I shudder to think how bad the voice over could get in a game that can't really afford to do them justice.
We'll see a F2P release running text through speech synthesizer eventually.
"Awl yer bayse ahr be long too uhs."
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Voice overs should have been the "must have feature" five years ago... these days, any big budget RPG title without dedicated voice acting just looks downright crude. The fact that players tolerate ugly text boxes instead of legitimate voice acting in quests has been one of my main complaints of the MMO genre. I hope all future big budget MMOs voice act next to everything in the future.
VO is great, as long as it isn't used to make a boring game seem better than it is.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
DEFINITELY gimmicky. Game still feels extremely non-immersive and themeparky.
I read this to my wife and asked her what she thought, ya know if the voice overs are "gimmicky".. her response,
..."No , SW:TOR doing voice overs is trying to breathe life into the MMO world , giving me care to pay attention to the story the developers wrote. Now, if you want "gimmicky", World of Warcraft doing commercials with Chuck Norris... THATS a gimmick."
Your wife is a smart woman. You should listen to her more.
I have been playing WoW for 7 years now and i still don't know what the hell happened to the series since WC3. I get the gist of it but thats about it. after playing 2 character in TOR up to lvl 20 i know who my character is, what are his role in this world and what is he trying to accomplish.
^^THIS!!!
Lore has been made MORE apparent/accessible in TOR. I haven't played the beta, just watched vids and read up on forums, but from what I gather your place in the "world" is just as special as it is in (for the sake of comparison) WoW. You have your "personal story" but it all feels like an illusion once you shared the same world with someone who didn't choose to kill some important figure that YOU killed. For me to truly appreciate the game's story I'd have to shut myself out from the rest of the world or play with a select number of people who will go through the whole ride with me.
Lore has been made MORE apparent/accessible in TOR. I haven't played the beta, just watched vids and read up on forums, but from what I gather your place in the "world" is just as special as it is in (for the sake of comparison) WoW. You have your "personal story" but it all feels like an illusion once you shared the same world with someone who didn't choose to kill some important figure that YOU killed. For me to truly appreciate the game's story I'd have to shut myself out from the rest of the world or play with a select number of people who will go through the whole ride with me.
which is why these type of story choice based games have always been single player.. but they wanted to try and mix the markets well see how it goes and if people can get past that aspect of it.
Lore has been made MORE apparent/accessible in TOR. I haven't played the beta, just watched vids and read up on forums, but from what I gather your place in the "world" is just as special as it is in (for the sake of comparison) WoW. You have your "personal story" but it all feels like an illusion once you shared the same world with someone who didn't choose to kill some important figure that YOU killed. For me to truly appreciate the game's story I'd have to shut myself out from the rest of the world or play with a select number of people who will go through the whole ride with me.
which is why these type of story choice based games have always been single player.. but they wanted to try and mix the markets well see how it goes and if people can get past that aspect of it.
I really don't see that as being a big deal. I mean we used to kill the Lich King once a week in WoW, but he just kept on trucking despite being dead. Others were killing him before I got there too, and they often talked about their victorious defeat of the Lich King, yet when I went to the frozen throne, lo and behold, the Lich King lives.... but how?
What I mean is that players are more than willing to ignore these type of timeline and story inconsistencies in an mmo because of the nature of the game. WoW would have sucked if the first time the Lich King died he was gone for good (not withstanding the fact that many think WoW sucks anyway, but you see my point).
Full voice over no now interactive voice over such as what AoC started and ToR perefected with its 3 decisions bar, yes I don't intend to try or see any MMO in the future aside from EQ next that I want to play now that ToR is upon us. Plus I always loved giving my character's even the low end alts their own idenity so this is great for building an attachment to a character even more and adds depth to RP for some.
for me the voice overs were novel at first, but after running a couple of dozen toons through the same quests I got to the point where I just wanted to smack the quest giver and scream get on with it. The voice acting is hit and miss anyway. Some of it is medicre and some is just wretched
Voiceovers are a nice feature, but the rest of the game determines how they are perceived. They're a gimmick in SWTOR because the rest of the game is weak; the voice talent and cut scenes are the focal point/best part of the game. Compare that to, say, LOTRO, where the voice talent adds to the immersion because LOTRO has great graphics and a robust world to play in.
