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[Fredescu]

the x850xt was $500 on release in dec 05 and the fx -55 was $800 +

Both of which are completely irrelevant. You've picked the most expensive items available at the time, when a $200 (at launch) 6600GT easily gets 30+ fps, and the performance difference between the FX-55 and a $150 P4 520 is completely negligible.

If you're trying to say that more people should be using DX11 features, I couldn't agree more. You don't need to make borderline dishonest arguments like the above in support of it.

 

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

When taking into consideration SW fans (The fuckwits who will on mass go see the 3D versions of movies that they know are shit, just because of the name) I think this game will make back its budget easily, in a year I see them announcing just how payed they got.

 

[Momo]

Whatever happened to the StarGate MMO?

 

[eastmen]

Pretty sure the radeon 9700 could max out wow easy at the time and get a decent framerate. And not many people had 1600x1200 displays back then >.<

its not just 1600x1200 its also 720p that requires faster cards. I posted a link to back up my claim. And remember those gpu tests were done with the amd athlon 64 fx chip which was over $800 at the time to remove any cpu bottleneck. If you had an older cpu you would get less performance with those cards

 

[Sinatar]

80 mil? That's it?

 

[Zzoram]

Blizzard spent around $63Million to make WoW, but that was in 2004 dollars.

 

[eastmen]

Both of which are completely irrelevant. You've picked the most expensive items available at the time, when a $200 (at launch) 6600GT easily gets 30+ fps, and the performance difference between the FX-55 and a $150 P4 520 is completely negligible.

If you're trying to say that more people should be using DX11 features, I couldn't agree more. You don't need to make borderline dishonest arguments like the above in support of it.

Its competely relevant if you read my original post on the subject

Many people forget that with wow you needed $400 video cards and $800 cpus to run the game in dx 9 mode at decent resolutions when it first came out .

With a $800 cpu the 660GT would net you only 43.2 fps at 1600x1200. We are still taking about $1,000 worth of hardware


Regardless , my point is that even wow required cutting edge hardware to play the game on its release.

If tor released today do you think you'd need a $200 video card and $800 cpu to get 30+ frames at 1920x1200 ?

$200 would get you what a radeon 6790 or a geforce gtx 550 .

Fast foward to the fall and you'd most likely get 6950 levels of performance for that price. This game wont require hardware like that to get good frame rates.

 

[TheOddOne]

Wasn't there a rumour that it cost up to 200 mil?

 

[Fredescu]

With a $800 cpu the 660GT would net you only 43.2 fps at 1600x1200.

Using the highest end CPU possible in a video card test is standard testing methodology. You can see from the CPU graph that changing the CPU makes little difference. Nowhere does the article suggest that an $800 CPU is required. You are misreading it.

Regardless , my point is that even wow required cutting edge hardware to play the game on its release.

Your point is wrong. It did not.

 

[Zinga]

$80 million would be in the lower range of estimates imo, and if they were able to make ToR for that cheap it will be a bargain, I don't see the game doing WoW numbers worldwide but there is every reason that it will be a highly successful product for them for years to come.

 

[eastmen]

Using the highest end CPU possible in a video card test is standard testing methodology. You can see from the CPU graph that changing the CPU makes little difference. Nowhere does the article suggest that an $800 CPU is required. You are misreading it.


Your point is wrong. It did not.

My point is correct because i've actually backed it up with benchmarks. If you want to provide benchmarks of a 9700pro with a cheap cpu getting 30+ frames per second with dx 9 high settings then you can say my point is wrong.

The cpu makes a major diffrence you can see a continuous decline in performance as you cut back on the cpu. Remember the test is using the x850xt which was $400 at the time of the testing .


If you drop to an athlon 64 4000+ (which was still several hundred dollars ) you would loose frame rate and with a slower gpu your going to get an even greater dip than the .5 fps .

Wow scaled down to dx 8 and was playable but that isn't what I was addressing which is obvous from my first post on the subject.

