Implementing ideas too expensive or ambitious..

ArchivedUser

I watched the stream where they said that voice acting is expensive and it would be the very last thing on their mind if they decided to implement it, but I just wanted to say that I personally value games with voice acting over games without it.

I have no clue, other than some of the end game, as to what any of the quests were about in WoW and other MMO’s because there was so much text dialog. The majority of people from what I've observed don't enjoy reading anything in video games. It needs to be interactive and inclusive.

This is really though just an introduction of what I believe to be the real issue. My thing with new MMO's right now are that they have this notion that they are going to be different than any other MMO and yet they choose to not implement certain things due to budgets or the idea being 'too ambitious'. I understand money being a factor but there is a reason that this genre isn't doing so well now and days and I think really listening to the players is key if you want to have a successful franchise.

Sure the node system is different than any other MMO right now, but at the end of the day it's still an MMO. Shine where the basic foundation of MMO's often fail while still having an entirely new system of your own like the node system. Try to think about what other MMO's are lacking and why many of us choose not to play them.

ArchivedUser

While I agree with your statement, I have to point out that this is not a very story driven game so far. In its current state, with as little story as we actually know, there would be nowhere to put voice acting unless they stuffed it onto some random NPCs that, truthfully, won't matter much anyhow considering his game is very player orientated. Story I imagine will come later, but the reason it's probably at the end of their list is because there's nowhere to put it that's useful at this stage in development.

ArchivedUser

That's true, all we know so far is that 'we're coming back'. I'd imagine though that being an MMORPG there will be more lore to come. I don’t personally think it would be a good idea to not implement a story to the game.

ArchivedUser

I backed $500

So as long as those goals are realistic (so far seems so for a subscription based game)

Then I will back even more

ArchivedUser

Completely true, but we don't know how the story will be implemented. If it's anything like Everquest, the majority of the story will come from sources outside of the game (I hope not) And if it's anything like WoW, the majority of the story (that is needed) will be in game. In the latter case, voice acting may help, but I feel like their main story, once again, won't be implemented early on. I believe they will have the players create their own story, in a sense. What I mean by that is, they'll release the game with a foundation story, the one we know, where civilization is starting again and awakening the evil that destroyed past civilizations. That's our foundation. From there (this is all speculative, not fact) I believe they will let us do our thing and shape the world, and when they release the first expansion, they'll sum up what we did, twist it into their own story, and create a story with it that we can all relate to and be part of, giving us the feel that we are truly creating the story around us.

ArchivedUser

From my point of view, I am more concerned that Intrepid is promising SO MANY features already that it will be VERY DIFFICULT to deliver on them all. That is where I think that a great many MMOs fail, lose the player's confidence to frustration and do not quite make minimum player quota to do well.

ArchivedUser

It feels like they have many features wrapping into similar or tertiary systems rather than a billion individual features - Which keeps my hope up.

I will have to completely agree though. I cringed when they advised voice acting would be at the bottom of their list. I'd much rather have some base level voice acting, generalized snippets of dialog than an underground node. Like, as ambitious as it would be to voice act every question, major content and all this drive for 'Story' that they keep promising every node will provide needs to be in an easily digestible form. Tasks, for example, I would have no problem being a simple menu without much text at all.

ArchivedUser

Its not just the time and expense of voice acting ....its the high maintenance.
Every single piece of new content MUST be voice acted as soon as you go down that route.
Any edits mean previous costs are scrapped and repeated.
Then, people wonder why the mouth isnt moving.
Then, people demand face animations to go with the voice over.
Then, you have to start adding extra character rigging for the mouth/face/eye/ tongue
The you have to create all the animations to go with that.

Sure there is tech out there to help with that.
But the point is you have started down a rabbit hole that will suck up manhours, funding and game performance like a hoover.
And its not just a one off......its a never ending cost

ArchivedUser

haha. My job in the industry is localizations. It is supposed to be that I set the deadline after which no more voice overs go into the game because localized versions were same day release and we need time to schedule everything after the US version is done with their sessions.
But, every time, the US team would add in more voice overs a couple weeks after the drop dead date.

ArchivedUser

I think that people forget that this is not a normal Kickstarter. The base game has already been funded and started on and that the Kickstarter is funding for pre-planned extra content to be included for release. Maybe that is why voice acting wasn't high on their list choosing instead to spend funds on the base game content.

At 7:25 of latest livestream Steven explains the Kickstarter:

<a href="https://youtu.be/yzBxKoH7erU">Livestream</a>

ArchivedUser

Personally, I have no problem with there being no VA. I quite enjoy reading whether it be in books or in games and I know many others who feel the same. In fact, I know several who prefer a lack of VA. In most games, I find myself skipping halfway through the dialogue because I've already finished reading the text. Besides that, many random voices in games are annoying, to say the least, and I will skip past them as well.

It's definitely different strokes for different folks, but I am not sure that it is a majority of gamers. It'll be neat if they have some--maybe just for any important characters--but I won't really miss it otherwise.

ArchivedUser

There are plenty of MMOs failing that have voice acting. Frankly most of us would rather them spend funding on world design, combat systems, class features, etc because they actually make the game. If you primarily want voice acting because you're too lazy to read, well thats not good enough a reason to invest thousands of dollars into it. Consider maybe if those other studios invested in storylines that were worth reading they wouldnt need VO to begin with.

Do i think VO for quests is cool? Yep, i love it actually. But AoC is WAY to early in development to be worried about something so superficial.

ArchivedUser

I love the cinimatics and voice acting offered by some games, Swotor springs to mind. However outside of the $300,000,000 price tag being a tiny little hurdle to cross for an independent production company, the cost vs reward of voice acting is small. I too would much prefer this player driven sandboxish game to have lots to do rather than be a themepark with lots to watch and listen to. As always just my opinion and the reason I am supporting this game rather than whatever the flavour of the month themepark game is at the mo.