Voice overs can add depth to a quality game, but they can't BE the game. Strip the voice talent and cut scenes from SWTOR and you're left with a Star Wars-skinned Diablo II clone.
for me the voice overs were novel at first, but after running a couple of dozen toons through the same quests I got to the point where I just wanted to smack the quest giver and scream get on with it. The voice acting is hit and miss anyway. Some of it is medicre and some is just wretched
With 8 AC's per side, and two sides, making only 16 possible classes that I can play, I doubt I will ever have to run through it a couple dozen times unless I start making dup characters just for the heck of it. By then, we are talking waaaay off, and likely more content will have been added if I ever decided to do that (which is unlikely).
It makes sense if you have done this a couple dozen times during testing that you would be very tired of the quests. You could burn out on just about anything that way. I'd also expect you to have ove ranalyzed just about everything by now.
They don't use cut scenes for quest VO's. I remember talking to an NPC about a quest and some player ran behind him, stopped for a second, then leapt off a wall in search of his next quest (I assume). It does have the potential to make for some very silly scenes, I wouldn't be surprised if some appeared on youtube not long after launch.
I can honestly say I never noticed this, if this is still true. I mean, I started a new Sith Warrior on the beta weekend, and ran into the little cave where there is a soldier that asks you to help him out. There was literally 30+ people standing around him, so much so that I could barely find him to click on him, and when I finally did, it seemed to zoom in and there was only me and him, and no one else visible at all around us. Did they change this recently or what?
I noticed that too, with the soldier in the cave I mean. The place where a player ran past the scene was in the Smuggler starter area, the first and main city you come to, just down the ramp from the speeder quick travel place. With the soldier in the cave, maybe that was an actual cut scene, as it does cut away at one point to someone lying on the floor. Perhaps there are different types of scenes for different NPC's. I don't know, I'm sure there's some logic to it somewhere.
I noticed that too, with the soldier in the cave I mean. The place where a player ran past the scene was in the Smuggler starter area, the first and main city you come to, just down the ramp from the speeder quick travel place. With the soldier in the cave, maybe that was an actual cut scene, as it does cut away at one point to someone lying on the floor. Perhaps there are different types of scenes for different NPC's. I don't know, I'm sure there's some logic to it somewhere.
It got me wondering if they were actually making anything that was within a certain radius invisible so that you see people in the background, but not in the way of the action (that would be sorta neat tech), or if it was indeed a true cut scene. Unfortunately we can't log in right now to check that out first hand.
Lore has been made MORE apparent/accessible in TOR. I haven't played the beta, just watched vids and read up on forums, but from what I gather your place in the "world" is just as special as it is in (for the sake of comparison) WoW. You have your "personal story" but it all feels like an illusion once you shared the same world with someone who didn't choose to kill some important figure that YOU killed. For me to truly appreciate the game's story I'd have to shut myself out from the rest of the world or play with a select number of people who will go through the whole ride with me.
which is why these type of story choice based games have always been single player.. but they wanted to try and mix the markets well see how it goes and if people can get past that aspect of it.
I really don't see that as being a big deal. I mean we used to kill the Lich King once a week in WoW, but he just kept on trucking despite being dead. Others were killing him before I got there too, and they often talked about their victorious defeat of the Lich King, yet when I went to the frozen throne, lo and behold, the Lich King lives.... but how?
What I mean is that players are more than willing to ignore these type of timeline and story inconsistencies in an mmo because of the nature of the game. WoW would have sucked if the first time the Lich King died he was gone for good (not withstanding the fact that many think WoW sucks anyway, but you see my point).
Actualy I'd love to see an MMO that let players have a permanent effect on the game..... i.e. once you kill a particular NPC it's dead. MUD's used to operate on that principle.... and early MMO's did as well, when they did special events.
Trick with that is that it can't just be 1 NPC... your done, you kill it....and everyone waits around 6 months with nothing to do.
The reason why MUD's were able to do it...is the amount of time it took to create an NPC and place it in the game-world was litterlay less then the time it took me to write this post.... and they had staff's of GM's (mostly volunteers but well monitored) that were actualy allowed to be GM's not glorified customer service reps. Meaning they could literaly do dozens of events a night.
Unfortunately the modern MMO scene is nothing like that. I would love to see an MMO that came out that recaptured that same feeling. Though I suspect it would be more pragmatic to look for a modern iteration of something like the NWN system....or maybe even the virtual tabletop D&D system that Wizards of the Cost played around with a bit before cancling.
I'd take a game like that over VO and cinematics any day of the week and twice on sunday.
If I want VO & cinematics I'll go see a movie......If it's a game...then I want to be able to play..... and if it's an RPG then I want to role-play.
