Am I the only one around here.....who hates the new dialogue interface?

[Suffering]

*Cue the big Lebowski John Goodman meme*

 

I will start off by saying that I am an old school KOTOR and KOTOR II player. I loved those games more than I will ever love my future children. I still play through them once in a while because they are still to this day very well done, very well put together, and carry a great deal of nostalgia for me.

 

All of that said, SWTOR has been something very different, very new, and very refreshing for me. I'll admit; as much as I enjoyed the Mass Effect series, I was a bit skeptical when I originally heard that BioWare would be playing a big part in SWTOR. What I really wanted was KOTOR III, but it became apparent very quickly that this game was never meant to be that.

 

Almost instantaneous for me, however, this game became special in it's own way. It was the crossover between Star Wars and Mass Effect that I never knew I wanted. I loved it (still do) and it was unique (still is). I embraced the cinematic aspect of my characters; even though dialogue options were limited, hearing them speak and act in true cinematic fashion based on a decision that I had made was awesome!

 

Now, despite my incessant love for the KOTOR series, this new dialogue format leaves a *ton* to be desired. If I want to play KOTOR, I go back and play KOTOR. I play SWTOR for a different experience, and I eagerly await the day that a studio decides to adopt KOTOR III.

 

But until that day...I *********** HATE this dialogue style for SWTOR. It's a total buzzkill in a conversation. I never expected KOTOR to be cinematic, but to have SWTOR start out as a cinematic storyline, only to have it revoked for no apparent reason? Am I missing something? Am I the only one who is kind of pissed off about this?

 

Postscript: I'm one of those gamers that rarely complains about anything..........which makes me tend to think that if something pisses me off then I'm probably not alone.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Suffering

[GalacticKegger]

/signed ... all of it except the part about loving a game more than future children. Edited January 9, 2016 by GalacticKegger

[Vaxael]

I cannot stand it, but it would be 1000% better if you could actually hear your character speak the parts.

[LordArtemis]

Yea, I think there is likely a sizable portion of folks out there that do not like the alliance dialog system. I for one think it's fine. Edited January 9, 2016 by LordArtemis

[Morkhaine]

I'm not down with it, either, like most things in this "expansion."

[Nefla]

You're not the only one, but the story stuff and real conversations are still going to have the normal cinematic voiced conversations. These KotOR style conversations are a compromise between the cinematic conversations and the daily/weekly style quests where you just have a description box pop up and press accept or refuse. They're only going to be used for that type of grindy quests like the alliance stuff.

[Suffering]

I cannot stand it, but it would be 1000% better if you could actually hear your character speak the parts.

 

I think that's what's getting me. I like having more options, and even though I don't really like the UI style I can deal with it. But going from having your character be an integral part of the cinematics to a silent bystander bugs me...

[Suffering]

You're not the only one, but the story stuff and real conversations are still going to have the normal cinematic voiced conversations. These KotOR style conversations are a compromise between the cinematic conversations and the daily/weekly style quests where you just have a description box pop up and press accept or refuse. They're only going to be used for that type of grindy quests like the alliance stuff.

 

Yea I'm starting to notice that. And that's fine - I can handle it for the grindy stuff, or when you're talking to C2-N2, or something like that. I guess I'm just still confused as to why? Don't have to pay the voice actors?

[Suffering]

Yea, I think there is likely a sizable portion of folks out there that do not like the alliance dialog system. I for one think it's fine.

 

It is "fine", it's just not "good" in my opinion. It's not going to ruin the game for me, but it definitely detracts from the cinematic atmosphere of the conversations.

[Suffering]

I'm not down with it, either, like most things in this "expansion."

 

I actually like the content thusfar, although I'm only a little past the foundation of the Alliance. This is really the only thing that I've run into that's rubbed me the wrong way, but like I said originally, I'm pretty easily amused as a gamer.

[Xo-Lara]

I like it as it allows me to imagine my character's response without the "that's not what I meant" reaction that I often get with the normal style conversations.

[GetPloughed]

Initially I figured cutting out the cinematic conversations, it would allow BioWare to pump out additional Alliance content without the need for full chapters.

 

Clearly I was wrong.

 

The style of the conversations themselves, I don't mind that much, but they do seem out of place. If BioWare used them to push out content faster I think more people would accept them but they aren't.

[Orlogg]

 

To be honest, I must admit that I feel like a fool because I haven't even noticed that my character remained mute Was this all through the KotFE storyline? If so, they must have been hiding it cleverly, and I truly enjoyed the storyline so I was probably too focused to notice.

 

There is of course a matter that Bioware/EA, would need to either contract the original actors (who might not all be available) or get some good voice impersonators. But that seems not impossible to me.

 

EDIT: Oh wait, are y'all refering here to the conversations like with e.g. Oggurrob Hutt when you deliver a package? You spacebar through those anyway after you've heard it a few times.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Orlogg

[Nmyownworld]

I don’t hate the dialog interface, but when I see it, I think that financial corners were cut by not having to pay 16 voice actors (8 classes, male and female) for dialog. I never played KOTOR. The interface reminds me of Zork or Oregon Trail -- in KotFE I wonder if a companion has dysentery (Oregon Trail) whenever there’s a dialog interface convo.

 

On the plus side, when handing in 80 supply crates per toon to Alliance Specialists I can spacebar through the interactions. I think it’s a step up from the Yavin dailies, where there are no dialog options with the NPC mission givers, but they keep talking and talking. After numerous runs, the talking mission givers on Yavin got old for me.