ArchivedUser

Yes Voice acting is a waste of Money. Just look at SWTOR and how Voice Acting basically made the game a very shallow unpolished game. Voice Acting works great in a game like Neverwinter Nights 2, but not in an MMORPG.

ArchivedUser

voice acting is overrated. i play a lot of mmo and most of the time music from spotify. the rp value of mmos comes from group content. as long as it has good raids, dungeon and pvp stuff i couldnt care less if the npcs oinked at us

ArchivedUser

Maybe a few years after release, if they somehow manage to get all the funding and they have the time to spare, maybe they can implement VO. I think they don't want to do a haphazard job, with poor VO, no sync, no expression, where people would criticize them more for having a bad VO than having none at all.

ArchivedUser

[quote quote=23112]There are plenty of MMOs failing that have voice acting. Frankly most of us would rather them spend funding on world design, combat systems, class features, etc because they actually make the game. If you primarily want voice acting because you’re too lazy to read, well thats not good enough a reason to invest thousands of dollars into it. Consider maybe if those other studios invested in storylines that were worth reading they wouldnt need VO to begin with.

Do i think VO for quests is cool? Yep, i love it actually. But AoC is WAY to early in development to be worried about something so superficial.

[/quote]

That's true, and I'm not saying voice acting is going to make or break a game. The main point was the reasoning behind it is what I see in upcoming MMO's all the time. The 'we're going to revolutionize the MMO industry' however 'we can't implement something the players want because it's overly ambitious or too expensive'. To me it's a notion that we want to do this better but we're still going to do it our way. These games are obviously expensive and if you're going to push something out you want it to be something you can get everyone addicted to.

It just brings familiar red flags to my eyes and I'm hoping the MMO does well as I too have invested in the kickstarter.

ArchivedUser

The ideas they have mentioned are goals they know they can achieve... They stated a Q&A with LadyPeon I think it was that, they have only mentioned what they know they can already accomplish and will continue to only mention things that they know they can do.

So the ideas they have pitched already are already being done.

I like that about Steven and his crew, they dont make everyones mind run wild with What ifs, its purely... I can do this.

ArchivedUser

Hello,

I'm certainly old-school : all MMos I played was quest reading except SWTOR. With SWTOR, it was cool at the beginning, but quests after quests, as some people doesn't read the quest text after a while, the voice sequence is also skipped. So spending money for this is, perhaps, not so important.
Voice acting is good for a game for which they have difficulties to manage the player immersion. But what I read is not this. The immersion is in the whole game (combat, environment, player progression, ...). So perhaps it is not 100% needed to have voice acting if the rest is correctly done. As it costs a lot (different langages, actors, ...) I think I'll be able to understand.

Good day to everybody

ArchivedUser

Off-topic but how did you make your signature image?

[quote quote=23221]I love the cinimatics and voice acting offered by some games, Swotor springs to mind. However outside of the $300,000,000 price tag being a tiny little hurdle to cross for an independent production company, the cost vs reward of voice acting is small. I too would much prefer this player driven sandboxish game to have lots to do rather than be a themepark with lots to watch and listen to. As always just my opinion and the reason I am supporting this game rather than whatever the flavour of the month themepark game is at the mo.

[/quote]

ArchivedUser

Voice acting is not (and should not be) anywhere near anything that isn't the very bottom of IS's priority list in making this game. They have promised so many things of such innovative calibre that it would be amazing to me if they even begin to deliver on them, voice acting be damned.

ArchivedUser

[quote quote=24994]Voice acting is not (and should not be) anywhere near anything that isn’t the very bottom of IS’s priority list in making this game. They have promised so many things of such innovative calibre that it would be amazing to me if they even begin to deliver on them, voice acting be damned.

[/quote]

i totally agree. the vast majority of players dont even play most of the game with sound on, in fact voice acting in raids simply pisses most people off as youre trying to communicate on discord. if AoC caters to the small number of players who think itl be make or break the game, and it takes away from other more important aspects. well AoC will flop. if i remember correctly bdo has voice acting (some) and yet if they had invested those resources into making a mostly pve viable endgame playstyle, i may still be playing it

ArchivedUser

I really don't care much about NPCes talking to me most of the time. Most people just skip through it anyway.
But voice acting in some cut scenes or some kind of "dungeon master" from time to time is really a good addition to the game.

Also if the game is a huge success they can add voice acting later on. But it should not be their main focus. I'd rather have polished combat. Combat is something really important to me. In my case it makes or breaks the game.

ArchivedUser

[quote quote=23221]I love the cinimatics and voice acting offered by some games, Swotor springs to mind. However outside of the $300,000,000 price tag being a tiny little hurdle to cross for an independent production company, the cost vs reward of voice acting is small. I too would much prefer this player driven sandboxish game to have lots to do rather than be a themepark with lots to watch and listen to. As always just my opinion and the reason I am supporting this game rather than whatever the flavour of the month themepark game is at the mo.

[/quote]

i fully agree!

ArchivedUser

If it were any other idea that was expensive but added to gameplay mechanics, I would agree, but I don't think voice overs should be anything but the bottom of their list of priorities. This is a very expensive feature to implement and I know a lot of players don't even listen to the voice overs completely.

Voice over may work with games that have a main quest line, but AoC is designed so that the main story is revealed indirectly through the different quests based on the nodes. Couple this with the number of nodes in the world as well as the limitation that only a small number of nodes will be developed as they deactivate the surrounding nodes, a lot of the voice over work will not be used and be essentially wasted money.