Please actually read the full discussion

 

[Unknown Soldier]

It seems you need to spend a lot of money to make an MMOG these days. Honestly $80 million would be a bargain for SWTOR from the stories we've heard of trying to voice every single line of dialogue in the game (WTF?) and including a different story path through the universe for every race and class. No expense has been spared thus far to demonstrate that no expense has been spared, so $80 million seems like a really lowball estimate.

So far we (think we) know the budgets of:

APB - $100 million (ROFL)
SWTOR - $80 million (development only)
Rift - $50 million (how does the game look so ugly and run so badly with that kind of budget??)

The Koreans aren't spending play-money either. Tera Online reportedly also costed $50 million and was partially funded by the Korean government. NCSoft remains quiet as to what Blade & Soul is going to cost them but with the effective termination of the Lineage III project when most of the Lineage Team quit to form Bluehole Studio (and produce Tera), they probably are pouring resources into the B&S project.

I wonder how much Squenix spent to produce Final Fantasy XIV.

 

[strem]

EA + MMO = DISASTER INCOMING!

I still have nightmares about Warhammer sorry

 

[Blackface]

Where is this from, every single figure ever thrown out is over 150 million, except this shit.

 

[madara]

That is not bad if they made a good depth mmorpg with z-axis, large content needed for a believable sci fi game.

 

[Blackface]

I am saying it right now, that figure is nowhere near correct. I want to see a source for it honestly. Every site reports it's much much more.

The only source I can find is Pachter, and he is an idiot.

I have seen anywhere from 150 million to over 300 million. I have seen interviews on Darth Hater where they say "So Swtor cost you over 150 million, how will you make it profitable?" and the developer answers the question like the figure is correct.

 

[Blackface]

That's not nearly as much as I thought.




Not exactly. SWG actually was doing something different and new, TOR is just WoW in space with just enough new ideas to entice WoW drones. They're playing it pretty safe overall and not trying anything truly revolutionary.

World of Warcraft did absolutely nothing revolutionary or innovated when it first came out either. It turned out to be a pretty bad ass game. SWTOR is attempting to do a few things never done in an MMO, including complete voice acting for all major quests, morality system and group dialogue choices that impact your characters progression. They even plan on having guild capitol ships and personal starships, both acting like traveling, useable player/guild housing.

The things people say SWTOR is "copying" from WoW are staples of the MMORPG genre. They existed before WoW, and will exist after WoW. You don't see people saying COD ripped off BF because in COD you aim and shoot people with guns in first person. Welcome to the MMO genre.

 

[eastmen]

I am saying it right now, that figure is nowhere near correct. I want to see a source for it honestly. Every site reports it's much much more.

The only source I can find is Pachter, and he is an idiot.

I have seen anywhere from 150 million to over 300 million. I have seen interviews on Darth Hater where they say "So Swtor cost you over 150 million, how will you make it profitable?" and the developer answers the question like the figure is correct.

What do you think cost so much in this game ? They are using a liscensed engine so thats cheap compared to making a custom one , they are using lower polygon models / textures so that reduces costs .

Even voice acting isn't very expensive. Its not like they are hiring huge stars to do the voice work. Most of the actors are getting paid scale and that is pretty darn cheap.


I'd say 80 at this point is believable , much more belivable than 300m.

To put it in perspective toy story 3 cost $200m and mega mind was $130 . Heck despicable me was only $70m

These are huge hollywood movies with big named actors and years of animation work.

 

[Jarmel]

What do you think cost so much in this game ? They are using a liscensed engine so thats cheap compared to making a custom one , they are using lower polygon models / textures so that reduces costs .

Even voice acting isn't very expensive. Its not like they are hiring huge stars to do the voice work. Most of the actors are getting paid scale and that is pretty darn cheap.


I'd say 80 at this point is believable , much more belivable than 300m.

To put it in perspective toy story 3 cost $200m and mega mind was $130 . Heck despicable me was only $70m

These are huge hollywood movies with big named actors and years of animation work.

The number of voice actors, MMOs are timesinks in general, the huge development staff working on it(last I remember they had Bioware Austin AND people from LucasArts working on it). Modern Warfare 2 cost around 40-50 million to make and this game is much more intensive than that. Basic WoW cost $63 mil to develop.

