Please switch the engine now before its too late..

[DOHboy]

Isn't there an newer version of the Hero Engine? If so I would think they 'should' be able to upgrade their content to the new engine without having to do a lot of work. Then make it available in the next level cap update.

 

They are not running the "hero engine" at the time of development the engine was still in alpha stages and has since been significantly customized that calling it the "hero engine" is about as much as calling a NASCAR entry a FORD.

[Andryah]

Isn't there an newer version of the Hero Engine? If so I would think they 'should' be able to upgrade their content to the new engine without having to do a lot of work. Then make it available in the next level cap update.

 

At this point in it's evolution....It's a custom Bioware Engine, developed from an alpha release version of Hero as it's starting point. It's not possible for them to just grab the latest release of Hero and integrate it. Even if they could/did.. what makes you think it would be better?

 

That said.. Hazed has offered to replace the engine using some unidentified engine, a team of six coops, a six pack, and all the twinkies they can eat. No word from Bioware on the offer though.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Andryah

[DOHboy]

At this point in it's evolution....It's a custom Bioware Engine, developed from an alpha release version of Hero as it's starting point. It's not possible for them to just grab the latest release of Hero and integrate it. Even if they could/did.. what makes you think it would be better?

 

That said.. Hazed has offered to replace the engine using some unidentified engine, a team of six coops, a six pack, and all the twinkies they can eat. No word from Bioware on the offer though.

 

don't forget to include a good health plan

[okkestarwars]

I've rarely ever seen the "engine" have issues beyond loading heavly populated instances gradually rather than giving my machine the fire hose.

 

I'm running a med to high end rig with an i7, SSD, GTX460 graphics card. Outside of my connection and distance and The Harbingers aging hamster I really never have problems. The PC is probably 2.5 years old and probably cost me less than $1200 at the time. I can get anywhere from 30 to 100 fps depending on what is loading. Get a few lag spikes now and then but thats typically connection issues. I'm running at high to very high graphics settings and rather enjoy my game nightly.

 

I've NEVER ever tried to run a game meeting the "minimum" specs, thats just a recipe for this game could run fine on an Xbox, so building a machine to run it should not take any significant investment.

 

 

You are missing my point, i'm sure the game runs alright on your rig but that's not my issue. My issue are that the requirements for swtor is way lower then your rig and its total ******** because NOTHING has improved over a 2 year time.

 

Call me a troll or whatever, because i think that is just a job done very poorly and if you take into account the years the game where in development...Well a triple A company should bring more effort into game performance to say the least.

 

And even the strongest of you fanboys can't ignore how many people left the game and how many servers have been closed. That should tell you something about where the direction this game is heading.

[DOHboy]

You are missing my point, i'm sure the game runs alright on your rig but that's not my issue. My issue are that the requirements for swtor is way lower then your rig and its total ******** because NOTHING has improved over a 2 year time.

 

Call me a troll or whatever, because i think that is just a job done very poorly and if you take into account the years the game where in development...Well a triple A company should bring more effort into game performance to say the least.

 

And even the strongest of you fanboys can't ignore how many people left the game and how many servers have been closed. That should tell you something about where the direction this game is heading.

 

servers were merged into super servers to maintain population that typically drops off after the flavor wears off and reduce hosting costs. This game IS steady AND growing. Those that left would probably only have stayed for a 6month subscription at best, until the next Game of the Month came out if they stayed even that long. Some people wanted KOTOR 3 and nothing more. When that wasnt what they got they left. They were looking for a 6-8 month investment at most. I was looking for a 5 year investment and am getting what I wanted. I've still got 2 class stories to play (Warrior and BH) and 1 to finish (Inquisitor)

 

When you are expecting WoW type numbers yes this is a disappointment. If you had realistic expectations, its actually in line and growing. To expect in this day and age to have 10 million subs is unrealistic. Had this game come out 6 years ago maybe it could have killed off WoW but people tastes have changed and their fan base has changed. I would be the average age of a TOR gamer is decades beyond the T rating it gets and is expected to play at.

[okkestarwars]

servers were merged into super servers to maintain population that typically drops off after the flavor wears off and reduce hosting costs. This game IS steady AND growing. Those that left would probably only have stayed for a 6month subscription at best, until the next Game of the Month came out if they stayed even that long. Some people wanted KOTOR 3 and nothing more. When that wasnt what they got they left. They were looking for a 6-8 month investment at most. I was looking for a 5 year investment and am getting what I wanted. I've still got 2 class stories to play (Warrior and BH) and 1 to finish (Inquisitor)

 

When you are expecting WoW type numbers yes this is a disappointment. If you had realistic expectations, its actually in line and growing. To expect in this day and age to have 10 million subs is unrealistic. Had this game come out 6 years ago maybe it could have killed off WoW but people tastes have changed and their fan base has changed. I would be the average age of a TOR gamer is decades beyond the T rating it gets and is expected to play at.

