Guild Wars Nightfall: Map switching going to be any "smarter"?

In Guild Wars Nightfall, is map switching going to be any "smarter"? Guild Wars touts that its town hopping system is "instant", etc. But since the expansions have been added on, there has been no more instant town hopping. People are now forced to jump to only a few main towns to change maps before being allowed to switch to many more specific towns--which is very slow and becomes aggravating with frequent use. The Factions town hopping system seems like a sloppy last-minute implementation that detracts from the original town hopping concept. If Anet doesn't want to bother with merging all continents into one giant map where people can pan and instantly hop to their desired town of any chapter / continent, at least create an option to choose a map / continent for display BEFORE players need to click on a town--it will save a lot of redundant work / loading time.

In the first Guild Wars game, it used to be one main map for everything [and it was instant town hoping]:

tyria

Here is the current mess of places that now often suffer from indirect switching / loading [since expansions have been added]:

> tyria > cantha > elona > pvp island > alliance battles >

Agreed, I hate hopping to Kaineng Center when coming to Cantha as it's always so laggy.

gees.

from tyria clicking on the boat
Tyria>Cantha>House zu heltzer
Cantha>Tyria>Droknars forge
Tyria>Elona> kamadan
Cantha>Elona>kamadan
Elona>Tyria>Droknars
Elona>Cantha>House Zu heltzer
Tyria/Cantha/Elona>pvp islands>Ra/TA/HA
Tyria/Cantha/Elona>Guild Hall>ABs
is really that difficult to click 3 times?

For some people with the slower comps (who I've heard can take up to 5 min when loading an area that they have already been to), clicking three times to go to different places would take up to 15 min, which seems like a huge waste of time. It would help them a lot.

Also, it is anoying having to zone to different places. Especially if I am in factions and decide to buy a skill in prophecies for the town I am in. Then I have to go to LA. If I have ember camp on that char, then I can go there, but if I don't, then I have to do even more zoning to try to find the skill. Once I get the skill, I get to go to kainenge. Then I get to go back to the mission. And often, when I go back to the mission, then I relize that I need another skill, or that I got the wrong one (hey, it has happened a few times before when I wasn't paying attention), and then I get to go and zone back some more.

It won't be that hard to merge the maps either.

And the best part, at least IMHO, is that the maps will look like a world! We can accually see the world our characters live in if they merge the maps! Now maybe not all the world, but at least all of it that we can at least get access to. It just seems to me like tyria, cantha, and soon to be elona are on completely different planets that we can magically get to by boat. With the merging of the maps, it will finally seem to me like they accually are together, on one planet.

And like I've said before in other threads, there are plenty of ways to make it so you can't get access to chapters you don't have access keys for.

One of those ways is that once you add the access key, then the main town that you would normally travel to by boat (at least with out current setup) is avalible, but only if you add the access key and get the quest that the access key makes avalible. Before you add teh access key and get the quest, you have no towns avalible from that chapter, and you can't get into someones party and have that person take you there because everyone without that town on their map will be left behind, or it will say something like "can't travel there because not everyone in the party has access to that town"

Another way is that as soon as you add the access key, it adds a quest to travel to a different continent. You then do the quest and it brings you there and once you get there, then it is on your map and you have access to that chapter. Basically the same as how it is know, just the maps are merged. Oh, and you can't get into someones party that has the quest and have them bring you there because if someone doesn't have the quest and has never been there, then it will say something like "can't travel there because not everyone in the party has access to that town". (just like I said earlier)

I don't see any reason to not add this to the game. It will just enhance the gaming experience.

/signed for one single map

/kinda signed...

just make the boat the battle isles and add in another button that would change the map to a different one. if we force them to show us the whole map, than they become limited to that map, and we dont want that.

/signed
i'm tired of looking at the loading screens.

/not signed

It would be a mess to implement the "entire map"...MAYBE if they used a scroll context or something like that...but still, my computer is 5 years old and I wait no more then 10 ~ 15 secconds on 90% of my loads, and saying ANYONE waits 15min is simply not possible...

Latter.

/signed

/signed......one BIG map would be cool.

/signed

All we need is a drop down menu for the maps. So we only load the map and not a whole town. That would rock. If they somehow combined all the maps though, that would be cool.

