The zones seem to provide as much content as Alan Wake did with similar intensity and quality. I don't mind a short break a.ka. loading screen in games in general.
I don't have a SSD and loading screen took only 1 or 2 seconds maximum. I use two old school Western Digital 1TB Sata III HDDs in raid 0 mode.
Ah, good to know. I had no basis for comparison as all of our PCs now have SSDs. I was imagining loading being an actual hinderance based on how much of an issue it seems to be for some, while it wasn't even something that crossed my mind in GW2.
Thanks.
This is just another pitiful and desperate attempt to bash/troll GW2 people and their game.
Hey Palladin, forget these people giving you crap over your opinion. What will ultimately matter is if you wind up having fun playing. Since you've pre-purchased, you'll soon have a chance to see for yourself.
One thing I can add on the zoning, though, is this: Keep in mind that fast travel is a part of GW lore. (Yes, actually a part of the lore!) So, you'll find that, like every other game with some form of teleporting, fast travel, etc. (not talking about slow-assed gryphons) you do have some form of loading as the game puts you into the content you just fast-travelled to. This will be the norm in GW2, not using the portals. Basically, you'll enter a new zone through a portal and unlock waypoints as you travel around in the new zone. Now let's say you travel to a major city to unload... pull up the map, fast travel, do your thing, pull up the map and fast travel back to the closest point near where you were. In a nutshell, you'll only (likely) see the portals themselves once, or at the worst extremely rarely. All the rest is via fast travel, and when you accept that that's a part of the game and the lore it isn't immersion breaking in the least.
I do agree with others on the size of the zones as well, they are huge. I don't know about other games or how they did them (load as you go, etc), but these zones you can easily spend hours or days in without seeing everything.
Ah, I suppose I should add one more thing regarding the zones and the necessity of them... keep in mind dynamic events. Things are constantly going on in the world, triggered by various things. If you think behind the scenes, it makes a lot more sense to split the load required to keep track of, run and maintain all these dynamic events (currently 1500+, will be constantly increasing) across multiple shards to minimize performance issues. If a single shard had to keep track of thousands of active people and every event in every stage they're in... well, I think performance would take a serious hit. From a technical perspective I think the zones wind up making a lot of sense, and I do feel from personal experience that the fast travel ultimately does a great job of masking the zones themselves.
I've never understood why this is such a deal breaker for some. If they were long load screens then maybe but they are like 5-10 seconds. Has society really gotten to the point we cannot wait that long?
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.
NO i tried TOR canceled my sub two torturous weeks into the free "trial" month for this very reason zone laoding is old school crap and no game these days should release with it.
Dude, have you never modded or made a game? All games have trade-offs in what can be accomplished and having a hissy fit about something you don't apparently understand just doesn't change the fact that computers have limited resources with with to render a world, therefore, you must make the world fit into those resources.
The first option to make seamless zone loading is that you have to make the maps substantially smaller. This tends to break-up/destroy epic, grand-scale, large-area PvE due to map-size restrictions. This option would pretty much destroy the scope of the DEs being developed by ANet. It has additional problems when you get to corner boundaries. This means you have to restrict area transitions on the map. You have to force people to go through these areas sequentially because loading four or five or six areas at some intersection is very problematic. So, effectively, what you doing is to funnel everyone though chokepoints that are, essentially, interactive loading zones for the next area. STO did this on many of it's planets. As many of us know from first hand experience, STO's planets were complete and utter crap and a major problem for the game.
This is a rooms and tunnels approach. The tunnels are your loading screens, the rooms your small areas. Shooters do this a lot.
A second option, to keep those maps large, you have savagely edit them down for content. You no longer can have a forest made out of individual trees and shrubs, rather you end up with some trees and shrubs in front of placeable 'tree walls' you can't walk through. This option would pretty much destroy the enviornments in the game, pushing them backwards to old-school crap like NWN or Team Fortress 1.
