I do believe that it can be improved....but what I want may not be what the developers want.
Sure there is always room for improvement...always. Where does it stop though? when is enough....enough? You say "we should nudge the developers into making a better game", whose idea of what is better? yours? What if the developers think your idea is not better? You gave your feedback, I gave mine....if they don't want to implement more options then that is their choice.
"We shouldn't accept something simply because that is how the developers made the game".....seriously dude...it is their game, they can do whatever the hell they want with it. Sure there are many things that I would like to see differently but I don't expect them to cater to everything I want. If it is as serious a problem as this thread makes it out to be then don't pay...the best way to show companies your dislike for something is to not give them money.
"There are many of us who gave feedback that the system SHOULD be better. It does not NEED to be better." If it was as dire as people claim then they would have made changes to it. They didn't make changes to it so they obviously feel "It does not NEED to be better".
Again with this!? I did NOT say I dislike the game.
You don't know what the developers want. I don't know what the developers want. Therefore, giving feedback is our way of seeing what the developers intend to do.
Either there are no threads that claim to want improved creation, or there are threads that claim to want creation.
If there are no threads that claim to want a better system, then that is why people want to give feedback on a better creation system.
If there are plenty of threads that claim to want a better system, then I think it's safe to assume that it is a reasonable feedback.
No one is expecting BioWare to overhaul the system. No is even expecting BioWare to change the creation system in the slightest way. That doesn't mean everyone should sit back and assume the developers know what we want. I can assure you their goal is to get gamers to play their game. They WANT us to enjoy their game. No one sits at a meeting and says "let's make a crappy game today!"
They may not care about the system, they may not care about us wanting improved systems. But we don't know they really want. It really bothers you that people are giving suggestions to IMPROVE a game? We don't want to change the system, we just want a bit more choice and variety.
Here's my view. If my nephew wants cable, but doesn't tell me... how do I know he wants cable?
People are simply giving feedback on improvements... not changes.
I have said that so many times I think I'm just going to give up. :P
Following player feedback can be just as bad as not following it. Just look at World of Warcraft, they listened to the feedback that the players gave and look what happened to that game. The game is almost a joke, a ghost of what it was in vanilla, it has been dumb downed and made so casual that you can queue for an endgame raid in a dungeon finder and kill the boss in a pug for crying out loud.
I'd argue that players only think they know what is best for a game. Are you developer? what games have you made? what gives your feedback any kind of game design validity outside of just wanting something different or just wanting more? I'm not a game developer...I'm not an animator or even a level designer what do I know about what is best for a game? I have been playing games since I was a kid...that does not make me an expert in game development.
Those are feedback to change/alter the game. I have yet to see someone think the creation system should be changed/overhaul. The lot of us just want more variety, not change.
There is a difference between people who think combat should be changed and the people who want more variety in the character creation.
Following player feedback can be just as bad as not following it. Just look at World of Warcraft, they listened to the feedback that the players gave and look what happened to that game. The game is almost a joke, a ghost of what it was in vanilla, it has been dumb downed and made so casual that you can queue for an endgame raid in a dungeon finder and kill the boss in a pug for crying out loud.
I'd argue that players only think they know what is best for a game. Are you developer? what games have you made? what gives your feedback any kind of game design validity outside of just wanting something different or just wanting more? I'm not a game developer...I'm not an animator or even a level designer what do I know about what is best for a game? I have been playing games since I was a kid...that does not make me an expert in game development.
Yeah, but what you as a dev need to do is listening to the players but then decide waht to follow up on and what to ignore.
There is no way you can make all players happy, so what can you do without making the game worse for many others?
This character creation thing is easy, no one would object to having more options there so it is one of the things the devs should add, at least eventually.
Doing all things all players want is impossible and even if you could it would destroy the game. But not listening at all is just as dumb and leads to stuff like the NGE.
But in this case I think people needs to have some patience, the top priority the last few months before launch is making the current features work for launch date, not adding flavor stuff like this. Bioware should fix it the next 6 months or so since many players want it while it have no real draw backs, but they should not have higher priority on it than fixing bugs and crashes.
