Putting aside the state of the source code and capabilities Bioware got when they started on this game and focusing just on what they have delivered compared to other companies with lesser budgets. Bioware has shown gross incompetence compared to their competitors like Blizzard.
Bioware could have started with nothing, the junk Hero stuff, a Hello World program, an actuarial program. It doesn't matter. Any competent game developer would have:
* Broken down their competitor's battle system, network performance,graphics features,graphics performance on a wide range of target systems,how many players per server/zone/world,etc
* Set those as benchmarks for their own code base at a minimum
* Create test cases that demonstrate their own codebase meeting or exceeding those benchmarks long before any real work started on the project's content and design
* Continue to use thoses tests as the project is developed over the years to guarantee that there are no regressions on the original goals and benchmarks for the game
* If at the start or at any point those early performance and design benchmarks can't be met in relation to the competiton, bring on software engineers that are able to do so. If Blizzard engineers are able to do something, a project with a 100,200 million budget can easily find and hire people to do the same.
The various ability delay or combat system design flaws, the almost random performance problems, the pulling of the high detail materials late in project all point to Bioware struggling with a codebase they don't understand, don't have people internally who know how to fix or replace, and not showing the maturity to admit they needed to bring on people who had they skills they internally lacked.
These problems SWTOR has aren't the usual bugs that all MMORPGs have. These are fundamental design flaws that any comptent developer would have solved and locked down years ago.
Lets view this sub frombw point of view.wow is successfully.guildwars was announced.we re in 2005 64 bit was release 18 month ago. I am bioware I don't if 64 bit will fly.I do know wow just beat every record woe had about 12 month ago what do we do.I try for fast simple solution for the short term.24 month.I buy an engine and then find a subject people love sw.but what was expected to be a walk in the park ended up to be 3 to 4year work then expected.too late we re comited.but I bet this is the last engine bow will be able to convince ea to buy whatever happen.ya took too long.we were supposed to lunch at w7 lunch didn't happen.we should have created our engine. We would have been nonlinear in 2009 .(we wanted to save time we went premade engine ger bad move now we know it.this is probably what happened
Then its the version of the hero engine they use as its a very early one.
In its current state Hero engine has a full day/night, cycle, weather effects at a click of a button and many other features.
Which SWTOR doesn't seem to have, aside from static weather zones.
Just going to jump in here and chime on this particular issue. The Old Republic doesn't have full day/night cycle as a deliberate world design decision. Just because an engine can do something doesn't mean the developer actually wants to use it.
I brought this question up to Daniel Erickson when I was out there last April. The worlds were designed such as to establish a certain mood and personality. For example, the dark and foreboding world of Dromund Kaas. Controlling the lighting, shadowing, etc. was important in accomplishing this goal according to them.
It's a themepark game, the rides are designed very deliberately. Dromund Kaas wouldn't be the same were it awash with sunlight and rainbows.
Then its the version of the hero engine they use as its a very early one.
In its current state Hero engine has a full day/night, cycle, weather effects at a click of a button and many other features.
Which SWTOR doesn't seem to have, aside from static weather zones.
Just going to jump in here and chime on this particular issue. The Old Republic doesn't have full day/night cycle as a deliberate world design decision. Just because an engine can do something doesn't mean the developer actually wants to use it.
I brought this question up to Daniel Erickson when I was out there last April. The worlds were designed such as to establish a certain mood and personality. For example, the dark and foreboding world of Dromund Kaas. Controlling the lighting, shadowing, etc. was important in accomplishing this goal according to them.
It's a themepark game, the rides are designed very deliberately. Dromund Kaas wouldn't be the same were it awash with sunlight and rainbows.
If only everyone could understand that essential point. Control over their world, work and presentation!
If they had tried to make their own engine from scratch, what makes you think it wouldn't have even worse problems? Building a game engine from scratch isn't easy to do, or at least, not if you want it to perform well.
Then its the version of the hero engine they use as its a very early one.
In its current state Hero engine has a full day/night, cycle, weather effects at a click of a button and many other features.
Which SWTOR doesn't seem to have, aside from static weather zones.
Just going to jump in here and chime on this particular issue. The Old Republic doesn't have full day/night cycle as a deliberate world design decision. Just because an engine can do something doesn't mean the developer actually wants to use it.
