Poll: Seamless+CopyPaste VS. Zones+Variety

You guys do know that Eorzea is the same size as vana diel when ffxi first started zones were added as well as size, there are many places blocked off to us. And honestly I been to every zone other then moh. And they all are different. As for the copy and pasting I do not see it or notice it. I live in forested areas and been to places that look like Ul'dah. And for the most part that is exactly how nature looks. Gridania actually reminds me of the white mountains near the hidden pond area (a pond that you only see at a certain tome due to it being dry at low tide) Can it loos some of the hallway feel yes it can. And maybe they will fix that.

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That being said, because we wanted the game to be seamless, we do understand there’s a lack of variation.

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Talk about someone not thinking straight. Still, considering map like the Black Shroud can't just be called lacking variety but its all the same exact thing everywhere you look, they didn't put in any effort. On top of this, lack of zones gave us long "transition regions" between every area in a region...its lame and stupid design. Look at the distance (one path) from Bentbranch to Tranquil for instance, or Brentbranch to Emerald. Its the same deal all over Thanalan and all over La Noscea but its a little disguised in the open space at least. The entire game is ugly and bland and if they were going with the seamless world they should've added a lot more meat to it (like temples, dungeons, landmarks, towns, something!). I hate this game.

#1 = Faster load, so you PC wont be having such lags.
#2 = slower load because each partition is different texture that make the game to load more than it should.

I prefer #1 for Performance wise. but i will be neutral in this as i'm liking both side.

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Originally Posted by Kilta_Firelotus

You guys do know that Eorzea is the same size as vana diel when ffxi first started zones were added as well as size, there are many places blocked off to us. And honestly I been to every zone other then moh. And they all are different. As for the copy and pasting I do not see it or notice it. I live in forested areas and been to places that look like Ul'dah. And for the most part that is exactly how nature looks. Gridania actually reminds me of the white mountains near the hidden pond area (a pond that you only see at a certain tome due to it being dry at low tide) Can it loos some of the hallway feel yes it can. And maybe they will fix that.

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You do know that Vanadiel's map didn't change right? it was always one size. Its true they added zones much like they will add here but considering they have already used up 7/8th of the entire map on 5 large zones I'd imagine majority of that they'll be adding are zones like dungeons and caves and stuff, there isn't room on the map for large zones like we have now unless they expand into Garlean region but the story isn't hinting at it.

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Originally Posted by Chrees

See, when they mentioned having a "seamless" world, I was under the assumption that there would be, you know...NO SEAMS. Yet we're stuck with seams between the 5 areas in the game. Made me quite the sad panda.

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They actually changed it, originally the only zones were the region zonelines. Zoning into/out of a city is still seamless, but considering this game will be on a console it prevents NPC and scripts not needed from loading, e.g you have zero need for a city to be loaded when you're in a volcano.

I vote seamless with variety, because Tanaka's answers are complete bull. This kind of loading and unloading of data into memory optimization is not new. The problem is in the engine, not the hardware. Which sucks because working in new forms of optimization into engines is freaking nightmare. I'm currently reworking the collision detection in my engine using Barycentric coordinates and it makes me want to pull my hair out sometimes.

Bias poll is bias.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

They actually changed it, originally the only zones were the region zonelines. Zoning into/out of a city is still seamless, but considering this game will be on a console it prevents NPC and scripts not needed from loading, e.g you have zero need for a city to be loaded when you're in a volcano.

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That's not entirely true. There were always invisible "seams" between the zones in each of the five regions, for example between Central Thanalan and Eastern Thanalan. Then in one of the patches last year (I can't remember which off the top of my head) they began to span high-traffic areas of each region/city across multiple servers, creating more invisible "seams." Which was (for the most part) a good thing, since it alleviated lag and, as you said, got rid of the need to have something all the way across the map loaded when it doesn't need to be.

I don't mind the loading screens between regions, I just wish the transition between the invisible "seams" wasn't quite so obvious. Nothing sucks more than having someone on auto-follow while you go AFK and crossing one of those server borders and losing the auto-follow, making you infinitely run off in one direction. :(

As long as they continue to add campsites, populate hamlets, or even tie in "newly excavated" or "uncovered" dungeons.

And while we're all speculating on the Black Shroud reconstruction in other topics...was that ever confirmed as something that was supposed to happen?

Actually Mack there is atleast 2 or 3 possible zones that is on the current continent that has yet to be unlocked. You need to look at the largest Eorzea map, and you will see them. One of them is the destroyed city and area around Ala Mihgo and the other is unknown city state.

