SW:Tor could be a great game if they did not used HeroEngine

[kenn9530]

As tittle said, SW:TOR could be one of TOP mmos if they did not used that piece of crap engine.

Is amazing how much work have put graphics team into the game and try to avoid/minimize the limitations of the engine.

All the things you make dislike, is not because the SW designers made that, is because the engine is very limited. Even now, I can't find the real reason why they did used such untested game engine for such game, when they got money to buy practically any engine they wanted or make a new one.

If you disagree, look at Hero Engine forums/features, and you will identify all the SW:TOR problems in Hero Engine.

If I would be the producer/manager whatever, I would hire another team, and reuse all assets to a new capable engine, and make SW what should actually be.

there is nothing at all wrong with the Hero Engine, it's because EA wanted to push the game out faster they took the engine which wasn't finished and tweaked it for their own purposes, if they waited a little longer until the Engine was complete then launch would of been much more smoothly, while the engine in current use has its flaws due to it being an unfinished product when they started building the game around it, the engine performs very well considering.

SWTOR is in the TOP MMOs categories anyway, the playerbase is still reasonably large and its still generating a good sources of income, if the game was not rushed to release so fast then it could of been in a much better place but i would say not by much, people who play it are the ones who prefer that style of an MMO and will continue to play until they have had enough.

[Varabently]

thanks for saving me the effort of doing a series on leveling in this game.

I am really happy with choosing TERA. Game is ideal for a more casual guy like me, however, it apparently has some harder moments / better co-ordination needed later.

The game knocks the socks off any other game out there in terms of animations and "looks". My opinion, of course.

The thing about SWTOR is that the awesomeness wears off after you've leveled your first character (for me at least). I had a BLAST leveling my first guy, going through the story, etc. But once you hit end-game, it's not great. It's so much like WoW in many ways, but not in the best ways. There's a million different types of tokens to buy gear. There's really not much in the way of exploration available, despite being set in a limitless universe. If WoW is on the rails, theme-park, SWTOR is the king of theme-park. Sure you can skip quests and such, but ultimately at end-game you're doing dailies over and over or running the same dungeons.

I really wanted to enjoy the game. I had been watching it develop for years before it released and for a while it met my expectations. The problems come when you start getting input lag that doesn't exist on ANY other games. It feels very grindy once you've finished your story, but since the game engine isn't great (so many load screens and input lag) even that stuff isn't super fun.

I think there are probably a dozen small things they could do to really make the game better, but I feel like it's probably too late at this point.

[xuros]

thanks for saving me the effort of doing a series on leveling in this game.

I am really happy with choosing TERA. Game is ideal for a more casual guy like me, however, it apparently has some harder moments / better co-ordination needed later.

The game knocks the socks off any other game out there in terms of animations and "looks". My opinion, of course.

Eh not sure about all of that. Dread Palace and Fortress looks amazing. The details from the floors up the the ceilings are some of the best ive seen in a raid zone in any mmo that I've played. The earlier raids are very detailed and look great as well but nothing as good as the higher and more recent released ones. Before casting doubt on second hand talk I'd take the time to go through the strokes and try those out.

[Vankrys]

thanks for saving me the effort of doing a series on leveling in this game.

I am really happy with choosing TERA. Game is ideal for a more casual guy like me, however, it apparently has some harder moments / better co-ordination needed later.

The game knocks the socks off any other game out there in terms of animations and "looks". My opinion, of course.

levelling is arguably the best part of the game, so your loss i guess.

nightmare operation are fun too, IMO.

[Svifnymr]

Been dabbling back in TOR for a little bit, and as usual when swapping between games you really notice what one has and the other lacks. In my case, I really think a GW2 mashup would have been great for TOR. The actiony combat, rather than a bunch of skill bars full of powers, lightsabers and rifles and everything. Even the Living Story would have made a nice progress for the Sith vs Jedi conflict, I think.

Alternately, though I only played the beta, Wildstar could have made a good base for TOR, but with TOR's art style and aesthetics rather than it's own.

[Kelimbror]

Hero Engine would have been fine. It was using an unfinished initial version of the engine and thinking they could finish it better than the actual Engine devs that created the chaos you saw. Fortunately they have learned to do veritable magic with the amalgamation they created and it's really not that bad.

We've had this discussion like 100 times since the game launched. The actual Hero Engine is not to blame. The game doesn't even run on it.

[Wilian]

Hero Engine would have been fine. It was using an unfinished initial version of the engine and thinking they could finish it better than the actual Engine devs that created the chaos you saw. Fortunately they have learned to do veritable magic with the amalgamation they created and it's really not that bad.

We've had this discussion like 100 times since the game launched. The actual Hero Engine is not to blame. The game doesn't even run on it.

It really is still just as bad. Loading screens everywhere, memory leaks left and right with different PC setups, big drops in performance with more than 20-30 players on screen and whatnot.

