Open up the world, please! Part I

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Originally Posted by Averax

While it would be nicer, the game would also be much harder to run like that. The game can run on lower end PCs just fine and they can because they only have to render one zone at a time, not an entire continent.

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That's not the way it works, though. as you move through a transition zone, the game unloads the zone behind you, and loads the zone in front of you. So, the game is still just loading one zone at a time.

All the coding was broken from the start, and the game was using the crystal tools engine which was not designed for open world environments. Using their new engine and tools, the game wouldn't suffer the way 1.0 did. By the way, that's a great youtube series!

I get where people are coming from but for me the seams actually lend some immersion to the world.

When I'm playing something like WoW and I walk from say Ironforge to Menethil Harbor, I literally walk the whole way. I see every inch of the journey from doorstep to doorstep. However the two places are really not so far away. It's seriously like a 10 minute walk, that is the entire journey. I saw the entire thing with no interruptions.

If I'm going from Ul'Dah to Gridania I pass through several loading gates between zones. There's space "Missing" on the way. That 10 minute walk is no longer the entire journey and instead it's just the interesting bits. It leaves my brain some place to allow for some abstracted distance. I can imagine a carriage leaving Ul'Dah and having to stop to camp overnight on the way to camp drybone. I can't imagine anyone even stopping for lunch between Darkshire and Stormwind.

In both these games space is highly compressed. "Big Cities" are scarcely a football field across, and there are enough houses for all of a dozen people. However this smallness is less obviously pronounced with they're more loosely sitched together.

In this way I kind of find the loading screens more immersive, if only because they give me just a touch more room to ignore the silly, video-gamey scale of the video game.

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Originally Posted by Galka_Rock

All the coding was broken from the start, and the game was using the crystal tools engine which was not designed for open world environments. Using their new engine and tools, the game wouldn't suffer the way 1.0 did. By the way, that's a great youtube series!

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You mean this one?

Which, by the way, is worth sitting through in it's entirety.

There would be a higher mem requirement. The way these transitions work is by using 2 sets of volumes, each one loading different sets of data. The world you transitioned from isnt completely dumped. This is why it couldnt be done on the ps3, it just didnt have the mem required. Also btw, transitions wouldnt be toggled, this would be a fundamental change that would require input from every dept. Someone like Yoshi P would need to sell the idea to higher ups, and im not sure they would give it the stamp of approval as it wouldn't necessarily create more retention. However, i do have faith that this is being worked on, just a gut feeling.

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Originally Posted by Naunet

What's your point? My post had no confusion about what SE might have to do to improve their zones - only my opinion on what I prefer and examples of games that managed zones differently. GW2 is a perfect example of exploiting the benefits of instanced zones to its fullest. You can walk around the entirety of Divinity's Reach, for example, up and down alleys, through markets, winding in and around multi-leveled neighborhoods and parks - and go inside a huge chunk of the buildings. Compare that to a city like Ul'dah or even our more recent Kugane and it's obvious how restricted things are.

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The major problem in all MMORPG's is that you can not place 500 people inside the space of a gymnasium. There are certain aspects of computer games in general that you just can't replicate a real-world equivalent because few games actually let their NPC's have a schedule. Off the top of my head The Ultima games, Elder Scrolls, and Fallout games do this. Thus everyone knows that NPC is located at a specific location, and they will be crowded around it. You can do some lazy-instancing in this way by making the door way into the building for which the NPC is located so that only 16 people are ever in the building, but that starts to break immersion when your friends go "Hey I'm by Rowena" and they go "I'm also by Rowena, where the hell are you?" And they're both standing in the same spot in different instances.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

Why are long tunnels our only option? That's how they chose to do it in 1.0, but it's possible to have an open world without weird transitions like that.

Most recent open world game I've played is Archeage, and it's so refreshing when you go exploring the world. It's a beautiful world, and the zones blend together seamlessly. "Open world" is not synonymous with bad zone transitions/tunnels - SE just chose to implement it poorly.

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Archeage has seams, but they're not very obvious except from the air ships. When you cross a zone boundary you actually see a huge chunk of draw distance change. Trust me, you do notice where the seams are, as the PvP/PvE mode changes immediately when you cross them. The only places that feel completely seamless in that game are when you go out to sea on a ship other than the rowboat.

