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What are bioware going to do about load screens & feeling of disconnect?

STAR WARS: The Old Republic > English > General Discussion
What are bioware going to do about load screens & feeling of disconnect?

JimG's Avatar


JimG
12.07.2012 , 05:44 PM | #41
Feelings of disconnect? Not sure they can fix someone's "feelings"....perhaps hold your hand, give you a hug, bake you some cookies?

Macetheace's Avatar


Macetheace
12.07.2012 , 05:45 PM | #42
stop trying to manage my expectations. Things i like i expect and require them to be the best, i have a lot of respect for ToR, I expect more, and i won't be satisfied with excuses like it's not that big a deal because it very well is.
Quote: Originally Posted by Mazikeen View Post
You never played Everquest did you?

Stop being spoiled and deal with it. Some games have loading screens, some do not. GW2 has them. Play or quit, but stop whining.
So big a deal it was in Everquest, that wow was intenitonally designed to eliminate a loading screen all togehter, and hailed as a milestone for the way they designed their world. Its nearly 15 years after Ever Quest, as technology has moved on we expect more, just cos EQ hasd loading screens that were annoying ashell doesn't mean i'm going to be okay with my favourite game being anything less than the best it could be and put up with that annoying feature.

Sure its better, and SwTOR employs something EQ never really could in such fine detail... those cut-scenes.. yep.. in fact, it already does a little of what i suggest they ecxtend to over the laoding screen issue..every time you go into your class hangar at a space port, you do see a take off cineamtic.

This needs to be extended.. rather than switch to loading screen , the cineamtic should continue showing the journey of you excitin g the planet into space, then jumping to light speed, arriving at destination, and docoking at orbvital station or landing on oplanet. Whiles it loads in the background.

There are two reasons why this is important... one is to kill theannoyance of lots of loading screens, the other is to make the experience between going rom one planet to another a lot more contiuous. if you just keep literally flashing in between loading screens and black screens as youmove from one section to another, it feels very disjointed.. if instead during the load screens or for some of those elevator trips, you actually show the journey in a short scene, it stops feeling disjointed. and bingo.

Macetheace's Avatar


Macetheace
12.07.2012 , 05:50 PM | #43
Quote: Originally Posted by hallucigenocide View Post
add some lovely cantina music while loading and it'd be less dull :P
another thing taht would also help, is give access to chat.. guild chat, fleet chat, party chat whiles loading and whiles the cinematic is playing.

i never get tired of seeing my space ship take off or land when such thigns are available, so i doubt i'd get tired of the cineamtic that shows the journey during the loading of the new world.. afterall that is far more exciting than staring at a picture. Saying that though the ability to chat, and also to spacebar skip the rest of the ccineamtic if the planet has loaded befor ethe full length is shown would be great.

the thing is what they may have done was originally made journey cineamtic very short to only show your ship take off from the spaceport, assuming everyone would have pcs that would load the world like they do at their developement centre..pehraps its why tat cineamtic is short.. so i say, extend it to show the full journey and start shoiwng what happens when jumping on elveators and going from A to B so it doesn't feel so disconnected..it's a little extra that makes a lot of differnece

Macetheace's Avatar


Macetheace
12.07.2012 , 05:53 PM | #44
Quote: Originally Posted by GnatB View Post
Cutscenes while loading?
1. They'd have to either make "prerendered" scenes, which presumably means they'd need something different for every class, or in-engine scenes.
2. Eitherway, processing/etc. time would be spent on the scene, meaning the actual load would take longer. And for in-engine scenes, it would also take up some of the memory/etc. available for the actual environments.

i.e. No thank you. It's a stupid idea. I don't want longer loading times/less content so you can get a silly travel cinematic.
no they won't, they already have cut scenes druing loading.. i'm surpirsed you hanve't realised that, it's the first hting you see when you start a new character, a cineamtic is playing as the world is loading in the background.

also every time you enter your class ship, a cinematic pops, immediately, there is no load time for it, and i think the world is loading in the background whiles it's playing, the thing is it's way too short. and also only shows the ship taking off from the port, the rest of the journey isn't seen

wrmrstacrdwower's Avatar


wrmrstacrdwower
12.07.2012 , 06:34 PM | #45
I actually wonder why the loading screen exists at all. If you look at the border of the screen itself its just a super imposed image over the game world. So what exactly is it that needs to load that requires the game world to be hidden from the player?
Emokin for President!

