I think as long as you're playing as your average human character this might be soon, but on all my other character this change makes me weep.

In the past it was already an issue that when you create a character like say Mirialan, you end up getting frustrated because the skin hue changes with every location and in some cases it's just horrible. This problem has just increased with the change and it frustrates me because I don't know what the right skin hue is anymore and whether I should change it.

I wish they would have first solved this problem before messing with the colours because the changes have only increased this and I find the contrast just horrible right now. The game was pretty as it was and I agree with the person who said it's more cartoony now.

ETA: Thank you to the person who posted the override. I turned it off now and feel much happier.

As noted, some people didn't even notice, but I did and I have to say,

 

GREAT JOB!

 

It's been a long trek for me. I've seen the looks from April of 2011 to now and all I can honestly say that I have been impressed, which is no mean feat. At one time I wanted to be in visual arts and I still have an eye for such things. To be honest, I've had times that the colors are so sharp, bright, and/or intense, my eyes hurt.

 

EDIT:

Really guys? You want to rant about content? Some suggestions:

1. Stay on target... er topic.

2. Understand that this is what these people do, they are not going to idle a workgroup.

3. If you want content, go buy something off the Cartel Market

Um... what??? Did you seriously type that third suggestion? If you're not trolling, then that was the epitome of ignorant things ever said on this forum. I don't post much because I like to lay low with my popcorn and watch the drama here unfold thread by thread, but after reading your post, I had to say something. Your comment is what's wrong with the mentality of the playerbase on this forum and why our entire game has been exponentially being consumed by the cartel market, ruining what could have been the greatest Star Wars MMO for years to come. I'm no BioWare fan boy, and I'm no BioWare hater; I just call it like I see it.

I applaud your efforts. It does some really nice things to a lot of areas. However, you REALLY need to make another pass at Hoth. It's almost unplayable now.

Update: I finally had to turn the changes off when I went back to Makeb. Specifically the repub mission to save the town from Toburro. When I spoke with the mayor my human gunslinger looked like he had gotten a bad spray on tan treatment (i.e. orange) and the mayor's assistant was grossly over pink.

I don't want to denigrate months of work but it really does need a second pass at the detail level with special attention paid to how player characters and npc interactions look, not just at the "scenic" level as shown in your examples.

The effect of the tools is nice, but I think you might want to review Tatooine again if the image http://cdn-www.swtor.com/sites/all/files/en/cb/2013_thumbs/CLUTs/tat_thumb.gif is to be representative.

Giving Tatooine "warmer" colors sounds logical, but the word "warm" has several definitions, and making the colors warmer (i.e. a few shades darker and more satured) is following up on the wrong definition.

1) Tatooine is arid, unforgiving, barren. "Warmer" colors are inapropriate. The colors SHOULD be bleak, desolate and even somewhat ashen, not warm to give the place the feeling of a nice beach where you can find a hola girl wearing flowers just around the next tree. So strangely enough, the color range you should be looking for is COLD, not warm.

2) The shadows became darker and more pronounced, giving too much the sense of a haven from the sun. They're a haven alright when you're talking about some place indoors or in a cave. In a place like Tatooine, you'd still want to get off the street and inside a building as fast as you can. The shadows outdoors may reduce the direct heat from the sun, but there's still all the sand around you heating up the air above, so it shouldn't be a retreat, but at best a temporary relief. So again, you wouldn't want warm colors in the sense of "welcoming" or "comforting". They aren't. Indoors you would, outdoors you wouldn't.

You are here why? If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all Don't play the game if you are this bitter in your posts.

Pay my sub and I'll be a good little fanboi. Until then....SHUTTY!

Um... what??? Did you seriously type that third suggestion? If you're not trolling, then that was the epitome of ignorant things ever said on this forum. I don't post much because I like to lay low with my popcorn and watch the drama here unfold thread by thread, but after reading your post, I had to say something. Your comment is what's wrong with the mentality of the playerbase on this forum and why our entire game has been exponentially being consumed by the cartel market, ruining what could have been the greatest Star Wars MMO for years to come. I'm no BioWare fan boy, and I'm no BioWare hater; I just call it like I see it.

I was actually going to correct him by saying you don't buy content on the market. The market is full of cosmetic things and slight adjustments to how you play the game, not stories to play, etc. (I don't put the Rise of the Hutt Cartel in the market).

I applaud your efforts. It does some really nice things to a lot of areas. However, you REALLY need to make another pass at Hoth. It's almost unplayable now.

I agree completely.

Most areas look great - I love what you've done to the Imperial Fleet & Voss, but please take another look at Hoth. If you tilt your camera up the sky looks white and you pretty much go snow blind. It is eye blindingly white and makes you want to shade your eyes and grab a pair of sunglasses. I love Hoth's appearance so I really hope the artists take another look there and tone it down a bit so we can squint less when we're there.

Thanks for the changes in the other areas though! So far the ones I have visited look fine apart from Hoth.

Alderaan looks even better than it did previously, so great job there. Not enjoying a number of other planets however (adding my voice to the Hoth ones...). Still on the fence about the change, especially after having been immersed into a galaxy with a particular art style (or technical limitation!) that was there previously.

