If you carefully read your OP, you are saying that in your opinion the SWTOR worlds will be typically like the videos: relatively small and linear. You have been saying this same thing in other threads.
"In this respect, it seems that a SWTOR world is more like the SWG's Kashyyyk and Mustafar with their boundaries and tracks rather than SWG's open planets like Tattoine, Dantooine and the others."
People have been trying to point out to you that this assumption you are making is not necessarily correct, and that the videos do not accurately depict the size or scale of typical gameworld environments in SWTOR. Just as the impression someone gets from Razor Hills canyon in WoW is actually not an accurate depiction of WoW's open world.
Basically put, we have to keep an open mind to the fact that we haven't actually yet seen the full extent of Korribaan or any other gameworld in order to reach such a conclusion. We've only seen bits and pieces.
No, I agree we have not yet seen the full extent of Korriban or the other planets.
My point thought remains the same - all the gameplay footage we have seen and all the footage, screenshots and gameplay released over the last two years shows bounded areas.
As such, it seems to me a pretty safe bet to deduce that all other open areas in the game are similarly bounded. Therefore, this game cannot properly be called 'an open world' game.
This is only my opinion based, as I said, on what I have seen and my experience of Bioware games. You might say that all this imagery of bounded areas does not mean that all other areas are bounded. Well, that would be where you and I disagree. That's all.
A fair point. You have your opinions, and I have mine.
However, making something clear that you are "assuming" something and therefore it is not necessarily correct, is one thing. But, making it sound like a fact, is another. Especially when it's based on very little evidence.
Freaking lame, if its a starter zone that means it wont open up any more, Examples are
Aion - had starter zones, and channels, even after u move to the "real world" ur still confined to "maps" that u can teleport to, u cant run from one place to another.
Guild wars, man i was so hyped to play this game, i log in with my lvl 1 char and there was 63948532 players in town, i was so Hyped, WOOT SHIT CRAZY AWESOME, lets go kill some SH*T!!!!..
...
......
..........
WHERE THE FUCK IS EVERYONE?
biggest dissapointment EVA.
games with open worlds start open , look at lineage 2, just cuz ur a lvl 1 doesnt mean u cant run from ur town to another.
anyways i wont be playing star wars, just waiting for blade and soul to grind and pvp my heart out.
Freaking lame, if its starter zone that means it wont open up any more,
Again, an incorrect assumption. I could show you images of SWG's tutorial area on the space station, or even the Orc / Troll starting area in WoW and you COULD assume that all areas are "bound" by barriers in SWG and WoW. But you'd be wrong.
If you carefully read your OP, you are saying that in your opinion the SWTOR worlds will be typically like the videos: relatively small and linear. You have been saying this same thing in other threads.
"In this respect, it seems that a SWTOR world is more like the SWG's Kashyyyk and Mustafar with their boundaries and tracks rather than SWG's open planets like Tattoine, Dantooine and the others."
People have been trying to point out to you that this assumption you are making is not necessarily correct, and that the videos do not accurately depict the size or scale of typical gameworld environments in SWTOR. Just as the impression someone gets from Razor Hills canyon in WoW is actually not an accurate depiction of WoW's open world.
Basically put, we have to keep an open mind to the fact that we haven't actually yet seen the full extent of Korribaan or any other gameworld in order to reach such a conclusion. We've only seen bits and pieces.
No, I agree we have not yet seen the full extent of Korriban or the other planets.
My point thought remains the same - all the gameplay footage we have seen and all the footage, screenshots and gameplay released over the last two years shows bounded areas.
As such, it seems to me a pretty safe bet to deduce that all other open areas in the game are similarly bounded. Therefore, this game cannot properly be called 'an open world' game.
This is only my opinion based, as I said, on what I have seen and my experience of Bioware games. You might say that all this imagery of bounded areas does not mean that all other areas are bounded. Well, that would be where you and I disagree. That's all.
A fair point. You have your opinions, and I have mine.
However, making something clear that you are "assuming" something and therefore it is not necessarily correct, is one thing. But, making it sound like a fact, is another. Especially when it's based on very little evidence.
