I'm really confused, why are so many of the quests here not voiced for your character? At the initial start when talking to the contacts there are some extra dialogue options to almost try to make up for it but later on all the quests are 3 choice options like before with one sided voice acting.

 

I'm just really confused why its like this. I am new to the expansion but is it not finished or something and we get access to a beta of the latest chapter and they'll add it in later? Or did they run out of money or I read something about some voice actors going on strike?

 

Some of the quests even have weird dialogue like [Force Sensitive Path] almost as if they forgot to remove tags out of quests like it is a unfinished zone.

 

Does anyone have any more information on why it was made like this? I know some people are saying its a throw back to the old KOTOR game but if it was you wouldn't make the starting quests have extra dialogue options then forget about the rest of them and keep them at the 3 choices like before. It seems like they threw it in the last minute because there are no voices.

Tee Hee....

 

Welcome to COST CUTTING 101 - whack the items that are helping you sell the "Story only" focused game. LOL

 

Sorry, but I love story when I can actually HEAR them talking and not a stupid text pop up box.

Has Bioware given any explanation for this officially?

 

I'm trying to do the side missions and contact quests for chapter 9 now but I'm really put off by the no voice acting from my character part. It makes me feel like this content isn't finished and I'm playing a prototype and I should wait before continuing. Will it be added later?

Despite the laundry list of things that should make me cynical, I'm going to put it down to a desire to add smaller updates in between. You'll notice that none of the Starforge contacts speak Basic and you don't speak, so essentially they can keep adding in smaller missions without needing recordings to slow them down. This probably isn't true but I remain cautiously optimistic that it is and we'll see lots more little activities added to the game in the future.

i personally prefer this addition gets me all nostalgic over the KOTOR series games

From someone who *gasp!* really didn't care for KOTOR I honestly hope they change it back ( despite knowing wholeheartedly they won't ). It just feels lazy and unfinished to me, but I understand why since VA's cost money. It's still a major disappointment to have the game jump-cut to a semi-mute player mid-story. Edited January 5, 2016 by ManiacL

Only the missions that relate directly to the Alliance are formatted this way. Chapter 10 will likely see a return to voiced characters.

 

It allows them to be able to go in and adjust these conversations without having to revoice them. And, considering the fact that you have to go back and talk to the same people over and over when working with your Alliance, it weeds out the repetitiveness of hearing the same thing over and over again.

They say they're returning to the original Kotor formats of dialogue, for the contact missions at the least, as a way to add more choice to the player, which although is true as the dialogue options are at least clearer now and there are more choices. However I think it's mainly a way to cut the cost of voicing so many characters, which makes sense considering this expansion, and all previous expansions, can now be obtained by just subscribing for a month.

 

I don't mind this though, although I would like to hear my character talk it at least allows them to add more content with, if what I think is true, a funding limitation by EA

i personally prefer this addition gets me all nostalgic over the KOTOR series games

 

Surprisingly it seems us cool KOTOR kids are in the minority.

 

I'd say they should just make it an option for those who do not like it, but since there isn't one I wonder if it is in fact a cost related thing.

i personally prefer this addition gets me all nostalgic over the KOTOR series games

 

o hai there Mr. BioWare employee

See what I don't understand is this entire game, for the 4 years that its been out is based around the voice acting and I think everyone here who's played it enjoys the voice acting?

 

So after you do the initial quests for the contacts, like the introduction quests, its literally the exact same as normal questing except there's no voice acting from your character and the animations are cut a lot.

 

What makes this more like KOTOR? Is the cutting of your characters voice and the black bar enough to inspire nostalgia? I am a literal thinker and I am doing quests, I am getting 3 dialogue options, 2 sometimes and my characters voice is gone. It's not like the fallout 4 argument where people didn't like it because they severely dumbed down conversation choices and the voice actor ruined "immersion" because players liked to relate their own personalities to their character but instead had to listen to someone else. We've played our characters for a long time so I don't think how you could relate yourself to your character at this point, so why do people think its good because its like KOTOR?

 

I understand different people have different opinions but I genuinely do not understand. I cannot see how a removal of a element of the game increases its appeal because its shares a similarity to a older game while none of the other elements do.

 

So, for example... 4 elements: 3 text choices, my character talks, the npc talks, animation.

 

You remove 1 element altogether, the voice acting.

You severely reduce another element, the animations.

