everytime i see somone complain about immersion it makes me laugh. dude if game is fun play it if not then dont plain and simple. do you ever get up from pc does that break your immersion. if somthing as dumb as 1 or 2 secs loading bothers you that much you should stop playing games cause it's in every damn game. i bet your FE takes forever to load up in the first place. takes me all of 10 secs maby from the time i click play on launcher till im in game playing. i get up alot while playing gotta piss or want somthing to eat or wife or kids need me or i need to go smoke. my question is do you cry when you die or do you have to reroll cause your toon died. and that breaks your immersion WAHHHHAAA i died ohhh noes. maby you should get kinect for windows so you can swing around a sword instead of pressing keys on a keyboard.
It just kind of amusing to me. Because all these so called "seamless" worlds are not seamless at all. They always have a predesignated chokepoint with no mobs for the swap.
They are exactly the same as the load screens. These people don't realize they are essenitally making a terrible tradeoff. Crappy animations and zone details, poor flexibility just to have an animated load screen instead of a load that is a picture with a progress bar.
Its funny that they think they are getting something different when they aren't and get a worse game in the process.
Actually yes. Open world doesn't mean seamless. It means that it is not instanced ie: anyone can join into it and it is persistent. if you want an open world that is seamless, that is most obviously called a seamless open world.
To the OP: I understand what you are saying, but this one issue shouldn't dissuade you from giving GW2 a shot because it does so much right.
I am pretty sure Arenanet saved a huge amount of money in development cost by recycling old tech methods. It would have been nce though to have a real game world instead of zones to play in.
You're looking in the wrong direction. Having zones means that you can make the content within each zone a lot nicer than you could otherwise.
Yes. ^^
AFAIK its a tradeoff between a seamless world and quantity of assets in a given area. If you segment into zones you may be able to have more content or decoration in each. Streaming terrain and other assets works but hd access varies with user's machines. It's not just client side either as there are balancing considerations like the possibility of having 80% of your concurrent players in one area all at the same time.
A lot of us at least play with game development and understand that it 's not always as simple as just not having zones.
Yes, EVE did this but from what I've read they eventually had to throw military grade hardware at the problem to make it work.
You're most certainly entitled to your opinion, of course!
I'm sure there will be aspects of GW2 I don't like, just on balance, from what I've read, I'll have a lot of fun.
If you cut it too short you can always nail a piece on the end.
If you cut it too long then what the hell are you gonna do?
Each to his own I guess. Too many load screens can be annoying, but the occasional one doesn't bother me.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
everytime i see somone complain about immersion it makes me laugh. dude if game is fun play it if not then dont plain and simple. do you ever get up from pc does that break your immersion. if somthing as dumb as 1 or 2 secs loading bothers you that much you should stop playing games cause it's in every damn game. i bet your FE takes forever to load up in the first place. takes me all of 10 secs maby from the time i click play on launcher till im in game playing. i get up alot while playing gotta piss or want somthing to eat or wife or kids need me or i need to go smoke. my question is do you cry when you die or do you have to reroll cause your toon died. and that breaks your immersion WAHHHHAAA i died ohhh noes. maby you should get kinect for windows so you can swing around a sword instead of pressing keys on a keyboard.
It just kind of amusing to me. Because all these so called "seamless" worlds are not seamless at all. They always have a predesignated chokepoint with no mobs for the swap.
They are exactly the same as the load screens. These people don't realize they are essenitally making a terrible tradeoff. Crappy animations and zone details, poor flexibility just to have an animated load screen instead of a load that is a picture with a progress bar.
Its funny that they think they are getting something different when they aren't and get a worse game in the process.
I'm sorry, but you're not going to convince me that I secretly don't enjoy what I claim to enjoy. I have described numerous times exactly what I love about seamless zone transitions in games like WoW. One of my absolute favorite aspects of MMO gaming is simply existing in, exploring, and absorbing the world's environments. Of this, my absolute favorite component is traversing brilliantly executed zone transitions. The walk from sunny Redridge through the groomed, cultivated understory of Elwynn and into the haunting, gloomy forest of Duskwood in WoW comes to mind. The sun fades away through the haze; shadows slowly encroach; the vegetation thickens; spider webs appear in the tree canopy; lanterns begin to line the road to fend off the growing darkness. Then suddenly a lone wolf's piercing howl echoes to complete the mood transition.
These moments are responsible for the my personal greatest sensations of MMO wonder and awe. They define the mood for the upcoming environment and story. You can't tell me I don't enjoy them, or that I would or should enjoy a loading screen just as much.
