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and so the cat is out of the bag! EA has done it again! [High Rez Textures Thread]
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While I appreciate what the OP is doing bringing this information to us, I personally don't have a problem with the texture looks. I also do not feel that they mislead us in that department /shrug.
However, I wish the choppiness would go away. I've read that it's simply bad coding, something that plagued warhammer online. IDK - i'm hoping for improvements. What Bioware/Mythic really needs to focus on is getting character animation and ability use in sync and fluid. I repeatedly see my Bounty Hunter bug out when performing abilities or interacting with the gameworld. PvP is suffering from this. The hardcore PvP communities from other games have already passed on SWTOR for this very reason.
Thats what frustrates me the most.
I was part of the test bunch when High Rez was introduced.
High res actually gave me a performance boost on 1 machine and ran impecibly on 2 others. I am a forum ***** and spent a lot of time on the beta boards and aside the occasional they dont work well which 90% of the time could be isolated to the user having no understanding of hardware then they worked great.
The most common grumble was along the lines of "But I have a 1.5gb video card and they run bad" Yes but that 1.5gb video card was a 430 440 at 4650 etc its a low end card that proclaims 1.5gb memory.
The 3 machines I ran it succesfully on where.
I5 2500k 8gb ram 480 GTX 60-90 FPS maxed 1920x1080
I7 740QM 8gb Ram GTX 460m 40-60 FPS maxed 1920 x 1080 this was actually up from 30-50 on medium for some odd reason
Xeon dual core 3ghz 4gb ram GTS 450 30-50 FPS maxed 1920 x 1080
There was no issue on any of these machines with it and unfortunately that was my last experience of beta as I did not want to burn out on another beta so I uninstalled and did not play again until release.
Need I state how shocked I was to find a game that looked worse at release than it did during beta and that a key feature in colour match had been removed.
Just to clarify on the colour match removal though as people seem misinformed, the official stance on the removal of the feature was something along the lines of the following.
"Colour match was removed as based on feedback people did not feel a sense of armour progression as everything always fit together"
So progression in a video game involves looking like a clown most of the time, another excuse I call BS on as colour match was a toggle option don;t want it then toggle it off.
A myriad of other visual options where also removed June/July/August there was a wealth of sliders, AA and visual options I can appreciate these can all be confusing for some but that does not justify removal you do it like games have for the last 15 years low med high and a advanced tab.
Im not quitting I enjoy the game BUT it has really soured Biowares fine name built up over the last decade with me.
Advertising the game with said textures, distributing media packs with said textures, trailers with said textures, class progression videos with said textures and not once in sight a "Not representative of gameplay" on any of them.
Now they have stated we will get high res textures for our own characters nad those closest to us (probably load x amount of closest players to high) by the end of Q1 well sorry thats not acceptable I have seen this systems in other games and oftn they can look worse when you hit that x cap and see a guy just behind that high res guy who is outside of your load view and looks like a blurry mess.
Nice, I'll take that as a compliment... I can create a game and sell 2 million copies.
Everything I say is my opinion or personal preference. You may or may not find it useful to your cause but regardless I am entitled to it.
I'm entirely sympathetic to the fact that you're more than disappointed about the texture quality, JeroK--because as you say that's an important aspect of the game to you. But I'm not following the evidence for alleging that a deception has occured. I know what you are specifically calling a lie is a lie of omission. Thus, your accusation is BW didn't tell us about a development decision before they implemented it. Call me complacent but I'm unmoved.
But you'll add that they counted on you believing high res textures would reappear during live, and that they also nefariously reaped the benefits of continuing to show videos and screenshots with the better textures even after their decision for the atlas maps. My problem with this argument is that it has nothing to latch onto as either true or false. It's just a speculation made from a particular perspective. Granted, I can imagine greedy devs rubbing their hands together making such a plan. But I can also imagine development simply making decisions they believed would be best for the game, and at the same time continuing to be as silent as they've always been, for obvious reasons--though we may still disagree with those reasons.
All I currently see is typical big company level of obscurity. And, yes, I find that frustrating, but I also understand the reason given the complicated financial relationships involved--I'm sure you know what I mean here.