"Loading tunnels" are just a visual trick in V1.0 so that when they did the console version that it was visually seamless. However look at Nier:Automata and notice it is also seamless, and much newer. No draw distance artifacts at all. But a single player game doesn't need to reserve memory bandwidth on the video card for drawing 250 different players in the field of view, so you only ever see "loading time" in that game when you die and have to reload.

But here's the thing. It actually DOES have loading tunnels. They're just not FFXIV V1.0 style. Nier puts a tunnel between the city area and the desert, the desert and the place where you fight one boss, a tunnel between the flooded city and the city (the sewers), a tunnel between the carnival and the city (also sewers), and between the city and the commercial district/castle area. In fact the reason it's laid out this way is because the city changes.

The mistake V1.0 made was making the loading tunnels empty. Had there been actual things in them, like the Chocobo porter and a repair NPC at the junction point, people would have not drawn attention to it.

V2.0's mistake was splitting up the home areas. This was a mistake, and I hope they consider consolidating Ul'dah, Gridania, Limsa Lominsa and even Ishgard so that they are seamless up to their exits. I don't think it would be truely necessary to make them seamless with their surrounding areas, owing mainly to how Uldah's layout was kinda ridiculous to hide the loading time where as Gridania, Ishgard, even Idyllshire have these really long sets of bridges into them.

what was the memory of PS3 again? lol

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

The major problem in all MMORPG's is that you can not place 500 people inside the space of a gymnasium. There are certain aspects of computer games in general that you just can't replicate a real-world equivalent because few games actually let their NPC's have a schedule. Off the top of my head The Ultima games, Elder Scrolls, and Fallout games do this. Thus everyone knows that NPC is located at a specific location, and they will be crowded around it. You can do some lazy-instancing in this way by making the door way into the building for which the NPC is located so that only 16 people are ever in the building, but that starts to break immersion when your friends go "Hey I'm by Rowena" and they go "I'm also by Rowena, where the hell are you?" And they're both standing in the same spot in different instances.

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I'm still not sure why you're lecturing me. I'm literally talking about something that plenty of other MMOs do just fine.

It sounds like the people asking for this don't know how game development works. The world in 1.0 was big and empty and repetitive. It had to be in order for it to be that big. Because there can only be so much stuff loaded into memory at one time they have to repeat things a lot, like grass texture and dirt texture and rock texture can all be vertex painted onto the surfaces and blended in any way they want so it looks different then another part of the area but it is only 3 textures. The same is true for every single thing you see in a zone if you look hard enough you will find a tree or 5 with the exact same geometry, it's just rotated and placed in ways that you don't notice it.

In 1.0 the world was exactly the same but because it was so big there was the same amount of stuff loaded into memory but spread out over a much bigger area and it was a lot more noticeable that things were repeated and empty. When a map is smaller you have much less space to fill with the repeated textures and geometry so you can have more set piece geometry and textures (things that stand out and don't need to be repeated). This hasn't changed from 1.0 - 2.0 and till now. There's still a memory limit and no matter what making the maps bigger will make the repeated assets be much more noticeable. Even in the sea of clouds and other areas it's more noticeable that the textures are repeated on every tree and the ground when you fly high enough.

If you didn't know when 2.0 was being developed, they ditched the big empty zones in favor of smaller more interesting zones. The community agreed and so did I. Now you may be thinking that this has nothing to do with loading screens being seamless but it is the entire reason they are not seamless currently and they won't be unless they completely remake all the maps. If they remove a zone then the game has to load all the memory of things on both sides of that zone and that's usually not possible because there are new textures and models that exist in one zone and not the other.

This will be a problem either way, unless they raise the minimum memory limit to favor only higher end pc users will they be able to add more models and textures but they won't do that because that will limit the playerbase more. But even if they did there will always be a memory limit and they still need to choose if they are gonna have big repeated areas or small set piece areas. And they already decided that along time ago.

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Originally Posted by IveraIvalice

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... Literally look at any of the other MMOs mentioned in this thread to realize it is not impossible to have large, detailed zones. If you keep with instancing, then they can be even more detailed.

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Originally Posted by IveraIvalice

It sounds like the people asking for this don't know how game development works.