I’m not nearly as concerned about the loading screens as I am about how this creates a sense of geographical discontinuity between zones. Indeed there are huge gaps in the world map of GW2 that you bypass entirely. For all intents and purposes, those transitional regions of the world map don’t actually exist at all. This immersion breaking feature, as I see it, is further accentuated by the fact that upon entering many inter-zone portals, you are given the option to mysteriously travel to any one of a number of locations (usually 2 or 3). I assume these are other nearby zones that could perhaps connect via the mysterious, nonexistent in-between space that is bypassed on the world map. Either way, I can’t help but feel I am missing out on some of the most potentially beautiful, emotion evoking, geological scenes in the game. When I think back to my favorite MMO environments, the transitions in between zones are far and away the most breathtaking places. I am truly saddened that I won’t get to enjoy similar experiences in GW2.
I can understand if you don't care or find enjoyment in this particular feature of MMOs. Not everyone plays MMOs or any game genre for the same reason. But I would ask you simply acknowledge that many people do care about said feature.
As a final note, when lovers of seamless worlds use the word "seamless," leave semantics at the doormat. It's one of the many MMO-related terms whose definition is still being pieced together and varies among players (joining the likes of themepark and sandbox.) Usually, these players are simply referring to a system just like WoW, where you can travel from zone to zone all over the world without encountering loading screens. It doesn't matter if new zone data is loaded in the background; it doesn't matter if there are loading screens during boat rides airship flights across continents; it doesn't matter if there exists instanced dungeons. For purposes of the discussion, this is exactly what players seeking "seamless" worlds are looking for. That's their definition.
everytime i see somone complain about immersion it makes me laugh. dude if game is fun play it if not then dont plain and simple. do you ever get up from pc does that break your immersion. if somthing as dumb as 1 or 2 secs loading bothers you that much you should stop playing games cause it's in every damn game. i bet your FE takes forever to load up in the first place. takes me all of 10 secs maby from the time i click play on launcher till im in game playing. i get up alot while playing gotta piss or want somthing to eat or wife or kids need me or i need to go smoke. my question is do you cry when you die or do you have to reroll cause your toon died. and that breaks your immersion WAHHHHAAA i died ohhh noes. maby you should get kinect for windows so you can swing around a sword instead of pressing keys on a keyboard.
It just kind of amusing to me. Because all these so called "seamless" worlds are not seamless at all. They always have a predesignated chokepoint with no mobs for the swap.
They are exactly the same as the load screens. These people don't realize they are essenitally making a terrible tradeoff. Crappy animations and zone details, poor flexibility just to have an animated load screen instead of a load that is a picture with a progress bar.
Its funny that they think they are getting something different when they aren't and get a worse game in the process.
I'm sorry, but you're not going to convince me that I secretly don't enjoy what I claim to enjoy. I have described numerous times exactly what I love about seamless zone transitions in games like WoW. One of my absolute favorite aspects of MMO gaming is simply existing in, exploring, and absorbing the world's environments. Of this, my absolute favorite component is traversing brilliantly executed zone transitions. The walk from sunny Redridge through the groomed, cultivated understory of Elwynn and into the haunting, gloomy forest of Duskwood in WoW comes to mind. The sun fades away through the haze; shadows slowly encroach; the vegetation thickens; spider webs appear in the tree canopy; lanterns begin to line the road to fend off the growing darkness. Then suddenly a lone wolf's piercing howl echoes to complete the mood transition.
These moments are responsible for the my personal greatest sensations of MMO wonder and awe. They define the mood for the upcoming environment and story. You can't tell me I don't enjoy them, or that I would or should enjoy a loading screen just as much.
I’m not nearly as concerned about the loading screens as I am about how this creates a sense of geographical discontinuity between zones. Indeed there are huge gaps in the world map that you conveniently bypass entirely. For all intents and purposes, those transitional regions of the world map don’t actually exist at all. This immersion breaking feature, as I see it, is further accentuated by the fact that upon entering many inter-zone portals, you are given the option to mysteriously travel to any one of a number of locations (usually 2 or 3). I assume these are other nearby zones that could perhaps connect via the mysterious, nonexistent in-between space that is bypassed on the world map. Either way, I can’t help but feel I am missing out on some of the most potentially beautiful geological scenes in the game. When I think back to my favorite MMO environments, the transitions in between zones are far and away the most breathtaking places. I am truly saddened that I won’t get to enjoy similar experiences in GW2.
As a final note, when lovers of seamless worlds use the word "seamless," regardless of semantics, they refer to a system just like WoW, where you can travel from zone to zone all over the world without encountering loading screens. It doesn't matter if new zone data is loaded in the background; it doesn't matter if there are loading screens during boat rides airship flights across continents. For purposes of the discussion, this is exactly what players seeking "seamless" worlds are looking for.
You have a way with words...well said. I agree with you.
everytime i see somone complain about immersion it makes me laugh. dude if game is fun play it if not then dont plain and simple. do you ever get up from pc does that break your immersion. if somthing as dumb as 1 or 2 secs loading bothers you that much you should stop playing games cause it's in every damn game. i bet your FE takes forever to load up in the first place. takes me all of 10 secs maby from the time i click play on launcher till im in game playing. i get up alot while playing gotta piss or want somthing to eat or wife or kids need me or i need to go smoke. my question is do you cry when you die or do you have to reroll cause your toon died. and that breaks your immersion WAHHHHAAA i died ohhh noes. maby you should get kinect for windows so you can swing around a sword instead of pressing keys on a keyboard.