This is also your typical flight-simulator map. It's big. It's seamless. It's butt-ugly. Warband Mount and Blade also does this. The overland map on which you naviagate is huge. Gigantic. But low-detail and butt-ugly.
A third option is to make an area that won't load on a 32-bit O/S machine and will crush all but the elite 64-bit O/S machines. That certainly wouldn't play well... And this where the inexperience modder always seems to start... Because he wants what he wants and doesn't understand that he can't have it.... He does it. Puts it on Fileplanet, or whatever, then his mod breaks and people think he has an Eye Dee Ten Tee problem and he gets a lot of one-star reviews and nasty comments.
I'm sure there are other options. But when I used to mod, those were the options we basically dealt with.
Hey Palladin, forget these people giving you crap over your opinion. What will ultimately matter is if you wind up having fun playing. Since you've pre-purchased, you'll soon have a chance to see for yourself.
One thing I can add on the zoning, though, is this: Keep in mind that fast travel is a part of GW lore. (Yes, actually a part of the lore!) So, you'll find that, like every other game with some form of teleporting, fast travel, etc. (not talking about slow-assed gryphons) you do have some form of loading as the game puts you into the content you just fast-travelled to. This will be the norm in GW2, not using the portals. Basically, you'll enter a new zone through a portal and unlock waypoints as you travel around in the new zone. Now let's say you travel to a major city to unload... pull up the map, fast travel, do your thing, pull up the map and fast travel back to the closest point near where you were. In a nutshell, you'll only (likely) see the portals themselves once, or at the worst extremely rarely. All the rest is via fast travel, and when you accept that that's a part of the game and the lore it isn't immersion breaking in the least.
I do agree with others on the size of the zones as well, they are huge. I don't know about other games or how they did them (load as you go, etc), but these zones you can easily spend hours or days in without seeing everything.
Ah, I suppose I should add one more thing regarding the zones and the necessity of them... keep in mind dynamic events. Things are constantly going on in the world, triggered by various things. If you think behind the scenes, it makes a lot more sense to split the load required to keep track of, run and maintain all these dynamic events (currently 1500+, will be constantly increasing) across multiple shards to minimize performance issues. If a single shard had to keep track of thousands of active people and every event in every stage they're in... well, I think performance would take a serious hit. From a technical perspective I think the zones wind up making a lot of sense, and I do feel from personal experience that the fast travel ultimately does a great job of masking the zones themselves.
The problem with his opinion is that it's just self-centered and childish. He's ignoring the reality of tradeoffs and pitching a fit. You want seamless loading? Play in a habitrail. Because that's what you're going to get. Memory is finite. Only so much can be put there.
If you want a world like that then wait for Archage
I've tried researching Archage but right now the game seems to be a pipe dream. Very little info on it ...I avoid games with anime character types where you can't tell the male from the female toons.
It's interesting from the screenshots and videos. But the world suffers from the typical barrenness of large-zone games. And they do, btw, a fantastic job of hiding it as far as it can be hidden. But it's obviously there in the canyon-like areas. The large, empty expanses with little detail beyond maybe some bump-map texturing for depth...
You know, trade-offs. You don't get loading screens, but you suffer something else.
I don't have a SSD and loading screen took only 1 or 2 seconds maximum. I use two old school Western Digital 1TB Sata III HDDs in raid 0 mode.
Ah, good to know. I had no basis for comparison as all of our PCs now have SSDs. I was imagining loading being an actual hinderance based on how much of an issue it seems to be for some, while it wasn't even something that crossed my mind in GW2.
Thanks.
This is just another pitiful and desperate attempt to bash/troll GW2 people and their game.
YOU STINK OF FEAR!!!!!
Sorry, is that supposed to be a joke of some sort or did you possibly misread something?
I pointed out that loading screens go so fast I can't even read the flavor text at the bottom in GW2 on a solid state drive (that's a huge positive in my book - the speed, not the being unable to read it fast enough bit), he mentioned that even without SSD it was loading for him in a second or two anyway.
The only way that could be misconstrued as bashing is if you didn't actually read it.
