Sources: the CurseForge pages for Spoken and Lore Forever, videos by Roamy Heals, Team Overpowered and K2Arcade, and Legends of Runeterra voice and card data from our own archive.
What Happened
Two free WoW addons give quest givers, books and whole zones a voice, and the voices are AI.
- Two fan addons. Spoken, a free fan-made addon, gives voices to the characters of World of Warcraft, or WoW, the long-running online game from the studio Blizzard.
- A lore narrator. Lore Forever, a second free fan addon, narrates the same world's places and history.
- Built for Forever. Both target WoW Forever, Blizzard's reimagined version of the original 2004 game, which launches Nov 4.
- Spoken is AI. Spoken, made by rustykey on CurseForge, the addon site where both projects live, calls itself "Expressive, character-driven AI voiceover for WoW Forever and Classic."
- Three modules. Spoken Quests voices quest text and NPC chatter, Spoken Zones tells zone lore, and Spoken Books reads books, letters, notes and plaques aloud.
- Pre-recorded packs. Its FAQ says "All lines are pre-recorded." You install a voice pack per module; without one, the addon stays silent.
- The lore addon. Lore Forever, made by mikeliudev, promises "Zone, quest and dungeon lore for WoW Forever, with narrated stories for every starting zone."
- Real numbers. On Oct 28, CurseForge showed 264,285 downloads for Spoken and 116,234 for Lore Forever.
Neither addon comes from Blizzard. Spoken says AI on its own page. Lore Forever's page only talks about "recorded voices" without saying how they were made, and the YouTube channel Team Overpowered, reviewed further down, treats both as AI voice work.
Hear It in Game
Roamy Heals plays eight Spoken quest givers back to back, from 1:25 in his video.
- The creator. Roamy Heals, a WoW creator who plays healers, posted his Spoken Quests video on Sept 27. The examples start at 1:25.
- A dwarf outfitter. Sten Stoutarm offers "a pair of nice warm gloves" if you bring him wolf meat.
- A town marshal. Marshal McBride tells you "We guards are spread a little thin out here and I could use your help."
- A pet trainer. Harruk, an orc trainer, turns you away: "I only help hunters and their pets."
- An orc drill. Gornek, an orc quest giver, sends you after boars because "you're more useful to us alive than dead."
I think this is really good use of it and it's so good. Obviously, voice acting thousands and thousands of quest lines would be insane.
— Roamy Heals, Spoken Quests video, Sept 27 2026, 1:05, watch
His video description is just as plain: "Yes, the voices are AI-generated. I talk about that in the video, because I know it's a sticking point for a lot of people." His sample runs eight quest givers in just over a minute.
The rest of Roamy's video: the setup and the addon list
The Lore Layer
Team Overpowered pairs the two: Spoken voices the characters, Lore Forever explains the places.
- The review. Team Overpowered reviewed both addons together on Oct 11. Its host says he has played WoW for over two decades.
- Places get stories. At 3:11, Lore Forever narrates Westfall, a farming zone south of the human capital Stormwind: "Once the fertile breadbasket of the kingdom of Stormwind."
- You can ask it. Lore Forever answers lore questions typed in plain English, and its page says "every answer offers follow-up questions."
- Posters read aloud. At 5:13 the Wanted poster for Hogger, a gnoll outlaw, reads itself: "Wanted: Hogger. A huge gnoll, Hogger."
Now, I know they are AI-generated voices, so I know for some people that will be an issue, but for me, absolutely worth trying.
— Team Overpowered, These 2 Addons Made WoW Forever Feel Like a Different Game, Oct 11 2026, 4:59, watch
The channel's own description goes further: "Quest voice acting and narrated world lore should be standard features in WoW by now." He closes the video by asking whether Blizzard should be building features like this directly into the game.
Runeterra's Silent Cast
Riot already voiced Runeterra's side cast once, in Legends of Runeterra, and even there the longest lines stayed silent.
- The world. Runeterra is the fantasy world of League of Legends, Riot Games' battle arena game, and the setting of the Riot MMO.
- Riot did this once. LoR is the short name for Legends of Runeterra, Riot's card game set in that world, which gave hundreds of minor characters recorded voices.
- The count. Our archive holds 12,477 recorded lines for 493 LoR cards that are not champions.
- Short barks. The Kindly Tavernkeeper, a Freljord innkeeper, says things like "Welcome to the Tipsy Owl." Most of its lines run under six words.
- The longest lines. On both cards below, the longest line is the flavor text, the italic quote printed on the card. Nobody recorded it.
- A Bilgewater pirate. The Dreadway Deckhand works the ships of Bilgewater, Runeterra's lawless pirate port, and plans to "leave 'em a gift tonight, nice and quiet-like."
Dreadway Deckhand: “Packed 'em good.”
Dreadway Deckhand: “I've whipped up somethin' special!”
Dreadway Deckhand: “You got legs, use 'em!”
Kindly Tavernkeeper: “Welcome to the Tipsy Owl.”
Kindly Tavernkeeper: “Warm hearts and hot soup!”