GnatB's Avatar


GnatB
12.07.2012 , 06:51 PM | #46
Quote: Originally Posted by Macetheace View Post
no they won't, they already have cut scenes druing loading.. i'm surpirsed you hanve't realised that, it's the first hting you see when you start a new character, a cineamtic is playing as the world is loading in the background.

also every time you enter your class ship, a cinematic pops, immediately, there is no load time for it, and i think the world is loading in the background whiles it's playing, the thing is it's way too short. and also only shows the ship taking off from the port, the rest of the journey isn't seen
Hate to break it to you, but there isn't any loading going on during those cutscenes. They're completely unneccessary additional filler that simply pad out the load times. Take off from your ship. Wait until the cinematic is just about over. Hit escape. Presto. You're still right where you were with no need to load back into the world you had "left". (though I'll admit, it *has* unloaded some things... your ship sometimes takes a while to pop back in, but heck, it sometimes takes a while to pop in when you run into the zone. I expect it's much the same thing.)

Why? Because it hasn't unloaded that world yet to start loading wherever you're going... and, as I said. If they WERE doing cinematics during the load, it would slow down the load... for the sake of worthless cinematics. I'd be willing to bet 90% of the people playing this game hit "space" after the first time they've seen aany enter/leave planet cinematic. Heck, I'd expect the majority haven't even SEEN the enter/leave cinematics for any planet after the first one or two.

So even if I'm completely wrong, and they ARE doing cinematics during the loads... it's still a bad idea and they should stop.

('course, as I indicated, pre-rendered FMV sequences probably wouldn't significantly increase the length of the load on most computers, but it WOULD still increase it... and unneccessarily so)

Sinras's Avatar


Sinras
12.07.2012 , 07:09 PM | #47
Quote: Originally Posted by Macetheace View Post
no they won't, they already have cut scenes druing loading.. i'm surpirsed you hanve't realised that, it's the first hting you see when you start a new character, a cineamtic is playing as the world is loading in the background.

also every time you enter your class ship, a cinematic pops, immediately, there is no load time for it, and i think the world is loading in the background whiles it's playing, the thing is it's way too short. and also only shows the ship taking off from the port, the rest of the journey isn't seen
They loaded the Cinematic during the "elevator" ride to your ship hanger. And there really isn't much background loading going on during the ride. If it wasn't for this cinematic we wouldn't need the loading screen to get to your ship hanger.

One issue for the long load screen when you arrive at a planet is that they load most of it at once. Including the huge background image. Other games only load a fraction of the game and slowly load more as you travel. they do this with very low-res distant features and a sharp edge to the "world" covered by "fog."

While load screens can be annoying, the one thing that seems useless is "fade to black" revive. I'm not really sure what it's needed for, and I don't remember it during beta weekends.

Guancyto's Avatar


Guancyto
12.07.2012 , 07:35 PM | #48
Quote: Originally Posted by Mazikeen View Post
I never start threads unless I'm attempting to be constructive

I will, however, respond to threads that are started by whiners (especially those asking for a base change) over issues that are at the most trivial
There's a long, well-followed thread over in the Suggestion Box pertaining to small quality-of-life changes that could be made to the game to make it feel smoother, more polished and friendlier. It's extremely well-received by the community, engaged with by Bioware staff, and many of the "trivial" changes suggested have ended up being implemented.

Small issues are worth discussing too. Nobody's entitled to **** but what we all want is the best damn game Bioware is capable of producing with the resources they have available. Sometimes that means fixing the bug where you crash to desktop after a couple of hours. Sometimes that means letting you hide your companions' hats.

If your post to this thread is a good example of your contributions to other people's threads, well... congratulations on being a net negative on the game. Well done.

chuixupu's Avatar


chuixupu
12.07.2012 , 07:39 PM | #49
If you guys are actually having such long loading screens that you're asking for music/ability to chat during them, then you definitely need some upgrades.
Wardens of Fate / Alea Iacta Est
The Tarkus Legacy ~ The Harbinger/Jedi Covenant

Darth_Exar's Avatar


Darth_Exar
12.07.2012 , 07:57 PM | #50
Quote: Originally Posted by wrmrstacrdwower View Post
I actually wonder why the loading screen exists at all. If you look at the border of the screen itself its just a super imposed image over the game world. So what exactly is it that needs to load that requires the game world to be hidden from the player?
I noticed this too. I suppose its like loading a youtube vid and it says 'Buffering'?

I dont really mind the Load, but I understand that it does feel almost disconnected. Im still trying to figure what the hec the background is meant to be on the loading screens..
Quote: Originally Posted by athenaprime View Post
But at least there's Mako. Nice, normal Mako. All six of her.
"So this is how Liberty dies....With thunderous applause."