This wouldnt be that much of a problem to some folks if everyone didnt use the same body types. All the aliens that are humanoid use the same body type as the players, so it literally turns the game into Star Trek with the forehead aliens because the only difference between you and anyone else is in the game is the head and hands.
So it's not just the fact that you might look like other players, its the fact that you almost look like everyone else. And this is Star Wars, man.
This wouldnt be that much of a problem to some folks if everyone didnt use the same body types. All the aliens that are humanoid use the same body type as the players, so it literally turns the game into Star Trek with the forehead aliens because the only difference between you and anyone else is in the game is the head and hands.
So it's not just the fact that you might look like other players, its the fact that you almost look like everyone else. And this is Star Wars, man.
Yeah, if each race had a different model, that would go a long way. Even if were similar enough to use the same animations, but didn't have the exact same face and body shape, that would add eight times the variety.
..and that's not even getting into the issue of how they didn't add any of the much less human looking alien types that were playable way back when SWG launched.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
After months and months of feedback in beta about there needing to be more customization options, it STILL hasn't happened in game. I can't think of one other topic that got so much consistent beta feedback. And save me your arguments that there are x billion amount of combination choices - I have 4 body choices and a handful of premade faces to choose from.
TOR isnt about that...its about perty cut-scenes. Without voice acting and out-dated cut scene graphics TOR would be another bland boring MMORPG unfortionately.
..and that's not even getting into the issue of how they didn't add any of the much less human looking alien types that were playable way back when SWG launched.
Didn't they say its because they couldn't write stories about less-humanoid aliens because they would not be relatable to the players?
The first time I read that I was seriously just thinking that it was lazy, not a true limitation, but pure unadultrated lazieness.
Edit: quote found by Daniel Erickson, lead writer
Lead characters in an RPG must be something the player can relate to. There has never been a movie or major Star Wars series with a complete freak job as the lead and that’s because dramatically it doesn’t work. We don’t understand what it means to be a giant lizard or a droid or a walking ball of jelly. We love the weird characters but they are always the sidekicks, not the emotional connection in the movie…
In the future I can see a day where we would do a Trandoshan or Wookiee type story but it would have to be just that. Not a simple graphic swap where now your smuggler is a giant lizard man and nobody notices but a full class story where you learn what it means to be this strange alien and deal with the rest of the galaxy and their reactions. For the present, however, our heroes are our projections of self, headed into a galaxy of wonders and adventures.
I know that this isn’t what some people want but I hope it helps them understand that game design isn’t simply throwing random features into a game because they seem cool. You have to have a goal, a final holistic ideal that you’re trying to hit. The Old Republic is, and always has been, about starring in your own version of a Star Wars movie.
have you ever seen a major char-gen revamp in a game post-beta-release (except EvE where it was a necessity because they introduced actual avatar models)? - No, because to 95% of the devs this is a feature you don't waste a huge lot of energy on because it doesn't stretch playtime like new factions
Why yes, I have. (Points at CoX)
And EQ2 (SOGA).
Also, I think you have to consider what the existing CC offers, before you consider if it would change. If the CC is offers enough, then of course it is unlikely to change. So simply counting how many MMO's have had improvements to their CC, is flawed without considering the conditions/evalutation of the intial CC -- imo.
..and that's not even getting into the issue of how they didn't add any of the much less human looking alien types that were playable way back when SWG launched.
Didn't they say its because they couldn't write stories about less-humanoid aliens because they would not be relatable to the players?
The first time I read that I was seriously just thinking that it was lazy, not a true limitation, but pure unadultrated lazieness.
No that is in fact exactly why all of the player characters speak Basic and are humanoid with "standard" human facial features and body proportions.
Hell, it'd be EASIER to allow more alien playable characters that don't/can't speak Basic and just use the "random alien language" for all of their speach.
Much easier and faster then thousands of hours of dialogue for the players.
From a design perspective, I don't think a lot of you realize what a monumental undertaking it would be for Bioware to do what you are asking...
I would not expect anything to change on the character creation for a very long time, if ever.
