I'm sure thankful for the zoning, otherwise I would be so immersed that I would need a glass of water to the face before I'd realize the phone was ringing. It's simply a preventative measure to stop people from thinking they've actually been sucked into the computer.
Lol. Well, I can definitely agree with you there!
I think the most important thing is that the load screens never ruined my immersion in the game. As I said in another post, they almost become welcome, as they give you a couple seconds to stretch your fingers, grab a single mouthful of food, or take a swig of a drink; but only one of those things, during the typical load time.
Oh, and no, I don't have an SSD in my system. I guess with one, I might only have time to blink!
Sooner or later some of you will have to face reality. There's a limit to what you can do w/ a network, and that limit is severely constrained by how many users you want to be able to partake. There is absolutely no reason to just blindly segment off parts of the world if you don't have to. It's not like developers want that.
The simple truth is, we as gamers demand more and more each year. Regardless of whether or not games are actually able to deliver. As such, every new game is forced to make a choice. You either cram your game full of content, or keep it simple and seamless. 10 years ago, I'd choose seamless. Now, I'd choose content 9 times out of 10.
If you like Fallen Earth, then go play Fallen Earth. I have yet to see a game release with half as much content as GW2 has, and still be seamless.
Atleast there are no flightpaths or mounts that we rely on for transportation. Those things are the biggest immersion breakers. In most MMORPGs, even newly released ones, I tab out while auto-walking on a mount or on a flight path. Nothing breaks immersion better than an alt-tab.
This thread has not gone the way I first intended so I have failed to explain my thoughts effectively.
First any kind of zone loading in my view is realy old game tech, reminicent of the comadore 64 days and single player game old if you ask me.
When I look for a a new game to play I am looking for the full on emersion of a vibrent living emersive game world and to me the biggest emersion buster is a zone load or zone wall.
If I am anywhere in a game area and can look around and see the zone wall in all directions as far as I am concerned the game has no emersion factor. There is no place in GW2 where you can go and not see every zone wall. Therefore GW2 does not have an emersion quality to it. I'm sure that in the pvp arena the zone walls are much less of a concern since yuur attention is mostly right in front of you.
In Fallen Earth the game world is huge and you can not see zone wall no mater where you are. The game world just goes on for as far as you can see and trust me that is a long long way.
I am pretty sure Arenanet saved a huge amount of money in development cost by recycling old tech methods. It would have been nce though to have a real game world instead of zones to play in.
I am sure the game will be somewhat entertain anyway though.
AMD Phenum II x4 3.6Ghz 975 black edition 8 gig Ram Nvidia GeForce GTX 760
Chess is seamless. You know why? Because the world is small enough that you can load the whole thing all at once. If you want a bigger world than you can load all at once, then you have to have zones to determine what gets loaded and when. You can make the zones invisible to players by automatically loading the next zone over as a player gets close to the boundary. But then you're doing heavy loading while a player is playing the game, and that runs a serious risk of hitching. Having to have multiple zones loaded simultaneously also takes more memory.
I do think that there will be future movement in the direction of seamless games, even with games as complicated as Guild Wars 2. But the price tag for it will be system requirements that include running the game off of a good SSD and having at least 8 GB of system memory. There isn't yet a big enough market for games to put that in the system requirements.
Ok for any of you to really understand my view load Fallen earth its free to play so no cash involved.
I challenge you to run on foot from Embry Crossroads in Sector 1 to Traders Flat in Sector 3.
During this run you will cover maybe 1% of the game world.
Use the roads the whole way they are "mostly" safe.
Hold the alt key and pan about while you run.
Once you have done this then come back here and troll me all you like.
You can even chat me up name is Paltonish
You are side tracking your own discussion. Stay focused, you can do it!
not at all I am simply saying to many people here don't know what the ^%$# they are talking about untill they have experienced a seemless open world like Fallen earth.
Are you one of the ignorant masses?
Some of just don't give a f*ck about your seamless worlds. GW2 is leagues beyond FE in just about every department. If you dig it so much, stick with it. Just don't come to a GW2 thread, swinging your d*ck around and not expect to have it whacked with something sharp and unfriendly.
I am pretty sure Arenanet saved a huge amount of money in development cost by recycling old tech methods. It would have been nce though to have a real game world instead of zones to play in.
You're looking in the wrong direction. Having zones means that you can make the content within each zone a lot nicer than you could otherwise.
This game would have been far far better if it had one huge seemless zoneless world to explore (ala Fallen Earth)
I've already bought the game but I really am not sure I will be able to swallow this sour pill. Load screens in this day and age just piss me the ^%$# off.
Restrictive world regions break the game emersion big time. What is restrictive? Running in any direction for less than 5 min and hitting a zone wall.