 

First of all i have been playing mmorpg's since Anarchy online and have had my fair share of mmo's after that so i know all about boost a new game gets in numbers.

 

As you bring WOW to the subject, that game did actually make some serious improvements to its engine and evolved into perhaps the most stable mmo ever made. (only talking about game performance not content)

 

I do smell bull ***** when you are making a case that the super servers absorbed so many players because the English PVP server i play on sits there with perhaps 2 fleet instances open. You are fooling yourself if you cant see the colossal player drop.

[DOHboy]

First of all i have been playing mmorpg's since Anarchy online and have had my fair share of mmo's after that so i know all about boost a new game gets in numbers.

 

As you bring WOW to the subject, that game did actually make some serious improvements to its engine and evolved into perhaps the most stable mmo ever made. (only talking about game performance not content)

 

I do smell bull ***** when you are making a case that the super servers absorbed so many players because the English PVP server i play on sits there with perhaps 2 fleet instances open. You are fooling yourself if you cant see the colossal player drop.

 

Well I was originally on wall of light and was merged to super server Harbinger, I can't say much for PVP servers, this game really was never meant to be hardcore PVP and thus do not expect it to be quite as popular as PVE in most instances.

[okkestarwars]

Well I was originally on wall of light and was merged to super server Harbinger, I can't say much for PVP servers, this game really was never meant to be hardcore PVP and thus do not expect it to be quite as popular as PVE in most instances.

 

So your saying they just made Ilum for laughs?

If memory serves they had the guys who from mythic who designed rvr pvp from warhammer online working on swtor pvp. Don't say they didnt intend on big scale pvp.

Edited October 28, 2013 by okkestarwars

[Andryah]

I do smell bull ***** when you are making a case that the super servers absorbed so many players because the English PVP server i play on sits there with perhaps 2 fleet instances open. You are fooling yourself if you cant see the colossal player drop.

 

You cannot use fleet instances at any random time as your empirical reference. If you do.. then the bull **** is self inflicted.

 

Super servers from a good amount of empirical observation (by multiple different forum members, back when they launched) are somewhere between 3x and 5x the size of the old original launch servers. Which means a server running at STANDARD is between 4000-6000 players logged in. With that as the basepoint.. you can then use torstatus.net to assess what's really going on for your server. Even the worst of the servers (which are the PvP servers) are running at STANDARD at least 16 hours a day.

 

Game is doing fine and server populations are healthy.

 

If you want to name your server, I'd be happy to look up it's trend data on torstatus.net and comment specifically. But wait.. you were complaining about the engine.. how did end up down in the rat hole about server numbers?

Edited October 28, 2013 by Andryah

[The_Grand_Nagus]

Conclusion: Either 1) every game engine used by every MMO sucks.. or .. 2) players are just being whiny coping-challenged attackers of faux-windmills. My money is on #2

 

Why do you feel the need to demean people to try to make your point? Also, what makes you think whining about other people whining makes the situation better?

[Thellorms]

All this whining and ************ and moaning aside, I found the art direction they took with this game to be odd at best. Everything is stylized, the characters are like almost out of a cartoon but not quite. Now that I think about it, it's kinna like the Clone Wars TV series. I don't mind it too much, but it has kind of taken away from the immersion for me. That was further agitated by the lack of interactive elements in the environment and such. I doubt I'm the only one that would have liked to hang out in the cantinas, taking a seat and having a few drinks with some friends before heading out again, all of it being thanks to an environment we could interact with (something as simple as clickable chairs). Would have done wonders for the RP community, instead they were left to hang and dry.

 

I've read a lot of posts and opinions about how simplified and dumbed down this game feels compared to other titles and I won't lie, I lean in their direction. Like many here, I come from SWG, and was hoping for something as close to SWG 2.0 (mind you, I'm referring to Pre CU and NGE) as we could get, but that wasn't on the drawing board at all. We have what feels like a watered down Star Wars game that while right now may be fun to play, feels like there's no real future in it and that it's all temporary. Of course that's true about any title, but why do I feel like I'm WAITING for this one to die, when I hoped SWG never would (much to my dismay)? Realistically, these questions can't be answered. There's good and bad points from all sides, and so much depends on everyone's individual tastes... but I for one have to agree that this game, in my view, is headed down the drain albeit slowly.