[CrazyCT]

OP, I notice you didn't make this a youtube video, and went with the text option yourself.

[Sarfux]

I like it a lot. Very nostalgic of kotor and kotor 2. What this game is based on Just as long as they keep the normal way for the main game I'm cool

[Eanelinea]

If I remember correctly, for the chapter 9 alliance grinding itself, they did it this way to give us more options. Like with Qyzen and having like 16+ conversation choices. They couldn't fit 16 choices on the regular wheel. For JUST the grindy boring *** part of chapter 9, the 'new' dialogue crap is fine. I never set foot in KOTOR or KOTOR II and never plan to. But for all the rest of the story/game/etc it's all the regular voiced cinematics we're used to.

[Lunafox]

It plain sucks. I want to hear my character speak with the NPC's and companions. It feels like they're testing the waters to see just how much they can cheap out before we freak out. And I don't love it at all. Even if there are less dialogue choices I'd rather hear it and see it as a proper cutscreen conversation.

[Holocron]

It plain sucks. I want to hear my character speak with the NPC's and companions. It feels like they're testing the waters to see just how much they can cheap out before we freak out. And I don't love it at all. Even if there are less dialogue choices I'd rather hear it and see it as a proper cutscreen conversation.

 

Yeah they are going back on almost everything the original dev team created. I feel it is a combo of laziness, lack of ability, and financial greed.

[Damask_Rose]

I hate it with a passion. Recruiting my favorite companions shouldn't feel like a quick and dirty daily. I waited years to finally talk with Talos again! He deserved far better

[tomcn]

I strongly dislike the KOTOR-style Alliance dialogue (and I played both KOTOR 1 and 2 and loved them).

 

It is especially disappointing when recruiting companions. Bioware should have realized that player character voice acting was essential for recruiting companions. It is a huge letdown for the player character to be mute.

 

Regarding the turn-in of the Alliance crates -- that should have just been done with a dropbox.

 

In other words, there is no need for the KOTOR-style dialogue. In my opinion, all those terrible cutscenes should be eliminated and replaced with a combination of (1) full voice acting, or (2) dropbox turn-ins, depending on the context.

[Skaara]

I hate it too. They just did it to cut corners on cost and it's obvious and sad. Actually, that pretty much sums up the expansion in general.

[JamieKirby]

Well, i am thinking they are seeing how many people like it and if the majority are fine with it, they will likely make the future story content be like this to save money, i am guessing the voice actors are getting more and more greedy.

 

I mean Will Smith wanted to be paid $50,000,000 for being in the new Independence Day movie and its sequel (from what the info says) greedy bugger......its all down to money, like always, companies are cheap on making stuff and the actors, get greedy wanting more money, more then they will ever need in their lifetime.

 

So, i will not be surprised if bioware will make this crap alliance dialogue interface as the way they do it, because the class voice actors are likely paid vastly more due to their amount of lines that they put their voices to, which means if they can cut out their dialogue, the costs will be severely lower.

 

As i said, its all about money.

[Sarfux]

I have rethought my decision on this. And I say, I am torn. I am torn because it's a nice throwback and very nostalgic to kotor and kotor 2. It somewhat fits the game to. But, if I wanted to be nostalgic over kotor or kotor 2, I'll go play those games! The whole REASON SWTOR is "different" than those other mmorpgs is because they have full voice acting in cutscenes. That's one of the whole points and "things" of this game! If they are experimenting with ways to take that out of this game in the future, that will be absolutely horrible. I think it would mess the game up because it will no longer be "every quest, every person you talk to is fully voiced in cutscenes that have feeling you can watch." Hell, half the feeling if not 3 quarters of the feeling of this game ARE the fully voice acted cutscenes to immerse you more and more so it feels like something completely different than mmorpgs.

 

I would severely dislike if they found a way to cheapen things and take the easy way out and slowly remove fully voice acted cutscenes from future content because they don't want to spend some more money. I would be crushed. Honestly. And you guys know coming from me, the ultimate white knight defense master of BioWare and this game, that is big and wouldn't be good. I would look at this team differently if they did that and see that the "vision" would no longer be there of "fully voice acted mmorpg". Yes, of course, 1-50 will ALWAYS be there. and that is FANTASTIC the way it was done. Even Makeb and stuff. And I love the stories in this game especially KOTFE with Valkorion. Gives me goosebumps.

 

But, on the other hand, if they take away any fully voiced cutscenes and just having us stand there in the future, that wouldn't be good at all. It would completely negate everything the game stands for in my eyes. I don't think they will go THAT far though. I'm just speaking in hypothetical situations here. I think they are just incorporating that way for an array of things to pay homage to knights of the old republic. So, yeah.

 

But, I do enjoy it because of kotor and kotor 2 nostalgia Those are my thoughts!

Edited January 10, 2016 by Sarfux

[Codedrago]

Yea I'm starting to notice that. And that's fine - I can handle it for the grindy stuff, or when you're talking to C2-N2, or something like that. I guess I'm just still confused as to why? Don't have to pay the voice actors?

 

It probably makes it easier to make more side content when you don't have to record the player charater's 16 voice wth different dialogue options.

 

And I'm in the minority here, but I actually like it, especially the way it looks. Something about the black bars and the fonts just...feel good. And my character not speaking? I didn't even notice until it was brought up. Even then I thought that was a very minor thing to lose for JUST side content.