Well, again, we must agree to disagree, I personally think we have enough evidence to go beyond 'assuming' now. I would say I am hypothesisng from adequate evidence. But then, you and I, it seems, disagree on the evidence.
Freaking lame, if its a starter zone that means it wont open up any more, Examples are
Aion - had starter zones, and channels, even after u move to the "real world" ur still confined to "maps" that u can teleport to, u cant run from one place to another.
Guild wars, man i was so hyped to play this game, i log in with my lvl 1 char and there was 63948532 players in town, i was so Hyped, WOOT SHIT CRAZY AWESOME, lets go kill some SH*T!!!!..
...
......
..........
WHERE THE FUCK IS EVERYONE?
biggest dissapointment EVA.
games with open worlds start open , look at lineage 2, just cuz ur a lvl 1 doesnt mean u cant run from ur town to another.
anyways i wont be playing star wars, just waiting for blade and soul to grind and pvp my heart out.
I had the same feeling about Guild Wars. Adn then, when I actually went into an instance, and I couldn't jump over a small rock, but had to walk around it with my feet glued to the earth....
You can clearly see that Korriban, one of their smallest worlds is quite open (No, cliffs don't make it less open, it's a valley) and quite huge.
If you notice the platform on the cliffs, that is in use as it is that platform where the Sith personal ship is parked in a screenshot.
I watched the video and what strikes me is that the PR is asked to quote 2 outstanding features of gameplay (actually he's been asked one), but he mentions 2 at the end:
1; He mentions full voice overs: since when is that part of gameplay and yet again ... they want to sell that in an mmorpg? The 5.5 minute video already has a 1.5 minute long speeches from NPC 's ...
2. The fast combat: but the animation is far from perfect. It is'nt fluid, the charcaters running and fighting are subpar to the 6 years old industry leader.
They didn't mention anyhing about the open world. The plateau shown isn't bad, it reminds me of the old version of Thousand Needles, but even there you could climb the mountains and saw the ropes and bridges hanging over the real landscape.
Very dissapointing this video. On the positive side, with these kinds of minimal graphics they shouldn't have much difficulties in creating some open worlds. However the vertical built up of Northrend 3D techniques was certainly NOT seen in this video. And remember the new Azeroth is not even out yet.
If EA wants to sell 2 M subs with this kind of "combat" and "voice over" in a landscape technique that was already shown 6 years ago ...I think they can count in the disaster already.
It is their neck and money though.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
If I were a developer and wanted my game to shine at E3 and create some hype (which is also expected from my game) I would certainly show the most of the immersion...maybe something like this
(though players will hate it as soon as they find out its just a big instance-AoC)
and I wouldnt definately show what looks like a...typical BW gamezone with cliffs behind which you cant get
Just a logic
Maybe BW is thinking differently who knows...maybe they want to show us the worst so that we all be nicely surprised at the end of the day )
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
But how are those there in a canyon? If they were to give mountaintop views, like they do in some fly-by videos on the official site, you'd indeed see quite a bit more; none of those screens are in a valley, they are on the sea or on a mountaintop. The mortal online valley before the jungle is smaller than the one in TOR, for the rest the only thing Mortal Online has going for it is the size of it's world, which is indeed huge, but theres nothing (well very little) in it for the rest. Again, given the viewing distance in the Korriban valley, I find that the zone appears to be quite huge, stretching a long way into the distance.
I understand what your are saying and yes Mortal's and SWG's gameworlds were indeed more empty than not, part of the reason they are crap games, but open gameworld doesn't translate to empty gameworld if done properly. Our disagreement is on wether it's "open" or not meaning if you can walk up to the location you are viewing i.e. the inquisitor reaching and standing on the top of the valley ridge he can see in the distance which is something tha you can do in all the aforementioned games. If that's the case then my assessment of the footage is indeed wrong.
Bobba, I suppose it all depends what you call "gameplay". I played AOC and loved the voice overs in the starting area. Remember that Bioware are basically creating Kotor Online, which differs somewhat to typical MMOs (not in all aspects, but some). Bioware are putting a lot of faith in their storytelling abilities and voice overs will help with that. It was certainly a winner in AOC.