For the merging map thing, it wouldn't be the whole GW world. Just all of it that includes Elona, Tyria, and Cantha. It could, and probably would be expandable as more chapters are made.

Oh, I forgot to mention that it would probably have at least three zooms. The first is the smallest one that we currently have. The second is the largest that we currently have (and you would still be able to scroll like how we currently can), and the the third would show all of Elona, Cantha, and Tyria, and maybe even a forth zoom for later chapters if needed. You would be able to choose your destinations from all of the zooms, its just the smaller ones would be easier to click on the towns and outposts. Or at least something like that.

So if your comp is old, you don't have to zoom out all the way (to prevent lag), but you can if you want.

And then to choose if you are going to zoom in or out, there would either be

1) little buttons somewhere on the screen that would allow you to chose zooming in or out

or

2)you use two buttons on the keyboard to choose if you zoom in or out

or

3)both of the above

If I can think of anything else that I forgot, I will post it later.

Oh and if anyone sees any flaws/problems with this, please point it out and try to come up with a solution.(or at the very least, just point it out)

I think that it would be plausible for them to allow us to open the map while not loading LA or Kaineng, but I really don't know how much coding that would take. If they could do something to reduce the lag on the load times of the major ports this would be a non issue.

/signed

Looking for a +5 En Recurve took me to: ToA, Forge, LA, Kaineng, House, Cavalon, Imp Sanctum.

In no order at all, just to a different one every now and then.

Most of the time, Forge --> Kaineng --> Imp Sanctum --> LA --> Forge --> Kaineng --> Cavalon --> LA --> Forge --> Kaineng --> House

I really don't bother much with LA, and I could skip Kaineng a few times as nothing new goes there. However, both are portal locations, so I have to take some more steps.

1. Click the boat
2. Select your map.
--Map changes go that region without loading any zones
3. Select the outpost/mission/city/etc.

No need to make one huge map, no need for weird zoning. Just make an option that toggles between the four maps without moving your character anywhere. Let my monk sitting in Unwaking Waters be able to hit map, and look at the Tyrian Map. If they want to still use the boat thingy, have the boat be the button to do this.

/signed
For clicking on the boat and being shown the map for the continent you pick.

I don't care. I just want a quicker, easier way to get where I need to go. If that entails shooting out of a monkey's nether regions, fine by me.

I don't suffer from slow loading times, but Ive been on computers where loading times can take up to a minute, which can become tedious over time, so, yeah, this idea seems reasonable.

yes it currently is that difficult. im mean, just look at that list you made, lol.

/signed for ease of town hopping and less loading time.

Edit:

As for the one world bit, it may take some serious reprogramming for Elona (supposely southern part of Tyria, SW of the crystal desert) since it has to do with scaling of the continent of Elona to fit the current Tyria (due to its size) same applies for Cathan but isnt that much of a problem as Elona since Cantha supposely exist offshore. Then theres another problem if the physical servers for each of the maps are stored seperately... With the NF release at the end of this month, this feature would be nice to have but rather seems unlikely. Most likely we will be able to get some quest either from Kaineng City or Lion's Arc to travel to Kamadan/or some port on the mainland for those of us who link our chapters. But hopefully this will be in the works for future updates.

/signed - but not for one big map.
One huge map isn't needed (IMHO) but buttons that change the map view would be great. I hate having to zone into Kaineng or LA every time I go somewhere.

I also would like one big map. Like somebody else mentioned, at the moment the world of gw feels very disconnected - one big map could help solve that. But one problem with that is they want to add more chapters, thus they probably don't know what continents they may be adding, and how long gw may continue for. My solution to that would be to just have the continents that exist at the moment on the map, and 'here be dragons' writen everywhere else. Then when they add more chapters they can just replace the 'here be dragons' message with the continent

/signed btw, I too get annoyed with having to zone to LA or kaineng before I can go to where I want.

/Signed, i like to see a new way to switch to towns.

What I suggest is that when u press M and zoom out, a button appears in the right corner that (when you are in Cantha) says "Tyria" and when you click on it, you would see the tyria map instead of the canthan one, and you would be able to map travel to any city unlocked.

