I love playing this game because of the immersion involved which included the voice overs of the NPCs and my own character. When I started playing the new content I was all in until Chapter 9. Now, I don't know if I want to move forward because it's lost that immersion feel. That's what drew me into this game in the first place, the NPC and Character dialogue. I thought it was an error or something. My friends refer to it as "weird" like an ewww kind of tone of voice. I didn't know what they meant until I reached it Chapter 9. Now I know and I'm hoping it's fixed quickly.

Your words are mine, I feel the same way 100%

I feel the same way. I loved the ideea that even the side quests felt liek main quest and i always liked to listed to what NPC's had to say and the way my char responded was awesome. If they cut voice acting i dont know if i'm going to be playing anymore. I would rather want bioware to release new expansions more rarely and keep the existing ones in top quality like the main game. The immersion will be gone if they keep doing KOTOR like conversations.. feels so cheap. It was okay back in the day but its 2015 now.

I actually think a voiced main character is the opposite of immersive. How does a character represent me when he sounds like some USAian that eats gravel? That's generally speaking though, I'm actually quite happy with most of the voice acting in TOR... even if it is un-immersive.

 

I suspect there's several reasons for the ALLIANCE (not chapter 9) dialogue being built the way it is. For one it is repetetive. Having the camera flip back and forth between you and the mission giver and hearing the same line 5 or more times in a row when you're turning in supplies would not be an amazing and "immersive" storytelling experience. I doubt there's many people who don't spacebar the dialogue in the dailies on Ilum or Black Hole or wherever after the sixth time.

 

Then there's the amount of dialogue options. There's a lot more "investigative" dialogue where you can ask questions than there is in any of the main content where you navigate through a spesific dialogue tree. The main characters' voice actors are able to do all this extra work and it's not going to cost anything extra, so it's not a question of money or resources. But what happens when some of these many lines are changed, or more gets added? They'll have to pull the voice actors back in every time they'd do that, and that's inconvenient to say the least.

 

And the non-linear structure of the alliance conversations means you'd hear repeated lines more than ever. You hear a lot of lines recycled sickeningly much pre-Makeb content and conversations just feel unnatural and weird. Especially with some of the generic responses which are horrible in any given context (Sith and the trooper suffer from it the most). If the story telling is some of the main focus for improvement in KotFE, then bad conversations isn't the way to go. Generic lines and repeated use of them most certainly make bad conversations imo.

Edited November 2, 2015 by Pscyon

I agree completely. I appreciate that this change may be an homage to KOTOR, but this is SWTOR, NOT KOTOR!

 

I'm sincerely hoping this was a "Oh crap, we're running out of time" quick fix, and not the shape of things to come.

 

ALSO, I wish the Developers would stop by and address this, there have been quite a lot of posts about it, but not even a whisper from the Developers, one way or the other.

I actually think a voiced main character is the opposite of immersive. How does a character represent me when he sounds like some USAian that eats gravel?

^ This

 

But i guess people are too bothered to read and imagine things for themselves and would rather listen audio book with buttons.

 

 

Honestly they were going to this direction in SOR already, simplifying the side-quests that is.

In SOR side quests do not initiate conversation AT ALL, they just popped up a mission table with accept button while the npc said a line and your toon said another without any choise whatsoever.

I must say I much prefer not voiced conversation for side quests if I can still hear different responses from the NPC, I have no trouble imagining what my character would respond, as I know him as well as my own pockets. I do not need a voice-actor to act him for me.

The only thing i can think of that will 'force' them to respond is create in game CS ticket Bug/Other ' my character lost all voice in Chapter 9'

and thats what i am gonna do

What made this game great was the different stories for the different characters. It was also how we were interacting with our companions and characters throughout game play. It's ok to say you can't visualize you as the hero if your character doesn't speak, but my point is SWTOR wasn't set up that way. My characters and companions have been through a lot together and I know their voices and they know mine. To suddenly mute all that is like putting the characters I come to like/love to hate and make them less... We wouldn't talk about companions and our character's voiced actions so much if we didn't love it so much. Tell me one thread that talks about the written options with no voice.. I don't hear much laughter, come ons, or what!?! from the silently written bits. Do you?