I know you feel insulted, but I just want to suggest that maybe your coming at this a little too aggressively; that you're making a point that's worth making but losing some of us that sympathize with what you're saying because we're unsure that you aren't simply trying to tear the game down. Anyway, I hope you don't feel that I'm being dismissive because I'm absolutely not trying to be.
Just another example plenty other MMO's solved within the UI, by having standard graphic options and a toggle to switch to advanced options for people that want to!
The more and more of these beta reports come in, the more and more becomes clear how many lazy shoddy shortcuts they have taken to get this game out of the door before the end of the year!
- Advanced graphic options removed.
- HighRes textures removed.
- AA removed (altho that one you can override and is finally come back in)
- Level 50 moddable armor removed.
- Matching chest color removed.
- and on and on...
These kind of things really gets under your skin.
In this age and time the game visuals look flat out ugly for people with high end machines and big computer screens 26"+, especially considering the offerings of the upcoming MMOs from the eastern developers, where they are both visually stunning, the world fells live and active and the game run great despite the great visuals.
The only thing that keeps me playing is the main story, the rest of the game is really not that great yet (emphasis on yet). Maybe in six months time when they've fixed those early stage issues, we'll see. For now I'm hanging on a balance, and the balance tips on the unsubscribe and let the free month run out and see from there.
Wouldn't the lazy route be NOT to remove them?
'Lazy' used by people around here is as meaning less as 'dumbed down'. Some words are just thrown around because people hear and read them a lot. It is as significant as 'yipeeee ki yay m*******'
It is just cool to throw these words around.
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty -- Mahatma Gandhi
Have you read their excuse statements as to WHY they removed/dissabled them?
If they where as badly broken as Bioware states then NO.
Option A: Fix the issues = 3 month work
Option B: Just remove everything to meet a deadline rather than fix CORE features = 1 week work
They took the easy/lazy option.
Performance issues with a game engine effect more than just the graphics. It also seriously limits what you can do with the game from a game design perspective. I wouldn't be expecting them to add much in the way of features that "expand game play". When the rubber band is already stretched to near the breaking point, you aren't going to do much of anything that might stretch it even further.
The VO storylines inject an RPG into an MMORPG. That's fine if it's just enhancing an already solid MMORPG, but when it becomes the centerpoint of the entire game, with much of the rest of it being mediocre and failing on many levels as far as what it offers as an MMORPG, there are troubles ahead.
It seems as if EA was trying to find the easiest and cheapest route to taking four years worth of RPG development resources and instead of selling it as a three part RPG, taking on enough MMO functionality to try to get people to pay a monthly fee for all that solo RPG content!
You could strip away the MMO elements, repackage this game as a multipart RPG and it would be awesome. The reverse is not true. If you took away the RPG story, the MMO elements wouldn't even rate a 5.0 out of 10.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Exactly what I meant and exactly what happened.
This is a non issue being boosted by the haters, been playing since early start along with wife and friends, my first char hit 40 last night and the others are between 20-30, Iam having amazing fun, loving the game and story.
It all depends on how successfull the ongoing modifications to the game engine will be. We have been promised "local high-res textures", probably toward the end of Q1. So the devs are trying hard to squeeze more out of the engine.
But it seems that TOR may never have great character customisations or general visual quality, even though it uses "cartoony" gfx. If the already heavily-modded engine is struggling, one can only wonder how much harder it can be pushed.
Understandably, no developer will want to admit the shortcomings of their game engine, so all kinds of spin will be applied to hide those problems. But they are clearly visible if you read between the lines.
This is not a non-issue. I enjoy the game as well, but this is something that for many people is a problem and hinders their enjoyment of the game.
Why exactly is your or my preference more important or valid then thier's?
Okay, well, with all due respect (Really), I don't think any of you are in any position to determine how long it would take them to fix it, or what the best option is in their case.
I mean, sure, you have your own preferences, but does that really make it the best thing? Hardly.
But by all means; jump on the "I hate Bioware and EA" bandwagon. It's the new trend, no?
BS that it is. I have 2 level 30's, one level 50 and working my first Rep character up toward 30 as well. I love the game, but this and how BW/EA handled it Is an issue for me. I am quite qualified to determine my own graphics settings depending on my rig, I also do not appriciate a developer taking something they've showcased out o the game without telling me.
