Thread: Why did they changed this from version 1.0 ?

You lost the point of this thread: we are wondering about why the actual, amazing designed, world is not a big single block without loading screen where you can see ppl running on capitals far miles from the gate, live.

Answer: for both client and server performance reasons, and because it's really not a big deal. Also I don't know of an MMO in existence where you can see people from "miles" away. That would put a mega gigantic strain on servers due to the poetential number of players/objects visible from that distance. Every game has loading screens, even 1.0 had loading screens (teleporting anywhere, going to dungeons, boss fights, starting quests or cutscenes...). This isn't a big deal. Shit has to load. making it seamless takes a ton of work to do right and the benefit is very small.

Even in 1.0 you could only see players and monsters within a certain distance.

Most people won't acknowledge that because it is their "strongest" complaint against 1.XX

Most people won't acknowledge that because it IS the strongest complaint against 1.xx. The difference in use of copy paste between ARR and 1.x is night and day.

Every game reuses assets- This is pretty much inescapable in even the most carefully crafted worlds due to optimization and performance reasons. The difference here is in ARR it is done appropriately and it isn't glaringly obvious. Also it's mostly small assets that are reused and not entire swaths of terrain like in 1.0. It's obvious just by looking at the 1.0 maps exactly how they copy-pasted entire zones- The entire map looks like one big grid with entire squares of that grid copied and repeated over and over. Look at a map in ARR and you won't see that all. Yes, certain objects within each zone are reused in different places, but properly and tastefully. What you and the person you are quoting are suggesting to me is that they are guilty of copypasta if they so much as use the same blade of grass or texture in more than one location in the game.

I miss overly large areas, and I don't care if they copy paste the same ridges at different angles on a map that is 10x the size coerthas is now. I was an explorer,

What fun is there in "exploring" an area where every part of it looks exactly the same? There's nothing to see in one part of the area vs another. Areas should be sized appropriately for the scope of the content placed within. I would NOT want to run around an area 10x the size of central coerthas, especially if they had to copypaste the zone 10 times to make it that big. The bigger it is, the less detail there will be due to both technical and time constraints.

I'm not really sure how you could miss "overly" large areas. "overly" implies excssive, too much. If you admit that it's too much then it's a bad thing. People don't generally like bad things.

You're creating a false dichotomy of options here.

No, I'm not. Any development team has a certain limited amount of resources. As you make an area larger it requires exponentially more resources to create and populate with assets and content (Unless you generate it proceedurally (e.g. randomly), but that wouldn't work for a game like this).

So, you'd rather that "75%" of the area drop you to your death or be able to fall into and not get out? That's why there are walls, both visible and invisible. It is much more difficult to create an area with such great detail and have it be 100% walkable. You're basically limited to rolling hills and bland landscapes (See: WoW) and concentrating details in specific locations.

If the devs fielded these questions, they'd most likely be telling you something very similar to what I'm telling you. Maybe if they had 5 years to rebuild the game instead of 2 they could have pulled off what you're demanding. But then we'd still not be playing a game and I doubt they'd have kept 1.0 running for that long.

Originally Posted by Naunet

You're creating a false dichotomy of options here. We do not have to pick between claustrophic, invisible-wall-infested zones with varied terrain and larger zones with copy-pasted terrain. It's entirely possible to have rich environment design without the annoying corridor-style layout and overuse of invisible walls that we have now (and had still in 1.0). They just need to stop blocking off 75% of the zone.

To apply that to the current environments, you'd have to make better use of the Z-axis as well... And personally, I'd be all for that.

While I'm not huge the way GW2 executed it, the ability to jump and climb around on the terrain was probably one of the best moves it made. With few exceptions, if you could see it and you could realistically jump to it, you could reach it.

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. :-(

Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Areas should be sized appropriately for the scope of the content placed within.

This isn't something I really agree with. Well, I do agree with the statement, but not with the intent.
To me the environment itself and the exploration it lends itself to is 'content' just the same as anything else. So in that sense, yes. The area's size should be appropriate to its content.

Really though, I feel they should design the area. Figure out a scale that makes it feel immersive, engaging, and real. Then figure out the ways to best distribute other forms of content throughout.
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, IMO; you had this huge world, but there was a scout or an outpost always within shouting distance and each section of each zone felt like it existed just to provide a place for a dynamic event to occur.

In my mind, some places just need to 'be'. They should be parts of the world that are important simply because they are part of the world. Maybe they have their own stories and personalities, but those things exist independent of us; we're just passerbys and observers. I'd love it if I could just wander a half hour into the wilderness, not as part of a quest and not to reach some location as part of the story, but simply to explore. No mobs every 3 feet and no scouts. Maybe have hidden caches, caves, etc. but don't place them out there as a focus or goal, but simply as things you can stumble upon.

But I dunno. Maybe that's just me. :-/

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.

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.

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.