Voice Acting

The first of these concerns—full voice-acting—is the most limiting from a practical standpoint. If it can't speak basic, then don't expect to play it. They didn't spend force-only-knows-how-much scrilla to voice-act every character in the game (in at least three languages) so you can select a giant grunting pig as your jedi. They want you to relate to your character on an emotional level. Growling wookiees and beeping astromechs are therefore not very desirable from a design standpoint.



And I'm not the only one who doesn't think that a snarling protagonist leads to a very empathic relationship; George Lucas agrees. He even canceled a "wookiee superhero" game because of it:

We know that each class will have two voices, a male and female voice. That seems to be pretty clearly ruling out species that don't speak basic, have ridiculous speech patterns, or would otherwise just sound weird with a human voice.

Of course, we can guess how this voice acting will work from BioWare's Mass Effect, which also had full V.O. and was limited to a male/female voice for Shepard, but there was actually a previous Star Wars game with a similar setup. I introduce you to Mr(s). Jaden Korr.

Similar to Revan and the Jedi Exile, there is an official canon version of Jaden Korr, but within the game itself, you are able to customize him with some non-human appearances:

• Male Kel Dor
• Male Rodian
• Female Twi'lek
• Female Zabrak

Notice that none of these options are very different from baseline human, and the female options are even closer to baseline human—I assume to make them "prettier". I admit, it was a little jarring to hear a rodian sound like someone I'd meet walking down the street, but I didn't have to suffer it long because I didn't choose rodian, because I didn't want to suck and die.



So assuming similar voice-acting based restrictions, I think it's safe to say we'll have a similar setup.

Archetype vs. Narrative

Too strong a "species" archetype overpowers a "profession" or "class" archetype. In many MMO games this isn't a very big deal. Just start the Tauren shaman in Thunder Bluff and call it a day. The problem for TOR is that narrative is "zoomed in" a lot more than other MMOs.

For example, Chewbacca is a smuggler. He rides shotgun with Han, he does everything Han does—and apparently they really do share everything—and if you had to pick a "profession" it's the closest thing that comes to mind other than "manslave".

And yet the viewer can tell that there's something different between Chewie and Han. We don't see Han threatening to rip your arms out of your sockets. We don't see Han using a crazy cross-bow thing instead of an honest gun. That's because Han's archetype isn't a "species" archetype whereas Chewbacca's is. Chewbacca isn't a "smuggler", he's a savage berserker! Or, in other words, he's the Tonto to Han's Lone Ranger.

The strong species archetype would overpower any "class" archetype and would end up losing what makes it cool in the process. It is for this reason that Papa George decreed no more wookiee jedi, because the archetypes conflict.

We can once again turn to Mass Effect to see how they handle these strong species archetypes: They're the NPC classes. This is supported by some comments from TOR developers:

If the species archetype gets in the way of class narrative, then the species will be relegated to NPC status. Maybe it will be available as a companion, but then again maybe not.

Class-Exclusive Gear

Okay, so maybe this last concern isn't unique to MMOs or even to RPGs, but after the Star Wars Galaxies "wookiee armor" nonsense, it's worth mentioning.



For those who don't know what I'm referring to, I envy you. Wookiee player-characters in SWG were originally denied access to any form of armor, and were only given a few pale imitation options in expansions. In a game like TOR where classes seem to be identified by their iconic toys, that might be a problem. Especially for the Bounty Hunter:

—Unless you're a wookiee, in which case, good luck, amiright? No? You say "But this isn't SWG and they don't need to restrict wookiee armor choices"?

Granted, but—going back to #2 here a bit—at what point does your Bounty Hunter wookiee lose everything that makes wookiees cool? Once he's fully covered in armor, once you take away his bowcaster and shove flamethrowers on his wrist—well at that point he's just Andre the Giant stuffed in a Boba Fett suit. And that's just wookiees. The sight of an R2-unit wielding a crimson lightsaber and force-choking incompetent fools might cause me to break out in hives.

So sorry to anyone hoping for a lightsaber-wielding ewok, but it ain't gonna happen. It might be funny, but it's the type of funny that shatters immersion. Therefore, it is very unlikely to make an appearance in this narrative-heavy game.

So there you have it. No hutts, no jawas, no wookiees, no ewoks, no yodas, no astromech droids, no kowakian monkey-lizards, and no mynocks. Customization might be important, but not at the cost of immersion and narrative.



Agree? Disagree? Heart broken over the loss of your giant-space-slug Republic Trooper? Well let's talk about it!

• 'Non-Human' Means You Can a) Be Green or b) Have Horns