I brought this question up to Daniel Erickson when I was out there last April. The worlds were designed such as to establish a certain mood and personality. For example, the dark and foreboding world of Dromund Kaas. Controlling the lighting, shadowing, etc. was important in accomplishing this goal according to them.
It's a themepark game, the rides are designed very deliberately. Dromund Kaas wouldn't be the same were it awash with sunlight and rainbows.
Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows everything that's wonderful
Then its the version of the hero engine they use as its a very early one.
In its current state Hero engine has a full day/night, cycle, weather effects at a click of a button and many other features.
Which SWTOR doesn't seem to have, aside from static weather zones.
Just going to jump in here and chime on this particular issue. The Old Republic doesn't have full day/night cycle as a deliberate world design decision. Just because an engine can do something doesn't mean the developer actually wants to use it.
I brought this question up to Daniel Erickson when I was out there last April. The worlds were designed such as to establish a certain mood and personality. For example, the dark and foreboding world of Dromund Kaas. Controlling the lighting, shadowing, etc. was important in accomplishing this goal according to them.
It's a themepark game, the rides are designed very deliberately. Dromund Kaas wouldn't be the same were it awash with sunlight and rainbows.
If only everyone could understand that essential point. Control over their world, work and presentation!
Why would that not be achievable with a licensed engine like CryEngine 3 or Unreal Engine 3?
For me the question is not why they did not create an engine from the ground up but rather why they did not use other licensed award winning engines like the ones I mentioned. I think both the quality and performance would be better if they did.
Just look at ArcheAge, it uses CryEngine 3 and it simply looks amazing. Same with TERA and their use of Unreal Engine 3. I mean even Mass Effect 3 uses Unreal Engine 3 so why not SW:TOR? Maybe it was for budget reasons but I still dont get the decision.
Then its the version of the hero engine they use as its a very early one.
In its current state Hero engine has a full day/night, cycle, weather effects at a click of a button and many other features.
Which SWTOR doesn't seem to have, aside from static weather zones.
Just going to jump in here and chime on this particular issue. The Old Republic doesn't have full day/night cycle as a deliberate world design decision. Just because an engine can do something doesn't mean the developer actually wants to use it.
I brought this question up to Daniel Erickson when I was out there last April. The worlds were designed such as to establish a certain mood and personality. For example, the dark and foreboding world of Dromund Kaas. Controlling the lighting, shadowing, etc. was important in accomplishing this goal according to them.
It's a themepark game, the rides are designed very deliberately. Dromund Kaas wouldn't be the same were it awash with sunlight and rainbows.
Such a bad cop-out.
Bioware also gave a lame excuse for only having rainbow humans as races (less armor models).
"Esport with tournaments is for hardcore pvp'rs that want to be competitive. Openworld PVP with ganking and griefing is for casuals that just wants their pvp mixed with pve from time to time." otacu
Putting aside the state of the source code and capabilities Bioware got when they started on this game and focusing just on what they have delivered compared to other companies with lesser budgets. Bioware has shown gross incompetence compared to their competitors like Blizzard.
Bioware could have started with nothing, the junk Hero stuff, a Hello World program, an actuarial program. It doesn't matter. Any competent game developer would have:
* Broken down their competitor's battle system, network performance,graphics features,graphics performance on a wide range of target systems,how many players per server/zone/world,etc
* Set those as benchmarks for their own code base at a minimum
* Create test cases that demonstrate their own codebase meeting or exceeding those benchmarks long before any real work started on the project's content and design
* Continue to use thoses tests as the project is developed over the years to guarantee that there are no regressions on the original goals and benchmarks for the game
* If at the start or at any point those early performance and design benchmarks can't be met in relation to the competiton, bring on software engineers that are able to do so. If Blizzard engineers are able to do something, a project with a 100,200 million budget can easily find and hire people to do the same.
The various ability delay or combat system design flaws, the almost random performance problems, the pulling of the high detail materials late in project all point to Bioware struggling with a codebase they don't understand, don't have people internally who know how to fix or replace, and not showing the maturity to admit they needed to bring on people who had they skills they internally lacked.
These problems SWTOR has aren't the usual bugs that all MMORPGs have. These are fundamental design flaws that any comptent developer would have solved and locked down years ago.
