[Official High Resolution Textures Post] Can we get a clarification on this?

[VicSkimmr]

The game was released with an entire set of graphics options bugged or missing. I can repeat it some more, if you like. That hardly falls under a minor lack of polish or odd bug that you could reasonably expect from a release MMO. The entire visual presentation of a game is scarcely a "fairly trivial" matter, especially when all official media for the game is effectively false advertisement.

 

Considering that the vast majority of players didn't even know they were broken, I don't think it's nearly as gamebreaking as you're implying. Even after the devs had acknowledged the issue, we STILL had people vehemently deny that anything was wrong. That says a lot about the severity of the issue.

[Kraylessa]

Well, I'm glad Stephen at least came back to tell us we wouldn't get an answer today instead of just leaving us hanging.

[Zlattrick]

He did say hopefully, where did he imply that you most definitely will be getting an answer from the devs today?

 

Anyone?

Edited January 10, 2012 by Zlattrick

[Ashes_Arizona]

Seriously the "ill drop my sub" threats arent helping anyone...

 

Thats the intention. I will not pay for shoddy development and incompetent QA processes. Thus I won't be "helping" BioWare finance this hot mess any further.

 

Beta didn't cost me anything but time and thus I did not care what bugs I ran into, I reported them and moved on. Apparently all that data was more or less ignored in favor of the reports of the in house testing group and friends and family testing groups, both of which have apparently turned out to be horridly deficient at recognizing the difference in texture LOD between one beta build and another and did not key up that issue internally as something they needed to fix before release because its a VIDEO GAME, and thus VISUALS ARE IMPORTANT.

 

My collectors edition and my wifes cost me 300 dollars, and we're looking at 30 more dollars paid out to EA/BW come the 19th of this month. And somewhere between the art department and build deployment theres not ONE PERSON that can tell the Community Manager what a nearly two month old problem IS and why its STILL OCCURRING. I'm already pissed off they've got me back on the "grind tokens for welfare epics so you can grind dungeons for non-welfare epics" train that I jumped off of in WoW a few months after WoTLK came out, if my welfare epics that I hate grinding for look like crap too, well then I'm just a little bit angrier and I don't see what throwing my money into supporting this title does other than say I'm basically a sheep that'll pay for anything with a Star Wars label on it regardless of its quality (or lack thereof).

 

I don't have the PC hardware I have to play SWTOR and have it be nearly the same pixelated low rez mess that KOTOR (without independent patches) is on the same machine today.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Ashes_Arizona

[Caonimah]

Considering that the vast majority of players didn't even know they were broken, I don't think it's nearly as gamebreaking as you're implying. Even after the devs had acknowledged the issue, we STILL had people vehemently deny that anything was wrong. That says a lot about the severity of the issue.

 

The vast majority of gamers wouldn't know left from right unless you spelled it out for them. As it is, the medium, high settings created a placebo effect. People would play in high and would think "This is as high as it gets and it looks pretty good". Now if the game only launched with low and medium options in the preferences they would go "Gosh why can it only go up to medium? Dont games like this have a high and sometimes an ultra setting? It looks ok but I bet it would look great if they let me pick high!"

 

Its like if they added an AA option that didn't do any thing. Most people would click on it and say "Im playing with AA on and it looks great, I dont know what you are talking about" Only to have a person come in and say "They tricked you, that AA option is doing nothing right now"

[Behn]

thats the intention. I will not pay for shoddy development and incompetent qa processes. Thus i won't be "helping" bioware finance this hot mess any further.

 

Beta didn't cost me anything but time and thus i did not care what bugs i ran into, i reported them and moved on. Apparently all that data was more or less ignored in favor of the reports of the in house testing group and friends and family testing groups, both of which have apparently turned out to be horridly deficient at recognizing the difference in texture lod between one beta build and another and did not key up that issue internally as something they needed to fix before release because its a video game, and thus visuals are important.

 

My collectors edition and my wifes cost me 300 dollars, and we're looking at 30 more dollars paid out to ea/bw come the 19th of this month. And somewhere between the art department and build deployment theres not one person that can tell the community manager what a nearly two month old problem is and why its still occurring. I'm already pissed off they've got me back on the "grind tokens for welfare epics so you can grind dungeons for non-welfare epics" train that i jumped off of in wow a few months after wotlk came out, if my welfare epics that i hate grinding for look like crap too, well then i'm just a little bit angrier and i don't see what throwing my money into supporting this title does other than say i'm basically a sheep that'll pay for anything with a star wars label on it regardless of its quality (or lack thereof).

 

I don't have the pc hardware i have to play swtor and have it be nearly the same pixelated low rez mess that kotor (without independent patches) is on the same machine today.

 

qft!

[digitalfreak]

No, actually, it's not like that at all.

 

Care to elaborate, or do you prefer to just troll?

