Had some laughs reading about people not knowing the difference between instancing and zoning.
Anyways, about the weather and night/day cycle: I pay great attention to these two in mmorpgs (I love playing heavily modded for realism Skyrim) and while playing in beta all I did was running around zones and sightseeing.
I was quite pleased to see that weather effects are much harsher than they are in other games, as in, you can hear rain, rain is much thicker than you could imagine, you can hear your footsteps on "wet" ground and such.
Now nights really amazed me... The nights are darker and more immersive than I've ever seen in any mmorpg. They aren't dark enough to ruin your gameplay experience but they are dark and different ENOUGH to make you feel like it really is a night. You can hear night sounds (crickets, etc), you can see road lights from far away and move to them, since there will probably be people around the lights or other points of interest (kinda looks like lanterns of tamriel mod in Skyrim at night).
In other words, if you are a realism psycho, you'll absolutely love what SE did with weather effects and day/night cycle in FFXIV. Do mind that these two were nowhere as amazing in FFXIV 1.0 as they are now.
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world." Hans Margolius
Let's make something clear . Instance zones are for just you and your party , examples of this the dungeons that is an instance . The land areas and cities are zoned everyone is in them at any given time.
Originally posted by zanfire zoned (which helps a lot compared to how it was in 1.0) but the zones are good sized. Sadly too much of the content is instanced like most games nowadays and the devs seem to hate having much of any competative open world content.
Define "competitive."
Fighting over spawns or groups camping spawn locs is a pretty lame and weak form of competition. I'll pass, thanks.
Instanced dungeons are 100% better when you want a real dungeon crawl as a group, IMO. More immersive, entire place to yourself, no frenetic fighting other players to tag stuff, etc. I wouldn't mind seeing some randomization in instances LDON style and I'd prefer bosses not be 100% scripted to the point of being 100% predictable...but that's another thread.
I would be nice to have SOME open world dungeon/elite style areas, for sure. A mix and options are always a good thing.
I would even like to see entire open dungeon zones like the old EQ dungeon zones (crushbone, unrest, insert any old EQ dungeon zone here). Entire zones full of elite content and bosses where you pretty much have to group and potential carnage can break loose at any time. This is one of those "challenge" elements that I think is sorely lacking in modern MMORPGs. You could so zones like this in EQ at like 10 or 12 and they were mercifully unforgiving - you played well and you played smart or you died HARD. This is where friendships, community, and learning to play well happen. Solo ez-mode doesn't yield any of that.
Plus, it's content that's memorable. People who played EQ will never forget Crushbone or the other zones like it. They were places you could spend days (at a time where it took days to make a level instead of making 10+ levels in a day in today's ez-mode speed leveling games). Thru the struggles and brutality you would grow and get better. You would meet people. And you remember that stuff. The solo ez-mode content in today's MMORPGs is entirely forgettable. You might remember something that looked cool or a particularly well done quest but most of it is just a blur of same old.
It'd be impossible to have such zones in today's MMORPGs since the mindless sheep expect to make 10 levels a day and hit cap in a week or so. Devs need to get away from this and get back to making the WHOLE game be MMORPG, and not just single player with endgame being "the real game". I wanna see the WHOLE game be the "real game" and if leveling was extended you could once again have these types of "elite" zones with some semblance of challenge.
The crazy thing to me is that this is how it was in early MMORPGs then devs lost their mind and instead of making better games for MMORPG players they started perverting the genre to try to appeal to people who probably shouldn't be playing MMORPGs, and who should be playing single player games or trying to avoid drooling on their bibs.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
SWTOR!? lol ... if only! At least SWTOR was mostly seemless after you landed on a planet. Once you were in the spaceport of a planet you could walk from end to end without a loading screen. Sure, some had forced "taxi's" (Coruscant and Alderaan) but they made sense. I wish FFXIV did what SWTOR did ... even that would be a step up from what its currently like.
