I think it worked well for TOR and DCUO. And DCUO even was able to bring back some of the original VO actors for a recent DLC.

It can work.

SWTOR proved that it definately does work. The problems with SWTOR are not the story or voice work, it's everything else. Confined areas, lackluster endgame, bad PvP. The story and voices are the best thing going for it. The level process has been improved in SWTOR, it is definately more fun doing the quests than in other MMOs. The problem they have is the lack of exploration available 'around' those quests.

I even wish GW2 took a more SWTOR story appraoch with the dynamic events to give them more meaning. Instead of.. 'flies are gathering around the streetlamps.. we must kill them all' or 'giant bog creature, must kill it'. I know the story and reasons are there in GW2 but damn are they hard to get without effort, especially if you join in with an event half way through.. you'll never know what the hell is going on or why.

Originally posted by Karteli

Originally posted by Theocritus
   Voice acting works really well in single player games, not well at all in MMOs.....In fact it often ruins my immersion in a MMO when it is used.

I'm not promoting other games, but even though I have only minor interest in GW2, I did watch a segment on the voice overs they did.  I was left with my mouth open when the video finished.

 

Essentially they do their voice acting in real time with the game, without cutscenes .. at least for the scripted events.  So you hear stuff from the NPC's while you are free to move around and watch them from any angle you choose (as they do whatever they do with their own story).  Or you can wander away while they are still talking.  You can choose to follow them as they talk if you are interested in what they have to say / what they intend to do.

 

This was a major complaint I had with SWTOR (still below crappy engine and crappy customer service though).  Players should not be removed from the game world during NPC interaction.  Players speaking to NPC's should still be subjected to PVP, for instance.  SWTOR just has too much instancing, phasing, and removal of players from the world during "story".  How SWTOR was implemented ruined the sense of being in an MMO.

 

There is no dialog wheel in GW2 though.  So every game has it's pluses and minuses.  I sort of liked the dialog wheel, even if it only affected short-term results.

 

Edit: It should be noted though that GW2 does have it's share of bland forced no-interaction (removal of avatar from world) cutscenes.  I was speaking to only highlights I've seen that were nice that were not avatar removals.  I'd be more of a fan of in-game sequences, rather than uncontrollable video clips.  I don't know how many in-game sequences exist in GW2, but I like what I saw.

 Very good post on how VO can be PROPERLY implemented in an MMORPG.

VO is basically a tool, and like any tool, it can be used well or poorly.  I really hate when games, especially MMORPGs, force you into constant cutscenes so they can subject you to their cinematic VO sequences.  It's okay in moderation, but when it becomes frequent, it's a major pain.

On the other hand, as Karteli says, VO can be awesome when it is used to just enhance your normal gameplay experience.  One of my favorite uses of VO in GW2 is simply when your character will scream out "My leg!" when they get crippled or something similar when you get another debuff or a buff.  This isn't that much VO at all, but it's great because it gives you an immediate audio cue to tell you that you have been debuffed.  It makes it so I can stay "in the game" more, and not be constantly eyeing the active effects area of the UI to see what buffs/debuffs I am under.

Another shining example of how VO can be used effectively is the game Bastion.  In that game, there is a narrator that basically narrates what you are doing.  If you kill a bunch of monsters, he will talk about it.  If you find a new area, he will tell you about it.  This is all while you are playing the game.

Originally posted by Enigmatus
Honestly, SWTOR's main problem is that it focuses too heavily on an aspect of MMOs that generally has no real long term benefit.

I'd say the main problem is that SWTOR focuses too heavily on things that CANNOT be done well in an MMO. They just can't.

You either have to gut the game to the point where it isn't an MMO, or you gimp the story.

You cannot tell an effective story about your character, the hero, when the game world doesn't change to reflect anything you've done. Once you leave the instance, nothing has changed. What's more, to keep people subscribed you have to pad the quests with pointless busy work. Not to mention the combat won't be nearly as good as a singleplayer game.

Leave singleplayer games to singleplayer games.

