BioWare: Fully-Voiced Old Republic Was a "Dumb Thing to Try"

[Andy Chalk]

BioWare: Fully-Voiced Old Republic Was a "Dumb Thing to Try"

BioWare thought that making a fully-voiced conversation system in the upcoming MMOG Mass Effect [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dvideogames&field-keywords=%22star+wars%3A+the+old+republic%22&x=7&y=20].

Star Wars: The Old Republic was unveiled at the 2009 edition of E3 as the Dragon Age: Origins [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/92101-Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-to-be-the-First-Fully-Voiced-MMOGs-Ever]. But that plan fell apart when the Old Republic team ran headlong into Mass Effect, BioWare's other, more interesting hit sci-fi franchise.

Fully voicing an MMOG is "a massively insane expenditure and hugely complicated" undertaking, said BioWare Lead Designer and Writer Daniel Erickson. "You have to cast 16 of the best actors ever and then hold them for eternity." But when Mass Effect launched very early in the development of The Old Republic, Erickson gathered up James Ohlen, the lead designer on Knights of the Old Republic [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dvideogames&field-keywords=%22baldur%27s+gate%22&x=0&y=0] and Dragon Age: Origins and gave it a look.

"We both saw Mass Effect and were like, 'Okay. There is no choice here'. So we rounded up both sides - us and LucasArts [http://www.lucasarts.com/] - and despite it being a huge undertaking, we showed them one with VO and one without and we attached a price tag to it," Erickson said. "We thought they wouldn't go for it. We were like: 'This is a dumb thing to try to go for [in] an MMO'. It came back unanimously from both sides - we had to do it."

"Mass Effect changed the world because you became the hero," he added. "We had to go back and rewrite everything. The storytelling system is totally inked from Mass Effect."

Star Wars: The Old Republic [http://swtor.com/] is currently targeted for release in spring 2011.


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[Snowalker]

Age of Conan attempted this, they failed horribly. I'm not really looking forward to this anyhow, so my hopes aren't high

 

[ProfessorLayton]

I respect them for trying this... I want to see how they'll be able to do this.

 

[Danallighieri]

We'll have to see if this works smoothly and if that huge expenditure pays off, mind you I know alot of people who play MMOs without sound half of the time, so it could be a bit of a waste itself

 

[Brotherofwill]

It is a really dumb thing to try. We don't need voice actors for every little character. Waste of money, resources and game development time. They could have done sufficiently with giving the major ones voices or only voicing the first 2 sentences.

Voice acting adds little, makes the game more linear and takes away from your imagination. WoW didn't do too good of a job with story in their collosus, but that doesn't mean full on voice acting is required to make a good, immersive MMO world. I long for the days when games were big, unfiltered and had more choice without it.

 

[CloudKiller]

Bioware always have great scripts and voice actors so i'm sure this'll work. It'll definately make the levelling from 1 to max a lot more fun and interesting than the standard MMO click npc, click accept.

 

[Daemascus]

This game is looks like it could be really good. But why on earth do new MMORGs always seem to come out around the same time as the next World of Warcraft exspanion?

 

[Hoplon]

I'm with bioware on this one, it's all or nothing, it was jarring as hell in AoC when the NPC's suddenly stopped talking

 

[Littaly]

That is pretty cool, but won't there be a few complications? I mean, how fun is it when you have a ton of characters that not only look the same, but sound the same too?

 

[Baron Khaine]

This game is looks like it could be really good. But why on earth do new MMORGs always seem to come out around the same time as the next World of Warcraft exspanion?

I think you'll find thats the other way round, Blizzard plan expansions to come out at the same time as new MMO's do.

 

[Carnagath]

Age of Conan attempted this, they failed horribly. I'm not really looking forward to this anyhow, so my hopes aren't high

And it wasn't even a story-driven MMO. That is indeed insane from Bioware's part, it borders on impossible to have possibly hundreds of thousands lines of high quality voice acting. This must be a developer's worst nightmare...

 

[Moriarty70]

This is a real Canadian attitude. Yeah it's a dumb idea, but lets try it anyways since no one else will.

 

[Veret]

When you think about it, Bioware already has half the voice acting industry on retainer anyway, so it's not as big an undertaking as you might think. But it's still huge.

Oh, and was anyone else really excited to see Juliet Landau [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0484460/] show up on this game's cast? Just me? Sigh...

 

[Outright Villainy]

Everything I'm hearing about this game sounds great: More emphasis on story, giving alternative choices in quests or making more moral choices you can't back out on. It might be the first MMO I actually bother with.

 

[Raithnor]

Watching the footage, I don't think it's as much the voicing per se but the interactivity. A lot of MMOs hit you with a wall of text with a couple of sentences highlighted explaining what you actually need to do. (Go kill 10 rats and bring back their tails.) At least with this method you have an interactive conversation them forcing you to actually be engaged in the dialogue rather thn just skimming it for the objectives.

Star Trek Online "tried" to do this as well but it only appeared in a handful of missions.

I know in most BioWare games there's an option for turning on the subtitles, the non-english alien voices definitely use them.

The troubling part is going to be writing new content that involve the "core characters" since they're going to have to be a part of every expansion the game will do. I wonder if they'd have to change the entire voice if they lost someone for some reason.

 

[dochmbi]

You have to cast 16 of the best actors ever and then hold them for eternity.

Why? If you played Fallout 3 or Oblivion, you always come accross the same voices everywhere! Wouldn't it be better to hire 100 average voice actors to do less lines each than 16 of the best?

 

[Mandal0re]

That is pretty cool, but won't there be a few complications? I mean, how fun is it when you have a ton of characters that not only look the same, but sound the same too?

I agree. Bioware is trying to get a more engaging personal story here but im not convinced its going to work all that well in an MMO. Every character of the same class will have the same specific backstory(mentors/friends ect) companions,and voice if theyre the same gender. I think its a classic case of uncanny valley,the closer they get to an MMO with a personal story the limitations of an MMO become more glaringly obvious and seeing guys run around followed by the same friend as you with the same voice will actually take you out of the game rather than immersing you. We will have to wait and see.