Originally posted by Teilo

Originally posted by xKingdomx

Originally posted by Deewe

One can't deny V.O. story sounds nice.

 

Still for an MMO it might be of an hindrance: not only because it would slows the pace of game play but also because V.O. dialogs tend to get old faster than... quest you don't even read.

 

Then, due to the story focus, there are so many common features missing: from the guild bank down to LFG tool.

 

So the question is:

In the long term do you think the story will encompasses everything else?

Slows the pace of gameplay? Are you playing a game to rush to the end?

 

I think Story is very important in any kind of game, because it gives you meaning to the game you are playing, it makes you care for the game in a geniune way, not some addiction to grind for better gears.

The impression I got  was SWToR isn't really aimed at the people who don't read quest text.

Most of us are guilty of not reading it to a certain degree; for me, that's when I realise I'm not enjoying my MMO any more and I and move to another game. Some people don't read any: they just want to hit things, earn points, level up, they don't care about the story.

They're not going to like SWTOR.

When I tried it , I didn't care about levelling up, earning gear, any of that...I was playing through the story.

It will slow the pace a little, but I hate feeling like I'm holding my team up in most MMOs as I read through the next quest dialog while they're itching to go kill the next 10 rats.

 I find myself in most mmorpg's reading through quest text the first time I encounter it, the problem with most mmorpg's though is no matter how many alts etc you have you are reading the same quest text over and over again obviously this game is going to change that.

I was also under the impression the space bar would allow people to skip the cut scenes so that should be ok too.

As for the op I'm wondering what mmorpg's he plays to assume that voice over would "slow the pace" of mmorpg gaming.  Mmo's are the only game I can think of where you could spend a day playing and do absolutely "nothing" with things like crafting exploration and role playing I certainly wouldn't consider mmo's to be "fast paced" gaming.

Originally posted by raistlinm

Originally posted by Teilo

Originally posted by xKingdomx

Originally posted by Deewe

One can't deny V.O. story sounds nice.

 

Still for an MMO it might be of an hindrance: not only because it would slows the pace of game play but also because V.O. dialogs tend to get old faster than... quest you don't even read.

 

Then, due to the story focus, there are so many common features missing: from the guild bank down to LFG tool.

 

So the question is:

In the long term do you think the story will encompasses everything else?

Slows the pace of gameplay? Are you playing a game to rush to the end?

 

I think Story is very important in any kind of game, because it gives you meaning to the game you are playing, it makes you care for the game in a geniune way, not some addiction to grind for better gears.

The impression I got  was SWToR isn't really aimed at the people who don't read quest text.

Most of us are guilty of not reading it to a certain degree; for me, that's when I realise I'm not enjoying my MMO any more and I and move to another game. Some people don't read any: they just want to hit things, earn points, level up, they don't care about the story.

They're not going to like SWTOR.

When I tried it , I didn't care about levelling up, earning gear, any of that...I was playing through the story.

It will slow the pace a little, but I hate feeling like I'm holding my team up in most MMOs as I read through the next quest dialog while they're itching to go kill the next 10 rats.

 I find myself in most mmorpg's reading through quest text the first time I encounter it, the problem with most mmorpg's though is no matter how many alts etc you have you are reading the same quest text over and over again obviously this game is going to change that.

I was also under the impression the space bar would allow people to skip the cut scenes so that should be ok too.

As for the op I'm wondering what mmorpg's he plays to assume that voice over would "slow the pace" of mmorpg gaming.  Mmo's are the only game I can think of where you could spend a day playing and do absolutely "nothing" with things like crafting exploration and role playing I certainly wouldn't consider mmo's to be "fast paced" gaming.

Your impression is absolutely correct, the space bar will allow you to skip one line of dialogue and go to the next, meaning if theres 3 lines of dialogue then you need to hit the space bar 3 times.

Originally posted by Teilo

Originally posted by xKingdomx

Originally posted by Deewe

One can't deny V.O. story sounds nice.

 

Still for an MMO it might be of an hindrance: not only because it would slows the pace of game play but also because V.O. dialogs tend to get old faster than... quest you don't even read.

