Please switch the engine now before its too late..

[Thylbanus]

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?

 

Well I'm sure they don't want to alienate people with older rigs. I'm sure when you log on, there is some sort of recording of your rig specs so that they can keep a log of what the average tech level of their players are. Don't want to be an elitist snob about a great game. It's bad enough that to get this game running partially smoothly, you need a higher end rig.

[okkestarwars]

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?

 

How about another comparison. If you work with automated industry and have a process producing a product that is offset of design, you dont just let it mass produce a sub-par product as it will lead to unhappy customers and sales drop.

 

You stop and calibrate to ensure qualities are met and your brand is not tarnished. Everyone that has ever worked with quality insurance or industry knows this.

 

I think they messed up from the start, and the only way Bioware could ever redeem this game is if they would take more responsibility for their failure and make really show everyone a improved product. And i'm not talking about content i'm all about the code and the fact that you have a tripple A company with a major IP that has been released now for 2 years and we are closing on 2014, and still the game is struggling to render 20 people on the screen at once.

 

It's suppose to be a bloody MMORPG ffs, it's just not hacking the massive in MMORPG.

[Tsillah]

How about another comparison. If you work with automated industry and have a process producing a product that is offset of design, you dont just let it mass produce a sub-par product as it will lead to unhappy customers and sales drop.

 

You stop and calibrate to ensure qualities are met and your brand is not tarnished. Everyone that has ever worked with quality insurance or industry knows this.

 

I think they messed up from the start, and the only way Bioware could ever redeem this game is if they would take more responsibility for their failure and make really show everyone a improved product. And i'm not talking about content i'm all about the code and the fact that you have a tripple A company with a major IP that has been released now for 2 years and we are closing on 2014, and still the game is struggling to render 20 people on the screen at once.

 

It's suppose to be a bloody MMORPG ffs, it's just not hacking the massive in MMORPG.

 

I think the game is flawed as any game is but I think it's doing just fine for my purposes.

 

What you fail to understand is that the investment of changing the engine may actually financially break SWTOR. Any big investment must have a clear return. I do not think that changing the engine with all the costs of doing it and the number of inevtiable bugs that will create will be a good investment. Instead of being happy with the new engine people will just complain about the new bugs.

 

It just isn't cheap to change the engine, it's not a guarantee for better gameplay and the current game is not as bad as some people here contend. Does it have flaws, bugs? Yes. Is it worse than other games? Not in my opinion.

 

You just need to get over this new engine idea cause it's just not gonna happen. It costs too much, has additional conseqences and won't give the return such an investment would require and all this while pissing people of with new bugs because no engine is bug free and a transfer from one to another will inevitably cause a lot of bugs that will need fixing.

 

For all intents and purposes SWTOR is what it is and optimisation will do what it can. A new engine? Might as well build a new game. Mass Effect Online anyone?

[okkestarwars]

I think the game is flawed as any game is but I think it's doing just fine for my purposes.

 

What you fail to understand is that the investment of changing the engine may actually financially break SWTOR. Any big investment must have a clear return. I do not think that changing the engine with all the costs of doing it and the number of inevtiable bugs that will create will be a good investment. Instead of being happy with the new engine people will just complain about the new bugs.

 

It just isn't cheap to change the engine, it's not a guarantee for better gameplay and the current game is not as bad as some people here contend. Does it have flaws, bugs? Yes. Is it worse than other games? Not in my opinion.

 

You just need to get over this new engine idea cause it's just not gonna happen. It costs too much, has additional conseqences and won't give the return such an investment would require and all this while pissing people of with new bugs because no engine is bug free and a transfer from one to another will inevitably cause a lot of bugs that will need fixing.

 

For all intents and purposes SWTOR is what it is and optimization will do what it can. A new engine? Might as well build a new game. Mass Effect Online anyone?

 

Listen i'm not delusional and from the track record they have on this game things will probably just stay in this shabby state as they continue to fling out more mounts and outfits.