These sounds like you are just copy and paste from a software engineering text book somewhere. They sound really good in theory but night impossible to do in real world. It all bases on one big ass assumption that you somehow know how your software will react in the real world situation. It's not that simple like you make it to be. There's no way to predict this information with synthetic benchmark. Company with an established MMO do have these kind of information but they guard these information like their own eyes. No body in the industry can obtain these kind of information except they have done it before (has released an MMO before). Even for company that did run an MMO before sometime still glueless because the new MMO they have use a different tech. If you are a developer that has worked on an MMO project before, you will know what I am talking about.
It's just easier said than done. Also, to your knowledge, Blizzard was not that much better than Bioware when they released WoW. The reason is also simple, they also have never had an MMO before so they don't know how their software and system would react to real world situation. You think Blizzard is competence now, but back then, no less than many forum full of people think that for a company as big as Blizzard, they just didn't know what the hell they were doing. I also remember several "offers" from community "Oracle database experts" to help Blizzard solve their problem. That gives me a chuckle everytime I think about it. But the think is, they actually did not know what they hell they were doing back then because it was their first time also. It's not because their engineers were not competent, they just did know what to expect and how would their system behaved. They did end up changing a lot of their back-end though.
Then its the version of the hero engine they use as its a very early one.
In its current state Hero engine has a full day/night, cycle, weather effects at a click of a button and many other features.
Which SWTOR doesn't seem to have, aside from static weather zones.
Just going to jump in here and chime on this particular issue. The Old Republic doesn't have full day/night cycle as a deliberate world design decision. Just because an engine can do something doesn't mean the developer actually wants to use it.
I brought this question up to Daniel Erickson when I was out there last April. The worlds were designed such as to establish a certain mood and personality. For example, the dark and foreboding world of Dromund Kaas. Controlling the lighting, shadowing, etc. was important in accomplishing this goal according to them.
It's a themepark game, the rides are designed very deliberately. Dromund Kaas wouldn't be the same were it awash with sunlight and rainbows.
If only everyone could understand that essential point. Control over their world, work and presentation!
Why would that not be achievable with a licensed engine like CryEngine 3 or Unreal Engine 3?
For me the question is not why they did not create an engine from the ground up but rather why they did not use other licensed award winning engines like the ones I mentioned. I think both the quality and performance would be better if they did.
Just look at ArcheAge, it uses CryEngine 3 and it simply looks amazing. Same with TERA and their use of Unreal Engine 3. I mean even Mass Effect 3 uses Unreal Engine 3 so why not SW:TOR? Maybe it was for budget reasons but I still dont get the decision.
What you have not mentioned is that both XLGames and Bluehole already inherited the knowledge of how to modify the Unreal Engine for an MMO. Remember these studios have people at one time working for NCSoft on Lineage 2 project and Aion project which also using Unreal Engine 2.5 and CryEngine. Remember how long it takes for NCSoft to gain these knowledge from Lineage to Lineage 2 and from Lineage 2 to AION.
Just because Bioware used Unreal Engine 3 in Mass Effect does not mean that they can use it in an MMO. Unreal Engine 3 to Bioware is just another rendering engine because they have to develop everything else from scratch anyway. In that respect, the Hero engine is probably better since it already has the net code and the server architecture develop for an MMO.
Voted yes. With the money they supoosedly spent there's no reason they shouldn't have.
We really need separate forums for every newly launched game. There can be the anti-<MMO> one and there can be the 'what general discussion should be' one. All the lamenting can happen together where each can find solace in like minded can't-move-on-ers leaving the rest of us to actually move forward and discuss meaningful and relevant topics.
Why would that not be achievable with a licensed engine like CryEngine 3 or Unreal Engine 3?
For me the question is not why they did not create an engine from the ground up but rather why they did not use other licensed award winning engines like the ones I mentioned. I think both the quality and performance would be better if they did.
Just look at ArcheAge, it uses CryEngine 3 and it simply looks amazing. Same with TERA and their use of Unreal Engine 3. I mean even Mass Effect 3 uses Unreal Engine 3 so why not SW:TOR? Maybe it was for budget reasons but I still dont get the decision.
