Nubanuba Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 Quick question - so, I know engine update is expensive, but SWTOR is a game I believe I will (in case almighty bioware wants my money, ofc) be playing for years to come, however I believe this game strongly needs a new Engine, a complete but subtle full engine rework just like WoW had in the past Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OwenBrooks Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 Short answer I suspect is No They have increased the max fps from 111 fps to around 210 fps with 5.0 for what its worth so they are tweaking still Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asheris Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 I think it would be cheaper and less time-consuming to just build a new game from scrtach...can you even begin to imagine making everything work and adding every little thing there is on a new engine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verain Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 I'm sure it would make the game unplayable for me, so I hope they never change their engine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nubanuba Posted February 12, 2017 Author Share Posted February 12, 2017 I'm sure it would make the game unplayable for me, so I hope they never change their engine. what? your reply makes no sense at all. this engine is heavy, slow, laggy and outdated. you can get an engine update without making the game heavier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tummiswtor Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 (edited) Short answer I suspect is No They have increased the max fps from 111 fps to around 210 fps with 5.0 for what its worth so they are tweaking still You can have more fps, but there's still massive FPS drops in random situations. 200 fps cap is not a solution One example Report Post Quote We are aware that the User Interface is contributing to the FPS drops players are experiencing in-game. Look for a much more in-depth post from Eric later in the week regarding the ongoing issues. -Tait Source: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=7930452 Edited February 12, 2017 by tummiswtor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveTheCynic Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 what? your reply makes no sense at all. this engine is heavy, slow, laggy and outdated. you can get an engine update without making the game heavier But... The engine you use for a game gets baked into whatever code you write, whether in a compiled language like C, C++, C#, or Java (C# is compiled to .NET CLI/ILR, and Java is compiled to JVM bytecode) or the engine's scripting language. It touches every part of the game except the actual graphical texture files. Now, do you want them to spend time rewriting the *whole* game to use a new engine, or do you want them to spend time fixing bugs and creating new content of whatever type? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AscendingSky Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 (edited) But... The engine you use for a game gets baked into whatever code you write, whether in a compiled language like C, C++, C#, or Java (C# is compiled to .NET CLI/ILR, and Java is compiled to JVM bytecode) or the engine's scripting language. It touches every part of the game except the actual graphical texture files. Now, do you want them to spend time rewriting the *whole* game to use a new engine, or do you want them to spend time fixing bugs and creating new content of whatever type? I personally would like them to rebuild the game from the ground up on a new, non-beta engine. We seem to be getting to the point where the code has become increasingly quirky and unstable. More and more bugs pop up with every update, some of which have been around for years at this point and have never been fixed or even acknowledged by EAWare. I suspect this is because the people who actually built the game on the beta version of the Hero Engine and modified it for TOR's use are now all out of the company, and the employees remaining don't understand how to truly fix or stabilize the code and have to just either pretend the bugs don't exist or slap bandaids over huge gaping wounds. Look at FFXIV. They had similar issues and received a critical roasting when the game came out. Lots of initial subscribers quickly abandoned the game because of the lack of quality and bugs. They actually listened to their customers, apologized, got a new lead developer, and rebuilt the entire game, shutting down the 1.0 version and putting up the 2.0 version (A Realm Reborn) in its place. Now it's one of the most popular and profitable MMOs on the market, and not only won back a lot of their original customers but have drawn in tons more. We can rebuild TOR. We have the technology. /datedreference I think a SWTOR Redux, learning from the mistakes made with the current version and built upon a fully supported game engine, could be AMAZING. Sadly, EA is not a company that likes to acknowledge mistakes or spend money fixing them. They usually just immediately shut down studios and servers both as soon as profitability dips too much for their liking. Edited February 12, 2017 by AscendingSky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_mike Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 They have shown multiple times they don;t have the resources to support this game, be it engine support, bugs, art and/ or customer service. What do you think would happen if they split their already limited resources to create a new game engine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuiwe Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 I wouldn't hope so. But you never know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AscendingSky Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 (edited) They have shown multiple times they don;t have the resources to support this game, be it engine support, bugs, art and/ or customer service. What do you think would happen if they split their already limited resources to create a new game engine? EA is not exactly a scrappy and broke indie game company. They could easily put the resources and personnel into making a SWTOR 2.0 if they wanted to and cared about their customers, just as Square Enix put in the resources and personnel into making A Realm Reborn. Sadly, EA has never shown any desire to try to fix failing games or subsidiaries. They just shut them down instead. Edited February 12, 2017 by AscendingSky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_mike Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 (edited) *snip* I was going to make a comment about Madden fans and what they now think of that franchise and EA's support of it but I'll just point you here. edit: Yes, EA has money. EA also has a profit margin that they need to protect. Their defense of it has come up a couple of times during those quarterly shareholder chats. Edited February 12, 2017 by dr_mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike_carton Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 What issues or bugs do we know for certain are due to the engine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fushnchips Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 It's impossible for them to change the engine this far into the game it's been 5 years we all know we want an engine change but it's something that won't and can't happen with SWTOR. They used an alpha version of the hero engine and it's way beyond anything now all they can do is sooth the pain with back end fixes they have made some great improvements over time to help the engine I'm happy with the current state to what it was like before. If they ever do a SWTOR 2 this engine won't be used that's for sure it most likely would be done via frostbite or something we can only cross our fingers and hope for the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedimasterjac Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 If you think an "engine update" is a viable thing you really do not know what you're talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cymek- Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 If they ever do a SWTOR 2 this engine won't be used that's for sure it most likely would be done via frostbite or something we can only cross our fingers and hope for the future. ESO seems to have done just fine with the Hero engine. In all honesty I was completely shocked when I learned that seeing how bad it was with SWTOR. There has got to be some low level optimizations that can be implemented from the current version of the engine without breaking the upper layers of the code. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AscendingSky Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 ESO seems to have done just fine with the Hero engine. In all honesty I was completely shocked when I learned that seeing how bad it was with SWTOR. There has got to be some low level optimizations that can be implemented from the current version of the engine without breaking the upper layers of the code. EAWare decided to buy an alpha/beta build of the engine, and so they don't have any support for it. They also made some major changes to it, from what I've been told, in order to do various things in the game. So trying to add code from the full version of the Hero Engine (with all subsequent updates it has had) to the mangled unfinished code TOR has may well just be impossible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khaleg Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 What issues or bugs do we know for certain are due to the engine? Not a bug but a major issue which is a slow death sentence for this game since more than a year: Their inability to implement X server. Their total lack of bug tracking and fixing, at all or in an acceptable time hints there are also countless bugs which are there due to their lack of know how about this modified beta engine... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galahard Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 Not until EA does not recognize SWTOR as a game, rather than a window shop for the CM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khaleg Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 Not until EA does not recognize SWTOR as a game, rather than a window shop for the CM. This! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassianus Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 What issues or bugs do we know for certain are due to the engine? 1. Support of the window system is awful. Maybe initially when all windows were expected strictly rectangular, it worked more or less well. But now, with far more complex look of most windows, the engine isn't able to correctly render the mouse operations. For example, you might often see that click on the [x] area in attempt to close current window has no result; instead, the underlying window receives the click and may be activated. The top area of most windows, which allows to move the window on the screen, does not correlate to the visible shape of the window; some top areas may be "clickable through". Some windows have the logical size more than visible one and they can mask the active areas of other nearby windows. The fading of information windows (e.g. current guild controlling the planet) often fail, and they remain on the screen fully visible or semi-transparent. 2. The 3D perspective is distorted like through fisheye lens. You may not notice this on the small distances, but when you look at the distance about several hundred meters, it becomes noticeable. For example, on Tatooine, the visible size of Jawa balloon significantly depends on the viewing angle. It looks normal if the balloon is visible somewhere in the central area of the screen, but it becomes grow and distorted if you rotate the camera away toward the screen border. But the size of distant objects should not depend on the viewing angle at all. 3. Current engine doesn't support moving underwater. This is shameful nowadays in compare to other well-known MMOs like WoW or GW2, where the underwater areas are the integrated part of the world. As a result, map developers in SWTOR have to avoid creating the real water areas like seas, lakes or ponds. All visible reservoirs in the game are very shallow and have the flat bottom. Underwater episodes on Manaan are purely cinematic, underwater area in the Shroud of Memory mission is nothing but a normal area visibly filled with water, where we cannot move up or down (along Z axis) completely. 4. Characters cannot properly sit on the chairs or benches in the open world. It's possible to sit in the small closed instances like a personal starship. But you cannot sit on the stool in any cantina, which makes this furniture functionally useless. A group of people cannot sit around the table to rest and discuss something. Again, you can compare this to WoW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedip_enguin Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 (edited) Yet another person asking for 'engine updates' when they dont even understand what a game engine is or what it does. The engine BW used was an early beta version of the hero engine that they took on accepting that they would have to rewrite or modify large parts of it, at this point it is a completely discrete entity that cannot even reasonably be called the 'Hero engine' anymore. Porting a game into a different engine (which is what you are essentially asking for) would take almost as much effort as building a new game from scratch would and the rewards for millions and millions of dollars spent would be very meagre indeed considering that they cant reasonably re-box it and sell for 30 bucks a pop again, in fact they would probably eat a massive loss which would probably lead to the game being shut down. In an age where the Triple A MMO is going extinct, no company is going to take this kind of risk on a game that has already failed so dramatically in so many respects. Edited February 13, 2017 by jedip_enguin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkiefatsack Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 I am sure ever single person who plays the game would wish they'd update the engine. The game has been out this long and they have shown zero desire to change it. It will never happen. Yes they have EA, but EA isnt putting anything more into this game. I cant even imagine the time and man power it would take to rewrite this whole game. We all wish it would happen, but it wont. A new game will come out before they redo this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_mike Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 (edited) ESO seems to have done just fine with the Hero engine. In all honesty I was completely shocked when I learned that seeing how bad it was with SWTOR. That's because they didn't. It was used by their story and art departments to plot out the game. edit: Sorry, it;s a pet peeve. I have a Hero license as we've looked into doing up a mini family friendly MMO for our soccer moms and their kids since Toontown shut down and Club penguin got taken over by those lovely folks who really really really like kids. Edited February 13, 2017 by dr_mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DreadtechSavant Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 I hope not. Doubt my desktop would run an updated engine and doubt I would be the only one. Not all of us have a top peck PC, or could just run out and buy one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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