It just kind of amusing to me. Because all these so called "seamless" worlds are not seamless at all. They always have a predesignated chokepoint with no mobs for the swap.
They are exactly the same as the load screens. These people don't realize they are essenitally making a terrible tradeoff. Crappy animations and zone details, poor flexibility just to have an animated load screen instead of a load that is a picture with a progress bar.
Its funny that they think they are getting something different when they aren't and get a worse game in the process.
I'm sorry, but you're not going to convince me that I secretly don't enjoy what I claim to enjoy. I have described numerous times exactly what I love about seamless zone transitions in games like WoW. One of my absolute favorite aspects of MMO gaming is simply existing in, exploring, and absorbing the world's environments. Of this, my absolute favorite component is traversing brilliantly executed zone transitions. The walk from sunny Redridge through the groomed, cultivated understory of Elwynn and into the haunting, gloomy forest of Duskwood in WoW comes to mind. The sun fades away through the haze; shadows slowly encroach; the vegetation thickens; spider webs appear in the tree canopy; lanterns begin to line the road to fend off the growing darkness. Then suddenly a lone wolf's piercing howl echoes to complete the mood transition.
These moments are responsible for the my personal greatest sensations of MMO wonder and awe. They define the mood for the upcoming environment and story. You can't tell me I don't enjoy them, or that I would or should enjoy a loading screen just as much.
I’m not nearly as concerned about the loading screens as I am about how this creates a sense of geographical discontinuity between zones. Indeed there are huge gaps in the world map of GW2 that you bypass entirely. For all intents and purposes, those transitional regions of the world map don’t actually exist at all. This immersion breaking feature, as I see it, is further accentuated by the fact that upon entering many inter-zone portals, you are given the option to mysteriously travel to any one of a number of locations (usually 2 or 3). I assume these are other nearby zones that could perhaps connect via the mysterious, nonexistent in-between space that is bypassed on the world map. Either way, I can’t help but feel I am missing out on some of the most potentially beautiful, emotion evoking, geological scenes in the game. When I think back to my favorite MMO environments, the transitions in between zones are far and away the most breathtaking places. I am truly saddened that I won’t get to enjoy similar experiences in GW2.
I can understand if you don't care or find enjoyment in this particular feature of MMOs. Not everyone plays MMOs or any game genre for the same reason. But I would ask you simply acknowledge that many people do care about said feature.
As a final note, when lovers of seamless worlds use the word "seamless," leave semantics at the doormat. It's one of the many MMO-related terms whose definition is still being pieced together and varies among players (joining the likes of themepark and sandbox.) Usually, these players are simply referring to a system just like WoW, where you can travel from zone to zone all over the world without encountering loading screens. It doesn't matter if new zone data is loaded in the background; it doesn't matter if there are loading screens during boat rides airship flights across continents; it doesn't matter if there exists instanced dungeons. For purposes of the discussion, this is exactly what players seeking "seamless" worlds are looking for. That's their definition.
Don't get me wrong. Presentation is important. And whatever makes you happy, is exactly that.
But don't fool yourself into thinking what makes you happy or the presentation of something is related to what is really going on or is anyway really superior in anyway.
Too me the load screen and the empty swap sections/chokepoints or the jump gates EvE uses or whatever they are all the same. To others they do not appear that way.
But that is all it is. Appearance. Don't fool yourself. There is no such thing as seamless worlds in MMOs.
Just some MMOs that fool you via presentation into visualizing things that way. And presentation is important. But its not real. Its fine that its not real. But people seem to be taking the story telling as real technical things. They aren't. There is no spoon.
Chess is seamless. You know why? Because the world is small enough that you can load the whole thing all at once. If you want a bigger world than you can load all at once, then you have to have zones to determine what gets loaded and when. You can make the zones invisible to players by automatically loading the next zone over as a player gets close to the boundary. But then you're doing heavy loading while a player is playing the game, and that runs a serious risk of hitching. Having to have multiple zones loaded simultaneously also takes more memory.
I do think that there will be future movement in the direction of seamless games, even with games as complicated as Guild Wars 2. But the price tag for it will be system requirements that include running the game off of a good SSD and having at least 8 GB of system memory. There isn't yet a big enough market for games to put that in the system requirements.
I also feel there will need to be some improvements to networking throughput. The good old N^2 communication problem as you increase number of characters in a small area.
Networking isn't the problem. There's already too much going on in a given zone to send your computer data about everything that is going on on the other side of the zone.
I was talking about peoples needs to have 5000000 million people in a zone. It happens.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I personally never had an issue with loading screens in any game. I've played a lot of older games where loading screens are commonplace, I'm too used to them. While I appareciate WoW's seamless world, I hardly *need* it. What I'm more worried about is what I can do in the world, how well designed it is, how the mobs are distributed and the combat is done.
