My epiphany regarding SotA’s image problem for new players

Voice acting has the cost disadvantage, but the main concern I would have is limitations on changing the story and dialogue.
Currently changing texts / having multi-branched dialogue is difficult for the game to support. If you would have to fix all the dialogue and have voice acting changes become even more problematic.

I agree with your sentiment though if I extend it to SFX / background music. I am not certain if the Adoris Moaning (TM) is gone - but this was one of the biggest "turn-offs". Dynamic music is also a big factor for immersion.
I hope the reduced team (no sound designer anymore) is able to work on this.

Last but not least for the NUE it might be feasible to do some introductory voice acting for the NPC that give UI / game / story background. The scenes are often self-contained and clearly defined, so cost would be lower and the problem of fixing the text is smaller.

 

It's a wonderful idea, although not sure it can be accomplished unless we get voice actors from the community! I'd be in on that in a heartbeat

That said, I am a lifetime subscriber to Star Trek Online, a game I do not play anymore for various reasons. I bring it up because when it first launched there was no voice acting at all. At some point after release, perhaps a year or two, they added in cut scenes with voice acting. It could happen for Shroud someday, who knows? Agile development is funny like that - things change! This would be a great change for the future!

 

Voice acting also doesn't need to read the script exactly. When you interact with NPCs simple "Hello!" or "Greeting adventurer!" or "Have a look at my wares!" that randomly plays from a list of 3 or so, where it makes sense. Like a guard wouldn't give a quick blurb about what he is selling. Meanwhile, the standard polished text comes up on screen. Voice acting doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing.

 

As awesome as it would be, yeah still added costs to get done. A lot of titles, especially well funded titles, have voice acting, like EverQuest II, City of Heroes, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft... but yeah I think it's only recently big studios can afford to do voice for every character and practically every dialogue, like from Bethesda or EA. Some even have voice contributions by backers and their community. Definitely a "I'd like to see this" kind of thing, just as long as there aren't too many expectations on it. As @Mykll said, just small snippets of flavor talk could work as well... farmers with a country accent just saying hello, giving a basic greeting or making a small comment on the weather and yet not interfering with the dialogue text could work as well.

 

aw cmon... as much as i think it adds to the atmosphere of a game (yet only if done correctly), id really like them to stay away from/get distracted by yet another system. which on top is super expensive. please keep it as basic as possible for now, but make those basics work.

#uncannyvalley...
first off voice acting has to be done by pros imo, with a script, not as modules. 2 out of 3 reasons not to attempt this in this game.
im not saying some quests couldnt be narrated, but on my personal priority list regarding this game, this is just above mounts on the second to last place.
if youre using soundbites ... and we are talking about thousands of npcs here, it becomes repetitive and therefore annoying super fast. also i dont see to voice act all the dialog options there are. if it feels superficial, you rather not have it at all imo, because it rather hurts the experience instead of helping it.

 

I agree! We don't need another system right now. Gotta fix what we have I was just dreaming away...lol

 

Just speed up our movement in game, make the controls feel less clunky and you're off to a great start to getting people to try it out.

Jumping in game feels like it's on such a large delay (I guess because they decided to have you jump after releasing, not when you hit the key)

Moving around feels like your walking under water the entire time

Then what's the next thing people experience? They want to set up their hotbar. I think I sill don't understand the slotmahine rotation style.

Updating the graphics is "meh". You only look for the slot machine wheel to spin in your favor during combat, not at the actual combat itself

Oh, I'd also ponder adding in mini games like Tetris during load screens, since no matter your internet connect or computing power there's enough time to tab out and grind a WoW character to max level before you actually load into the scene... that you accidentally loaded into when you meant to click on the boat instead.

 

Jumping is fixed. You can choose to jump as you hit the key.

 

What! That seriously makes me happy. I know that sounds stupid, but jumping on releasing the key drove me up the wall.

 

Been a while since you played, eh? I suspect that is the case for many forum posters...

 

Options/Controls untick "use charged jump". Best update they made....completely agree on movement speed as well.

 

I am active on the forums and watch each livestream. I only occasionally log in to check things out. I don't dig through the menus very often though.

To give you an idea of how long it's been since I played a lot, it was when they switched the keys to toggle auto combat. I feel like that was a while ago

 

@ OP: Oh I dont know, Another 5 years of development at the current pace ? Something like that.Making the char models nice could be a start

 

Serious question... When's the last time you played?
Jumping was changed 2 releases ago, and made the default, with a option to go back to the original method. Also, movement speed on the overland map is now a sprint... fast enough that it's difficult to stay on the road in some spots.

 

Fair enough. I even played Age of Conan lol. Doesn't change the expensive and complicated part tho.

 

Funny enough overworld didn't bug me, it was the instanced speed that did. Even popping both movement speeds I had I still felt like it was sluggish. I've logged in not too long ago, but I didn't jump at all. I hated it so I have just always ran around things, so I wasn't aware there was a change.

 

Fair enough.

 

A few people will probably disagree with me, but I think it would be really cool if they put some robots in the foreground like MSTK3, and they made funny comments while you played the game.

 

I stated this in another post somewhere that we need voices in the game. It would make it more immersive. It is expensive, but we could also voice it ourselves. We do have a community of people who do voice acting. Not everyone is professional, but I could also donate my voice to the cause. I think it would be pretty awesome. But it would be up to whether the devs and Richard would want players voices in the game or if they'd want actual professional voice actors (ahem Scottie), to do the parts for the main NPC's you find on the main questlines.

 

Yeah, I've encountered a few recent forum posts from people complaining about stuff that's already fixed.