Wait, you're joking right? Was that sarcasm posssibly?
Come on guys, to whoever played GW2 BWE, you know you played the best MMO ever, dont loose yourself explaining to the rest, it doenst matter if the rest plays it we will , only the ones that played the beta weekend know how GW2 is insanly awsome.
I don't know about that. I played the weekend beta, had tons of fun, and look forward to the next one and realease, but I'm not sure that I'd say the game is the best mmo ever. Only time will tell, I enjoyed the game but giving it a best mmo title after one weekend, I don't think anyone could do.
Hey Palladin, forget these people giving you crap over your opinion. What will ultimately matter is if you wind up having fun playing. Since you've pre-purchased, you'll soon have a chance to see for yourself.
One thing I can add on the zoning, though, is this: Keep in mind that fast travel is a part of GW lore. (Yes, actually a part of the lore!) So, you'll find that, like every other game with some form of teleporting, fast travel, etc. (not talking about slow-assed gryphons) you do have some form of loading as the game puts you into the content you just fast-travelled to. This will be the norm in GW2, not using the portals. Basically, you'll enter a new zone through a portal and unlock waypoints as you travel around in the new zone. Now let's say you travel to a major city to unload... pull up the map, fast travel, do your thing, pull up the map and fast travel back to the closest point near where you were. In a nutshell, you'll only (likely) see the portals themselves once, or at the worst extremely rarely. All the rest is via fast travel, and when you accept that that's a part of the game and the lore it isn't immersion breaking in the least.
I do agree with others on the size of the zones as well, they are huge. I don't know about other games or how they did them (load as you go, etc), but these zones you can easily spend hours or days in without seeing everything.
Ah, I suppose I should add one more thing regarding the zones and the necessity of them... keep in mind dynamic events. Things are constantly going on in the world, triggered by various things. If you think behind the scenes, it makes a lot more sense to split the load required to keep track of, run and maintain all these dynamic events (currently 1500+, will be constantly increasing) across multiple shards to minimize performance issues. If a single shard had to keep track of thousands of active people and every event in every stage they're in... well, I think performance would take a serious hit. From a technical perspective I think the zones wind up making a lot of sense, and I do feel from personal experience that the fast travel ultimately does a great job of masking the zones themselves.
The problem with his opinion is that it's just self-centered and childish. He's ignoring the reality of tradeoffs and pitching a fit. You want seamless loading? Play in a habitrail. Because that's what you're going to get. Memory is finite. Only so much can be put there.
But you won't get GW2. You can't do GW2's environment, DEs, etc., in a habitrail game.
Everyone's opinion can seem self-centered and childish to those that don't agree with it. He already has come around and will be playing GW2, and he's most welcome to. He has an issue with the zones, I'm trying to put out an explanation as best as I can that doesn't need to resort to any types of attacks. Let's face it, it's far too easy for a thread to degrade into insults, losing any value that was to be had.
I have no problem with him not liking the zones. I see it as simply not fully understanding the hows, whys and how it fits into GW2. I fully think that as he plays the game it'll all begin to feel natural and the zones will become a non-factor due to the masking effect of fast-travel. That's all.
This is just another pitiful and desperate attempt to bash/troll GW2 people and their game.
YOU STINK OF FEAR!!!!!
Sorry, is that supposed to be a joke of some sort or did you possibly misread something?
I pointed out that loading screens go so fast I can't even read the flavor text at the bottom in GW2 on a solid state drive (that's a huge positive in my book - the speed, not the being unable to read it fast enough bit), he mentioned that even without SSD it was loading for him in a second or two anyway.
The only way that could be misconstrued as bashing is if you didn't actually read it.
Wait, you're joking right? Was that sarcasm posssibly?
...and another attempt by you. Relentless aren't you?
YOU STINK OF FEAR AND MAD DOG KIWI LIME!!!!
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
However after the 'revolution' of the genre thing ... yes i think they kind of underestimated the importance of an open world. The loading screens are about the only part of the game i don't like.