When in Tyria, you would have a button to select the canthan map and map travel to any city unlocked in cantha. This way you won't have one big map, and you won't have to change cities as often.

With more chapters coming, there could be a button of each world map in the bottom of the map screen.

/signed

I have a crappy Dell computer and it does take 2-5 and maybe 10 minutes for some towns to load. This "hopping" is a huge waste of time. All we need is a drop-down menu like someone else said earlier with all the towns listed. or...Click the boat, click Tyria/Cantha/Elona/Battle Isle and that map loads up. Something like that. One big map could be very hard. Nobody here knows how far tyria/elona are from cantha. This "sea" which seperates the 3 could be half way across the "world"

I think when you press M you should have an option to zoom out again, in which there will be a globe, you can rotate and click anywhere you want. Any part of the game you have not bought will show up like a dark cloud.

have an option where you can choose what "chapter map" you want to look at -- then select location off that map

big map for all possible content is alot of work

all you need is a map list to select the appropiate chapter map

/signed. Not for the larger map, since zooming in and out would not make things much easier, but for a maplist, since I don't want to go through LA and Kaineng - the 2 most lagging locations - whenever I wish to change continents.

Exactaly! Make the boat load the different map and not the town.

/signed

I could be wrong, and the search system is now so shoddy that I don't care to check, but when people were complaining about this in Factions, didn't Gaile say that it couldn't be done for some reason. Sure I'm not saying that they couldn't change it but usually when Gaile says can't it means "if we can it would require a hell of a lot of work" and there are so many more things I can think of that would improve the game before a united map.

I don't suffer at all from long load times when it comes to zoning, but I know there are many people who do. If new options would help these people out, then I'm all for it.

I like the system fine the way it is, because I'm used to it and it makes sense to have 1 major port city in each continent. But if making one huge map, or having a drop-down box to select a town/outpost makes it easier for people, then Anet should serioulsy look into it.

/signed for new map system

I don't need a giant map like some suggest, but the current map system needs an overhaul.

Perhaps instead of sending us to the most populated District of the city, you could have the boat default to take us to the least populated district to reduce lag time to load the cities. If they would be able to reduce the lag of the initial city load it would make this a non-issue

i have a freakishly fast pc and i still get annoyed with the click...wait...click...wait...click...wait...syste m atm

/not signed for a big map - that would just be ugly.

However I played GW on a laggy computer and know the problem, so:

/signed for a scrolling box on the M screen letting you choose which of the 3 maps.

If it is implimented right, it won't really make it that much harder to zoom in or out. Also, even if it isn't implimented in the best way, I doubt it would take that long to get used to clicking one of two buttons on the screen or pushing two buttons on the keyboard...

And like I said before, the map will be expandable as future chapters come out.

Also,

/signed to the idea of being able to change maps without accually having to be in a city in that map.

Although it still won't make it feel like the maps accually relate to each other at...which is a main reason why I'd rather have the one map thing more...

Actually, they could replace the map loading screen with some sort of mini-game. Like, the kind you see before really really long flash cartoons?

On second thought that would get really old really quickly. But it'd be cool for a day or two!

/signed

btw Gamecube187 great idea w/ all the buttons and zooms things. u ever thought about beening a UI programmer/designer?

it's easier than having to click 4 or 5 times, but more time consuming than having to click 1 or 2 times..

/signed.

But 2 simple dropdown lists when you click on the boat would be enough. One for the continents (except the one you're in), and one for the locations on the selected continent.

One big map or additional zooming is not feasible. It'll still require clicking and now additional scrolling. Not to mention the fact that instead of a map of one continent, you have to load up maps of several continents into memory.

Why not introduce a giant flying dragon that takes you to every oupost you desire?

The reason it's with a boat is becoz you have to travel to another continent (which is in fact ANOTHER CHAPTER)
Imagine the zoom option... after 6 chapter you'd have 6 zoom levels.
The M option would give you an endless list and would result in people whining about the scrollbar again.
It's never any good now is it...
Change something and they'll find something to bitch around again anyways.

/not signed

/signed
I have a slow connection at home so it takes quite a lot of time to travel for me, one big map or loading the map only as people have proposed sounds good to me.