 

However as a paying costumer i have the right to vocal my honest opinion, and can someone really honestly say there has been any form of technical improvements to this game over the time its been released?

 

The only thing that has changed is that we as paying costumers are upgrading our rigs to get a better experience and this is wrong in so many ways.

 

If in fact Bioware would implemented changes to the game that demand us to upgrade because of updated tech and really make the game smooth it would be cool and welcomed imo. But the truth is they have not been able to make the game run any better. They have just taken the easy way and scrapped things that where to taxing, like the Ilum pvp.

 

I'm not the one saying they should swap the engine like the OP, what i'm saying is there has not been enough improvements on this current engine.

Edited October 29, 2013 by okkestarwars

[OldRepJedi]

Listen i'm not delusional and from the track record they have on this game things will probably just stay in this shabby state as they continue to fling out more mounts and outfits.

 

However as a paying costumer i have the right to vocal my honest opinion, and can someone really honestly say there has been any form of technical improvements to this game over the time its been released?

 

The only thing that has changed is that we as paying costumers are upgrading our rigs to get a better experience and this is wrong in so many ways.

 

If in fact Bioware would implemented changes to the game that demand us to upgrade because of updated tech and really make the game smooth it would be cool and welcomed imo. But the truth is they have not been able to make the game run any better. They have just taken the easy way and scrapped things that where to taxing, like the Ilum pvp.

 

I'm not the one saying they should swap the engine like the OP, what i'm saying is there has not been enough improvements on this current engine.

 

To go back to the car analogy, you can put a turbo on the engine of Pinto, but it is till the engine in a Pinto. Not to compare SWTOR with a substandard car, but that car was actually liked by a lot of people. SWTOR is the same way. Yes, Some of their solutions are just to take things out of the game. But if you look at when the game went into development, this engine was one of the better ones out there. Compared to what is out know it is like that Pinto, but they can only do what they can do within the constraints of what they are working with. If a person is using a machine that doesn't do the job when the settings are set on low, then maybe they should upgrade. I have a 5 year old HP desktop sitting in my office at home, but I am not about to try to play SWTOR on it. I know the hardware cannot make it run near as well as my gaming rig. So if my gaming computer decides to break, well then I am S.O.L. This is why they have minimum hardware requirements. If a computer is not running it very well, then maybe it is time to upgrade. I know some people don't have the income to invest in a whole new system, but at the same time they have to be realistic on what their systems can and cannot do.

[CosmicKat]

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?

 

Spin.

 

The "super server" capacity vs. old server capacity is irrelevant. The servers now are no more crowded than they were at launch. Who cares if they could hold 3 times that much?

 

"Super server" is a marketing gimmick that was used to shine a positive light on the 10 -1 contraction of servers.

 

Maybe they could change the display to "Ultra Super Full" instead of "Standard" and things would be even peachier. At primetime peaks this game is lucky to have 50k concurrent users at any one time. Assume half of those are playing for free.

[okkestarwars]

To go back to the car analogy, you can put a turbo on the engine of Pinto, but it is till the engine in a Pinto. Not to compare SWTOR with a substandard car, but that car was actually liked by a lot of people. SWTOR is the same way. Yes, Some of their solutions are just to take things out of the game. But if you look at when the game went into development, this engine was one of the better ones out there. Compared to what is out know it is like that Pinto, but they can only do what they can do within the constraints of what they are working with. If a person is using a machine that doesn't do the job when the settings are set on low, then maybe they should upgrade. I have a 5 year old HP desktop sitting in my office at home, but I am not about to try to play SWTOR on it. I know the hardware cannot make it run near as well as my gaming rig. So if my gaming computer decides to break, well then I am S.O.L. This is why they have minimum hardware requirements. If a computer is not running it very well, then maybe it is time to upgrade. I know some people don't have the income to invest in a whole new system, but at the same time they have to be realistic on what their systems can and cannot do.