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Game dev here. What you are talking about is modularity, and it does still exist in 2.0, obviously. But what you are pointing out is true. The transitions would require a lot of work. It wouldn't be as simple as tacking on a tunnel and calling it a day. It would need to look natural (as you pointed out, the textures vary quite a bit from zone to zone.) The programming and the QA attached to this would be pretty huge. If players find a way to pass through these volumes more quickly than intended, it can cause serious issues. Also like you pointed out, the min requirements for the game would need to be adjusted a bit. The zones could be kept as is though, they wouldn't need to be remade or anything. This is very possible for the team to do, but there would probably need to be demand for it, otherwise it would be hard to justify the cost.

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Originally Posted by Aphex

but there would probably need to be demand for it, otherwise it would be hard to justify the cost.

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i have zero interest in this.

No thanks. Otherwise you get completly unnatural rectangle maps where you go from a desert area to a cold tundra after going through a little tunnel.
Yes, I'm talking about GW2, as it was used as an example in this thread.

Besides, nobody would take the time to walk or fly. Everyone would still use fast travel anyway.

And finally, it's probably technically impossible at this point. So I'd rather have meaningful content than them going submarine-mode during two years to then say "hey, look, you can go from southern Thanalan to center simply by walking!!11!1! How awesome is that!1!11!!! You know, the maps where you have seen for five years now and that you have no incentive in going back!!1!"

Again, no thanks.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

Archeage has seams, but they're not very obvious except from the air ships. When you cross a zone boundary you actually see a huge chunk of draw distance change. Trust me, you do notice where the seams are, as the PvP/PvE mode changes immediately when you cross them. The only places that feel completely seamless in that game are when you go out to sea on a ship other than the rowboat.
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You are correct - AA of course has seams, but you rarely ever notice it while roaming around. The only time I personally ever notice a seam is when I'm boating, and now and then there will be a tiny blip/weird graphics - although this could also have to do with their servers as AA has definitely had it's own set of issues in the past. lol.

But anyway, I would in a heartbeat take an open world like AA or similar. Sadly, I doubt we'll ever see that in this game as it would be a complete overhaul of the game. As it is, SE claims they can't implement x,y,z due to server stress/loads/etc, I'd be worried about the amount of stress an open world would create*

*this is my assumption as I really don't quite understand servers/loads/all that jazz. I also think SE uses that excuse too frequently, but what are we gonna do :P

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Originally Posted by Aphex

This is very possible for the team to do, but there would probably need to be demand for it, otherwise it would be hard to justify the cost.

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It is definitely possible but it would mean adding some sort of tunnel to transition between the areas using different art assets. Though tunneling is mentioned in the his discussion a lot it only refers to limiting what the player can see and for how long so it can dump memory and load new memory for the other area. It's not always a tunnel or straight path, it could be a fairly wide space as long as there aren't many textures and models being used in this zone (just stating this part for others, I know you know this).

But since they have increased mount speed and flying is much faster, it makes it harder to transition between maps seamlessly. Basically meaning they wouldn't have been able to increase mount speed if there was seamless transitioning because then you could get through the loading zone faster. And I don't know how flying would work with that since you can't limit what they see unless they literally make a tunnel that leads to the other area

I think at some point they say they may want to make flying possible in 1.0 areas but they aren't really designed for that. If they did do that they would probably make the maps a bit larger like how the 3.0+ maps have been but I can't see them moving away from the isolated maps we have now only because they decided they would be that way when they were creating the game based on player feedback on 1.0

Most of my game dev knowledge is on the artist side rather then the programming side so if there are more technical tricks then that, I might not know of it. I know mostly about the limit on art assets based on memory limits on the system it's running on, and how the assets are used through out the map to hide how much is being reused depending on how big the map is.

I can see them removing zones in cities possibly but not between open world zones unless they did a lot more work that wouldn't really benefit the game much. So most likely they wouldn't do this unless it was a more drastic change like revamping the areas to be designed around flying and swimming because then they would already be in there changing the map

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Originally Posted by IveraIvalice

It is definitely possible but it would mean adding some sort of tunnel to transition between the areas using different art assets...

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I can definitely tell that you know what you are talking about. It seems like we are both on the same page. I guess, without considering the possible limitations, I really like the idea of FFXIV being open world. If they did this and it wasn't part of an expansion and it didn't affect the required specs, would you prefer it?

Also, I notice a lot of people knock 1.x, but haven't even played it. I did play 1.x from launch until Dalamud was revealed to not be the moon from Majoras Mask. Truthfully, despite its short comings, there was some legitimately cool stuff in 1.x. People like to jump on the "1.0 sux" bandwagon without looking at the systems that did actually work and were pretty cool. IF an open world design were re-introduced to FFXIV, I would also like to see open world dungeons make their return as well.

But since they have increased mount speed and flying is much faster, it makes it harder to transition between maps seamlessly. Basically meaning they wouldn't have been able to increase mount speed if there was seamless transitioning because then you could get through the loading zone faster. And I don't know how flying would work with that since you can't limit what they see unless they literally make a tunnel that leads to the other area
the map[/QUOTE]

I don't think it would be too problematic, though. Because, they one, can prevent flying and fast running in transition areas, and two, most systems only take a few seconds to load anyway.

While completely feasible from a technical standpoint, I don't trust SE to be able to integrate it properly. They have consistently shown a rank incompetence when it comes to technical matters.

Also, I don't believe it would serve to make the world feel more connected, speaking personally. FFXIV 1.0 also benefited from the fact that teleporting wasn't a trivial task; it cost Anima rather than Gil, and prior to Hamlet Defense, it recovered at a rate of 6 / day. Considering an individual teleport could cost that much, people often made an elective choice to run through the world rather than teleport to a location.

FFXIV 2.0 eliminated all that, and it would render a connected world somewhat pointless. The convenience of travel is what really killed the feel of a seamless and integrated world. FFXI, for instance, felt very much connected to me, despite having zone lines; the reason was because travel was more difficult, and required a more intimate knowledge of individual zones than what we have now.

All this to say, I neither trust SE to be able to competently pull it off, nor do I think it would improve the feel of FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Aphex

I really like the idea of FFXIV being open world. If they did this and it wasn't part of an expansion and it didn't affect the required specs, would you prefer it?

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I'm open to either way I actually have no preference, I just greatly prefer an interesting less repeated looking map so as long as they keep the maps looking unique as much as possible then I do like a more open world seamless transition.

It was the same for me with 1.0, I played from early beta until dalamud fell and I really liked the game even when a lot of people left. The open world dungeons were definitely something I remembered well along with notorious monsters that would drop a rare piece of gear most times. Early on there were a lot of technical issues and there wasn't a lot to do but I still liked it a lot and as the updates started rolling out and a lot of good systems came out I could see how much better the game was getting.

I liked seeing how they really listened to the players feedback when remaking the game. Specifically the few polls that they had that showed everyone's interest in the overall design direction. i think it was mostly through that poll that everyone decided they wanted smaller interesting areas because the current areas were too big and empty. Overall I like the direction they went with 2.0 but if they did go a bit in the other direction to make open world more seamless and have open world dungeons and bring back things like that (I forgot what it was called when camps would get attacked randomly) then that would be cool too.

Basically if they keep areas just as unique then I'm all for a more open world but if the areas take a step back to make it possible then I'd rather them be left as is

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Originally Posted by Galka_Rock

I don't think it would be too problematic, though. Because, they one, can prevent flying and fast running in transition areas, and two, most systems only take a few seconds to load anyway.

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Since a transition area is just a connecting area between 2 major zones, there isn't anything stoping the player from flying high up in one zone to the point that they could look into the other zone over the transition zone. That would mean the other zone's assets have to be loaded in already while being in the first zone which isn't possible if they are making full use of the memory for each zone which they of course would be.
The only way to prevent seeing over the transition zone would be to make a very tall transition zone that maybe zig zags so you can't see from one end to the other while flying. Like a canyon pass between two tall mountains or something, but that would need to be similar in every area that you can fly in.

The second thing is dependant on each persons hardware so it could load very fast for you but people on older hardware would take along time and they need to make that zone long enough for someone on their minimum required specs to be able to run through seamlessly. Otherwise the would need to raise the minimum required specs and that could make some people not able to play well anymore. In general any company wants as many people as possible to be able to play their game because that's more possible players and money so they would try to avoid doing that unless the pros of limiting players on older hardware outweigh the cons (like the PS3).

