Why did SWTOR advertise "voice-acting" so much?

[vizzle]

I'm not trying to antagonize anyone or troll these forums, I'm just confused. Back before the game was launched, the thing you always heard was "fully voiced". They kept advertising this as one of the main selling points of the game, like it was some great innovative feature that no one had ever thought of before.

But honestly, a lot of games released these days -are- fully voiced already. Skyrim has a gigantic world and is fully-voiced, apart from the few letters and books that you have to read (which makes sense). Every video I've seen of GW2 is fully voiced, and plenty of other games are fully-voiced too.

*Shrug* And then people complain about how they spent so much money on voice actors. I don't see how SWTOR has any more voice acting than other recent games. Fully-voiced is expected in current games.

[Epimetheuz]

I'm not trying to antagonize anyone or troll these forums, I'm just confused. Back before the game was launched, the thing you always heard was "fully voiced". They kept advertising this as one of the main selling points of the game, like it was some great innovative feature that no one had ever thought of before.

But honestly, a lot of games released these days -are- fully voiced already. Skyrim has a gigantic world and is fully-voiced, apart from the few letters and books that you have to read (which makes sense). Every video I've seen of GW2 is fully voiced, and plenty of other games are fully-voiced too.

*Shrug* And then people complain about how they spent so much money on voice actors. I don't see how SWTOR has any more voice acting than other recent games.

To my knowledge right now, SWTOR is the only full voice acted MMO in existence. Even a game like skyrim, as big as it is, doesn't come close in size to SWTOR. Every npc of every quest of every class is alot of voice acting.

[Elim Garak]

It's the 1st MMO with full VO.

[Infernae]

Honestly, and I'm not trying to bash it or anything, it's because it didn't have anything else going for it. It's not innovative and beyond the early level story telling, it's the same questing and such, with little to no meaning behind anything. Rift advertised it was the reason to "Leave Azeroth", and every new MMO will undoubtedly be compared to WoW. SWtoR stressed it so much in advertising, because it's the only thing they actually had.

Relevant:http://imgur.com/a/jdvxx

[Kisho]

It's something the marketing team can latch on to. And at the time, 'fully voiced' was something rare in MMOs (and still is given GW2 isn't out yet). Sure, single player games had it, but an MMO where you meet hundreds of NPCs each with unique lines, well: it sounded pretty impressive. Of course, now we've found out that they kind of cheated a little with all the Huttese, but that's pretty understandable tbh. Truly 'fully-voiced' would be insane and mean the game would take up your entire hard drive.

And as for why people complained about it? Because it was an advertised feature. People will complain about anything, but generally only if they know of its existence. So when the game was being hyped and we still didn't know what the game would be exactly like, it was an easy target for people to complain about. Because it was different. Because it was hyped up.

[Landin55]

It's the 1st MMO with full VO.

Well that was easy!

[Ghobe]

Honestly, and I'm not trying to bash it or anything, it's because it didn't have anything else going for it. It's not innovative and beyond the early level story telling, it's the same questing and such, with little to no meaning behind anything. Rift advertised it was the reason to "Leave Azeroth", and every new MMO will undoubtedly be compared to WoW. SWtoR stressed it so much in advertising, because it's the only thing they actually had.

Little to no meaning? You decide whether a station is destroyed, you could be single-handedly responsible for the literal deaths of millions of people, you sway where a planet's resources go, you decide if you're faction gets any real sway over an indigenous people. If you think these have no meaning, then I'm guessing by "meaning" you must mean..............I have no idea what you mean. Unless you mean it doesn't shape the entire mmo-verse to your specific storyline. The only real step they could have taken from there would be to have it to where the players actually fight over and decide planets on an hourly basis, which is not how a current war works, much less a futuristic one.

[Zatheyll]

It also got the world record for most lines of voice acting in any form of entertainment. That includes movies, audio books, games, and everything else.

[tjanson]

It's the 1st MMO with full VO.

You don't fully appreciate just how much until you begin leveling another class. They put a staggering amount of work into the storyline of this game, and it all fits together...

[Cairhiin]

Honestly, and I'm not trying to bash it or anything, it's because it didn't have anything else going for it. It's not innovative and beyond the early level story telling, it's the same questing and such, with little to no meaning behind anything. Rift advertised it was the reason to "Leave Azeroth", and every new MMO will undoubtedly be compared to WoW. SWtoR stressed it so much in advertising, because it's the only thing they actually had.

Relevant:http://imgur.com/a/jdvxx

Because other MMOs have companions, and similar professions? Other MMOs have story driven leveling?

[Landin55]

You don't fully appreciate just how much until you begin leveling another class. They put a staggering amount of work into the storyline of this game, and it all fits together...

Its a great game, 1.2 can't get here quicker.

[rigoremortis]

To my knowledge right now, SWTOR is the only full voice acted MMO in existence. Even a game like skyrim, as big as it is, doesn't come close in size to SWTOR. Every npc of every quest of every class is alot of voice acting.

pretty much this ^


skyrim is a 5gig file, swtor is a 27gig file, if that gives you an idea, lol.

[Mifuyne]

To my feeling - it is the only thing SWToR has that is positive.
Alot of time and effort was put into it so ofcourse it's a major selling point.

[Kuntantee]

Is there a voice acting for every single text piece in game? Even for the history/info(whatever it's called) artifacts that spread around the planets?

I mean this



if so, yes it's fully VA'd

if no, then it's a marketing illusion that many people believed.

[announced]

everything talks.. pretty much every npc has a voice script and dialogue box u can play with.. most games ive seen dont have that many voice convos.. or even close to as many as sw tor.

[rigoremortis]

Is there a voice acting for every single text piece in game? Even for the history/info(whatever it's called) artifacts that spread around the planets?

I mean this



if so, yes it's fully VA'd

if no, then it's a marketing illusion that many people believed.

yes, they hired someone to voice act the codex entries cause your too godamn lazy to read them

/sarcasm

[Deleted]

This is advertisement of something that was yet to be seen in a MMO. You read into this too much.

[Primernova]

Meh, I find it a pointless feature to be honest. Skyrim is fully voiced but it's like WoW in a sense too, it's the same 3-4 people and not a full cast worth what, 200 million dollars? The 3-4 is fine.

I'm enjoying SWTOR atm but it will be the last "full voice acted" MMO, every to be created. That money is much better spent, on gameplay and the world.

[rigoremortis]

Meh, I find it a pointless feature to be honest. Skyrim is fully voiced but it's like WoW in a sense too, it's the same 3-4 people and not a full cast worth what, 200 million dollars? The 3-4 is fine.

I'm enjoying SWTOR atm but it will be the last "full voice acted" MMO, every to be created. That money is much better spent, on gameplay and the world.

they didnt exactly hire hollywood actors for the voice acting, rofl i think people read too much into this like they really spent sooooo much money on voice acting, lol they didnt. its just a cool feature they wanted to promote as they put a lot of work into it, thats all.

[Primernova]

they didnt exactly hire hollywood actors for the voice acting, rofl i think people read too much into this like they really spent sooooo much money on voice acting, lol they didnt. its just a cool feature they wanted to promote as they put a lot of work into it, thats all.

I duno man, last I read they spent well over 200 million on just voice acting on a 350 million dollar budget. They weren't high end celebs, just the sheer ammount of different actors and time recording everything added up, big time.