Anonymous Mythic employee dishes dirt on WAR and SWTOR

[LC]

I guess I'm a glass-is-half-full guy.  I thought it looked like two guys that were excited about their product and were having some fun with it. 

I'd be happy to have this much enthusiasm out of the people working for me.  Even if it was a bit misplaced and nerdy. 

It reminded me of those old wrestling promos from the 80s/90s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK43nIdtqNs&feature=related

[Arthur_Parker]

DDO did dungeon voice overs as well, I'm sure somebody cared.

No one cared enough for Sony to think it was worth spending money on after release.

No I was agreeing with you, you see, I was going to say nobody cared, but then I thought it's a big world I bet somebody did care.  It was Ingmar.

[Sir T]

DDO had and has someone narrating parts of quests in a Dungeon Master fashion. All the new quests they are adding have the same quest text.

Age of Conan had speaking NPCs in its starting area Tortage, which was actually great but they had no quest speech after that, which grated. They added more speech to the game after launch.

[Xuri]

There are many problems with voice overs, unfortunately. Not only do they suck up hard-drive space like there's no tomorrow, they also make it very hard to fix/change content after it's been initially made and released. Quality voice-artists are generally very expensive and can eat up your budgets faster than you can burn a wooden house in Minecraft to the ground. And the size of those problems doubles with every new language you add localization for...

It would be a lot easier if those foolish Brits hadn't stopped conquering the damn world and just made us all speak the Queen's English, though voice-artists would probably still be as expensive.

[Speedy Cerviche]

voice-artists?

[Arthur_Parker]

The EvE guild Goonfleet employed a voice-artist once, that was pretty epic.

[Xuri]

voice-artists?

Voice-actor then, if you prefer. Doesn't make a difference, though.

[March]

If pinball machines had invested in good Voice-over technology... we'd still be playing them.

[DraconianOne]

...though voice-artists would probably still be as expensive.

Perspectve:

AFTRA union rates for videogame voice overs:  4 hour session doing 3 characters = $781. For an online game, double that. Then add 40% for union fees = $2185 + change. That's basic union fees, excluding extra voices at ~$320 each.  6 hours/6-10 voices works out at something like twice that.

Jennifer Hale, Juliet Landau, Fay Masterson and Lance Henrickson (although if he's in the game as opposed to just being the voice of the holocron, I have no idea) are going to get a lot more than that.

[Nija]

My stance on voice overs in video games goes like this.

You can talk to me, but I don't want to wait on you to finish talking before I proceed. If you have some kind of Dungeon Master character that talks to you as you enter new areas, that's okay. If you have a yellow exclamation point over your head, I don't want you to talk to me. I'm just going to click next, agree, next next finish, like I'm installing software.

Also, we need options to disable stupid one-liners that characters say. I'm replaying Borderlands and it is driving me insane.

[Soln]

If pinball machines had invested in good Voice-over technology... we'd still be playing them.

This  (well played Sir)


I wonder how much of this angst is from professionals seeing their platform disappear as social games keep growing.

[Lantyssa]

Also, we need options to disable stupid one-liners that characters say. I'm replaying Borderlands and it is driving me insane.

[Mrbloodworth]

Sometimes, its like you guys just want loot dispensers.

[Reg]

I don't get all this angst about SWTOR potentially forcing people to listen to quest text. Has one of the non-existent super-arrogant obnoxious guys at Bioware Austin twirled his villainous moustache and announced that the game is being specifically written to torture people who hate Bioware style games or something?

Jesus. Given that story telling is pretty much Bioware's entire specialty do you think that just maybe they aren't aiming for the crowd that reflexively clicks the Accept button on their way to the next poopsock adventure of repetitive levelling?

[Stabs]

I take the point about EQ2 and DDO. My view is that SWTOR is doing something different.

EQ2 had extensive voice acting lead by Christopher Lee and Heather Graham but the main draw was the game, not the voice acting. I never felt they were saying "install this so you can sit back and listen to Christopher Lee". In the SWTOR dev interviews, the earlier ones, they seemed to specifically be saying "play this game because of the voice acting". It also seems much more stop start than other MMOs - they specifically want to park you in a cut scene and have you listening rather than interacting.

