Sector001

An old argument has recently been brought to the forefront about VO in video games and particularly MMO’s, because of a statement made by Cryptic Studios executive producer Craig Zinkievich, the developers of the hotly anticipated MMO Star Trek Online. In an interview with Videogamer.com he questioned Bioware’s decision to fully ‘VO’ Star Wars: The Old Republic Saying                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       “You put voice over in the game and the very first thing players want is the ability to skip through and get back to the action.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         “Whether or not they have any mechanics like that – whether or not it feels good in the game, or whether or not it ends up breaking up the action, whether or not it breaks up what’s going on to a point where people don’t like it – it’ll be interesting to see how that pans out.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Bioware, a Canadian company that has a solid track record for making good games. with deep and immersive story lines has garnered a lot of attention with their decision to fully VO which most MMO’s do not do, notable exception EQ2. Bioware obviously feels this will enhance the gaming experience of their players  and Cryptic who’s game will not employ full VO feels somewhat different. I fall of the side of Bioware I hate reading my way thought a game, probably because i’m a slow reader and I find it completely pulls me out of the experience.  I would rather sit back relax and let the NPC tell me a tale  as long as it doesn’t turn into a Xenosaga like cut scene that lasts 20 mins. Bio Break has a excellent article on the subject which puts him squarely in the Bioware camp he talks about game devs engaging both the sight and sound senses of the player. Craig Zinkievich makes some valid points to saying                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 “What we want to make sure we do is be able to have a pipeline, is be able to make content and get that content out to the player as soon as possible after launch, and continue to update the game and continue to do things to the game. Putting that big huge VO section right in that pipeline makes things a little bit more difficult in terms of getting content out.”                                           Reading the comments made about Bio Break’s article I get the feeling people fall on both sides of the argument some say VO pulls them out of the game, they are the fast readers and others are like me, the more VO the better. If there is such a split and given the extra cost of puting it in I can see why most don’t