MisterBlackJack Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 (edited) Hello, Bioware sees these fanboys defending this and will say to them... "Fux them... they will eat whatever we give them..." Next... 20 bucks for the next Expansion with 4 hours of game content... No story classes, no fixes... and now no voice-overs.... " I understand the fear of many that they will close de lid on the development of the game... but come on... Disney is the one that are calling the shots... If they believe another company should work on their IP, they will kill it on EA on a second... EA is peanuts to Disney... I for one have allready sent my emails to both Bioware and EA, about the state of this game and what are they thinking in doing to resolve the problems... Best Regards... LPC Let Disney try to kill it and EA will sue them to no end. You forget Disney gave EA the exclusive right for the next 10 years to make star wars games. So unless EA does something that breaks their contract [ which even EA is not foolish enough to do] then Disney cannot touch SWTOR or any major game project. Even if disney felt another Gaming company can make a better star wars game, they can't do anything about it because they gave all that to EA. Edited May 17, 2015 by MisterBlackJack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordPaulusCobris Posted May 17, 2015 Author Share Posted May 17, 2015 Let Disney try to kill it and EA will sue them to no end. You forget Disney gave EA the exclusive right for the next 10 years to make star wars games. So unless EA does something that breaks their contract [ which even EA is not foolish enough to do] then Disney cannot touch SWTOR or any major game project. Even if disney felt another Gaming company can make a better star wars game, they can't do anything about it because they gave all that to EA. Hello, What im talking about, is Disney, not liking tha current state of this game and issuing deligences to EA/Bioware to improve it... Its their IP after all... They have the right to expect the best of the company that is using its contents and lore. If the costumers can be hear in Disney, maybe they can force EA/Bioware to resolve their long lasting problems... Like i said early on... this is not a static product... is an online game with a evolving universe that also is a service that costumers pay in a monthly basis... For me this would be the path for this game... - Upgrade the engine, rewrite the content and fix the problems, while improving the rendering engine, addiing support for newers API´s (DX11, DX12, Vulkan), and widening the audience... (Windows, Linux, MAC). - Reformulate the F2P mode, to just level 25 of the game... Want more? Liking? Pay... With better visual fidelity (eyes do eat!), a smart marketing campaing and i am pretty sure the subs will go up! And even if they are smart they can use the hype that is being created by the new movies... Money pull money... just INVEST smart and you will get the fruits of it... Best Regards, LPC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foreignobjects Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 (edited) Hello... I have been one of oldests players going on this game since Beta. And since then i believe the Hero Engine was a poor choice for an MMO game. But i believed that improvements where expected to happen allong the development cycle and the engine would be improved... But then Bioware started to change the engine... It departed from the Hero Engine and got more and more edited... Then... the programmers left Bioware... and the new ones don´t know how to change or revert the modifications... What happend was that the Hero Engine in its original form was updated and the current Hero Engine (Bioware modded version), was not... As everyone knows this engine have a lot of problems... even with high end systems the cpu and gpu utilization is lack luster... The pipeline is unifficient and bugged. Memory leaks tend to happen and lack of proper codding is noticable everywhere. Some engine and game features where never apllied due to limitations to the engine and bioware capability... Im talking about: - Proper Day / Night Cicle - Proper Shadows Rendering - Proper Iliimination - Proper Draw Distance / Clipping (everyone knows the famous magic grass/tres/enemy´s appearing). Well many voices issued, that nothing could be done... the engine was so altered that breaked the support with the Hero Engine Devs. Sorry but i disagree... The base content is the same and the rest of the modifications can be recompilated... The key word here is: - Time and Money... An both stand together... Its needed programmer and codding time to reconvert and recompile the maps and assets to the new engine. And OFC money must be spend on the new engine + programming staff. EA and even Bioware, doesn´t look too interested in fixing this long lasting issue and giving its costumers and players the High Fidelity game that SWTOR could have been if a better or non modded engine was used in the early development cicle... But i have my sources and i can tell that could be done... SWTOR can be ported to the Hero Engine 2 (or even a later revision)... We must unite and force their hand to finally fix one of the most problematic issue with this game... Its core... Hero Engine have been continuoslly developed its way, way more optimized now that it where years ago when this engine started to be modded by BioWare... Money wise is simple... $75,000 with a 7% revenue share. and even this value can be agreed on the