 

It also occurs to me that the desire for innovation has left the developers. It's come down to a practice of finding ways to keep the game afloat, rather than bringing innovative new features to the game. This new space expansion I was hoping would be different. I was thinking "Alright, new depth to the game!". I was crushed the moment I found out it was not only PvP only (leaving MANY players in the dust), but also that the devs stated that they had no intention whatsoever of developing a PvE aspect of it. Now don't get me wrong, I DO NOT CARE about PvP vs PvE. What this decision TRULY told me was that space is not going to get fleshed out into it's own environment. We are not going to be able to take the ships we have now and free fly through space, go where we please, and see innovation on this front. I'm sure many of us had imagined such a thing. It's all just... missed chances.

 

But what I've learned of gaming over the years, is that expecting less from your games is the safer bet. Who needs innovation when we got the name "STAR WARS"?, and gone are those days in gaming where you'd see 60+ hours in a playthrough, though those that still dare to be bold prosper greatly to this day, it's hardly become standard practice as much as it is risk vs reward (EA's very familiar with this concept, unfortunately). I'd love to see that boldness here, I'd love to see great things achieved and this game taken in bold new directions, just like I believe the OP in this post would have liked to (but his points and issues are his own and I don't share them all). We all dream, and we all end up thinking of things that could make this game better... I just wish the devs saw it the same way.

[jedimasterjac]

Oh look. Another thread where everyone magically becomes experts in game design and knows the perfect thing.

[Zoom_VI]

Oh look. Another thread where everyone magically becomes experts in game design and knows the perfect thing.

 

Welcome to the forums. Populated by a thriving community of back seat game developers

[Arkerus]

Welcome to the forums. Populated by a thriving community of back seat game developers

 

I just chuckle that this thread is still going. Anyone asking for a anything that the OP did is simply trolling on purpose.

[okkestarwars]

You cannot use fleet instances at any random time as your empirical reference. If you do.. then the bull **** is self inflicted.

 

Super servers from a good amount of empirical observation (by multiple different forum members, back when they launched) are somewhere between 3x and 5x the size of the old original launch servers. Which means a server running at STANDARD is between 4000-6000 players logged in. With that as the basepoint.. you can then use torstatus.net to assess what's really going on for your server. Even the worst of the servers (which are the PvP servers) are running at STANDARD at least 16 hours a day.

 

Game is doing fine and server populations are healthy.

 

If you want to name your server, I'd be happy to look up it's trend data on torstatus.net and comment specifically. But wait.. you were complaining about the engine.. how did end up down in the rat hole about server numbers?

 

Alright well then il take your word for it.

 

My real issue where how little the game performance has been enhanced since release and how that have made allot of my irl friends and colleagues who where looking forward on some large scale epic starwars clashes left disappointing how the game handles this.

The big nail in the coffin for many of them is this very issue and it has lead to allot of people i know unsubbing.

 

I would just like to know why people feel the need to defend bad code like this. Refining and optimization should be every game's focus. That's why i post because i can't say that there has been enough of that since release. That's my personal opinion and critic towards bioware.

[Thellorms]

Oh look. Another thread where everyone magically becomes experts in game design and knows the perfect thing.

 

I'll take that over immature sarcastic ******es any day.

[Mallorik]

Have any mmos ever actually changed engines? I know eq1 and wow had some major upgrades but I don't think they ever swapped to new engines. hoping for a complete engine change seems extremely unlikely and just a waste of time demanding one.

[Thellorms]

Have any mmos ever actually changed engines? I know eq1 and wow had some major upgrades but I don't think they ever swapped to new engines. hoping for a complete engine change seems extremely unlikely and just a waste of time demanding one.

 

EVE Online did a RADICAL engine upgrade some years back (Inferno?). The difference it made in game was the difference between white and black. Then they did it again with Incarna for the avatars. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that as the game ages even further still, they'll do it again to keep a fresh face on the game. There are reasons why I've been playing it (subscribed) since 2006. A lot of games really don't need it, but others really should consider it.

 

Oh and, if you look at screen shots of WoW back when it came out, and compared it to what it is now, it might surprise you how much detail they put into that engine over time. I'm wondering if one of the reasons in seeing stylized visuals in MMOs these days is so that it lessens the need to keep up with bleeding edge graphics technology. Probably so...

Edited October 29, 2013 by Thellorms

[Mallorik]

EVE Online did a RADICAL engine upgrade some years back (Inferno?). The difference it made in game was the difference between white and black. Then they did it again with Incarna for the avatars. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that as the game ages even further still, they'll do it again to keep a fresh face on the game. There are reasons why I've been playing it (subscribed) since 2006. A lot of games really don't need it, but others really should consider it.