It's a bit of a fine line and at any rate a derailment. And they may (based on fan feedback) adjust the model to something more conventional so that the naysayers can grumble at them for not being innovative rather than having to grumble at them for innovating something sucky.

[Ingmar]

I don't get all this angst about SWTOR potentially forcing people to listen to quest text. Has one of the non-existent super-arrogant obnoxious guys at Bioware Austin twirled his villainous moustache and announced that the game is being specifically written to torture people who hate Bioware style games or something?

Jesus. Given that story telling is pretty much Bioware's entire specialty do you think that just maybe they aren't aiming for the crowd that reflexively clicks the Accept button on their way to the next poopsock adventure of repetitive levelling?

I agree but I am a well known voice-acting lover/mole/something. If it was just someone reading off a one sided quest panel from WoW or something, yeah, that would be pretty lame, but it appears it will be participatory in the way any other Bioware RPG is - conversation trees, etc.

[kildorn]

I don't get all this angst about SWTOR potentially forcing people to listen to quest text. Has one of the non-existent super-arrogant obnoxious guys at Bioware Austin twirled his villainous moustache and announced that the game is being specifically written to torture people who hate Bioware style games or something?

Jesus. Given that story telling is pretty much Bioware's entire specialty do you think that just maybe they aren't aiming for the crowd that reflexively clicks the Accept button on their way to the next poopsock adventure of repetitive levelling?

I agree but I am a well known voice-acting lover/mole/something. If it was just someone reading off a one sided quest panel from WoW or something, yeah, that would be pretty lame, but it appears it will be participatory in the way any other Bioware RPG is - conversation trees, etc.

I will lifetime sub if they come close to ME2's paragon/renegade moments in cutscenes. Because while I hate quest text, I absolutely loved ME2's setup for the content of what was behind it (click wheel, whatever, but interrupt for awesome? Yes please.)

[Modern Angel]

Jesus. Given that story telling is pretty much Bioware's entire specialty do you think that just maybe they aren't aiming for the crowd that reflexively clicks the Accept button on their way to the next poopsock adventure of repetitive levelling?

If that's what they're doing, fine. But you don't make that game for 300 million bucks. You don't make that game for half that.

[Arthur_Parker]

AC2 had cut scenes after their set piece dungeons, these were a large part of the content in the game, yet everyone escaped out of them to catch up with their group.  

I don't mind being wrong about SWTOR, good on them if they succeed but I don't fancy their chances of selling a story driven mmo to a generation of players who have been trained to enjoy games by finding the quickest path from A to B.

And that's ignoring the figures given for break even from Lum's article on SWTOR that somebody referred to a while back.

[sam, an eggplant]

If it was just someone reading off a one sided quest panel from WoW or something, yeah, that would be pretty lame, but it appears it will be participatory in the way any other Bioware RPG is - conversation trees, etc.

It absolutely is just like a conversation in mass effect or KOTOR. Tons of fully scripted conversations for each quest and with your companions as well. The gameplay may be diku, but the story is something new. That's what Bioware's bringing to the table.

[schild]

Sometimes, its like you guys just want loot dispensers.

Everyone (only) wants fun loot dispensers, from every game. Why do you think no company in their right mind will launch against Diablo 3 (or any Blizzard game really)?

Why do you think they added gear and unlocks and crap to racing games?
Achievements in board games?
Etc.

It's all just loot.

[Lantyssa]

Sometimes, its like you guys just want loot dispensers.

Match what I quoted with my sig.

[Sjofn]

DDO had and has someone narrating parts of quests in a Dungeon Master fashion.

I fucking loved the DM. He was the highlight of that game for me. Because he did it exactly right, he would try to "do voices" and stuff, it was hilarious and awesome and perfect.

[Sir T]

DDO had and has someone narrating parts of quests in a Dungeon Master fashion.

I fucking loved the DM. He was the highlight of that game for me. Because he did it exactly right, he would try to "do voices" and stuff, it was hilarious and awesome and perfect.

About a month ago, I was doing a DDO quest with some friends of mine. At one point the DM starts talking like a emale character we were escorting, and my friend said "How come that princess sounds like a guy trying to talk like a woman" and I said "Becasue it IS a guy trying to talk like a woman." And he paused and said "Oh." From then on that NPC was known as Princess Transvestite. 