Why is it 'monumental'? We see simple player make graphic improvements to other BW games, without facing some 'monumental task'.
Look at DAO, and then look at Dragonagenexus player mod sight.
These are players -- not professional game designers -- that are able to make major graphic improvements to the stock BW graphic files in DAO. This indicates to me, that the 'task' is rather trivial, especially from a professional developer standpoint.
The issue, imo, is not 'technical', but rather simply getting BW to consider making the changes.
From a design perspective, I don't think a lot of you realize what a monumental undertaking it would be for Bioware to do what you are asking...
I would not expect anything to change on the character creation for a very long time, if ever.
I am well aware of the design aspect and why everything in SWTOR from a facial view looks annoyingly similiar. The fact remains Bioware made this choice knowing the drawbacks. Implementing systems that are very difficult to change in MMO's tends to be a poor choice and more so when it limits variety, the silent killer of MMO's. It might not be characer models it might be armor, monsters, maps, or a list of other choices but limiting a players options would only be a good thing in a very few cases.
I almost certain Bioware will not improve the character creation process but that also means it will remain somwhat of a joke for the duration of the games lifespan. It is not 'Okay' when you have two races only seperated by having different colour skins and look like twins.
Less humanoid or non-humanoid would be very hard and / or time consuming to auto-facial-animate in cutscenes.
Take note most non-main story quests have their faces and body animated during dialogue by Bioware auto-match text animation tool. It is of course worse way than doing it by hand, that's why main class-quest stories and more iconic quest have animations done or corrected by hand. Which is of course very costly and time consuming/
That's why there are no-playable less-humanoid or non-humanoid characters.
All races are basically same models with diffrent skin put on. Very easy work to create race like that.
Full Voice Over cutscenes for all quests is time and money consuming. Like ALOT of resorces have to be put in there. Espcially if they are to be decent quality like in Swtor.
It is not surprising that it have effect on several diffrent areas of a game. Even with huge budget like Swtor's there is limited things you can do.
Making one thing very good frequently means other things beign average or even poor.
From a design perspective, I don't think a lot of you realize what a monumental undertaking it would be for Bioware to do what you are asking...
I would not expect anything to change on the character creation for a very long time, if ever.
Why is it 'monumental'? We see simple player make graphic improvements to other BW games, without facing some 'monumental task'.
Look at DAO, and then look at Dragonagenexus player mod sight.
These are players -- not professional game designers -- that are able to make major graphic improvements to the stock BW graphic files in DAO. This indicates to me, that the 'task' is rather trivial, especially from a professional developer standpoint.
The issue, imo, is not 'technical', but rather simply getting BW to consider making the changes.
Change a head or body style, now you have to change the 120,000 armor and clothing models that character could wear.
Made them too tall or too short? Well now you have to change 12,000 different cutscenes and dialogue sequences to make sure the character is framed in the shot correctly.
This idea that Bioware are Gods that have the power and money and most importantly TIME to do all this stuff must be really flattering to their devs, but reality is even they have limitations.
..and that's not even getting into the issue of how they didn't add any of the much less human looking alien types that were playable way back when SWG launched.
Didn't they say its because they couldn't write stories about less-humanoid aliens because they would not be relatable to the players?
The first time I read that I was seriously just thinking that it was lazy, not a true limitation, but pure unadultrated lazieness.
No that is in fact exactly why all of the player characters speak Basic and are humanoid with "standard" human facial features and body proportions.
Hell, it'd be EASIER to allow more alien playable characters that don't/can't speak Basic and just use the "random alien language" for all of their speach.
Much easier and faster then thousands of hours of dialogue for the players.
Bioware took the hard approach.
Seeing how VOICE is decided by the Class and Gender, I do not think this was an issue when considering the racial line up.
George Lucas has already demonstrated that aliens can speak 'basic' in his other projects -- which trumps what Star Wars fans try to mandate. We see twileks speaking normal 'basic', we see Rodians speaking english, we see Bothans with goat heads speaking 'Basic' rather than some alien gibberish.
Had they included say Rodians and KelDors in TOR, they would have the same voice as the class -- rather than some 'extra recorded voice'.
