GW2 Advanced Planning: World Exploration

Well right now it sounds like the team has their own ideas for world exploration but I'm sure its still very open for change.

So, here is my idea for how the world could be explorable in this new game.

Right now the game is spread out into hundreds of small zones that all appear to be attached. Well my idea is that only TOWNS should be in their own zone.

Towns are where people meet up to talk, team up and trade. I think that should stay how it is.. but outside should be one gigantic zone.

How would this work you might be wondering? Well far away distances would be super LOD and beyond that not even loaded so that really your only loading small zones at a time but if you wanted and could find a way around everything you could explore the entire world excluding towns in one run. Each time you step outside you create your own instance and from that instance you should be able to invite new people to it. Now they wouldn't load right to you instead they would load close to their nearest town. Since the outside world would be all connected they could be across the globe when you invite them.

Why make the outside instanced still? Well for one thats one of the major features that attracts people to Guild Wars. You don't have to deal with people camping mobs, immersion being damaged by enemies just popping up randomly, areas being cleared that are suppose to be "dangerous", quests can still spawn new groups of enemies without getting in other people's way, ect. What are the downsides? Well you can't run into new people playing whack a mole on mobs in one area as they pop up... I guess there could be more but I'm a bit biased on this topic. Feel free to make a list for that.

Now if for some reason this idea could not work and there are many reasons why that could be then instances could atleast be split into areas. For an example lets say that Guild Wars used this system. The entire ascalon area would be one explorable unit, shiverpeaks, ect.

Before I wrap this up lets get a bit more techincal with this. So when you first stepped outside you would load a certain area around your character then a bit beyond that would be higly LOD then past that would be so blurred that you couldn't really see much because it wouldn't be loaded. Enemies would only spawn around each player as they went near as well as other NPCs. So basically its a lot like zones but you can seamlessly travel between them.

So thats it. If you hate this idea PLEASE post and tell me why. If you have a better or different idea I also beg you to post it. GW2 is being created! We stil have time to get some ideas in here.

Like I've said in my other topic I have no idea if any of these ideas will make it in at all but it can't hurt to give some ideas! Who knows what could inspire the devs.

The magazine articles have already stated that GW2 wont be nearly as heavily instanced. That's not to say there wont be any instance at all though.

I think having to load the entire world at once when you leave town would just be one long-ish load instead of a bunch of small ones with separate zones.

Right, but like I said this early on its still possible for them to have changes.

And you wouldn't literally load it all at once I went into that in the post. It would be seamless zones that you could in theory travel through without stopping. So the load would probably still be longer but not as long as you may think.

This idea reminds me of good old Ultima 7. Damn, now my cravings are back...

Anyway, I have one problem with this idea. If you're one of those people who like to explore everything (like me), you may not like having such a huge space to explore at once, and keep track of where you've explored up to if you have to stop. I know that most games just have one huge world to explore all at once, but I got used to the luxury of being able to explore distinct pieces at once. Also, thoroughly exploring by scraping would be completely out of the question. Like anyone is gonna scrape the entire continent of Tyria (probably lots of people would, including me, but I'm insane, so it doesn't count).

I think less instances are good, but getting rid of them altogether like this isn't.

I agree with "Knightsaber Sith". No point of making it to be bigger. The thing I like about GW is that each zone can be loaded easily. If it changes to HUGE map then I don't see any good but all bad.

/notsign

I think the OP has a good intent, but poor execution.

If any of you played Morrowind, you'll get what the OP is getting at. It's seamelss loading, and you'll generally only notice it when you've cheated/glitched and have a really high speed of travel, you'll lag at each seam a second or two, Though I only played it on Xbox, not sure how smooth it was on PC, probably smoother on better than just adequate machines.

I have yet to pick up oblivion, too many other hobbies.



KnightSaber Sith is right though, there will be a mix of Persistant and Instanced, or that's the intent as of right now.

And knowing that, many zones in GW as it is, are too small to be of much use in a Persistant state, the maps/zones will probably be much larger in GW2.

Once its loaded once though it shouldn't take that long a second time right?