I'll admit the animation can be a little off, but remember that the game still has another 8 months until launch, so tweaks to the animation may happen before then.
I agree about the graphics. Even though they aren't exactly what I would prefer, I too acknowledge that the "stylised" graphics they are using means less processing strain on the players pc, and less requirement for the devs to focus on the minute details of "lifelike" graphics. Thus potentially they can focus on quickly developing gameplay and the environments as opposed to focusing on trying to capture more "realism" in the graphics.
I personally think, based on the limited information we currently have, that SWTOR will make a great stepping stone for those who have come from WoW and even others. It may therefore become the new "standard" in terms of polish and levels of acceptability in the MMO industry as a whole. And quite frankly, that wouldn't be a bad thing for all of us.
Freaking lame, if its a starter zone that means it wont open up any more, Examples are
Aion - had starter zones, and channels, even after u move to the "real world" ur still confined to "maps" that u can teleport to, u cant run from one place to another.
Guild wars, man i was so hyped to play this game, i log in with my lvl 1 char and there was 63948532 players in town, i was so Hyped, WOOT SHIT CRAZY AWESOME, lets go kill some SH*T!!!!..
...
......
..........
WHERE THE FUCK IS EVERYONE?
biggest dissapointment EVA.
games with open worlds start open , look at lineage 2, just cuz ur a lvl 1 doesnt mean u cant run from ur town to another.
anyways i wont be playing star wars, just waiting for blade and soul to grind and pvp my heart out.
I agree with you about judging the starter zone in the vid.
Just a note on Guild Wars, it is NOT open world (how ever you define that). They use a "social hub" methodology and the rest is "OMG"!!!! INSTANCED. Crap, I said the evil instanced word. When you ask where everyone is, they had mostly moved on to a higher level social hub in the game world to then group up, or not, and play through the next instances (damn, I said it again).
Frankly, I don't care about open world, zoning, instancing FTP. PTP, etc as long as the game is engaging in story, the mechanics are good and the game is just darn fun to play.
Bioware has not let me down yet so I will give em my trust until they drop the ball. With the amount of money spent on this game i am guessing it is going to be pretty good. I want my own ship and some crazy bug face bounty hunter armor.
If I were a developer and wanted my game to shine at E3 and create some hype (which is also expected from my game) I would certainly show the most of the immersion...maybe something like this
........
(though players will hate it as soon as they find out its just a big instance-AoC)
and I wouldnt definately show what looks like a...typical BW gamezone with cliffs behind which you cant get
Just a logic
Maybe BW is thinking differently who knows...maybe they want to show us the worst so that we all be nicely surprised at the end of the day )
You MAY be right, then again, you could be wrong.
It all depends on the capabilities of the HeroEngine. Funcoms Dreamworld engine and the engine SOE used for EQ2 operate differently to let's say, WoW's engine. Now, don't forget that the AOC engine has been modified since launch to accept much larger zones, so I'm told. For instance, the zones in AOC's expansion are supposedly MUCH bigger than the original zones in AOC.
So, it comes down to a mixture of what the HeroEngine can do, and what people find acceptable. Sometimes that means compromises have to be made between having a true "open world" or going with better performance. There are many constraints imposed on MMO design which dictate just how a gameworld is "stiched together".
Given the present information, we don't know enough to make an accurate assessment on the size and scale of the gameworlds in SWTOR yet. Let alone whether they are "stiched together" zones with loading screens, or completely open SWG like environments with instanced dungeon doors.
Very dissapointing this video. On the positive side, with these kinds of minimal graphics they shouldn't have much difficulties in creating some open worlds. However the vertical built up of Northrend 3D techniques was certainly NOT seen in this video. And remember the new Azeroth is not even out yet.
Watch the Dev Dispatch about Taris , then we`ll talk about vertical build up.