But I guess I must be a hater too, right? And my gf and friends who think this an issue as well.
It may be a non issue for you it isnt for me, its not enough to unsub from a game I enjoy over but believe me I've seen the game as it should™ look and it certainly enhanced my experience of the game.
Everyone has opinions and things that make games great a large part of my enjoyment of game are its visuals I never played WOW as I did not like the art style.
Of course gameplay counts and as I say I'm enjoying SWTOR I don't plan on unsubbing but I have made my feelings known both here and on the official boards I did also unsub to complete the unsub questionairre making my feelings known on this issue but instantly set that sub back up.
Graphics to me are number 1 in a game of course no matter how the game looks if it plays like rubbish I wont play it however theres many a title friends have recommended and I've never got more than 20 minutes into it due to its graphics/art style, this is especially prevelant in a MMO a game you may play for years that has such visual progression.
It's sad that my 40 PVP set looks bland and boring on my character in normal play but then in cutscenes has grooves and blaster scorch marks etc I think I would rather not have them in at all than locked to cutscenes, it feels like I'm on Bullseye (80s game show in the UK) and I have just lost but theres Jim Bowen taunting me with his "heres what you could have won" catchphrase.
It has nothing to do with jumping on the hate wagon.
All the above mentioned features and their possible issues were reported long before the open beta weekends started. EA/Bioware simply ignored their beta testers at that time.
Then shortly before launch they jumped into Panic mode and start dissabling/removing features left and right on the last moment!
It was just stupid! Especially since they had plenty of times to fix if they had actually listened to their beta testers.
The matching chest color option and as to why they suddenly removed it at the end, just before launch is questionable and laughable at most! It didn't make any sense AT ALL, as it was working fine and people were extremely happy with that feature!
I'm not saying they handled this well. Not at all. What I am saying is that in these situations, everyone is suddenly some sort of graphics and business wizard, loaded with conspiracy theories.
Are people here even aware that graphical improvements have already been planned for 1.2? I mean, aside from AA (Which is 1.1). Or do we just read the big headlines because we really don't care about any of this unless we can piss over things.
I have seen that post. It's called Damage Control, as they clearly did not expect that big of a back lash.
And frankly, after the whole insulting official statement, I don't believe a single word anymore coming out of their mouths.
I am now in a "First See! Then Believe mode!".
So when they actually DO implement these graphic improvements in patch 1.2, I might resub again to this game and continue playing.
With a 130 (or 300) million USD budget you'll still be quite a few bucks short of breakeven after those 2 million copies...
[Mod Edit]
If YOU CANNOT handle HighRes textures, then simply set it down to Medium or even Low!
That is WHY it is called GRAPHICS SETTINGS !
Why should WE be punished, because YOU want to run the game in Highest possible settings and then start crying on the forums that the game runs Poorly, while you should just lower the graphic settings to match what YOUR PC can handle!
The design of the game world and the character customisation options and rendering of the world may well be limited by the engine's lack of gfx muscle, but that does not impact on systems that are not gfx dependant.
Things like expanding and enriching the guild tools, LFG matchmaking, character abilities, AA's, crafting complexity, modding armour and weapon stats (non-visual), AI scripting, companion behaviour and functions, etc. can still be done extensively. So, much depth can be added yet.
As an example, EVE is a vastly complicated and deep game, but very little of that is "visible" on player avatars or in space.
Some companies do make games for graphic junkies, just not companies like Blizzard and Bioware. I am surprised this is news for many people...
The art is another matter though and not likeing it is fine (heck, I don't like it much myself) but that is in the eye of the beholder and not really something all will like no matter how they make it.
If you can't stand how a game look just don't play it.
BW and Blizz prefer that as many players as possible can play a game, companies like FunCom and Square Enix on the other hand focus more on people with better computers so the games can look better, it is something all devs should decide for themselves while we players pick what we prefer (or can run on our computers).
Live with it or play something else.
There are things to discuss that actually can be bettered and Bioware just might fix if people demand it, lets focus on that instead of things that wont change. How about being able to select a companion yourself instead of getting exactly the same as everyone else no matter if you want her or not.