Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by Drakxii

Well I am part of the few that like a voiceless hero and read quest text.   I rather have no choices then the illision of choice.  So take this with a grain of salt.

 

I don't think 100% voice is a bad idea but like others said it needs to be the topping not the main course like it is in SWTOR.  I just don't think the game let alone the ciche predictable storys could stand on their own.   

 

Also I still hate the Lie Wheel.

The highlighted red text is factually false.

Going through the trooper quest line again and I'm seeing very different results/VO due to a choice I made 2-3 hours ago.

But what you may not understand is that no matter what choices you make, your story will end @ 50 the same way as every other troopers.  So, its still an illusion.

Plus sidequests do not impact main story... 

full voice over for the entire game is overrated.
 
As soon as you start spending more time in dialogue than it takes to actually complete the quest (not including travel time), this is when the game really disappointed.

It was a very poor design choice by Bioware because the voice acting loses its novelty very quickly from overuse. If they used it more sparingly for only the important quests, I think they would have better succeeded in that department because people would be less eager to skip the content to get back to playing the game.

But instead it becomes more of an annoyance because it distracts you from the game by constantly interrupting you. I don't consider sitting through chat dialogue making worthless decisions for mundane quests, to be meaningful gameplay.

It gets especially tedious when you come to a new quest hub and you see a crowd of quest NPC's staring you in the face, as you know its going to take you at least 10 minutes to simply pick up the quests if you actually intend to listen to the voice acting.

The VOs were a complete waste of money in my opinion. A few VOs here and there for the intresting quests (not many of those) would've been fine. But most VOs really added nothing to the game. I really hope future MMOs stay away from the swtor way of doing quests.

Voice overs are great, especially for the story missions. They really add to the immersion. However, I feel that BioWare went too far with them as far as the planet missions go. I mean, if an NPC wants me to kill 10 space rats, must I listen to his whole life story before hand?

Originally posted by arieste

First of all - if you're like me and you've always thought that wasting most of the game's budget on voice was a terrible idea, then you need not reply, i already know your opinion :) 

 

What I'm curious about is the updated opinions of the folks that - prior to the game's launch - thought it was going to be a game-changer and the greatest thing since leia's slave outfit.  

 

I'm seeing more and more people - people who're avid fans of the game - admit that really, having every single dialogue voiced gets to be a bit of a drag (at best) or downright annoying (at worst).

 

So, to you that were excited the voicing, are you still excited about it?  Are you looking forward to LISTENING to 200 more "kill 10 rats" quests with generic dialogue that is fully voiced?   Or would you rather see the dialogue scaled back to the more important & interesting areas of the game, parts that actually have interesting story and characters whose names you might actually remember?  

 

 

 

 

 

I've got several characters in the 30s and i'm now just spacebarring through all the cutscenes thesedays, even the character story. I just don't have time to listen to all that guff and run around for twenty minutes between missions. The distances between mission givers and missions is a nightmare. It takes twice as long as other games to get the simpliest things done.

The voice acting and cutscenes were great at first, now they just get in the way of me playing the game and the short amounts of time I have to play.

I remember when AoC came out and everyone criticised it for having no cutscenes or voice acting outside of Tortage, because it felt 'unfinished' now i'm thinking FunCom were right.

Originally posted by smh_alot
I think a lot of people aren't being completely truthful: when AoC had its voice overs extensively up to L20, I didn't hear people say 'fuck, why did they do that? I don't want cutscenes, dialogue choices and VO, I want my normal textbased questing'. Nope, instead most of the times I heard 'AoC sucks, the first 20 levels questing is great and then they switch to the same old questing that I done before'.

 

No one complained about the first 20 levels of cutscenes in AoC because it was possible to do Tortage in just few hours and then get out into the game proper. It's not just the cutscenes that are time consuming in SWTOR it's the running between mission hubs and mission. It Tortage everything was within reach and felt natural. In TOR I daren't count up all the minutes i've had to waste running back to my ship via a starport, then a lift loading screen, then a run across a hanger, then a cutscene of the ship taking off etc... What a waste of time and not at all immersive, just annoying. Thank God for the spacebar.

As for text based mmos, the greatest RPG of all time, Planescape, had pages and pages of text. Nothing wrong with text at all. I don't think cutscenes are more immersive (the most immersive mmos didn't have them) they are just a gimic in my opinion.