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Originally Posted by Dargoth_Draconia

Actually Mack there is atleast 2 or 3 possible zones that is on the current continent that has yet to be unlocked. You need to look at the largest Eorzea map, and you will see them. One of them is the destroyed city and area around Ala Mihgo and the other is unknown city state.

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Actually, there are more than three. The three zones you're probably referring to are the three on the northern part of Aldenard, and they are Gyn Abania (where Ala Mhigo resides), Dravania (where Sharlavan, the unknown city state you mentioned, is) and Xelphatol. There is one more to the east of Thanalan called Paglth'an, and don't forget about O'Ghomoro on Vylbrand. :cool:

There are also the smaller islands of Theueari, Mazlava and The Cieldales, but I wouldn't count on those being opened up any time soon. Then again, The Cieldales are mentioned in some item descriptions (for a certain fish or something), so who knows?

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Originally Posted by Nakiamiie

I vote for:
"The world that we have now, with massive seamless regions, but a lack of environmental variety."
and add more game objects to increase variability of the seamless regions.

I don't want to give up seamless feature.

EDIT: isn't there a technology out there that allows to change texture maps seamlessly? Like, instead of loading 1 big data file, load many smaller files and swap them in memory as the player moves around?? This would allow for seamless zones with lots of variability.

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You should Lookup on youtube about a game called FUEL.

it currently has the biggest world in a game, (even over MMORPGS). It even got in the guiness book of records. Anyway to a short story, they developed a very nice system that creates the land on the fly, it'll be the same but its not stored in files as a mesh but instead as a string of data, a morph file. Andas you travel a long it generates the land. This makes it seemless and its extremely unrepeated. Its so good at what it does, that if they made the map per mesh in traditional ways it would be over 300GB. A little to big for an xbox/ps3/pc game haha.

This type of technology would be good in an mmorpg.

FFXIV doesnt have seamless zones though.......it both has zone lines and is copy pasted.

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Originally Posted by Sonic_the_Hedgehog

Bias poll is bias.

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Well, how would you word it, then?

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

Well, how would you word it, then?

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Well how about?

The world that we have now and future zones, that are massive seamless regions, with more environmental variety in each one.

or

A world with multiple smaller zones, with 1-2 sec. loading time in between zones, with environmental variety in each one.

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Originally Posted by Sonic_the_Hedgehog

Well how about?

The world that we have now and future zones, that are massive seamless regions, with more environmental variety in each one.

or

A world with multiple smaller zones, with 1-2 sec. loading time in between zones, with environmental variety in each one.

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But the massive seamless has no variety, it is because of the seamless that it cant have any variety.

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Originally Posted by viion

But the massive seamless has no variety, it is because of the seamless that it cant have any variety.

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I think by adding these "quest hubs" in the next patch they working on adding variety to the zones. They could also add more unique things to current zones we have now. Like windmills in La Noscea, huge ass waterfalls in The Black Shroud, or a huge canyon like the Grand Canyon in Thanalan. Now it may not be possible to make them truly seamless because this game will be on the PS3, but I don't mind things popping up the way they do now, loading screens just kinda take me out of the game. I hate teleporting everywhere. >_<

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Originally Posted by Sonic_the_Hedgehog

I think by adding these "quest hubs" in the next patch they working on adding variety to the zones. They could also add more unique things to current zones we have now. Like windmills in La Noscea, huge ass waterfalls in The Black Shroud, or a huge canyon like the Grand Canyon in Thanalan. Now it may not be possible to make them truly seamless because this game will be on the PS3, but I don't mind things popping up the way they do now, loading screens just kinda take me out of the game. I hate teleporting everywhere. >_<

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I think loading screens to say different sections: Central Thanalan (Black brush) to East Thanalan (Drybone) would be more acceptable, but dont include a blackout zone at things like running from Drybone to Halatali, which currently has an invisible seemless zone, this is fine, its in the same "Regional Zone", it'd still be inbetween.

Also remember it is not going to be like XI, in XI you hit a zone and it will go black and load. XIV does not do this, you see it when teleporting, you hit a teleport and then it seems like nothing happens when infact the game is preloading assets before sending you over there, then you have less than 1 second black screen and you pop up. This is how it also works when going from like Drybone to Tranquil in Black Shroud, you'll cross the zone line but keep running while it loads the zone's assets. So you're not pulled away for a very long time like in XI.

Also Quests sometimes fade to black for apparent no reason and also Cutscenes do, so that also ruins the "seamless" express. But it doesnt ruin the mood or capture of the game as you barely notice it.

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Originally Posted by viion

I think loading screens to say different sections: Central Thanalan (Black brush) to East Thanalan (Drybone) would be more acceptable, but dont include a blackout zone at things like running from Drybone to Halatali, which currently has an invisible seemless zone, this is fine, its in the same "Regional Zone", it'd still be inbetween.