TOR's character creation is better than WoW, and far worse than many of the other amazing systems that have been out there (CoH, SWG). That said, it has enough options to allow you to be diverse without creating mutant looking characters with crazy sliders and comparable.
I would like more options (I don't care for the limited selection of facial types/characteristics), but found a suitable model I can live with and enjoy in the TOR universe. For reference, I never had that same feeling in WoW.
..and that's not even getting into the issue of how they didn't add any of the much less human looking alien types that were playable way back when SWG launched.
Didn't they say its because they couldn't write stories about less-humanoid aliens because they would not be relatable to the players?
The first time I read that I was seriously just thinking that it was lazy, not a true limitation, but pure unadultrated lazieness.
No that is in fact exactly why all of the player characters speak Basic and are humanoid with "standard" human facial features and body proportions.
Hell, it'd be EASIER to allow more alien playable characters that don't/can't speak Basic and just use the "random alien language" for all of their speach.
Much easier and faster then thousands of hours of dialogue for the players.
Bioware took the hard approach.
Seeing how VOICE is decided by the Class and Gender, I do not think this was an issue when considering the racial line up.
George Lucas has already demonstrated that aliens can speak 'basic' in his other projects -- which trumps what Star Wars fans try to mandate. We see twileks speaking normal 'basic', we see Rodians speaking english, we see Bothans with goat heads speaking 'Basic' rather than some alien gibberish.
Had they included say Rodians and KelDors in TOR, they would have the same voice as the class -- rather than some 'extra recorded voice'.
Can't get the same facial acting out of a Rodian is the problem.
Less humanoid or non-humanoid would be very hard and / or time consuming to auto-facial-animate in cutscenes.
I think the animaiton for a Kel Dor in their breather mask would actually be far easier to animate. Similarly, the animations of a Rodain snout would be easier to animate, as it is also a simpler animation (less moving elements and variety).
Having seen player Graphic Mods animate in cinematics in DAO, I do not see the difficult being all that great. It ssems to be simply be a skinning issue, that players have been
Can't get the same facial acting out of a Rodian is the problem.
Or a Mon Calamari.
Or a Keldor.
Understand yet?
Again, it was not a problem for George Lucas, nor was it a barrier in his projects.
You are not providing technical examples of why it could not work.
Originally posted by Talin
TOR's character creation is better than WoW, and far worse than many of the other amazing systems that have been out there (CoH, SWG). That said, it has enough options to allow you to be diverse without creating mutant looking characters with crazy sliders and comparable.
I would like more options (I don't care for the limited selection of facial types/characteristics), but found a suitable model I can live with and enjoy in the TOR universe. For reference, I never had that same feeling in WoW.
While WoW had less options with in the races, their racial diversity is far more than TOR.
TOR is basically using a 'Uni-Body' system, with sliders (where all races share the same body and head more or less, and the difference comes in the slider options).
WoW had fewer sliders, but each race had an individual bodystyle to that race.
So you can do more with the sliders in TOR, but each race is still the same model more or less. Overall it is a matter of opinion (do you like more sliders but less diversity, or more diversity, but less sliders).
..and that's not even getting into the issue of how they didn't add any of the much less human looking alien types that were playable way back when SWG launched.
Didn't they say its because they couldn't write stories about less-humanoid aliens because they would not be relatable to the players?
The first time I read that I was seriously just thinking that it was lazy, not a true limitation, but pure unadultrated lazieness.
No that is in fact exactly why all of the player characters speak Basic and are humanoid with "standard" human facial features and body proportions.
Hell, it'd be EASIER to allow more alien playable characters that don't/can't speak Basic and just use the "random alien language" for all of their speach.
Much easier and faster then thousands of hours of dialogue for the players.
Bioware took the hard approach.
But the technical aspect was not the argument of Bioware. The argument from biowares writer was that they can't write aliens to be relatable.
If he said "sorry guys, we only have this many animation-slots to not make the instalation 100gb big" we wouldn't have the discussion.
Right now you are speculating on a tangential other issue, that -might- (or not) have occured, but that was not what the Bioware lead writer argued if asked about less-humanoid races.