When did they license the Hero Engine and what other engines were available at that time.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
Then its the version of the hero engine they use as its a very early one.
In its current state Hero engine has a full day/night, cycle, weather effects at a click of a button and many other features.
Which SWTOR doesn't seem to have, aside from static weather zones.
Just going to jump in here and chime on this particular issue. The Old Republic doesn't have full day/night cycle as a deliberate world design decision. Just because an engine can do something doesn't mean the developer actually wants to use it.
I brought this question up to Daniel Erickson when I was out there last April. The worlds were designed such as to establish a certain mood and personality. For example, the dark and foreboding world of Dromund Kaas. Controlling the lighting, shadowing, etc. was important in accomplishing this goal according to them.
It's a themepark game, the rides are designed very deliberately. Dromund Kaas wouldn't be the same were it awash with sunlight and rainbows.
If only everyone could understand that essential point. Control over their world, work and presentation!
Why would that not be achievable with a licensed engine like CryEngine 3 or Unreal Engine 3?
For me the question is not why they did not create an engine from the ground up but rather why they did not use other licensed award winning engines like the ones I mentioned. I think both the quality and performance would be better if they did.
Just look at ArcheAge, it uses CryEngine 3 and it simply looks amazing. Same with TERA and their use of Unreal Engine 3. I mean even Mass Effect 3 uses Unreal Engine 3 so why not SW:TOR? Maybe it was for budget reasons but I still dont get the decision.
What you have not mentioned is that both XLGames and Bluehole already inherited the knowledge of how to modify the Unreal Engine for an MMO. Remember these studios have people at one time working for NCSoft on Lineage 2 project and Aion project which also using Unreal Engine 2.5 and CryEngine. Remember how long it takes for NCSoft to gain these knowledge from Lineage to Lineage 2 and from Lineage 2 to AION.
Just because Bioware used Unreal Engine 3 in Mass Effect does not mean that they can use it in an MMO. Unreal Engine 3 to Bioware is just another rendering engine because they have to develop everything else from scratch anyway. In that respect, the Hero engine is probably better since it already has the net code and the server architecture develop for an MMO.
So you are saying it is because they lack the know how to use the aforementioned engines for an MMO? Plausible I guess but with the budget they had I am sure they could have hired some experts.
But anyway, SW:TOR does not look bad, it looks pretty good but it would have looked and felt awesome if they used CryEngine 3.
I do find it funny that people think the SWTOR worlds were designed without day/night cycle and weather because they were limited by the Hero engine.
Not. At. All. True.
You are right the Hero Engine can do day and night cycles and even have weather effects. Bioware chose to not use them. They baked on hard shadows and decided to not have day and night. They threw out the random weather effects and now have statci effects(it will always rain in that one certain spot).
Bioware chose to be lazy and they just didn't care.
I do find it funny that people think the SWTOR worlds were designed without day/night cycle and weather because they were limited by the Hero engine.
Not. At. All. True.
Exactly.
The repopulation, indie sandpark uses Hero engine and it does have day & cycle.
Bioware had to cut corners, blame EA for rushing the game.
"Esport with tournaments is for hardcore pvp'rs that want to be competitive. Openworld PVP with ganking and griefing is for casuals that just wants their pvp mixed with pve from time to time." otacu
I do find it funny that people think the SWTOR worlds were designed without day/night cycle and weather because they were limited by the Hero engine.
Not. At. All. True.
Exactly.
The repopulation, indie sandpark uses Hero engine and it does have day & cycle.
Bioware had to cut corners, blame EA for rushing the game.
Wow you got it 100% wrong.
They didn't cut corners.
They purposefully chose not to have day/night cycle because they wanted to make sure each planet had a very specific feeling, tone, ambience for the story telling.
You may not agree with them, but that is why they did it. Not because they couldn't or because they didn't have time to.
I do find it funny that people think the SWTOR worlds were designed without day/night cycle and weather because they were limited by the Hero engine.
Not. At. All. True.
You are right the Hero Engine can do day and night cycles and even have weather effects. Bioware chose to not use them. They baked on hard shadows and decided to not have day and night. They threw out the random weather effects and now have statci effects(it will always rain in that one certain spot).
Bioware chose to be lazy and they just didn't care.