Ok I just went to the SWTOR website went to the planets section and looked at like the first 3 or 4 planets listed. I watched the little videos of the planet and on each one there are area's that look to be quite open to me. So ya can this all go away now? Gods I hope so and useing the crappy sandbox worlds of SWG as a standard is not a winning argument in my book. I sometimes pray before I go to bed that SWG had never exsisted, it has created some of the biggest whiners and some of the worst misguided expectations in MMO's. I think I will wait for my beta invite to decide how the game is, based on actually seeing it and not just some PR videos that show what Bioware wants to show us. Until then I think the game looks awesome for a game a year away from release. Keep up the good work Bioware.
I played Mass effect 1 and 2 and in those games there were areas that looked quite open, so can we please note theat ME are open world games just like Daggerfall/Oblivion etc. Can any argument to the contrary please go away now...?
Pictures and short video clips mean nothing until we know how the game plays.
I played Mass effect 1 and 2 and in those games there were areas that looked quite open, so can we please note theat ME are open world games just like Daggerfall/Oblivion etc. Can any argument to the contrary please go away now...?
Pictures and short video clips mean nothing until we know how the game plays.
How on earth can you consider ME 1 - 2 Open world games especially compared to Oblivion - Daggerfall??!??!?!?!?
I played Mass effect 1 and 2 and in those games there were areas that looked quite open, so can we please note theat ME are open world games just like Daggerfall/Oblivion etc. Can any argument to the contrary please go away now...?
Pictures and short video clips mean nothing until we know how the game plays.
How on earth can you consider ME 1 - 2 Open world games especially compared to Oblivion - Daggerfall??!??!?!?!?
Oblivion was an open world but as a game for me it sucked in comparision to ME. Yes, an open world with mobs thrown here and there in which I don't remember at all what was going on. All I remember is going in exactly the same looking places without any distinct landmark killing mobs.
I played Mass effect 1 and 2 and in those games there were areas that looked quite open, so can we please note theat ME are open world games just like Daggerfall/Oblivion etc. Can any argument to the contrary please go away now...?
Pictures and short video clips mean nothing until we know how the game plays.
How on earth can you consider ME 1 - 2 Open world games especially compared to Oblivion - Daggerfall??!??!?!?!?
Oblivion was an open world but as a game for me it sucked in comparision to ME. Yes, an open world with mobs thrown here and there in which I don't remember at all what was going on. All I remember is going in exactly the same looking places without any distinct landmark killing mobs.
Well Fallout 3 would be a better example;) but whatever... I dont mind loading zones alá AoC but ME zones would be a killer for me
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
I played Mass effect 1 and 2 and in those games there were areas that looked quite open, so can we please note theat ME are open world games just like Daggerfall/Oblivion etc. Can any argument to the contrary please go away now...?
Pictures and short video clips mean nothing until we know how the game plays.
How on earth can you consider ME 1 - 2 Open world games especially compared to Oblivion - Daggerfall??!??!?!?!?
Oblivion was an open world but as a game for me it sucked in comparision to ME. Yes, an open world with mobs thrown here and there in which I don't remember at all what was going on. All I remember is going in exactly the same looking places without any distinct landmark killing mobs.
Well Fallout 3 would be a better example;) but whatever... I dont mind loading zones alá AoC but ME zones would be a killer for me
Yeah about fallout. Bethesda have this typicall thing about the worlds it creates. Open and vast but with nothing that holds your interest. No distinct landscapes. Fallout looked like a pile of rubble, a big pile of rubble. It started good as a game but then when I was out it become pretty boring for me.
But I do hate loading screens in a mmo. Cmon aoc, loading screen to enter in a small house? My point is that you can make a big seamless world but if it doesn't have nothing to offer but mobs than it gets boring quick.
I liked how EQ1 did zones....each had its own flavor.
KOTOR had areas of slight open-ness. The desert outside Mos Eisley(think that was major port they used)....where the guys wife had droids programmed to kill him....was a bit open.
That is a start.. Take an area like that, and make it a whole lot bigger. If the BGs that are mentioned are uninstanced, then there will have to be decent sized land masses just to accomodate the numbers.