 

Then, due to the story focus, there are so many common features missing: from the guild bank down to LFG tool.

 

So the question is:

In the long term do you think the story will encompasses everything else?

Slows the pace of gameplay? Are you playing a game to rush to the end?

 

I think Story is very important in any kind of game, because it gives you meaning to the game you are playing, it makes you care for the game in a geniune way, not some addiction to grind for better gears.

The impression I got  was SWToR isn't really aimed at the people who don't read quest text.

Most of us are guilty of not reading it to a certain degree; for me, that's when I realise I'm not enjoying my MMO any more and I and move to another game. Some people don't read any: they just want to hit things, earn points, level up, they don't care about the story.

They're not going to like SWTOR.

When I tried it , I didn't care about levelling up, earning gear, any of that...I was playing through the story.

It will slow the pace a little, but I hate feeling like I'm holding my team up in most MMOs as I read through the next quest dialog while they're itching to go kill the next 10 rats.

I, personally, don't read quest text because I find the text to be too small (City of Heroes, EVE Online,) they have a font I find impossible to read (WoW, EVE, LoTRO) and they always confine quest text into a tiny, unscalable and unmovable text box. I think that MMO developers don't even want people to read quest text. This is to cover up the fact that traditionally quest text has been really horribly written. In City of Heroes compare a mission from when the game first came out to a mission that came out with Going Rogue and you'll see a world of difference. People still find typos and misspelled words in City of Heroes older missions too.

Face it, traditionally written story content has been severely overlooked in MMOs, quests are an afterthought and the mechanics of the quests are seen as far more important. With SWTOR the story quests will be in your face and very noticable, they will have to be top quality, they will have to be fun, and they can't be skimped on.

Originally posted by Deewe

 

 Still for an MMO it might be of an hindrance: not only because it would slows the pace of game play but also because V.O. dialogs tend to get old faster than... quest you don't even read.

 

I honestly welcome tht.

Originally posted by AvatarBlade

Originally posted by Metentso

Originally posted by AvatarBlade

Originally posted by Malevil

 

I can undestand that native english speakers could enjoy full VO, but imo focusing too much on VO is waste of resources. I dont think all those spanish, germans and other european nations will be as much excited about english VO as NA. And it makes potentional expansion to east (Korea China) much more expensive if they would want to do full VO for them.

Well, as a comparison to that, I like seeing movies in their native language with subtitles and hate when they are dubbed, because I think a lot of the acting is lost with dubs. My case ofcourse.

And I think the game is being dubbed in german french and spanish, right?

I have no idea, it was more about you saying non-english speakers would not care about it or mind it. I realise many would probably prefer it be dubbed, not arguing that.

     The game is being done in English, French, and  German.  Apparently you will only get the version that most fits your area when you buy it, BUT can download a patch for the other languages.  The basic info is listed on the main website while the details were talked about in an interview sometime before Gamescon.

I honestly think V.O. is a step in the right direction. Games that do it well tend to feel more 'alive'. However, I think the V.O. is basically window dressing. It's a really nice touch, but doesn't really make the game. Even for the single player games, I'd have enjoyed DA almost as much without the V.O. I'm just glad it looks like they didn't dump all their resources into V.O.s without leaving enough to polish the core of the game. To be honest, I'll probably only really pay attention to the dialogue the first time through (maybe once for each side). Unless the story is surprisingly excellent, I'll pay attention enough to get the gist of it, and fly through the content. With only a few exceptions, I've found most game stories to be sub-par to that of a good book or movie.

Originally posted by Sulaa

Originally posted by Thekandy

Originally posted by Sulaa

 Especially when I do remember voice over from DA2 I get shivers , that was totally awful , kinda put me off from this game even before boredom of all filler combat and simplicity of it convinced me to totally drop it.

Oh come on, DA2 had many faults, but the voicework was generally well done.

I don't think you get it. I did not want that my character use voice. Not to mention all this dialogue cut scenes which kinda irritated me (i prefer longer and more comlex text conversations than short frequent simple voice overs)and that dialogues were oversimlified , and that might be because of voice over as it cost alot.

Here's a novel and unique idea: don't play the game if you don't want voiceover and cutscenes.

