Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

SW:TOR is attempting something that hasn’t been done as of yet and that is to bring a fully voiced MMOG to the market. The real question is if they can pull it off, and if so, can they do it with the same excellent voice acting quality that they pulled off with Mass Effect? Development of an MMOG can require a great deal of resources. Everquest 2 and Age of Conan tried to launch with a fair amount of voiceovers only to have to patch a lot of them in after launch due to development time. Can BioWare do any better?

One huge advantage that they have right now is the financial backing of EA (Electronic Arts). EA is hungry for a title that can potentially capture a portion of the market the size of what World of Warcraft has and I believe they think BioWare can give that to them. While I don’t know what the budget numbers for this project are, I’m guessing EA is providing a lot of support for what they hope will be the next big thing.

If BioWare can indeed pull off a fully voiced MMOG at launch they will have something no one else in the market has. The next question is will they be able to maintain it? With free content updates and expansions that will inevitably come, will BioWare have the resources to keep the game fully voiced, or will they simply fall back into the category of the other MMOGs of the genre and take things back down to text? If BioWare can pull this off and maintain it, they will not only have a unique gaming experience, but they will also have raised the expectations bar for the MMOG genre as a whole.