Bioware didnt fix some of the problems they had in KOTOR in TOR.

[Hellfury]

What are you guys talking about? HeroEngine was made specifically for MMOs. Just google it...

WoW, on the other hand has been running on the old WC3 engine, and it doesn't run that well...you download a bunch of useless information about the game and what's happening miles around you that only slows you down. It has horrible limitations, afaik, I'm surprised they made it work...

Do you even play WOW, content, class and comunity wise has alot of problems but the engine its pretty much great. And its not based on WC3 at all, maybe the foundations,

And Limitations? It supports 80 ppl fighting eachother on PVP without lag, You can walk in 1 continent from north to south point without a single loading bar.

Wow runs officialy on 2 Operating Systems(Win and OsX), and another unoficialy(Linux), it supports 3 rendering systems(dx9,11 and openGL), if this is limited I dont know...

Iam not saying it has the best graphics and textures, it doesnt but thats because the models and textures are old.

The technical developers(the nerds making all the code) and server engineers behind WOW along this years are rock-stars imo, its just to bad the content creators, designers and class developers are brain dead.

[Roose]

Let's completely leave out the bit where Blizzard has had 7 years to fine tune numbers to make WoW as smooth as it is.

Oh ya, I am well aware. I am all for them fixing the things that make the game unplayable for some first. I will give Bioware time because I really like most of everything they did from a gaming perspective.

The creative aspect is gold and that is the hard part. All I really think needs to be added is a viewing distance option. Do I really need to see that sand crawler across the map? It is cool and all, but it does not affect my enjoyment whereas the FPS does.

[WarFalcon1]

WoW had similar issues in vanilla. One of my buddies was playing SWTOR last night and clipped into a wall and could not get out. I can't even begin to remember how many times that happened in WoW, especially when you were feared. Took all of vanilla to fix issues like this.

[JustintimeSS]

I fell inside a rock today on Voss and I couldn't get out. I typed /stuck and kept on playing and having a great time.

One time in vanilla STV I was stuck looting for 15 minutes per mob. On every mob. For 5 days. I still had fun.

[vian]

Both titles are based on the HERO engine.

But the HERO engine is far from suitable for an MMO. Worlds in KOTOR were already fairly limited, probably more due to consoles than the engine, but still. In fact, that HERO was initially designed for consoles is probably one of the reasons it's a poor choice for a PC MMO.

Not to sound like a douché, but you're talking out of your ass now man, the hero engine was specifically built to handle online enviroments, then later on adapted by some companies to work well in single-player.

[georgevonfranken]

WoW had similar issues in vanilla. One of my buddies was playing SWTOR last night and clipped into a wall and could not get out. I can't even begin to remember how many times that happened in WoW, especially when you were feared. Took all of vanilla to fix issues like this.

They did not get fix'd in vanilla. In Wraith me and a friend would use the fear trick all the time

[WarFalcon1]

They did not get fix'd in vanilla. In Wraith me and a friend would use the fear trick all the time

True, you could still glitch it out but it was miles better then it had been.

[Adrianoz]

They've certainly developed the Light Side and Dark Side from the way it is portrayed in certain comics, novels and video games. The Sith aren't "hurr durr I'm evil", the Republic aren't the "Champions of Justice".

Alot of the focus is on the social darwinism of Sith philosophy if you play on the Empire side, the Light and Dark Side choices to be made in that overarching philosophy is not Good vs. Evil, it's more in line with logic and short-term/long-term gain and profit. I.e, would you kill a commanding officer for failing you, despite him making his best efforts? Would you kill your superior the first chance you got in order to take his place? Will you convert a captured Jedi or Agent and use them to further your own agenda and spread your ideology or will you torture them out of spite and toss them aside?

Many of these choices don't have any evident Good or Evil side to them, you can be a Light Sith Warrior and still be ruthless and cunning, as you might use manipulation to convert your enemies and use them as tools to be thrown in the gutter after they've run their course, which is considered Light Side because the Dark Side option is to torture them, break them down and either kill them or send them back to their homeworld, as an example of what happens when you cross the path of a Sith.

