SWTOR

[Reg]

Holy shit! I can do it but I'll have to nuke LOTRO and WoW. No great loss I guess. Maybe it would be easier just to add another hard drive.

[Modern Angel]

Someone needs to help me make sense of this because this really does strike me as completely insane. Arguably the biggest PC release since WoW and they have eliminated people in any area with a digital download cap. Right? There's no way to patch this behemoth without paying outrageous sums in, say, Canada?

Picture the scenario where average Canadian gamer snags this on Steam or D2D or wherever without seeing the size. They start to download/patch and they can't. They go to D2D for a refund on a game they literally cannot play. They don't get it. Multiply that by a million. Is that a misreading or is this actually the most hilarious gun to the head moment in gaming this decade?

[sam, an eggplant]

138, after patching.

Jesus, is that right? Man, I've got a lot of patching left to do.

I'm just happy I didn't decide to put it on the SSD. The thought of starting patching over from the beginning makes me wince like watching someone get kicked in the nuts on TV.

[Sky]

I'd like to think that Carth sat there on that planet, trapped without a ship of his own, for the rest of the war. That maybe he salvaged a receiver out of that temple and sat there for months, eating rats and wiping his ass with leaves, listening helplessly as Revan gutted his precious Republic, screaming in frustration as Canderous and his Mandalorians dropped onto Coruscant and executed the Galactic Senate at the command of their Sith master.

I think along the same lines, but that the isolation drives him insane and he recovers the Twilek's corpse and makes a mannequin out of it that he marries and talks to like Wilson. And he tries making a starship out of debris that falls on the planet.

About the install: welp, looks like time to add a data drive. I could swing it (on my 4-1/2 yr old pc!) but I'd rather not winnow out my steam library yet.

Sweet sassy malassy.

There's a Google certified trainer out of Long Island who looks and sounds exactly like Ray Romano. It was wicked distracting, because I kept expecting him to do lines from that bit.

Picture the scenario where average Canadian gamer snags this on Steam or D2D or wherever without seeing the size. They start to download/patch and they can't. They go to D2D for a refund on a game they literally cannot play. They don't get it. Multiply that by a million.

C'mon, that's outrageous.

There aren't a million people in Canada!

 

[Modern Angel]

I have a 220 on my four year old warhorse. I would have to basically clear my Steam library, my pdfs and my music. I could do it but I've found that I pick up so much *stuff* on my drive that it would push it too close.

They almost had me. I watched the original trilogy at the beach on Father's Day and my mind started drifting to Jedis and light sabers... then the install. Jesus, the install.

[tmp]

138, after patching.

My largest partition is 149, but unless it's all streaming i'd have to fit the install somewhere, too...

edit: the more i think about it, the more crazy it seems. Did they put all voice files in raw .wavs or smth? I can't imagine how it could take this sort of space otherwise.

[DraconianOne]

Someone needs to help me make sense of this because this really does strike me as completely insane. Arguably the biggest PC release since WoW and they have eliminated people in any area with a digital download cap. Right? There's no way to patch this behemoth without paying outrageous sums in, say, Canada?

Picture the scenario where average Canadian gamer snags this on Steam or D2D or wherever without seeing the size. They start to download/patch and they can't. They go to D2D for a refund on a game they literally cannot play. They don't get it. Multiply that by a million. Is that a misreading or is this actually the most hilarious gun to the head moment in gaming this decade?

I'm more surprised that this news hasn't already leaked out and had a big deal made of it. Also, I have a hard time believing that you're the only person who would have noticed this and that others who have tested it haven't already flagged it as being an issue.  I would be interested to know if there's been any official response about it but not interested enough to bother signing up. As they're apparently looking to role out testing to the EU, I'm sure it'll become more of an issue.

It would also beggar belief that they haven't done proper market research and looked at the average stats at somewhere like http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ Then again, it beggared beleif that Disney wouldn't remember to renew the Club Penguin domain name but that happened too.

[Kail]

Perhaps the retail install will be lighter?  I hope?  There's no way they're seriously shipping a game that's a seventh of a terabyte over a digital distribition service, right?  The internet is not something that you can just dump something on, it's not a big truck, I mean, holy fuck.  I really, really want to get this game, but between this and "only on ORIGIN" it's getting fucking difficult.

[Mrbloodworth]

Wow.

[Rasix]

Thankfully I seem to have a hard drive failure every other year.  This'll fit easy even with my lack of efficiency on my current drive (1tb). 

I'll be able to hand this beta if I ever manage to get in.   

[DraconianOne]

edit: the more i think about it, the more crazy it seems. Did they put all voice files in raw .wavs or smth? I can't imagine how it could take this sort of space otherwise.

From what I understand, DA2 was only a 7Gb install and was full of voice files. DA1 was 15-20Gb apparently? (I own neither so can't comment). If that's the case then I presume the worked on their compression since releasing DA1.

[sam, an eggplant]

Yeah I can handle it too, the question isn't whether enthusiast-level gamers can handle the game, obviously we can. The issue is that SWTOR was supposed to be mass-market. It has a light cartoonish graphics engine, much like WoW for that specific reason. Then they come in with this news, which just blows that out of the water. The install size is just flat-out astonishing. I can imagine this is the elephant in the room at all their internal marketing and sales meetings. Nobody brings it up, nobody talks about it. It just sits, in the background, generating continual waves of dread.

The install size could kill SWTOR's chances. Very possible.

[tmp]

From what I understand, DA2 was only a 7Gb install and was full of voice files. DA1 was 15-20Gb apparently? (I own neither so can't comment). If that's the case then I presume the worked on their compression since releasing DA1.