I dont know. People are still freaking over a bunch of stuff. Although I would like an open world themepark ala EQ1 vs an on rails one ala STO/DDO, I am not going to worry about a BW game until I get my hands on it. Well that, and actually not liking it....since I have yet to dislike one of their games.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
I just think that they are promising a whole lot but we are yet to see those promises materialise. Some were referring to the size of starter areas as comprising roughly the area of entire vanilla WoW and this being solely a fraction of the entire landmass explorable at launch. Well. I do think that WAR also promised to have a few more capital cities and AoC said it would have, say, dx10 support at launch -- not to mention Aion having content instead of grind to offer.
The moral of the story is that one can promise massive areas and humungous quest lines as well as larger than life gaming experience but before you actually put these words into action you can but expect people to be somewhat sceptical. Virtually every developer has thus far promised to revolutionise the industry and have more content than all of the previously released MMOs together but these promises have proved out to be relatively shallow in the end. And no, don't say Bioware this or that as past merits hardly predict the future or we would still all be playing Sierra adventure games.
The videos we have now seen from E3 have shown somewhat clunky animation, especially running animation, and relatively straightforward point-and-click combat. This in addition to the "choose your answer" wheel we have seen from the start. The areas shown do look like tunnels and there's no changing that be they canyons or glass tubes of vegetation -- I don't care. If you want to show your strengths and open world game design then why on earth do you choose to show a canyon with stagnated NPCs that stand neatly apart from one another in groups of three? I am sorry but atleast I was looking forward for way more actual information as of how the game is shaping up. Now we have seen roughly the same we saw a year ago. Oh, and a pwetty trailer from battleground PvP.
Comments
A fair point. You have your opinions, and I have mine.
However, making something clear that you are "assuming" something and therefore it is not necessarily correct, is one thing. But, making it sound like a fact, is another. Especially when it's based on very little evidence.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
Freaking lame, if its a starter zone that means it wont open up any more, Examples are
Aion - had starter zones, and channels, even after u move to the "real world" ur still confined to "maps" that u can teleport to, u cant run from one place to another.
Guild wars, man i was so hyped to play this game, i log in with my lvl 1 char and there was 63948532 players in town, i was so Hyped, WOOT SHIT CRAZY AWESOME, lets go kill some SH*T!!!!..
...
......
..........
WHERE THE FUCK IS EVERYONE?
biggest dissapointment EVA.
games with open worlds start open , look at lineage 2, just cuz ur a lvl 1 doesnt mean u cant run from ur town to another.
anyways i wont be playing star wars, just waiting for blade and soul to grind and pvp my heart out.
= Scent to bed =
Again, an incorrect assumption. I could show you images of SWG's tutorial area on the space station, or even the Orc / Troll starting area in WoW and you COULD assume that all areas are "bound" by barriers in SWG and WoW. But you'd be wrong.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
Well, again, we must agree to disagree, I personally think we have enough evidence to go beyond 'assuming' now. I would say I am hypothesisng from adequate evidence. But then, you and I, it seems, disagree on the evidence.
I had the same feeling about Guild Wars. Adn then, when I actually went into an instance, and I couldn't jump over a small rock, but had to walk around it with my feet glued to the earth....
It just felt small.
I watched the video and what strikes me is that the PR is asked to quote 2 outstanding features of gameplay (actually he's been asked one), but he mentions 2 at the end:
1; He mentions full voice overs: since when is that part of gameplay and yet again ... they want to sell that in an mmorpg? The 5.5 minute video already has a 1.5 minute long speeches from NPC 's ...
2. The fast combat: but the animation is far from perfect. It is'nt fluid, the charcaters running and fighting are subpar to the 6 years old industry leader.
They didn't mention anyhing about the open world. The plateau shown isn't bad, it reminds me of the old version of Thousand Needles, but even there you could climb the mountains and saw the ropes and bridges hanging over the real landscape.
Very dissapointing this video. On the positive side, with these kinds of minimal graphics they shouldn't have much difficulties in creating some open worlds. However the vertical built up of Northrend 3D techniques was certainly NOT seen in this video. And remember the new Azeroth is not even out yet.
If EA wants to sell 2 M subs with this kind of "combat" and "voice over" in a landscape technique that was already shown 6 years ago ...I think they can count in the disaster already.