[Deewe]

Apologies in advance to those patiently waiting here.

 

I won't have a response for you today, but will tomorrow.

Fair enough. Already stepping in is appreciated.

 

Thanks.

[biggerthatthesun]

I am glad I found this thread. I am an unsatisfied customer. I would have immediately noticed these horrid textures had the screenshots for the game been honest ones. I am not quitting the game, yet; however, I am unsubscribing. I refuse to be another addition to the growing number of active subscribers (i.e. supposed satisfied customers) that can be used as a tool to draw more people in to this game. If BW can fix this before my sub runs out, then I will resub.

 

This is truly an absurd and unprofessional situation:

 

1. Bait and switch with the advertizing media.

2. Lack of options in a AAA product. (I believe JK and JKII had more graphics options.)

3. High res textures missing. (This sounds as absurd in a finished, modern title as leaving out water because it screws with the client. Okay, I will pretend the game looks suitable, and how about you pay to play my game pretend you are swimming as you make a breaststroke though the air.)

4. On the ptr, they are simply renaming med textures to high and calling it fixed. (Newspeak much? Orwell is enjoying this one. This indicates to me that the situation is not fixable in the immediate future.)

5. This is the main reason I refuse to endorse BW with my sub: over a thousand posts and still no serious reply addressing our concern.

 

 

TO BIOWARE:

 

There are so many reasons to love and play your game. I want it to be great. Most everyone posting in this thread wants the game to succeed. People don't make 1,000 post threads about a product unless they are invested in making it work. Here's the reality check; for most of us, YOUR PRODUCT IS NOT WORKING. Begin by agreeing that these shoddy graphics are not working as intended, putting at ease our fears about #4 above. Tell us why it isn't fixed. Then get to work fixing it. Many of us came from WoW (perhaps hopping on Aion or Rift in the interim) looking for a big-time MMO similar to that huge WoW experience, but with a new flair and better graphics. I quit WoW because of graphics. Please, Bioware, don't let SWTOR become the next Warhammer, the worst-looking MMO that could have been great.

 

Biggerthanthesun

 

P.S. Check out some screens from WAR. Texture quality looks surprisingly similar to your own gimped textures. That game was released over 3 years ago, and it looked as bad then as it does now.

Edited January 10, 2012 by biggerthatthesun

[Toweleeeie]

Considering that the vast majority of players didn't even know they were broken, I don't think it's nearly as gamebreaking as you're implying. Even after the devs had acknowledged the issue, we STILL had people vehemently deny that anything was wrong. That says a lot about the severity of the issue.

 

No it shows how clueless 99% of the community is. Most of them are running low on their toasters anyway, so they have no right to say anything when it comes to high res textures.

[Zorvan]

Apologies in advance to those patiently waiting here.

 

I won't have a response for you today, but will tomorrow.

 

And the stalling begins.

 

It was a known issue in general beta for months.

 

It was a known issue at release.

 

We all damn well know it was a known issue before you even responded the first time because if it weren't a known issue, they wouldn't have been implementing the "cover up fix" on PTR.

 

Now, I realize you're just the mouthpiece for the company and that the fault doesn't ultimately lie with you, but don't expect us to believe noone who knows what's going on was available to tell you today.

 

All that's likely happening now is they are trying to figure the best way to spin it before they give you the okay to type it here.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Zorvan

[MutsuKazuma]

if they don't even have a real answer except "you might hear from us tomorrow" nothing will change. and if you are honest to yourself for a second: he didn#t tell us anything, he just said "hey guys, we know, can't fix it, wait longer, bye!"

there was no answer on the issue, no ETA, no reason why they did the CHEATING ninja action of turning medium into high, they are simply scamming money out of people with mediocre graphics that looked different in every trailer

 

if this were some primitive bazaar they'd get stoned by now, and they deserve it at this point

 

that's just treating your paying customers as stupid fools that won't recognize the difference anyway, good job, I really looked forward to this game, but with the current presentation and the unwillingness of the customer service -> unsubscribed

there are enough other games coming out with better service, you aren't the only big fish in the sea of the gaming industry

[Kraylessa]

And the stalling begins.

 

It was a known issue in general beta for months.

 

It was a known issue at release.

 

We all damn well know it was a known issue before you even responded the first time because if it weren't a known issue, they wouldn't have been implementing the "cover up fix" on PTR.

 

Now, I realize you're just the mouthpiece for the company and that the fault doesn't ultimately lie with you, but don't expect us to believe noone who knows what's going on was available to tell you today.

 

All that's likely happening now is they are trying to figure the best way to spin it before they give you the okay to type it here.