As for Fallen Earth, well, that's the ugliest MMO I've seen in recent times...
I do recall SW:TOR bothered me when I wanted to do ship combat, because it was like 3-5 loading screens to get there for some reason.
Are there going to be loading screens? Is it a completely seamless world?
There are loading screens when you travel between waypoints within a zone (this is because the player's computer has to load the environment at once, rather than gradually as the player's character approaches the destination). Between some zones there are portals which will trigger a loading screen like those in Guild Wars. Aside from access to cities and outposts, portals are rare.
Are there still going to be instanced areas?
Yes, some character specific events related to the personal storyline are instanced. Dungeons, the organized team PvE, are also instanced.
Originally posted by Homitu This immersion breaking feature, as I see it, is further accentuated by the fact that upon entering many inter-zone portals, you are given the option to mysteriously travel to any one of a number of locations (usually 2 or 3). I assume these are other nearby zones that could perhaps connect via the mysterious, nonexistent in-between space that is bypassed on the world map.
You already said this before in 'Couple of questions from a former hater', and I already corrected you then, but since you obviously didn't read it, I'll copy paste it here:
Originally posted by Elifia Originally posted by Homitu ... What's more, some of the transition loading screens seem to give the option to travel to one of a number of locations. It seems as if there was a transitory passageway that they decided to forego entirely and just have players teleport past. ...
I've seen a couple of these too, but that was only because of it being Beta. If the zone that a portal would normally lead to wasn't available for the Beta, it would sometimes give you the option to go to a different zone instead.
Palladin did play the beta, he was in the MMORPG guild on Istan along with myself and a few others. If i remember right he got to about level 22 or so.
I don't know why he thinks the loading screens are so bad, maybe he was jumping around the world checking out different zones every ten minutes?
---------------------------
I myself played the human zones only for the most part and went for 100% completion on them, I managed it for Queensdale and was quite close to getting it for Kessex Hills as well.
I maybe went through a loading screen maybe once an hour at most but then again I didn't die often and didn't jump around different zones every ten minutes or jump between my personal story and then a few DE's then some more story.
The zones in the game are fine, they are absolutely huge in comparison to other most other MMO's both in terms of size and content. There is no narrow corridors to run down or anything like that to funnel you into new questing areas and pretty much anything you see in the distance can be walked to/up if you can find a way to do so and indeed you can be rewarded for finding those spots.
The loading screens don't even take that long, I had the game loaded on a normal HDD and the zones themselves took maybe 10 seconds or so to load and jumping between waypoints in the same zone was almost instant as was releasing after dying.
----------------------------
I didn't see Palladin complain about loading screens when playing the game but then I wasn't much watching what zones he was in either other than occasionally checking to see what level people were at.
Honestly though. You can do everything from stick stuff up for auction to leveling your trade skills in the zone you are in and there is generally no need to switch zones for long periods of time. I think the longest i went without switching zone was probably in the region of 3-4 hours. I wouldn't even consider the load screens from jumping around waypoints in the same zone to actually be load screens, yes they are that short.
------------------------------
For those complaining that they want it to be 'seemless' without any zone loading all you need to look at some games that do this..
Look at Darkfall and Xsyon for shining examples of why 'seemless' worlds don't work well for all game types.
Even if you managed to get around all the other issues a seemless world brings there is one issue you cannot overcome and that is that even 'seemless' worlds are broken down into bounderies where your character will transition from one server to another and generally this is where the majority of lag and sync related issues in games like Darkfall originate from. In Darkfall you could tell if people were nearby simply by the fact that the game hitched very slightly for no apparent reason.. it got the point were you could get a sixth sense and it was actually difficult to surprise people in the quieter areas in the game.
Another example would be Xsyon, there were numerous issues relating to the zones set up and there were some really nagging issues where characters would desync and some zones would experience strange issues. There was also an issue with the boundaries between the zones actually showing tears and seams in the terrain itself. Now I don't mean to make the devs of these games seem bad. I totally understand the challenge of making the game 'seemles' and to be honest it's just not possible to implement realistically in some games and I would firmly agree that GW2 is one of those games for numerous reasons. Overflow servers and content density being the two biggest imo.
I like using EVE as a good example of why it's acceptable to still have zones.. the networking behind the systems in EVE is incredibly complex and it enables them to bring down part of the game if it is having issues and barr people from entering until the servers are back up. It's also possible for them to reinforce systems where they are expecting large scale fights or big trade hubs that see a huge amount of traffic compared to other areas.
