It’s the weekend! Here is an informal poll!
Did you listen to or read most of the quests while levelling in SWTOR, or did you mostly spacebar your way to the action?
Supplementary question:
If you listened to or read the quests the majority of the time, is voiced content something you will look for in future MMOs?
I’m really curious to see if voiced content becomes SWTOR’s big gift to MMO development or not. Thanks in advance for responding!
Herding Cats is the blog of Liore. She writes about MMOs and RPGs, the game industry, and the "gaming community", and often gets mad about video games. Liore likes to play healers, and is chief herder for Machiavellis Cat Gaming Community. You can email her at liore [at] lioreblog.com.
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Yes and yes. Of course part of this is that I often use the cutscenes as breaks to eat/drink some of the dinner/snack/beverage I have waiting patiently next to my keyboard, or to take a moment and pet my animals. It’s rather like someone who doesn’t mind commercials because they are two minutes to get up and get something done real quick.
Yes, listened to every dialog interaction.
No, I won’t be specifically looking for it in other MMOs. Some of the conversations were fun and some characters were awesome, but sometimes you just want to get on with it. The problem is that you don’t know when exactly you’re going to get that gem, so you have to listen to everything.
So I think it’s a great thing in TOR, but I don’t think it’s really practical or worth the effort most of the time.
Yes and Yes. I’m already skipping shared quest stuff on my alt, but the different branching paths and not knowing when a specific quest would have different conversation paths kept it interesting. There were times where I’d have to look away for some reason and miss text, then go to the chat box and scroll back to see what I missed.
Nice, at times. Not essential. The best voice acting happens in my own head.
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I do like listening to the quest NPCs, even when I’ve done a quest before (though I guess that there might be a point where if I repeated something too often and too soon, I might want to skip it).
Since I’m pretty monogamous in my MMO play, I’m not looking for anything in other MMOs right now… but to be honest, even if I was looking I’m simply not sure whether I would miss the voice acting that much. As a rule of thumb, I’m not the kind of person who starts hating the old way as soon as a newer and flashier alternative is introduced, so I don’t see why I couldn’t still enjoy written quests as well. I do think I’d miss the option to choose different responses though.
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Yes and yes.
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Yes and yes, I hope there will be more of it in other MMOs, but it’s not a requirement, especially having voice acting for my own character. I’m pretty bad about reading written quests, so I really like that the voice acting lets me get to know the story of each questing area a little better.
I do like the revamped quests in Warcraft though, although I didn’t get to play them that much. There wasn’t any voice acting and I know that some people don’t like how linear they are, but I felt like each area had it’s own story and was more interesting than before. I found myself reading each quest in the low level areas and I hadn’t really felt the desire to do that before.
I loved the voice acting in Tortage more than I did in my limited time with SWTOR. Its definitely not a make or break feature for me. Because I expect to spend most of my time *playing* in my games, not listening/reading NPCs. So I guess no is the answer.
Also, where’s your comments RSS?
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Yes and no.
I think the choice aspect – particularly the branching choice trees and moral choice – are a bigger innovation for me than voice acting. The choice is the element that’s really raised the bar, for me, in this game, and I’ll expect future MMOs to think about giving me choices.
Very interesting, thanks everyone!
It seems like most of you actually read or listened to the quests, which is excellent. I shall choose to interpret that as proof that Herding Cats readers are not part of the impatient “space bar brigade”. ;)
The sense I get from your responses is that the most appealing part of SWTOR’s levelling was the interactive story more than the voice acting itself. It seems that generally y’all would be interested if not compelled to seek out similar story mechanics in future MMOs.
Yes & yes, with some qualifications.
The voice acting is very appealing the first time around, maybe the second if I take a different branch. I’d pay to deactivate the robot on my ship, he really needs a stfu chip.
Like Orpho, branching and moral decisions that have a permanent impact are what raised the bar for me.
yes, i listened to all dialogue. the first time, at least.
yes, i am looking forward to it in the future, but only if it’s done well.
– i’m looking at you GW2. in the small bits of gameplay i’ve seen and heard so far, the voice acting is horrible.