Conversely, the same is true for the Republic - the citizens of the Republic live under a broken political system, which eventually becomes so flawed and locked in bickering and arguing that Palpatine manages to seize power and declare the Galactic Empire some 3,000 years later. The Republic doesn't hesitate to curb civil rights, impose a Police State or become a dictatorial federation, so long as they believe it is what is the best to protect their interests, citizenry and spread their ideology. To them, the end justifies the means, and the ambitions and greed of its political establishment is kept in check only by the Jedi and the strict regulations put in place over the course of millennias to avoid the inevitable outcome.

You can be a Dark Side Jedi who is still a fervent enemy of the Sith and a member of the Jedi Order, it's simply that when forced to make the choice of sacrificing a thousand lives to save ten thousand, you make it, which in the eyes of some would make you Dark. You may feel that the only way to defeat the Sith and the Empire is to learn more about them and eventually want to infiltrate them and destroy them from within, which the Jedi strictly advise against and forbid, which in turn would mean you're walking a fine line between Light and Dark.

So as you can see there really is no Good or Evil, it's a morally grey universe where Light Side might mean that you're a saint or that you're a cynical, ruthless, cold and calculating person. Dark Side might mean you're short-sighted, dumb and an idiot, or that you're a mastermind of deception and corruption.

No Side of the Force can ever win, the Dark side can only go so far; they might win the battles, but in the end the Light always gains the upper hand. As for the Light side, they can never defeat the Dark, since it's a part of every living being in the universe, all they can do is fight, and fight, and fight some more and not give in to their emotions, as that is the only way to keep the Dark at bay and ensure peace and prosperity. It's a constant, never-ending struggle, and this overarching struggle between the Light side and the Dark side is what the entire Star Wars-Galaxy is based on.

[Uennie]

I have also had immersion breaking problems with companions and cutscenes. Mako sometimes just randomly walks through both the people talking, or she'll block my entire screen somehow.

Yesterday, while I was doing an instanced quest, I hopped off an elevator and Mako followed me. Suddenly when I aggroed she was back on the elevator several feet behind me and trying to heal me from afar. It was weird but I figured if I kept going through the instance she'd eventually pop out. Nope. She literally walked through stone ceiling sorta healing me. I had to resummon her twice to get her to stay at my side. The first time she appeared and then she disappeared into the ceiling again.

I've always had problems, probably every day with companion pathing. I hope they fix it.

No bueno haha.

[odiodin]

Them using a (particularly bad) third party engine is pretty much my problem with this game... and why I'm seriously hoping my friends get tired of it soon.

The game itself has all the polish of a console port (that's to say that it has none at all).

That they couldn't even fix the AA and high res texture support before launch speaks volumes.

[Hellfury]

Technicaly, Bioware isnt stealer, I hope they get external help to make Swtor better.

[nazrakin]

I've had them pathing in the middle of cutscenes, appearing out of nowhere, or entirely blocking what's going on a few times now. Last night I also had T7 following behind my spaceship in space combat, which was really distracting, because he'd obscure parts of the screen at times while floating about.

I've also had my companions vanish and appear over and over after being on an elevator. One time T7 vanished in the middle of a fight and suddenly blaster bolts were raining down through the ceiling where he had somehow teleported through the world.

Here's my favourite screenshot that illustrates the pathing problems.



It's nowhere near as bad as KOTOR (the number of times I couldn't go through a door because I had to gather my party because one of them decided to have a wander was insane!), but it is still an issue.

All throughout beta and my time on live I have never seen the companion moving independently during cutscenes. Unlike KOTOR, the cutscenes in this are "instanced" and everyone just appears in their place. There are soemtimes odd camera angles, but I have never observed them pathing around during a CS.

I don't deny there are pathing problems when you're traveling the actual game world, in fact I'm sure I said exactly that. My point is that it isn't something that only effect KOTOR or TOR. Its happens in any videogame where your allies aren't on "rails".