 

[Orgun]

80 mil? That ain't half bad! Super basic but if only 1 mil buy it at launch at $50, well thats 50 mil already. Then add on subs etc and they can recoup that pretty quickly.

'course that doesnt take into account, wages, server maintenance etc etc

 

[Fredescu]

My point is correct because i've actually backed it up with benchmarks. If you want to provide benchmarks of a 9700pro with a cheap cpu getting 30+ frames per second with dx 9 high settings then you can say my point is wrong.

You keep referencing the most expensive hardware listed in those benchmarks and calling that the minimum to play WoW DX9. I'm not talking about 9700pro's here at all, I'm saying the benchmarks clearly show that a system running a 6600GT and a lower end P4 could do the job easily. No one would read those benchmarks and claim that only the highest will do. The final thoughts section even says a P4 550 and 6600GT is fine.

If tor released today do you think you'd need a $200 video card and $800 cpu to get 30+ frames at 1920x1200 ?

The current day equivalent to 1600x1200 is at least 2560x1600. If we're talking "max settings" throw some third party super sampling at it, then we'll see how many frames we can get.

 

[Spire]

World of Warcraft did absolutely nothing revolutionary or innovated when it first came out either. It turned out to be a pretty bad ass game. SWTOR is attempting to do a few things never done in an MMO, including complete voice acting for all major quests, morality system and group dialogue choices that impact your characters progression. They even plan on having guild capitol ships and personal starships, both acting like traveling, useable player/guild housing.

The things people say SWTOR is "copying" from WoW are staples of the MMORPG genre. They existed before WoW, and will exist after WoW. You don't see people saying COD ripped off BF because in COD you aim and shoot people with guns in first person. Welcome to the MMO genre.

You are out of your goddamn mind. As someone who played UO and EQ and then WoW when it came out, I can tell you it was a massive step forward.

Also guild ships have been done before in the exact manner TOR is doing them (DDO is the most recent example). The rest of those things are just WRPG staples Bioware is shoehorning into an MMO. They're welcome additions but let's not get crazy about how "revolutionary" they are. And if you think the MMO genre is limited to the WoW style Quest/Level/Dungeon structure, well you need to branch out a little. The genre is capable of so much more. The potential for socially-driven MMO's akin to SWG or EVE is just incredible.

 

[Zalasta]

Regardless of the quality or the readiness of the content, I feel that the later they release this, the more dated the game is going to look.

 

[Blackface]

You are out of your goddamn mind. As someone who played UO and EQ and then WoW when it came out, I can tell you it was a massive step forward.

Also guild ships have been done before in the exact manner TOR is doing them (DDO is the most recent example). The rest of those things are just WRPG staples Bioware is shoehorning into an MMO. They're welcome additions but let's not get crazy about how "revolutionary" they are.

You still didn't tell me one thing World of Warcraft did that was revolutionary. It didn't do anything. Unless broken servers, loot lag, un-finished end-game content, place holder art for gear, and no PVP system is considered revolutionary. Everything else had been done before. Literally everything. It was a step forward because of how good the engine was, which made the entire game feel next-gen compared to something like EQ or SWG.

That doesn't make WoW bad. I have been playing the game since beta. It's a fantastic game, but it did nothing that was revolutionary until much later in it's release.

In terms of "guild ships" or airships in DDO, they work fundamentally different. Including possibly docking onto a guild ship from personal fighter, live-action combat missions, story lines pertaining to your specific capitol ship, and possible PVP involvement.

The dialogue system is also not being "shoe-horned" into the game. The hero engine had specific features making the addition of a dialogue system possible. So Bioware is taking one of their staples and adapting it to an MMORPG. There are certain aspects of it, such as group interaction on a multi-player, story impacting scale, they are new and unqiue. Regardless of if it was done in a single player game or not, it's still a first for MMORPG's.

Now I am not saying SWTOR is this totally original, mind blowing, revolutionary MMO. It isn't. Will it become one? Who knows. It takes very typical Western MMORPG elements, such as the combat, UI design, chat system, dungeon system etc., and adds Bioware staples into the mix.

