New Areas

[Rokien]

I don't like zones. I like a seamless world.
EXAMPLE TIME: Skyrim, huge game, MOSTLY OPEN except for the big cities. I got a mod that makes it where its open skyrim or whatever, and the diffrence is crazy, sooooo much better, just that little zone going away boosted my immersion over 9000

[Raldo]

I don't like zones. I like a seamless world.
EXAMPLE TIME: Skyrim, huge game, MOSTLY OPEN except for the big cities. I got a mod that makes it where its open skyrim or whatever, and the diffrence is crazy, sooooo much better, just that little zone going away boosted my immersion over 9000

I think we'd all like seamless zones over loading screens and zone lines, but given the choice between the bland boring samey zones we have now, versus separated zones with more individuality, I would choose the latter.

I don't know why we can't have the best of both worlds though, but when the subject first got brought up, it seemed like those two options were our choices.

[Dibria]

I don't like zones. I like a seamless world.
EXAMPLE TIME: Skyrim, huge game, MOSTLY OPEN except for the big cities. I got a mod that makes it where its open skyrim or whatever, and the diffrence is crazy, sooooo much better, just that little zone going away boosted my immersion over 9000

That's a matter of personal perspective, I found Skryrims environment to be rather dull and repetitive; snow, trees, dirt, rocks... meh. Zones make it easier to generate a seemingly large world without endless traveling, I'm not saying open worlds are bad, I like a lot of open world games, but if you have one continuous area from Ul'dah to Gridania you either have to have them so close that the dessert to forest change feels unnatural or make large expanses of empty land to cross to get there.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

That's a matter of personal perspective, I found Skryrims environment to be rather dull and repetitive; snow, trees, dirt, rocks... meh. Zones make it easier to generate a seemingly large world without endless traveling, I'm not saying open worlds are bad, I like a lot of open world games, but if you have one continuous area from Ul'dah to Gridania you either have to have them so close that the dessert to forest change feels unnatural or make large expanses of empty land to cross to get there.

Correct. This is what you get with seamless. If you have a world that is seamless and you want to make it unique you are going to have an asinine file size. What seamless does is take a part of the same land and morphs the terrain to a different shape over and over as you move through it, but it generally all looks the same regardless. Some games do it better than others. Some don't. FFXIV certainly doesn't do a great job with it, but regardless you cannot really have a unique world like a world you'd find in the series and make it seamless.

A final fantasy world is generally too out there and unique in it's art direction to get away with it. Skyrim can due to it's art direction. It is suppose to have a realistic mid-evil feel.

[Elexia]

That's a matter of personal perspective, I found Skryrims environment to be rather dull and repetitive; snow, trees, dirt, rocks... meh.

But..but...PERFECT GAME! GAME OF THE YEAR AFTER A MONTH! SKYRIM IS HOW YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO MAKE AN MMORPG! THE DULL, BLAND, BORING ENVIRONMENTS FIT THE GAMES ATMOSPHERE! etc.

I agree, seamless is fine but it tends to be either overly cartoony or overly bland because given that it has to be seamless...it has to flow well and therefore be low quality in many ways, like Tera's environments are bland, but the bright colors distract you from that fact.

[Riv]

I don't like zones. I like a seamless world.
EXAMPLE TIME: Skyrim, huge game, MOSTLY OPEN except for the big cities. I got a mod that makes it where its open skyrim or whatever, and the diffrence is crazy, sooooo much better, just that little zone going away boosted my immersion over 9000

Skyrim doesn't have to worry about putting anyone but yourself and what is readily available on your hard drive in that world. You really can't compare it to FFXIV.

I really don't mind loading screens, sure there are lots of games without them these days but also lots that still do have them (and excellent games, at that).

[Andros]

I don't like zones. I like a seamless world.
EXAMPLE TIME: Skyrim, huge game, MOSTLY OPEN except for the big cities. I got a mod that makes it where its open skyrim or whatever, and the diffrence is crazy, sooooo much better, just that little zone going away boosted my immersion over 9000

Oh god. Go play skyrim then if you want seemless.
Im happy with what they are gonna do.
Zones yes please.

[Starlord]

Oh god. Go play skyrim then if you want seemless.
Im happy with what they are gonna do.
Zones yes please.

Zones= Better looking zones

Seemless= one big chuck of land.. that looks almost the same