Yup which is why i don't get how that... thing could be so bloated. DA2 was much smaller because it didn't have much in term of environments, not because their compression got so much better. Still, it does show the full voice (and that's with three separate fully voiced paths per gender, something i doubt they're doing with TOR) doesn't take that much space. It's crazy.

[Modern Angel]

Look, even if it's lighter it's not going to be THAT much lighter. Suppose optimization shaves 20GB off that, which I think sounds awfully optimistic considering they're probably still adding content. That's still a fucking 120GB install. That's lunacy.

[fuser]

I've moved in the past year to a smaller SSD (90GB) + NAS storage. I know i'm not the typical person but really I'd have to buy another $50-75 HDD just for this game. There's no way that's happening when every other game I want to play (including WoW/EQ2/Rift) easily fits inside the SSD constraints.

[sam, an eggplant]

Voice doesn't consume that much space. If you assume they're using 128kbps static bitrate MP3s (which they probably aren't, they're likely using variable bitrate at least, which saves a ton of space on speech with pauses between words), one hour of voice is 56 megabytes. All we know is that SWTOR has "hours of voice", but even 500 hours of speech is "only" 28GB. Keep in mind that 500 hours of speech is literally 21 days of talking, straight through, so that seems unlikely.

[Malakili]

Voice doesn't consume that much space. If you assume they're using 128kbps static bitrate MP3s (which they probably aren't, they're likely using variable bitrate at least, which saves a ton of space on speech with pauses between words), one hour of voice is 56 megabytes. All we know is that SWTOR has "hours of voice", but even 500 hours of speech is "only" 28GB. Keep in mind that 500 hours of speech is literally 21 days of talking, straight through, so that seems unlikely.

How many planets are there?  Quite a few I think, do we have an idea of how big this game world actually is when its all mashed together?

Edit: Also, how big is Mass Effect 2? We've seen them say stuff like "This game is like KOTOR 3-9 all in one game!"  Could it really be like 6 or 7 or their normal RPGs?

[tmp]

If you assume they're using 128kbps static bitrate MP3s (which they probably aren't, they're likely using variable bitrate at least, which saves a ton of space on speech with pauses between words), one hour of voice is 56 megabytes.

They've used FMod for their DA audio, going by project files for it they're using variable bit rate for they voice work, yup. Doubt that'd change really.

edit: ME2 is 15 gb.

[fuser]

Solution is to have an option not to install voice overs! 

[sam, an eggplant]

138, after patching.

I run the risk of violating NDA saying this, but I don't think Bioware will care in this specific case-- I finally finished patching and am sitting at a considerably smaller install size, much more comparable to WoW with all its expansions installed.

I'm not calling you a liar; maybe I'm in a more limited beta or something. But take that astonishing 138GB number with a grain of salt, people.

[Sky]

Modern Angel is a Jerkface!

[Lakov_Sanite]

Oh for fucks' sake, if you are going to tip toe around the nda just say it. For a game coming out this year it would be real nice to know ahead of time if we have to save for new hard drives or not.

[eldaec]

Clearly you won't need a 200GB install at retail launch, because EA really like money.

[Modern Angel]

I'm not in. I had the 138 confirmed by two different friends who don't know each other. So now I don't know what's going on. How much smaller?

[Rasix]

Well, if we go by sam's ballpark number, you're north by about 100 GB.

[VainEldritch]

138, after patching.

 

There shall be much wailing and thrashing of hard drives.

[Modern Angel]

I'm venturing there's some gross misunderstanding on my part, but I'm trying to figure how, say, 138 downloaded would translate to a still 40GB install. That would still present a whole HOST of issues outside of the US, mind you, but at least it wouldn't be a retarded install.

[Bunk]

138, after patching.

 

This actually needs a good "blinking in disbelief" smiley.

Really, at the price of 1TB drives these days (under $100) its not a big deal to slap another drive in to a bay if you need to.

*edit: wow - five responses in the time it took me to write this post. Apparently people are very serious about their giggabites.

[luckton]

Again, I'm not really seeing a problem with this.  Who doesn't have at least a 1TB drive in their rig, if not as the main drive but as a backup?  EA doesn't give a flying frack about how your 32GB SSD is so  .  They want this thing to have 10x the polish WoW had, and polish like that doesn't come on flash drives.

[Modern Angel]

*I* don't have 1TB on my rig. But even then, it's not about you. It's about Joe WoW-Player. if Joe WoW-Player can't play this game or (since it's sounding like it may be a download limit issue and not an install size issue) can't get it installed, then that's a 100mil disaster. They can't cut a profit if their subscriber base is nothing but Yous.

[tmp]

Who doesn't have at least a 1TB drive in their rig, if not as the main drive but as a backup?

lot of people

more precisely, only 25% has over 1tb of space total. ~35-50% has enough free space to fit that alleged install.

[eldaec]

I heard information sets you free.



'Most' people have less than 250Gb of hard disk space free.

SWTOR will be built on that assumption.

It not surprising to hear that the beta install is bigger.

EDIT : Fuck all ninja posting tmps.

[Sky]

By brother Joey and cousin Vito BOTH told me it's 100TB.

[eldaec]

There is also a more problematic issue than disk space here, 99% of the playerbase can't download a 40Gb patch every month, plus I suspect EA would rather like Origin to be a viable way to purchase the game.

They will make it smaller.

[luckton]

And *I* don't have a video card that can play Crysis at a level that's decent, yet the game still makes bank.

It's the evolution of technology, which has always been driven primarily by games (pron comes a close second).  It's gaming that's led to faster processors, better video cards and larger hard drives.  Frankly, I'm surprised it's taken this long for the hard drive part of that triangle to be exploited to the current generation of storage.