That being said. Im fine with them choosing for zones, but i'd just much rather have an open world.
I do think you understand what I am trying to say.
As I ahve said the game is feature rich and I am sure I will like it well enough. I would have loved it without the segmenting of all the various zones
AMD Phenum II x4 3.6Ghz 975 black edition 8 gig Ram Nvidia GeForce GTX 760
However after the 'revolution' of the genre thing ... yes i think they kind of underestimated the importance of an open world. The loading screens are about the only part of the game i don't like.
That being said. Im fine with them choosing for zones, but i'd just much rather have an open world.
I do think you understand what I am trying to say.
As I ahve said the game is feature rich and I am sure I will like it well enough. I would have loved it without the segmenting of all the various zones
There is a simple test that can be done: is the game immersive? If it is then portals are irrelevant - their use is a drawback that is balanced by the benefits it brings. Sure no Portals would be even better, but perhaps no portals would have meant the memory cost of dynamic events would have been prohibitive etc etc. It is the final overall product that matters (rather than focusing on 1 element in isolation)
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
THis game would have been far far better if it have 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.
It really does not bother me...
Same... I really don't get the drama, and I didn't find it at all heavy anyhow. The odd screen really is no big deal.
I guess people are more sensitive then me out there though.
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.
Networking isn't the problem. There's already too much going on in a given zone to send your computer data about everything that is going on on the other side of the zone.
I don't get it. Even with loading screens, I can get from anywhere to anywhere I've been before a great deal faster than any other MMO I've played. Most use the flight path system. I still have to go to the destination on foot before I can use the fast travel. I still have to pay money to use the fast travel. It's seamless, but I have to sit and wait. Teleportation is rare in those games, and then you still have a loading screen, or a frozen screen while the game loads.
Yes, there are portals to separate zones to help with memory. But If you see them more than a few times, you aren't using a great system implemented in the game. This won't cost us time, it will save us time. Lots of it.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
However after the 'revolution' of the genre thing ... yes i think they kind of underestimated the importance of an open world. The loading screens are about the only part of the game i don't like.
That being said. Im fine with them choosing for zones, but i'd just much rather have an open world.
I do think you understand what I am trying to say.
As I ahve said the game is feature rich and I am sure I will like it well enough. I would have loved it without the segmenting of all the various zones
I believe the crux of the issue you have is a giant misunderstanding. Some people have called you a liar, to which you have not responded. I prefer to think you are misinformed and did not understand what you saw.
What race did you play? This will start as a basis to see where you thought you saw something you did not. I am willing to bet you played a Norn. I will make the assumption here because it is the most "cramped" starting area, in that it feels the most claustrophobic.
You see, it is flat out impossible to leave the Norn city (or Charr or Human for that matter) and walk to the zone edge in 5 minutes. Simply is not happening. However, the Charr area if you run around without paying attention looks as if it is a tiny circle surrounded by mountains which are zone walls. They in fact are not. There are many many ways through those mountains. There is a pass to go around, you can follow a path over, heck you can swim underwater and go UNDER these mountains to the other side. There are a number of cave structures too. This is not the zone wall, I can guarantee you that you did not leave the Norn area, walk 5 minutes and hit an actual zone portal to another zone (you may have hit an instance for a personal story if you were following those).
In order to zone out, you would have to walk around/over/through those mountains, north through 2 other villages with an expanspe between them, and follow the road out to the west which is way way way more than 5 minutes.
Either you are making an assumption that mountains you see can not be scaled or gone around (or under) and therefore making yourself look like a troll, or you simply are flat out lying about seeing a zone wall in all directions.
Let's talk Fallen Earth real quick while I am here. Decent game. People should not put it down without trying it, it has some good features other games should copy. It also did not start F2P (I have not tried it since it went that model). Anyway, say you are in sector 1 heading north to sector 2. You hit this long stretch of road with nothing around. NOTHING, and the scenery gets kinda boring. It is a long stretch right? I hate to break your immersion, but that is where it is loading sector 2 in the background similar to what someone early in this post mentioned games do. Each person is different but I would rather have a split second load screen than autorun-got get a drink area. That's just me though.