Wow you got it 100% wrong.
They didn't cut corners.
They purposefully chose not to have day/night cycle because they wanted to make sure each planet had a very specific feeling, tone, ambience for the story telling.
You may not agree with them, but that is why they did it. Not because they couldn't or because they didn't have time to.
I do find it funny that people think the SWTOR worlds were designed without day/night cycle and weather because they were limited by the Hero engine.
Not. At. All. True.
You are right the Hero Engine can do day and night cycles and even have weather effects. Bioware chose to not use them. They baked on hard shadows and decided to not have day and night. They threw out the random weather effects and now have statci effects(it will always rain in that one certain spot).
Bioware chose to be lazy and they just didn't care.
I do find it funny that people think the SWTOR worlds were designed without day/night cycle and weather because they were limited by the Hero engine.
Not. At. All. True.
You are right the Hero Engine can do day and night cycles and even have weather effects. Bioware chose to not use them. They baked on hard shadows and decided to not have day and night. They threw out the random weather effects and now have statci effects(it will always rain in that one certain spot).
Bioware chose to be lazy and they just didn't care.
Wow you got it 100% wrong.
They didn't cut corners.
They purposefully chose not to have day/night cycle because they wanted to make sure each planet had a very specific feeling, tone, ambience for the story telling.
You may not agree with them, but that is why they did it. Not because they couldn't or because they didn't have time to.
Or so they say... I mean if they did run out of time do you think they would admit to it?
I am not saying A or B but I do know that you cant believe anything a dev from a major game company say, They have PR people who coach them to say and what not to say.
I do find it funny that people think the SWTOR worlds were designed without day/night cycle and weather because they were limited by the Hero engine.
Not. At. All. True.
You are right the Hero Engine can do day and night cycles and even have weather effects. Bioware chose to not use them. They baked on hard shadows and decided to not have day and night. They threw out the random weather effects and now have statci effects(it will always rain in that one certain spot).
Bioware chose to be lazy and they just didn't care.
Wow you got it 100% wrong.
They didn't cut corners.
They purposefully chose not to have day/night cycle because they wanted to make sure each planet had a very specific feeling, tone, ambience for the story telling.
You may not agree with them, but that is why they did it. Not because they couldn't or because they didn't have time to.
Or so they say... I mean if they did run out of time do you think they would admit to it?
I am not saying A or B but I do know that you cant believe anything a dev from a major game company say, They have PR people who coach them to say and what not to say.
Except that they actually discussed why no day/night cycle before early, early, in beta and why. It was a deliberate choice for sure and not laziness. whether you agree or disagree with that choice is another thing entirely.
I do find it funny that people think the SWTOR worlds were designed without day/night cycle and weather because they were limited by the Hero engine.
Not. At. All. True.
You are right the Hero Engine can do day and night cycles and even have weather effects. Bioware chose to not use them. They baked on hard shadows and decided to not have day and night. They threw out the random weather effects and now have statci effects(it will always rain in that one certain spot).
Bioware chose to be lazy and they just didn't care.
Wow you got it 100% wrong.
They didn't cut corners.
They purposefully chose not to have day/night cycle because they wanted to make sure each planet had a very specific feeling, tone, ambience for the story telling.
You may not agree with them, but that is why they did it. Not because they couldn't or because they didn't have time to.
I never said they could'nt, I said they chose not to. They were lazy and they didn't care. They gave some lame excuse about story and ambience and they couldn't even add the sound of a freaking waterfall or birds into the game and you say they did it for ambience?
They purposefully chose not to have day/night cycle because they wanted to make sure each planet had a very specific feeling, tone, ambience for the story telling.
You may not agree with them, but that is why they did it. Not because they couldn't or because they didn't have time to.
Or so they say... I mean if they did run out of time do you think they would admit to it?
I am not saying A or B but I do know that you cant believe anything a dev from a major game company say, They have PR people who coach them to say and what not to say.
I don't wear a tin foil hat so yes, I do trust that they did what they did for a reason.
Besides, some planets have weather effects and are very clearly supposed to be a dark night or sunset versus daylight etc. etc.
They are just constant and unchanging to set the right mood for the story.
Is it right? Well, for a MMO I really don't think it is - I would have prefered they find ways to tell the story and such that involved a bit more dynamic of worlds, but I understand why they did what they did.