I think of SWTOR comes out and is successful, their full voiced, cut-scene based main-story based quests will revolutionize the way MMORPG's tell the main sotry in the future. You will not be able to go from something like that, back to important story missions being told via question marks and dialogue box's.

 

[markot]

Blizz never pushes graphics that hard, they always go for the widest userbase possible.

Wow was the same at launch. The main problem wasnt even graphics cards, it was ram >.< I think pretty much everyone who bought it got an extra stick or two.

And yeah, wow didnt do too much revolutionary, since release I would say it has moved the genre forward, but alot of its mechanics and stuff at launch was clearly a product of the bygone era. Which made sense since it was based on EQ and had alot of former EQ players pulled into its making.

Blizzard doesnt push boundries, it pretty much just polishes them as much as possible and harder than anyone else.

 

[Won]

I say, we should wait till SWTOR is actually released, before we talk about how awesome its release was.

 

[Blackface]

What do you think cost so much in this game ? They are using a liscensed engine so thats cheap compared to making a custom one , they are using lower polygon models / textures so that reduces costs .

Even voice acting isn't very expensive. Its not like they are hiring huge stars to do the voice work. Most of the actors are getting paid scale and that is pretty darn cheap.


I'd say 80 at this point is believable , much more belivable than 300m.

To put it in perspective toy story 3 cost $200m and mega mind was $130 . Heck despicable me was only $70m

These are huge hollywood movies with big named actors and years of animation work.

MMORPG's make single player games look like tiny, insignificant pet projects(just in terms of size). Yet there have been single player games, that you can play for 12 hours, that have cost over $50 million to develop.

Yes Toy Story may have more famous voice actor, but the amount of dialogue in a movie is next to nothing. Especially compared to an MMO.

In terms of size

-The voice-over is being recorded in 5 different cities (so far); Los Angeles , London, New York, San Francisco, and Toronto

-By the time the project is finished, we will have worked with hundreds of actors - many on multiple occasions.

-The entire game ‘script’ contains approximately 40+ novels worth of content.

-One of the biggest challenges of the production: consistency in pronunciation across the whole project! You would be amazed at how many ways there are to say “Thul” or “Holo” Projector. An audio pronunciation guide sure has helped .

http://www.swtor.com/news/article/20090710_001

It dwarfs any movie in terms of lines of dialogue, nothing ever made comes close. To put it in perspective, the entire game of the thrones series isn't even half the lines of diaglogue in the actual book. The first season is over 10 hours of film. The average movie is less then two hours. SWTOR has supposedly, 40 novels worth of dialogue. It costs lots of money, and thats just voice acting.

 

[sixteen-bit]

Damn. And that's not even including marketing.

 

[Interfectum]

I have a feeling this game is going to do some massive damage to the WoW userbase. This seems like the first true contender to the MMO throne.

 

[Spire]

You still didn't tell me one thing World of Warcraft did that was revolutionary. It didn't do anything. Unless broken servers, loot lag, un-finished end-game content, place holder art for gear, and no PVP system is considered revolutionary. Everything else had been done before. Literally everything. It was a step forward because of how good the engine was, which made the entire game feel next-gen compared to something like EQ or SWG.

That doesn't make WoW bad. I have been playing the game since beta. It's a fantastic game, but it did nothing that was revolutionary until much later in it's release.

In terms of "guild ships" or airships in DDO, they work fundamentally different. Including possibly docking onto a guild ship from personal fighter, live-action combat missions, story lines pertaining to your specific capitol ship, and possible PVP involvement.

The dialogue system is also not being "shoe-horned" into the game. The hero engine had specific features making the addition of a dialogue system possible. So Bioware is taking one of their staples and adapting it to an MMORPG. There are certain aspects of it, such as group interaction on a multi-player, story impacting scale, they are new and unqiue. Regardless of if it was done in a single player game or not, it's still a first for MMORPG's.