Zones are pretty large and the world still feel seamless when you still need to travel across those portals. And they have zone based queue servers to balance the events and world bosses, so zoning is essential by design. period. if you really can not get used to that factor, game may not be your deal.
Na they are not large. YOu should take a look at Fallen Earth ...then you will know what LARGE really means. Even the instanced content in FE has no zone loading.
Then i believe you have found your game. An MMO that is not UO and still have no zone loads.
Unfortunately GW2 does have zone loads, althought the zones themselves is quite large, they still have zone loads. Therefore its out in the open. Those that doesn't like a single zones loading screens , Please notice that GW2 DOES HAVE load screens.
Its not an HIdden Secret, everyone who is thinking of purchasing or has purchased, please notice that GW2 does have load screens. And its not gonna change.
Personally it doesn't bother me, but its out in the open, Zone Loading Exists ( only last a few secs for me but still it does exist)
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
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.
Are you talking about the starter instance before you become a "hero"? The starter instance is extremely limited.
If you are talking about the real zone. Then you are just well wrong. So wrong you are either lying or insane.
So I am leaning towards the idea that you never actually got into the real game world and have no idea what you are talking about.
Although you say you did personal story and that is after starter instance. 5 minutes from one end to other is competely and utterly imposible except in starter instance. Only starter instance has obvious walls. You would never even be able to say such a thing in Queensdale and it would take your hours to completely circumvent the boundaries of the zone.
Finally you would have died if you tried since you clearly didn't make it very high and the level 15 area would have cleaned your clock.
So basically this is just ignorance. You clearly have no idea what a real GW2 zone is like and never experienced one.
everytime i see somone complain about immersion it makes me laugh. dude if game is fun play it if not then dont plain and simple. do you ever get up from pc does that break your immersion. if somthing as dumb as 1 or 2 secs loading bothers you that much you should stop playing games cause it's in every damn game. i bet your FE takes forever to load up in the first place. takes me all of 10 secs maby from the time i click play on launcher till im in game playing. i get up alot while playing gotta piss or want somthing to eat or wife or kids need me or i need to go smoke. my question is do you cry when you die or do you have to reroll cause your toon died. and that breaks your immersion WAHHHHAAA i died ohhh noes. maby you should get kinect for windows so you can swing around a sword instead of pressing keys on a keyboard.
Zones are pretty large and the world still feel seamless when you still need to travel across those portals. And they have zone based queue servers to balance the events and world bosses, so zoning is essential by design. period. if you really can not get used to that factor, game may not be your deal.
Na they are not large. YOu should take a look at Fallen Earth ...then you will know what LARGE really means. Even the instanced content in FE has no zone loading.
Then i believe you have found your game. An MMO that is not UO and still have no zone loads.
Unfortunately GW2 does have zone loads, althought the zones themselves is quite large, they still have zone loads. Therefore its out in the open. Those that doesn't like a single zones loading screens , Please notice that GW2 DOES HAVE load screens.
Its not an HIdden Secret, everyone who is thinking of purchasing or has purchased, please notice that GW2 does have load screens. And its not gonna change.
Personally it doesn't bother me, but its out in the open, Zone Loading Exists ( only last a few secs for me but still it does exist)
I would like to confess I have also seen the loading screens, its true, everything he says is true, there are loading screens. If there are loading screens the game must be terrible.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Comments
The zones seem to provide as much content as Alan Wake did with similar intensity and quality. I don't mind a short break a.ka. loading screen in games in general.
Well yeah I like seamless and zoneless world much more as well.
Loading screens is not main reason I dislike zones as well.
I just like when world is one big coherent thing and not chopped into bits.
Well but saying that I still like GW2 and will play it.
For my seamless , sandboxy experience I will have to wait for AA though.