revenue side... Source Code and support and this game can give a big LEAP Forward in quality... Lets make this happen... Lets make SWTOR the game that we all wanted to visually have and that performs like it should... Best Regards, LPC its not that we need a hero engine 2 per say but. the current one needs a drastic update. specially since the company that originally was maintaining it is no longer apart of it at all keeping it up. they left before the first year was over, so more like a hero engine update 2.0 btw your tech know how of how this should work might as well be in latin to most people no offense Edited May 17, 2015 by Foreignobjects Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmmbuddah Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 its not that we need a hero engine 2 per say but. the current one needs a drastic update. specially since the company that originally was maintaining it is no longer apart of it at all keeping it up. they left before the first year was over, so more like a hero engine update 2.0 btw your tech know how of how this should work might as well be in latin to most people no offense I didnt have any problem understanding him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordPaulusCobris Posted May 17, 2015 Author Share Posted May 17, 2015 I didnt have any problem understanding him. Hello, Im sorry for my not so great english... I try to write the best i can but there are some terms that its hard to do it... Im Portuguese, so its really a latin derivative language.... I will try to write better... With my best regards, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 No it would not be. Not only would it take MUCH longer, but it would be WAY more expensive. Updating the engine / porting the game to a newer version would cost under a million dollars and wouldnt take more than 6 months. Making a new SWTOR would cost HUNDREDS of millions and take years. You are pulling numbers out of the air. First it was tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now it is under a million? You are dead wrong. It would take a substantial rewrite of the game to make it compatible with HeroEngine2. The rewrite would be almost as substantial as it would be to move it to a completely different engine. The only thing substantially the same between the two engines is the use of HSL. That's it. It would actually he easier from a technical stand point (though more time consuming) and have less potential bugs, to make a new game rather than try to retrofit the game to a new engine, regardless of the engine. While financially cheaper the costs would not be justified to even the most pro-player base member of management. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Hello, What im talking about, is Disney, not liking tha current state of this game and issuing deligences to EA/Bioware to improve it... Its their IP after all... They have the right to expect the best of the company that is using its contents and lore. If the costumers can be hear in Disney, maybe they can force EA/Bioware to resolve their long lasting problems... Like i said early on... this is not a static product... is an online game with a evolving universe that also is a service that costumers pay in a monthly basis... For me this would be the path for this game... - Upgrade the engine, rewrite the content and fix the problems, while improving the rendering engine, addiing support for newers API´s (DX11, DX12, Vulkan), and widening the audience... (Windows, Linux, MAC). - Reformulate the F2P mode, to just level 25 of the game... Want more? Liking? Pay... With better visual fidelity (eyes do eat!), a smart marketing campaing and i am pretty sure the subs will go up! And even if they are smart they can use the hype that is being created by the new movies... Money pull money... just INVEST smart and you will get the fruits of it... Best Regards, LPC You again do not understand business. This game made over 100 million dollars each year over the last two years. When this game launched the CEO said if they stabilized at 500,000 subscriptions that would be considered a success. That = 89.9 million a year under a pure subscription model. So the game is making MORE than their "success" projection. You and others may say the engine is broken and needs to be fixed. Disney however will NOT care about your opinion because they are getting paid and the profits are well within their measure of success. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 its not that we need a hero engine 2 per say but. the current one needs a drastic update. specially since the company that originally was maintaining it is no longer apart of it at all keeping it up. they left before the first year was over, so more like a hero engine update 2.0 btw your tech know how of how this should work might as well be in latin to most people no offense Why waste the money? The game has no substantially greater issue than any other MMORPG of its type. If it is still profitable and is no more, or less, "broken" than its competition (from a technical stand point) why would they spend the money? Updating engines costs money and is inherently dangerous...it can totally break things...