 

I think you are confusing two separate issues. There is the original issue of high-res textures being unavailable. That has been the case since late in the Beta and has been addressed as a "known issue." This thread was created to address a much more recent issue, the removal of "Medium" as an option on the PTR, having re-labeled the current "Medium" option as "High". This change has been seen on the PTR and was not addressed in the patch notes. THIS is the issue the thread is referring to and this is the issue we are hoping to hear more about tomorrow.

 

So, to be clear, when we hear from Stephen tomorrow, we are expecting some explanation of the PTR change, not necessarily some timeline for when/if high-res textures will be added to the game. Although, it would be nice to get more information on that as well.

[Kayla_Shadowsong]

If patch 1.1 truly goes live with the Medium textures renamed to high and the high textures still missing I will very quickly go from a happy and patient customer loving the game play and willing to wait for them to fix whatever caused them to remove the high textures to a very insulted customer.

 

Yes insulted because rather than fixing or officially acknowledging a problem widely known since the beta weekends they have chosen to rename the frankly unacceptable medium textures as high. Textures that not only don't match early builds and screenshots of the game, but are ugly as all heck.

 

I have a pair of 590's and an i7 processor I'm pretty sure that I can handle anything swtor throws at me texture wise. If I don't blink at Skyrim with custom high rez textures and a view distance measured in miles I shouldn't have a problem with SWTOR with a view distance measured in yards and some of the lowest rez textures in any modern MMO. To call the current armor textures bad is an understatement one that I have been willing to endure for good gameplay.

 

If they actually rename them high I don't know what I will do for sure, but I do know that I will be madder than I have been in a very long time.

 

Besides the clunky UI the medium texture limit has been my biggest single annoyance with this game.

[Djzombie]

I don't have a problem waiting for them to fix it. What really bothers me is the lack of communication about the issue - and I think that is the problem the majority of people here have.

 

I think all most us want is a solid confirmation from someone official that the development team is working towards an actual solution to the problem.

 

It seems the public test server is telling us exactly the opposite - that they don't have a fix, they don't know how to fix it, and they don't intend to fix it. They have renamed medium textures as high and removed the medium option. That is not a fix. That is pretending the problem doesn't exist.

 

Why would they do this? The only reason I can think of is they don't intend to fix it.

[ErnieVega]

I believe that graphics have a tremendous effect on gameplay, and so do the vast majority of gamers out there.

 

Check out which consoles are most widely played. Which games are most widely purchased, and which games are most widely played.

 

You're not going to find your answer in Super Mario Bros. You're not going to find your answer in Castlevania. You won't find your answer in Sonic the Hedgehog. You're going to find that the most played games tend to be high graphic games; new games and next generation games.

 

Now before anything's said in dispute, generally speaking, good graphics don't automatically deem good gameplay. Graphics are a fundamental part of a game, as is the gameplay. They go together to create a symbiotic relationship that helps mold a good game, into a great game.

 

You can have a game with a fantastic set of game mechanics that's a lot of fun albeit its graphics engine (Minecraft?), or an aesthetically appealing game that's pleasing albeit its core mechanics (Dungeon Siege 3?), but a truly amazing game is going to have both (Batman: Arkham City?).

 

Now that aside, I think one of the biggest issues we have here isn't that we can't turn the graphics up. The true issue here is principle. This is a product that a corporation displayed as made of gold, then sold us something tin, covered in gold paint (relative to the graphics issue of course). To top it off, they never had the courtesy to tell us that they were sorry they couldn't get us gold, but they would in time. They just didn't say a word and handed us something tin while they took our money for their "gold."

 

We as not only consumers and customers, but very possibly Bioware fans and loyalists, trust in Bioware to provide to us what they've been showing us for the past several years. If they told us we might not get these graphics from the get go, displaying in truth that these might not exist, or at the very least, detailing that it might be a little while before they can repair the graphics issue, that would have been a huge start.

 

What happened though is that a known issue was covered up, and by my best estimation, pushed back and dated in the far future as not a severe issue. The idea that the developers patched the medium texture setting to high and removed medium is a sure-fire test of this idea, if not explicit proof.

 

I can see reasons why they would want to--at least temporarily--keep this under the table, don't get me wrong; perhaps they saw the issue and had been working on it, but didn't want new players to come into the game confused about their machine in relationship to the game. Maybe the outlook of the additional customer service contacts wouldn't have helped speed the fix, but only bog down resources, time, and money.

 

I understand, but I don't really sympathize with the direction of choices made here. I feel that Bioware hasn't been honest with me, with my brother, and with two close friends who all play this game together with me, as well as every other customer who waited patiently for this game's release.

 

I don't need a fix today, or tomorrow, or even the day after. What I needed has passed though. What I needed, and what I believe we all hope for as paying customers...

 

Is the truth.

