E3: SWTOR to be first fully-voiced MMO

By Ellie Gibson Published 1 June, 2009

Every character and class to sound unique.

BioWare's Ray Muzyka has revealed Star Wars The Old Republic will be "the first ever fully-voiced massively multiplayer online game".

Speaking at EA's E3 press conference, Muzyka said every class and character in SWTOR "will have his, her or its own unique voice".

"We think this changes everything for MMOs," he added. "We believe this could be one of the largest voiceover projects in the history of games - and maybe the rest of entertainment."

Muzyka went on to say that every class in SWTOR will have its own unique story. "So if you play as a bounty hunter in the Empire, then as a trooper in the Republic class, the experience will be different," he explained.

A trailer with a spooky voiceover was then shown. "Our time has come. For 300 years we prepared we grew stronger, while you rested in your cradle of power, believing your people were safe and protected," said the spooky voice. Meanwhile, a Sith Lord and his mate were slicing their way into a Republic building, lightsabering everyone in their path.

"You were trusted to lead the republic but you were deceived," The voiceover continued. "Finally, we have returned." An epic battle between a big group of Jedi knights and a bundle of Sith lords ensued, with red, green and blue lightsabers flying all over the place. The Sith Lord ended up striding out and leaving the building burning behind him, cloak flapping in the breeze. But do you get to play as Jar-Jar Binks?

Star Wars: The Old Republic is yet to be given a release date.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • AphoticCosmos #1 3 years ago

    The trailer was absolutely incredible.

    Best thing I have seen ever.

  • Razorus #2 3 years ago

    PLUS ONE to your comment Aphotic.
    It was bloody stunning. GET ON IT EUROGAMER!

  • AphoticCosmos #3 3 years ago

    [link url=http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-star-wars/49937
    ]    http://ww w.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-...[/link]

    Watch it.

    Now.

    It is . . . impossibly awesome.

  • Cannibal #4 3 years ago

    Why is it that Bioware seem to do Star Wars so much better than George Lucas these days?

  • Stuz359 #5 3 years ago

    Timothy Zahn did Star Wars more impressive than George Lucas as well. This does look incredible, but is only a trailer. Tell the truth, would still prefer a single player KOTOR 3

  • thesonglessbird #6 3 years ago

    This game is going to be huge from the sound of things...could it span more than one DVD?

  • chris_ace #7 3 years ago

    Post deleted at 11:55:13 13-12-2011

  • AphoticCosmos #8 3 years ago

    @ thesonglessbird

    TBH, considering that each class essentially has a game the length and quality of an individual BioWare RPG, yes. At least 2 DVDs are going to be required here :p

  • AphoticCosmos #9 3 years ago

    Oh look it's Captain Cockface out in force again.

    On this one, it is you versus practically the entire gaming world. BioWare are certainly one of the best respected and most loved devs you can find, and with good reason - their games are brilliant.
    Edited by 1 at 02/06/09 @ 00:48

  • cheekyjay #10 3 years ago

    I just don't get MMO's - wish I did, but I just don't . If only there were some KOTOR style single player story announced, if not instead of the multiplayer, than at least as well as it, then I'd be over the moon, but unfortunately for me and my apparently-old-fashioned tastes I'll have to make do with Mass Effect 2 for my SciFi single player Bioware kicks... I agree the video, though obviously not in-game (duh), was incredible.
    Edited by 1 at 02/06/09 @ 00:55

  • RedSparrows #11 3 years ago

    sexy vid make me happy

  • NegativeZero #12 3 years ago

    I don't want to be a downer or anything, but how in hell is this going to work? MMOs are by definition never a static thing. Look at how much WoW has evolved over the years. What happens when they need to change a quest? They have to drag that actor / actress back into the studio to re-record new dialogue?

    What about when they want to make new content available via a patch? Are they just not going to add new content to the game? It would have to be voiced too, and that has got to be expensive. Not to mention the download sizes for major patches are going to be insane if there's a ton of voice work each time. Major content patches for WoW already push half a gig, and WoW is pretty light on system resources and so on.

    I don't know, this just sounds like a really good idea in theory that's incredibly hard to do in reality without having a titanic budget and multiple millions of subscribers, like they're expecting to go toe-to-toe with Blizzard right out the door rather than actually building their player base properly. Which if it's the case is a recipe for failure and financial ruin.

  • chudders #13 3 years ago

    That is one seriously awesome trailer.

  • shamblemonkee #14 3 years ago

    Didn't EQ2 do this first? or was it not everyone *scours memory* ...hmm.

    Anyway as someone else mentioned, this always sounds 'cool' initially but in actuality you'll still just skip to the end and want to find out how many of x to kill and where to take them. Plus it does hamper change of existing content and speed of creation of new.

  • wowami #15 3 years ago

    as someone used to the EQ2 way of characters speaking i've always found other MMO's to be quiet and "empty" so this SOUNDS like it could be great.

  • wellzy4eva #16 3 years ago

    Awesome CG Trailer aside, I wanna see some real time game footage, anyone can make a good CGI trailer recently...

  • wellzy4eva #17 3 years ago

    Awesome CG Trailer aside, I wanna see some real time game footage, anyone can make a good CGI trailer recently...

  • curtlikesmeat #18 3 years ago

    I was about to say EQ2 as well, but here aren't they saying that player characters will talk as well as NPCs? Maybe that's what they're getting at (i.e. your female jedi will sound the same as every other female jedi?).

    Video was impressive, but ultimately irrelevant.

  • Springchicken #19 3 years ago

    Anyone else think the Sith Lord looks surprisingly like Malak from KotOR1?

  • hiddenranbir #20 3 years ago

    Waste of money for all that voice acting.

  • optimusprym8 #21 3 years ago

    Having previously worked for a publisher dealing with EU voice-over localisation, this is a bold statement and probably not thought through to the actual process or cost of achieving this. Unless it's only available in English but still, as others have said, lots of work and rework when patches come out and especially as MMO writers are notorious for not locking down the text / script til the very last minute.

  • qoobah #22 3 years ago

    @AphoticCosmos

    While I wouldn't go as far as Crofto did, he has a point with the whole polish issue, to a degree. BW games were never bug-free, or totally polished - just look at Mass Effect. This didn't stop them from being one of the best games released ever (ME certainly is in my top 3), but I'm not quite sure how this could fly with an MMO where a large part of userbase is casual, has a short attention span, and any and all complications shy them away in a blink of an eye.

    As to voicing the entire game...I'm with optimusprym8. From my experience the amount of content in an MMO is so huge, than only truly unseen amount of money and workforce would cut the endeavour to voice the entire thing, not mentioning issues with content patches, etc. as others have stated.

    /carefuly optimistic mode on
    Edited by 1 at 02/06/09 @ 11:14

  • Jigglybean #23 3 years ago

    I would rather have engaging content then voice. No game footage, no detail about how/if there is a skill tree system or if, infact, this will be yet another WOW clone but in a Star wars frock

  • obscured021 #24 3 years ago

    as the man said, watch the video it rocks!

  • actionfitz #25 3 years ago

    possible sith minigame (like peggle for wow) - force-lightning torture Jar-Jar Binks till his head explodes...
    just a sugestion...
    :)

  • levitate #26 3 years ago

    Muzyka means "music" in Polish. That's a funny coincidence.