Graphics in this game...

Huh? No way does the grass grow in other games as you move forward. They appear as you get closer, but donot slowly become visible like it is growing. And you can zoom in on the armor in WoW and Rift and see a lot more textures and details in them than you can in TOR. I am not saying I dislike the art design in TOR, in many ways it is very nicely done, but they got lazy with some stuff. Rift's is far superior overall in my opinion.

You all realize this was a post from long before the new High rez stuff was aviliable and the thread was started in 2011, right?

Oh yeah, it usually just suddenly pops into view like it wasn't there before the SURPRISE!

I remember when I first started this game, I thought it was awesome how it "grew into view" as you moved instead of just suddenly popping into view.

I thought you meant just the view distance of vegetation.

Yep.

I have to admit. I love the effect of the grass growing as you approach it. I mean, it's unrealistic and crazy, but I love it anyways.

It's no less unrealistic than it suddenly popping into view from nowhere.

The graphics in this game are fine. They've surpassed my expectations on so many levels. The level of detail more than makes up for a crummy shadow here or a blurry texture there. Then again, this is an MMO, and when compared to prior MMO titles out there, ToR is pretty much right where it should be.

It really surprises me how many people do not know how graphics in MMOs really work. They go into it expecting Crysis-quality graphics simply because they point at the calendar and yelp "2012!" In reality, you can only render so much in these types of games and not have the engine run all but the beefiest PCs into the ground. Given the size of the game world, the range of computers they want the game to render on, and the art style they've chosen, you can't expect this game to look like your modern-day, closed-off, tight corridor shooter.

I get what you are saying but....

Imagine your the decision maker for swtor.
You have a choice of making a stunningly pretty game like Skyrim and will make many folks happy however in a recession you want to appeal to as many folks as possible. You want husbands and wives to play togather fathers and sons mothers and daughters. You want people to take the old PC in the family room and be able to load up your game and play.

With this in mind you look for an engine that can serve the most people for as cheap as possible cause you know your spending millions on talent what do you do? Cater to the masses or a very small market of players who have dual triple or quad SLI or CROSSFIRE?

If I am the guy making that decision I would say go with the masses and bring in more revenue. Remember the more detail there is the less can happen on the screen. Hell I know folks who play and can't jump right because of lag. I can imagine quadupling the graphic detail on them. Or... Making them have to dumb it down so much it looks like crap...

To the OP...

I am curious why you chose Hutta to be the screenshot for TOR. Since Hutta is by far the most drab planet in the game. It seems to me that you would want to pick the best possible shots, or at the very least, most accurate image that best represents the game as a whole. Hutta is a poor choice to represent the game's graphics abilities.

The graphics for the game are great, even when compared to guild wars 2. The art styles for the two games are different, but they're still great. My only problem with TOR is optimization! Still runs like crap if I try to have high shadows on in some places, and the room of the first boss in Karaga's palace still lags the crap out of everyone I know.