Jeweledleah Posted March 28, 2016 Share Posted March 28, 2016 did anyone mention already existing in game mounts that have droid chauffeurs in them? because those could EASILY be converted into two sitter mounts. technology is already there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveTheCynic Posted March 29, 2016 Share Posted March 29, 2016 I'll come at this from the point of view of a player of MMORPGs, and (mostly) ignore my experience as a programmer. So let's look at the games I've played. Guild Wars 1 has no mounts at all. Guild Wars 2, until Heart of Thorns, had no mounts. Now it has gliders (hang gliders, actually), albeit with a catastrophically steep glide slope. Dofus is an very sandboxy game that has non-scrolling paged maps, and such low sysreqs that it can be coded in Flash, ffs. It has one-seat mounts. Runes of Magic has (historically, anyway) a buggy client and epic issues caused by weak client/server sync. It nevertheless has a range of mounts, in one-seat, two-seat, and even six-seat varieties. The weak sync issues caused common complaints about passengers dying while riding - they'd get out of sync between the two clients, and the server would end up killing the passenger because the passenger's client was clearly in the wrong. These issues were sufficiently common that the introduction of the six-seat mount was ridiculed as a way to commit mass murder of passengers. Archeage has a wide range of mounts and vehicles. On land, there are one-seat and two-seat mounts, cars, and tractors. (The new Farm Freighter has to be seen to be believed - the passenger rides on the back step, facing toward the rear.) Some of the cars are very fast, capable of reaching 30 m/s (that's over 65 mph, on dirt tracks, ffs), and yes, there are redraw issues, usually affecting objects (lamps, houses, NPCs, other players, that sort of thing) rather than scenery. But the client is stable, or at least doesn't seem to crash because of that. I also have not seen any mass hysteria about passengers falling off or being killed. On water, you have boats and ships. Rowboats are limited to one person rowing and one riding, and a third person standing will cause the boat to gradually sink. Ocean-going ships are capable of carrying more people (and, often, should, because of pirates and sea monsters). Gliders (sort of like hang gliders except that you ride above) are one-person only, so the fate of passengers isn't an issue. Conclusion: there's a wide variety of mount capabilities in games, ranging from no mounts to complex multi-person ships. There is also a wide variety of performance and behaviour, and overall, I wouldn't want SWTOR's mounts to become multiperson bugfests like in Runes of Magic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MishraArtificer Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 The biggest issue was the non-human sized companions specifically M1-4X, but the larger bipedal companions like Broodmark, Bowdaar and Qyzen did not work so either; they did not fit into the space designated as "companion seat."Nailed it! This was the explanation given, back in the very earliest days of the game's release...possibly before the forum wipe at the end of Early Access, even. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveTheCynic Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 did anyone mention already existing in game mounts that have droid chauffeurs in them? because those could EASILY be converted into two sitter mounts. technology is already there. Curiously, no. The droid is just part of the mesh of the mount. It's just droid-coloured instead of mount-coloured. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_mike Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Curiously, no. The droid is just part of the mesh of the mount. It's just droid-coloured instead of mount-coloured. Static as well. Doesn't change like it would if it was a companion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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