StrykerOne Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 None of the cut scenes are set in the stone or pre-rendered. If they were, then ANY customisation of the characters would not be applied during the cut scenes. But customisation is seen in the cut scenes. In other words the cut scenes are rendered dynamically using the assets that the camera can "see". This is why I don't understand why it's so difficult to allow customisation of interiors of ships. The same therefore applies to take-off and landing cut scenes. I assumed it was a case of a pre-rendered scene using the basic character model with our current gear added on. If it's fully modular then swapping ships would be easy, but if a specific background is "baked in" to the scene then it will require code changes to add interchangeable ships. Coders tend to be lazy, so if nobody thought to say "set the scenes up so they can take place in different ships" then you can bet the backgrounds are probably hardcoded. Generally in an MMO art assets are relatively easy to tweak while code changes are the hardest things to get through (they tend to require a lot more QA time and more design resources), and I suspect there are already a ton of code changes requested that would be higher priority. So not so much "Bioware doesn't want to add this because they don't want us having ship otpions" as "Bioware already has a year or two's worth of work for the coders that's higher priority." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grotpar Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 Hard is not impossible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CyberData Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 Every ship should have a "Mission Room" or "Ready Room" where the briefings takes place that looks the same for every ship. This way the rest of the ship could be completely unique and they could make as many different ships as they wanted. The compromise would be that every ship has an identicle and non customizable "mission room". Solved that one in .3 seconds of brainstorming. Make it happen, Bioware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cordelia Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 "Unfortunately, the nature of our ships as central story areas for all of our class content, and all of the associated triggers and cinematics that must therefore be done on the ships, means that giving players new ship models, particularly interiors, is very, very hard for us. We will probably look at addressing this instead by providing a greater sense of ship customization at some point well in the future." Bummer, it's too bad we won't be able to have content like 'new ships' due to the way Bioware designed the game. I'd love to have a different sort of ship, but it looks like these sorts of cool sandboxy things won't make it into a game like SWTOR. Very disappointing that ship customisation isn't even being developed. I am already struggling to think why they even bothered with ship interiors as they have no use whatsoever. We can't even place any items in them. Didn't they say at one point ships would be like housing. Yet again, poor game design. It's all about the story and nevermind there are no actual MMO elements. Fine for a single player game which is what this should have been. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coranub Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 I really wish i could have a new ship. The bounty hunter ship is by far the worst looking ship ive seen in any game. And that includes years of Eve online. Its not even a ship. Its a deformed toolbox with stuff attached to it. And the interior also looks aweful. All my companions complains about how dreadful it looks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drosalion Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 (edited) yeh i agree OP, i was actually really let down when i read that answer too (not necessarily because of the fact that we wont get new ships - although that is disappointing as i thought it'd be cool - but just that 'story' has placed so many limitations on the game and essentially ruled out numerous potential features that would make the game alot better). I really, really hope that robust interior ship customisation will come in the future though. It'd be one of my most wanted features along with swoop-racing and pazaak. edit: Actually, I think this news in and of itself isn't really the problem, I think the issue here is that Bioware's answer to this issue is indicative of their design philosophy. They're creating a very tightly-controlled thempark style game, and any amount of freedom or player-driven creativity gets in the way of their "vision" for this game. ^ yeh pretty much that Oh well so much for ships being our homes as they were intended to be Edited February 26, 2012 by drosalion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trogo Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 I believe the "story" also has to be the reason for the very limited character creation options. The less body, head, face and so on types they have, the easier it is for them to be put into cut scenes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corradis Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 "your saga begins online.." (which is the exact same as everyone else's..) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightmaguz Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 I really wish i could have a new ship. The bounty hunter ship is by far the worst looking ship ive seen in any game. And that includes years of Eve online. Its not even a ship. Its a deformed toolbox with stuff attached to it. And the interior also looks aweful. All my companions complains about how dreadful it looks. Isn't it kinda like a proto-firespray-31(slave I)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarka Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 (edited) "your saga begins online.." (which is the exact same as everyone else's..) Lol. It's a shame that this game lacks the necessary tools and facilities which allow players to make their own experiences a bit more "unique" and therefore personal. Aside from a few dialogue choices which inevitably result in the same outcome of course Edited February 26, 2012 by Tarka Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kubernetic Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 (edited) Every ship should have a "Mission Room" or "Ready Room" where the briefings takes place that looks the same for every ship. This way the rest of the ship could be completely unique and they could make as many different ships as they wanted. The compromise would be that every ship has an identicle and non customizable "mission room". Solved that one in .3 seconds of brainstorming. Make it happen, Bioware. I'm sure there are people inside BioWare that are aware of this option and want to do it. Whether it will be a high priority in the next year or two is another issue. But I do agree they should make it happen. This game does need more than 6 flyable ships. But I certainly won't having mine for the next year or two. For those that want realism, unless you are absolutely phenomenally wealthy, you'd have a single ship for longer than a few years anyway, because they would be incredibly expensive, and take quite a while to save up for one or pay it off after you got it. And I love the variances in story with how the Smuggler and the Bounty Hunter get their ships. And I will say this, the ships they have provided are awesome in themselves. I've only really spent a great deal of time in the Jedi's, Trooper's and Smuggler's ships, with a small amount in the Agent's and Bounty Hunter's, but they all have a wonderful appeal to them. My usual comparisons in a game like this would be to the Falcon or Serenity, and the interiors are on par with both, IMHO. And it doesn't really bother me at all that other people have the same ship. Doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game in the least. I'd rather have a different exterior appearance and customizable weaponry for PVP purposes than anything. Edited February 27, 2012 by Kubernetic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCynic Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 Actually, I think this news in and of itself isn't really the problem, I think the issue here is that Bioware's answer to this issue is indicative of their design philosophy. They're creating a very tightly-controlled thempark style game, and any amount of freedom or player-driven creativity gets in the way of their "vision" for this game. EXACTLY! It means that zone/map/FP/OP design is set design FIRST! The question they ask is will the cut scene work correctly here. Second they ask is the area designed well for game play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrykerOne Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 Hard is not impossible. Having swappable ships most likely wouldn't even be hard. What it would be is time / resource consuming, and time and resources are at a premium right now since there are far more important things that need fixing. I want ship customization too, but I understand that very few people are going to quit the game because it isn't implemented compared to the number that will quit over other issues like class imbalances, buggy raids, endgame crafting being near worthless, and so forth. I fully expect customizable / swappable ships to be added later on, but probably not this year since there are just too many other things to do first that will make more people happy. And ultimately that's what MMO design is all about: pleasing the largest number of players with the finite resources you have available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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