Then I will have 2 games for my diffrent needs and moods hehe
This is just another pitiful and desperate attempt to bash/troll GW2 people and their game.
YOU STINK OF FEAR!!!!!
Life IS Feudal
Hey Palladin, forget these people giving you crap over your opinion. What will ultimately matter is if you wind up having fun playing. Since you've pre-purchased, you'll soon have a chance to see for yourself.
One thing I can add on the zoning, though, is this: Keep in mind that fast travel is a part of GW lore. (Yes, actually a part of the lore!) So, you'll find that, like every other game with some form of teleporting, fast travel, etc. (not talking about slow-assed gryphons) you do have some form of loading as the game puts you into the content you just fast-travelled to. This will be the norm in GW2, not using the portals. Basically, you'll enter a new zone through a portal and unlock waypoints as you travel around in the new zone. Now let's say you travel to a major city to unload... pull up the map, fast travel, do your thing, pull up the map and fast travel back to the closest point near where you were. In a nutshell, you'll only (likely) see the portals themselves once, or at the worst extremely rarely. All the rest is via fast travel, and when you accept that that's a part of the game and the lore it isn't immersion breaking in the least.
I do agree with others on the size of the zones as well, they are huge. I don't know about other games or how they did them (load as you go, etc), but these zones you can easily spend hours or days in without seeing everything.
Ah, I suppose I should add one more thing regarding the zones and the necessity of them... keep in mind dynamic events. Things are constantly going on in the world, triggered by various things. If you think behind the scenes, it makes a lot more sense to split the load required to keep track of, run and maintain all these dynamic events (currently 1500+, will be constantly increasing) across multiple shards to minimize performance issues. If a single shard had to keep track of thousands of active people and every event in every stage they're in... well, I think performance would take a serious hit. From a technical perspective I think the zones wind up making a lot of sense, and I do feel from personal experience that the fast travel ultimately does a great job of masking the zones themselves.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I've never understood why this is such a deal breaker for some. If they were long load screens then maybe but they are like 5-10 seconds. Has society really gotten to the point we cannot wait that long?
Dude, have you never modded or made a game? All games have trade-offs in what can be accomplished and having a hissy fit about something you don't apparently understand just doesn't change the fact that computers have limited resources with with to render a world, therefore, you must make the world fit into those resources.
The first option to make seamless zone loading is that you have to make the maps substantially smaller. This tends to break-up/destroy epic, grand-scale, large-area PvE due to map-size restrictions. This option would pretty much destroy the scope of the DEs being developed by ANet. It has additional problems when you get to corner boundaries. This means you have to restrict area transitions on the map. You have to force people to go through these areas sequentially because loading four or five or six areas at some intersection is very problematic. So, effectively, what you doing is to funnel everyone though chokepoints that are, essentially, interactive loading zones for the next area. STO did this on many of it's planets. As many of us know from first hand experience, STO's planets were complete and utter crap and a major problem for the game.
This is a rooms and tunnels approach. The tunnels are your loading screens, the rooms your small areas. Shooters do this a lot.
A second option, to keep those maps large, you have savagely edit them down for content. You no longer can have a forest made out of individual trees and shrubs, rather you end up with some trees and shrubs in front of placeable 'tree walls' you can't walk through. This option would pretty much destroy the enviornments in the game, pushing them backwards to old-school crap like NWN or Team Fortress 1.
This is also your typical flight-simulator map. It's big. It's seamless. It's butt-ugly. Warband Mount and Blade also does this. The overland map on which you naviagate is huge. Gigantic. But low-detail and butt-ugly.
A third option is to make an area that won't load on a 32-bit O/S machine and will crush all but the elite 64-bit O/S machines. That certainly wouldn't play well... And this where the inexperience modder always seems to start... Because he wants what he wants and doesn't understand that he can't have it.... He does it. Puts it on Fileplanet, or whatever, then his mod breaks and people think he has an Eye Dee Ten Tee problem and he gets a lot of one-star reviews and nasty comments.
