The Race is On, V2

[Vitas]

I can see the whinge posts now, screaming why cant you make showable gear for X...

Its a can of worms they dont want to open, and I dont blame them, far too many hurdles, and far too much work for the questionable outcome, and theres much more important things this game could do with.

 

Once SGRs and the expansion are done and out of the way, perhaps a couple of the devs could focus on this so it's one step closer to seeing a playable Wookiee or Trandoshan. We can only hope that they're already thinking of ways to which they can overcome this obstacle somehow.

[Stradlin]

 

 

But I doubt that will happen, seeing as how someone in control will most likely think it will somehow hurt cartel market revenues.

 

I can just imagine this idd being extremely true. Easier to sell cool looking items for 10 dollah if players don't have much to pick from as it is.

 

Off to work here sure hope thread stays alive this time ;P

 

...Or perhaps using smiley ";P" is an insultt o community:(

Edited January 25, 2013 by Stradlin

[Mowermanx]

But I doubt that will happen, seeing as how someone in control will most likely think it will somehow hurt cartel market revenues.

 

Exactly.

Also, how well the kitty cats do in the market will determine if we will see any more species.

[Stradlin]

Exactly.

Also, how well the kitty cats do in the market will determine if we will see any more species.

 

..Wait.. the cat ppl will be Cartel junk?

Hahaha ok.

[Prysha]

I for one would like to see

 

Humans with cellphones (Sith uses iPhone, Pubbies get Samsung)

 

what is wrong with you?

 

What exactly is this thread about?

i dont get it... iphones? pandas? some peopel should better stay away from the internet when they're high...

Edited January 25, 2013 by Prysha

[Vitas]

Exactly.

Also, how well the kitty cats do in the market will determine if we will see any more species.

 

I can understand if the Cathar like existing species will be for subscribers available free for a few classes and later unlockable for the rest possibly through the Cartel Market, and for F2Ps made only available to purchase. However I'd be disappointed if subs could only get them by purchasing.

[Aries_cz]

Think of TOR version of this scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_saUN4j7Gw

(note how Harrison Ford, being a classy man he is, keeps his mouth SHUT. Fast forward 1st 2 mins if you dislike Bladerunenr for some incomprehensible reason )

 

" I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion"

" THERE WON'T BE A HEART LEFT BEATING"

" I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate."

" HARDLY A CHALLENGE FOR A SITH"

"All those moments will be lost in time... "

" WHAT DOES THIS INVOLVE?"

"like tears in rain... "

" THERE WONT BE A HEART LEFT BEATING"

" time...to die.."

" DAMN RIGHT*DS Points force choke clumsy animation*

 

I think I failed to see the point you were trying to make. Was it that SWTOR does not have long epic speeches?

I think it does have some great ones, especially from main villains, saying their Bada*s Boast pieces.

I think better analogy would be James Bond movies, as Bond gets quite lot of interruptions into the Bada*s boast of whatever evil genius he is fighting (the old James Bond, Daniel Craig does not do it that much)

Also, the dialog wheel works in the way that you do not have to wait and read the replies like in DAO for example, which in my opinion kills the immersion much more, as you have much longer pauses between dialogs. In SWTOR and Mass Effect / DA2, you can have almost uninterrupted conversation, as reading the short answers takes only few seconds, and it is displayed before the character stops speaking.

 

EDIT: Why is the word Bada*s banned, I have to idea...

Edited January 25, 2013 by Aries_cz

[Beslley]

I can understand if the Cathar like existing species will be for subscribers available free for a few classes and later unlockable for the rest possibly through the Cartel Market, and for F2Ps made only available to purchase. However I'd be disappointed if subs could only get them by purchasing.

 

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that they'd be cartel exclusive.

No idea where it was though, so I could be just making it up. I really don't know. :x

[Izorii]

I would like to see actual alien playable species instead of coloured humans. I suspect that it will take a lot of people buying Cathar to get more species put in the Cartel shop, and then if we dont get the species we want we will be told we have to buy species number 2 to get a chance at species number 3 and so on. Personaly I am hoping for Kel'dor and Gran.

[MGriffith]

In Star Wars The Old Republic we already have

- Humans

 

The game has a tankload of classes, gear and animations.

By using human bodies with different rubber mask heads they can resuse all of them.

 

If they added a radically different race they would have to duplicate all that. Considering it took several years and a large (and by now largely dismissed) team, I would not hold your breath hoping for something truly different.

It is a matter of economics really. Creating all the character model related content took tens of millions. Unless they can be certain adding another race will bring in that kind of money they will stick with the rubber heads.