Another novel and unique idea: familiarize yourself with the various game companies and developers. See what they excel at. I'll give you a hint: BioWare's been known for more than a decade for story-driven games with copious amounts of voice acting and quite a lot of pre-rendered cutscenes.

If that sort of thing doesn't generally appeal to you as a gamer, then perhaps that sort of game really isn't for you.

Just a thought.

Also, I'm not a part of the so-called "ADD generation," I do not have ADD/ADHD, and I found that comment offensive, insulting, and generally asinine. Voiceover and cutscenes have jackall to do with having anything done for players or handed to them, in my personal opinion. In a story-driven RPG, they have to do with immersion and drawing players into the story. Ever played Xenosaga or a Final Fantasy game? They're heavy on cutscenes as well - many of the Japanese games I've played over the past 25 years or so have been (and I've found many of the stories in those games to be brilliant). So is just about every game BioWare has ever put out that I've ever played. It's not about whatever point you thought you might have been making, it's about the idiotic and deliberately offensive way you chose to make it.

There should be a rule that if you don't bother coming back to your own threads that they should be closed down. Drive by's should never be encouraged. 

Re. VO and cutscenes (even though you don't mention the latter, to talk about VOs, one has to remember the cutscenes as well)

No, it really wasn't.

Unfortunately, when you throw in the two little words, "Star" and "Wars" into the mix, reason is swallowed up by obscene hype and fanboyism. People just don't want to realise it now, but it will create a horrible experience as it goes on - unless you really, really, really, and I mean, REALLY like themeparks. 

People keep losing sight that this isn't an RPG. It's an MMO. It will be fun the first time around, but it will very quickly lose its charm once the novelty has worn off.

V.O. on it's own is definitely a step forward for the genre. But listening to some long-winded story  to kill 10 space boars is as tedious as reading about it, if not more so.

As for the cutscenes on their own - the story will be great, but it will suck for immersion in the long run. The RPer in me already cringes at how immersion breaking it will be to be hailed as someone with great potential, and then, when you get to the quest destination, there will be 50 other people there, all with the same "great potential". Or how every pilot out there has essentially the same romantic partner.

One also has to remember content patches and expacs. Will they VO + have cutscenes for everything? That's going to eat a significant chunk of their budget. And f they elect NOT to voice act everything, then it will create a severe disconnect - play AoC past level 20 and see what I mean.

I truly want to believe everything will be okay. The VO/cutscenes were a great pull for me. I hated how in RPGs, after this great story, everything suddenly ends for your character. It's like after the game is done he ceases to exist. Being able to extend the life and story of that character is great and this MMO provides that. But the more I think about it, the more I am conflicted. It will certainly feel a little foolish to experience this great character story, only to meet thousands others experiencing the same thing. It will cheapen the whole immersive experience of a second world for me.

Someone from Bioware said: "After you played a game with full V.O., you'll never look back". And I agree with that

Originally posted by Deewe

One can't deny V.O. story sounds nice.

Still for an MMO it might be of an hindrance: not only because it would slows the pace of game play but also because V.O. dialogs tend to get old faster than... quest you don't even read.

Then, due to the story focus, there are so many common features missing: from the guild bank down to LFG tool.

So the question is:

In the long term do you think the story will encompasses everything else?

God forbid let's try and make the game NOT just a grind where you skip all the lore/story just to grind levels as fast as possible and then get to end game to pwn noobs in PvP and grind phat purple epix lootz.

LFG tool is a bad feature - I'm glad it's missing.

Here's a pro tip - you don't have to chain run instances to grind for gear if you simply put the game's focus on something other then grinding for gear!

@empyros You just love to hate on TOR, don't you? You could write a book with all the negatives you have posted on these forums.

Originally posted by Kelthius

@empyros You just love to hate on TOR, don't you? You could write a book with all the negatives you have posted on these forums.

How is this relevant?

Make a proper rebuttal instead of making an ad hominem attack, or don't bother responding at all.

Originally posted by Deewe

One can't deny V.O. story sounds nice.