I expect GW2 will be using similar technology with it's overflow servers and the guesting system and seeing as the engine is based on the one used in GW1 it also stands to reason they will stream assets and content for zones onto your computer as and when it is needed rather than forcing you to download the entire client all at once. If they are clever about this then it also becomes possible to load up changes to the game without having downtime since the revisions can be downloaded the next time players enter the zone. I think this may contribute to why some people are complaining about long zone load times? I'm not sure if those zones were already downloaded or if it streams the content to the client while the load screen is displayed during the beta. I did notice that WoW, and probably some other games, have recently implemented similar technology into their clients to try and smooth the gameplay experience by streaming content as it is needed. I'm not sure if they have the infrastructure to make changes the same way EVE or GW2 does though as something tells me your servers have to be built with this sort of thing in mind and it isn't something you can just tack onto the end as it were. (Which WoW is quite good at doing seeing at it copies mechanics and gameplay from pretty much every decent game that comes out)
---------------------
At the end of the day there are some seriously compelling reasons to remain with zoned content and coming running into this discussion gun blazing commenting that it's completely unnacceptable only shows you have not put any thought into it at all.
You can argue that you would prefer GW2 to not be zoned but you would then need to describe what benefits that brings and what changes could be implemented to the game to accommodate that change without totally breaking everthing. If you don't do that in a constructive way then you might as well just not say anything.
This is one of the reasons I get so annoyed at beta tests these days.. there are thousands of people out there that get invited to beta tests and don't even provide feedback on the game. They just see it as a chance to play around with something earlier than normal and it prevents people who would have provided a lot of feedback from getting the chance to do so. Unfortunetly it's not so easy for devs to tell who is who.
Of this, my absolute favorite component is traversing brilliantly executed zone transitions. The walk from sunny Redridge through the groomed, cultivated understory of Elwynn and into the haunting, gloomy forest of Duskwood in WoW comes to mind. The sun fades away through the haze; shadows slowly encroach; the vegetation thickens; spider webs appear in the tree canopy; lanterns begin to line the road to fend off the growing darkness. Then suddenly a lone wolf's piercing howl echoes to complete the mood transition.
These moments are responsible for the my personal greatest sensations of MMO wonder and awe. They define the mood for the upcoming environment and story. You can't tell me I don't enjoy them, or that I would or should enjoy a loading screen just as much.
I wanted to tackle this comment seperate from my post above as I think you are suffering from a serious case of rose-tinted glasses here.
Pretty much all of the zones in WoW had terrible zone transitions, even after catalcysm. In fact once you could get flying mounts into any part of the game you could see the total lack of effort that went into zone transitions as plain as day. Some were done better than others, for example The Barrens to Stonetalon Mountains, but that was usually due to the areas being similar. For the most part the zone transitions even on foot ranged from something like a river or bridge seperating the entirely different ecology and geography to just blatently stopping one colour of ground and starting with the next.
I'm not saying it wasn't acceptable, I didn't have any issue with it, but it certainly isn't anything like you are describing. Hell I would go so far as to say that the biome transitions in Minecraft are just as good as those in WoW.
It seems something I said in this thread got me banned for a few days.
Let me be clear here.
As I have stated I dislike segmented game regions(this is my own preference and is not a bash on GW2, though it was a disappointment for me to find the game devided into segrigated game maps each with its own lvl spread. I probably let my disapointment show a bit much) I do not know anything about game tech and how it works but I believe that there is no problem that can't be solved. I believe that it is possible to create a virtual world without boundaries and provide the kind of content that GW2 offers. I also believe it might possibly be prohibitively costly to do so. If there is a trade off I myself could do with less flashy eye candy if it means a larger open world without boundries or "zones"
The only two games I have exp with that did have huge open worlds was DarkFall and Fallen Earth. Both games were horrible lacking in content and eye candy but the worlds themselves are actually very cool in that they are HUGE and open. Listen if any of you want to log into Fallen Earth and "discuss" this feel free to chat me…. name is Paltonish. Be warned though FE has huge issues since the game engine was never finished before it was released and the new game owner Gamers First is not a game dev and will never be able to fix those issues. enough said about that.
I think GW2 is going to be a fun game to play and I expect I will play it over other games almost exclusively.
I think the way Arenanet has pulled so many features that have been seen in other games is really awesome. I have the greatest respect for Arenanet its seems to me they really have an understanding of what gamers are looking for and made GW2 the game many of us will enjoy.
I did play in the BWE as a Norn female my name was not Palladin though. I actually don't remember what my toons name was.
I did hope around allot and the load screens from that did not bother me at all, they were expected. I didn't really get the impression the regions were all that big (maybe my time in Fallen Earth has spoiled me)
AMD Phenum II x4 3.6Ghz 975 black edition 8 gig Ram Nvidia GeForce GTX 760
It seems something I said in this thread got me banned for a few days.
GW2 fans play for keeps.
hehehe ya they are fanatical it seems.....funny thing though is I am a GW2 fan myself I was only airing my opinion about one aspect of the game I dislike and the flames came rolling in. and I did get a bit pissed at one point.
AMD Phenum II x4 3.6Ghz 975 black edition 8 gig Ram Nvidia GeForce GTX 760
It seems something I said in this thread got me banned for a few days.