Originally posted by sekira

full voice over for the entire game is overrated.
 
As soon as you start spending more time in dialogue than it takes to actually complete the quest (not including travel time), this is when the game really disappointed.

It was a very poor design choice by Bioware because the voice acting loses its novelty very quickly from overuse. If they used it more sparingly for only the important quests, I think they would have better succeeded in that department because people would be less eager to skip the content to get back to playing the game.

But instead it becomes more of an annoyance because it distracts you from the game by constantly interrupting you. I don't consider sitting through chat dialogue making worthless decisions for mundane quests, to be meaningful gameplay.

It gets especially tedious when you come to a new quest hub and you see a crowd of quest NPC's staring you in the face, as you know its going to take you at least 10 minutes to simply pick up the quests if you actually intend to listen to the voice acting.

Good post... and then another 15 minutes running to where the mission is.

Originally posted by Matt_UK

Originally posted by arieste

First of all - if you're like me and you've always thought that wasting most of the game's budget on voice was a terrible idea, then you need not reply, i already know your opinion :) 

 

What I'm curious about is the updated opinions of the folks that - prior to the game's launch - thought it was going to be a game-changer and the greatest thing since leia's slave outfit.  

 

I'm seeing more and more people - people who're avid fans of the game - admit that really, having every single dialogue voiced gets to be a bit of a drag (at best) or downright annoying (at worst).

 

So, to you that were excited the voicing, are you still excited about it?  Are you looking forward to LISTENING to 200 more "kill 10 rats" quests with generic dialogue that is fully voiced?   Or would you rather see the dialogue scaled back to the more important & interesting areas of the game, parts that actually have interesting story and characters whose names you might actually remember?  

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've got several characters in the 30s and i'm now just spacebarring through all the cutscenes thesedays, even the character story. I just don't have time to listen to all that guff and run around for twenty minutes between missions. The distances between mission givers and missions is a nightmare. It takes twice as long as other games to get the simpliest things done.

 

The voice acting and cutscenes were great at first, now they just get in the way of me playing the game and the short amounts of time I have to play.

 

I remember when AoC came out and everyone criticised it for having no cutscenes or voice acting outside of Tortage, because it felt 'unfinished' now i'm thinking FunCom were right.

Aoc dident Fail because they dident have voice overs after Tortage. It Failed because they couldent fix the Bugs fast enough. and the main story of AOC still had voice overs after Tortage... When you get your Tatoo removed etc.  I would go so far as to say that if Funcom had waited about 1 year before releasing the game, and had put in some more mayor plot lines after Tortage with voice over.. the game would have been a smash hit.

Also AOCs combat system was very skilled based from the begining, Items dident have a big Impact, you could kill people 20 plus levels above you without anny problem. But many Tab Target ability spam people couldent handle it, they got PAWNED horribly, because they lacked player skill. This also put many people off the product, they just couldent handle getting Rolf stomped by superior players. Another thing was Lack of content, after doing villas after villas ( small instances) to level my charecter it became boring....

Point being, If FUNCOM had explained more about the combat, had special training programs for NOOBS from other MMOS, Devs holding combat lessons in a BG Enviorment maybe?  And had enough conent so you dident have to do the same things over and over plus had about 80% less bugs at Release AOC would have been one of the largest MMOS today...

Also if they had released with a functioning Seige mechanic.. It could have held peoples Interest for years..

For players it's not that big of a deal since you can skip it. But for developer to spend so much money on it just to see players skipping dialgoues is not encouraging.

Not in this case though. 100% VO was TOR's main selling point. The fact it was never done to such extent befor made it exciting enough for masses to buy the game and try it out. Just like 3D. Who cares if it is a good idea, it's fresh and exciting enough to sel. Mission accomplished.

Originally posted by Zlayer77

Originally posted by Matt_UK

Originally posted by arieste

First of all - if you're like me and you've always thought that wasting most of the game's budget on voice was a terrible idea, then you need not reply, i already know your opinion :) 

 

What I'm curious about is the updated opinions of the folks that - prior to the game's launch - thought it was going to be a game-changer and the greatest thing since leia's slave outfit.  

 

I'm seeing more and more people - people who're avid fans of the game - admit that really, having every single dialogue voiced gets to be a bit of a drag (at best) or downright annoying (at worst).