Now I am not saying SWTOR is this totally original, mind blowing, revolutionary MMO. It isn't. Will it become one? Who knows. It takes very typical Western MMORPG elements, such as the combat, UI design, chat system, dungeon system etc., and adds Bioware staples into the mix.

I think of SWTOR comes out and is successful, their full voiced, cut-scene based main-story based quests will revolutionize the way MMORPG's tell the main sotry in the future. You will not be able to go from something like that, back to important story missions being told via question marks and dialogue box's.

You need to realize that simple things like leveling via quests instead of grinding were not concepts that existed before WoW. NPCs with icons above them that let me know they have a quest? You mean I don't have to type /hail at every NPC I run across from now on trying to find a quest? And what are these instance things? Are you saying I don't have to camp outside of dungeons anymore waiting for the people in front of me to run through first? But how will the top guild on the server lock down the raid boss if it just creates a private instance when my guild enters the dungeon? And what is this eating and drinking? You mean I don't have to spend 15 fucking minutes regening after every fight? What are these talent things? How come it doesn't take 2 years to hit level cap? Why am I not losing xp when I die? What are these flight paths? Are you telling me I don't have to ride the boat in real time to get from one continent to the other? Where is the player bazaar? I don't understand this newfangled Auction House thing. What is all this? I don't understand.

And all of that about guild ships is completely speculative. None of that has been confirmed or even hinted at really, so let's not count our chickens before they've hatched, mkay? And group dialogue isn't exactly blowing anyone's hair back. It rolls a die to pick which group member picks the answer for each question. WHOA!?!? Wake up your neighbors, the innovation is just too mind-blowing!!! Everything we know is going to change!!!!

 

[Fredescu]

You still didn't tell me one thing World of Warcraft did that was revolutionary. It didn't do anything.

It didn't do anything "revolutionary", but it made the genre far more accessible than anything that had come before. That was a pretty big deal.

 

[markot]

I have a feeling this game is going to do some massive damage to the WoW userbase. This seems like the first true contender to the MMO throne.

Theyve said that about so many mmos that I cant believe it until it actually happens >.<

 

[MaddenNFL64]

they're going to make back whatever they need to pretty quickly I think. retail sales + sub fees, and by some estimates 1 million subscribers in the first year, they're gonna do well.

It's after one year that up in the air. All about keeping the content flowing.

 

[The Elite]

Whatever happened to the StarGate MMO?

I believe that was shit-canned eons ago.

I still want that Stargate Xbox 1 game.

 

[Interfectum]

Theyve said that about so many mmos that I cant believe it until it actually happens >.<

Yeah but most of the time it's been a bad joke. Every game that was claimed to be the 'next WoW' had so many things going against it. Small publisher, no content, weak license, etc. TOR seems to be firing on all cylinders and feels like it actually has a shot at doing some damage.

 

[hiryu]

It didn't do anything "revolutionary", but it made the genre far more accessible than anything that had come before. That was a pretty big deal.

Leveling through doing quest and not constant grinding were definitely revolutionary. As were npcs with marks over their heads telling you they had quest. Instances were revolutionary too and now the MMO market centers around instancing. Believe me, as someone who had to camp a single spawn for days in EQ to complete my epic weapon quest instancing was definitely revolutionary.

Also, the whole flow and design of the world was pretty revolutionary. The world and story were designed to send you where you needed to go. You didn't waste time trying to find a grinding spot by /con everything to see if it was green, yellow, or red to you. Hell, the removal of a serious death penalty was revolutionary. Wow removed the barrier of entry that a lot of mmo's suffered from and didn't punish the player.

 

[Blackface]

You need to realize that simple things like leveling via quests instead of grinding were not concepts that existed before WoW. NPCs with icons above them that let me know they have a quest? You mean I don't have to type /hail at every NPC I run across from now on trying to find a quest? And what are these instance things? Are you saying I don't have to camp outside of dungeons anymore waiting for the people in front of me to run through first? But how will the top guild on the server lock down the raid boss if it just creates a private instance when my guild enters the dungeon? And what is this eating and drinking? You mean I don't have to spend 15 fucking minutes regening after every fight? What are these talent things? How come it doesn't take 2 years to hit level cap? Why am I not losing xp when I die? What are these flight paths? Are you telling me I don't have to ride the boat in real time to get from one continent to the other? Where is the player bazaar? I don't understand this newfangled Auction House thing. What is all this? I don't understand.