GW2 fans play for keeps.
hehehe ya they are fanatical it seems.....
oh please...
People get banned on every game's forum every day for saying stuff, it has nothing to do with 'fanatical' GW2 supporters.
You people constantly trying to move this from a conversation about games to an attack on a (non existant) community just make things worse for everyone.
Maybe it was just what you said rather then the other sides 'fanaticism'.
It seems something I said in this thread got me banned for a few days.
GW2 fans play for keeps.
This is a pun, why come people no realize this a good one too, prob not original tho.
I know in GW2 i will play for keeps
Edit- dis be troll thread? the loading is iniquitous in nature , in that so many people seem to hate it, it must be back if i have to wait..... (And typicaly i would agree). But to say that without experincing it si silly, because its flippin fast in GW2 and rather innocuous instead.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Comments
It just kind of amusing to me. Because all these so called "seamless" worlds are not seamless at all. They always have a predesignated chokepoint with no mobs for the swap.
They are exactly the same as the load screens. These people don't realize they are essenitally making a terrible tradeoff. Crappy animations and zone details, poor flexibility just to have an animated load screen instead of a load that is a picture with a progress bar.
Its funny that they think they are getting something different when they aren't and get a worse game in the process.
This is an ammusing thread.
A guy...or girl expresses his/her concern/opinion and gets bashed for it.
Most ammusing indead.
erm... ok... thanks for the input!
Actually yes. Open world doesn't mean seamless. It means that it is not instanced ie: anyone can join into it and it is persistent. if you want an open world that is seamless, that is most obviously called a seamless open world.
To the OP: I understand what you are saying, but this one issue shouldn't dissuade you from giving GW2 a shot because it does so much right.
Yes. ^^
AFAIK its a tradeoff between a seamless world and quantity of assets in a given area. If you segment into zones you may be able to have more content or decoration in each. Streaming terrain and other assets works but hd access varies with user's machines. It's not just client side either as there are balancing considerations like the possibility of having 80% of your concurrent players in one area all at the same time.
A lot of us at least play with game development and understand that it 's not always as simple as just not having zones.
Yes, EVE did this but from what I've read they eventually had to throw military grade hardware at the problem to make it work.
You're most certainly entitled to your opinion, of course!
I'm sure there will be aspects of GW2 I don't like, just on balance, from what I've read, I'll have a lot of fun.
If you cut it too short you can always nail a piece on the end.
If you cut it too long then what the hell are you gonna do?
Each to his own I guess. Too many load screens can be annoying, but the occasional one doesn't bother me.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
I'm sorry, but you're not going to convince me that I secretly don't enjoy what I claim to enjoy. I have described numerous times exactly what I love about seamless zone transitions in games like WoW. One of my absolute favorite aspects of MMO gaming is simply existing in, exploring, and absorbing the world's environments. Of this, my absolute favorite component is traversing brilliantly executed zone transitions. The walk from sunny Redridge through the groomed, cultivated understory of Elwynn and into the haunting, gloomy forest of Duskwood in WoW comes to mind. The sun fades away through the haze; shadows slowly encroach; the vegetation thickens; spider webs appear in the tree canopy; lanterns begin to line the road to fend off the growing darkness. Then suddenly a lone wolf's piercing howl echoes to complete the mood transition.
These moments are responsible for the my personal greatest sensations of MMO wonder and awe. They define the mood for the upcoming environment and story. You can't tell me I don't enjoy them, or that I would or should enjoy a loading screen just as much.
I’m not nearly as concerned about the loading screens as I am about how this creates a sense of geographical discontinuity between zones. Indeed there are huge gaps in the world map of GW2 that you bypass entirely. For all intents and purposes, those transitional regions of the world map don’t actually exist at all. This immersion breaking feature, as I see it, is further accentuated by the fact that upon entering many inter-zone portals, you are given the option to mysteriously travel to any one of a number of locations (usually 2 or 3). I assume these are other nearby zones that could perhaps connect via the mysterious, nonexistent in-between space that is bypassed on the world map. Either way, I can’t help but feel I am missing out on some of the most potentially beautiful, emotion evoking, geological scenes in the game. When I think back to my favorite MMO environments, the transitions in between zones are far and away the most breathtaking places. I am truly saddened that I won’t get to enjoy similar experiences in GW2.
I can understand if you don't care or find enjoyment in this particular feature of MMOs. Not everyone plays MMOs or any game genre for the same reason. But I would ask you simply acknowledge that many people do care about said feature.
As a final note, when lovers of seamless worlds use the word "seamless," leave semantics at the doormat. It's one of the many MMO-related terms whose definition is still being pieced together and varies among players (joining the likes of themepark and sandbox.) Usually, these players are simply referring to a system just like WoW, where you can travel from zone to zone all over the world without encountering loading screens. It doesn't matter if new zone data is loaded in the background; it doesn't matter if there are loading screens during boat rides airship flights across continents; it doesn't matter if there exists instanced dungeons. For purposes of the discussion, this is exactly what players seeking "seamless" worlds are looking for. That's their definition.