 

Oh and, if you look at screen shots of WoW back when it came out, and compared it to what it is now, it might surprise you how much detail they put into that engine over time. I'm wondering if one of the reasons in seeing stylized visuals in MMOs these days is so that it lessens the need to keep up with bleeding edge graphics technology. Probably so...

 

Yeah I said changed engines, not upgraded engines, I know wow did it a couple of times ( a big one for flying mounts and then for cata) and eq1 did a big one for luclin with all new alternate char models. But I haven't heard of a game changing to another engine completely.

 

And yes that is exactly why games have stylized graphics.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Mallorik

[chuixupu]

I'm wondering if one of the reasons in seeing stylized visuals in MMOs these days is so that it lessens the need to keep up with bleeding edge graphics technology. Probably so...

 

It is....the developers of WoW, SWTOR, and Wildstar have all said that specifically. The more realistic you design the game, the more dated it will look in a shorter amount of time. Until we get to the point where we can achieve 100% realism with no uncanny valley easily and cheaply, at least.

 

Total Realism isn't appropriate for all games, though, IMO. Just like it's not appropriate for all movies.

[LordArtemis]

I think I have said this before....it's already too late, the game launched. Naturally there has been one product on the market that did an engine change...FF. To my knowledge APB didn't actually change it's engine.

 

So silliness aside, It is possible. I would say I would find it welcome, even if it meant the game would shut down for a while. But it's not something I demand.

 

I want them to continue FIXING the current engine, like they have been...they have a long way to go IMO, but they have found ways to do things that the prior dev staff said was impossible because of the engine, so I have some hope this engine can be optimized over time.

[Vhyle]

I don't want an engine change, I'd like the current one upgraded or fixed. I actually don't mind this style of graphics, I honestly didn't mind WoW's either.

 

I think if Bioware just continues to fix the engine and upgrading it when needed, I think it'll be fine. I have seen some work done on it though. I was in CB 1 all the way through launch, and came back about a week ago or so, I've noticed the difference, but I can still tell there are engine issues at work.

 

As long as they can get fixes and upgrades coming to the engine, and content continuing to be rolled out, I'll be a pretty happy camper.

[Thylbanus]

EVE Online did a RADICAL engine upgrade some years back (Inferno?). The difference it made in game was the difference between white and black. Then they did it again with Incarna for the avatars. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that as the game ages even further still, they'll do it again to keep a fresh face on the game. There are reasons why I've been playing it (subscribed) since 2006. A lot of games really don't need it, but others really should consider it.

 

Oh and, if you look at screen shots of WoW back when it came out, and compared it to what it is now, it might surprise you how much detail they put into that engine over time. I'm wondering if one of the reasons in seeing stylized visuals in MMOs these days is so that it lessens the need to keep up with bleeding edge graphics technology. Probably so...

 

It has been the same engine they launched in 2003 - Trinity. Carbon was an add-on that they added later with "Incarna", but was not some sort of engine swap out. There is no game that I can recall that has done an engine swap out, post launch. But to that point, you have to look at where we came from before you can judge what is now. Remember, it's only been 2 years and the graphics are cutting edge for a game like this. There is a reason your pilots don't interact on EVE. It's TOO complicated. The game would be half a terabyte if they tried now. So you really can't say that they have an edge, there has to be apple and oranges. We will see when Galactic Starfighter comes out.

 

As for pics from launch of this game until now (I tried to recreate each scene), here are some of mine.

Female Chiss - Character selection

Male Jedi - Character creation

Female Jedi - Jedi Temple, Tython

 

Edit: Made a quickie collage of EVE graphics. Oldest from the upper left to the most recent in the lower right.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Thylbanus

[snakebam]

I think I have said this before....it's already too late, the game launched. Naturally there has been one product on the market that did an engine change...FF. To my knowledge APB didn't actually change it's engine.

 

So silliness aside, It is possible. I would say I would find it welcome, even if it meant the game would shut down for a while. But it's not something I demand.

 

I want them to continue FIXING the current engine, like they have been...they have a long way to go IMO, but they have found ways to do things that the prior dev staff said was impossible because of the engine, so I have some hope this engine can be optimized over time.

 

This....

Just up the minimum system to a quad core proc, 16GB of ram and optimize the engine to run on modern computers. The time of C2D, 3GB ddr2 and 32bit windows xp is over so why should the game be restricted by old hardware?

[Tsillah]

I remember that someone put the wrong fuel in a car that cost about 50000 Euro's. He drove it too far even though the engine was acting up. The cost of replacing the engine was around 12000 Euro and a large part was labout cost...almost a quarter of the total price of the vehicle.

 

So I wonder, how much it would cost to change an engine for a MMO and what the labout cost would be. Do people really think it's a small investment?