UO had a seemless world back in 97
I really hope the other aspects of the game that I do like will be enough to offset this major "flaw"
Things I do like:
Crafting system
Market system
PvP system
Dynamic event system
Combat skill system
Clan control system
There is alot in the game to like.
Its a good thing GW2 has no sub...if it did have a sub I would not have pre-purchased it.
UO was the size of one GW zone. It takes 15 minutes run clear across a zone.
If I am anywhere in a game area and can look around and see the zone wall in all directions as far as I am concerned the game has no emersion factor. There is no place in GW2 where you can go and not see every zone wall. Therefore GW2 does not have an emersion quality to it. I'm sure that in the pvp arena the zone walls are much less of a concern since yuur attention is mostly right in front of you.
Simply a flat out lie. It is pretty clear you either did not play the game or spent little time in the game. Making such an obviously false statement is not helping your credibility.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
This thread has not gone the way I first intended so I have failed to explain my thoughts effectively.
First any kind of zone loading in my view is realy old game tech, reminicent of the comadore 64 days and single player game old if you ask me.
When I look for a a new game to play I am looking for the full on emersion of a vibrent living emersive game world and to me the biggest emersion buster is a zone load or zone wall.
If I am anywhere in a game area and can look around and see the zone wall in all directions as far as I am concerned the game has no emersion factor. There is no place in GW2 where you can go and not see every zone wall. Therefore GW2 does not have an emersion quality to it. I'm sure that in the pvp arena the zone walls are much less of a concern since yuur attention is mostly right in front of you.
In Fallen Earth the game world is huge and you can not see zone wall no mater where you are. The game world just goes on for as far as you can see and trust me that is a long long way.
I am pretty sure Arenanet saved a huge amount of money in development cost by recycling old tech methods. It would have been nce though to have a real game world instead of zones to play in.
I am sure the game will be somewhat entertain anyway though.
So I'm going to be honest with you..I'd never heard of Fallen Earth until you mentioned it in this thread. But I did some digging..and rofl.
You keep touting zone loading as "old school tech" but Fallen Earth plays like Everquest 1 with it's clunky animations, static npc's and huge but mostly empty looking world. After watching about 30 minutes of video footage it makes perfect sense why the game can run in one seamless world. This is not as much a knock of Fallen Earth (I've got no problem with it, and being F2P one can only expect so much), however, considering you keep bringing up old school tech so much, I'm very surprised you can stand to play it.
This game would have been far far better if it had one huge seemless zoneless world to explore (ala Fallen Earth)
I've already bought the game but I really am not sure I will be able to swallow this sour pill. Load screens in this day and age just piss me the ^%$# off.
Restrictive world regions break the game emersion big time. What is restrictive? Running in any direction for less than 5 min and hitting a zone wall.
UO had a seemless world back in 97
I really hope the other aspects of the game that I do like will be enough to offset this major "flaw"
Things I do like:
Crafting system
Market system
PvP system
Dynamic event system
Combat skill system
Clan control system
There is alot in the game to like.
Its a good thing GW2 has no sub...if it did have a sub I would not have pre-purchased it.
What is wrong with an occasional load screen ?
When all has been said and done, more will have been said than done.
Reason for the load screens, is because each zone is split up into many servers, used to handle the Overload feature. Similar reason why some MMO use Instanced channels for zones and also have load screen. Load screen, means you loading into a new server (not confused with main servers), this way the game can place you into different channels, ask overload feature, for just that zone rather than all zones
I started off doing the Player storyline, and the game felt like it had a lot of loading screens... because it did.
The second character I made I did not follow the Storyline, and I almost had Zero loading screens.
OP, were you following the storyline? Just curious if your experience parallels mine.
I was following the story line. I spent alot of time also looking at the zone walls no mater where I went. I never got out of the first zone but it took less then 5 min to run from one end to the other. To me that's small.
AMD Phenum II x4 3.6Ghz 975 black edition 8 gig Ram Nvidia GeForce GTX 760
What is the average time of gameplay between loading screens? I went hours without seeing any at all (except quick travel). As far as Zone walls - I have no idea what the OP is talking about. The world is one of the most open I've ever seen in an MMO.
Chess is seamless. You know why? Because the world is small enough that you can load the whole thing all at once. If you want a bigger world than you can load all at once, then you have to have zones to determine what gets loaded and when. You can make the zones invisible to players by automatically loading the next zone over as a player gets close to the boundary. But then you're doing heavy loading while a player is playing the game, and that runs a serious risk of hitching. Having to have multiple zones loaded simultaneously also takes more memory.
I do think that there will be future movement in the direction of seamless games, even with games as complicated as Guild Wars 2. But the price tag for it will be system requirements that include running the game off of a good SSD and having at least 8 GB of system memory. There isn't yet a big enough market for games to put that in the system requirements.
