Is the required specs a double edged sword?

[Deleted]

Was thinking this yesterday, do you think the demanding pc requirements for SWTOR could be a double edged sword? I know it makes it look pretty but is BW risking alienating a potential chunk of players? Now I don't want to bring WoW into this as to avoid childish 'my games better than yours' from both sides but I do believe one of WoWs charm is that anybody can play. Hopefully i'm wrong but it is something I have recently thought

[grandpab]

I'm sick of developers limiting themselves because people still have crappy computers. I wish the requirements were a bit more demanding to be honest.

[Deleted]

I'm sick of developers limiting themselves because people still have crappy computers. I wish the requirements were a bit more demanding to be honest.

MMORPGs require numbers for money e.g subscriptions. More subs more money. Alienating customers in a competitive business isn't wise

[mirodin]

Heh i had a similar thought about this as well. Nearing 50 on my first char i can't help but notice my horid fps in warzones (10ish). My PC is 2 years old and i don't have the cash to splash out every 2 years to buy a descent gaming rig. I'm currently looking for the cheapest way to upgrade my PC to make TOR warzones and soon op's playable. I think for people that come from not so rich countries they simply won't be able to enjoy TOR properly for another 2-3 years.

[grandpab]

Obviously, but I don't care how much they make lol

[Deleted]

Obviously, but I don't care how much they make lol

Less money less content

[Deleted]

If everyone should be able to play, we would still only play text based adventures.

We need to progress, so we need to update graphics and game experience.
WoW has always profiled them self with their cartoonish graphics, and will most likely survive long for it. After seven years it becomes a bit stale (at least for me).

Game developers of today have a difficult task balance hardware requirements and good graphics to satisfy as many people as possible.

[grandpab]

Less money less content

Not really, but it all depends on how much of a profit they're making. Also, just look at how much money Blizz makes and look at how long it takes them to release new content...In their case money does not directly correlate to content.

[Ogretron]

I am perfectly fine with companies making their game look good even if people with ancient computers can't play them. If I wanted to play a game that caters to everyone graphic wise I would go back to Runescape or Ragnarok.

Also, when WoW came out it wasn't friendly to old computers. TOR is way more friendly toward older computers than WoW was when it came out. It's only friendly now because it's such an old game.

[Ravenblade]

The answer is scaling.

There is literally no reason to not cater to minimum specs at the costs of prettiness in the same sense they should have an option where they could go nuts with settings.

I remember when EQ2 was released. Could only run it at bare minimum settings.

Sadly many engines still stick to DX9.0c only whose original release goes back to 2004 :/ Even WoW is offering DX11 support, if not for features then for using a different and speedier rendering path.

[BeingRepressed]

My computer is 3 years old and I have no issues running the game. Do I get 60 FPS in the imperial fleet? No, but it's still playable.

[zorkuus]

MMORPGs require numbers for money e.g subscriptions. More subs more money. Alienating customers in a competitive business isn't wise

Titan is a next gen MMO, so I'm sure it will also have next gen graphics. And I'm pretty sure plenty of people will stil buy it. This "they need to make MMO's playable for everyone, even for those with a PC from 1995" excuse is getting old and tiresome.

[DrakeWurrum]

Obviously, but I don't care how much they make lol

Less people to play with, the company making less money and thus hiring less/lower quality employees, having to spend EXTRA money on getting a better computer specifically to be able to play one game with ridiculous specs...

I get where you're coming from, but it's very narrow-minded. You shouldn't judge the ratio of money and content entirely on how WoW has panned out (especially since, with WoW being Blizzard's only source of cash, they also produce OTHER games with that money).

[Deleted]

Titan is a next gen MMO, so I'm sure it will also have next gen graphics. And I'm pretty sure plenty of people will stil buy it. This "they need to make MMO's playable for everyone, even for those with a PC from 1995" excuse is getting old and tiresome.

We're not saying PCS from 15 years ago but more 2 years... In these economical times people can't afford to spend £100+ to upgrade PCs yearly to play a handful of games

[philefluxx]

Considering you can play this game decently with a Duel Core 2Ghz CPU, 3 gig's of RAM and a 8800GT provided you turn your graphics down, no I don't think this game was designed for high end pc's only. If your machine cannot match the above you have no business in online games outside of your browser. To put this in perspective, my grandmothers computer is better than the above....

[georgevonfranken]

We're not saying PCS from 15 years ago but more 2 years... In these economical times people can't afford to spend £100+ to upgrade PCs yearly to play a handful of games

Computer from 2 years ago would be fine.

Cant afford £100 but new game+monthly subscription is fine? If people didn't get Starbucks every day they could easily save up

[philefluxx]

Computer from 2 years ago would be fine.

Cant afford £100 but new game+monthly subscription is fine? If people didn't get Starbucks every day they could easily save up

I lawl'd. Seriously though gaming is a hobby if you cant afford the hobby dont expect to be gaming. Its like saying you want to start collecting baseball cards but dont have the money to buy them.

[Roose]

Yes, it is a fact that it alienates players. Spending way too much time in the support forums I saw many in same position. Then you see people that did upgrade and had the same exact poor performance. Go check support forums if you do not believe me.

To all those that say buy a new PC. Why buy a new PC to play only one game? I do not need a new PC and it would only possibly improve my TOR performance and nothing else. I could still be getting awful pvp because it is poorly optomised.

I was curious and I could also run Skyrim no problem. So, I can run everything but TOR warzones.

I did upgrade my graphics card and now I run WoW like a champ. Like a whole new game! No, I think I will just wait for them to fix their game or not play at all.

---------- Post added 2012-01-23 at 12:13 PM ----------

I lawl'd. Seriously though gaming is a hobby if you cant afford the hobby dont expect to be gaming. Its like saying you want to start collecting baseball cards but dont have the money to buy them.

Baseball cards are like $1 a pack. New PC is a few hundred.

PC gaming has a pretty steep price of entry. More than most hobbies out there.

This thread has already turned into a PC elitist thread. Worst thing about PC gaming is PC gamers.

[dude1197]

honestly the requirements are not that demanding. ive been able to play skyrim, fallout new vegas, fallout 3, crysis, wow, and swtor all on a computer i had built over 3 years ago on the best settings possible. and im using a ati raedon hd 5750 1gb ddr5, 8gb of ram, 2tb hd space, and a intel quad core2 2.33ghz processor. and honestly if ur having playing games like swtor or wow which the graphic requirements are severely less than skyrim or crysis u should do urself a favor and just get a new computer or upgrade anyways because ur doing urself an injustice

[Kakokun]

I don't really mind when games can be played on older computers. What bugs me is when people playing on 2-3 year old computers expect games to run on max settings.