Zones in smaller chunks.

[Zanfire]

Im not sure if im the only one who feels like the GIANT zones we have now are doing much for anyone. I see a lot of people saying they notic the copy/paste much more and feel like the zones are quite bland and a bit random. I think the major reasons are 2 things:

1) zones are overly large
2) Zones have too few memorable parts to them that stick out. (landmarks)

Im hoping to see future zones do one of 2 things, either cut the size down so we spend less time in one zone with the same look or have a sort of "changing" effect.

By a "changing" effect i mean have the large zones start to change slightly the more you go twords a zone line of a new zone. EX:

take Thanlan: when you head twords the boat part of the west, you start to see patches of grass, small puddles of water, maybe an oasis or 2, or even some palm like trees. Head north twords the Grid zone and you start to see lots of grass patches and trees scattered around (like the ones in the zone) or even a stream. Hopefully that gives you an idea.

I think having either of those things happen will take away a lot of the negativity of the repeated terrain and since we spend quite a lot of time in a few zones (you can get from 1 to cap pretty much using one zone, instead of needing to venture out more to fight stronger things).

I know it might be tough to get done anytime soon...and it might not be possible to do the second option (changing effect) because of how much it might make our PCs explode but i think it would be nice to see sometime later down the line.

Comments?

[Corrderio]

Would be nice for them to divide areas into Centra/Western/Eastern/whatever, however they need to fix the updater first.

No way I want to DL what I'd assume a gig or more for a redone zone when it takes me an hour for a 300MB DL.

[Teknoman]

Would be nice for them to divide areas into Centra/Western/Eastern/whatever, however they need to fix the updater first.

No way I want to DL what I'd assume a gig or more for a redone zone when it takes me an hour for a 300MB DL.

Agreed. Of course there is a way around it (download a few MB via the patcher, finish with normal bittorrent). But yeah, sectioning off the main areas into different smaller regions (possible tie in with the Garlean invasion, having to designate areas due to company regimens or something) could allow for them to add more landmarks, structures, etc. without increasing system load.

Of course, maybe after the engine optimizations are finished, they wont need to do that?