I may not agree with their design choice, but I understand why they made it.
Comments
Putting aside the state of the source code and capabilities Bioware got when they started on this game and focusing just on what they have delivered compared to other companies with lesser budgets. Bioware has shown gross incompetence compared to their competitors like Blizzard.
Bioware could have started with nothing, the junk Hero stuff, a Hello World program, an actuarial program. It doesn't matter. Any competent game developer would have:
* Broken down their competitor's battle system, network performance,graphics features,graphics performance on a wide range of target systems,how many players per server/zone/world,etc
* Set those as benchmarks for their own code base at a minimum
* Create test cases that demonstrate their own codebase meeting or exceeding those benchmarks long before any real work started on the project's content and design
* Continue to use thoses tests as the project is developed over the years to guarantee that there are no regressions on the original goals and benchmarks for the game
* If at the start or at any point those early performance and design benchmarks can't be met in relation to the competiton, bring on software engineers that are able to do so. If Blizzard engineers are able to do something, a project with a 100,200 million budget can easily find and hire people to do the same.
The various ability delay or combat system design flaws, the almost random performance problems, the pulling of the high detail materials late in project all point to Bioware struggling with a codebase they don't understand, don't have people internally who know how to fix or replace, and not showing the maturity to admit they needed to bring on people who had they skills they internally lacked.
These problems SWTOR has aren't the usual bugs that all MMORPGs have. These are fundamental design flaws that any comptent developer would have solved and locked down years ago.
Just going to jump in here and chime on this particular issue. The Old Republic doesn't have full day/night cycle as a deliberate world design decision. Just because an engine can do something doesn't mean the developer actually wants to use it.
I brought this question up to Daniel Erickson when I was out there last April. The worlds were designed such as to establish a certain mood and personality. For example, the dark and foreboding world of Dromund Kaas. Controlling the lighting, shadowing, etc. was important in accomplishing this goal according to them.
It's a themepark game, the rides are designed very deliberately. Dromund Kaas wouldn't be the same were it awash with sunlight and rainbows.
If only everyone could understand that essential point. Control over their world, work and presentation!
If they had tried to make their own engine from scratch, what makes you think it wouldn't have even worse problems? Building a game engine from scratch isn't easy to do, or at least, not if you want it to perform well.
They should have just tried to make their own game.
Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows everything that's wonderful
is what I feel a-when we're together....
Why would that not be achievable with a licensed engine like CryEngine 3 or Unreal Engine 3?
For me the question is not why they did not create an engine from the ground up but rather why they did not use other licensed award winning engines like the ones I mentioned. I think both the quality and performance would be better if they did.
Just look at ArcheAge, it uses CryEngine 3 and it simply looks amazing. Same with TERA and their use of Unreal Engine 3. I mean even Mass Effect 3 uses Unreal Engine 3 so why not SW:TOR? Maybe it was for budget reasons but I still dont get the decision.
My gaming blog
Such a bad cop-out.
Bioware also gave a lame excuse for only having rainbow humans as races (less armor models).
"Esport with tournaments is for hardcore pvp'rs that want to be competitive. Openworld PVP with ganking and griefing is for casuals that just wants their pvp mixed with pve from time to time."
otacu
These sounds like you are just copy and paste from a software engineering text book somewhere. They sound really good in theory but night impossible to do in real world. It all bases on one big ass assumption that you somehow know how your software will react in the real world situation. It's not that simple like you make it to be. There's no way to predict this information with synthetic benchmark. Company with an established MMO do have these kind of information but they guard these information like their own eyes. No body in the industry can obtain these kind of information except they have done it before (has released an MMO before). Even for company that did run an MMO before sometime still glueless because the new MMO they have use a different tech. If you are a developer that has worked on an MMO project before, you will know what I am talking about.
It's just easier said than done. Also, to your knowledge, Blizzard was not that much better than Bioware when they released WoW. The reason is also simple, they also have never had an MMO before so they don't know how their software and system would react to real world situation. You think Blizzard is competence now, but back then, no less than many forum full of people think that for a company as big as Blizzard, they just didn't know what the hell they were doing. I also remember several "offers" from community "Oracle database experts" to help Blizzard solve their problem. That gives me a chuckle everytime I think about it. But the think is, they actually did not know what they hell they were doing back then because it was their first time also. It's not because their engineers were not competent, they just did know what to expect and how would their system behaved. They did end up changing a lot of their back-end though.