Originally posted by Kayo45 SWTOR!? lol ... if only! At least SWTOR was mostly seemless after you landed on a planet. Once you were in the spaceport of a planet you could walk from end to end without a loading screen. Sure, some had forced "taxi's" (Coruscant and Alderaan) but they made sense. I wish FFXIV did what SWTOR did ... even that would be a step up from what its currently like.
yes and half your friend list would be in Taatoine (3) standing next to you, without you seeing them. thats INSTANCING.
as in ff14 there is only 1 map, divided by a few loading screens, but all players are on the same map, thats ZONING.
Originally posted by etlar Originally posted by Kayo45SWTOR!? lol ... if only! At least SWTOR was mostly seemless after you landed on a planet. Once you were in the spaceport of a planet you could walk from end to end without a loading screen. Sure, some had forced "taxi's" (Coruscant and Alderaan) but they made sense. I wish FFXIV did what SWTOR did ... even that would be a step up from what its currently like.
yes and half your friend list would be in Taatoine (3) standing next to you, without you seeing them. thats INSTANCING.
as in ff14 there is only 1 map, divided by a few loading screens, but all players are on the same map, thats ZONING.
get your facts straight.
Just to help clarify some facts:
Tatooine - that's channeling, or sharding, not instancing. It's similar to instancing, but it's done to an "open world" zone in order to limit the number of people in a zone at one time (for either client or server performance reasons). There are some games that can get the same effect as you describe using Phasing, but that's different and not what SWTOR does. Anyone could pop into your channel at any time, because it's an open zone, there just happen to be copies of that open zone in order to load balance some technical limitation.
Instancing was used in SWTOR for the Flashpoints - you had a party, you zoned into the Flashpoint, and you had a copy of the flashpoint alone for your group. Other groups will be in copies of the instance, but it's not open world, and your instance is private to your group, so no other player/group can come in and interfere with your experience in the instance. For example: someone couldn't randomly pop into your instance because it happens to be low population. That's the key difference between channels/shards and instances.
Phasing is where characters are on the same map, and in the same zone, but see something different at some part of the world (and thus probably can't see each other). There is no copy of the zone, they are both in the same area, but Version A is presented to one character and Version B is presented to another - those two characters can only see each other if they are both on the same Version. The first place I remember this being used was in WoW WotLK for zone events, I know Defiance uses it heavily for open zone events, and FFXIV ARR uses it for some Storyline quests.
FFXIV ARR does do phasing (in some storyline quests), it does use instancing (for dungeons and guildmetes). It has distinct zone lines between maps. It does not use channels/shards.
Similar, but each fulfills a different function, and works slightly different. If, we do indeed want to get our facts straight.
Comments
Had some laughs reading about people not knowing the difference between instancing and zoning.
Anyways, about the weather and night/day cycle: I pay great attention to these two in mmorpgs (I love playing heavily modded for realism Skyrim) and while playing in beta all I did was running around zones and sightseeing.
I was quite pleased to see that weather effects are much harsher than they are in other games, as in, you can hear rain, rain is much thicker than you could imagine, you can hear your footsteps on "wet" ground and such.
Now nights really amazed me... The nights are darker and more immersive than I've ever seen in any mmorpg. They aren't dark enough to ruin your gameplay experience but they are dark and different ENOUGH to make you feel like it really is a night. You can hear night sounds (crickets, etc), you can see road lights from far away and move to them, since there will probably be people around the lights or other points of interest (kinda looks like lanterns of tamriel mod in Skyrim at night).
In other words, if you are a realism psycho, you'll absolutely love what SE did with weather effects and day/night cycle in FFXIV. Do mind that these two were nowhere as amazing in FFXIV 1.0 as they are now.
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
Hans Margolius
http://absoluteretribution.enjin.com/ Guild Website and Recruitment link
Define "competitive."
Fighting over spawns or groups camping spawn locs is a pretty lame and weak form of competition. I'll pass, thanks.
