Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
I am sick and TIRED of reading text boxes!
Elikal
Member UncommonPosts: 7,912
Really, sounds like an arbitrary issue, but I found it to be one of the ruining factors for me for a MMO. Not so much in itself, but in the system. Here is why: I love to delve into a MMO world's lore. For me, it is not enough to have a nice looking place where I kill Orcs, I want to KNOW about the place, about the Orcs about the background. Otherwise I loose interest in the game pretty fast. Now call me lazy, but I just HATE to read those textboxes. I mean, WTF, is this a Legend text adventure from 1979? Heck, even the 25 years old Death Gate had FULL VOICED TEXT.
TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO.
Its one of the BIG BIG downs of LOTRO and Champions and whatnot, I get to some NPC, and I get a frigging text box? I mean, seriously, who the heck reads all the damn stuff? If I want to read I take a telephone book! Ok, fun aside, I really read much books, because usually they are exciting. Reading quest texts, who usually are NOT exciting to read, I tend to skip them and move on to the 1-liner who tells me who I have to kill and where he is. End of story.
I am just so tired of this neolithic way of quest giving, and prolly I am spoilt by 5 years into EQ2, where almost every damn little sidequest NPC talks in lipsynch voice to you. I swear I am so done with this boring reading.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Comments
I'm more annoyed that I just read through this useless pile of text
Conversely, I'd much prefer to read through a quest text quickly and get on with my business. I suppose if you're into mediocre voice actors reading you a story, more power to you though.
Thats your own fault, mate. The title said it all.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Not every quest giver in EQ2 speaks. I had recently done several quests in EQ 2 and noted the palpable difference between the spoken dialogue and dialogue that is read.
You should probably know that sound files are large. compress them too much and quality suffers. And even compressed they are still large. Couple that with an ever expanding game world and you are going to get a very large game on your hard drive.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I agree... Too bad the genre isn't really forward in any area.
SW:Tor maybe something to look forward too for you Elikal? It seems to be promising the best and most voice over used in a MMORPG ever......atleast that's what they promiss, we have yet to see the results, other then a few demo/clips.
So instead you would rather be forced to listen to some bad actor reading the whole thing to you? You better hope they put in an option to get a quick summary <kill 10 giant rats in Icky Bog> and skip hearing the whole damn thing or it would be maddening. Of course, quest grinding is maddening to me anyway so maybe my opinion doesn't count.
So instead you would rather be forced to listen to some bad actor reading the whole thing to you? You better hope they put in an option to get a quick summary <kill 10 giant rats in Icky Bog> and skip hearing the whole damn thing or it would be maddening. Of course, quest grinding is maddening to me anyway so maybe my opinion doesn't count.
Well, repeating quests is quest grinding. DDO had quest grinding. Having the main portion of the content in a game as quests is not grinding. That's just doing content.
Also, it isn't too hard to find decent actors. There are so many actors out there that a simple bit of effort should find the right peopel for the right job.
Oblivion and Dragon Age had decent actors. Aion had actors that didn't seem right for their parts so it came off all wrong. the little voice acting I've experienced in EQ2 was "ok" but in some instances annoying as they were a bit too cute. However, that is one of my larger criticisms of EQ2 in that it does tend to reside in the cute school of worlds.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Feels like grinding to me no matter what anyone says but that's not the topic so I'll shut up about it after this.
I can read it faster than they can speak it so no I wouldnt want voice acting.
What i'm tired of is bad dialogue myself, but i'm ok with text and would actually prefer it to voice.
Just to make things clear...
I speak for myself and no one else, unless i state otherwise mine is just an opinion. A fact is something that can be independently verified, you may challenge such but with proof. You have every right to disagree with me through sound argument, i believe in constructive debate, but baseless aggression will warrant an unkind response.
"I really read much books"
looks like you need to read a couple more.............
Currently Playing: Fallen Earth
Played and liked: TCOS, Vanguard, Guild Wars, DDO
Played and didn't like: CO, MO, STO, DF, AoC, WAR, WoW, EQ2, EVE, most f2p
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, Secret World
Many people have been complaining the opposite about Dragon Age.
Only other MMO I know with significant VO is Age of Conan, and that's only Tortage. After that, VO is scarce.
Reason: VO is expensive. And as I mentioned before, lots of people read the text and skip forward past the VO.
¿Tu hablas español?, porque yo no hablo ingles. Si me ponen los textos del NPC en ingles, los entiendo perfectamente, pero si me pones voz, no entiendo ni papa. Los MMO's necesita un publico internacional, esto es, gente de todo el mundo que no tiene porque entender voces en ingles.
Adding to that, is cheap to change the text of a quest, but If you enter voice actors, is much more expensive.
I've really enjoyed VOs in EQII. For me, at least, they seemed to reinforce the notion, that it's a world, rather, than a game.
However, I do agree, that implementing VOs and implementing them correctly is not an easy task. SOmetimes it pays not to try at all.
I hate WoW because it made my plush hamster kill himself, created twin clones of Hitler, punched Superboy Prime in reality, stared my dog down, spoiled my grandmother, assimilated me into the Borg, then made me into a real boy, just to make me a woman again.
There's also the greater issue of the persistent nature of MMOs. With a single-player game, you contract your voice actors, schedule your studio time and nail down all the VOs. Everyone gets their checks and goes home happy. With an MMO, how would you manage those contracts? Would you update the VOs every time a string changed or just do them in batches? What if one or more of the actors are already under contract? More importantly, what voice actor is going to lock themselves down to a long-term contract with one company for possible future work when it will more than likely prevent them from being able to sign with other companies for guaranteed work?