 

So, to you that were excited the voicing, are you still excited about it?  Are you looking forward to LISTENING to 200 more "kill 10 rats" quests with generic dialogue that is fully voiced?   Or would you rather see the dialogue scaled back to the more important & interesting areas of the game, parts that actually have interesting story and characters whose names you might actually remember?  

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've got several characters in the 30s and i'm now just spacebarring through all the cutscenes thesedays, even the character story. I just don't have time to listen to all that guff and run around for twenty minutes between missions. The distances between mission givers and missions is a nightmare. It takes twice as long as other games to get the simpliest things done.

 

The voice acting and cutscenes were great at first, now they just get in the way of me playing the game and the short amounts of time I have to play.

 

I remember when AoC came out and everyone criticised it for having no cutscenes or voice acting outside of Tortage, because it felt 'unfinished' now i'm thinking FunCom were right.

Aoc dident Fail because they dident have voice overs after Tortage. It Failed because they couldent fix the Bugs fast enough. and the main story of AOC still had voice overs after Tortage... When you get your Tatoo removed etc.  I would go so far as to say that if Funcom had waited about 1 year before releasing the game, and had put in some more mayor plot lines after Tortage with voice over.. the game would have been a smash hit.

Also AOCs combat system was very skilled based from the begining, Items dident have a big Impact, you could kill people 20 plus levels above you without anny problem. But many Tab Target ability spam people couldent handle it, they got PAWNED horribly, because they lacked player skill. This also put many people off the product, they just couldent handle getting Rolf stomped by superior players. Another thing was Lack of content, after doing villas after villas ( small instances) to level my charecter it became boring....

Point being, If FUNCOM had explained more about the combat, had special training programs for NOOBS from other MMOS, Devs holding combat lessons in a BG Enviorment maybe?  And had enough conent so you dident have to do the same things over and over plus had about 80% less bugs at Release AOC would have been one of the largest MMOS today...

I didn't say it failed because there was no voice acting after 20, I said it was criticised. Read my post properly please.

I just realised you said it wasn't the lack of voice acting why it failed, it was the bugs, and then say if there was voice acting after 20 it would have been a smash hit. So the bugs wouldn't have mattered then if the game was better designed?

Originally posted by SanHor
 

For players it's not that big of a deal since you can skip it. But for developer to spend so much money on it just to see players skipping dialgoues is not encouraging.

Not in this case though. 100% VO was TOR's main selling point. The fact it was never done to such extent befor made it exciting enough for masses to buy the game and try it out. Just like 3D. Who cares if it is a good idea, it's fresh and exciting enough to sel. Mission accomplished.

Well I didn't buy it because it was 100% VO. I bought it because I love the SW universe.

Only an idiot would buy it on the premise of VO alone.

3D sucks as well.

Originally posted by Matt_UK

Originally posted by Zlayer77

Originally posted by Matt_UK

Originally posted by arieste

First of all - if you're like me and you've always thought that wasting most of the game's budget on voice was a terrible idea, then you need not reply, i already know your opinion :) 

 

What I'm curious about is the updated opinions of the folks that - prior to the game's launch - thought it was going to be a game-changer and the greatest thing since leia's slave outfit.  

 

I'm seeing more and more people - people who're avid fans of the game - admit that really, having every single dialogue voiced gets to be a bit of a drag (at best) or downright annoying (at worst).

 

So, to you that were excited the voicing, are you still excited about it?  Are you looking forward to LISTENING to 200 more "kill 10 rats" quests with generic dialogue that is fully voiced?   Or would you rather see the dialogue scaled back to the more important & interesting areas of the game, parts that actually have interesting story and characters whose names you might actually remember?  

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've got several characters in the 30s and i'm now just spacebarring through all the cutscenes thesedays, even the character story. I just don't have time to listen to all that guff and run around for twenty minutes between missions. The distances between mission givers and missions is a nightmare. It takes twice as long as other games to get the simpliest things done.

 

The voice acting and cutscenes were great at first, now they just get in the way of me playing the game and the short amounts of time I have to play.

 

I remember when AoC came out and everyone criticised it for having no cutscenes or voice acting outside of Tortage, because it felt 'unfinished' now i'm thinking FunCom were right.