And all of that about guild ships is completely speculative. None of that has been confirmed or even hinted at really, so let's not count our chickens before they've hatched, mkay? And group dialogue isn't exactly blowing anyone's hair back. It rolls a die to pick which group member picks the answer for each question. WHOA!?!? Wake up your neighbors, the innovation is just too mind-blowing!!! Everything we know is going to change!!!!

All of what you said was done before in multi-player games and MMO's. From quest NPC's to instances. All of it. WoW did very little that was unique at the start.

World of Warcraft was more casual friendly then EQ. If there is one thing they did, it was to take MMORPG's and make them a bit more casual. However, at launch, it wasn't like it was today. It was still pretty hard-core, and many of the first 60's had to grind multiple levels because there was simply not enough quests (or working quests). Most dungeons didn't exist, many dungeons were not itemized, end-game content was not finished, casters had no stat that allowed them to scale(spell power did not exist). No PVP system. You needed to find a person with a key to get into UBRS. Since it took the average player 3 months to hit 60, for the first few months those people were rare. I could keep listing off things that were broken, but I won't.

I am not bashing World of Warcraft. That was just reality. However, it was more accessible then any other MMO and the engine/art style knocked everything else out of the water.

That said, this isn't 2004 anymore. World of Warcraft revolutionized MMORPG's but it took years for this to happen. WoW was able to launch completely broken, filled with bugs, with garbage servers, awful ping's, and little to do once you hit 60 (at first, most people didn't see this as dungeons/items got patched in before they hit 60. If a game launched today in that shape, it would get 0/10 and fail immediately. Which is the very reason why WoW revolutiionzed the industry. If a game does not come out with as much content as WoW (which took them over half a decade), completely polished, and accessible to casuals, it will more then likely fail.

 

[Blackface]

Leveling through doing quest and not constant grinding were definitely revolutionary. As were npcs with marks over their heads telling you they had quest. Instances were revolutionary too and now the MMO market centers around instancing. Believe me, as someone who had to camp a single spawn for days in EQ to complete my epic weapon quest instancing was definitely revolutionary.

Also, the whole flow and design of the world was pretty revolutionary. The world and story were designed to send you where you needed to go. You didn't waste time trying to find a grinding spot by /con everything to see if it was green, yellow, or red to you. Hell, the removal of a serious death penalty was revolutionary. Wow removed the barrier of entry that a lot of mmo's suffered from and didn't punish the player.

instances existed before World of Warcraft. You may not have seen them since you played EQ< but they existed long before WoW. Hell, even DWB in SWG was partially instanced. The entire Corillan corvette dungeon was instanced. That said, even SWG wasn't the first to use instances. They were used back in PC games in the 90's.

 

[Fredescu]

Instances were revolutionary too and now the MMO market centers around instancing. Believe me, as someone who had to camp a single spawn for days in EQ to complete my epic weapon quest instancing was definitely revolutionary.

EQ had instances before WoW was out.

 

[Spire]

All of what you said was done before in multi-player games and MMO's. From quest NPC's to instances. All of it. WoW did very little that was unique at the start.

World of Warcraft was more casual friendly then EQ. If there is one thing they did, it was to take MMORPG's and make them a bit more casual. However, at launch, it wasn't like it was today. It was still pretty hard-core, and many of the first 60's had to grind multiple levels because there was simply not enough quests (or working quests). Most dungeons didn't exist, many dungeons were not itemized, end-game content was not finished, casters had no stat that allowed them to scale(spell power did not exist). No PVP system. You needed to find a person with a key to get into UBRS. Since it took the average player 3 months to hit 60, for the first few months those people were rare. I could keep listing off things that were broken, but I won't.

I am not bashing World of Warcraft. That was just reality. However, it was more accessible then any other MMO and the engine/art style knocked everything else out of the water.