 

You can rage against it all you want, but as long as the accountants run the show their word is final.

 

What you may, eventually, see is a wider range of body type options as long as they can be created by fairly restricted sliders. Do expect the performance of the game to tank initially if something like that ever gets introduced (as each character and armour model has to be scaled by the graphics card before it can be used, adding quite a bit of memory footprint to a game that already makes bigfoot look to have dainty feet).

[Stradlin]

The game has a tankload of classes, gear and animations.

By using human bodies with different rubber mask heads they can resuse all of them.

 

If they added a radically different race they would have to duplicate all that. Considering it took several years and a large (and by now largely dismissed) team, I would not hold your breath hoping for something truly different.

It is a matter of economics really. Creating all the character model related content took tens of millions. Unless they can be certain adding another race will bring in that kind of money they will stick with the rubber heads.

 

 

.

 

At absolute most, TOR has approximately as much classes, gear and animations as is the average within the genre. AA, AAA, O M G 200 mils+ or otherwise. TORs dollars sank (and show) in absolutely stunning amount of quality voice actors..NOT in depth in quality when it comes to anything visual. As has been pointed out, great many MMOs offer a great deal more diversity than TOR.

 

It should not be some impossible-to-climb mountain for team that has/had budget of an average Nasa mission at their disposal. Things ending up looking very boring, stale and clinic is an inheritent problem with scifi games, I think. People building the art style and look of such games can't go wild in as easy and natural fashion as their colelagues working on, say, cartoonish high fantasy. It is very strange that in this environment, anyone would want to be so lazy when it comes to digging them contents of that diversity barrel.

Edited January 25, 2013 by Stradlin

[MariaD]

You underestimate the power of the Dark Side!!!!111

 

Wait, no, that's not what you underestimate.

 

You underestimate the visual/graphic/programming difficulties races present, IF the quality of other features is kept, like facial expressions actually changing. BW made a decision not to change those aspects between playable races.

 

So, a Wookie companion does not have a face as expressive as a green/red/horned human. It would take a lot of work to change that.

[kirorx]

I can understand if the Cathar like existing species will be for subscribers available free for a few classes and later unlockable for the rest possibly through the Cartel Market, and for F2Ps made only available to purchase. However I'd be disappointed if subs could only get them by purchasing.

 

Come on, we all the know the answer to this. Free with sub, not likely.

[JediMB]

I can understand if the Cathar like existing species will be for subscribers available free for a few classes and later unlockable for the rest possibly through the Cartel Market, and for F2Ps made only available to purchase. However I'd be disappointed if subs could only get them by purchasing.

 

Then you'll be disappointed, because we've already been told that the species will be up for sale on the market, and that how well it does will determine if we get any more.

 

I'm currently saving my Cartel Coins for when the Cathar pop up on the Market. Wish they'd actually tell us when we can expect that.

[Arlon_Nabarlly]

so basicly your original post was deleted by BW and your reposting it? enjoy your ban man.

 

^This

[HakkaP]

Well. The original Star Wars movies were pretty much like that. Almost all of the species were humans with costumes. Humans with balls growing from their chin etc. Even on the new movies and the clone wars series all the key character are humans, or human like, except Yoda, Jar Jar, r2d2 and c3p0. Yoda would be nice character to play, but it would simply suck to see hundreds of Yodas hanging on the fleet.

 

But I do agree there should be a little more diversity. Maybe one or two species with a slightly different body structure. It wouldnt even have to be a species thats straight from the movies. The only thing I dislike about Star Wars movies anyway is the character creations. Jar Jar ffs

[Izorii]

Then you'll be disappointed, because we've already been told that the species will be up for sale on the market, and that how well it does will determine if we get any more.

 

I'm currently saving my Cartel Coins for when the Cathar pop up on the Market. Wish they'd actually tell us when we can expect that.

 

I am doing the same holding onto Cartel points waiting on Cathar and when they pop buying it even though I dont want a cathar I know this is the only way I might get a species I want to play.

[Costello]

I am doing the same holding onto Cartel points waiting on Cathar and when they pop buying it even though I dont want a cathar I know this is the only way I might get a species I want to play.

 

Lets just hope BW are as good as their word and don't decide no matter how well Cathar sell they aren't going to add any more and only said more species would be dependent on purchases to sell more.

