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

[Lathais]

I guess it isn't clear to me what decides which actions deserve dialog and which don't. Sure, all the dialog they chose to put into the game is VO'd, but why is it only a portion of what you're asked to do that's given dialogue? Like the bonus quest chains where you do like "kill x->kill y->kill boss" would be nice ones to have dialog for and would be good places to use your holocomm to give a purpose for what you're doing. Those ones especially have you killing stuff you wouldn't be if you weren't given that bonus quest.



If that were true, you'd be given the bonus quest when the original quest is given to you. While that happens occassionally, it does not happen for the large majority of bonus quests.

I actually think they shouldn't have bothered with the bonus quests. They mostly encourage grinding and force a ton of mobs into corridors so you have enough to kill which makes it a pain to get back out without re-killing them. Simply bump normal mob xp up a bit and the bonus quest xp wouldn't be needed. I'd have much less of an issue with calling it fully VO'd without these quests (a few terminals here or there are ok, but over a 1/3rd of the quests you do are these bonus ones).

Usually it is mentioned, when it is not, it is usually something that needs to be done, that you take it upon yourself to do for the good of your faction. If you choose not to whatever.

I kinda like them. I mean, encouraging a little extra grinding is a good thing. This way people are less likely to end up in an area underlevelled. If they did as you suggest and just raised mob XP and did away with bonus quests, this would encourage straight grinding and people skipping more of the story and side quests. I understand some people skip them all anyway, but some people enjoy them, if there was no reason to do them or there was really no reason other than the story to do it, then what is the point in having it there? Seeing as they spent money getting it in they wanted to encourage people to do it.

[fadingintofall]

Um, no. I skipped heroic 4 quests and was way way underleveled. Most people gain required experience by doing space missions (which I despise) or running warzones and completing it's dailies.

3 level 50's. Second 2 I skipped most heroic 2 and 4 content. Ran a couple of FP's but FP XP is trash. Still was massively overleveled. Hit 50 on EARLY Corellia. Hate pvp. After my first toon I stopped doing space missions (except when I was doing my level 50 dailies for commendations)... you missed a lot of quests, dude. OR you're straight up lying. Not sure why I'm responding to a banned poster though.



As for VA... yeah, some of it could be better. But to record a comprehensive and robust alien language that does not have actually have a true translation... that seems a bit... insane. If it was only one alien language... sure, that would work. Look at Star Trek. People speak Klingon... but how many different languages do we encounter? A rather large amount. Yeah, more variety in their gibberish would have been nice. But it's far from breaking the game for me. And now that I've seen the quests so much, my spacebar is getting a lot of use. And in general... I tend to be one of the few people who like to read quest dialogue. While it is fun watching the action, I have subtitles turned on and unless it's a really interesting scene will skip it after I read the dialogue.

---------- Post added 2012-03-05 at 04:01 PM ----------

Usually it is mentioned, when it is not, it is usually something that needs to be done, that you take it upon yourself to do for the good of your faction. If you choose not to whatever.

I kinda like them. I mean, encouraging a little extra grinding is a good thing. This way people are less likely to end up in an area underlevelled. If they did as you suggest and just raised mob XP and did away with bonus quests, this would encourage straight grinding and people skipping more of the story and side quests. I understand some people skip them all anyway, but some people enjoy them, if there was no reason to do them or there was really no reason other than the story to do it, then what is the point in having it there? Seeing as they spent money getting it in they wanted to encourage people to do it.

I actually agree with this. They are bonuses... something you can spend an extra few minutes doing to earn a bit extra xp. Not required. Nothing changes if you don't do them. At least it gives you a reward for killing or doing something. And yeah, a lot of times bonus quests are mentioned. If it is something specific, it'll appear when you get the quest. But if it's mentioned in an offhand manner, it won't. A lot of the, "Oh and while you're there, kill them all," type comments are just mentioned briefly. And the multi-stage bonus quests... they are fun. I just wish they all didn't follow the exact same pattern. But hey, nice rewards for them. Kill X mobs -> (kill X+X mobs) -> Click X things -> Kill boss. Every single multi-stage bonus.

[namelessone]

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.

AoC had fully voiced NPCs years before SWTOR. And none of that alien speaking gibberish too. Granted, PCs weren't voiced, but even in SWTOR PCs repeat phrases a LOT.

[Lathais]

AoC had fully voiced NPCs years before SWTOR. And none of that alien speaking gibberish too. Granted, PCs weren't voiced, but even in SWTOR PCs repeat phrases a LOT.