They probably wouldn't need to raise the minimum required specs though, they just need to adjust the length of the transition zone but that would absolutely mean they couldn't increase mount speed later like they recently did. They could do what you mentioned and make them slow down when going through it but I imagine people wouldn't like that and complain about that a lot since not everyone knows how that all works and if they did then it would kinda break the illusion and be obvious to them every time they run through.

There's lots of pros and cons and possible solutions but it's all about if the end result is worth changing something they have working already. Not to mention, I've mostly been talking about the map limits to this, there would definitely be more work needed on the back end system stuff to make this work also, stuff I wouldn't really know about.
Man I type too much, I gotta work on shortening these

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Originally Posted by Fyce

No thanks. Otherwise you get completly unnatural rectangle maps where you go from a desert area to a cold tundra after going through a little tunnel.
Yes, I'm talking about GW2, as it was used as an example in this thread.

Besides, nobody would take the time to walk or fly. Everyone would still use fast travel anyway.

And finally, it's probably technically impossible at this point. So I'd rather have meaningful content than them going submarine-mode during two years to then say "hey, look, you can go from southern Thanalan to center simply by walking!!11!1! How awesome is that!1!11!!! You know, the maps where you have seen for five years now and that you have no incentive in going back!!1!"

Again, no thanks.

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Well, except the stories and quests actually do keep bringing us back to old zones.

And that's why there would have to be restrictions.Like you can't fly past this point. Something already in place.
Also, the connecting areas are tunnels, anyway. Even in newer maps.

[QUOTE=IveraIvalice;4293426]Since a transition area is just a connecting area between 2 major zones, there isn't anything stoping the player from flying high up in one zone to the point that they could look into the other zone over the transition zone. That would mean the other zone's assets have to be loaded in already while being in the first zone which isn't possible if they are making full use of the memory for each zone which they of course would be.

And that's why there would have to be restrictions.Like you can't fly past x point. Something already in place. Also, for older syastems, perhaps they could have a "Turn seamless off" function.

Also, the connecting areas are tunnels, anyway. Even in newer maps.

You cant turn off seamless transitions. It is a fundamental change. It seems like opinions are pretty divided on this.

With the way how zones are set up to it's own thing I doubt they'd do this. Some zones already get congested and start lagging if they were to make it open world they'd have to pretty much redo the game which is something I don't see happening.

What I would like to be seen are the zones being expanded on. For example the areas between the zones (ie the zones between east shroud and south shroud http://i.imgur.com/jbn1iKQ.jpg the white zone). If they were to redo everything to be able to make it an open world then we'd probably lose out on an expansion.

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Originally Posted by Kaelah

The reason 1.0s maps were so copy pasted were because the world was seamless. It's just too much to load with the maps we have now, you'd still have a loading screen, it would just have to be implimented so it could be hidden as mentioned above.

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That's not the reason, though. The reason it was so copy pasted was restricted development time and using a poor engine for what they needed.

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Originally Posted by Aphex

You cant turn off seamless transitions. It is a fundamental change. It seems like opinions are pretty divided on this.

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I'd think of it as one of those get to certain point in the map and then the game will ask you if you want to skip past. Like how aethernets work only automatic.

For them to change work on the seamless world would take time and resources that barely have at this time. Yoshi and Dev team decided back when the development of this game they wouldn't do the seamless world for the sake of development and also bring this game to PS3 which was also limited and could barely handle the game. But with that System dead we still have the PS4 and PC. Also, Limitation of this current engine may not allow it. OP you make it seem like its easy to do this. But it isn't it requires time and money for a team of coders, Designer, QA Testers, and other people make sure that maps and areas function correctly SE Mangement isn't going focus money on that. I rather see more focus on new content and fixing the servers issues then reconnecting world.

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Originally Posted by Galka_Rock

I'd think of it as one of those get to certain point in the map and then the game will ask you if you want to skip past. Like how aethernets work only automatic.

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Imagining that made me think of Clippy.

Load screens are probably the one thing I like the least about the game. Probably why I never do POTD because you're queuing up for 15 load screens.

In all honesty, I think that the benefits of the suggestion are relatively minor at best, but the work required to make it happen is huge and would detract from the development and expansion of the rest of the game.