Developer Blog #10

James Ohlen is the Creative Director and Lead Designer of The Old Republic,
I, (Shauna) am the Director of Audio and Localization for BioWare

Character   Line   Comment
    Phone rings
Shauna:   Hello
James:   Are you in a good mood?
Shauna:   Yes…?
James:   You know how the game was going to be multiple times bigger than any game we’d ever done?
Shauna:   Yes… every NPC gets recorded.
James:   We did a prototype.
Shauna:   OK…
James:   We want to voice all of the characters including all player characters.
James:   Hello?
Shauna:   Pardon me?
James:   We decided that we--
Shauna:   I heard you, but this is already the biggest game we have ever done. What does that do to the line count?
James:   We're estimating hundreds of thousands of lines, give or take a few thousand.
Shauna:   Wow... You’re insane, completely insane, you know that don't you?

And so began the crazy odyssey of voice-over (VO) production for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. It would be a joint effort between BioWare and LucasArts. BioWare would write all the scripts, create the schedule and be responsible for the tracking and integration of all VO assets. The LucasArts Audio Department, led by Darragh O’Farrell, would handle recording the voice talent and sending the VO assets to BioWare.

I was excited for the chance to work with the LucasArts Audio team. They had done the VO for a previous BioWare game, Star Wars™: Knights of the Old Republic™, before I joined the company and it had been very well received. In fact, when I joined the world of VO production for games, my goal was to match the KOTOR quality bar.

But – The Old Republic would have at least ten times the lines of dialogue of KOTOR. Since neither BioWare nor LucasArts had experience on a project of this magnitude, this was an exciting and intimidating challenge. BioWare would be responsible for providing the reams and reams of scripts, as well as, managing the writing/VO production schedule. The LucasArts team would be responsible for finding the actors, recording and post processing the dialogue.

So how do we do it?
As I said, The Old Republic is the size of at least 10 KOTORs recorded back to back. Basically, it takes a very large team all focused on the same outcome - producing the most VO assets ever produced at the highest quality possible. There are dedicated internal teams at both LucasArts and BioWare, and externally, there are also multiple studio audio engineers and post production teams. On any given day, there can be over a dozen people working specifically on The Old Republic voice-over and that doesn’t include any actors!

The Process
It all starts with the writing. The story is written by a team of writers and signed off by the Principal Lead Writer. Then it is handed off to the dialogue editor where it receives a pass for ‘voice’. This ensures consistency and also that the writing is the tightest it can be to be delivered by voice actors.

Once the editing passes are complete, the conversations are formatted into scripts for the actors. Like all BioWare games, dialogue in The Old Republic is nonlinear. As a player, you can select from a number of different conversation lines which, in turn, lead to multiple options for NPC responses. This creates highly complex scripts (unlike a movie or television scripts which are linear). In studio, all the various permutations of the story must be recorded - and often in a variety of orders. Because the scripts are nonlinear, we have to provide enough context for the actors to understand what is going on. We need to set the scene for them.

There are two ways we work to ensure the actors have what they need to deliver a quality performance. First, prior to any large section of the game being recorded, the Principal Lead Writer meets with the VO directors for a story summit. They spend hours discussing the story content and going into detail about many of the characters. This is very powerful for the directors and I can assure you it doesn’t occur on all video games. This gives the directors crucial information to be able to successfully direct the performance.

The actors’ voice-over scripts are another tool we use to communicate our intention. Each new conversation script starts with a synopsis outlining the setting and purpose of the conversation. As well, “voice-over comments” are provided for all lines of dialogue, so that the intention of the writer is completely clear to the actor and the director.

After each batch of dialogue is recorded, it is edited and post processed as per the character requirements. This work is then verified and put into the game.

So, how do we ensure quality and consistency across hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue? You have to work with the best and be willing to throw away the stuff that doesn’t work. Often it takes hearing a character in-game, or hearing a combination of characters together, to be sure that you have achieved the quality that you need. The LucasArts and BioWare teams each review the voice-over in the game and then make final decisions as to what will stay and what will be re-recorded. In the end, while the script calls for hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue, we will actually have recorded much more than that! And by the time this project wraps, we will have completed easily over a thousand four-hour voice-over sessions!

Here are some other tidbits about the VO on The Old Republic:

The voice-over is being recorded in 5 different cities (so far); Los Angeles , London, New York, San Francisco, and Toronto
By the time the project is finished, we will have worked with hundreds of actors - many on multiple occasions.
The entire game ‘script’ contains approximately 40+ novels worth of content.
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. An audio pronunciation guide sure has helped .

Shauna Perry
Director of Audio and Localization

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