I also feel there will need to be some improvements to networking throughput. The good old N^2 communication problem as you increase number of characters in a small area.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I really hopethe other aspects of the game that I do like will be enough to offset this major "flaw"
Apparently you missed SWToR. Anyway, this topic has been discussed over and over.
Ugh, yah, OP go try SWTOR for a bit, you'll be running back to any game to get away from all the loading screens. I don't mind the occasional load screen to go into a capital city or into a new zone, but my goodness, SWTOR takes the cake for the most loading screens in an mmo, ugh.
I really hope the other aspects of the game that I do like will be enough to offset this major "flaw"
Things I do like:
Crafting system
Market system
PvP system
Dynamic event system
Combat skill system
Clan control system
There is alot in the game to like.
Its a good thing GW2 has no sub...if it did have a sub I would not have pre-purchased it.
If you like all these things, yet wouldnt buy the game because of loading if it had a sub, you have issues.
Oh no im loading, suddenlty my immersion is gone, being able to magically text chat with people is fine though, thats super realistic, not to mention all the other super realistic things such being able to hold dozens of big items ina bag.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling" Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
I've never understood why loading screens bug people so much. It's a video game, not virtual reality :
Read my post, it has part to do with it. The load screen idea, stem from the view point that MMO are RPGs in a persistent Virtural reality world, instead of a typical console RPG like experience. load screens seem to counter this, and make the game feel like a console game with larger group of players.
Example,, compare MAG and Dust514 two large scale FPS games, to Planetside 2 which isn't just a large scale FPS like the others, but is a true MMOFPS. Key difference in how they feel. And load screens simply give that console gaming experience.
I'm not a loading screen lover either to say the least, and i also think mmo that aren't seamless are just silly, always was, seamless mmo are there since the beginning, even if they always were a minority.
But its not that bad when you play GW2, they are decently fast, and 99% happen when you travel in other game features "pve/pvp swap" or when you fast travel, which would happen if the game was seamless anyway for obvious reasons. So for a non seamless mmo, GW2 is not horrible as some other mmo around, its on the good side.
Ps and yes the game is a bit too much fragmented from a design point of view, i already mentioned it would have been a lot better if their pvp zones were a prolongation of their pve maps, as some kind of war front or whatever, but well, it isn't.
Comments
I will say this:
I started off doing the Player storyline, and the game felt like it had a lot of loading screens... because it did.
The second character I made I did not follow the Storyline, and I almost had Zero loading screens.
OP, were you following the storyline? Just curious if your experience parallels mine.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Lol. Well, I can definitely agree with you there!
I think the most important thing is that the load screens never ruined my immersion in the game. As I said in another post, they almost become welcome, as they give you a couple seconds to stretch your fingers, grab a single mouthful of food, or take a swig of a drink; but only one of those things, during the typical load time.
Oh, and no, I don't have an SSD in my system. I guess with one, I might only have time to blink!
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Sooner or later some of you will have to face reality. There's a limit to what you can do w/ a network, and that limit is severely constrained by how many users you want to be able to partake. There is absolutely no reason to just blindly segment off parts of the world if you don't have to. It's not like developers want that.
The simple truth is, we as gamers demand more and more each year. Regardless of whether or not games are actually able to deliver. As such, every new game is forced to make a choice. You either cram your game full of content, or keep it simple and seamless. 10 years ago, I'd choose seamless. Now, I'd choose content 9 times out of 10.
If you like Fallen Earth, then go play Fallen Earth. I have yet to see a game release with half as much content as GW2 has, and still be seamless.
Atleast there are no flightpaths or mounts that we rely on for transportation. Those things are the biggest immersion breakers. In most MMORPGs, even newly released ones, I tab out while auto-walking on a mount or on a flight path. Nothing breaks immersion better than an alt-tab.
This thread has not gone the way I first intended so I have failed to explain my thoughts effectively.
First any kind of zone loading in my view is realy old game tech, reminicent of the comadore 64 days and single player game old if you ask me.
When I look for a a new game to play I am looking for the full on emersion of a vibrent living emersive game world and to me the biggest emersion buster is a zone load or zone wall.
If I am anywhere in a game area and can look around and see the zone wall in all directions as far as I am concerned the game has no emersion factor. There is no place in GW2 where you can go and not see every zone wall. Therefore GW2 does not have an emersion quality to it. I'm sure that in the pvp arena the zone walls are much less of a concern since yuur attention is mostly right in front of you.
In Fallen Earth the game world is huge and you can not see zone wall no mater where you are. The game world just goes on for as far as you can see and trust me that is a long long way.
I am pretty sure Arenanet saved a huge amount of money in development cost by recycling old tech methods. It would have been nce though to have a real game world instead of zones to play in.
I am sure the game will be somewhat entertain anyway though.