Less humanoid or non-humanoid would be very hard and / or time consuming to auto-facial-animate in cutscenes.
I think the animaiton for a Kel Dor in their breather mask would actually be far easier to animate. Similarly, the animations of a Rodain snout would be easier to animate, as it is also a simpler animation (less moving elements and variety).
Having seen player Graphic Mods animate in cinematics in DAO, I do not see the difficult being all that great. It ssems to be simply be a skinning issue, that players have been
Easier than doing animation of standard very 'human' humanoid?
Sure I agree.
Thing is Bioware have to adjust it AGAIN to diffrent model than "human humanoid".
So one propably complicated adjustment VS one propably complicated adjustment (standard humanoid) + programm second slighty easier auto-adjusting for some ONE non-humanoid race.
Adding one standard humanoid race now vs. adding one non-humanoid model now, would be like almost non-cost(everything done just need to do race skins) vs. huge costs. (adjust cuutscenes, armors, etc).
I agree with you that there should be non-humanoid races.
You just have to realize that full voice over and cutscenes have their price. Now you're paying it.
I really doubt you'll see any race added that is not fitting into 'standard humanoid' in Swtor.
Well except maybe if Swtor get insanely popular and there'll be huge expansion then maybe in this expansion.
Still amount of money earned by game not directly equal that amount of content will rise that much. (see WoW and how much it earn vs. f.e. EQ2 and Rift - does doezens time more revenue equal dozen more time addded content? )
You just have to realize that full voice over and cutscenes have their price. Now you're paying it.
Again, looking at the animations that players have created on Dragonagenexus, I do not see the 'price'.
Imo, it is simply a matter of not wanting to do it, rather than facing some sort of technical limitation.
I am willing to bet, had the gamers had the same access to TOR graphic files, that they have with Dragon Age Nexus, we would be seeing similar graphic mods -- playing both in game and in the cinematics.
..and that's not even getting into the issue of how they didn't add any of the much less human looking alien types that were playable way back when SWG launched.
Didn't they say its because they couldn't write stories about less-humanoid aliens because they would not be relatable to the players?
The first time I read that I was seriously just thinking that it was lazy, not a true limitation, but pure unadultrated lazieness.
No that is in fact exactly why all of the player characters speak Basic and are humanoid with "standard" human facial features and body proportions.
Hell, it'd be EASIER to allow more alien playable characters that don't/can't speak Basic and just use the "random alien language" for all of their speach.
Much easier and faster then thousands of hours of dialogue for the players.
Bioware took the hard approach.
But the technical aspect was not the argument of Bioware. The argument from biowares writer was that they can't write aliens to be relatable.
If he said "sorry guys, we only have this many animation-slots to not make the instalation 100gb big" we wouldn't have the discussion.
Right now you are speculating on a tangential other issue, that -might- (or not) have occured, but that was not what the Bioware lead writer argued if asked about less-humanoid races.
His argument reeks of laziness.
I call BS. It's not laziness at all.
It's a design decision, just like he said, to make the player characters "relateable" due to the nature of the story focus of this game.
Don't like it, go play SWG. Oh wait...
Your arguements are hollow.
You know what would happen if they made non-humanoid playable characters without good facial features for emotional display and/or without speaking "Basic"?
The story would lose most of it's "grip" and emotional resonance.
But hey, if you think it'd be fun to read subtitles and not understand the language and not see any emotion in the character's faces, more power to you.
You just have to realize that full voice over and cutscenes have their price. Now you're paying it.
Again, looking at the animations that players have created on Dragonagenexus, I do not see the 'price'.
Imo, it is simply a matter of not wanting to do it, rather than facing some sort of technical limitation.
I am willing to bet, had the gamers had the same access to TOR graphic files, that they have with Dragon Age Nexus, we would be seeing similar graphic mods -- playing both in game and in the cinematics.
You think that Bioware just not put non-humanoid races cause they are mean or they are racist towards non-humanoids?
I am well aware of what modders can do. Best mods are sometimes equal to very good comercial games and best modders or modders teams are finding work in commercial industry.