It is their neck and money though.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
Hmm just a thought :
If I were a developer and wanted my game to shine at E3 and create some hype (which is also expected from my game) I would certainly show the most of the immersion...maybe something like this
(though players will hate it as soon as they find out its just a big instance-AoC)
and I wouldnt definately show what looks like a...typical BW gamezone with cliffs behind which you cant get
Just a logic
Maybe BW is thinking differently who knows...maybe they want to show us the worst so that we all be nicely surprised at the end of the day
)
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
I understand what your are saying and yes Mortal's and SWG's gameworlds were indeed more empty than not, part of the reason they are crap games, but open gameworld doesn't translate to empty gameworld if done properly.
Our disagreement is on wether it's "open" or not meaning if you can walk up to the location you are viewing i.e. the inquisitor reaching and standing on the top of the valley ridge he can see in the distance which is something tha you can do in all the aforementioned games. If that's the case then my assessment of the footage is indeed wrong.
Bobba, I suppose it all depends what you call "gameplay". I played AOC and loved the voice overs in the starting area. Remember that Bioware are basically creating Kotor Online, which differs somewhat to typical MMOs (not in all aspects, but some). Bioware are putting a lot of faith in their storytelling abilities and voice overs will help with that. It was certainly a winner in AOC.
I'll admit the animation can be a little off, but remember that the game still has another 8 months until launch, so tweaks to the animation may happen before then.
I agree about the graphics. Even though they aren't exactly what I would prefer, I too acknowledge that the "stylised" graphics they are using means less processing strain on the players pc, and less requirement for the devs to focus on the minute details of "lifelike" graphics. Thus potentially they can focus on quickly developing gameplay and the environments as opposed to focusing on trying to capture more "realism" in the graphics.
I personally think, based on the limited information we currently have, that SWTOR will make a great stepping stone for those who have come from WoW and even others. It may therefore become the new "standard" in terms of polish and levels of acceptability in the MMO industry as a whole. And quite frankly, that wouldn't be a bad thing for all of us.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
I agree with you about judging the starter zone in the vid.
Just a note on Guild Wars, it is NOT open world (how ever you define that). They use a "social hub" methodology and the rest is "OMG"!!!! INSTANCED. Crap, I said the evil instanced word. When you ask where everyone is, they had mostly moved on to a higher level social hub in the game world to then group up, or not, and play through the next instances (damn, I said it again).
Frankly, I don't care about open world, zoning, instancing FTP. PTP, etc as long as the game is engaging in story, the mechanics are good and the game is just darn fun to play.
Bioware has not let me down yet so I will give em my trust until they drop the ball. With the amount of money spent on this game i am guessing it is going to be pretty good. I want my own ship and some crazy bug face bounty hunter armor.
You MAY be right, then again, you could be wrong.
It all depends on the capabilities of the HeroEngine. Funcoms Dreamworld engine and the engine SOE used for EQ2 operate differently to let's say, WoW's engine. Now, don't forget that the AOC engine has been modified since launch to accept much larger zones, so I'm told. For instance, the zones in AOC's expansion are supposedly MUCH bigger than the original zones in AOC.
So, it comes down to a mixture of what the HeroEngine can do, and what people find acceptable. Sometimes that means compromises have to be made between having a true "open world" or going with better performance. There are many constraints imposed on MMO design which dictate just how a gameworld is "stiched together".
Given the present information, we don't know enough to make an accurate assessment on the size and scale of the gameworlds in SWTOR yet. Let alone whether they are "stiched together" zones with loading screens, or completely open SWG like environments with instanced dungeon doors.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
Watch the Dev Dispatch about Taris , then we`ll talk about vertical build up.
Ok I just went to the SWTOR website went to the planets section and looked at like the first 3 or 4 planets listed. I watched the little videos of the planet and on each one there are area's that look to be quite open to me. So ya can this all go away now? Gods I hope so and useing the crappy sandbox worlds of SWG as a standard is not a winning argument in my book. I sometimes pray before I go to bed that SWG had never exsisted, it has created some of the biggest whiners and some of the worst misguided expectations in MMO's. I think I will wait for my beta invite to decide how the game is, based on actually seeing it and not just some PR videos that show what Bioware wants to show us. Until then I think the game looks awesome for a game a year away from release. Keep up the good work Bioware.