Instanced dungeons are 100% better when you want a real dungeon crawl as a group, IMO. More immersive, entire place to yourself, no frenetic fighting other players to tag stuff, etc. I wouldn't mind seeing some randomization in instances LDON style and I'd prefer bosses not be 100% scripted to the point of being 100% predictable...but that's another thread.
I would be nice to have SOME open world dungeon/elite style areas, for sure. A mix and options are always a good thing.
I would even like to see entire open dungeon zones like the old EQ dungeon zones (crushbone, unrest, insert any old EQ dungeon zone here). Entire zones full of elite content and bosses where you pretty much have to group and potential carnage can break loose at any time. This is one of those "challenge" elements that I think is sorely lacking in modern MMORPGs. You could so zones like this in EQ at like 10 or 12 and they were mercifully unforgiving - you played well and you played smart or you died HARD. This is where friendships, community, and learning to play well happen. Solo ez-mode doesn't yield any of that.
Plus, it's content that's memorable. People who played EQ will never forget Crushbone or the other zones like it. They were places you could spend days (at a time where it took days to make a level instead of making 10+ levels in a day in today's ez-mode speed leveling games). Thru the struggles and brutality you would grow and get better. You would meet people. And you remember that stuff. The solo ez-mode content in today's MMORPGs is entirely forgettable. You might remember something that looked cool or a particularly well done quest but most of it is just a blur of same old.
It'd be impossible to have such zones in today's MMORPGs since the mindless sheep expect to make 10 levels a day and hit cap in a week or so. Devs need to get away from this and get back to making the WHOLE game be MMORPG, and not just single player with endgame being "the real game". I wanna see the WHOLE game be the "real game" and if leveling was extended you could once again have these types of "elite" zones with some semblance of challenge.
The crazy thing to me is that this is how it was in early MMORPGs then devs lost their mind and instead of making better games for MMORPG players they started perverting the genre to try to appeal to people who probably shouldn't be playing MMORPGs, and who should be playing single player games or trying to avoid drooling on their bibs.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
yes and half your friend list would be in Taatoine (3) standing next to you, without you seeing them. thats INSTANCING.
as in ff14 there is only 1 map, divided by a few loading screens, but all players are on the same map, thats ZONING.
get your facts straight.
as in ff14 there is only 1 map, divided by a few loading screens, but all players are on the same map, thats ZONING.
get your facts straight.
Just to help clarify some facts:
Tatooine - that's channeling, or sharding, not instancing. It's similar to instancing, but it's done to an "open world" zone in order to limit the number of people in a zone at one time (for either client or server performance reasons). There are some games that can get the same effect as you describe using Phasing, but that's different and not what SWTOR does. Anyone could pop into your channel at any time, because it's an open zone, there just happen to be copies of that open zone in order to load balance some technical limitation.
Instancing was used in SWTOR for the Flashpoints - you had a party, you zoned into the Flashpoint, and you had a copy of the flashpoint alone for your group. Other groups will be in copies of the instance, but it's not open world, and your instance is private to your group, so no other player/group can come in and interfere with your experience in the instance. For example: someone couldn't randomly pop into your instance because it happens to be low population. That's the key difference between channels/shards and instances.
Phasing is where characters are on the same map, and in the same zone, but see something different at some part of the world (and thus probably can't see each other). There is no copy of the zone, they are both in the same area, but Version A is presented to one character and Version B is presented to another - those two characters can only see each other if they are both on the same Version. The first place I remember this being used was in WoW WotLK for zone events, I know Defiance uses it heavily for open zone events, and FFXIV ARR uses it for some Storyline quests.
FFXIV ARR does do phasing (in some storyline quests), it does use instancing (for dungeons and guildmetes). It has distinct zone lines between maps. It does not use channels/shards.
Similar, but each fulfills a different function, and works slightly different. If, we do indeed want to get our facts straight.