You have a way with words...well said. I agree with you.
The one generalizing huge groups of people and calling them idiots--repeatedly--is worried about the community being tarnished?
Don't get me wrong. Presentation is important. And whatever makes you happy, is exactly that.
But don't fool yourself into thinking what makes you happy or the presentation of something is related to what is really going on or is anyway really superior in anyway.
Too me the load screen and the empty swap sections/chokepoints or the jump gates EvE uses or whatever they are all the same. To others they do not appear that way.
But that is all it is. Appearance. Don't fool yourself. There is no such thing as seamless worlds in MMOs.
Just some MMOs that fool you via presentation into visualizing things that way. And presentation is important. But its not real. Its fine that its not real. But people seem to be taking the story telling as real technical things. They aren't. There is no spoon.
I was talking about peoples needs to have 5000000 million people in a zone. It happens.
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I personally never had an issue with loading screens in any game. I've played a lot of older games where loading screens are commonplace, I'm too used to them. While I appareciate WoW's seamless world, I hardly *need* it. What I'm more worried about is what I can do in the world, how well designed it is, how the mobs are distributed and the combat is done.
As for Fallen Earth, well, that's the ugliest MMO I've seen in recent times...
I do recall SW:TOR bothered me when I wanted to do ship combat, because it was like 3-5 loading screens to get there for some reason.
If loading screens turn you off, from one of the best MMOs to come out in recent years, then I dont want you in game.
I can only imagine, all the little things you would complain about in general chat. All the whinning would kill MY immersion.
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You already said this before in 'Couple of questions from a former hater', and I already corrected you then, but since you obviously didn't read it, I'll copy paste it here:
I've seen a couple of these too, but that was only because of it being Beta. If the zone that a portal would normally lead to wasn't available for the Beta, it would sometimes give you the option to go to a different zone instead.
"I'll lead, you follow."
Palladin did play the beta, he was in the MMORPG guild on Istan along with myself and a few others. If i remember right he got to about level 22 or so.
I don't know why he thinks the loading screens are so bad, maybe he was jumping around the world checking out different zones every ten minutes?
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I myself played the human zones only for the most part and went for 100% completion on them, I managed it for Queensdale and was quite close to getting it for Kessex Hills as well.
I maybe went through a loading screen maybe once an hour at most but then again I didn't die often and didn't jump around different zones every ten minutes or jump between my personal story and then a few DE's then some more story.
The zones in the game are fine, they are absolutely huge in comparison to other most other MMO's both in terms of size and content. There is no narrow corridors to run down or anything like that to funnel you into new questing areas and pretty much anything you see in the distance can be walked to/up if you can find a way to do so and indeed you can be rewarded for finding those spots.
The loading screens don't even take that long, I had the game loaded on a normal HDD and the zones themselves took maybe 10 seconds or so to load and jumping between waypoints in the same zone was almost instant as was releasing after dying.
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I didn't see Palladin complain about loading screens when playing the game but then I wasn't much watching what zones he was in either other than occasionally checking to see what level people were at.
Honestly though. You can do everything from stick stuff up for auction to leveling your trade skills in the zone you are in and there is generally no need to switch zones for long periods of time. I think the longest i went without switching zone was probably in the region of 3-4 hours. I wouldn't even consider the load screens from jumping around waypoints in the same zone to actually be load screens, yes they are that short.
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For those complaining that they want it to be 'seemless' without any zone loading all you need to look at some games that do this..
Look at Darkfall and Xsyon for shining examples of why 'seemless' worlds don't work well for all game types.
Even if you managed to get around all the other issues a seemless world brings there is one issue you cannot overcome and that is that even 'seemless' worlds are broken down into bounderies where your character will transition from one server to another and generally this is where the majority of lag and sync related issues in games like Darkfall originate from. In Darkfall you could tell if people were nearby simply by the fact that the game hitched very slightly for no apparent reason.. it got the point were you could get a sixth sense and it was actually difficult to surprise people in the quieter areas in the game.
Another example would be Xsyon, there were numerous issues relating to the zones set up and there were some really nagging issues where characters would desync and some zones would experience strange issues. There was also an issue with the boundaries between the zones actually showing tears and seams in the terrain itself. Now I don't mean to make the devs of these games seem bad. I totally understand the challenge of making the game 'seemles' and to be honest it's just not possible to implement realistically in some games and I would firmly agree that GW2 is one of those games for numerous reasons. Overflow servers and content density being the two biggest imo.
I like using EVE as a good example of why it's acceptable to still have zones.. the networking behind the systems in EVE is incredibly complex and it enables them to bring down part of the game if it is having issues and barr people from entering until the servers are back up. It's also possible for them to reinforce systems where they are expecting large scale fights or big trade hubs that see a huge amount of traffic compared to other areas.