AMD Phenum II x4 3.6Ghz 975 black edition
8 gig Ram
Nvidia GeForce GTX 760
Chess is seamless. You know why? Because the world is small enough that you can load the whole thing all at once. If you want a bigger world than you can load all at once, then you have to have zones to determine what gets loaded and when. You can make the zones invisible to players by automatically loading the next zone over as a player gets close to the boundary. But then you're doing heavy loading while a player is playing the game, and that runs a serious risk of hitching. Having to have multiple zones loaded simultaneously also takes more memory.
I do think that there will be future movement in the direction of seamless games, even with games as complicated as Guild Wars 2. But the price tag for it will be system requirements that include running the game off of a good SSD and having at least 8 GB of system memory. There isn't yet a big enough market for games to put that in the system requirements.
Some of just don't give a f*ck about your seamless worlds. GW2 is leagues beyond FE in just about every department. If you dig it so much, stick with it. Just don't come to a GW2 thread, swinging your d*ck around and not expect to have it whacked with something sharp and unfriendly.
You're looking in the wrong direction. Having zones means that you can make the content within each zone a lot nicer than you could otherwise.
UO was the size of one GW zone. It takes 15 minutes run clear across a zone.
Simply a flat out lie. It is pretty clear you either did not play the game or spent little time in the game. Making such an obviously false statement is not helping your credibility.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
So I'm going to be honest with you..I'd never heard of Fallen Earth until you mentioned it in this thread. But I did some digging..and rofl.
You keep touting zone loading as "old school tech" but Fallen Earth plays like Everquest 1 with it's clunky animations, static npc's and huge but mostly empty looking world. After watching about 30 minutes of video footage it makes perfect sense why the game can run in one seamless world. This is not as much a knock of Fallen Earth (I've got no problem with it, and being F2P one can only expect so much), however, considering you keep bringing up old school tech so much, I'm very surprised you can stand to play it.
Watch My Music Video | Guild Wars 2 - Epic Redefined
Hope we can use a load all command like in GW1
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
What is wrong with an occasional load screen ?
When all has been said and done, more will have been said than done.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I was following the story line. I spent alot of time also looking at the zone walls no mater where I went. I never got out of the first zone but it took less then 5 min to run from one end to the other. To me that's small.
AMD Phenum II x4 3.6Ghz 975 black edition
8 gig Ram
Nvidia GeForce GTX 760
What is the average time of gameplay between loading screens? I went hours without seeing any at all (except quick travel). As far as Zone walls - I have no idea what the OP is talking about. The world is one of the most open I've ever seen in an MMO.
I also feel there will need to be some improvements to networking throughput. The good old N^2 communication problem as you increase number of characters in a small area.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Ugh, yah, OP go try SWTOR for a bit, you'll be running back to any game to get away from all the loading screens. I don't mind the occasional load screen to go into a capital city or into a new zone, but my goodness, SWTOR takes the cake for the most loading screens in an mmo, ugh.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
hmmm, big empty world with no loading screens, or smaller interesting world with loading screens, hmm tough choice.
Must have been really happy with SWG, you could run over an entire empty boring planet with no load screens.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
If you like all these things, yet wouldnt buy the game because of loading if it had a sub, you have issues.
Oh no im loading, suddenlty my immersion is gone, being able to magically text chat with people is fine though, thats super realistic, not to mention all the other super realistic things such being able to hold dozens of big items ina bag.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
G.A.S. ...Get A SSD. I don't even remember any loading screens.
I've never understood why loading screens bug people so much. It's a video game, not virtual reality :
Personal stories have loading screen cos this is personal to you character developement.
Portal ( zoning ) to another zone do have a loading screen cos its teleportation.
Find me any other game that teleport from 1 zone to another without loading screen.
But if you run from 1 zone to another there would not be a loading screen in GW2, am I right?
By the way Fallen earth too have a loading screen when you port from 1 zone to another.
Pardon my English as it is not my 1st language
Read my post, it has part to do with it. The load screen idea, stem from the view point that MMO are RPGs in a persistent Virtural reality world, instead of a typical console RPG like experience. load screens seem to counter this, and make the game feel like a console game with larger group of players.Example,, compare MAG and Dust514 two large scale FPS games, to Planetside 2 which isn't just a large scale FPS like the others, but is a true MMOFPS. Key difference in how they feel. And load screens simply give that console gaming experience.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I'm not a loading screen lover either to say the least, and i also think mmo that aren't seamless are just silly, always was, seamless mmo are there since the beginning, even if they always were a minority.
But its not that bad when you play GW2, they are decently fast, and 99% happen when you travel in other game features "pve/pvp swap" or when you fast travel, which would happen if the game was seamless anyway for obvious reasons. So for a non seamless mmo, GW2 is not horrible as some other mmo around, its on the good side.
Ps and yes the game is a bit too much fragmented from a design point of view, i already mentioned it would have been a lot better if their pvp zones were a prolongation of their pve maps, as some kind of war front or whatever, but well, it isn't.