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Questions from an explorer
As an explorer I ask the beta testers to answer a couple of questions for me:
1. How big are the zones compared to WoW and Lineage 2?
2. Is the open, non-dungeon areas seamless or are there loading screens?
3. Can I walk/fly anywhere I want without being rubber-banded? In other words, if I want to walk off a cliff to my death, am I allowed to do that?
4. How big is the map in the Abyss? This is where we will be end-game, so I am interested in knowing how quickly I will see all of it.
Comments
1. Much smaller than WoW (about 1/3 to 1/2) or Lineage 2.
2. There are loading screens, definitely a zone based game.
3. No. There are invisible walls in many places.
4. No idea haven't seen it.
I have to agree with the others and say this really is not an explorer type of game. Personally it's fine for me, I don't play a game to walk around and look at stuff, but I can understand how for others that would be a deal breaker.
I've heard the Abyss is quite large but I haven't been in there myself.
To put it in perspective, I play vanguard to scratch my explorer's itch.
In no way is this close to vanguard as far as lands to explore. But this really isn't that type off game, It is a bit more of a pvp game, rvr game.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
hmm, so anyone here play DAOC?-- Would it be comparable to that world, without the expansions perhaps. Just starting out without expansions I can see the world not being toooo large-- leaving room to grow-- kind of like DAOC was.. it was definately more of a RVR game with little to no content in the original state. If its at least that large, it wouldnt be too bad.
1. Starting zones are smaller, also up to level 20 you don't find yourself with many choices of where to level, it's linear. So comparing to WoW, while you have two zones for each starting race up to level 20, in Aion you only have one for each race. I know that at 20+ it branches out a bit (especially at 25+ with the Abyss) and those maps are much larger compared to the starting ones.
2. You have loading screens when switching zones, which would be something like having a loading screen when switching from, say, Elwynn Forest to Westfall.
3. It depends, while you can actually die from gravity pretty easily (you'll get used that gravity only kills the unskilled - you can glide even in a no-fly area), the limits from each area are dictated by mountain chains and water. Yes, deep waters damage you overtime as there is no swimming. There are also invisible walls but I don't remember much about those, these were mostly on capital cities (you could jump to death in Sanctum but couldn't jump over a few fences to take a shortcut, weird).
4. Can't answer that one with comparisons as I haven't been in there yet, but I know it's really huge.
From an explorer viewpoint I haven't been impressed with Aion (I love the overwhelming feeling you have when you first-look at WoW, L2, EVE, GW world maps, in the case EVE still scares me after a few years), but wasn't a disappointment either as the areas seen very beautiful for me, with the huge creatures flying around as a new type of eyecandy.
I would say that it is smaller than Vanilla WoW zones. However, Blizzard has noticed this to be an issue and has been working to make a better gaming enviroment for those who are leveling alts or new characters. To correct this issue, they've been releasing mounts at lower levels to help people get through the old zones faster. They thought many people would go back to explore, but they were wrong. I think you will only find huge (open) zones in hardcore games like FFXI and Vanguard anymore. Now, I may be wrong on that, but that is my experience. I think massive zones, definitely early ones, are "bad for business".
Playing:FFXI
Played:WOW, FFXI
I would say smaller than DAoC but maybe not by much. 3 lands basically but exploration is still minimal currently. The abyss from the videos do not look very sightseeing friendly. However the other zones are quiet stunning. This just is not an explorers game sadly as thats the one thing about it that bums me out.
Considering the amount of actual land area I would have to agree that the world is a bit smaller if not near equal to classic DAOC. One thing that should be remembered though is that DAOC and most of WoW from what i can remember traveled mostly on a X-Y-Axis game. Aion has larger zones in the sense that flight allows more areas to be reached. Without flight it would be a much smaller world.
Zoning is not really that bad considering you spend a lot of time in individual zones before you actually need to move to a different area and the load times are not bad at all. There are some zone walls but for the most part the world does have a lot of exploring potential considering no two areas look completely the same. Generally it would take at least an 2-3hours or so to completely explore every inch of a zone. Truly depends on whether your exploring to just and quick and see everything or enjoy the small things found all over the world.
There are interesting zones to explore and while the maps aren't too big, the world as a whole is pretty huge.
That being said, if your favorite part of a game is to explore, you probably won't last long enough in Aion to see the interesting areas, like Draupnir's open world area, which mountains can be glided in order to set up kisks and to use a strategic points for pvping.
The only MMO I can think of that has smaller and more linear zones than Aion is Guild Wars.
This game is an explorer's nightmare.
I wouldn't go that far.
The quest progression is pretty linear. The zones tend to branch content off in different directions.
Someone else said that the zoning would be like having a load screen between Elwynn Forest and Westfall in WoW. That's not quite true either. It might be more like having four or so WoW zones in each self contained area.
I will admit that while the zones feel big enough as you follow the quest progressions, (since you spend more time in any given area than you might in many other games), if you just run around the zone, it's not terribly big, even by current standards. If you are an explorer and also like gathering resources, then it can be rewarding to explore. BTW, gathering for most items seem to share a gathering skill, so you can gather ores, edible foodstuffs and things like Jute, etc... with out having to level each gathering skill separately.
I would say, though, that so far from what I can see the game world is definitely smaller than I normally want to see for an MMORPG at launch.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