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I guess I would be fine with this, I just don't want to lose the big expansive zones. I'm not going to hop on the bandwagon of smaller zones just yet because we only have 5 zones at the moment and only 3 with content. When they open up more areas I think we'll see more various environments.

I wanna see this so many mmos which do seemless with the same quality as ff14...

WoW? Never used copy+paste? Hm odd those mountains at Crossroads look awfully equal...maybe i had too much time too look at them so i actually noticed. Did you never noticed those Bloodelf trees looking awfully similar? No? Maybe you should take a closer look...Good Job in tweaking it tho you have to realy look at them to notice.
Useing that as argument why ff14 should be able to have seamlessness and tons of varity...either theres someone talking who has as much of a clue about it all as i have of cutting hair (ye i know how it should look like in the end...doesnt mean i have a clue on the how to!) or is trolling.. ;-)

Aion? They used alot of tricks especially regarding painting plain objects a way which made them look as if they had depth includeing them not even haveing a shadow and instead just darken a part of the texture where the shadow of said object "should" be. Nicely done tho.

AoC...im not sure if i want to comment on that since even a hardcore endgame PC wasnt able to handle highest graphics when it came out. Ye, great Job, totaly need that in an mmo, good graphics which im forced to look at longer then i want cos i can barely moove (lag ftw..).

Rift, havent played it but Trailers already show the use of some noticable low poly models and i guess they polished the Screenshots and Trailers like any other mmo. So again Graphicquality is far away from ff14.

There is no mmo of equal graphic quality out there at the moment, maybe i missed it tho?

I smell alot of trolling. :P
Since i doubt so many highly skilled game developers with memory managment experience just happen to post in this thread...

Its fine as it is now, the addition of more camps will surely add more life to them tho.

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Originally Posted by Sonic_the_Hedgehog

I guess I would be fine with this, I just don't want to lose the big expansive zones. I'm not going to hop on the bandwagon of smaller zones just yet because we only have 5 zones at the moment and only 3 with content. When they open up more areas I think we'll see more various environments.

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Yeah I guess, but sadly if they stick to big zones like they have now, there will be very little variety. The camps wont change a lot, they're just like the camps we have now and the subsection villeges. it doesnt ruin the extreme copy/paste dulness that XIV is. That will stick so long as big zones stay.

voted for #2 even though both would be possible, but i guess (not sure) that would mean to change so much about the current engine that this game won't be half ready within the next 2 years.
Decreasing the zone size for the sake of variety would perhaps work better. Still even then the engine needs a lot of tweaking
and additional features to match the "HD-NEXT-GEN" thought. (especially lighting and things like how water looks)
I would appreciate both ofc.

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Originally Posted by viion

Yeah I guess, but sadly if they stick to big zones like they have now, there will be very little variety. The camps wont change a lot, they're just like the camps we have now and the subsection villeges. it doesnt ruin the extreme copy/paste dulness that XIV is. That will stick so long as big zones stay.

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if they stick to the bigger zones they still can do a lot to change the dullness by just changing sizes, directions etc. from stones, vegetations, and also colours, ... other games with seemless worlds do that as well because they cant load huge amounts of textures as well, but they know how to modify them skillfully to reach a goal of a seemless and NOT boring world.

I think that is possible. and the tweaks could be made with the existing zones as well.

And i would welcome "fading in/out" for vegetation instead of how they handle it atm. If feels very cheap to me.
They do this for everything, be it "good => bad textures in the distance" or shadows, vegetation. Bad design decision imo.

The fact that we have no real shadows from objekts, stones, HUGE mountains, trees etc. also adds to the dullness a lot. Imo that is a very big issue. You cant feel part of a world that lacks the very obvious things like shadows/lighting

I don't see why we can't have seamless worlds with variety. I like that I don't have to load all the time, and I think it can be done. Hopefully with the outposts and other things they are adding to the map we will get that variety.

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Originally Posted by viion

You should Lookup on youtube about a game called FUEL.

it currently has the biggest world in a game, (even over MMORPGS). It even got in the guiness book of records. Anyway to a short story, they developed a very nice system that creates the land on the fly, it'll be the same but its not stored in files as a mesh but instead as a string of data, a morph file. Andas you travel a long it generates the land. This makes it seemless and its extremely unrepeated. Its so good at what it does, that if they made the map per mesh in traditional ways it would be over 300GB. A little to big for an xbox/ps3/pc game haha.

This type of technology would be good in an mmorpg.

