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

[Ashes_Arizona]

That screenshot is from a cinematic in-game. As stated, cinematic scenes use high resolution textures because we have control over how many characters are rendered on-screen at once. This is how the game was always intended to look in cinematics. We did not 'remove' high resolution textures - they were always in the game for use in cinematics.

 

With that said, thank you for all of your responses. We understand everyone's desires around this issue, and although it's not going to be an overnight fix, as mentioned we're working on addressing this. Many of the suggestions you have made are similar to potential changes the development team is investigating.

 

I rounded up the development team once more and had another discussion, and wanted to update you with a better timeline and some more precise details on what we're doing right now.

 

The first major changes will be in our next major Game Update, which will have the version number of 1.2. Those changes will bring greater visual fidelity to your character and those around you, but will still allow for good performance in situations where a lot of characters are on-screen at once. In other words, for those screenshots of your character in their best gear, you should see a marked improvement.

 

Other potential changes are being discussed right now – as I said, many of which are similar to changes suggested by many of you. As usual, you’ll see these sorts of changes on our Public Test Server before they make it into the live game. Right now we cannot commit to a live date for the 1.2 Game Update, but it will be within Q1 2012.

 

Thanks but sorry, as I've stated, I played in beta, I had incredible reservations in regards to the art style back then but accepted it because the texture and LOD quality of the game made the art style tolerable and even surprisingly good. What we see now in live release is not acceptable and if you're not going to have a fix for that until "sometime in Q1 2012" then I will not be paying you until that fix has gone live.

 

Its that simple. You can attempt to calm the masses all you like, but this should not have gone live. This should not be "working as intended" and "medium actually being high" texture settings is NOT A BUG as there were actually three texture resolution levels in the beta client but only two in the live client.

 

You can have all the panicked pow-wows you want at the office, but if you want an active subscription from me post January 19th, you had better address this issue before then.

 

Or you can hope I resubscribe somewhere in Q2 2012 after you've bothered to get it done.

[Cicatrize]

That screenshot is from a cinematic in-game. As stated, cinematic scenes use high resolution textures because we have control over how many characters are rendered on-screen at once. This is how the game was always intended to look in cinematics. We did not 'remove' high resolution textures - they were always in the game for use in cinematics.

 

With that said, thank you for all of your responses. We understand everyone's desires around this issue, and although it's not going to be an overnight fix, as mentioned we're working on addressing this. Many of the suggestions you have made are similar to potential changes the development team is investigating.

 

I rounded up the development team once more and had another discussion, and wanted to update you with a better timeline and some more precise details on what we're doing right now.

 

The first major changes will be in our next major Game Update, which will have the version number of 1.2. Those changes will bring greater visual fidelity to your character and those around you, but will still allow for good performance in situations where a lot of characters are on-screen at once. In other words, for those screenshots of your character in their best gear, you should see a marked improvement.

 

Other potential changes are being discussed right now – as I said, many of which are similar to changes suggested by many of you. As usual, you’ll see these sorts of changes on our Public Test Server before they make it into the live game. Right now we cannot commit to a live date for the 1.2 Game Update, but it will be within Q1 2012.

 

Way to put the carrot in front of us. Now we're supposed to bite our tongues and pray that when/if this change comes, it will be satisfactory? Except we both know it won't be anywhere near the quality of the cut-scenes and this whole *****torm will blow back up in your faces.

 

You guys act like you are just another MMO dev and average subscription numbers will satisfy the record breaking investment that was put into this project. No, we both know you need numbers resembling WoW's, as that is what you guys envisioned when you saw their vast earnings.

 

I wish I could be a fly on the wall on the 3rd month or so when you all start getting layoffs cause this project went bust.

 

Keep making retarded decisions. It amuses me.

[wifeaggro]

So now we have some clarification that they are looking to try to fix this as quickly as possible. Reid's other post was a bit vague in terms of how much of a priority this is for them. guess the piece of information we should be looking for now, is when 1.2 is likely to be deployed and how much of an affect the initial fix will have on the visuals.

 

Just adding true AA will make a signifcant difference i went and set up a profile via nvidia inspector per a very helpful forum goer's advice . its pretty noticable i might even say it makes major differences . it get way better performance and suprisingly far less heat issues with it enabled. My 590 gtx was 90 plus in tor before this profile set up no it runs low 80's.

[Ninyania]

I won't be "paying to play" until the game is worthy of my $$.

 

I'll check back in a few months to see if you make good on your "promises" to up the quality in "an up coming patch"... a.k.a. soon

 

Who's running the show there, John Smedley? Q3P0?

[Aisar]

Guess that means, with inevitable delays, I'll be looking back at this game again around April or May to see if it's worth any more money than what I've already been hoodwinked (I've always wanted to use 'hoodwinked' in a legitimate context) into spending on this blurry filthpile of a game.

 

That's assuming EAware Austin isn't closed down, or massively downsized by then, due to all the subs that will trickle out while this and other massive issues persist in a pay-to-play MMO.