 

Dude you are treating Bioware like some small indie game company when in fact they are one of the premium brands out there. They should have a *********** supercharger in that Pinto and blow the cops with a large grin on their face if we are playing analogy.

[Andryah]

Spin.

 

The "super server" capacity vs. old server capacity is irrelevant. The servers now are no more crowded than they were at launch. Who cares if they could hold 3 times that much?

 

"Super server" is a marketing gimmick that was used to shine a positive light on the 10 -1 contraction of servers.

 

Maybe they could change the display to "Ultra Super Full" instead of "Standard" and things would be even peachier. At primetime peaks this game is lucky to have 50k concurrent users at any one time. Assume half of those are playing for free.

 

Irony there with your personal spin there CK.

 

I care, because unlike those tiny and underpopulated servers after launch surge... these are stable and populated. So there is always a lot going on. Larger servers mean more active players per server.. which means even at off hours.. there are more players playing.

 

And actually.. its' way more then 50K across the server farms at server prime times. Conservatively.. it's closer to 100K (and probably closer to 125K right now), as I have mapped out and explained to you before. But feel free to keep plugging away with your number if you feel good about it.... but i's just you spinning.

 

What matters to players is are their servers active and are there people to play with and is the server economy active and healthy.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Andryah

[The_Grand_Nagus]

And actually.. its' way more then 50K across the server farms at server prime times. Conservatively.. it's closer to 100K (and probably closer to 125K right now), as I have mapped out and explained to you before.

 

What is your source for these figures?

[CosmicKat]

Irony there with your personal spin there CK.

 

I care, because unlike those tiny and underpopulated servers after launch surge... these are stable and populated. So there is always a lot going on. Larger servers mean more active players per server.. which means even at off hours.. there are more players playing.

 

And actually.. its' way more then 50K across the server farms at server prime times. Conservatively.. it's closer to 100K (and probably closer to 125K right now), as I have mapped out and explained to you before. But feel free to keep plugging away with your number if you feel good about it.... but i's just you spinning.

 

What matters to players is are their servers active and are there people to play with and is the server economy active and healthy.

 

To reach a total of 100k players at any one time the following would need to be true...

 

1) 2-3 instances of 200 people each on each fleet.

2) 2 instances of 100 people on every planet for both factions.

 

All 8 servers would have to see these numbers.

 

It's not wizardry.

 

Perhaps the rose coloring on your glasses is giving you quadruple vision.

[TUXs]

To reach a total of 100k players at any one time the following would need to be true...

 

1) 2-3 instances of 200 people each on each fleet.

2) 2 instances of 100 people on every planet for both factions.

 

All 8 servers would have to see these numbers.

 

It's not wizardry.

 

Perhaps the rose coloring on your glasses is giving you quadruple vision.

 

lol, well done Cosmic.

[jedimasterjac]

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

 

Immature? Haha, thanks, man. No, I just don't pretend to be an expert in game-design.

[chuixupu]

To reach a total of 100k players at any one time the following would need to be true...

 

1) 2-3 instances of 200 people each on each fleet.

2) 2 instances of 100 people on every planet for both factions.

 

All 8 servers would have to see these numbers.

 

It's not wizardry.

 

Perhaps the rose coloring on your glasses is giving you quadruple vision.

 

Don't know about all servers, but there is almost always 4 full instances of the fleet on the Harbinger and 2-4 instances for every other planet.

 

Also, there are 17 servers.

Edited October 29, 2013 by chuixupu

[DOHboy]

To reach a total of 100k players at any one time the following would need to be true...

 

1) 2-3 instances of 200 people each on each fleet.

2) 2 instances of 100 people on every planet for both factions.

 

All 8 servers would have to see these numbers.

 

It's not wizardry.

 

Perhaps the rose coloring on your glasses is giving you quadruple vision.

 

Well don't forget to toss in the flashpoints which are instanced and I don't believe count in the "fleet or planet" totals both HM and SM. Also probably toss in a 1% population that is in transit on their ship or in space combat at any given point or on an orbital station. And don't discount the 10-20% population that would be in pvp at any given moment either. Or the 1% or so that is loading or on the char connection screen after going AFK and thus are "connected" but may not be instanced.