It certainly does add atmosphere. 

[Comstar]

I need to play DDO one day to do the adventures DMed by Gary Gygax.

[Amaron]

Bioware's specialty isn't voice acting.   It's specialty is giving you the choice to punch a bitch in the face when she pisses you off.  Also I guess all the goody goody types appreciate the other option of making her look like a fool.

Granted a lot of people find that boring as hell still.  We can at least agree it's new though.

[sinij]

I wonder how much of this angst is from professionals seeing their platform disappear as social games keep growing.

Platform is disappearing because of constant release fuck-ups compounded by ram-you-in-the-ass invasive DRM, compounded by micro-transaction/downloadable content milking, compounded with in-game advertising on top of all that. Industry is literally shitting themselves off the "platform" carpet.

[Typhon]

Sometimes, its like you guys just want loot dispensers.

Everyone (only) wants fun loot dispensers, from every game. Why do you think no company in their right mind will launch against Diablo 3 (or any Blizzard game really)?

Why do you think they added gear and unlocks and crap to racing games?
Achievements in board games?
Etc.

It's all just loot.

I want to feel badass with fun, engaging combat that I mostly win.  After I feel badass, I want de lewtz!  Then I want to do it again in a different setting with different creatures and different lewtz.  The feeling badass and engaging combat can not be ignored!

[Samprimary]

all I want is an awesome star wars mmo is that too much to ask for (yes)

[WindupAtheist]

Budget spiraling up to well over a quarter-billion dollars, for a fucking MMO...

I have a feeling we may witness failure on a more epic scale than any we have ever seen.

[Stormwaltz]

AC2 had cut scenes after their set piece dungeons, these were a large part of the content in the game, yet everyone escaped out of them to catch up with their group.

A man-month of precious, irreplaceable client programmer time was sunk into that cutscene engine...

[UnSub]

I have a feeling we may witness failure on a more epic scale than any we have ever seen.

In a world of APB and FFXIV, it's nice to know that someone could always do worse.

(And I agree and plan to blog about why SWOR is a high risk title. EA Louse has at least been good to crystallise my thoughts on that.)

[WindupAtheist]

I mean Buddha fucking Christ, for $300 million you could make a couple of full-scale fully-budgeted Star Wars movies and still have enough left over to make World of Warcraft with the change. If that figure is anywhere NEAR true, if it's even a decent portion of that, then this is going to go down as an unprecedented catastrophe of fucking biblical proportions unless they manage to be a WoW-level success somehow.

If this game were hypothetically a flop of Warhammer proportions, how much damage would it cause EA? I mean movie studios have been sunk by flops with smaller budgets than this before.

[Arthur_Parker]

Bioware's specialty isn't voice acting.   It's specialty is giving you the choice to punch a bitch in the face when she pisses you off. 
...
We can at least agree it's new though.

In UO you could kill NPC's, cut their bodies into separate pieces, cook them over a camp fire and then eat them.  Just saying.

[Abelian75]

I mean Buddha fucking Christ, for $300 million you could make a couple of full-scale fully-budgeted Star Wars movies and still have enough left over to make World of Warcraft with the change. If that figure is anywhere NEAR true, if it's even a decent portion of that, then this is going to go down as an unprecedented catastrophe of fucking biblical proportions unless they manage to be a WoW-level success somehow.

If this game were hypothetically a flop of Warhammer proportions, how much damage would it cause EA? I mean movie studios have been sunk by flops with smaller budgets than this before.

Regarding the 300 million, what exactly could they have spent so much money on to make that figure accurate?  It hasn't been in development inordinately long or anything, and there's only so many developers you can throw at a project.  I mean I guess you could pay them crazy amounts, or buy tons of expensive shit at the office.  Presumably the money would have gone into voice acting, but... damn, can you really sink that much into voice acting?  It seems like they would have had to bust out like 150 million on the voices alone... I don't understand how you could spend that much, but I really have no knowledge of the costs involved there.  I would have thought that time and agility would be the most severe costs of voice acting, not, like hundreds of millions of dollars.

Maybe they built, like, a recording studio?  That was insanely, insanely expensive?  Man, I dunno.  That seems like... a lot of money.