Voice overs potentially ToRs downfall?

That definitely explains a lot of design changes that we see when comparing old statements about features from BioWare and the actual implementation in the game.
I really wish they'd kept to the original concept rather than trying to emulate WoW in virtually every aspect apart from the cutscenes and voiceovers.

As for the voiceovers themselves...

I think they are one of SWTOR's greatest features along with the cinematic cutscenes. That being said, a lot of the side missions could have been handled via mission terminals/bounty boards rather than needing voiceovers for everything without detracting too much from the experience.

they could have dumped voiceovers for sidemissions completely and have mission terminals instead.

More VO would have been nice for random chatter in the world and different sentences when handing a present to a companion.

it's just a little unbalanced, too much VO where it's not needed, VO lacking where it would have been necessary.

most people in this thread gravely overestimate a voice actors salary.

Have any of you worked with 3ds Max? I'm going to assume that SWTOR models are made in that, or Maya(both Autodesk programs) and there is a plug in specific for voice acting that auto-syncs it up to save time AND money.

So really, it isn't going to be SWTOR's downfall, if anything crap management and customer service will be the downfall.

Voice overs were and are the least of this game's problems.
It's unfortunate the fanboys can't see that.

Keep the voiceover BioWare. It's your special sauce. Keep working hard to improve other aspects of the game , but DO NOT diminish one of your greatest strengths in the process. Stay the course. I could never be satisfied with a non-voiced game again. That would be a step backward. A step forward is far better.

Apparently you were not in beta when stuff wasnt synched very well. Apparently auto synch must not do to good a job

I don't think it's really that cost that is the bugbear (although it all adds up), it's the time (and money) in recording (people don't say a line once and that's it done and dusted), but more than that it's the the work in animation, synching things up, in writing the dialogue etc.

Compared to a text quest it IS very expensive in money and development time, and slow to create new stuff because of that.

While it costs more than a simple window with a text for quests, it's not a heavy burden.

First, animation and sync aren't done by hand for each line of dialogue, they made a tool for the cutscenes and apply sounds, animation, emotes on a timeline, it's not really complicated and something Bioware had already done for their previous games so it was not unknown to them.

Second, yes dialogues are more elaborated that most simpler text quests but in both cases you need a writer and again they have done it before.

Third, no it's not expensive in development time because once you create the proper tools (and it happens early in the development cycle) there's no more development, it goes from programmers (for the tools) to content creators.
Adding a new quest doesn't require a programmer, thoses guys can develop new systems, fix bugs, ... while writers write the dialogue, while some others people (probably an external recording studio) records voices, while world builders create the place, putting props in the world game...

It's made in parallel, it costs more as it needs teams working on the VO but it's not that costly or time consuming.


In my country, everything is translated and recorded in our language for the mass market. Movies from Hollywood that costs millions are often recorded by local actors 3 weeks before release for a cost quite negligible compared to the overall production.


The problem with TOR is not the VO but something quite common in software development when design and goals are changed too late in a project. It's quite visible (and known) because of the lack of coherence between many systems. There was a first design, development started, goals changed, they had to cut some developments, make some changes with an axe to make old code fill it's new purpose, ...
In the last part of the project before release, there was 2 visions for the game, with people fighting to bend it one way or the other, some meetings must have been quite crazy.

BW had the original vision, EA went and changed it. I don't blame EA to have their own goals but I blame them for the way they made the shift.
First, I doubt their way is a good way to make a MMO but well, I don't pretend to know the truth.
Second and way more important, the way they managed people, their own teams and us is one of the more stupid thing I ever see in video game business. They lied to us, they lied to their own employees, probably asked them to lie too. They made people work in a direction thoses people didn't wanted to go and not the one they were hired for.

There's quite a bunch of people in this industry that think you can apply a few recipes and cook the next #1 MMO but it never works that way. MMOs are about long term, coherent vision, using some special flavors and focussing on thoses to make them excellent and then you attract masses for the excellence in thoses areas.
SWTOR is quartered in many different directions, trying to please a bit everyone but no part reaches excellence, it's always hindered by some other aspects, it leaves a strange taste and many people didn't liked it.

They never intended to have a full flight space game....this isn't a flight-simulator game. They don't need more classes. There's 4 classes and 8 advanced classes on each side. That's more than enough and they need stick somewhat within SW lore here....they aren't going to add Orcs or Pandas as a class, lol. The playable species has nothing to do with voice. Yeah, they could add Wookies and Jawas as a playable race without voice but there's 20 other races they could add right now (Togruta, Nautolan, etc.) without needing any changes for voices. Not sure why they haven't added more...but it's not because of voice. There wouldn't be leveling on every planet for 1-50. That would be a sandbox game and this was never intended to be a sandbox game, regardless of the voice acting. So what level would the mobs be on Hoth? How would a level 4 and a level 39 player be able to level on the same planet? You're describing a sandbox game, not a leveling game. A leveling game has to have "zones" which have mobs set at a certain difficulty. They could certainly add more zones to different planets so you have alternative planets to go to in your level range but there is no realistic way to set up every planet as a planet where everyone could level no matter their current level unless you had like 99% of the planet instanced.

While I understand the OP's concerns about the potential restrictions on future content due to the voice-acting (although they've said previously that they recorded a ton of dialogue for future content), it sounds like you're talking more about wishing they made a sandbox game or a flight simulator game. This game was never intended to be or represented as being either.