In MMOs, I'm happy when I get VOs but I understnad why they aren't there.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I agree about the reading text. Altogether though I think I'm just getting fed up in general with the mmo genere and it's lack of creativity. Video games have become an entertainment medium on equal ground with movies and I think it's time to kick up the quality and creativity. There are many talented writers/directors in the movie business that thrive because of their talent and quality they put into movies. MMO's need some talent to come in and kick things up a notch I think.
Back on topic more, plenty of console games have had excellent voice actors, some of them big name actors from Hollywood. Why not MMOs? Would be immersive to have a gritty voice like Gerald Butler screaming in your ear to "Hold the line!" in an MMO set in ancient Greece.
I suppose if you were a slow reader having someone read the text to you would be ok. But I have NO want of sitting through some boring voice actor read a quest to me. I would much rather use my own 10-20seconds to read through the text.
- Case: Thermaltake Kandalf Black Chassis
- CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz (OC'd 4.2GHz on Water Cooling)
- Memory: Mushkin 8Gb (4x 2Gb) DDR3 1600Mhz
- HDD: Dual Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM
- GFX: (2) XFX Radeon HD 5870 in CrossFire - New upgrade!
"I like wow, I like aion and I like AoC all for different reasons.....the later cause i get to see boobs, but still its a reason!!" - Sawlstone
SW:TOR is going to be "the worlds first fully voiced MMO".
I forget the number SW:TOR has, but crying about reading text boxes is pretty..... childish? Anyone of the given big MMOs out there have 50,000 - 1,000,000 unique quests. Considering they are already costing in the 10s of millions of dollars to make, to pay multiple voice actors to read those 1,000,000 quests is kind of expensive. Sure you could have a computer read them, but that's just going to ruin the experience, because a computer can't do enthusiasm, stress certain words and it would just be boring to listen to.
Like Trading Card Games? Click Here.
Doesn't matter. You'll have hundreds of ADD players screaming "Why can't I skip the boring voice and just kill things!?!", same as they do with text now.
Personally, I prefer text over voice, but what do I know, I'm old.
The "large files" problem could be solved with streaming audio, akin to podcasts. And the lack of voiceactors could be done with the way of now extinct early Russian bootleggers. "Voiced by professional coders and programmers!"
I hate WoW because it made my plush hamster kill himself, created twin clones of Hitler, punched Superboy Prime in reality, stared my dog down, spoiled my grandmother, assimilated me into the Borg, then made me into a real boy, just to make me a woman again.
There's also the greater issue of the persistent nature of MMOs. With a single-player game, you contract your voice actors, schedule your studio time and nail down all the VOs. Everyone gets their checks and goes home happy. With an MMO, how would you manage those contracts? Would you update the VOs every time a string changed or just do them in batches? What if one or more of the actors are already under contract? More importantly, what voice actor is going to lock themselves down to a long-term contract with one company for possible future work when it will more than likely prevent them from being able to sign with other companies for guaranteed work?
In MMOs, I'm happy when I get VOs but I understnad why they aren't there.
Those are good points. And though most are true, I don't think you will run into the contract locking issue.
All the actors I know (I suppose myself included) do other work. Voice Acting is actually a very solid way for an actor to make money. There are many projects in the works and sometimes you will find them finishing one gig only to go down the hall to start another in another studio. I see no issues with doing gnome standing in cave for a game company and also doing guard number 3 for another. No actor who makes a living off of voice acting (which is possible to do by the way for those who are considering it... depending on where you live of course as well as talent, voice, etc) would ever tie themselves to one project unless that project was very lucrative.
But your comment regarding changing quest lines is more than valid. That on top of the expense and it can add up. I think this is one of the reason that games like oblvion use a set amount of people to play most of the smaller parts. You only have to hire the person based on the project (or heck even by the hour) and they are there and available.
Hire 100 people and you have to contend with schedules, wasted time managing every actor, and if they are union then there are going to be some hefty minimum costs along with strict schedule issues that can also add to the cost.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I thought about the streaming issue when I was also thinking of ways one could add more voice acting. However, I don't know what the hit on band width would be to stream all that different content to all those players for each quest and I also wonder if the experience would be less than optimum. I know that if I stream a movie or even a song there is sometimes this buffering time that really ruins the experience.
Perhaps for people with amazing internet that might not be an issue but I suspect that most people dont' have amazing internet. Heck, some areas don't have internet at all.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I thought about the streaming issue when I was also thinking of ways one could add more voice acting. However, I don't know what the hit on band width would be to stream all that different content to all those players for each quest and I also wonder if the experience would be less than optimum. I know that if I stream a movie or even a song there is sometimes this buffering time that really ruins the experience.
Perhaps for people with amazing internet that might not be an issue but I suspect that most people dont' have amazing internet. Heck, some areas don't have internet at all.
People who don't have internet kinda don't count.
And the VOs could easily be optional. In fact a test VO could be right there in the option menu to check your strreaming speed. And, perhaps, you could choose either to download or to continue streaming, things like that.
I hate WoW because it made my plush hamster kill himself, created twin clones of Hitler, punched Superboy Prime in reality, stared my dog down, spoiled my grandmother, assimilated me into the Borg, then made me into a real boy, just to make me a woman again.
I think the problem is less "I hate reading" and more "I hate having to read all this meaningless crap."
If the NPCs actually had a dialogue with you, like an exchange of sentences rather than feeding you a paragraph of pointless pleas, maybe it would be a little more interesting. As it is, every NPC is your mum or dad giving you a shopping list and some huge justification for it - it's not a quest, it's a request.
Anyways, lore tends to be in the form of books. Books don't self-read. Usually. If you're actually interested in the lore, you're going to have to learn some fake history from good ol' fashioned text.