Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
World maps look too restricted
McGamer
Member UncommonPosts: 1,073
One of the main thing I have always enjoyed in mmo's is the ability to explore new areas. I don't play SWG anymore but the map size of their planets were great to explore. So far, by looking at a couple of the world maps of SWTOR, the planet maps are only about the size of a city area, like CoX, with no wilderness to explore. I kind of expected it from Bioware since all their KOTOR games have restricted maps like that. But I had hoped since they claimed to be trying to make an mmo here that they would mmo-style maps, not console maps. I understand it's still beta, no need to state the obvious, and for that same reason is why this should be brought up now in hopes the devs might actually listen unlike SOE did in the end.
Comments
They are instent based.
Another thing that make the game fail, in less then a year.
1) It isn't SWG. It was never trying to be SWG. It will NEVER be SWG.
2) We have no clue what the scale of the maps are. For all we know (which isn't much), they can be massive with many levels.
3) The size of the game and whether or not it is an "MMO" has been brought up 094u02834890u7aflhjh2843u9 times before.
Well, without playing the game or having an actual map in front of me, the devs have stated that the areas they have been showing in detail are starter areas and that the idea is to get people off of them as fast as reasonable.
There is another little article where they talk of the game play and state that if players want to explore the far reaches of the planet because most of the quests have led them to be around the main area, then they can do that.
So we'll see how large (or small) these areas truly are when the beta comes along.
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
Yep, and that's my main problem with this game.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
So true.
I guess for SWG fans that SW:TOR will always be a disappointment, it not being SWG2.
About the worlds: one reporter that had played SW:TOR said that it took him a small hour to cross from one end of a Origin Planet (starter planet) to the other in an as good as straight line. Even if it would have been only half an hour, that would still be large: it took me something like half an hour to cross Everquest from Faydwer to Qeynos, boatrides excluded.
When another reporter mentioned that the starter planet was huge towards Bioware dev Erickson, this one mentioned that the Origin Planet were 'ridiculously, ridiculously smaller' compared with the other planets when you finally move off your starter planet. He stated that the planets will be enormously vaster compared to the Origin Planets, and that exploring will be encouraged.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
http://swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=153557
Can`t find any maps online, so no idea where you find them. Mapybe it is a map of a single lvl of the city. The maps are going to be tiered, so when you change lvl the maps will change with you.
But from what has been said you can go out from the cities into the open world.
Unless your looking at coruscant, in which case, its all city.
Played WOW (5 years), AOC, AO, EQ2,AC2, Horizons, Saga of Ryzom, SWG, CO, STO(Beta),ROM, Allods, and many other F2P titles. Asl been in beta for many of the main titles and played countless SP games. I have been gaming for 15+ years!
SWTOR is a themepark mmo and not a sandbox. you just grind through the levels like in many other standard games.
the level progress is given. in example: when you complete mission X you will reach the next level
the loot-table is for all the same. everybody will find in the same mission the same (class/level based-) gear for his character (and other mission releated drops)
there are only a limited amount of mission tactics. when you play a smuggler, you have the option to get in cover behind objects. because you cant get in cover behind every object, thoses extra-objects are pre-placed by the devs and the map-designers. well, the devs point you indirect the direction where to move with your character. you just have in a thempark not all tactical options like in a sandbox. in a sandbox you would use every object to get in cover.
Makes sense to me. Sprawling landscapes with canon POI's littered doesn't make for a great game. There were some good things about pre-NGE SWG, but the maps weren't one of them.
You are right Robsolf, the maps in SWG were not one of the good things about it. They were open free roam but as you pointed out extremely empty.
I guess this is where you kind of hope Zymurgeist's wave of change comes along and you get some nice fully open free roam maps WITH lots of nice content. Remains to be seen.
But i didn't make my comment in conjunction with the Thread Topic... was just generaly refering to SWG. To the good parts of NGE SWG as you stated.
Guess taking some of those design ideas and enhancing them or building aroung them or adding to them etc is too backwards for Zymurgeist... i guess a strict faction locked class level based system really puts the C in Change.
Sorry for having personal hopes and aspirations for a MMO under development...
P.S. ii guess you never get tired of the silly TDPWITCO argument Zymur... it worked so well for you in POTBS.