That said, this isn't 2004 anymore. World of Warcraft revolutionized MMORPG's but it took years for this to happen. WoW was able to launch completely broken, filled with bugs, with garbage servers, awful ping's, and little to do once you hit 60 (at first, most people didn't see this as dungeons/items got patched in before they hit 60. If a game launched today in that shape, it would get 0/10 and fail immediately. Which is the very reason why WoW revolutiionzed the industry. If a game does not come out with as much content as WoW (which took them over half a decade), completely polished, and accessible to casuals, it will more then likely fail.

I really don't think you remember what the MMO scene was like back in 2004. Compared to today's standard, launch WoW would look shabby but back then it was fucking golden (other than the server problems). Issues like itemization and stat's not being up to speed weren't even noticable because nobody knew how to fucking play. There was at least a good year before most people even had a clue about how their class was supposed to operate or what stats were good for them. And I'm not sure how needing a key to get into UBRS is "broken". Keying is a concept that's still used in MMO's today and WoW used it up until WotLK, and even then they still used a more accessible form of it. It was just a totally different environment that today. Things like only having structureless world PvP at launch were the norm. It's easy to look back and say it was shit, but it broke subscription records and changed the industry forever the day it came out and it did so for a reason. If you want to ignore what WoW brought to the table, what it introduced and how it revolutionized the genre at launch, be my guest. I really can't debate someone who wants to ignore facts, nor do I even want to in a thread that isn't about WoW. I'll just repeat what I said originally, that TOR is looking like WoW with just enough new stuff to entice genre diehards.

 

[element]

hmm who to believe.

Considering that the studio has been open since 2005 (YES! 2005). EA/Bioware had to start a studio, grow the staff, build the infrastructure, build global customer services, and build the damn game. I think it is safe to say that it is well over $80m. Also remember that LucasArts sold off the publishing rights to EA. If the game was really at $80m, which is pretty reasonable for a MMO at this scale, LucasArts would have never sold them off. Rumors have been floating around for a year or two of the mess the game has been as well as the resources being thrown at it to correct it in some fashion.

It appears that all that help isn't helping from this preview
http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2011/04/29/star-wars-the-old-republic-preview/1

 

[SneakyStephan]

Pretty sure the radeon 9700 could max out wow easy at the time and get a decent framerate. And not many people had 1600x1200 displays back then >.<

I had a radeon 9800 pro at release (quite a lot better than a 9700) , and at 1024*768 with 2xmsaa and draw distance dialed down a bit it ran okay.
Still barely 20-25 fps in 40 man stuff or AV though.

BC was... a nightmare in shattrath , and 20-25 fps everywhere else.
, so wow did need a high end pc to max it out.

 

[lucius]

I rather replay KOTOR 1&2 than this, I rebought both games recently and will have more fun playing them.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

It needs a real end-game. With a swift "leveling" process looked at as nigh-required by today's player, there's no choice.

It didn't do anything "revolutionary", but it made the genre far more well-made than anything that had come before. That was a pretty big deal.

Fixed. Don't confuse "accessable" with "easy".

Wow removed the barrier of entry that a lot of mmo's suffered from and didn't punish the player.

Oh, it punished the player, most games still do. But WoW was from the Neutral Dungeon Master school of Risk/Reward that made success possible but not guarented nor mandatory, unlike the KMMO and EQ model of Dungeon Master as Player school that tried to get the player killed or dicked over. No other content-driven MMO did that before, in addition to all the instance, "!" quest-givers and the mostly-seemless world we now take for granted.

 

[bjaelke]

Considering that the studio has been open since 2005 (YES! 2005). EA/Bioware had to start a studio, grow the staff, build the infrastructure, build global customer services, and build the damn game. I think it is safe to say that it is well over $80m. Also remember that LucasArts sold off the publishing rights to EA. If the game was really at $80m, which is pretty reasonable for a MMO at this scale, LucasArts would have never sold them off. Rumors have been floating around for a year or two of the mess the game has been as well as the resources being thrown at it to correct it in some fashion.