 

Now its more like KOTOR, people enjoy it? If you didn't like the voice acting and animations wouldn't you not really like this game to begin with?

 

I've completed all of chapter 9, although people are saying its only related to the Alliance quests...I'm fairly sure the main story was incredibly short in this planet? I remember entering it and people talking a bunch about the alliance and forming it, I remember giving 2 speeches and the cantina scene where my HK-51 appeared from nowhere for some reason. Then the emperor was in my mind for a bit and it ended, while all the other missions remained unvoiced?

 

The only part where I've seen extra dialogue was right at the start when it was introduced, with the initial greeting of contacts. It wasn't like KOTOR where you could go back and talk through all dialogue options like a fallout game because you got multiple choices that sort of said a similar thing but after pressing 1 it would move onto the next part, like SWTOR normally does. After the initial conversations it returns to the 3 choices setup.

 

They are still recording voices for the NPC's so they are still taking time to record VO's but our character is just void, it just seems strange? Like some people have some interesting points here but if you think about it as a whole it doesn't really seem to make sense, its mostly just the removal of our characters voice and the interactions haven't changed at all.

 

Could a KOTOR fan explain to me more why they think this is good? I really liked KOTOR1/2 as well but I know how the dialogue options work in those games and the only resemblance I can see here is the GUI or the menu looks like the old KOTOR games and only the initial introduction to this menu has additional options to choose from. Other than that I can't understand it. Do people really not like their characters voice acting?

And worse there is no rich conversation or impact of different choices etc... all choices end up same anyway. So a lame attempt at cost cutting and trying to justify it by shamelessly quoting Kotor a more than a decade old game.

However I think it's mainly a way to cut the cost of voicing so many characters

 

Yup. - tho' why you have to have so many additional companions beats me.

The 5 or 6 from the KotFE story - fully voiced - was more than enough.

 

- Oh yeah, I forgot, it was so that you played through the Star Fortresses a dozen times each.... coz there was little else new to do for nearly 4 (FOUR!!!!!) months.

 

I dunno why they couldn't recycle some of the old converstions - Even "Yes", "no", "Right away" "This is for you" & "I suppose so" would do for a majority of options.

 

But yeah, it's like those early adventure games..... Like Monkey Island....Which was cutting edge TWENTY FIVE years ago.....

Edited January 5, 2016 by Storm-Cutter

I dunno why they couldn't recycle some of the old converstions - Even "Yes", "no", "Right away" "This is for you" & "I suppose so" would do for a majority of options.

You left out "Murder and mayhem await!" for the SI.

Really, the reason why I like it is because it allows for more dialogue options per conversation. Now we don't have to have "three dialogue wheel choices that are pretty much all the same." The choices are longer (non-paraphrased) and have variety to them.

 

I do wish they were voice acted though.

Really, the reason why I like it is because it allows for more dialogue options per conversation. Now we don't have to have "three dialogue wheel choices that are pretty much all the same." The choices are longer (non-paraphrased) and have variety to them.

 

I do wish they were voice acted though.

 

I'm not sure why you think that.

 

The initial introduction to the contacts added more dialogue but all of the quests afterwards reverted back to the 3 dialogue option setup, even when you talk to the contacts later. There was a quiz sort of quest with one of the droids that allowed multiple choices of a list but other than that i'd say 70% of the other quests were 3 choices.

 

Admittedly, I've stopped finishing off all the side quests because all of them are now triple dialogues and I thought that I was playing a prototype or something and wanted to wait so maybe the very final side mission and side contact missions could have extra dialogue? As far as I've seen so far though now that I've done all the purple introduction quests all the yellow ones are triple choices.

I'm not sure why you think that.

 

The initial introduction to the contacts added more dialogue but all of the quests afterwards reverted back to the 3 dialogue option setup, even when you talk to the contacts later. There was a quiz sort of quest with one of the droids that allowed multiple choices of a list but other than that i'd say 70% of the other quests were 3 choices.

 

Admittedly, I've stopped finishing off all the side quests because all of them are now triple dialogues and I thought that I was playing a prototype or something and wanted to wait so maybe the very final side mission and side contact missions could have extra dialogue? As far as I've seen so far though now that I've done all the purple introduction quests all the yellow ones are triple choices.

Recruiting Alliance members (Companions) uses the KOTOR-style conversations. They're noticeably different from a three-choice-wheel conversation.