One of my biggest pet peeves is the concept that whenever a new hot game comes out. There are always a slew of people who venture comments to the effect that....
Well game X (insert pretty much ANY new highly anticipated game in here) is doing Y, therefore EVERY new game created from now untill the end of creation MUST also do Y or it's an automatic failure.
Can't we simply accept the fact that gamers are a very diverse audience with very diverse (and often contradictory) tastes. Why do we insist that just because one game is successfull in using something that every other game must follow the exact same formula?
Heck.....plenty of people still enjoy watching old black & white movies...even though color has been around for over 60 years now.
Well game X (insert pretty much ANY new highly anticipated game in here) is doing Y, therefore EVERY new game created from now untill the end of creation MUST also do Y or it's an automatic failure.
It's just the logical reflection of "every system in game X needs to be innovative and completely new, or its an automatic failure".
In case you haven't noticed, people love to talk in absolutes only on this (or any other) forum.
The thread's predictive in nature, so any wild prediction's valid...even if not plausible.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
umm voice overs were done WAY b 4 SW....why are umaking a big deal of them now? i think u r just trying to find things wrong taht u dont like...alwasy looking at the bad not at the good
I typically hate cut scenes and VO but strangley like it in swtor, but i hope its not a trend becouse i would rather see the money and time spent doing other things to the game. everygame seems to just come up with one aspect that makes it different and then pumps that part up as to why thier game is better thean the rest.
BioWare has set a new standard. Other studios can follow, adapt, improve upon or ignore it.
It will not mean anything if 1. It takes forever to continue doing it or 2. The content after release is just terribad and hardly any of it is voiced over.
I mean yeah it is cute they are releasing, but this is not a single player rpg offline where they can give me Dragon Age 1 in 2009 and Dragon Age 2 in 2011. This is a mmo where people expect content updates at minimum 4-6 months.
Comments
We'll see a F2P release running text through speech synthesizer eventually.
"Awl yer bayse ahr be long too uhs."
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Voice overs should have been the "must have feature" five years ago... these days, any big budget RPG title without dedicated voice acting just looks downright crude. The fact that players tolerate ugly text boxes instead of legitimate voice acting in quests has been one of my main complaints of the MMO genre. I hope all future big budget MMOs voice act next to everything in the future.
VO is great, as long as it isn't used to make a boring game seem better than it is.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Your wife is a smart woman. You should listen to her more.
agreed there! also as long as its done well. Rift has some horrid voice acting in some of the world event quest. Just so awful
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
Lore has been made MORE apparent/accessible in TOR. I haven't played the beta, just watched vids and read up on forums, but from what I gather your place in the "world" is just as special as it is in (for the sake of comparison) WoW. You have your "personal story" but it all feels like an illusion once you shared the same world with someone who didn't choose to kill some important figure that YOU killed. For me to truly appreciate the game's story I'd have to shut myself out from the rest of the world or play with a select number of people who will go through the whole ride with me.
which is why these type of story choice based games have always been single player.. but they wanted to try and mix the markets well see how it goes and if people can get past that aspect of it.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
I really don't see that as being a big deal. I mean we used to kill the Lich King once a week in WoW, but he just kept on trucking despite being dead. Others were killing him before I got there too, and they often talked about their victorious defeat of the Lich King, yet when I went to the frozen throne, lo and behold, the Lich King lives.... but how?
What I mean is that players are more than willing to ignore these type of timeline and story inconsistencies in an mmo because of the nature of the game. WoW would have sucked if the first time the Lich King died he was gone for good (not withstanding the fact that many think WoW sucks anyway, but you see my point).
Full voice over no now interactive voice over such as what AoC started and ToR perefected with its 3 decisions bar, yes I don't intend to try or see any MMO in the future aside from EQ next that I want to play now that ToR is upon us. Plus I always loved giving my character's even the low end alts their own idenity so this is great for building an attachment to a character even more and adds depth to RP for some.
for me the voice overs were novel at first, but after running a couple of dozen toons through the same quests I got to the point where I just wanted to smack the quest giver and scream get on with it. The voice acting is hit and miss anyway. Some of it is medicre and some is just wretched
I miss DAoC
Voiceovers are a nice feature, but the rest of the game determines how they are perceived. They're a gimmick in SWTOR because the rest of the game is weak; the voice talent and cut scenes are the focal point/best part of the game. Compare that to, say, LOTRO, where the voice talent adds to the immersion because LOTRO has great graphics and a robust world to play in.