What you have not mentioned is that both XLGames and Bluehole already inherited the knowledge of how to modify the Unreal Engine for an MMO. Remember these studios have people at one time working for NCSoft on Lineage 2 project and Aion project which also using Unreal Engine 2.5 and CryEngine. Remember how long it takes for NCSoft to gain these knowledge from Lineage to Lineage 2 and from Lineage 2 to AION.
Just because Bioware used Unreal Engine 3 in Mass Effect does not mean that they can use it in an MMO. Unreal Engine 3 to Bioware is just another rendering engine because they have to develop everything else from scratch anyway. In that respect, the Hero engine is probably better since it already has the net code and the server architecture develop for an MMO.
Voted yes. With the money they supoosedly spent there's no reason they shouldn't have.
We really need separate forums for every newly launched game. There can be the anti-<MMO> one and there can be the 'what general discussion should be' one. All the lamenting can happen together where each can find solace in like minded can't-move-on-ers leaving the rest of us to actually move forward and discuss meaningful and relevant topics.
When did they license the Hero Engine and what other engines were available at that time.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
So you are saying it is because they lack the know how to use the aforementioned engines for an MMO? Plausible I guess but with the budget they had I am sure they could have hired some experts.
But anyway, SW:TOR does not look bad, it looks pretty good but it would have looked and felt awesome if they used CryEngine 3.
My gaming blog
I do find it funny that people think the SWTOR worlds were designed without day/night cycle and weather because they were limited by the Hero engine.
Not. At. All. True.
You are right the Hero Engine can do day and night cycles and even have weather effects. Bioware chose to not use them. They baked on hard shadows and decided to not have day and night. They threw out the random weather effects and now have statci effects(it will always rain in that one certain spot).
Bioware chose to be lazy and they just didn't care.
Exactly.
The repopulation, indie sandpark uses Hero engine and it does have day & cycle.
Bioware had to cut corners, blame EA for rushing the game.
"Esport with tournaments is for hardcore pvp'rs that want to be competitive. Openworld PVP with ganking and griefing is for casuals that just wants their pvp mixed with pve from time to time."
otacu
Wow you got it 100% wrong.
They didn't cut corners.
They purposefully chose not to have day/night cycle because they wanted to make sure each planet had a very specific feeling, tone, ambience for the story telling.
You may not agree with them, but that is why they did it. Not because they couldn't or because they didn't have time to.
They had the money for much better stuff tbh
Hero Engine is very disappointing, they do not even needed to build one from scratch, they could have gotten a good one like U3 and tweaked with it
"It has potential"
-Second most used phrase on existence
"It sucks"
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Wow you got it 100% wrong.
They didn't cut corners.
They purposefully chose not to have day/night cycle because they wanted to make sure each planet had a very specific feeling, tone, ambience for the story telling.
You may not agree with them, but that is why they did it. Not because they couldn't or because they didn't have time to.
hehe, you are worse than me
My gaming blog
Or so they say... I mean if they did run out of time do you think they would admit to it?
I am not saying A or B but I do know that you cant believe anything a dev from a major game company say, They have PR people who coach them to say and what not to say.
My gaming blog
Except that they actually discussed why no day/night cycle before early, early, in beta and why. It was a deliberate choice for sure and not laziness. whether you agree or disagree with that choice is another thing entirely.
I never said they could'nt, I said they chose not to. They were lazy and they didn't care. They gave some lame excuse about story and ambience and they couldn't even add the sound of a freaking waterfall or birds into the game and you say they did it for ambience?
I don't wear a tin foil hat so yes, I do trust that they did what they did for a reason.
Besides, some planets have weather effects and are very clearly supposed to be a dark night or sunset versus daylight etc. etc.
They are just constant and unchanging to set the right mood for the story.
Is it right? Well, for a MMO I really don't think it is - I would have prefered they find ways to tell the story and such that involved a bit more dynamic of worlds, but I understand why they did what they did.
I may not agree with their design choice, but I understand why they made it.