It appears that all that help isn't helping from this preview
http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2011/04/29/star-wars-the-old-republic-preview/1

BioWare wasn't bought by EA until October 2007, so any development costs before that shouldn't really be calculated into EA's investment.

And if you read the other previews, then yes it helped:

I have had my criticisms of The Old Republic in the past, but BioWare has set up what I perceive to be one of the most well conceived and rewarding PvP systems regardless of how you want to play your character. I'm seriously looking forward to playing the next PvP game-type, the Voidstar (a room-by-room attacker-vs-defender match inside a spacecraft) some time soon.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/116/1166154p1.html

 

[eastmen]

You keep referencing the most expensive hardware listed in those benchmarks and calling that the minimum to play WoW DX9. I'm not talking about 9700pro's here at all, I'm saying the benchmarks clearly show that a system running a 6600GT and a lower end P4 could do the job easily. No one would read those benchmarks and claim that only the highest will do. The final thoughts section even says a P4 550 and 6600GT is fine.


The current day equivalent to 1600x1200 is at least 2560x1600. If we're talking "max settings" throw some third party super sampling at it, then we'll see how many frames we can get.

This is why you should really read what your replying too instead of going off on a tagenet.

I specificly laid out exactly what I was talking about in my original post. Next time read the post

To play wow in dx 9 you need powerfull hardware even you yourself claim you need at least a $200 card when it came out to get 30+ fps .

Cpus were also extremely important. As for 1600x1200 it was very popular back in 2004/2005
If you notice however from the benchmarks i've provided (you have yet to provide any backing up what you claim) you'd need a powerful card and cpu all the way down to 720p

Heck as I showed dx 9 released in 2002 and wow in 2004 so to even play dx 9 mode on wow at the tiem you'd have had to buy a new card within two years of the game releasing.

 

[element]

BioWare wasn't bought by EA until October 2007, so any development costs before that shouldn't really be calculated into EA's investment.

someone has to pay for it. That money just doesn't disappear. EA probably wrote it off, but still counts.

 

[eastmen]

MMORPG's make single player games look like tiny, insignificant pet projects(just in terms of size). Yet there have been single player games, that you can play for 12 hours, that have cost over $50 million to develop.

Yes Toy Story may have more famous voice actor, but the amount of dialogue in a movie is next to nothing. Especially compared to an MMO.

In terms of size

I know that been playing since the realm and beta testing UO .

However you can't compare a single player game and TOR . The games you talk of that are 12hr and cost $50m also have cutting edge graphics in which tons of money were spent on a new engine and tons of money were spent on animation and texture assets.

Tor on the other hand is using an engine that was already made for mmorpgs and they are targeting very old standards for graphics with a ton of repeating textures htrough out everything.

Toy story has big actors that command millions of dollars for their voice work. SW TOR has the ability to use actors on scale and even employees. I'm sure you can have joe blow record 100 hours of dialogue and still not come anywhere close to what tom hank made for toy story 2

http://www.swtor.com/news/article/20090710_001

It dwarfs any movie in terms of lines of dialogue, nothing ever made comes close. To put it in perspective, the entire game of the thrones series isn't even half the lines of diaglogue in the actual book. The first season is over 10 hours of film. The average movie is less then two hours. SWTOR has supposedly, 40 novels worth of dialogue. It costs lots of money, and thats just voice acting.

Voice acting isn't as expensive as you believe it is. Its very cheap actually. No name voice talent is paid just hundreds of dollars an hour of footage. Even at $1k an hour of dialogue for this game your looking at only $100k per 100 hrs of footage. So how many hours do we think they recorded ? 500 hrs ? Thats only 500k . How about 1,000 hours thats still only 1m .

Remember thats with no name voice actors making 1k for an hours work for some reason.

I'd be surprised if they even hit 5m in terms of voice acting costs

 

[JonCha]

Didn't something who worked on this and then left say the money was wasted, and that the project is a shambles? I remember someone quoting it on GAF.

 

[Gram Negative Cocci]

$80M is nothing. WoW probably makes more in a single month.