Sandbox games are terrible, there's only so much content you can get into a game before your investers start asking for the end product, the problem with sandbox is there is no possible way to fill up the entire giant world with loads of quests and content, that would take 20 years of development and would never work
This is what the sandboxers just dont get, people dont want to roam around in a endless lifeless expanse and just grind skillpoints, which for some reason to sandboxers is completely diffrent than level grinding and in no way similar (chuckle)
Maybe 10% of the population of a sandbox game can put the 10-15 hours a day into the game in order to build their player cities and grind out their templates and have a grand old time, but the developers need to think about the bigger picture, what can make everyone happy whill cuting off what is only accessable to a small part of the playerbase
And the conclusion was themepark mmo's just give you more options, you can go explore and grind if you want, but there's also questing to be done and pvp is much more accessible this way also
Themeparks simply give more quality over quantity than a sandbox game could ever give, welcome to the wave of the future
I'd love to see huge landscapes with lots of stuff, too. I think developers would really like to give us that. I figure there's just always a tradeoff between how big a zone is, and the amount of stuff within... and, I'm sure, the level of graphic detail. These limitations are particularly pronounced in MMO's, as they tend to have to be playable on machines about 1-2 years older than the standard for single player games.
I would love to see someone go the SWG route for crafting. Eve "kinda" used its philosophy for resource gathering, but it could have also used its varying degrees of success. In the Eve capitalist atmosphere, it would have fit right in.
There is certainly lots to be "worried" or not-like about what we know of SW:TOR so far. Environments and map-size, however, are not one of them. There have been plenty of hints that they will be huge, and one of the sites, perhaps it was darth-hater i'm not entirely sure, mentioned devs saying each planet will be roughly the size of a continent on WoW. It will likely be the largest MMO released to date in terms of sheer content.
Oh, and the worlds at least, are supposed to be open, seamless, and free-roam.
Based on what information is the OP stating there will be simeple small maps?
In game captures of Starting areas?
What?
Please, give me something that I can refute or discuss other than a random post count increase to rebuke SWTOR and prove you can type.
Say hello, To the things you've left behind. They are more a part of your life now that you can't touch them.
The maps I saw in the leaked smuggler/trooper starting areas looked fairly large compared to most mmo's and their starting areas. This of course, will boil down to opinion, but I will have to respectfully disagree with the OP. Im not sure if the videos are still out there since the site that posted them has been taken down.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
I agree, the lanscapes in SWG are way overated. I have played SWG off and on for the last 5 years, and during all of the time there were only a few occasions were I was blown away by something I encountered in the environment. Even though the game has these vast worlds to explore, exploration felt unrewarding because the environments felt so empty and far too recylced. What in the heck was the original world design team thinking when they decided that every planet should have same starport, cantina, guildhall, shutleport, hotel, hospital and cloning center. Thank goodness the game still has an amazing community that is still able to create truly awe inspiring player generated environments. I think most of my OMG inducing moments during my time playing SWG have been a result of stuff that the players have created using the games limited art assets.
If i were driving a porche (sandbox) i dont want to start driving a toyota (theme parc main stream). I want to keep driving my porche (sandbox). So much about your comparance :P
EvE doors
See the best doors on EvE-on!
A better example is that;
People may stick with the same *brand* of car as their first for their entire lifetime, as well as work their way up from their first job, and therefore never leave it. Piss poor examples all around, and I was just being facetious about the SWG thing.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
1) ...I never said I wanted SWTOR to be like SWG. I have been playing mmo's for 11+ yrs and was using SWG as an example because it is the only other SW mmo so far, so chill.
2) Most gamers do know what the scale of the maps are so far because a couple were leaked yesterday by someone, not my fault if you didn't see them before they were yanked off-line. Im not in the beta but whether I am or not, I still wouldn't post the pics and vids leaked yesterday. Google it and you will see discussions about them though.
3) Randomly bashing a bunch of keys, is not a mathematical number and certainly not even worth commenting further on.
Re-read the forum rules please and try not flaming while trying to add something constructive next time, thanks.
By the way, having areas to explore in no way indicates a mmo is a sandbox, try a few other mmo's before blindly labeling something as a sandbox just because you don't have a lame exclamation point over a npc's head within view telling you were to go for your next quest.
Man, I wish the mods would just delete threads started where the OP clearly has no idea what he is talking about. All accounts of people who tried the game at E3 are that the worlds are quite large.
You must admit he has a point though. Sometimes it's time to move on (from your first love to another one, better than the first!)
As for the size of the world, I would want it to be as large as possible, it's Star Wars after all, whole universe is before us! I like exploring personally, so the larger the better ....
Well, KOTRO, ME, DA. When did Bioware ever NOT make a large gathering of quest tunnels? One has reason to be skeptical.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Reports on FDarth HAter have testers who have run 5 mins in one direction over a crafted map...... So the worlds arre not small. Some of the Beta areas may be.
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel