Poll: Seamless+CopyPaste VS. Zones+Variety

[Chrees]

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.

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.

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?

[viion]

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.

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.

[Dreadnought]

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

[Rentahamster]

Bias poll is bias.

Well, how would you word it, then?

[Sonic_the_Hedgehog]

Well, how would you word it, then?

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.

[viion]

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.

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

[Sonic_the_Hedgehog]

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

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. >_<

[viion]

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. >_<

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.

[Sonic_the_Hedgehog]

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.

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.

[Nevrath]

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.