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As long as said Technology isn't on a console MMORPG as consoles can't generate a unique world endlessly for MMOs, there will be a limit and even repeats unless the console suddenly has unlimited memory since to most people, they won't notice it, but to people always trying to find faults, they'll notice the design technique eventually.

Remember, a lot of XIV's issues comes with needing to being made for the console as well, and they can't make both versions so different there's incentives to play on one platform over the other, it's literally designed with the PS3's limits in mind (even the MMOs on the PS3 currently has issues in one area or the other.) So tanaka was correct about the memory management being why they used c/p more than other MMOs.

i think the point of the thread, is not so much should they do both, its basically which is more important if you have to choose.


Large zones that are seamless but repetive

smaller zones that arent seamless and not repetive

He is going with the premise, formerly given, that the only reason zones arent more varied is due to seamlessness, whether this is the case isnt so important. He is just trying to guage which is more important to the player.

The Devs can take this info how they want it, but if they realize that variety is important, and they can actually make it seamless, then they will.

Its basically you have to choose. Seemless or variety, which is more important.

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Originally Posted by Delmontyb

I don't see why we can't have seamless worlds with variety. I like that I don't have to load all the time, and I think it can be done. Hopefully with the outposts and other things they are adding to the map we will get that variety.

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Absolutely agreed. If i'm forced to pick from your two options in the OP of course I would pick the zones with greater variety, but I firmly believe we could still have a mixture of both, which is what I would personally want and vote for.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

As long as said Technology isn't on a console MMORPG as consoles can't generate a unique world endlessly for MMOs, there will be a limit and even repeats unless the console suddenly has unlimited memory since to most people, they won't notice it, but to people always trying to find faults, they'll notice the design technique eventually.

Remember, a lot of XIV's issues comes with needing to being made for the console as well, and they can't make both versions so different there's incentives to play on one platform over the other, it's literally designed with the PS3's limits in mind (even the MMOs on the PS3 currently has issues in one area or the other.) So tanaka was correct about the memory management being why they used c/p more than other MMOs.

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Hmm I dont get your post too much, did you look into FUEL? The game is on all platforms.

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Originally Posted by viion

Hmm I dont get your post too much, did you look into FUEL? The game is on all platforms.

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"FUEL" isn't an MMORPG, it's also a different genre if it's the racing/exploring hybrid game I'm thinking of.

World variety comes first. If they don't have the capabilities of making the world both rich and seamless then just make it rich.

PS3 has already created giant seamless worlds.. Red Dead Redemption is a prime example.

Of course, there is much more that goes into MMO processing than just the terrain and textures, but it is possible.

My guess is that the rather dull and limited terrain textures are there to keep memory open for the vast amount of gear and weapon textures that the game will eventually have.

Still...

Stop posting about re-doing MAPS and stuff. You have no idea of what you are asking from a developper's point of view. Might as well redo the game from scratch. The game was designed this way and it will stay this way in the future too. They won't add smaller zones with zoning in the future as well. They will still follow the same pattern as they are now but try to make it more seamless due to all the complains.

That being said you won't see this till after the first expansion of the game so instead try talking about stuff that they are working on right now.

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Originally Posted by Onidemon

Stop posting about re-doing MAPS and stuff. You have no idea of what you are asking from a developper's point of view. Might as well redo the game from scratch. The game was designed this way and it will stay this way in the future too. They won't add smaller zones with zoning in the future as well. They will still follow the same pattern as they are now but try to make it more seamless due to all the complains.

That being said you won't see this till after the first expansion of the game so instead try talking about stuff that they are working on right now.

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YES, THEY MIGHT AS WELL REDO THE GAME FROM SCRATCH. Maybe then they'd actually make a profit somehow.

I'm kind of torn on this. For an MMORPG, loading screens for go a long ways towards killing immersion. On the other hand, so does the complete and utter lack of variety.

However, I just want them to change it somehow. They didn't even get the seamless part right - every zone funnels you through these tiny little tunnels that stretch for half a mile to hide the zone boundaries. That's not seamless, that's patchwork.

Seamless worlds with huge variety can be done: WoW, Lineage2, and LotRO all have wonderful, open worlds. Yet, for some reason all of the newer MMOs can't seem to manage it.

Given the choice between not-really-seemless and variety, I guess I'll pick variety.

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Originally Posted by Onidemon

Stop posting about re-doing MAPS and stuff. You have no idea of what you are asking from a developper's point of view. Might as well redo the game from scratch. The game was designed this way and it will stay this way in the future too. They won't add smaller zones with zoning in the future as well. They will still follow the same pattern as they are now but try to make it more seamless due to all the complains.

That being said you won't see this till after the first expansion of the game so instead try talking about stuff that they are working on right now.

