Removal of loading screens

[Larirawiel]

Inventory expansion/addition of glamour log/glamour dresser expansion/Armoire expansion share the same difficulties, so it looks like there are a lot of problems but it's actually only one, and it's a most normal problem : increasing character data isn't an easy task, (every?) other MMO have had the same difficulties.

Hi, it depends. If your data model is properly and consequently normalized and you do not use "naked" SQL statements to retrieve the data then it is not that hard to append additional data to a character. But for performance reasons often the data model ist de-normalized and there are tons of manually written SQL statements that make it difficult to make changes without breaking other parts of the software. The funny thing is, Blizzard did this with WoW classic. The old data model was mostly de-normalized and they had to convert it to a new model that was compatible with the new server- and client software. There is a video from a Blizzcon what they had to do to make it work.


Cheers

[Tint]

This problem still exists today and is especially apperant in Limsa Lominsa, with it's upper decks.

Limsa is the only city wich I would use as a counter argument. The city is so crowded that the split between upper and lower decks makes sense to me.

The other problem is that the newer maps are not designed in a way to fit seamless together.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

1.0 did have loading screens, they were long narrow pathways between zones where you would see players phase out and in.

[Evergrey]

1.0 did have loading screens, they were long narrow pathways between zones where you would see players phase out and in.

This.
I never really played 1.0 but I've listened to explenations about the old loading screens.
They disguised it as narrow pathways that blocked the line of sight of the old and new area and while you ran there the game was loading in the new zone while phasing out of the old one outside of the players field of vision.

[Bright-Flower]

This.
I never really played 1.0 but I've listened to explenations about the old loading screens.
They disguised it as narrow pathways that blocked the line of sight of the old and new area and while you ran there the game was loading in the new zone while phasing out of the old one outside of the players field of vision.

This reminds me of somethign WoW did in a lot of its city entrances. You walk in the gate, and there's a wall you have to run around before you get into the actual city to buy time for things to load.

In Metroid Prime new rooms would load when you shot a door to open it, and you could tell sometimes it was struggling when it'd take several seconds for one to open.

Little disguises like that for load times aren't all that uncommon.

[Larirawiel]

Blizzard don't have to take console into consideration, and it's not like wow is a graphical monster compared to 14, granted 14 has some terrible textures.

They could keep the loading screens on old consoles and remove them on PC or on modern consoles.

This.
They disguised it as narrow pathways that blocked the line of sight of the old and new area and while you ran there the game was loading in the new zone while phasing out of the old one outside of the players field of vision.

A GPU can also discard non-visible objects and skip rendering them as long as front-to-back-rendering is used. That's also the reason for such line-of-sight-optimizations. But this is difficult in MMOs because most of them are open world and there not many opportunities to do so.


Cheers

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

They could keep the loading screens on old consoles and remove them on PC or on modern consoles.

This wouldn't work. Because of console <-> PC crossplay, any changes to the zones and worlds needs to be reflected on both ends since its a persistent world. To give loading screens to Consoles and not PC, they would effectively have to have 3 versions of Limsa and segregate the instance based on what platform you're on:

-'Full Limsa instance', only accessible by PC players
-'Limsa Lominsa Lower Decks', only accesible by console players.
-'Limsa Lominsa upper decks', only accessible by console players.

Which would not only be cumbersome, but also just plain hindering for the game as a whole since it would be effectively one step away from console exclusive servers. If they're going to stitch zones back together, they have to do it for all. But that's besides the point; PS4 is hardly a chokepoint for the game these days. There's still lots of players who play the game on very outdated or lower end hardware that even the PS4 is stronger than. I know plenty of friends who play on PS4 still that outside of hunts don't have issues ever playing the game.

Personally I'd like to see the cities stitched back together. Ul'dah would feel a lot nicer without the main road being cut by a loading screen. Kugane & Crystarium both show how incredibly big they can make the cities these days, a re-combined city shouldn't be an issue technical wise. though it's likely an extremely low priority thing for them since there'd be little playoff from it, dev wise. Especially since the recent loading screen change they did, you can load into zones at like <1s if you have a good SSD.

[Jeeqbit]

Back in the 1.X Version(s) of the game, the world was 1 huge area, without "real" loading screens. In later 1.X versions, the game's major cities were divided into separate areas via loading-screens. This was mainly because of the PS3.

I doubt PS3 is the reason because there is already a render limit and anything beyond that limit doesn't get rendered, even if it's there. Most things only render from a certain distance too.

The problem with everything being one uninterrupted area is that one server program would have to process all of the events and battles. At the moment each area has its own server program and several areas are bunched together onto a single machine. Perhaps you have seen how slow the server gets at a hunt or fate, taking a few seconds to knock you back as it cycles through each person one at a time.

There already are not really loading screens if you use an SSD so it's not a problem, but we have been told there will be a multi-million dollar upgrade of the server equipment sometime after 6.0.

[Larirawiel]

The problem with everything being one uninterrupted area is that one server program would have to process all of the events and battles.

Seriously, Blizzard solved this problem already in 2004. You had loading screens when you made a continent switch or when you entered an instanced area. But those situations were very rare. In FF14, which is younger than WoW vanilla you have loading screens everywhere. And now we have 2021. I cannot understand that it is still in this game.


Cheers

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Seriously, Blizzard solved this problem already in 2004. You had loading screens when you made a continent switch or when you entered an instanced area. But those situations were very rare. In FF14, which is younger than WoW vanilla you have loading screens everywhere. And now we have 2021. I cannot understand that it is still in this game.


Cheers

They'd have to do a lot of terrain and map work to remove them.

Almost none of the maps would line up or have good transitions of they just "got rid of the loading screens". They weren't designed that way.

Wow was. Simple as that.