Way to help engagement in Main story

[Xatsh]

Would it be nice to have everything voice acted in the main story and major quest lines. Absolutely.

Would it better to have 2xs the content instead of voiced everything. Absolutely. It all comes down to budget and cost.

All in all it does help get into the story, but in a mmo gameplay and stuff to do is key.The story is something you do once and while alot may disagree with this being a final fantasy but story is not the most important thing in a mmo even this one. Each cutscene will be at most 10mins for the longest ones then you never do it again. Where content especially at endgame will be done for potentially hundreds of hours. And I would much rather them budget more money into content development over voice acting. Content is what keeps people playing the game for long period of time, not the story.

[MsQi]

Voice acting is the biggest waste of money game companies do. Not to mention in any game where you could have choises, you can't, because voice actors are insanely expensive. Text based games are better in every way, no reason to listen to some voice acting crap which adds nothing.
I'm sure someone has an excuse for wanting voice actors but i would rather play my own character than what the developers want, especially when it's always the same old "chosen hero" garbage. How can anyone enjoy being made a vapid puppet to some prophecy, fate or destiny? I really don't get it.

The sound of people's voices affects how most people connect with other people. SWTOR, known for it's vast amounts of voice acting has way more choices than this game and they actually affect how your story plays out. It was going to have more extreme choices (I think some were removed after the initial release, or maybe just after beta) but players complained about missing out because of their choices /sigh. In any game, If you want your character's fate to be totally separate from the influence of developers you have to settle for your own imagination and things that are never actually seen in the game.

Voice actors on average make on the higher end of your average skilled worker.

[Shibi]

...SWTOR, known for it's vast amounts of voice acting has way more choices than this game and they actually affect how your story plays out....

It's a great example of how voice acting can be done in an MMO. Even as far as your own character talking with the NPCs. levels 1-50 is around 10 hours of voice acting, different for each of the 8 classes. English, German, French versions. So over 200 hours of voice talent all up.

But there is a danger when one's own avatar gets a voice too. One could end up sounding like English ARR Minfilia (shudder)

[Edax]

Text based games are better in every way, no reason to listen to some voice acting crap which adds nothing.

Text based games belong in the dustbin of history. Text based motion pictures died in 1935 and it a shame video games still remain so far behind the times.

[MsQi]

It's a great example of how voice acting can be done in an MMO. Even as far as your own character talking with the NPCs. levels 1-50 is around 10 hours of voice acting, different for each of the 8 classes. English, German, French versions. So over 200 hours of voice talent all up.

But there is a danger when one's own avatar gets a voice too. One could end up sounding like English ARR Minfilia (shudder)

lol, I'm kind of curious, and scared of what my characters might sound like. I would think that even if they did greatly increase to the amount of voice acting, they would probably still leave our characters mostly mute.

[GrumbleBeard]

Voice acting in general is a cancer in games. It takes up too much space and severely limits dialogue and story option simply because people don't want to read anymore. I'm glad it's limited here.

[MistakeNot]

The sound of people's voices affects how most people connect with other people. SWTOR, known for it's vast amounts of voice acting

SWTOR is also known for being one of the most expensive MMOs ever to be created. In no small part because of the vast amounts of voice acting.

[Morningstar1337]

And SW is an IP that is known for being one of the,if not THE, biggest multimedia franchise out there.

Anyway I feel like some variance in the MSQ would go a bit farther than voice acting alone, Like have some job quest intercept with the MSQ via making NPC's important to some quests, have different outcomes open up different quests and changes to instances based on existing choices (like for example have Satasha have a more unusal look based on whether you did something different before unlocking it).

[StickyIcky]

thats a good point, if these type games are the only ones you play but coming from other MMO's, were everything is acted in today's day its jarring to go from paying attention to the story and then to immediately being taken out of the enjoyment of the story to having to switch gears in the middle of a cutscene

[MariaArvana]

Text based games belong in the dustbin of history. Text based motion pictures died in 1935 and it a shame video games still remain so far behind the times.

As far as cinema, It's a simple case that you have to hire the actors anyway to act, so part of their contract just involves speaking and isn't costing the company anymore money. Movies also tend to only last 1-3hrs, where an extremely text-heavy game like FF14 can have an upwards of 20-40hrs of voice acted content worth of text...per expansion. For multiple different languages.

Games without voice acting will forever exist simply because voice acting costs additional money to the video game companies on top of everything else they have to pay for in the development. Especially when you're a small indie studio or < 5 man team trying to create a lovely indie game on a budget, voice acting would potentially hurt the product due to having to cut expenses from other places in its stead. Not saying indie games with voice acting can exist, but everything is an opportunity cost, and for many devs, the negatives outweigh the positives.

Think About FF14. Think about the sheer, gigantic astronomical amount of text there is in this game's MSQ (lets not even dive into the even more astronomically larger side-quest pitfall) that would need to be voice-acted. Not to mention, in multiple different languages. Square as a company could easily afford it, but given that the expansion budgets are set in stone, I'm pretty sure Yoshi-P doesn't want a large % of the budget going to voice acting alone when the budget spent on the voice actors voicing the minor scenes can be spent on more important things, instead of hearing generic NPC #456789 say "go fetch this thing for me" for the #1million'th time.

It's simple priorities and budgeting 101.

Not to mention text-based games can have infinitely more charm than voice acting AAA titles if writing is lacking. take a look at how huge Helltaker blew up within a few days of it being released due to its charming dialogue and writing that gives the characters such fun personalities, without a single Voice acted line in sight.