You don't promote a lasting community that'll keep paying for your game by giving them solo instances and NPC companions.

Originally posted by Xerith

If they added things like housing, gambling, swoop racing, real space combat, customizing ships, better class progression, and meaningful crafting they would not have to add the addition of any real voice acting. 

Totally agree with this point...

I think also a more clearly defined way to get High-End PvE Armor through FP's, Ops, and Crafting is needed as well...They should look at the way LOTRO does this...It's very good IMHO, and keeps you grinding for the next great thing...And as you move up in End Game Armor so do the challenges...But different areas also offer great recipes for Crafters...I'm sure other MMO's do this as well...Which is why I was really shocked SWTOR's formula was so primative...

here's the thing, in my opinion.  SWTOR wasn't a bad game because of a story progresssion, it was a bad game because they focused everything into that ONE aspect and didn't bother to really do anything else with the rest.  Basically the story was great, but the game itself was garbage.

Story doesn't ruin a game, in fact voice acting and a class story can greatly enhance it in my opinion.  However, like anything else in life and in this industry, if you put too much of one thing into something, everything else gets lost.  It's like cooking, just because you like curry powder doesn't mean you can ignore the rest of the ingredients.

SWTOR messed up by clinging to the one thing they did well and hoping to glide along and get by with substandard everything else.  All they did was prove that story can work, but you need a good game to back it up.

Originally posted by purewitz
SWTOR's only problem is people complaining about a game that is the first MMORPG to be made by Bioware. They never made a MMO before TOR, so cut them some slack. Previously they only made single player games. So if anyone complaining can do better then do so.

 Blizzard never made an MMORPG before WoW.  Origin never made one before UO.  989 Studios or Verant, or whatever you want to call them never made one before EQ.

Not really an excuse...

In fact, it seems that most MMORPGs made by people with experience...tend to not live up to their original project:

Asheron's Call 2, EQ2, WAR, etc.

Originally posted by purewitz
SWTOR's only problem is people complaining about a game that is the first MMORPG to be made by Bioware. They never made a MMO before TOR, so cut them some slack. Previously they only made single player games. So if anyone complaining can do better then do so.

Mythic's first MMORPG was fantastic. So was Verant's. So was Origin's. So was Turbine's.

I found the story questlines to be decent but nothing special. The questing in SWTOR is just plain boring and unimaginative. So is pretty much the rest of the gameplay. The PvP is worthless. The space component rapidly degenerates into a repetitive. The crafting is about the only really interesting thing in the game...and that is not saying much.

The voice acting is a nice touch, but is ruined by the corny Playschool style art and animations that look like they were designed for 10 year olds.

The class story worked fine.  Maybe it wasn't perfect but nothing is.

However it was simply not enough to be the centerpoint of an MMO.  Especially when you only get one mini-episode per level.  In the end SWTOR was still just a quest based tank and spank game like any other, but they spent ass tons of time and resources on a feature that could not be the foudnation of the game.

Compared to the design choice of GW2 where they chose to spend a majority of their time on DEs and even delayed the game development by large amounts to create a framework with which to create the rest of the game, you could say it didn't work as a foudnational feature in the way that DE's do.

But if you are saying never put something like the personal story of SWTOR in an MMO I think that is silly. Its a fine addition you just can't base your entire game around it as an MMO.  GW2 still has something that is very much like SWTOR personal story and if they based their entire game around it instead of DE's they would be far less successful than they are now.  I wouldn't tell Anet to take out the personal story (even if some of them are rather flat)

Originally posted by solarine

If anything, it proved linear class story and voice acting *can* work in an MMO. Because, you know, most people stuck around till they completed their class stories.

The leaving, that came when those players hit the brick wall that is "the standard MMO endgame". That is: Raiding, heroic dungeons, PVP battlegrounds, large persistent PVP zone...

So, if anything in SWTOR didn't work, it was the standard MMO stuff. The story and voice acting worked as well as could be  expected.

Next time, Bioware: When faced with the same two choices, go with your own stuff, not the WOW raiding/PVP instancing stuff.