It's a nice direction to take, but it does seem to need some "fine tuning" in some areas. Keep up the good work though, any attempt to improve the game is appreciated.

The pictures shown in your article make this change look fabulous. HOWEVER, I just spent last night running around Hoth and I truly do HATE the changes there. Removing the yellows does not make the planet feel colder to me; I thought the original palette (along with the music/atmospheric sound) did a GREAT job of making me feel cold. The original artists had clearly noticed that snowscapes are rarely white and so used a variety of violets and blues, as well as reflecting the colour of the sun off the ice. It was very beautiful and, yes, cold. Currently it's too painfully and unremittingly shades of cobalt blue. Thus, while the "un-natural" effect MAY be what you were going for, it simply looks totally unreal to me and pulls me out of my willing suspension of disbelief. It also makes the landscape have slightly less depth-of-field. I can see using that sort of limited palette in a limited way - inside a cave system, for instance (which, I know, you've done in various places on various planets <smile>). But not over an entire planet. It makes my eyes hurt.

I hope no mission ever forces me to Hoth again. Ever. (Which would be a realistic reaction if this were real life, but in a game, I'd think you'd want to utilize all your worlds for as much game play as possible AND have your Players enjoy it.) Hoth used to be very pretty in an alien sort of way.

Hopefully there is a way to planet-by-planet _easily_ select whether one wants this new "feature" used. I do recommend adding some such button under preferences.

I love the effect this change had on the environments, they definitely look more lively. I find the effect on characters to be negative in most cases, however. For example in the character selection screen (especially the Sith ship) and various conversations the skin colour has turned into glowing orange and is generally oversaturated. The character models in SWTOR are rather good, so we don't need their faces to "glow" in order to hide poor graphics like in other games.

THIS!!!! ^^^^ My toons are supposed to be a nice tan brown.. they now look like they've been hitting the tanning bed or bottle of self tan too much and their skin colors are no longer a toasty brown but an ugly ORANGE. Not even a subtle orange, but a horrible orange. This isn't just on the loading screen, this happens in all cut scenes as well. it's really noticeable and I despise it, I've even tried to readjust the skin tone of my character hoping if I made her less tan it would fix the probably but it didn't.

I'm leveling an alt and I must say I'm really impressed with how much the new color treatment adds to the mood of the game.

Sure, there are situations where colored lighting will give skintones an 'unnatural' cast, but this happens in real life as well--your brain just adjusts for it. Fluorescent lighting is usually green, daylight is blue, incandescent is orange--your brain just normalizes it all. If you're having trouble getting used to the new palette, I suggest you give it a month, run a few flashpoints, visit some different planets. It really does add something to the game.

I'm leveling an alt and I must say I'm really impressed with how much the new color treatment adds to the mood of the game.

 

Sure, there are situations where colored lighting will give skintones an 'unnatural' cast, but this happens in real life as well--your brain just adjusts for it. Fluorescent lighting is usually green, daylight is blue, incandescent is orange--your brain just normalizes it all. If you're having trouble getting used to the new palette, I suggest you give it a month, run a few flashpoints, visit some different planets. It really does add something to the game.

This isn't something I'll get used to, considering I play flashpoints and ops every day on multiple toons and since I am going to school for vis comm - graphic design the color difference really bothers me in the skin tones. It's too the point if it's not changed for the skin tones I'll just disable it totally.

This isn't something I'll get used to, considering I play flashpoints and ops every day on multiple toons and since I am going to school for vis comm - graphic design the color difference really bothers me in the skin tones. It's too the point if it's not changed for the skin tones I'll just disable it totally.

I played the game for about a year with incredibly buggy grass. It would literally take the first pixel of grass and stretch it diagonally upward for the height of the grass. Additionally, it would always have a no-grass sort of 'trail' in whatever direction I was facing. --> Example <-- When I upgraded my graphics card, it went away completely. My guess is that it had always worked for the current graphics card, but one which was a few years old had those issues. My point is that not everyone is having this issue you speak of. Considering it is a purely graphics-oriented issue, my assumption is that it is your graphics card.

1) They did this to compete with bright colors of Neverwinter MMORPG.

2) It is a workaround. Not a palette change. Palette change means using different colors. This is Instagram.

3) Therefore results are good at some areas, bad at some areas. Just compare Star Wars Episode VI Jabba's Palace with Hutt Palaces in game (Makeb is different. There they used a different color palette. Makeb looks much better than the rest of the game).

4) Lots of personal taste involved. But due to human psychology many people will get used to it.

5) This does not solve the main problem. Since the game was costly Bioware cut corners. They did not use many different texture packs and they let computer choose the complementary colors. So adding Instagram filters will not make the game look less drab. Besides on some monitors it will look awful. I am using a Toshiba Regza TV with excellent auto color adjustment so I was lucky.

6) For the same reason art is very "industrial" and toolset looking. There are no truly different areas or original face characters. Even the Neverwinter Nights from 2002 looked better than this. Is there a true difference between Dromund Kaas, Nar Shaddaa, Dark Approach and Coruscant? Placeables are different that's it. No true cinematics.