Aoc dident Fail because they dident have voice overs after Tortage. It Failed because they couldent fix the Bugs fast enough. and the main story of AOC still had voice overs after Tortage... When you get your Tatoo removed etc.  I would go so far as to say that if Funcom had waited about 1 year before releasing the game, and had put in some more mayor plot lines after Tortage with voice over.. the game would have been a smash hit.

Also AOCs combat system was very skilled based from the begining, Items dident have a big Impact, you could kill people 20 plus levels above you without anny problem. But many Tab Target ability spam people couldent handle it, they got PAWNED horribly, because they lacked player skill. This also put many people off the product, they just couldent handle getting Rolf stomped by superior players. Another thing was Lack of content, after doing villas after villas ( small instances) to level my charecter it became boring....

Point being, If FUNCOM had explained more about the combat, had special training programs for NOOBS from other MMOS, Devs holding combat lessons in a BG Enviorment maybe?  And had enough conent so you dident have to do the same things over and over plus had about 80% less bugs at Release AOC would have been one of the largest MMOS today...

 

I didn't say it failed because there was no voice acting after 20, I said it was criticised. Read my post properly please.

 

I just realised you said it wasn't the lack of voice acting why it failed, it was the bugs, and then say if there was voice acting after 20 it would have been a smash hit. So the bugs wouldn't have mattered then if the game was better designed?

What I ment was.. If they had taken more time with the game before Release. By that I mean polished the game, had enough quest 2 do, so you dident have to grind many parts of it. Explained the combat mechanics better for run of the mill MMO player who were used to TAB target/ablility spam. And on top of that added a few COOL storylines that were VO ( I say a few here) the game would have been a smash hit.

I really liked the combat, but I riged myself with a G15 keyboard, and a programable mouse, plus Im used to playing FPS games, and I have a fast RIG.. this gave me clear advantages against other players in PvP in AOC.. They should have explained to Joe Casual MMOer that, even if you are 20 levels above someone, your gear will not help you much if your Opponent stays out of reach and smacks you with a Polearm.  I had some fun with a Rouge I was level 50 and he was level 70.. I pawned him 5 times In a row, just by using movment and my Reach.. and he keept telling me I dident know how to PvP because I dident stand still. AOC is the only MMO were I have beaten people in open world fights 1vs5... Just because I understood the gaming mechanics.. For example if you wernt grouped you hit other players.. even if they were your friends or you jumped into a fight trying to help someone who was getting griefed you could end up hurting the person you were helping. I took full advantage of this.

So my point.. less Bugs, more content, and 3-5 more voiced over storylines after Tortage and Age of conan would have been a smash Hit...( and done away with the Instance thing, because it got annoying). As you can see BUGs comes at the first of the list and more voice comes last

Originally posted by smh_alot
I think a lot of people aren't being completely truthful: when AoC had its voice overs extensively up to L20, I didn't hear people say 'fuck, why did they do that? I don't want cutscenes, dialogue choices and VO, I want my normal textbased questing'. Nope, instead most of the times I heard 'AoC sucks, the first 20 levels questing is great and then they switch to the same old questing that I done before'.

 

Also, when people criticise VO and cutscenes, it's always about how it's a waste of money and that they should improve other gameplay aspects with it, but almost never do I hear 'traditional questing with text and no choices is SOOOO much better than VO/cutscene questing!'

Lol

That might be the big complaint some have now if they do. That sure as hell wasn't even close to what people were mainly complaining about at launch nor why the game did so awful at retaining players.

They didn't get the nickname 'Failcom' by many because people were upset about a lack of voiceovers or cinematics after level 20.

I've seen a few complain about this. Not even close to what the majority were upset about in that game. Anyways, there were just as many that hated how Tortage was set up from what I remember and didn't care for it so kind of moot anyhow.

Originally posted by arieste

First of all - if you're like me and you've always thought that wasting most of the game's budget on voice was a terrible idea, then you need not reply, i already know your opinion :) 

 

What I'm curious about is the updated opinions of the folks that - prior to the game's launch - thought it was going to be a game-changer and the greatest thing since leia's slave outfit.  

 

I'm seeing more and more people - people who're avid fans of the game - admit that really, having every single dialogue voiced gets to be a bit of a drag (at best) or downright annoying (at worst).

 

So, to you that were excited the voicing, are you still excited about it?  Are you looking forward to LISTENING to 200 more "kill 10 rats" quests with generic dialogue that is fully voiced?   Or would you rather see the dialogue scaled back to the more important & interesting areas of the game, parts that actually have interesting story and characters whose names you might actually remember?  