 

Still for an MMO it might be of an hindrance: not only because it would slows the pace of game play but also because V.O. dialogs tend to get old faster than... quest you don't even read.

 

Then, due to the story focus, there are so many common features missing: from the guild bank down to LFG tool.

 

So the question is:

In the long term do you think the story will encompasses everything else?

Story is what mmo's where lacking, today mmo players just want to rush to the max level skipping content, this nasty trend was set into full spead in WoW. WoW made mmo players lazy and took the real reason players like myself feel in love with mmorpgs to begin with.

I play mmo's to enjoy my character progression, the story like a old school console rpg, I enjoy the feeling of being in a magical world unlike our own, to me this is what a real mmorpg is about, the other stuff that people seem to be use is a bonus to me.

If you haven't yet played a Bioware game to see what i'm talking about, do it, right now im playing Mass Effect 2 and good god am I sucked in, it's almost like i'm in a interactive movie, if SWTOR is anything like Mass Effects story telling then I am hooked and millions of other will be to.

I do think that the VO was worth it. I loved DA, but I don't think I would have enjoyed it half as much without the VO. It's what really got me into the story and the characters. For this same reason, I liked WC3 a lot more than WoW. All the characters in WoW seemed rather lifeless. I'd much rather spend my time listening to a VO story than reading half assed quest text.

The Issues here are 

1) New content won't just be a 'oh we threw in a couple new quests this week', it'll probably only be full blown expansion or major content patches (like 3 times a year ones).

2) Funcom's problem.  If the game isn't amazingly successful, then they'll probably drop VO altogether,

Originally posted by BigAndShiny

The Issues here are 

1) New content won't just be a 'oh we threw in a couple new quests this week', it'll probably only be full blown expansion or major content patches (like 3 times a year ones).

As long as there is enough content, I don't think the patches will be much of a problem. Blizzard is notorious for taking their time releasing patches. "The new patch will be out Soon™"

2) Funcom's problem.  If the game isn't amazingly successful, then they'll probably drop VO altogether,

This, I do see being a problem.

Originally posted by Kelthius

Ad hominem?

If you're unfamiliar with what that means, you can find the definition in any dictionary site.

You act as though everything you say is a fact.

No, that is entirely your interpretation. Do i seriously have to preface everything I say with "IN MY OPINION" or "I THINK" or "FOR ME"? I am writing the post, of course it would be my opinion. Whose else would it be? If it were a fact, I'd cite the source. 

[[ I could have brought up Kotaku's (I think) review of SWTOR quests and about how dull and generic they are, but I didn't because it was an old review -- so I'm not going to twist things simply to cast a negative light on the subject which is something you accuse me of doing. ]]

Stop projecting. 

I do think (think not know) that the VO was worth it. I loved DA, but I don't think I would have enjoyed it half as much without the VO. It's what really got me into the story and the characters. For this same reason, I liked WC3 a lot more than WoW. All the characters in WoW seemed rather lifeless. I'd much rather spend my time listening to a VO story than reading half assed quest text. All my opinion though, not a fact. 

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. Not that it addressed any of the points I raised, but whatever.

 

Phew, that is really a difficult question. I am not sure about this.

On the one hand, I totally LOATHE reading mindless text boxes. That was so boring and mind numbing! So VO is a real step ahead for me. On the other hand, it costs a lot, which means a lot money wasn't there for many gameplay improvements, VO are a huge moneysink, and the content/details can't be altered easily, since VO sort of makes quick changes impossible.

So I am 50/50 for both opinions.

Originally posted by empyros

Re. VO and cutscenes (even though you don't mention the latter, to talk about VOs, one has to remember the cutscenes as well)

 

No, it really wasn't.

Yes, it really is, imagine playing any single player game with no voice, I can guarantee people will drop the game in less than an hour, MMO is the same, presentation of the story is extremely important to keep players interested. But then again, the MMO genre is destroyed by people who likes to rush to endgame, hopefully you aren't one of those, or I'll just be wasting my time.

Unfortunately, when you throw in the two little words, "Star" and "Wars" into the mix, reason is swallowed up by obscene hype and fanboyism. People just don't want to realise it now, but it will create a horrible experience as it goes on - unless you really, really, really, and I mean, REALLY like themeparks. 