7 Solution: Redesign the game. Practicality, none. We are stuck with bland character designs. Same "American" Jack Kirby looking white man angular faces "dot noses". Just Marvel Comics GIJoe 1984 fetishism. Pheh! And I hate to see Gand and Mon Calamari using the same humanoid body and the same military posture. Seriously people.

8 Some people say that the game imitates WoW. I have no issues with that. WoW perfected online video gaming, game mechanics and user interface. No need to re-invent anything. In fact I am using classic GUI layout. But I wish they had imitated WoW more as in creating truly unique looking environments and characters.

9 Finally, with so many "corner cuts" I will never see why this game cost this much, except administrative and logistics failure.

1) They did this to compete with bright colors of Neverwinter MMORPG.

 

2) It is a workaround. Not a palette change. Palette change means using different colors. This is Instagram.

 

3) Therefore results are good at some areas, bad at some areas. Just compare Star Wars Episode VI Jabba's Palace with Hutt Palaces in game (Makeb is different. There they used a different color palette. Makeb looks much better than the rest of the game).

 

4) Lots of personal taste involved. But due to human psychology many people will get used to it.

 

5) This does not solve the main problem. Since the game was costly Bioware cut corners. They did not use many different texture packs and they let computer choose the complementary colors. So adding Instagram filters will not make the game look less drab. Besides on some monitors it will look awful. I am using a Toshiba Regza TV with excellent auto color adjustment so I was lucky.

 

6) For the same reason art is very "industrial" and toolset looking. There are no truly different areas or original face characters. Even the Neverwinter Nights from 2002 looked better than this. Is there a true difference between Dromund Kaas, Nar Shaddaa, Dark Approach and Coruscant? Placeables are different that's it. No true cinematics.

 

7 Solution: Redesign the game. Practicality, none. We are stuck with bland character designs. Same "American" Jack Kirby looking white man angular faces "dot noses". Just Marvel Comics GIJoe 1984 fetishism. Pheh! And I hate to see Gand and Mon Calamari using the same humanoid body and the same military posture. Seriously people.

 

8 Some people say that the game imitates WoW. I have no issues with that. WoW perfected online video gaming, game mechanics and user interface. No need to re-invent anything. In fact I am using classic GUI layout. But I wish they had imitated WoW more as in creating truly unique looking environments and characters.

 

9 Finally, with so many "corner cuts" I will never see why this game cost this much, except administrative and logistics failure.

And yet nowhere in that long, boring rant did you remember to mention why we as subscribers should care. We all pay to be here. You must be fairly delusional to believe that a few lines of whining is going to sway us from enjoying the game.

You are delusional in the sense that my goal is to drive you away fanboy . In fact I immensely enjoy the game and I am a regular player.

Second, this is criticism not whining but for fanboys like you every criticism is whining. Same delusion in the last 15 years of MMOs. You think that just because we criticize something we should shut up, don't play and don't state our opinions on forums. Who are you to think so hımm? Voluntary crowd control slave for forums, ultimate teenage mentality.

And you ARE delusional in the sense that you don't care and yet you post a reply. I welcome opinions but not bias. Let opinions fill the forum. Not personal bias or attacks. Lol! And he thinks just because he replied like this he won the argument. He never saw a long post...

BTW this reply is a courtesy to all fanboys and you will not get anymore answers from me for this polemic. But this will not stop me of stating my opinions now or in the future. So shoo!

You are delusional in the sense that my goal is to drive you away fanboy . In fact I immensely enjoy the game and I am a regular player.

 

Second, this is criticism not whining but for fanboys like you every criticism is whining. Same delusion in the last 15 years of MMOs. You think that just because we criticize something we should shut up, don't play and don't state our opinions on forums. Who are you to think so hımm? Voluntary crowd control slave for forums, ultimate teenage mentality.

 

And you ARE delusional in the sense that you don't care and yet you post a reply. I welcome opinions but not bias. Let opinions fill the forum. Not personal bias or attacks. Lol! And he thinks just because he replied like this he won the argument. He never saw a long post...

 

BTW this reply is a courtesy to all fanboys and you will not get anymore answers from me for this polemic. But this will not stop me of stating my opinions now or in the future. So shoo!

You only think yourself to be right because of your own ignorance. Read any of my posts. I'm a realist, not a fanboy. You're vastly overdramatizing the situation.

You are delusional in the sense that my goal is to drive you away fanboy . In fact I immensely enjoy the game and I am a regular player.

 

Second, this is criticism not whining but for fanboys like you every criticism is whining. Same delusion in the last 15 years of MMOs. You think that just because we criticize something we should shut up, don't play and don't state our opinions on forums. Who are you to think so hımm? Voluntary crowd control slave for forums, ultimate teenage mentality.

 

And you ARE delusional in the sense that you don't care and yet you post a reply. I welcome opinions but not bias. Let opinions fill the forum. Not personal bias or attacks. Lol! And he thinks just because he replied like this he won the argument. He never saw a long post...

 

BTW this reply is a courtesy to all fanboys and you will not get anymore answers from me for this polemic. But this will not stop me of stating my opinions now or in the future. So shoo!

I like you Great reply!!!!