I expect GW2 will be using similar technology with it's overflow servers and the guesting system and seeing as the engine is based on the one used in GW1 it also stands to reason they will stream assets and content for zones onto your computer as and when it is needed rather than forcing you to download the entire client all at once. If they are clever about this then it also becomes possible to load up changes to the game without having downtime since the revisions can be downloaded the next time players enter the zone. I think this may contribute to why some people are complaining about long zone load times? I'm not sure if those zones were already downloaded or if it streams the content to the client while the load screen is displayed during the beta. I did notice that WoW, and probably some other games, have recently implemented similar technology into their clients to try and smooth the gameplay experience by streaming content as it is needed. I'm not sure if they have the infrastructure to make changes the same way EVE or GW2 does though as something tells me your servers have to be built with this sort of thing in mind and it isn't something you can just tack onto the end as it were. (Which WoW is quite good at doing seeing at it copies mechanics and gameplay from pretty much every decent game that comes out)
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At the end of the day there are some seriously compelling reasons to remain with zoned content and coming running into this discussion gun blazing commenting that it's completely unnacceptable only shows you have not put any thought into it at all.
You can argue that you would prefer GW2 to not be zoned but you would then need to describe what benefits that brings and what changes could be implemented to the game to accommodate that change without totally breaking everthing. If you don't do that in a constructive way then you might as well just not say anything.
This is one of the reasons I get so annoyed at beta tests these days.. there are thousands of people out there that get invited to beta tests and don't even provide feedback on the game. They just see it as a chance to play around with something earlier than normal and it prevents people who would have provided a lot of feedback from getting the chance to do so. Unfortunetly it's not so easy for devs to tell who is who.
I wanted to tackle this comment seperate from my post above as I think you are suffering from a serious case of rose-tinted glasses here.
Pretty much all of the zones in WoW had terrible zone transitions, even after catalcysm. In fact once you could get flying mounts into any part of the game you could see the total lack of effort that went into zone transitions as plain as day. Some were done better than others, for example The Barrens to Stonetalon Mountains, but that was usually due to the areas being similar. For the most part the zone transitions even on foot ranged from something like a river or bridge seperating the entirely different ecology and geography to just blatently stopping one colour of ground and starting with the next.
I'm not saying it wasn't acceptable, I didn't have any issue with it, but it certainly isn't anything like you are describing. Hell I would go so far as to say that the biome transitions in Minecraft are just as good as those in WoW.
It seems something I said in this thread got me banned for a few days.
Let me be clear here.
As I have stated I dislike segmented game regions(this is my own preference and is not a bash on GW2, though it was a disappointment for me to find the game devided into segrigated game maps each with its own lvl spread. I probably let my disapointment show a bit much) I do not know anything about game tech and how it works but I believe that there is no problem that can't be solved. I believe that it is possible to create a virtual world without boundaries and provide the kind of content that GW2 offers. I also believe it might possibly be prohibitively costly to do so. If there is a trade off I myself could do with less flashy eye candy if it means a larger open world without boundries or "zones"
The only two games I have exp with that did have huge open worlds was DarkFall and Fallen Earth. Both games were horrible lacking in content and eye candy but the worlds themselves are actually very cool in that they are HUGE and open. Listen if any of you want to log into Fallen Earth and "discuss" this feel free to chat me…. name is Paltonish. Be warned though FE has huge issues since the game engine was never finished before it was released and the new game owner Gamers First is not a game dev and will never be able to fix those issues. enough said about that.
I think GW2 is going to be a fun game to play and I expect I will play it over other games almost exclusively.
I think the way Arenanet has pulled so many features that have been seen in other games is really awesome. I have the greatest respect for Arenanet its seems to me they really have an understanding of what gamers are looking for and made GW2 the game many of us will enjoy.
I did play in the BWE as a Norn female
I did hope around allot and the load screens from that did not bother me at all, they were expected. I didn't really get the impression the regions were all that big (maybe my time in Fallen Earth has spoiled me)
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GW2 fans play for keeps.
hehehe ya they are fanatical it seems.....funny thing though is I am a GW2 fan myself I was only airing my opinion about one aspect of the game I dislike and the flames came rolling in.
and I did get a bit pissed at one point.
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oh please...
People get banned on every game's forum every day for saying stuff, it has nothing to do with 'fanatical' GW2 supporters.
You people constantly trying to move this from a conversation about games to an attack on a (non existant) community just make things worse for everyone.
Maybe it was just what you said rather then the other sides 'fanaticism'.
This is a pun, why come people no realize this a good one too, prob not original tho.
I know in GW2 i will play for keeps
Edit- dis be troll thread? the loading is iniquitous in nature , in that so many people seem to hate it, it must be back if i have to wait..... (And typicaly i would agree). But to say that without experincing it si silly, because its flippin fast in GW2 and rather innocuous instead.
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