Going forward, let's hope EA/Bio learns from GW2 about the use of VO work

[ptwonline]

SWTOR was pretty cool for having everything voiced over, but I know I'm not the only one who got tired of having voiceovers and conversation scenes even for essentially "kill 10 boars" missions and then dozens more relatively inconsequential ones just like it. it was just too much, especially on repeated playthroughs of each planet.

Anyone else old enough to have played Wing Commander when it came out? Remember when voiceovers, conversations, and cinematics were seen as a reward for progress and used to progress the main storyline? Thus they became significant and both the players and developers could focus more on them. By having them used so much in SWTOR foften for such trivial things, and by having them mostly just be static conversations, they lose their specialness and can even become tedious.

Let's hope they focus more on quality than quantity when it comes to production levels of voice and cinematic work, and save it for more critical things and in more dynamic ways than just conversations.

[RoninaThorstone]

I think they should just make every enemy npc start combat by saying
"You nevar should 'ave come 'er!"

[WarpedAcorn]

I disagree with the OP 100%. I was/am not impressed with GW2's use of voicework. SWTOR did an excellent job of making me care about killing 10 robots by putting in a wounded soldier who refuses to abandon the mission. Now the 4th time listening to the same quest...yeah, it does get old then. But still, you remember the quest giver because he is a little bit more than just scenary.

[Dezerte]

I'll shift the trend again, I agree with OP to some extent. I was impressed with the VO in GW2's, and the reason why I prefered it in GW2 compared to SWTOR was: context. As in; the dialouges flow smoothly and feel immersive. SWTOR has far too many quests where my character seems totally disconnected and I swear I've heard the line "The Jedi way is to serve" a hundred times.

Now, I think they must of made a compromise here (EA/BioWare) and re-used some of the VO. Understandable given the scope of the game, but it irks me too much.

[Kelimbror]

I love GW2, but it doesn't hold a candle to the VO in SWTOR. I can't even put my finger on most of it, but the voices with the characters are NOT believable in any capacity. Do I think this negatively impacts the game? No.

I don't think anyone would be pleased if their favorite characters in SWTOR suddenly have different voices either. Unfortunately they've painted themselves into a corner with the voice acting. Let's just hope they had the foresight to record a lot of dialogue and computer technology to splice actor's words together for new dialogue. I would prefer that over elimination or a change in actors.

[ptwonline]

I disagree with the OP 100%. I was/am not impressed with GW2's use of voicework. SWTOR did an excellent job of making me care about killing 10 robots by putting in a wounded soldier who refuses to abandon the mission. Now the 4th time listening to the same quest...yeah, it does get old then. But still, you remember the quest giver because he is a little bit more than just scenary.

Sorry, i can't agree. I assume that most people were like me and ended up with a half dozen or so quests at time and all the time, all with a wounded soldier, or an officer needing to complete a mission, or a politician looking to gain advantage, or a Jedi/Sith needing help, and so on. Eventually they all just get blurred and reduced down to tasks you have to do often for no significant purpose other than to satisfy the requirements of the task giver themselves because it is so isolated from the rest of the planetary and class storylines.

The bottom line is that there are too many trivial quests, and by putting these static conversation scenes in for ALL of them I feel it numbs the player to them and detracts from the main storylines. It's too much of a good thing. By using them more sparingly and for more important things they could be given more significance, and also be done better.

[Venziir]

EA learn something useful? Hah don't be absurd!

That said, if you want to make a game with voiceover cutscenes, then do it like SWTOR or don't do it at all. The ones in GW2 or TSW get extremely annoying very fast, the fact that your character just *stands* there like a muppet, willingly accepting anything or enduring any bad joke, pun or threat from various npc's without as much as twitching is utterly annoying and feels like a step back once you've played SWTOR.

However, yes it's annoying that every single quest had an entire conversation attached - however you could just spacebar through it, case closed.

[RoninaThorstone]

EA learn something useful? Hah don't be absurd!

This.

Ea is a large and sluggish beast that feeds on the blood of young and healthy companies.

I don't think it will learn or change anything unless absolutely necessary.

And even then, I think they will probably gut bioware before making changes to themselves.

[Venziir]

This.

Ea is a large and sluggish beast that feeds on the blood of young and healthy companies.

I don't think it will learn or change anything unless absolutely necessary.

And even then, I think they will probably gut bioware before making changes to themselves.

I take it you've read about their new statement about never making another singleplayer game again? Such a *fantastic* move!
And they are indeed a voracious beast, look at how they treated Warhammer and I'm a hundred percent sure that they'll abandon SWTOR soon enough just like they've abandoned anything else before, only to move on to something new only to abandon that shortly after it's "birth" - thus is the circle of EA.

[Silverocean]

I have to agree with kitty and what some one else said, My friends let me tried Guild wars 2 on his account for three days just to see how things are before I got my own copy and as some one who per-ordered the old republic and played it for the first few months. The VO's where so much better in the old republic and as some one put it greatly they made me care more the ever about killing X boars then ever before because the NPC's felt like people who needed my help then just part of the scenery.

[RoninaThorstone]

I take it you've read about their new statement about never making another singleplayer game again? Such a *fantastic* move!
And they are indeed a voracious beast, look at how they treated Warhammer and I'm a hundred percent sure that they'll abandon SWTOR soon enough just like they've abandoned anything else before, only to move on to something new only to abandon that shortly after it's "birth" - thus is the circle of EA.