IIRC it was only the first 10 or so levels, that was actually a single player game, that was fully voiced. I could be completely wrong though.

[namelessone]

IIRC it was only the first 10 or so levels, that was actually a single player game, that was fully voiced. I could be completely wrong though.

First 20 levels maybe, Tortage basically. I wouldn't know cause I never got past that =)

[Lathais]

First 20 levels maybe, Tortage basically. I wouldn't know cause I never got past that =)

I got a little past it, but after the starter zone, which was a single player game, phased for you only, if it was even on the servers, it got VERY boring VERY quickly.

[namelessone]

I got a little past it, but after the starter zone, which was a single player game, phased for you only, if it was even on the servers, it got VERY boring VERY quickly.

Right now Tortage isn't single-player. Tortage day is a proper multiplayer MMO. Tortage night is basically a single-player story instance.

[Himora]

many games including gw2 has tons and tons of vo. swtor only advertised it as a main point cause everything
else was copied from other games.

[Sylreick]

The guy that did solid snake did one of your created characters voice (jedi knight). If that isn't awesome, then you're probably not into the people behind the games like I am. Being an IMDB nut, I love looking into who is behind the voice acting of my favorite games and shows. Like Mugen from samurai champloo, also spike from cowboy bebop and roger in big o (all the same person) is in swtor... that's just awesome.

[Grithmir]

Voice acting is one thing, but the cheesy story kinda ruins the whole deal.

They'll also have to re-hire the same VA for every new patch if they want to keep the player's voice consistent, which will probably turn out to be very costly in the long run.

[vizzle]

Voice acting is one thing, but the cheesy story kinda ruins the whole deal.

They'll also have to re-hire the same VA for every new patch if they want to keep the player's voice consistent, which will probably turn out to be very costly in the long run.

I remember reading that they've kept the important people on contracts.

[Qtbotqq]

Swtor received a Guinness World Record for the amount of recorded voice acting hours. Its some ridiculously high number.

[nyc81991]

In my opinion as good as voice acting is, The time and money they spent on making the whole game have voice acting ended up taking away from the actual game play.

[Qtbotqq]

Imo Swtor has been an engaging and engrossing experience. To each their own, yes?

[Moinaldo]

because it is easier to talk then it is to make a proper endgame content

This is the real answer to the OP question.-

[Stormcall]

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

Well, GW1 had "Heroes" since Nightfall, and they're basically companions, except they don't have an affection rating.

[AetherMcLoud]

just cause theres an IMDB link with unknown people with pictures, doesnt make them "hollywood actors" =P rofl

trust me, i effing love this game, but honestly, plz point one of those people that is a current active actor in hollywood movies, lol i saw a few d-list actors at best in there =p

"Unknown people with pictures?"

Lacey Chabert voices Mako, a Bounty Hunter companion. She was the girl in Lost in Space, and is still active in Hollywood: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacey_Chabert
David Hayter is the voice for male Jedi Knights. Not only does he do a lot of anime voices, he's also Solid Snake, and wrote the screenplay for Watchmen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hayter
Nolan North is pretty much the most talked about voice actor since a few years, he's the male consular voice.
Rachel Leigh Cook voices a Sith Warrior companion: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000337/

[pyrostorm9001]

imo the voice acting gets old FAST. Not so much the NPC quest givers who drive the story, but my own character who cheapens the experience every time he opens his mouth.

[Deleted]

Does SWTOR's "full voice" has the voice recognition capability like Mass Effect 3 on Xbox Kinect? It seems to be relative easy to implement on a PC

---------- Post added 2012-03-10 at 08:04 AM ----------

Swtor received a Guinness World Record for the amount of recorded voice acting hours. Its some ridiculously high number.

Maybe it can be used as an advertisement to promote SWTOR in non-English speaking countries... for practicing English

[Frenegade42]

Maurice LaMarch
Kevin Michael Richardson
Armin Shimerman
Dee Bradley Baker
Jamie Bamber
Phil LaMarr
Simon Templeman
Tomas Wilson (helloooo McFly!!)
David Hayter
Nolan North
Lacey Chabert

Just a few names picked at a moments glance. This isn't a tenth of the V/O talent (and some "real" actors) who worked on the game. It's like a whos who list of Science fiction/animation/cult TV v/o personalities.

That being said, it's all going to count for nothing and be spacebarred through in a few months. If the rumours that fully voicing the game took the lion's share of money and resources are true then I would agree that someone somewhere done messed up.