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seeing that almost everyone hates the current way the maps/leveldesign is i don't think that we won't see any changes. Since if so the game will not really get a good ps3 start either. Boring lvl design is a core problem and has to be resolved.

If not the review will be like :

After the incredibly bad launch ffxiv had in september 2010 it got fixed and worked on for over a year.
The results are not very convincing. Everythign is sill copy pasted. The ui definitely got a bit better, even though its still slow and though pretty disappointing. All that really had been added are some incredibly flat side stories and 2 dungeons.
The leves are still flat and boring and extremely repetitive.
The good thing though is, most people dont need to bother with the game anways since unless they play it on ps3, its not enjoable on an affordable PC the way it currently is

rating 6/10

I prefer variety and i don't care how they do it. That's their problem.

The zones are so bare atm, but if they keep adding more things like hamlets, quest hubs, or any kind of landmarks then the world will start to seem less Copy/Paste. There are long stretches of terrain though, so this would require alot of additions. Don't really see it happening.

At any rate, it's not something i'm going to worry about. But i hope SE doesn't forget about it either.

Perhaps a good solution would be to break the main maps into 3rds with new texture maps and some terrain variety in each area...

Even if there is some copypasta in the new maps, it would be enough variety in the overall landscape that people wouldn't care too much.

There was quite a bit of that in FFXI as well. I recall encountering the exact same topology in certain sections of many different caves across Vana'diel, but the variety of textures kept most people from noticing it.

A handful of new "tiles" (including a few more unique ones) and some variations on textures might be enough to fix this issue. I especially like the idea of the Black Shroud having slightly more coniferous forests in the north and a bit more tropical in the south...

Also, part of this is looking to the future as well. Even if they don't change anything with the current zones, at least they will know what the players prefer when making new ones.

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Originally Posted by Anty

seeing that almost everyone hates the current way the maps/leveldesign is i don't think that we won't see any changes. Since if so the game will not really get a good ps3 start either. Boring lvl design is a core problem and has to be resolved.

If not the review will be like :

After the incredibly bad launch ffxiv had in september 2010 it got fixed and worked on for over a year.
The results are not very convincing. Everythign is sill copy pasted. The ui definitely got a bit better, even though its still slow and though pretty disappointing. All that really had been added are some incredibly flat side stories and 2 dungeons.
The leves are still flat and boring and extremely repetitive.
The good thing though is, most people dont need to bother with the game anways since unless they play it on ps3, its not enjoable on an affordable PC the way it currently is

rating 6/10

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Yes we will see changes but not what you guys are asking for. You guys ask to redesign the whole game and use FFXI's design pattern instead and this my friend will never happen. It is ridiculous to think they might even think of doing that. All they will do is tweaks here and there to put a little bit of variety. They won't scrap all zones, design smaller ones from scratch and make them you zone everytime you change areas.

Once they add good content you won't have time to notice to copy/pasting. The new camps/quest hubs are Yoshi-P's answer to all the copy/past complains. This is the type of stuff you will see and new zones will be more carefully designed.

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Originally Posted by Onidemon

Yes we will see changes but not what you guys are asking for. You guys ask to redesign the whole game and use FFXI's design pattern instead and this my friend will never happen. It is ridiculous to think they might even think of doing that. All they will do is tweaks here and there to put a little bit of variety. They won't scrap all zones, design smaller ones from scratch and make them you zone everytime you change areas.

Once they add good content you won't have time to notice to copy/pasting. The new camps/quest hubs are Yoshi-P's answer to all the copy/past complains. This is the type of stuff you will see and new zones will be more carefully designed.

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well... i dunno why you know what i think but i never said they would redo it all from scratch.
Changes on the current environment, sometimes bigger changes would work, im pretty sure.
And a dungeon and even 20 dungeons won't change anything. As long as there are these huge distances with boring level design it will always be an issue. I would go change that rather sooner then later, since the gameworld is a very important immersion factor.

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Originally Posted by Onidemon

Stop posting about re-doing MAPS and stuff. You have no idea of what you are asking from a developper's point of view. Might as well redo the game from scratch. The game was designed this way and it will stay this way in the future too. They won't add smaller zones with zoning in the future as well. They will still follow the same pattern as they are now but try to make it more seamless due to all the complains.

That being said you won't see this till after the first expansion of the game so instead try talking about stuff that they are working on right now.

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Arent they redoing the Black Shroud? Either way, they dont have to redo the entire zone layout for places like La Noscea and Thanalan, but just add structures and other things such as the encampments to the landscape. Once this new battle system foundation gets implemented, i'd hope they would be able to move forward faster than what they've been doing now.