It proved voice acting CAN work in an MMO if it's done right. That means restricted to class stories, integrating action rather than dull talky scenes and allowing the player real choices. In the case of SWTOR it was NOT done right.

Originally posted by purewitz
SWTOR's only problem is people complaining about a game that is the first MMORPG to be made by Bioware. They never made a MMO before TOR, so cut them some slack. Previously they only made single player games. So if anyone complaining can do better then do so.

Are you trying to say that people should buy worse products because those products are made by less experienced people who can't be expected to make better? Communism might work that way, but capitalism doesn't. 

Inexperience might be an execuse for a small indie developer, not for one of the largest game developers when they launch the most expensive MMO ever created.

I don't think that SWTOR proved anything against linear class story and voice acting. Both linear story and voice acting are present in Wizard 101 and the game does well enough. I think the problem isn't so much with any single design decision made while doing SWTOR, it's Bioware's inability to make a fun game as a whole.

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by purewitz
SWTOR's only problem is people complaining about a game that is the first MMORPG to be made by Bioware. They never made a MMO before TOR, so cut them some slack. Previously they only made single player games. So if anyone complaining can do better then do so.

 Blizzard never made an MMORPG before WoW.  Origin never made one before UO.  989 Studios or Verant, or whatever you want to call them never made one before EQ.

Not really an excuse...

In fact, it seems that most MMORPGs made by people with experience...tend to not live up to their original project:

Asheron's Call 2, EQ2, WAR, etc.

Ok I agree its no excuse. I forgot about those other companies. Also what's wrong with EQ2? I'm not big on fantasy mmos, but I think its better than WoW.

You know in the end, I would have been happy if Sony and Lucas Arts would have just added a voiced personal story system to Star Wars Galaxies. I really only moved on to TOR because SWG was being shutdown. NGE (New Game Enhancement) SWG was my favorite MMO. I played SWG through thick and thin from 2004 to the end. I played the pre-cu era, the cu (combat upgrade0, and nge. For me SWG was and still is the best mmo ever to me.

Originally posted by purewitz

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by purewitz
SWTOR's only problem is people complaining about a game that is the first MMORPG to be made by Bioware. They never made a MMO before TOR, so cut them some slack. Previously they only made single player games. So if anyone complaining can do better then do so.

 Blizzard never made an MMORPG before WoW.  Origin never made one before UO.  989 Studios or Verant, or whatever you want to call them never made one before EQ.

Not really an excuse...

In fact, it seems that most MMORPGs made by people with experience...tend to not live up to their original project:

Asheron's Call 2, EQ2, WAR, etc.

Ok I agree its no excuse. I forgot about those other companies. Also what's wrong with EQ2? I'm not big on fantasy mmos, but I think its better than WoW.

You know in the end, I would have been happy if Sony and Lucas Arts would have just added a voiced personal story system to Star Wars Galaxies. I really only moved on to TOR because SWG was being shutdown. NGE (New Game Enhancement) SWG was my favorite MMO. I played SWG through thick and thin from 2004 to the end. I played the pre-cu era, the cu (combat upgrade0, and nge. For me SWG was and still is the best mmo ever to me.

IMO if they had layered some of SWTOR on top of the base mechanics or SWG.  Ie. replace SWG the combat engine for SWTOR's and maybe replace the NGE classes with SWTOR's classes, put in the personal story and some quests, But leave SWG crafting, keeping itemization more like SWG so that crafting was kept correct, Keep SWG jump to light year.  That would be a pretty sweet game.

Unfortunately SOE had the code for SWG.  And even worse the code for SWG was notrious as spaghetti code that was awful to maintain and using would take more time than recoding it from scratch.  That seems crazy to most non-developers but its true.  Reusing SWG for anything other than design ideas probably wouldn't have worked out well.

SWTOR proved that slapping "story" and expensive VoiceOvers over a utter **** mmo will not work.

Originally posted by skydiver12

SWTOR proved that slapping "story" and expensive VoiceOvers over a utter **** mmo will not work.

 

^THIS. Very very much this!