Poll: Seamless+CopyPaste VS. Zones+Variety

[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.

[Mack]

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

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.

[Seirra_Lanzce]

#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.

[Mack]

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.

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.

[Jennestia]

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.

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.

[RabidSquirrel]

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.

[Sonic_the_Hedgehog]

Bias poll is bias.

[Chrees]

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.

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.

[Teknoman]

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?

[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.