I'm sure there are other options. But when I used to mod, those were the options we basically dealt with.
The problem with his opinion is that it's just self-centered and childish. He's ignoring the reality of tradeoffs and pitching a fit. You want seamless loading? Play in a habitrail. Because that's what you're going to get. Memory is finite. Only so much can be put there.
http://criandohamster.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/habitrail_armado.jpg
But you won't get GW2. You can't do GW2's environment, DEs, etc., in a habitrail game.
It's interesting from the screenshots and videos. But the world suffers from the typical barrenness of large-zone games. And they do, btw, a fantastic job of hiding it as far as it can be hidden. But it's obviously there in the canyon-like areas. The large, empty expanses with little detail beyond maybe some bump-map texturing for depth...
You know, trade-offs. You don't get loading screens, but you suffer something else.
Six of one, half-a-dozen of another.
Sorry, is that supposed to be a joke of some sort or did you possibly misread something?
I pointed out that loading screens go so fast I can't even read the flavor text at the bottom in GW2 on a solid state drive (that's a huge positive in my book - the speed, not the being unable to read it fast enough bit), he mentioned that even without SSD it was loading for him in a second or two anyway.
The only way that could be misconstrued as bashing is if you didn't actually read it.
Wait, you're joking right? Was that sarcasm posssibly?
I don't know about that. I played the weekend beta, had tons of fun, and look forward to the next one and realease, but I'm not sure that I'd say the game is the best mmo ever. Only time will tell, I enjoyed the game but giving it a best mmo title after one weekend, I don't think anyone could do.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
Everyone's opinion can seem self-centered and childish to those that don't agree with it. He already has come around and will be playing GW2, and he's most welcome to. He has an issue with the zones, I'm trying to put out an explanation as best as I can that doesn't need to resort to any types of attacks. Let's face it, it's far too easy for a thread to degrade into insults, losing any value that was to be had.
I have no problem with him not liking the zones. I see it as simply not fully understanding the hows, whys and how it fits into GW2. I fully think that as he plays the game it'll all begin to feel natural and the zones will become a non-factor due to the masking effect of fast-travel. That's all.
Oderint, dum metuant.
zone loading exists because it has less stress on the server. If the whole world was seamless the server would lag like crazy.
-I am here to perform logic
...and another attempt by you. Relentless aren't you?
YOU STINK OF FEAR AND MAD DOG KIWI LIME!!!!
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
I do think you understand what I am trying to say.
As I ahve said the game is feature rich and I am sure I will like it well enough. I would have loved it without the segmenting of all the various zones
AMD Phenum II x4 3.6Ghz 975 black edition
8 gig Ram
Nvidia GeForce GTX 760
There is a simple test that can be done: is the game immersive? If it is then portals are irrelevant - their use is a drawback that is balanced by the benefits it brings. Sure no Portals would be even better, but perhaps no portals would have meant the memory cost of dynamic events would have been prohibitive etc etc. It is the final overall product that matters (rather than focusing on 1 element in isolation)
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Same... I really don't get the drama, and I didn't find it at all heavy anyhow. The odd screen really is no big deal.
I guess people are more sensitive then me out there though.
Networking isn't the problem. There's already too much going on in a given zone to send your computer data about everything that is going on on the other side of the zone.
All right, Palladin. I tell you what. Go here and read this:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/350767/The-future-is-seamless-but-its-not-the-near-future.html
Then maybe you can understand what you're talking about before you continue your rant.
Says it all, +1.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
I don't get it. Even with loading screens, I can get from anywhere to anywhere I've been before a great deal faster than any other MMO I've played. Most use the flight path system. I still have to go to the destination on foot before I can use the fast travel. I still have to pay money to use the fast travel. It's seamless, but I have to sit and wait. Teleportation is rare in those games, and then you still have a loading screen, or a frozen screen while the game loads.