 

Im just going to leave this here since you dont know what you are talking about

 

http://www.vgchartz.com/milestones.php?reg=World&cons=&milestone=20

[United_Strafes]

The only thing I can think of is that the current medium may be low, and they'll work out the high at some point. If not bye bye I like the game but bad textures on a main character for hours on end no way.

 

If they just try to cover it up by changing the options layout, frankly I'll be hugely insulted, but I have faith that this is not the case.

[Zorvan]

I think you are confusing two separate issues. There is the original issue of high-res textures being unavailable. That has been the case since late in the Beta and has been addressed as a "known issue." This thread was created to address a much more recent issue, the removal of "Medium" as an option on the PTR, having re-labeled the current "Medium" option as "High". This change has been seen on the PTR and was not addressed in the patch notes. THIS is the issue the thread is referring to and this is the issue we are hoping to hear more about tomorrow.

 

So, to be clear, when we hear from Stephen tomorrow, we are expecting some explanation of the PTR change, not necessarily some timeline for when/if high-res textures will be added to the game. Although, it would be nice to get more information on that as well.

 

Um actually, those two "separate" issues are one and the same in this thread.

 

Noone would have *****ed about the PTR change if there wasn't the texture issue to begin with.

 

There wouldn't have even been a PTR change if there wasn't the texture issue to begin with.

 

This thread is filled, right from the very start with the OP's post, with photos showing before/after texture shots.

 

So to be clear, I don't know where you get the idea that this thread ( and the 107 page thread before this continuance ) is about only the PTR change and not the entire issue surrounding it, but I think it's safe to say you're wrong.

 

And regardless of what YOU are expecting for answers, the REST of the people here seem to expect the entire issue to be addressed. And rightly so.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Zorvan

[Kayla_Shadowsong]

I think I'll leave these here since SWTOR is likely to top out somewhere in the 4-5 million mark.

 

2 million

2.5 million

3 million

4 million

5 million

 

Based on these examples his argument is valid.

 

The fastest game on the 20 million chart took more than a year to reach it and the slowest more than 4, one thing with statistics is you can always skew a sample set with careful selection of the parameters. This is also a fastest chart, which doesn't provide very good numbers for a mmo, but we're off topic.

 

What is relevant is the lack of information and the impression that renaming medium to high gives about the prospect it will actually get fixed.

[United_Strafes]

Im just going to leave this here since you dont know what you are talking about

 

http://www.vgchartz.com/milestones.php?reg=World&cons=&milestone=20

 

Interesting, when did the Wii start charging for subscription fees? I wonder why a game on a fairly cheap system that parents would buy for thier kids would sell the best. IDK you've got me at a loss.

[skepticck]

All that's likely happening now is they are trying to figure the best way to spin it before they give you the okay to type it here.

 

Just my opinion but this is also what i think is happening, yea this is the PR department's show now.

 

Hope i'm wrong.

[United_Strafes]

Just my opinion but this is also what i think is happening, yea this is the PR department's show now.

 

Hope i'm wrong.

 

If that is the case I'm gone simple as that, and I'll regret the 2 months I bought up front, as well as bash the game from here to eternity.

[biggerthatthesun]

Just cancelled my sub; see above post. Reiterating the following, just in case BW is reading this:

 

TO BIOWARE:

 

There are so many reasons to love and play your game. I want it to be great. Most everyone posting in this thread wants the game to succeed. People don't make 1,000 post threads about a product unless they are invested in making it work. Here's the reality check; for most of us, YOUR PRODUCT IS NOT WORKING. You can regain my subscription by agreeing that these shoddy graphics are not working as intended, putting at ease our fears about you simply renaming medium to high; telling us why it isn't fixed; then getting to work fixing it. Many of us came from WoW (perhaps hopping on Aion or Rift in the interim) looking for a big-time MMO similar to that huge WoW experience, but with a new flair and better graphics. I quit WoW because of horrid, player-model graphics. Please, Bioware, don't let SWTOR become the next Warhammer, the horrible-looking MMO that could have been great.

 

Biggerthanthesun

 

P.S. Check out some screens from WAR. The texture quality looks surprisingly similar to your own gimped textures. That game was released over 3 years ago, and it looked as bad then as it does now.

[Rophez]

If they don't acknowledge the problem, and actually try to hide this issue like they've done on the PTS, I will also be ending my 2 subs.

 

I need open communication from an MMO dev team, and that would be a really bad start - one I couldn't stick around to see get worse.

[ErnieVega]

Interesting, when did the Wii start charging for subscription fees? I wonder why a game on a fairly cheap system that parents would buy for thier kids would sell the best. IDK you've got me at a loss.

 

Your statement is completely irrelevant to the argument. The argument was made that the top selling games and systems would feature "good graphics" which in this discussion means more specifically high resolution textures. My argument is that that statement is completely false. Graphics little or no effect on how many units are sold... otherwise "just dance" wouldnt be outselling COD 3 right now