 

I personally would prefere if Bioware did a Kickstart style system where I could put the Cartel coins I would have spent on Cathar into new Species fund. There by having no mistake that while I think ToR needs more alien species incredibly badly and this would improve the appeal of the game, in no way shape or form do Cathar meet the requirements of new alien species. They look like humans with face paint and bad hair cuts and other than being nearly wiped out by Mandalorians have nothing to offer. If you want a fury species Bothan or even Wookie would have been better. (Though I know Wookie is never going to happen cause they don't speak english). And then you have a galaxy full of species that don't look so human and instantly recongnisable from jaw shape or facial features as being an alien.

[MariaD]

I personally would prefere if Bioware did a Kickstart style system where I could put the Cartel coins I would have spent on Cathar into new Species fund.

 

Great idea, and not just for species. It would be nice for speeders and what not. You should post it separately so people could discuss.

[Anvil]

Then you'll be disappointed, because we've already been told that the species will be up for sale on the market, and that how well it does will determine if we get any more.

 

This is how BW will justify NOT doing races, it's a bit of a set up. They pick a race "cathar" that is partially modeled already, not overly popular and not one of the iconic star wars aliens that players actually want. I agree there may be some players who love cathar, but lets face it, if BW was serious about introducing races, they would bring us something like the Nautalin or Wookie or Rodian, something that everyone instantly recognises as Star Wars.

 

Something that if they did release would be guaranteed to be successful. Instead they pick Cathar. Let's face it, if you had not already played swtor you you probably wouldn't know what a cathar is. They are not featured in the star wars movies and though they may appear in the lore somewhere it is clear that the cathar are not most peoples first choice of a playable race.

 

BW must know this. So then they say, how successful the cathar are will determine if we get other races in the future. So when the vast majority of players don't feel compelled to role up a new toon and play a cathar then BW can turn around and say, they were not successful, we wont do any new races, end of discussion.

 

Somewhere in the recesses of BW some brilliant person thinks this is a good idea. I can't for the life of me understand why? I don't believe for a moment that BW is so blinkered to the desires of fans/players that they can't see what they are doing. But for some reason they want new races to fail, they don't want to do it. Otherwise we would have had these alien races at release. I believe that for design reasons, because it is easier, they have stuck with neo-humans from the beginning and they do not want to change that. They have chosen the easy path early in the design of swtor and they are unwilling to step off that path now.

 

It is a very disappointing state of affairs when we see new armor and speeders and crystals and other fluff arriving in the cartel market regularly, somone is getting paid to make this fluff, people buy it, i admit i do too because i am bored with swtor but dont want to leave it because it love star wars. It's such a pity that BW doesn't love star wars that much, or maybe they would have chosen to take a more corageous path when developing swtor and actually give fans what they desire and would pay for pay for.

[Izorii]

[quote=Costello;5773414

I personally would prefere if Bioware did a Kickstart style system where I could put the Cartel coins I would have spent on Cathar into new Species fund. .

 

I would support this I dont want a Cathar but I am planning on spending the X amount of bucks on it ( I would guess 20 bucks) just so that I can hopefully unlock a species I want to play,

 

It has been suggested on this thread and on others that Cathar are simply not iconic enough to get wide scale purchase (I know I wouldn't be buying one if other species were not riding on them) and it has also been suggested no matter how many people buy them it will never be enough. At least with a new species donatation board we would have goal and could work towards it.

[Kubernetic]

Hey, look! Someone else who refuses to acknowledge BioWare's repeated answers to these same questions. This is just what we needed.

[Beslley]

This is how BW will justify NOT doing races, it's a bit of a set up. They pick a race "cathar" that is partially modeled already, not overly popular and not one of the iconic star wars aliens that players actually want. I agree there may be some players who love cathar, but lets face it, if BW was serious about introducing races, they would bring us something like the Nautalin or Wookie or Rodian, something that everyone instantly recognises as Star Wars.

 

Something that if they did release would be guaranteed to be successful. Instead they pick Cathar. Let's face it, if you had not already played swtor you you probably wouldn't know what a cathar is. They are not featured in the star wars movies and though they may appear in the lore somewhere it is clear that the cathar are not most peoples first choice of a playable race.

 

BW must know this. So then they say, how successful the cathar are will determine if we get other races in the future. So when the vast majority of players don't feel compelled to role up a new toon and play a cathar then BW can turn around and say, they were not successful, we wont do any new races, end of discussion.

 

Somewhere in the recesses of BW some brilliant person thinks this is a good idea. I can't for the life of me understand why? I don't believe for a moment that BW is so blinkered to the desires of fans/players that they can't see what they are doing. But for some reason they want new races to fail, they don't want to do it. Otherwise we would have had these alien races at release. I believe that for design reasons, because it is easier, they have stuck with neo-humans from the beginning and they do not want to change that. They have chosen the easy path early in the design of swtor and they are unwilling to step off that path now.