 

 

 

 

 

Voiceovers made the game much more interesting. I dont see why anyone would consider it a bad point.

Also, the vast majority of quests in SWTOR were not 'kill x mobs', those were just the bonus optional missions. In fact I dont recall ever being asked to kill a certain amount of things, that was always just a side mission, and the quests usually had a solid motive / reasoning behind them.

Listening to the voice overs is optional, you can skip ahead if you dont care about ambience or motive while you play games. Also you are working on the assumption that not having voice overs would mean a better quality base product, when the biggest constraint for the programming would have been time, not money.

I dont see why you would want less options in a video game than more?

Originally posted by Zlayer77

So my point.. less Bugs, more content, and 3-5 more voiced over storylines after Tortage and Age of conan would have been a smash Hit...( and done away with the Instance thing, because it got annoying). As you can see BUGs comes at the first of the list and more voice comes last

I agree. Although to be honest AoC was never buggy for me. I loved it. The reason I left was lack of content around 40ish. I went back recently and it seems there is more to do now.

Originally posted by Matt_UK

Originally posted by Zlayer77

So my point.. less Bugs, more content, and 3-5 more voiced over storylines after Tortage and Age of conan would have been a smash Hit...( and done away with the Instance thing, because it got annoying). As you can see BUGs comes at the first of the list and more voice comes last

 

I agree. Although to be honest AoC was never buggy for me. I loved it. The reason I left was lack of content around 40ish. I went back recently and it seems there is more to do now.

The game is nearly 100% bug free now, and the end game is very enjoyable. If you havent played the Khitai content I would recommend trying it.

I have stopped playing because the content releases were a bit slow, but I would recommend everyone try the Conan endgame, it was a lot of fun.

Originally posted by evilastro

Voiceovers made the game much more interesting. I dont see why anyone would consider it a bad point.

Also, the vast majority of quests in SWTOR were not 'kill x mobs', those were just the bonus optional missions. In fact I dont recall ever being asked to kill a certain amount of things, that was always just a side mission, and the quests usually had a solid motive / reasoning behind them.

Listening to the voice overs is optional, you can skip ahead if you dont care about ambience or motive while you play games. Also you are working on the assumption that not having voice overs would mean a better quality base product, when the biggest constraint for the programming would have been time, not money.

I dont see why you would want less options in a video game than more?

 

The problem is, as soon as one person hits the spacebar to skip a cutscene with VO, the whole idea has failed. I wonder what it would have been like if there was no spacebar skipping allowed? Maybe it should be compulsary to watch the cutscenes since they spent so much time effort and money on them?

Originally posted by evilastro

Originally posted by Matt_UK

Originally posted by Zlayer77

So my point.. less Bugs, more content, and 3-5 more voiced over storylines after Tortage and Age of conan would have been a smash Hit...( and done away with the Instance thing, because it got annoying). As you can see BUGs comes at the first of the list and more voice comes last

 

I agree. Although to be honest AoC was never buggy for me. I loved it. The reason I left was lack of content around 40ish. I went back recently and it seems there is more to do now.

The game is nearly 100% bug free now, and the end game is very enjoyable. If you havent played the Khitai content I would recommend trying it.

I have stopped playing because the content releases were a bit slow, but I would recommend everyone try the Conan endgame, it was a lot of fun.

Yes i've got a Khitai assassin. The Khitai content was the best in the game. I think I stopped because the game kept crashing when I tried to enter the next area after the initial zone, and I could never get it sorted so I rageuninstalled. Might revisit in the summer if GW2 isn't out.

Originally posted by Matt_UK

Yes i've got a Khitai assassin. The Khitai content was the best in the game. I think I stopped because the game kept crashing when I tried to enter the next area after the initial zone, and I could never get it sorted so I rageuninstalled. Might revisit in the summer if GW2 isn't out.

Haha yeah they had an issue where a giant army would be there doing drills just as you zone in. Not a great idea, so people without a large amount of ram kept crashing, and even those that did had massive slowdown. I think thats sorted now.

Regarding forcing people to watch cutscenes, I have to disagree. When doing a quest on the second or third character I like to skip them, I have already watched it and dont need to see it again. Doesnt mean that I didnt appreciate it the first time I watched it though.