Voice overs can add depth to a quality game, but they can't BE the game. Strip the voice talent and cut scenes from SWTOR and you're left with a Star Wars-skinned Diablo II clone.
With 8 AC's per side, and two sides, making only 16 possible classes that I can play, I doubt I will ever have to run through it a couple dozen times unless I start making dup characters just for the heck of it. By then, we are talking waaaay off, and likely more content will have been added if I ever decided to do that (which is unlikely).
It makes sense if you have done this a couple dozen times during testing that you would be very tired of the quests. You could burn out on just about anything that way. I'd also expect you to have ove ranalyzed just about everything by now.
I think this might have been a bit of hyperbole, no?
I noticed that too, with the soldier in the cave I mean. The place where a player ran past the scene was in the Smuggler starter area, the first and main city you come to, just down the ramp from the speeder quick travel place. With the soldier in the cave, maybe that was an actual cut scene, as it does cut away at one point to someone lying on the floor. Perhaps there are different types of scenes for different NPC's. I don't know, I'm sure there's some logic to it somewhere.
It got me wondering if they were actually making anything that was within a certain radius invisible so that you see people in the background, but not in the way of the action (that would be sorta neat tech), or if it was indeed a true cut scene. Unfortunately we can't log in right now to check that out first hand.
Actualy I'd love to see an MMO that let players have a permanent effect on the game..... i.e. once you kill a particular NPC it's dead. MUD's used to operate on that principle.... and early MMO's did as well, when they did special events.
Trick with that is that it can't just be 1 NPC... your done, you kill it....and everyone waits around 6 months with nothing to do.
The reason why MUD's were able to do it...is the amount of time it took to create an NPC and place it in the game-world was litterlay less then the time it took me to write this post.... and they had staff's of GM's (mostly volunteers but well monitored) that were actualy allowed to be GM's not glorified customer service reps. Meaning they could literaly do dozens of events a night.
Unfortunately the modern MMO scene is nothing like that. I would love to see an MMO that came out that recaptured that same feeling. Though I suspect it would be more pragmatic to look for a modern iteration of something like the NWN system....or maybe even the virtual tabletop D&D system that Wizards of the Cost played around with a bit before cancling.
I'd take a game like that over VO and cinematics any day of the week and twice on sunday.
If I want VO & cinematics I'll go see a movie......If it's a game...then I want to be able to play..... and if it's an RPG then I want to role-play.
wont be playing mmo's without Voice Over that is for sure, clicking the NPC and getting a text it is a no no
On a side note.
One of my biggest pet peeves is the concept that whenever a new hot game comes out. There are always a slew of people who venture comments to the effect that....
Well game X (insert pretty much ANY new highly anticipated game in here) is doing Y, therefore EVERY new game created from now untill the end of creation MUST also do Y or it's an automatic failure.
Can't we simply accept the fact that gamers are a very diverse audience with very diverse (and often contradictory) tastes. Why do we insist that just because one game is successfull in using something that every other game must follow the exact same formula?
Heck.....plenty of people still enjoy watching old black & white movies...even though color has been around for over 60 years now.
It's just the logical reflection of "every system in game X needs to be innovative and completely new, or its an automatic failure".
In case you haven't noticed, people love to talk in absolutes only on this (or any other) forum.
The thread's predictive in nature, so any wild prediction's valid...even if not plausible.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
umm voice overs were done WAY b 4 SW....why are umaking a big deal of them now? i think u r just trying to find things wrong taht u dont like...alwasy looking at the bad not at the good
No voice-overs??!! You mean I have to use my imagination!!? lol
"I play Tera for the gameplay"
I typically hate cut scenes and VO but strangley like it in swtor, but i hope its not a trend becouse i would rather see the money and time spent doing other things to the game. everygame seems to just come up with one aspect that makes it different and then pumps that part up as to why thier game is better thean the rest.
ppl bitch and whinne to much these days just shut the F&%$ up and play the dam game u dont like it go sit on a log with your pants down n rotate.
lol, why would you even take the time to read and post. funny is how your whinning about people whinning.
It will not mean anything if 1. It takes forever to continue doing it or 2. The content after release is just terribad and hardly any of it is voiced over.
I mean yeah it is cute they are releasing, but this is not a single player rpg offline where they can give me Dragon Age 1 in 2009 and Dragon Age 2 in 2011. This is a mmo where people expect content updates at minimum 4-6 months.