Kindly Tavernkeeper: “Let's talk about your tab.”
That gap is what an MMO multiplies. A quest giver in the Freljord, the frozen north, does not need a four-word greeting. They need a paragraph about wolves, a missing herd and where to look, then another paragraph when you come back. LoR barely voiced past the bark, and that was a card game.
Our canon even shows where the line between actor and AI could sit. Champions already talk to these side characters in LoR, with real actors on both sides of the exchange.
Braum arrives while the Kindly Tavernkeeper is on the board
Kindly Tavernkeeper: “What will you have?”
Braum: “A mug of your warmest milk, my friend!”
The Dreadway Deckhand faces Gangplank across the board
Dreadway Deckhand: “I'm goin' my own way, captain.”
Gangplank: “Aye, nailed to the keel of my ship.”
Recorded lines from Legends of Runeterra, played from RuneGrove's voice archive. Tap a line to hear it.
The AI Debate
The fight over AI voices is real, and the union already won consent rules for it.
- The union fought it. SAG-AFTRA, the US performers' union, struck video game companies from July 2024, with AI protections at the center of the dispute.
- The deal passed. Members ratified the 2025 Interactive Media Agreement in July 2025, 95.04% to 4.96%, ending the strike.
- Consent and disclosure. The contract requires consent and disclosure before a performer's AI digital replica is used, and adds a 15% pay increase.
- Limits show. Spoken's own FAQ admits "Using name is impossible with current tech," so it never says your character's name.
- Creators flag it. Roamy Heals and Team Overpowered both raise the AI question before recommending the addons anyway.
A lot of players are still working out whether all AI is bad. We don't think it is. AI voices are getting better fast, and the place they help most is the place no actor was ever going to be hired: the ten-thousandth farmhand and the book on a shelf in an inn.
That is also where the real risks sit. A voice built from an actor without consent is theft, and a cheap AI voice on a main character is the kind of cut players notice right away. The union's consent and disclosure rules are the floor. Riot would have to go past them.
AI voices are getting better fast, and the place they help most is the place no actor was ever going to be hired: the ten-thousandth farmhand and the book on a shelf in an inn.
What This Means for the Riot MMO
Nothing about the Riot MMO's voice work is announced; our read is that actors voice the champions and AI voices everyone else.
- Nothing announced. Riot has said nothing about how the MMO handles voice work. The setting, Runeterra, is the only confirmed fact.
- Actors for champions. Champions and main characters should be professionally voice acted. Players know these voices and would hear a swap.
- AI for the rest. Side NPCs, quest givers and ambient lines are where AI voices belong, because those lines would otherwise never be recorded.
- No role lost. Voicing a line that was going to stay silent takes no paid booking away from an actor.
Professional voice actors, every line.
- Champions like Braum and Gangplank already have actor-recorded voices across League of Legends and LoR. Swapping those for AI would be the worst kind of cut.
- Story scenes and cinematics stay human.
- Pay and consent follow the SAG-AFTRA terms or better.
AI voices, matched to the character.
- The Dreadway Deckhand, the Kindly Tavernkeeper, the Poro Herder: thousands of quest givers who would otherwise be a text box.
- Pre-recorded and reviewed before it ships, the way Spoken does it, not generated live at you.
- Labelled in the credits and settings, with a toggle for players who want text only.
AI narration for the world itself.
- Zone stories, wanted posters, letters and books, the jobs Spoken Zones, Spoken Books and Lore Forever already do in WoW.
- Lore questions answered in game from Riot's own canon, so a new player can ask why a place matters.
| Side by side | Spoken in WoW Forever | Riot MMO |
|---|---|---|
| Who built it | Fan modders: rustykey (Spoken), mikeliudev (Lore Forever) | Not revealed |
| Voice tech | AI voiceover, pre-recorded in voice packs | Not revealed |
| Coverage | Quest text, NPC chatter, zone lore, books | Not revealed |
| Setting | Azeroth | Runeterra, the one confirmed fact |
Take this
- Pre-recorded voice packs, one voice per character, that someone can review before players hear them.
- Narrated lore and an in-game place to ask why a zone matters.
Leave this
- AI voices on champions or main characters.
- Any voice model built from an actor without consent and pay.
- AI voice work nobody labels.
Our read. A fully voiced Runeterra is the version of this game we'd want, and Spoken shows how close fan tools already get on a game from 2004. Keep actors on the champions and let AI voice the deckhands. We made a similar case in our Red Dead 2 mod piece, and it fits the list of things Riot should take from WoW Forever.
Your Take
Should the Riot MMO use AI voices for side NPCs?
What to Watch
Reported from the Spoken and Lore Forever CurseForge pages (checked Oct 28 2026), videos by Roamy Heals, Team Overpowered and K2Arcade, and coverage of the SAG-AFTRA 2025 Interactive Media Agreement. Legends of Runeterra lines and card text come from RuneGrove's archive. The Riot MMO read is ours and clearly opinion. Analysis by RuneGrove.
