Full Voice Acting

Okay ... I've been absent from the realm of blogging for a couple of years, and I'm not going to promise anything in terms of regular updates or anything, though I am finding an interest in writing again.

So ... what have I been up to since I last blogged about EVE Online? Well I've been in EVE off and on, played several MMOs (Rift, Fallen Earth, Planetside 2 (I'll do an article on that another time), The Secret World to name a couple) and played a bunch of other games as well, but nothing that stands out as outstanding or anything.

What brought me here today was a rant about MMOs and 'fully voice acted' content. It started with Everquest II and has been growing ever since ... and it is probably one of, if not THE, biggest mistakes that modern MMO continue to make.

Why do you say that? People go ga-ga over full voice acting in games ....

Yes, that is true, and in a single player story driven game it is a wonderful way to increase the player's immersion and enjoyment of the game. Notice I said 'single player' and 'story driven' ... these are not things that truly belong in a MMO.

Let's take a look at a MMO that did both full voice acting AND story driven content - The Secret World (TSW) -

TSW is a very innovative game and in a lot of ways I like a lot of their design decisions ... the two above are not among those, however. While TSW was a very enjoyable experience a 'story driven' MMO suffers from a couple of primary problems, namely content creation speed, and player immersion. Content creation speed in that developing a plot line, creating the scripting for a deep and meaningful story that ties into the world and advances or at least deepens the over all story of the game is something that takes time. While it is possible to create short stories and asides for the players to enjoy in a relatively short time frame, they are things that will be 'consumed' in short order, often in an afternoon or over a weekend at most, yet they take weeks or months to construct, code, and patch into the game.

Player immersion is a difficult thing to talk about in a MMO in the first place, as the realities are that there are so many aspects of a MMO that break immersion in most games that in many ways expecting to become immersed in a MMO is foolish. However, the idea of a story driven game IS immersion, but it is hard to become immersed in a story that you know everyone else is doing as well ... you aren't THE hero ... you're one hero of a thousand that are saving the same town ... you're tripping over each other to fight kill 10 zombies and when you're done there's still 20 zombies on the beach. Some games get around this with instancing, or phasing, allowing for the illusion of your efforts having an effect on the world as a whole, but that can lead to other issues (players becoming separated as they end up in different phases or instances of the world at different times to name one).

Having a MMO that is fully voice acted then compounds those two problems in horrific ways -

Content creation speed slows considerably as not only does the dialog have to be written, it has to be given to a voice actor and recorded. This may sound easy, but getting a good read for a line can take time to get the right intonation and inflection for the intent of the scene. Having worked in movies and commercials I can tell you it's a lot harder than it seems upfront, and can be more problematic if there are multiple people involved and they aren't available to record at the same time. Combine that with the added cost (you're now paying a voice actor) and complications to future content that uses that character (now have to make sure that you can get the actor to come back in and record new material for the new quest.) or to updates to existing quests that use the character. (If, for example, you change any aspect of the quest that he mentions in the dialog, you also need to re-record that voice track or accept the fact that what the character tells you to do is no longer what you actual DO for the quest ... which takes us into immersion.)

In regard to immersion you would think that voice acted material would be very immersing for the player, and it can be. But in any game there becomes the issue of character voice. In any game this is an immersion problem with voice acting because either the player's character is mute (unrealistic and immersion breaking unless the character is in fact supposed to be mute), the player character has an assigned voice (which will invariably not be what the player feels is correct), or the player will have a choice of 'x' voices for the character (which still often leaves the player dissatisfied because the 'right' voice isn't an option .... and has the added downside of multiplying production costs by 'x'). A MMO which will be adding content continually, player voice becomes an increasingly problematic option and 'mute' players become increasingly frustrating.

Players don't need voice to be immersed. A good book is probably one of the most immersing experiences out there, and not only is there no voice acting, there aren't even any graphics. Imagination is a truly amazing tool, but it seems more and more that MMO developers don't want players using it.