Anyway - bottom line having only one type of models with diffrent skins is definately conscious decision and I don't see Bioware adding non-humanoid races anytime soon, If ever.
My reason is propably only one of at least few reasons this was done. (or rather not-done).
Having single reason for seriosu design decision is not happening very often.
Comments
Again with this!? I did NOT say I dislike the game.
You don't know what the developers want. I don't know what the developers want. Therefore, giving feedback is our way of seeing what the developers intend to do.
Either there are no threads that claim to want improved creation, or there are threads that claim to want creation.
If there are no threads that claim to want a better system, then that is why people want to give feedback on a better creation system.
If there are plenty of threads that claim to want a better system, then I think it's safe to assume that it is a reasonable feedback.
No one is expecting BioWare to overhaul the system. No is even expecting BioWare to change the creation system in the slightest way. That doesn't mean everyone should sit back and assume the developers know what we want. I can assure you their goal is to get gamers to play their game. They WANT us to enjoy their game. No one sits at a meeting and says "let's make a crappy game today!"
They may not care about the system, they may not care about us wanting improved systems. But we don't know they really want. It really bothers you that people are giving suggestions to IMPROVE a game? We don't want to change the system, we just want a bit more choice and variety.
Here's my view. If my nephew wants cable, but doesn't tell me... how do I know he wants cable?
People are simply giving feedback on improvements... not changes.
I have said that so many times I think I'm just going to give up. :P
Those are feedback to change/alter the game. I have yet to see someone think the creation system should be changed/overhaul. The lot of us just want more variety, not change.
There is a difference between people who think combat should be changed and the people who want more variety in the character creation.
I'm not asking for change.
Yeah, but what you as a dev need to do is listening to the players but then decide waht to follow up on and what to ignore.
There is no way you can make all players happy, so what can you do without making the game worse for many others?
This character creation thing is easy, no one would object to having more options there so it is one of the things the devs should add, at least eventually.
Doing all things all players want is impossible and even if you could it would destroy the game. But not listening at all is just as dumb and leads to stuff like the NGE.
But in this case I think people needs to have some patience, the top priority the last few months before launch is making the current features work for launch date, not adding flavor stuff like this. Bioware should fix it the next 6 months or so since many players want it while it have no real draw backs, but they should not have higher priority on it than fixing bugs and crashes.
This wouldnt be that much of a problem to some folks if everyone didnt use the same body types. All the aliens that are humanoid use the same body type as the players, so it literally turns the game into Star Trek with the forehead aliens because the only difference between you and anyone else is in the game is the head and hands.
So it's not just the fact that you might look like other players, its the fact that you almost look like everyone else. And this is Star Wars, man.
WoW Sidequests
Yeah, if each race had a different model, that would go a long way. Even if were similar enough to use the same animations, but didn't have the exact same face and body shape, that would add eight times the variety.
..and that's not even getting into the issue of how they didn't add any of the much less human looking alien types that were playable way back when SWG launched.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Character creation is weak sauce right now, that is for sure.
No where to go but up right? hah
A LOT of it is to make sure the dialogue and cut scenes for dialogue work right - but definitely lacking in customization and variety regardless.
Also, male body types are awful.
From a design perspective, I don't think a lot of you realize what a monumental undertaking it would be for Bioware to do what you are asking...
I would not expect anything to change on the character creation for a very long time, if ever.
TOR isnt about that...its about perty cut-scenes. Without voice acting and out-dated cut scene graphics TOR would be another bland boring MMORPG unfortionately.
"I play Tera for the gameplay"
Didn't they say its because they couldn't write stories about less-humanoid aliens because they would not be relatable to the players?
The first time I read that I was seriously just thinking that it was lazy, not a true limitation, but pure unadultrated lazieness.