 

It is a very disappointing state of affairs when we see new armor and speeders and crystals and other fluff arriving in the cartel market regularly, somone is getting paid to make this fluff, people buy it, i admit i do too because i am bored with swtor but dont want to leave it because it love star wars. It's such a pity that BW doesn't love star wars that much, or maybe they would have chosen to take a more corageous path when developing swtor and actually give fans what they desire and would pay for pay for.

 

You'd be surprised. Apparently cathar are much beloved from KOTOR, which boggles my mind because I was like "Oh, cat people. How quaint. Back to killing everything with lightning."

 

I'd much rather see wookies, mon calamari, trandoshans, and rodians (all of which already exist in-game as NPCs).

Edited January 26, 2013 by Beslley

[JediMB]

You'd be surprised. Apparently cathar are much beloved from KOTOR, which boggles my mind because I was like "Oh, cat people. How quaint. Back to killing everything with lightning."

 

I recall finishing KOTOR back in college, stumbling across Juhani's romance by pure chance (while running away from creepy Carth), and going all "wait, did I just play a Star Wars game with a lesbian catgirl?"

 

Anyway, I think it's a good species to start with, since while it has more non-human characteristics than exotic skin and hair color... it doesn't have any tentacles or disproportionate body parts that create problems with equipment and preexisting animations. (Although that also begs the question why it's taking so long to implement the species.)

 

Anyway, after Cathar... Nautolan, Togruta and Rodian are on the top of my realistic wishlist.

Edited January 26, 2013 by JediMB

[MGriffith]

(Although that also begs the question why it's taking so long to implement the species.)

 

They have to get a very partially implemented race ready for all 16 classes and all 8 class stories. This means going over tens of thousands of lines of text to see if any conflicts with a new race (shouldn't but you never know). It means checking if any of the armour and clothing will interfere with the new race (shouldn't but you never know. Remember Aric's regulation underpants showing up when wearing the invisible top armour? that kind of thing you don't want to happen to player characters).

And the people who do this are also working hard on the new content for Makeb and the thousands and thousands of lines of quest text for the first expansion. It's a lot of tedious work that the lay offs have left too little staff for.

Lay-offs make the accountants and the higher ups at the company happy, but they do tick off the players because everything now takes two or three times as long, and some things that the players have been waiting for for a long time now will perhaps never happen as they became 'too much work for too little staff and return on investment'.

 

This is how games usually are created. They start with some relatively small teams for coding and systems design, and just enough content developers to produce information that the coders need to test their work. Then when the game goes into full production hundreds of content developers (writers, modelers, texture creatures, testers) are added to crank out a huge amount of zones (or planets as in this case) with all the furniture (immobile objects that dress up the zone) and all the npcs and all the quests and points of interest. As internal alpha tests go underway problems with, or limitations of, the systems design or coding come to light and need to be fixed, sometimes requiring a reworking of zones that were thought to be locked. After release (usually forced at the point of the gun by the financers) almost all that content creation staff is let go, as is much of the coding staff (since from this point on they will be in bug fixing mode and much much less into add new features mode). New content will have to fit into existing systems and new systems are added only sparingly (as coder time is getting very limited between all the things that demand their attention). The game development is primarily run by the accountants at this point who seek to minimise cost and maximise profit so as to recoup the initial investment and make a heatlhy profit. Keeping lots of developers or content designers on staff is not conductive to those goals. And that is why things like adding a new race is taking so long. It is a lot of work and the people who must do that are also working on projects that promise a bigger return on investment. (Makeb or the hutt cartell can be enjoyed by all players. Cathar only by the players who want to romance Aric Jorgan without feeling weird about it, or who for other reasons want to play an intelligent cat in the star wars universe. So when crunched for manpower the p.t.b. shift work towards Makeb and away from the Cathar. Some way some bugs get fixed more quickly than others. Critical bugs get adressed (that is why so many developers are working on fixing and optimising the graphics engine). Minor bugs that can be fixed by an intern with minimal oversight get fixed too (have to give the intern something to do after all). In between bugs that are difficult or risky to fix, or that require senior programmers get shifted back until there is time to dedicate one to such a project. So fairly serious but not game breaking bugs remain unfixed a lot longer than apparently minor bugs. And content gets added a lot quicker if most or all players can profit from it than if it appeals to a niche (or if it requires coding time. Sorry pazaak fans).