This paragraph is too bias, firstly, there is nothing wrong with "obscene hype and fanboyism", it just shows how popular the genre can be, people are entitle to their own liking of any game. Admittingly, it can also bring a lot of hating and trolling since people are as informed to all mechanics of the games as others. In my view, hype/fanboy > trolling/hating, at least fanboys want games to succeed, yet haters just wants the game to fail, which is never good for the overall market.

Secondly, there is nothing wrong with themepark games, yet you make them sound like some sort of trash. In the current games, none of the games can really be called great themepark games, since they just made you to go treadmill runs of dungeons, which isn't what themepark is solely about. Themepark is about a guided path that leads you to different areas of the game world, not just dungeons.

People keep losing sight that this isn't an RPG. It's an MMO. It will be fun the first time around, but it will very quickly lose its charm once the novelty has worn off.

As far as I know, all Bioware games have more replayability than any MMORPG out there. When you are having a second playthrough, your story and choices can be different, which leads to different voice overs and cutscenes. Also Bioware has repeatedly stated that they are going to bring RPG back to MMORPG, there is nothing novel about RPG, it was suppose to be there since the beginning, just no recent games has succeed in that department, what company is better to bring that back then one of the best developers of RPG? (You can argue whether Bioware is the best at RPG in some other thread, but as far as overall industry, Bioware is achknowledged to be the best)

V.O. on it's own is definitely a step forward for the genre. But listening to some long-winded story  to kill 10 space boars is as tedious as reading about it, if not more so.

Again, you are too far deep into the traditional MMO questing that you can't seem to imagine any possiblities beyond the "kill 10 space boars" structure. Sure the game is going to ask you to kill something, or capture something, but what game doesn't? Presenting an objective to the player is the most fundamental idea behind creating a game, but it is the presentation of the objective that separates great games from the shitty ones.

As for the "long-winded story", well thats up to you to decide for yourself, no story will appeal to everyone, maybe you don't even like stories, you seem like the sandbox type with your themepark bashing.

As for the cutscenes on their own - the story will be great, but it will suck for immersion in the long run. The RPer in me already cringes at how immersion breaking it will be to be hailed as someone with great potential, and then, when you get to the quest destination, there will be 50 other people there, all with the same "great potential". Or how every pilot out there has essentially the same romantic partner.

No devs has said anything about "someone with great potential" you could easily be 'just another recruit'. Even so, there is nothing wrong with one thousand guys being "someone with great potential", but there is something wrong with everyone being 'the saviour of the galaxy' or 'the villain of the story'. Sometimes it is hard for devs to create a story with no heroes, because that means you can't achieve anything without someone else doing the some as you did, you probably have to look past that if you want to experience any kind of RPG is a MMO setting. Bioware actually tried to differentiate players with the use of multi-story branching and morality choices, so minimum amount of players will have the exact same story and choices, at least they are bringing something new to it.

One also has to remember content patches and expacs. Will they VO + have cutscenes for everything? That's going to eat a significant chunk of their budget. And f they elect NOT to voice act everything, then it will create a severe disconnect - play AoC past level 20 and see what I mean.

If you are already worrying/complaining about future expansion packs, well how can people not see this as "hating"?

I truly want to believe everything will be okay. The VO/cutscenes were a great pull for me. I hated how in RPGs, after this great story, everything suddenly ends for your character. It's like after the game is done he ceases to exist. Being able to extend the life and story of that character is great and this MMO provides that. But the more I think about it, the more I am conflicted. It will certainly feel a little foolish to experience this great character story, only to meet thousands others experiencing the same thing. It will cheapen the whole immersive experience of a second world for me.

I'm not sure I'm getting what you are saying, so you want a MMORPG, yet you want the Single player experience of being "the only one"?

As for why others have call you "love to hate on TOR", you can't really blame them, most of your argument and worries aren't even VO or cutscene related, but more on the general design choices SWTOR made, such as Star Wars IP and its fanboys, players having the same achievements/stories, arguing whether it is a MMO or RPG. 

Here is your rebuttal.