There's nothing good in what they've made out of their engine. At best they've alleviated some of the issues into acceptable level, such as ability delay which still lifts it's ugly head if you happen to be one of those with memory leak issues.

[Kelimbror]

It really is still just as bad. Loading screens everywhere, memory leaks left and right with different PC setups, big drops in performance with more than 20-30 players on screen and whatnot.

I'm not sure of these things you mention, because I updated my computer to something not 100 years old and have no issues. And even before, with a middle of the road computer I just had bad load times. Amazing what a difference an SSD makes, no? In any case, the ability to create content using their Frankenstein engine was what I meant. I'm utterly astounded they could make the housing system they did with it.

[Hellravager]

That and the horrible $A company that made the game pretty much subs only because of how much they locked behind a pay wall >.>

[Wilian]

I'm not sure of these things you mention, because I updated my computer to something not 100 years old and have no issues. And even before, with a middle of the road computer I just had bad load times. Amazing what a difference an SSD makes, no? In any case, the ability to create content using their Frankenstein engine was what I meant. I'm utterly astounded they could make the housing system they did with it.

It has nothing to do with old PCs. It's to do with PC setups and how awful the engine is with some hardware comps. My PC can run all and any game smoothly but without external memory pruning software, SWTOR turns into unplayable mess over just 15-20 minutes of gameplay. And it's widespread issue that's being continuously brought up and has persisted in different forms ever since game's launch.

If you got a PC setup that somehow manages the memory leaks, very nice for you, it doesn't make the issue any less real.

[Kelimbror]

And it's widespread issue that's being continuously brought up

Let's bring this back to 2014. This isn't 2012 anymore.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

Is it still mired in stupid, pointless loading areas when going from your ship to the planet?

That shit got ridiculous when planet hopping and in general.

[Kelimbror]

Is it still mired in stupid, pointless loading areas when going from your ship to the planet?

That shit got ridiculous when planet hopping and in general.

They implemented a lot of shortcuts, but yeah...still there in some form.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

They implemented a lot of shortcuts, but yeah...still there in some form.

Oh my god, that's probably the worst thing about that game. Totally breaks any kind of immersion when you had to factor in loading hubs in to your travel time.

[zorkuus]

The thing about SWTOR is that the awesomeness wears off after you've leveled your first character (for me at least).

I had a blast leveling all classes to max lvl. The leveling is the part they did right...kinda... atleast for what it was, kind of a SP experience in an MMO (if you wanted to). You could just pretend you're playing Kotor 3. But when you reach max level some of that magic is lost. too bad they're not doing class stories anymore.

[Deleted]

Speaking from first hand experience, Hero Engine is a powerful tool. Its the pure fault of the developer for shoddy implementation and lack of imagination or originality. They expected the star wars name to make the game for itself. It was a weak WoW clone at best.

[kenn9530]

Speaking from first hand experience, Hero Engine is a powerful tool. Its the pure fault of the developer for shoddy implementation and lack of imagination or originality. They expected the star wars name to make the game for itself. It was a weak WoW clone at best.

The major points in the game are much more enjoyable than WoW, so its by far not a weak WoW clone and dont forget WoW is a clone of everquest. The issue was an early release of the game using an engine that was unfinished which resulted in most of the problems the game had, if the game launched with a complete engine to start with i doubt the game would have much more players than it currently has anyway.

The success of WoW is mainly due to a gap in the market at that point drawing people into a world from the RTS warcraft games, if you compare how WoW was back in vanilla you can see how terrible it was back then, but MMOs had not evolved much by then so there was not much to compare back then.

[Deleted]

Engine is indeed a huge problem (been saying so since beta)

I quit the game right after the first major update, where they added those Rakghoul thingies.

Afterward i got into GW2, and every time i logged in,moved around and fought, i would think every time how GODLY SW:TOR would have been on GW2 engine. with a similar combat system where you have to dodge and move around.

Mind you GW2 engine is made in house by ArenaNet, but there is no real reason Bioware couldnt have made at least equally good engine with the budget and time they had.

Any1 that played or still plays GW2, log into the game, run around a few maps, fight a few fights, and imagine if your character was a jedi , and that was a lightsaber you are wielding, and you will know what i mean

[jbombard]

They didn't fail because of the engine, they failed because they couldn't provide value to their subscribers and were unable to get out new content and fixes at a reasonable pace. They never tried to fix the root of the problem, they simply cut and ran to F2P. They never fixed the original problems, and then piled on new problems with their punitive F2P system. Yes engine improvements would be great for the game, but without a fundamental shift in their F2P system and how they provide content in general it will never live up to it's potential

[Racthoh]

my biggest problem with the game is the fucking micro stutter you get from summoning a companion. it's literally the worst once you notice it's actually happening. dismounting with a companion out is just out of the question for me. made pretty much the entire game unplayable.