Or that they are switching to fully digital gaming, cutting out the middle man just to get a little more profit? Gamestop must have been like.. "Oh... that's half the stuff we sell."

I really hope they don't gut bioware... But based off EAs history? Well, its going to kill again. its just a matter of time.

[OneSent]

Personally, I think the voice-overs and cut-scenes should have been made exclusive to just class quests only. I remember how the devs were always touting about how you could make another class and never run into the same content and it would be a completely different experience. Yeah... right...

I'll tell you one thing, my spacebar sure did get a workout the 2nd and 3rd time around while leveling a character. Not to mention the daily quests.

It's really sad to think about all the effort that went into creating those scenes when a majority of your players completely skip it after the first time.

[Edge-]

Or that they are switching to fully digital gaming, cutting out the middle man just to get a little more profit? Gamestop must have been like.. "Oh... that's half the stuff we sell."

I really hope they don't gut bioware... But based off EAs history? Well, its going to kill again. its just a matter of time.

No, they're not shunning traditional boxed retail *yet*. It's still WAY too big of a market. They're just removing offline single player modes from their games for the time being and making sure that they all have some form of online component.

I doubt they'll gut BioWare, but they're doing wonders to dilute the brand name and ruin their reputation. I have no clue why the Victory studio still has the BioWare label today, especially when you see that the new C&C Generals game won't even have a campaign at launch.

Personally, I think the voice-overs and cut-scenes should have been made exclusive to just class quests only.

Add in the planetary quest chain thingy and we're set. I watched all the cutscenes for the non-class quests for a bit then just got bored. There are far too many isolated quests for me to really care about them and many times it just feels like way too much exposition on the part of the NPC's to justify a relatively simple/meaningless task from the story perspective. I love the class cutscenes, but most of the others just begin to grate on me after a while : /

[Jtbrig7390]

Snip

I have got to agree a bit. i do like that most of the voice acting is done in the class quests in guild wars 2.

with SWTOR i really got tired of every single quest giver talking to me for 5mins and a long dialog and in the end all they wanted me to do was kill 10 bandits or collect 20 broken droids.

SWTOR to me went way over the top on the voice acting.

Guild wars 2 to me did a near perfect mix of voice acting with text quests and that may be just cause how the quests are setup*hearts*. I just really like how im not running into a cutsceen every 3 mins of someone talking for 5 mins and in the end wanting me to collect droid parts.

[Venziir]

Personally, I think the voice-overs and cut-scenes should have been made exclusive to just class quests only. I remember how the devs were always touting about how you could make another class and never run into the same content and it would be a completely different experience. Yeah... right...

I'll tell you one thing, my spacebar sure did get a workout the 2nd and 3rd time around while leveling a character. Not to mention the daily quests.

It's really sad to think about all the effort that went into creating those scenes when a majority of your players completely skip it after the first time.

Aye, like I said, when every single quest gets a voiceover then it becomes too much. But if it's something important or class based or "ZOMG!" then for the sake of all that is holy, give it a voiceover and have your character answer the npcs or react in someway instead of standing there like a soulles muppet.

[Lord Kristivas]

They can't change what's already in, but going forward, I'd like to see the following in regard to VO.

Full VO on Class Quests, as it is right now.
Full VO with Companions, as it is right now.
Full VO on the Main Planet Quests, as it is right now.
No VO on Side Quests and Dailies.

Make the quests with full VO have a slightly-different colored triangle above their heads.

OR, for those that need inspiration to kill 10 boars, an option that can disable the VO for side quests, just popping up a screen like when you find a datapad on the ground.

[philefluxx]

I agree, VO did get tedious in SWTOR after leveling through the same content. Something that also bothered me was that I felt like I had to be alone in my office to play SWTOR the first time through, there were so many VO's I couldnt have any distractions otherwise it took me close to twice the time to get one quest accepted.

I like the suggestion that it should be turned off for the side quests and dailies, that would have really helped.

[Dezerte]

As said by Nakaya, they can't change what they already have.

I'd love to see more class-specific quests, either fleshing out the main story or introducing another story that you progress 1 through 50 with.

[WarpedAcorn]

I love GW2, but it doesn't hold a candle to the VO in SWTOR. I can't even put my finger on most of it, but the voices with the characters are NOT believable in any capacity. Do I think this negatively impacts the game? No.

I understand exactly what you mean. My theory is that they wrote the dialogue and never read it outloud before getting the VO in the studio for the work. I remember reading a quote from a famous author (who I forget now), but basically he said that whenever he wrote dialogue for characters he would say the sentances outloud to make sure they made sense. The dialogue in GW2 feels campy and stale, and reminds me more of a high school drama...even though the Voice Actors are the same ones that are in SWTOR (Human Male in GW2 = Male Consular in SWTOR for instance).

That's not to say the VO in GW2 is bad by any stretch. Its just that SWTOR raised the bar pretty much as high as its ever been in that department.

[Kelimbror]

That's not to say the VO in GW2 is bad by any stretch. Its just that SWTOR raised the bar pretty much as high as its ever been in that department.

I had seen from IMDB credits that a lot of familiar VA's were working on GW2. I kinda feel, and this is going to be super ironic, that they pulled some George Lucas style directing with the GW2 VA's. Where you take people that are famous, and mostly very good at what they do, then tell them to be as awful as possible. Kinda like how all the new Star Wars movies were, sans Liam Neeson b/c that man can do no wrong.