Thread: Why did they changed this from version 1.0 ?

That would be great to have here. There are too many things 'off-to-the-side' that I'd like to get to, but are blocked off. :-(

They're not blocked off to keep you from exploring, they're blocked off because you would either fall to your death or otherwise become trapped. Obviously they preferred it if we didn't have people constantly jumping off cliffs/drowning/etc or splattering themselves all over the platforms in Limsa. In most cases it's good game design because you're not making a location that isn't supposed to be dangerous needlessly dangerous. imagine if every new player was accidentally walking off the bridges in limsa etc.

The main issue seems to be you hate limits of any kind; but limits are sometimes a necessary part of good game design.

Originally Posted by teon

Tell me, didn't you dreamt ff14 was something like this too? Well it's not gonna happen with actual wallmart Pentium 2 servers, for sure

No, actually I dreamt of a game with good gameplay. I could care less if there are some loading screens. Also you can be sure SE is using modern hardware to run their servers. Technical issues are far more often rooted in the software not the hardware. Considering "pentium 2s" haven't been made many years your comment is just a LITTLE over the top.

Originally Posted by Dark-Saviour

While I'm not huge on invisible walls in general, areas like that, it works. The issues I have are, say... The Mist. There's a little area off the beach that looks like it leads to a trail in the woods. It looks like you could possibly jump to it (though it'd be nice if that was a legit trail that you didn't have to go through the hassle for, but I digress). You try to move towards it however? Invisible wall. If they could come up with a way to make it seem less awkward, it still wouldn't be great, but it'd be more palatable. As it is though, you're just running against an invisible forcefield with no feedback and it comes off as sloppy as Hell.

There are SOME locations where there are invisible walls thrown up in places you would instinctively expect to be able to walk, I agree there. But I took issue with the poster above linking a map of the shroud and drawing a big circle around it and saying 75% of the area is "blocked off" when in fact the vast majority of what is blocked off is chasms or other space that is logically inaccessible rather than "oh, we don't want them to go there, screw you!"

I don't expect sheer cliffs and steep mountains to be explorable. I naturally expect those to define the shape of the area. Stuff like the beach you mentioned etc does however feel a little lazy in some cases.

While I don't think the areas we have are 100% perfect in every way, I still feel it was better to get these smaller, well crafted areas compared to 1.0s areas which were giant just for the sake of being giant which also felt empty and lifeless and repetitive. I wouldn't mind a big area as long as it was big for the right reasons.

Originally Posted by Dark-Saviour

While I'm not huge on invisible walls in general, areas like that, it works. The issues I have are, say... The Mist. There's a little area off the beach that looks like it leads to a trail in the woods. It looks like you could possibly jump to it (though it'd be nice if that was a legit trail that you didn't have to go through the hassle for, but I digress). You try to move towards it however? Invisible wall. If they could come up with a way to make it seem less awkward, it still wouldn't be great, but it'd be more palatable. As it is though, you're just running against an invisible forcefield with no feedback and it comes off as sloppy as Hell.

In 1.0 there would be a 1 meter high rock blocking your way ^^

Originally Posted by Saziel

I didn't even play 1.0, but from what I've seen in screenshots and videos, I want those areas. ARR areas are NOT well crafted. They're miserable, boring, lifeless, and bland. There's no sense of adventure. Hop on your chocobo and get to ANYWHERE you want in a zone in 2 minutes or less. That's not an adventure.

I think you mean there 1.0

How many interesting places which stand out from the surroundings do you see in this video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_HXuvcLtRA

And now compare it to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIHpd4meIVs

I honestly hate it when it feels like the world and environment only exist to serve as a container for quest X, event Y, etc. This is one of the major things GW2 did NOT do right,

Please understand, when I say "content", I don't mean "quest X event Y." I mean ALL the "stuff." hidden objects, easter eggs, waterfalls, chasms, etc that are meant to belong in the sort of environment being created. In short, not making an area giant just for the sake of making it giant, but rather making the size of the area make sense for what they're creating. Big areas aren't better just because they're big. They're only better if they take that space and capitalize on it- something they failed miserably at with 1.0's level design. The game had tons of corridors and rooms placed around with no rhyme or reason, often leading to nothing but a bland dead end. Only a handful of interesting locations worth exploring really existed among the copypasta mess. In 1.0 Coerthas, like every 10 feet you'd see the same rock formation. I particularly disliked how there were no actual roads or paths in most of the areas even though there were paths marked on the maps.

Coerthas and The Black Shroud were probably the worst offenders in 1.0. Too much of the same stuff over and over with too few unique locations to break up the monotony.

Alls I know is that if I cross ONE dune in the "great desert" in 2.0, I can already see the edge of the map. Deserts should feel more wide open and desert-like. I admire all the variety in 2.0, but they need to stretch it out some more or something. I don't mind the zones, but I feel there should actually be more of them for everything SE wanted to do. For example, the hunting log. I am supposed to hunt something like a condor or a antelope, or a boar poacher, and the ONLY place in the ENTIRE WORLD MAP is one small camp or one patch of trees in the corner of a zone. Every mob seems to have its own little two foot area it lives. I mean, look at the stropper pit in the black shroud. They're all confined to one little puddle and they don't exist anywhere else.