling of these old school conversations, i have to agree with the OP that it breaks immersion. It is really quite jarring to come from the fully voice acted story only to suddenly find your character gone mute. Please don't keep this style in future expansions and/or planets. It is a lot better than to give the quest objective as a box like in SoR, but if you bother to make a voice acted scene, please please please have our characters respond.

[Tharog]

Gee, I really couldn't care less...

I play the game because it's fun and not because of the voice-acting.

 

Also, people always want the highest qualitiy but keep on complaining about subsription fee, cartel market items etc...

[Baixao]

Gee, I really couldn't care less...

I play the game because it's fun and not because of the voice-acting.

 

SWTOR is advertized and renowned for fully voiced conversation cut scenes. There is an expectation for them to be a part of the game. Your opinion on what you enjoy is not the norm.

 

Also, people always want the highest qualitiy but keep on complaining about subsription fee, cartel market items etc...

 

A red herring utterly irrelevant to the topic at hand. This is a massive quality drop in a single expansion everyone has subscribed in order to participate in. They subscribed with a standard of quality advertised to them, this does not match the standard of quality Bioware EA has set, advertised and traditionally fulfilled.

 

Complaining about the subscription when in the middle of an expansion there is a rapid drop off of production quality is the literal personification of a valid criticism. How are you unable to see this?