I didn't mind the classic conversations at first, but they got old, quick. Not only does my character not talk, but most of the aliens speak random alien gibberish with subtitles. That's not what got me into this game. What got me into this game was the amazing VO work and the different 'camera' angles during conversations.

 

I don't know if EA isn't throwing enough money at the game anymore or what. What I do know is that if this classic conversation aspect continues for too long I'll unsubscribe from the game. SWTOR to me is Story > PvE > PvP.

I didn't mind the classic conversations at first, but they got old, quick. Not only does my character not talk, but most of the aliens speak random alien gibberish with subtitles. That's not what got me into this game. What got me into this game was the amazing VO work and the different 'camera' angles during conversations.

Aliens speaking Alien Turkey Gobble 4 is common even in the 1-50 stories. Even Twi'leks (?sp) do it sometimes, and at least one Zabrak (the smuggler companion) does it, although at least the language is identified as Manadalorian.

 

In fact, the subtitles of one piece of Alien Turkey Gobble 4 is the only place I've seen the player character's name used by an NPC.

 

But hey, I noticed early in Chapter ONE at least one standard 3-wheel conversation where my character was silent even though I picked a 'speak' option rather than the 'speak not' option.

It would be nice if there was a "Don't play voice if I've already heard it X times" setting somewhere.

Aliens speaking Alien Turkey Gobble 4 is common even in the 1-50 stories. Even Twi'leks (?sp) do it sometimes, and at least one Zabrak (the smuggler companion) does it, although at least the language is identified as Manadalorian.

 

In fact, the subtitles of one piece of Alien Turkey Gobble 4 is the only place I've seen the player character's name used by an NPC.

 

But hey, I noticed early in Chapter ONE at least one standard 3-wheel conversation where my character was silent even though I picked a 'speak' option rather than the 'speak not' option.

 

There were a few aliens here and there, but most of the important characters spoke basic. I don't mind alien gibberish if we get the usual conversations, not the classic ones.

 

To me, it seems like EA didn't want to invest too much money into this. BioWare couldn't afford all the VO work, so they're just using recycled alien gibberish to make up for it. Again, that's how it seems to me.

Edited November 5, 2015 by SlthBounteHuntah
Grammar

There were a few aliens here and there, but most of the important characters spoke basic. I don't mind alien gibberish if we get the usual conversations, not the classic ones.

What does it matter exactly if the conversation is classic or not, the alien gibberish will be exactly the same either way.

Talking to Qyzen classic or not does not make him do any more nor less reptilian grunting noises.

Edited November 5, 2015 by Kiesu

Could also be time crunch. Parts of the earlier chapters felt hastily written.

 

 

 

Seriously. I'm a bit late as I have been busy but to get to chapter 9 and suddenly "poof!" No more voice? It's part of why I liked the smuggler character or my agent. The way it was there through the first 8 chapters makes it seem like they ran out of budget or time or both.

 

I mean FFS! You do one thing better than most and you just F'ing drop it?

I agree with the original poster.

 

I think we're getting no voice for a lot of chapter 9 because they got behind on voice recording work.

This is bugging me more than I even thought at first. Just feels cheep and I became detached from my character. I was enjoying the story being told and it just fell off a cliff.

I think we're getting no voice for a lot of chapter 9 because they got behind on voice recording work.

perhaps, but the new-old format (new to SWTOR, old because it was in KOTOR) trivially allows more than three options. (A certain reptilian companion has a conversation choice list with 17 choices on it.)

Well, I for one don't care about 17 conversation choices, I just want the standard SWTOR conversations with the voiced protagonist back.

I dread the day my characters run across their old love interests, whom they cheated on with Lana, Theron or Koth (or have actually moved on, romance-wise), and have that heart-to-heart conversation in KOTOR style.

 

Please, please let those awful "classic conversations" be chapter 9 exclusive.