Recruiting Alliance members (Companions) uses the KOTOR-style conversations. They're noticeably different from a three-choice-wheel conversation.

 

Really? I saw the interface was changed but I still only had 3 options to choose from in most of my dialogues, the only difference was the traditional wheel wasn't there. There are some of the starting quests that included many options but I felt that overall most of the quests were just the same but with a black letterbox and the sentences shown.

 

Although I do like KOTOR I do think it is a dated game and in KOTOR you had full access to the dialogue menu's, like being able to go forward and backwards during conversations and check every option sort of like traditional RPG's. This doesn't feel like that at all. I really hope they don't continue with this style unless they truly do go with the entirety of KOTOR's dialogue strengths and go even further, as it is a very old game and I kind of expect better, not a dumbed down combination of both SWTOR's old dialogue and KOTOR's dialogue.

The money saving "nostalgic" KOTOR dialouge options were an amazing immersion breaking moment. Huge failure from Bioware's side. No reason to continue playing after chapter 9.

Completely agree that the "classic KOTOR conversation" style was, at best lame.

 

But, remember there was a voice actor strike right around the time that chapter was being made. Community and marketing may have tried to sell it as a "homage to KOTOR" and a way to "give the player more options for responding," but it was either a cost containment measure or related to the strike or both.

Edited January 6, 2016 by phalczen

Completely agree that the "classic KOTOR conversation" style was, at best lame.

 

But, remember there was a voice actor strike right around the time that chapter was being made. Community and marketing may have tried to sell it as a "homage to KOTOR" and a way to "give the player more options for responding," but it was either a cost containment measure or related to the strike or both.

 

not really its just a matter of practicality.

 

its a single story, same for all classes and players. So they can record the VA for the chars recruited and the recurring dialogue for the artifact exchange and leave it at that.

 

OR

 

that many times + 16x the number of conversation options per char requited.

 

It gets to be an excessive amount of redundant dialogue that would need to be written and recorded.

 

Now do that for EVERY new chapter being produced and any NEW char to recruit.

 

So you see that reducing the Playable char options to text reduces the redundant dialogue that needs to be recorded and ultimately skipped when you hear it for the dozens of times.

 

 

put it this way, imagine your char having scripted dialogue every time you turn in an alien artifact to dr. oggurobb and you have 15 gifts to turn in on your 10th char

 

how soon before you just start skipping that little bit of dialogue.

 

so if you are just going to skip it, why even voice it, especially 16 different times for each class and gender.

It's supposed to be 'nostalgic'. But I'm betting EA didn't up their budget for this expansion.

Or it might be due to that strike everyone's going on about.

 

Either way it hasn't given that many additional dialogue options, it's rare I see more than two.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Lanria

Just putting this out there.

 

I was perusing the official SWTOR website the other day, and something odd struck me. From the "Key Features" section on the "Game Overview" page:

 

Choose from one of eight iconic roles and become the hero of your personal Star Wars saga—an interactive storyline with cinematic dialogue and full voiceover for all in-game characters.

 

Wait, what was that last part again?

 

full voiceover for all in-game characters

 

I guess Bioware/EA must have some messed-up legal definition that excludes the player character as qualifying as being "in-game", or else I suppose the above statement could be construed as false advertising.

At least it wasn't like Shadow of Revan where there were no cutscenes whatsoever except for a few However, they need to ramp it up in the promise and biggest feature of this game with "every quest, every npc you talked to is fully fledged in dialogue cutscenes" THATS what they need to get back to more

Just putting this out there.

 

I was perusing the official SWTOR website the other day, and something odd struck me. From the "Key Features" section on the "Game Overview" page:

 

 

 

Wait, what was that last part again?

 

 

 

I guess Bioware/EA must have some messed-up legal definition that excludes the player character as qualifying as being "in-game", or else I suppose the above statement could be construed as false advertising.

 

and apparently you didn't play the chapters 1-9 where you are fully voiced and fully scripted, and its only the daily/repetitive dialogue that people are complaining about.

 

 

so <60 after a few play throughs people started skipping the cut scenes (flashpoints, dailies, planet etc.) so in Shadows of Revan they removed cutscenes and kept the voice acting, people complained! (wanted cut scenes).

 

so they added in the cut scenes, and removed the voice acting (expensive and unnecessary)...people complained.

 

so, they put it in, people skip it, remove it and people complain about it not being there.

 

As is the story of this games life...damned if you do, damned if you don't.