Edit: quote found by Daniel Erickson, lead writer
Lead characters in an RPG must be something the player can relate to. There has never been a movie or major Star Wars series with a complete freak job as the lead and that’s because dramatically it doesn’t work. We don’t understand what it means to be a giant lizard or a droid or a walking ball of jelly. We love the weird characters but they are always the sidekicks, not the emotional connection in the movie…
In the future I can see a day where we would do a Trandoshan or Wookiee type story but it would have to be just that. Not a simple graphic swap where now your smuggler is a giant lizard man and nobody notices but a full class story where you learn what it means to be this strange alien and deal with the rest of the galaxy and their reactions. For the present, however, our heroes are our projections of self, headed into a galaxy of wonders and adventures.
I know that this isn’t what some people want but I hope it helps them understand that game design isn’t simply throwing random features into a game because they seem cool. You have to have a goal, a final holistic ideal that you’re trying to hit. The Old Republic is, and always has been, about starring in your own version of a Star Wars movie.
And EQ2 (SOGA).
Also, I think you have to consider what the existing CC offers, before you consider if it would change. If the CC is offers enough, then of course it is unlikely to change. So simply counting how many MMO's have had improvements to their CC, is flawed without considering the conditions/evalutation of the intial CC -- imo.
No that is in fact exactly why all of the player characters speak Basic and are humanoid with "standard" human facial features and body proportions.
Hell, it'd be EASIER to allow more alien playable characters that don't/can't speak Basic and just use the "random alien language" for all of their speach.
Much easier and faster then thousands of hours of dialogue for the players.
Bioware took the hard approach.
Why is it 'monumental'? We see simple player make graphic improvements to other BW games, without facing some 'monumental task'.
Look at DAO, and then look at Dragonagenexus player mod sight.
These are players -- not professional game designers -- that are able to make major graphic improvements to the stock BW graphic files in DAO. This indicates to me, that the 'task' is rather trivial, especially from a professional developer standpoint.
The issue, imo, is not 'technical', but rather simply getting BW to consider making the changes.
I am well aware of the design aspect and why everything in SWTOR from a facial view looks annoyingly similiar. The fact remains Bioware made this choice knowing the drawbacks. Implementing systems that are very difficult to change in MMO's tends to be a poor choice and more so when it limits variety, the silent killer of MMO's. It might not be characer models it might be armor, monsters, maps, or a list of other choices but limiting a players options would only be a good thing in a very few cases.
I almost certain Bioware will not improve the character creation process but that also means it will remain somwhat of a joke for the duration of the games lifespan. It is not 'Okay' when you have two races only seperated by having different colour skins and look like twins.
Less humanoid or non-humanoid would be very hard and / or time consuming to auto-facial-animate in cutscenes.
Take note most non-main story quests have their faces and body animated during dialogue by Bioware auto-match text animation tool. It is of course worse way than doing it by hand, that's why main class-quest stories and more iconic quest have animations done or corrected by hand. Which is of course very costly and time consuming/
That's why there are no-playable less-humanoid or non-humanoid characters.
All races are basically same models with diffrent skin put on. Very easy work to create race like that.
Full Voice Over cutscenes for all quests is time and money consuming. Like ALOT of resorces have to be put in there. Espcially if they are to be decent quality like in Swtor.
It is not surprising that it have effect on several diffrent areas of a game. Even with huge budget like Swtor's there is limited things you can do.
Making one thing very good frequently means other things beign average or even poor.
Change a head or body style, now you have to change the 120,000 armor and clothing models that character could wear.
Made them too tall or too short? Well now you have to change 12,000 different cutscenes and dialogue sequences to make sure the character is framed in the shot correctly.
This idea that Bioware are Gods that have the power and money and most importantly TIME to do all this stuff must be really flattering to their devs, but reality is even they have limitations.
Seeing how VOICE is decided by the Class and Gender, I do not think this was an issue when considering the racial line up.
George Lucas has already demonstrated that aliens can speak 'basic' in his other projects -- which trumps what Star Wars fans try to mandate. We see twileks speaking normal 'basic', we see Rodians speaking english, we see Bothans with goat heads speaking 'Basic' rather than some alien gibberish.
Had they included say Rodians and KelDors in TOR, they would have the same voice as the class -- rather than some 'extra recorded voice'.