 

Try playing all the classes/advanced classes/roles I guess. Personally I was done after my first character reached 48 but I know a lot of people get hooked on this story stuff. Will probably see you back some day, I am still deciding what MMO to play while I wait lol.

[zerojs]

They stopped charging for FF 14 when they realised it wasnt the game they made it out to be or the game the players expected.. think bioware should the same?

[Bakarn]

There are some pretty spectacular histrionics here given this is one of the best looking MMOs I've ever seen. Is it really that important to slow your system to a crawl rendering absurdly high definition textures when half of you have systems so poorly optimized that the forums are full of people quoting their GTX 560s with single digit frame rates?

 

Bioware can't win, tbh.

[Zezel]

I really genuinely hope you don't actually believe that is the case...

 

Same latop (Gateway 7805u) ran beta and release.

 

Beta 40 FPS

Release 10 FPS

Edited January 11, 2012 by Zezel

[xChiZx]

you must send me your ini

 

All that's in my ini that you may not have is "AntiAliasingLevel = 2" which enables x2 AA.

[nonforma]

Guess that means, with inevitable delays, I'll be looking back at this game again around April or May to see if it's worth any more money than what I've already been hoodwinked (I've always wanted to use 'hoodwinked' in a legitimate context) into spending on this blurry filthpile of a game.

 

That's assuming EAware Austin isn't closed down, or massively downsized by then, due to all the subs that will trickle out while this and other massive issues persist in a pay-to-play MMO.

 

I'd be requesting a charge back now except it would probably result in my entire Origin account being banned.

[ishtori]

Other potential changes are being discussed right now – as I said, many of which are similar to changes suggested by many of you. As usual, you’ll see these sorts of changes on our Public Test Server before they make it into the live game. Right now we cannot commit to a live date for the 1.2 Game Update, but it will be within Q1 2012.

 

then my sub and money will show up sometime Q2 2012...unless GW2/Diablo III/Pandas don't distract me too much...

Edited January 12, 2012 by ishtori

[CriDaDimon]

That screenshot is from a cinematic in-game. As stated, cinematic scenes use high resolution textures because we have control over how many characters are rendered on-screen at once. This is how the game was always intended to look in cinematics. We did not 'remove' high resolution textures - they were always in the game for use in cinematics.

 

cut scenes are not cinematics, stop calling cut scenes that! Real time use of our gear and character options ARE NOT PRE RENDERED BUMP AND SHADE MAP USE CINEMATICS. Calling them cinematics, its offensive, a cinematic is what u have at the beginning of the game, this is not a cinematic, trying to change the definition of what cinematic is to cover your rear end and saying that high res textures are cinematics now, so u dont get sued for false advertising is exactly the kind of bs that is pissing your gamers off.

 

If you do not come clean and just fix the issue it is why a law suit will be the only recourse. My goodness cant u see that u not fessing up to the problem is exactly what will force your customers to take it to a court? Now, release the high res textures u advertised and start working on releasing the even better originals and make this game better not worse.

 

And we need some major character customization on body and face, 4 body types, no undergarment style selection and a few facial and hair customizations are not as good as any mmo released in the last 5 years.

 

You are succeeding in doing one thing and one thing only with this cover up of your false advertising, ruining your name. And im quite sure your competetitors will be keeping close eyes on this as your false advertising literally hurt their busiensses. Now, if u want that to all stop, release the textures u advertised and the models u advertised and stop stonewalling your customers.

 

You want to fix your name? Then release the original artwork and give us even better then you advertised and let us decide performance. Add some major rehauls on the character creation and customization abilities, if u want me to recomend this game to any female gamer i know again.

 

You made me look like a fool to the girls i told how cool the graphics were, recommending this games graphics to people and now ur lying about it! That pisses me off, and i want this game to succeed. GET THAT?! I am trying to help you.

 

edited to fix typos because i am so pissed off i cant type straight, and no im not pissed the game doesnt look better, im pissed at being lied to and misled about a product i paid for

Edited January 12, 2012 by CriDaDimon

[Ragebropakage]

Why would it take that much time to just add the textures back to the game menu? I mean it was in Beta. And all they did was take it out, why can't they stick it in?

[Arkanovi]

Same latop (Gateway 7805u) ran beta and release.

 

Beta 40 FPS

Release 10 FPS

 

So you automatically assume "remote-rendering"? A term I expect you haven't even heard of until today

Edited January 12, 2012 by Arkanovi

[Shoxc]

That screenshot is from a cinematic in-game. As stated, cinematic scenes use high resolution textures because we have control over how many characters are rendered on-screen at once. This is how the game was always intended to look in cinematics. We did not 'remove' high resolution textures - they were always in the game for use in cinematics.

 

With that said, thank you for all of your responses. We understand everyone's desires around this issue, and although it's not going to be an overnight fix, as mentioned we're working on addressing this. Many of the suggestions you have made are similar to potential changes the development team is investigating.

 

What about all the other screenshots, especially those from BETA and all of development?

 

Since high resolution textures exists and can render all aspects of the game, why don't you allow us to choose our own Quality to performance ratio? If there's too many elements that slow down our computers, isn't that our choice to make?