I played Mass effect 1 and 2 and in those games there were areas that looked quite open, so can we please note theat ME are open world games just like Daggerfall/Oblivion etc. Can any argument to the contrary please go away now...?
Pictures and short video clips mean nothing until we know how the game plays.
How on earth can you consider ME 1 - 2 Open world games especially compared to Oblivion - Daggerfall??!??!?!?!?
Oblivion was an open world but as a game for me it sucked in comparision to ME. Yes, an open world with mobs thrown here and there in which I don't remember at all what was going on. All I remember is going in exactly the same looking places without any distinct landmark killing mobs.
Well Fallout 3 would be a better example;) but whatever... I dont mind loading zones alá AoC but ME zones would be a killer for me
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
Yeah about fallout. Bethesda have this typicall thing about the worlds it creates. Open and vast but with nothing that holds your interest. No distinct landscapes. Fallout looked like a pile of rubble, a big pile of rubble. It started good as a game but then when I was out it become pretty boring for me.
But I do hate loading screens in a mmo. Cmon aoc, loading screen to enter in a small house? My point is that you can make a big seamless world but if it doesn't have nothing to offer but mobs than it gets boring quick.
I liked how EQ1 did zones....each had its own flavor.
KOTOR had areas of slight open-ness. The desert outside Mos Eisley(think that was major port they used)....where the guys wife had droids programmed to kill him....was a bit open.
That is a start.. Take an area like that, and make it a whole lot bigger. If the BGs that are mentioned are uninstanced, then there will have to be decent sized land masses just to accomodate the numbers.
I dont know. People are still freaking over a bunch of stuff. Although I would like an open world themepark ala EQ1 vs an on rails one ala STO/DDO, I am not going to worry about a BW game until I get my hands on it. Well that, and actually not liking it....since I have yet to dislike one of their games.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
[Mod Edit]
The world is very similar to WoW's open world.
http://www.tor-aid.com/20100616226/TOROcast/brandons-hands-on-impressions-of-swtor.html
and
http://www.tor-aid.com/20100616227/TOROcast/hands-on-game-play-impressions-of-the-trooper-sith-inquisitor-and-smuggler.html
Both articles mention the semaless loading and very WoW like open areas. Good stuff there, so stop complaining.
I just think that they are promising a whole lot but we are yet to see those promises materialise. Some were referring to the size of starter areas as comprising roughly the area of entire vanilla WoW and this being solely a fraction of the entire landmass explorable at launch. Well. I do think that WAR also promised to have a few more capital cities and AoC said it would have, say, dx10 support at launch -- not to mention Aion having content instead of grind to offer.
The moral of the story is that one can promise massive areas and humungous quest lines as well as larger than life gaming experience but before you actually put these words into action you can but expect people to be somewhat sceptical. Virtually every developer has thus far promised to revolutionise the industry and have more content than all of the previously released MMOs together but these promises have proved out to be relatively shallow in the end. And no, don't say Bioware this or that as past merits hardly predict the future or we would still all be playing Sierra adventure games.
The videos we have now seen from E3 have shown somewhat clunky animation, especially running animation, and relatively straightforward point-and-click combat. This in addition to the "choose your answer" wheel we have seen from the start. The areas shown do look like tunnels and there's no changing that be they canyons or glass tubes of vegetation -- I don't care. If you want to show your strengths and open world game design then why on earth do you choose to show a canyon with stagnated NPCs that stand neatly apart from one another in groups of three? I am sorry but atleast I was looking forward for way more actual information as of how the game is shaping up. Now we have seen roughly the same we saw a year ago. Oh, and a pwetty trailer from battleground PvP.
Yes, let's look at developer videos at a conference played by complete noobs to the game and make GRAND sweeping generalizations.
It's like saying that there is NOTHING behind the player except for empty black space because the character never turned around to look behind them.
"If I didn't see it in a 4 minute game play video, it doesn't exist!"
How stupid are you people?