Yes, there are portals to separate zones to help with memory. But If you see them more than a few times, you aren't using a great system implemented in the game. This won't cost us time, it will save us time. Lots of it.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
I believe the crux of the issue you have is a giant misunderstanding. Some people have called you a liar, to which you have not responded. I prefer to think you are misinformed and did not understand what you saw.
What race did you play? This will start as a basis to see where you thought you saw something you did not. I am willing to bet you played a Norn. I will make the assumption here because it is the most "cramped" starting area, in that it feels the most claustrophobic.
You see, it is flat out impossible to leave the Norn city (or Charr or Human for that matter) and walk to the zone edge in 5 minutes. Simply is not happening. However, the Charr area if you run around without paying attention looks as if it is a tiny circle surrounded by mountains which are zone walls. They in fact are not. There are many many ways through those mountains. There is a pass to go around, you can follow a path over, heck you can swim underwater and go UNDER these mountains to the other side. There are a number of cave structures too. This is not the zone wall, I can guarantee you that you did not leave the Norn area, walk 5 minutes and hit an actual zone portal to another zone (you may have hit an instance for a personal story if you were following those).
In order to zone out, you would have to walk around/over/through those mountains, north through 2 other villages with an expanspe between them, and follow the road out to the west which is way way way more than 5 minutes.
Either you are making an assumption that mountains you see can not be scaled or gone around (or under) and therefore making yourself look like a troll, or you simply are flat out lying about seeing a zone wall in all directions.
Let's talk Fallen Earth real quick while I am here. Decent game. People should not put it down without trying it, it has some good features other games should copy. It also did not start F2P (I have not tried it since it went that model). Anyway, say you are in sector 1 heading north to sector 2. You hit this long stretch of road with nothing around. NOTHING, and the scenery gets kinda boring. It is a long stretch right? I hate to break your immersion, but that is where it is loading sector 2 in the background similar to what someone early in this post mentioned games do. Each person is different but I would rather have a split second load screen than autorun-got get a drink area. That's just me though.
Then i believe you have found your game. An MMO that is not UO and still have no zone loads.
Unfortunately GW2 does have zone loads, althought the zones themselves is quite large, they still have zone loads. Therefore its out in the open. Those that doesn't like a single zones loading screens , Please notice that GW2 DOES HAVE load screens.
Its not an HIdden Secret, everyone who is thinking of purchasing or has purchased, please notice that GW2 does have load screens. And its not gonna change.
Personally it doesn't bother me, but its out in the open, Zone Loading Exists ( only last a few secs for me but still it does exist)
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
Are you talking about the starter instance before you become a "hero"? The starter instance is extremely limited.
If you are talking about the real zone. Then you are just well wrong. So wrong you are either lying or insane.
So I am leaning towards the idea that you never actually got into the real game world and have no idea what you are talking about.
Although you say you did personal story and that is after starter instance. 5 minutes from one end to other is competely and utterly imposible except in starter instance. Only starter instance has obvious walls. You would never even be able to say such a thing in Queensdale and it would take your hours to completely circumvent the boundaries of the zone.
Finally you would have died if you tried since you clearly didn't make it very high and the level 15 area would have cleaned your clock.
So basically this is just ignorance. You clearly have no idea what a real GW2 zone is like and never experienced one.
everytime i see somone complain about immersion it makes me laugh. dude if game is fun play it if not then dont plain and simple. do you ever get up from pc does that break your immersion. if somthing as dumb as 1 or 2 secs loading bothers you that much you should stop playing games cause it's in every damn game. i bet your FE takes forever to load up in the first place. takes me all of 10 secs maby from the time i click play on launcher till im in game playing. i get up alot while playing gotta piss or want somthing to eat or wife or kids need me or i need to go smoke. my question is do you cry when you die or do you have to reroll cause your toon died. and that breaks your immersion WAHHHHAAA i died ohhh noes. maby you should get kinect for windows so you can swing around a sword instead of pressing keys on a keyboard.
I would like to confess I have also seen the loading screens, its true, everything he says is true, there are loading screens. If there are loading screens the game must be terrible.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D