As I’m sure many of you have heard from their announcements at E3 2009, Bioware plans on making Star Wars: TOR a fully voiced MMORPG, that is not just involve making sure that every NPC (non playable character) has its own unique voice, but they also intend on giving even each player’s character their own voice. This enormous project was the topic of Developer Blog #10 released last week on SWTOR’s official website.
The article was written by Shauna Perry, the Director of Audio and Localization at Bioware and it describes the process of voice over work for their games, and how they plan on undertaking such an enormous endeavor with the help of Lucas Arts.
Apparently the system goes a little something like this:
Bioware is in charge of writing all of the lines (hundreds of thousands of them), managing all the schedules, and tracking where the voice over assets would be used in game.
The Lucas Arts Audio Department, led by Darragh O’Farrell, would be in charge of arranging the actors, recording the voice talent, assembling the VO assets, and shipping them back to Bioware.
In total, SWTOR expects to contain more than ten times the amount of lines of dialogue than the original Knights of the Old Republic. In addition to the vast number of lines that are necessary for such a game, the fact that the game contains a non-linear dialogue system (much like most Bioware games) leads to many complications in scripts and the physical recording of the voice acting.
Also, here are some interesting tidbits that Shauna included at the end of the blog:
1) The voice over is being recorded in 5 different cities (so far); Los Angeles, London, New York, Sanfrancisco, and Toronto
2) By the time the project is finished, they will have worked with hundreds of actors – many on multiple occassions.
3) The entire game “script” contains approximatley 40+ novels worth of content.
4) One of the biggest challenges of the production: consistency in pronunciation across the whole project! You would be amazed at how many ways there are to say “Thul” or “Holo” Projector.
This Developer Blog gives a fantastic amount of insight into the process required for adding the unique layer of depth into their new MMORPG. Shauna Perry goes into much more detail on other aspects of the voice over process. I encourage you to check it out here.
Fun Fact
During a phone conversation between Shauna and James Ohlen (The Creative Director and Lead Designer of SWTOR), James informed Shauna of their exact plans on the extent of the voice over project that was to come. The title of this article is the reaction from Shauna when she heard the news. The entire phone conversation is included with the Developer Blog at the link above.
What do you think about the project that Bioware has chosen to undertake, do you think it will revolutionize MMORPG games or just be a nice added touch to the giant mound of Awesome that tends to be anything that Bioware releases. Let us know you care, drop us a comment and tell us what you think!