 

Why not make it clear what the 2nd swtor.exe process is for? Why completely ignore the accusations of remote render DRM?

[grezgorz]

Quoting Myself one last time:

 

Wrong Tree, wrong technique.

The assets for the game are in the TOR files, as people have already extracted them. (Look around Xentax)

 

What your looking at is a renderer on a network that holds the data for geometry and sends it to a client over a network to display.

 

What we have a Renderer Separate from the Main Game Process on the Same Machine that Renders the Display for the Game.

 

Purely speculation on my part but couldn't the assets be encrypted locally while the function of the 2nd process is to retreive remote decryption keys from BW's servers then use those keys to decrypt and render the assets before passing them on to the client for display?

 

This would cut down the network traffic somewhat but still it's stupid and inefficient and cripples performance.

[Exostotic]

The first major changes will be in our next major Game Update, which will have the version number of 1.2. Those changes will bring greater visual fidelity to your character and those around you, but will still allow for good performance in situations where a lot of characters are on-screen at once. In other words, for those screenshots of your character in their best gear, you should see a marked improvement.

 

I appreciate the response; However, I do still question what "marked improvement" means. I suspect it is still not the high-rez textures we are all ranting about. I hope I'm wrong.

[Daemonjax]

 

The first major changes will be in our next major Game Update, which will have the version number of 1.2. Those changes will bring greater visual fidelity to your character and those around you, but will still allow for good performance in situations where a lot of characters are on-screen at once. In other words, for those screenshots of your character in their best gear, you should see a marked improvement.

 

Other potential changes are being discussed right now – as I said, many of which are similar to changes suggested by many of you. As usual, you’ll see these sorts of changes on our Public Test Server before they make it into the live game. Right now we cannot commit to a live date for the 1.2 Game Update, but it will be within Q1 2012.

 

Sounds good to me.

[StrikeQ]

There are some pretty spectacular histrionics here given this is one of the best looking MMOs I've ever seen. Is it really that important to slow your system to a crawl rendering absurdly high definition textures when half of you have systems so poorly optimized that the forums are full of people quoting their GTX 560s with single digit frame rates?

 

Bioware can't win, tbh.

 

The current textures are like 640x480 - hideous.

[Zezel]

So you automatically assume "remote-rendering"? A term I expect you haven't even heard of until today

 

That's why I asked the question hero, take your **** slop somewhere else.

[RyceTOR]

That screenshot is from a cinematic in-game. ... {{snip}}... We did not 'remove' high resolution textures - they were always in the game for use in cinematics.

 

Again: BS. Stephen, please go review the Bioware released GAMEPLAY walkthroughs. Such as

(timestamp 2:35 - 3:00 is a great example)

 

This is GAMEPLAY footage. High res textures CLEARLY IN THE GAME for GAMEPLAY purposes. It is these high res textures that you are marketing in these videos for GAMEPLAY (not cinematic) graphics.

 

You're living in the YouTube age. These sorts of revisionist history statements are NOT serving you.

 

High res textures have always been in the game FOR MORE THAN JUST CINEMATICS. Bioware is PUBLISHING GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE with the high res textures. If you've changed that since (and you clearly have) - you have removed them from gameplay graphics.

Edited January 12, 2012 by RyceTOR

[myrmexaw]

Don't lie to Bioware you know damn well that if you unsubscribe you will never come back because after january 20th bioware will be the laughing stock of MMORPG.

[Ninyania]

Purely speculation on my part but couldn't the assets be encrypted locally while the function of the 2nd process is to retreive remote decryption keys from BW's servers then use those keys to decrypt and render the assets before passing them on to the client for display?

 

This would cut down the network traffic somewhat but still it's stupid and inefficient and cripples performance.

 

No, because the assets are already on your computer, in the .tor files, in an unencrypted form, which can be extracted by publicly-available utilities right now, totally off-line, with no connection back to BW's servers.

[nonforma]

Purely speculation on my part but couldn't the assets be encrypted locally while the function of the 2nd process is to retreive remote decryption keys from BW's servers then use those keys to decrypt and render the assets before passing them on to the client for display?

 

This would cut down the network traffic somewhat but still it's stupid and inefficient and cripples performance.

 

Yes, people are discussing that and similar possibilities in the thread about copy protection.

[Kashaan]

Seriously this is absolutely stupid.

Why remove the option completely instead of working on it to make it work better?

I don't use a PC to be limited to certain quality levels like I am on consoles.

Sorry, this is unacceptable with the current settings on a 27" Full HD Monitor even with AA, these textures are close to unbearable.

I understand decisions have been made but I have to decide whether to stay subscribed as well and right now I highly doubt it would be worth it.

 

 

Because the beta didn't have nearly the player load that the retail game does. Even top-end PCs couldn't handle the processing required to render all the high-res models.

 

Though I do agree they could have chosen a better option. Instead of removing the ability to select it altogether, they should have added an option to limit the number of high-res renderings.

 

For example: have a setting that limits the high res models to a certain range, and any other models are rendered low-res. Or even just have an option that renders your character and your party members as high res, and other models as low-res. It would have been a happy medium until they can fix what they need to.