TOR's character creation is better than WoW, and far worse than many of the other amazing systems that have been out there (CoH, SWG). That said, it has enough options to allow you to be diverse without creating mutant looking characters with crazy sliders and comparable.
I would like more options (I don't care for the limited selection of facial types/characteristics), but found a suitable model I can live with and enjoy in the TOR universe. For reference, I never had that same feeling in WoW.
Can't get the same facial acting out of a Rodian is the problem.
Or a Mon Calamari.
Or a Keldor.
Understand yet?
I think the animaiton for a Kel Dor in their breather mask would actually be far easier to animate. Similarly, the animations of a Rodain snout would be easier to animate, as it is also a simpler animation (less moving elements and variety).
Having seen player Graphic Mods animate in cinematics in DAO, I do not see the difficult being all that great. It ssems to be simply be a skinning issue, that players have been
Again, it was not a problem for George Lucas, nor was it a barrier in his projects.
You are not providing technical examples of why it could not work.
While WoW had less options with in the races, their racial diversity is far more than TOR.
TOR is basically using a 'Uni-Body' system, with sliders (where all races share the same body and head more or less, and the difference comes in the slider options).
WoW had fewer sliders, but each race had an individual bodystyle to that race.
So you can do more with the sliders in TOR, but each race is still the same model more or less. Overall it is a matter of opinion (do you like more sliders but less diversity, or more diversity, but less sliders).
But the technical aspect was not the argument of Bioware. The argument from biowares writer was that they can't write aliens to be relatable.
If he said "sorry guys, we only have this many animation-slots to not make the instalation 100gb big" we wouldn't have the discussion.
Right now you are speculating on a tangential other issue, that -might- (or not) have occured, but that was not what the Bioware lead writer argued if asked about less-humanoid races.
His argument reeks of laziness.
Easier than doing animation of standard very 'human' humanoid?
Sure I agree.
Thing is Bioware have to adjust it AGAIN to diffrent model than "human humanoid".
So one propably complicated adjustment VS one propably complicated adjustment (standard humanoid) + programm second slighty easier auto-adjusting for some ONE non-humanoid race.
Adding one standard humanoid race now vs. adding one non-humanoid model now, would be like almost non-cost(everything done just need to do race skins) vs. huge costs. (adjust cuutscenes, armors, etc).
I agree with you that there should be non-humanoid races.
You just have to realize that full voice over and cutscenes have their price. Now you're paying it.
I really doubt you'll see any race added that is not fitting into 'standard humanoid' in Swtor.
Well except maybe if Swtor get insanely popular and there'll be huge expansion then maybe in this expansion.
Still amount of money earned by game not directly equal that amount of content will rise that much. (see WoW and how much it earn vs. f.e. EQ2 and Rift - does doezens time more revenue equal dozen more time addded content? )
Again, looking at the animations that players have created on Dragonagenexus, I do not see the 'price'.
Imo, it is simply a matter of not wanting to do it, rather than facing some sort of technical limitation.
I am willing to bet, had the gamers had the same access to TOR graphic files, that they have with Dragon Age Nexus, we would be seeing similar graphic mods -- playing both in game and in the cinematics.
I call BS. It's not laziness at all.
It's a design decision, just like he said, to make the player characters "relateable" due to the nature of the story focus of this game.
Don't like it, go play SWG. Oh wait...
Your arguements are hollow.
You know what would happen if they made non-humanoid playable characters without good facial features for emotional display and/or without speaking "Basic"?
The story would lose most of it's "grip" and emotional resonance.
But hey, if you think it'd be fun to read subtitles and not understand the language and not see any emotion in the character's faces, more power to you.
Go buy some anime movies.
You think that Bioware just not put non-humanoid races cause they are mean or they are racist towards non-humanoids?
I am well aware of what modders can do. Best mods are sometimes equal to very good comercial games and best modders or modders teams are finding work in commercial industry.
Anyway - bottom line having only one type of models with diffrent skins is definately conscious decision and I don't see Bioware adding non-humanoid races anytime soon, If ever.
My reason is propably only one of at least few reasons this was done. (or rather not-done).
Having single reason for seriosu design decision is not happening very often.