(ask Blizzard about all the headaches they have had when they have a dedicated team that only does engine work). You need a financial incentive to take such a risk as a business and NONE exists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmericanNate Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Hello, What im talking about, is Disney, not liking tha current state of this game and issuing deligences to EA/Bioware to improve it... Its their IP after all... They have the right to expect the best of the company that is using its contents and lore. If the costumers can be hear in Disney, maybe they can force EA/Bioware to resolve their long lasting problems... Like i said early on... this is not a static product... is an online game with a evolving universe that also is a service that costumers pay in a monthly basis... For me this would be the path for this game... - Upgrade the engine, rewrite the content and fix the problems, while improving the rendering engine, addiing support for newers API´s (DX11, DX12, Vulkan), and widening the audience... (Windows, Linux, MAC). - Reformulate the F2P mode, to just level 25 of the game... Want more? Liking? Pay... With better visual fidelity (eyes do eat!), a smart marketing campaing and i am pretty sure the subs will go up! And even if they are smart they can use the hype that is being created by the new movies... Money pull money... just INVEST smart and you will get the fruits of it... Best Regards, LPC Actually, no, Disney doesn't own then IP. Your ignorance of licensing deals is showing. SW: TOR, was created by Bioware. It's their ip. Disney owns licensing rights to the Star Wars name. The only thing Disney does through their licensing is allow the game to officially carry the Star Wars brand. They get their money. They already have, when EA signed the exclusive deal. Disney isn't going to give 2 rips what happens with this game. The same as CBS doesn't give 2 rips about what happens in STO. They got their money, and they endorse everything that goes in that game. Disney could have changed the status quo when they bought star wars by creating their own games division and making games. They didn't. They hired a proven commodity to do it. You want to know how Disney views games, go play Disney Infinity. That's what Disney wants. For me, no thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WaffleQwop Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 If Bioware did make some drastic change and actually decided to make a new engine/convert to another one, it would take them perhaps months to get the game stabilized. The financial cost, as others in the thread have put it, is just too great of a risk to take. Besides, Bioware is making money! They have gold coins overfilling their coffers! It's ridiculous how cheesy this game is. But honestly, if the game were to shut down for a few months for a large maintenance (again it won't happen) , the game would lose tons of subscribers. Bioware's not willing to take that risk, especially considering they are pulling in big profits already. So what we have now is what we get, unless we get REEEAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYY lucky, which is unlikely. Yes, the game performance sucks, and the game feels so lackluster at times, but the only thing that would stop me from playing the game now is if another game sucked me out of this one. Star Wars is generally the base reason people even started playing SWTOR. It captured their interests and they tried it out. Those still playing, in my opinion, play it for the love of Star Wars lore. The game's incredibly fun in operations (other than the lagfest 24 man Yavin walker). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmmbuddah Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Hello, Im sorry for my not so great english... I try to write the best i can but there are some terms that its hard to do it... Im Portuguese, so its really a latin derivative language.... I will try to write better... With my best regards, It's no problem for me, I understood you just fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmmbuddah Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 You are pulling numbers out of the air. First it was tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now it is under a million? You are dead wrong. It would take a substantial rewrite of the game to make it compatible with HeroEngine2. The rewrite would be almost as substantial as it would be to move it to a completely different engine. The only thing substantially the same between the two engines is the use of HSL. That's it. It would actually he easier from a technical stand point (though more time consuming) and have less potential bugs, to make a new game rather than try to retrofit the game to a new engine, regardless of the engine. While financially cheaper the costs would not be justified to even the most pro-player base member of management. Just a quick fyi. Under a million = hundreds of thousands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmmbuddah Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Why waste the money? The game has no substantially greater issue than any other MMORPG of its type. If it is still profitable and is no more, or less, "broken" than its competition (from a technical stand point) why would they spend the money? Updating engines costs money and is inherently dangerous...it can totally break things...