Could you explain how my idea is poorly executed? In morrowind they loaded way more then they needed too and the engine couldn't handle it.. besides that they had a big wall of view distance fog.. this idea isn't like that at all.
In Oblivion they attempt to load the entire landscape all at once with all the data being loaded as well then loading the graphical parts as you approach.. this isn't like that either.

This idea would make it so that far away areas are not even loaded at all and are covered by a LOD texture. Does anyone remember how the character select screen looked for factions? Remember looking really far out and seeing how blurred it looked? Thats how it would be because its basically a 2d texture and everything past that is slowly loaded as you get near while data behind you is dropped.

Now I can't say for sure if this would work or not since I'm no programmer/coder or even proffesional graphics artist but on paper I don't see how this idea can be called "poorly executed".

I do like to explore thats exactly why I suggest this. In Guild Wars I explored everything but was always left that that feeling of wanting to say "f#(k the borders" and just go out into the distances I could see from where I was standing.

Thats fine if you disagree but theres no need to sign or not sign that won't do anything if devs get ideas from this then great if not well its still intresting to talk about. The main issue I have is that you say "I don't see any good but all bad" yet you won't go into any detail. It sounds like you have some ideas why this won't be a good idea could you list some of them off?


So far the main issue I've seen is not wanting a long load and not wanting to be overwhelmed which is just a preference..

Doesn't WoW have this already? Forgive me, but if I was paid to, I would review all of the competition, but I've heard that this technology is already available, so I don't see why it can't be done even better with another year or 2 of technological advances, as well as the advances thus far.

I have to laugh some times because, computer technology replaces itself at about a 2 year cycle, and it is going to be something like 1 or 2 years before they get a good game out, let's not discuss what we will get if it comes out soon......

It would definetly be better if more of the landscape was loaded, perhaps not the entire landlay, but vast regions would be nice. And if they do something like a few recent games, and add in crossover sequences wile your loading into a town or new area, it would also increase the seemlessness.

There is so much that they could do with the landscape that it may pass right over our heads. After all, they are trying to develope a combination of shared and instanced play which is like an antonym.

Personally, I never liked the idea that monsters or worse, enemy forces, where just wandering around waiting for you to develope a working strategy to pawn them. I also don't like when your beating down 100s of enemies left and right who are higher in level and possess supernatural powers. And for some reason, enemies all live outdoors and there are not enemy towns and cities..... It would be very refreshing if foes operated alot more like organized players, offering challenging tactical combat, without the lame computer advantages and better team support. And they operated in rational patterns instead of loitering every 100 paces. Some patrol significant locations, others search for certain valuables, others try to ambush bypassers, and others try to siege significant locations. Drop the unreasonable numbers and waves of foes and offer some bonified combat. Honestly, the reason we have so many disparities between PvE and PvP balance is because they operate so differently. And wile some alternate features for each keep offer some diversity for us to enjoy, the general sceme of gameplay should be a bit more rational.

The whole point of instanced play is to prevent spawn camping and loot monopoly, personally, I think the general scheme of looting has always been broken, how many times to you have to kill king authur to get excalibur?, the answer is once, it doesn't evaporate because of abstract game limitations on how hard it is to obtain or rare it is suppose to be. That aside, I think spawning is bogus. Outside of spirits or something ration that may appear out of nowhere, enemies should have homes, base locations, and strongholds, if they are eliminated from a position, than they should have to reenforce it the real way, send troops who have to travel there.

I also think the entire idea of hack and slash to "level up" is bogus too, people don't really go out and pick fights to learn how to fight, that is a good way to get killed, not learn how to fight. You learn how to fight in a training environment. First you excersise, than you train, than you spare, than you practice on foes, than you master it. The whole idea of steping outside the nearest town to stab at birds and bees is retarded, no warrior learns to fight like that.

There are alot of misconceived and outdated practices in games and particularly RPGs which are totally silly and irrational. As a matter of advancing and accelling beyond the competition, I really think Anet should do a little sit down with some battle historians, and learn a bit about the nature of historical scirmishes. Than take some realistic combat features and find fun and satisfying ways to apply them to gameplay.

Please see the new GW2 Suggestions Thread.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10135261