[MisterBlackJack]

It will happen one way or another because in 1 year the license is up and Disney will want to see the same revenue as Activision from a Star Wars licensed IP that they own.

 

This game lost all credibility the day the Dr.'s walked out on Bioware and EA.. they knew they had involuntarily given birth to a deformed monster.. the only fix is to nuke the current iteration and start fresh. The sad part is when they do this all the people who spent $$$ on cartel items will be so angry, yet EA has done this time and time again in other games.

 

 

The writing is on the wall

 

You do realize this game has doubled its revenue since it has gone F2P right?

[chuixupu]

True, I've seen as many as 30 instances up in one Operation at a time, and there's going to be some in warzones, flashpoints, and on their ship.

[MisterBlackJack]

hundreds of thousands of players really? I am here till they make another Star Wars MMO but I am pretty sure its "thousands" not "hundreds of thousands" that are playing this game LOL

 

The game has around 500 thousand subs alone with over a million active accounts. All of this was confirmed by EA

Edited October 29, 2013 by MisterBlackJack

[TUXs]

Immature? Haha, thanks, man. No, I just don't pretend to be an expert in game-design.

 

You don't need to be an expert in game-design to have an opinion on the game.

[gorstram]

The game has around 500 thousand subs alone with over a million active accounts. All of this was confirmed by EA

 

INB4 angry tin foil hatters begin to post.

[TUXs]

The game has around 500 thousand subs alone with over a million active accounts. All of this was confirmed by EA

 

No it doesn't, no it wasn't.

[MisterBlackJack]

No it doesn't, no it wasn't.

 

Yes it does. And James Ohlen confirmed this a while ago at GDC

[Andryah]

To reach a total of 100k players at any one time the following would need to be true...

 

1) 2-3 instances of 200 people each on each fleet.

2) 2 instances of 100 people on every planet for both factions.

 

All 8 servers would have to see these numbers.

 

It's not wizardry.

 

Perhaps the rose coloring on your glasses is giving you quadruple vision.

 

It's simpler and more accurate then that CK.. if you ever cared about accuracy of course.

 

Torstatus shows every super server running at Standard or Higher for roughly 16 hours per day, and has for months now.

 

STANDARD = a minimum of 4000 players, but is actually somewhere between 4000 and 6000. And there are 17 servers, not 8. The old miniservers were bullseyed (by multiple credible players) at 1500 = STANDARD last summer before the super servers went live. Further... the superservers were subsequently bullseyed to be between 3X and 5X the old servers in sizing. Again.. do the math. And for the purposes of discussions with you.. I am using the small side estimates (I'm not maxing anything).

 

Do the math. You come up with a base of 68000.

 

HOWEVER... about a third of the servers run at higher then STANDARD during prime time, which pushes the concurrent login total at prime time to ~ 95,000 on an off day and higher on busy days.

 

Further.. assuming a very conservative 10% (I personally use 7.5 % as it lies in the middle range of the generally accepted 5-10% concurrent login nature of MMOs) of players logged in at any given time. those 95,000 represent an active player base of 900,000 minimum (~1.4M by my estimate, using 7.5%).

 

Again... we can do this dance all day long.... but at the end of the day.. players want active servers, with lots of players, and an active and healthy server economy. I've not seen any credible comments in months about the servers that suggests they are not.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Andryah

[The_Grand_Nagus]

How does Andryah have access to Bioware's numbers? How does she know what their server capacity is?

[TUXs]

Yes it does. And James Ohlen confirmed this a while ago at GDC

 

Provide me a link please. Otherwise you're full of it.

[chuixupu]

No it doesn't, no it wasn't.

 

It was back in May, but that was May, not today. http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/7/4309866/star-wars-the-old-republic-revenue-doubled-free-to-play

Edited October 29, 2013 by chuixupu