(ask Blizzard about all the headaches they have had when they have a dedicated team that only does engine work). You need a financial incentive to take such a risk as a business and NONE exists. This game is far more unstable than the top MMOs out at the moment. FF 14, WoW, ESO all are eons more stable than this game. Also there is this little saying "You have to spend money, to make money" It has been proven time an time again the people that save everywhere possible, in the long run, make less money than the people who actually invest and care for their product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarfux Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Ok. I don't think a lot of people understand what it takes to do something like this. They aren't going to do it because they have their own modded version of the engine that they keep on correcting things on and opening up. It wouldn't be some "copy paste" then have a status bar to get this game to HE2, it would be a monumental undertaking! This couldn't be just "oh, cmon devs are lazy can't they just do this? How hard can it be!?" Really hard actually. Everything has to be done manually to make sure things wouldn't be screwed up. Even though it's the same engine they started with, it's now a different version. So perhaps things would be conflicted. They are just going to continue to work on their heavily modded version they have. It's basically modded to the point where it's their own engine, but still Hero. Btw, I would like to ask. Is there something in the water the past week? Did somebody release something? Why are threads starting about the engine and stuff the past couple of weeks. What is it? O.o Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmmbuddah Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Ok. I don't think a lot of people understand what it takes to do something like this. They aren't going to do it because they have their own modded version of the engine that they keep on correcting things on and opening up. It wouldn't be some "copy paste" then have a status bar to get this game to HE2, it would be a monumental undertaking! This couldn't be just "oh, cmon devs are lazy can't they just do this? How hard can it be!?" Really hard actually. Everything has to be done manually to make sure things wouldn't be screwed up. Even though it's the same engine they started with, it's now a different version. So perhaps things would be conflicted. They are just going to continue to work on their heavily modded version they have. It's basically modded to the point where it's their own engine, but still Hero. Btw, I would like to ask. Is there something in the water the past week? Did somebody release something? Why are threads starting about the engine and stuff the past couple of weeks. What is it? O.o well, people that havent played the game in a long time, or havent played in general are coming to the game again, and probably seeing what a mess it is. This is only going to get worse when episode 7 is released, if BW doesn't pull their heads out of the sand and optimize this game HARD. If they would actually put some work in and optimize it, not even port it, just optimize it, then a lot of these problems would go away, not all, but a lot. It seems though, that BW and the BW defence force are dead set on crusading against ANYTHING that would cause the game to run better. Engine optimization, 64 bit client, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MillionsKNives Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 So here's a good case study for the time and work it takes to upgrade an engine. The devs working on APB Reloaded in 2013 decided they wanted to (and needed to, if they were going to release the game on consoles) upgrade their engine to a newer version of the same engine. They weren't even moving up in engine numbers, it was going from Unreal Engine 3 to... the newer updated versions of Unreal Engine 3. It's taken them 2 years to be almost close to done. And unlike BioWare's use of Hero Engine, the engine they started with was a complete and tested engine. And it still has taken them two years. All of your "it's not that hard or time consuming" falls apart when put against reality. It feels like an eternity since we began the complete rebuild of the underlying APB game engine. When we started the project back in 2013 (in fact if you go back to our October 17, 2013 blog post we shared that the engine upgrade project had begun July 17, 2013), we were wildly optimistic that we could complete the project in about 9-10 months. That was insanely optimistic for a whole host of reasons. First we didn't count on the amount of other ongoing work APB needed just to stay operational day in and day out, so when the team was pulled away to solve other problems, the engine work slowed down. But most of all we hadn't anticipated the ungodly amount of work required to undo years of custom systems that would no longer be part of the new engine. Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmmbuddah Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 So here's a good case study for the time and work it takes to upgrade an engine. The devs working on APB Reloaded in 2013 decided they wanted to (and needed to, if they were going to release the game on consoles) upgrade their engine to a newer version of the same engine. They weren't even moving up in engine numbers, it was going from Unreal Engine 3 to... the newer updated versions of Unreal Engine 3. It's taken them 2 years to be almost close to done. And unlike BioWare's use of Hero Engine, the engine they started with was a complete and tested engine. And it still has taken them two years. All of your "it's not that hard or time consuming" falls apart when put against reality. Source It's called hard work, something BW and the BW defence force seem to be against. They could do it behind the scenes, and when they are done, release the update. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pietrastor Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 It's basically modded to the point where it's their own engine, but still Hero. Then they should improve on their 'own' engine. Obviously it is not impossible, obviously it would be difficult but it simply is needed for the long-term future of the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MillionsKNives Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 (edited) It's called hard work, something BW and the BW defence force seem to be against. They could do it behind the scenes, and when they are done, release the update. It's called ROI and them having better things to do with their time. I love when armchair developers call actual professional developers lazy. It's hilarious. Edited May 17, 2015 by MillionsKNives Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarfux Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Then they should improve on their 'own' engine. Obviously it is not impossible, obviously it would be difficult but it simply is needed for the long-term future of the game. Yea, they should go harder on it. They could go very hardcore on it. Yes, it would be good for the long term future of the game. They will just keep improving their version. Perhaps not to people's liking fast enough. But it will get better over time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeroTethras Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Please, for the love of God, stop the ellipses. Now that that's out of the way! If you are a game dev, work with Hero Engine, or Bioware, (or all three) then feel free to consult BioWare about this issue. However, if you aren't in game dev and have not worked with Hero or BioWare, then I don't really see how your 'expertise' is all that useful. Also, BioWare changed the engine to a point where the Hero people couldn't offer support anymore, iirc. So basically, it might not be as simple as porting everything over. (Nor is "upgrading engines" ever that simple.) Off topic: I've talked to my client, he says he'll stop the excessive use of ellipses when you stop posting in bright purple. You're not a special snowflake; go home. On topic: LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewintelamon Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 (edited) The instant "fanboy" came out as a counter argument, the OP lost all credibility. I cannot stress how much I despise that term to be dismissive towards people whose opinion differs from yours. PSA : 14.99 a month does not suddenly give you an MBA, and a master's degree in programming, as well as in video game design and development. So can some of us (such as the OP) please not act as though we're suddenly wizards in game development and business administration? Some problems cannot be solved simply by throwing money/more personnel at it--because you don't go throwing money at such a terrible idea. Edited May 17, 2015 by Lewintelamon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 This game is far more unstable than the top MMOs out at the moment. FF 14, WoW, ESO all are eons more stable than this game. Also there is this little saying "You have to spend money, to make money" It has been proven time an time again the people that save everywhere possible, in the long run, make less money than the people who actually invest and care for their product. Wow is "ancient comparatively and I know people who have bigger issues with ESO. Also even according to its makers they do not consider ESO an MMO. It it almost all instanced and in their words " it is more an Elder Scrolls game with a multiplayer option". The encounters and other features, along with the heavy instancing, create MUCH lower loads on your system. YET people still have issue. That said you miss the point...if they are making MORE money than ESO and FF (which they are) with how broken you alleged the game is...why spend all of the time and money? This would be a million dollar project minimum BTW and it would also take at least a year to do right. By right I mean hiring the extra staff needed to do that job while keeping the current staff generating the new content, current class balancing etc. Your entire premise is based on " I don't like how it performs...so they need to fix it" while ignoring the realities of what it would take to fix it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nafu Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 (edited) Guys you are in an endless cycle where you have been writing same things over and over again since yesterday I can even understand chasing unicorns but you seem more likely chasing your own tails at the moment Just saying Edited May 17, 2015 by nafu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vexov Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Seriously?. Anyone who has played since beta should know this game was basically abandoned, first by EA/Bioware then the vast majority of players. 2.5mil to like 500k in 3 months and its current low population speaks louder then whatever bs argument anyone has to say. Best and only hope for is EA/Bioware saying: "yeah, we fked up with SWTOR and clearly see the mistakes. We decided to make a SWTOR 2 and we're going to do it right this time". Don't bother asking or expecting anything more then more cartel items which are all overpriced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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