The thing that worried me about AOC when I read the FAQ, is that the devs said the zones would only be a few kilometers in size which to me doesn't sound very large.
Aelfin, that's what I was referring to when I said things might have changed, not the zoning.
I dont see what the big deal is, so what they are using zones. I mean is that going to kill the game for you.
It depends on how they are implemented. I'm sure most people would like to do without loading screens when traveling around the game world if they could. It takes away from immersion. As most people who played DAOC or Everquest can remember, they can also be easily exploited when fighting NPCs or other players. What worries me the most is that is is a regression in gaming technology. Most modern gaming engines use paging systems (LPs). To say that we are using zones so we can put more detail in the gameworld doesn't fly since the same thing can be done with LPs and without loading screens. I just think it was a bad early design choice by the devs. Does it mean the game will suck? of course not.
DAOC fixed most of those problems by having "safe keeps" you ported into and even when porting into the frontier dungeon they started doing damage to people near the entrance that stood there for over a minute. So I feel confident they will employ similar strategies to keep the zone entrances camp free. Besides World of Warcraft pvp is horrible so if the pvp actually has a point like in DAOC (God i loved that game) then I'm all for zones.
Thirty years of gaming experience...not sure if I should be proud of that www.mmoexaminer.blogspot.com
Like many, I can’t wait for this game to be released. I am however a little worried about the fact that they are using zones which are only 1 to 2 kilometers in length and width as opposed to creating a seamless game world like almost all newer MMORPGs. They say they are doing this so that they can add more detail to the game world, but I know for a fact that there are ways to use landscape and mesh paging systems to load and destroy object in memory as a player moves around the game world. This allows game developers to add as much detail as they want, and still keep the game world seamless (I’ve created LP systems myself using the Truevision3d and Irrlicht game engines). Zones are old school and easily exploitable in combat. They also take a lot away from immersion. I’m really at a loss on why the AOC devs would even consider using zones.
Zones are the price we pay for the new combat system, it worked fine in EQ1 it will work fine in AOC too, and like you mentioned AoC zones are a damn site bigger.
I posted this reply in a similar thread which has now disappeared into the murk of long and forgotten postdom:
I think people fail to understand that in order to portray remote areas of Hyboria, then there is no other way to do it than with Zones. I guess that some people aren't aware of the fact that AoC is based on a license, and that license comes with a world that's already defined:
Funcom want to portray some key locations in Cimmeria, Stygia and Aquilonia, eventually I'm sure, filling out the key locations elsewhere. You do realise that there is a huge distance between these places? In fact Hyboria is meant to be out world some 12000 years ago, and before the great Ice Age. As you might notice, Hyboria bears a resemblence to the Eurasian an African continents. So in terms of scale, the distance between Cimmeria and Stygia is the distance between Sweden and Algeria. A f#@king long way.
Like many, I can’t wait for this game to be released. I am however a little worried about the fact that they are using zones which are only 1 to 2 kilometers in length and width as opposed to creating a seamless game world like almost all newer MMORPGs. They say they are doing this so that they can add more detail to the game world, but I know for a fact that there are ways to use landscape and mesh paging systems to load and destroy object in memory as a player moves around the game world. This allows game developers to add as much detail as they want, and still keep the game world seamless (I’ve created LP systems myself using the Truevision3d and Irrlicht game engines). Zones are old school and easily exploitable in combat. They also take a lot away from immersion. I’m really at a loss on why the AOC devs would even consider using zones.
Just as long as Zones are BIG, and WILL effectively reduce lag, and make my comp play it on somehow low graphics, I will be fine about it. But say, how will loading be? Like in Hero Online for so? Or will it work like Oblivion did?(Bethesda did great work with that)
Seriously, what now zones = good because after all AOC is using them
I have never minded Zones so this is no biggy to me but i can't stand fanboydom. Sorry to hate , but id rather hate and think then love and Dee de Deee.
why are they doing it ... most likely it how they setup it up in the early stages of the game... tho seeing this makes me wonder how much of the AOC hype is just that .. After all they are using zones because its easier to code for it. and if your coders have issues addressing that then....
But still i am still playing many games with zones and they are wonderful as could AOC be ... but lets not go out and paint the fact that AOC is using outmoded zones as a GOOD thing.
"I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves; that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day." - Thomas Pain
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
AOC will be using a modified anarchy online graphics engine. Expect it to have massive lag during pvp and other such problems and limitations parallel to the ones ao has.
Seriously, what now zones = good because after all AOC is using them
I have never minded Zones so this is no biggy to me but i can't stand fanboydom. Sorry to hate , but id rather hate and think then love and Dee de Deee.
why are they doing it ... most likely it how they setup it up in the early stages of the game... tho seeing this makes me wonder how much of the AOC hype is just that .. After all they are using zones because its easier to code for it. and if your coders have issues addressing that then....
But still i am still playing many games with zones and they are wonderful as could AOC be ... but lets not go out and paint the fact that AOC is using outmoded zones as a GOOD thing.
A good thing? Not really. If it was possible within reason for AoC to have a seamless world, I'd still be playing it, but would be somewhat disappointed with FC. Of course, I mean Seamless like WoW is, not Vanguard.
However, like I keep saying, no matter how easy or hard the two methods are compared to each other, a true seamless world is quite simply not realistically possible within the Hyborian world, while remaining remotely true to lore.
Whether or not seamless is an overall "better" option, zoned is the only option open to the devs.
Welles, they are using a graphics engine that has been completely rebuilt based around solving the problems AO had. Huge fricking difference. Will it be perfect? Doubt it, nothing ever is. Will it have all or even most of the same problems AO did? almost definitely not.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Hemingway
How is what I've written fanboyism? I mean personally I'd love it if there weren't zones but I think I've raised a pretty valid reason why they have zoned it. Simply, if you want to portray cimmeria, Aquilonia and Stygia then there is a huge distance between them. Given Hyboria is the Eurasian and African continent, that's a lot of ground to cover. Clearly you know nothing about the lore.
Originally posted by Jetrpg
FAnboys FANboys Fanboys , the alarms sounds.
Seriously, what now zones = good because after all AOC is using them
I have never minded Zones so this is no biggy to me but i can't stand fanboydom. Sorry to hate , but id rather hate and think then love and Dee de Deee.
why are they doing it ... most likely it how they setup it up in the early stages of the game... tho seeing this makes me wonder how much of the AOC hype is just that .. After all they are using zones because its easier to code for it. and if your coders have issues addressing that then....
But still i am still playing many games with zones and they are wonderful as could AOC be ... but lets not go out and paint the fact that AOC is using outmoded zones as a GOOD thing.
"I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves; that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day." - Thomas Pain
Why because while i think its fine to have "zones" it can be done without the loading its pretty much an accepted fact the seemless worlds are the standard and zones are old and sub-par. This is true with any mmo.. so when i see a bunch of people rush to the defence or defense of them i think, "What the ..." Because its really not logical to. You can call a dog a cat , but that don't change the fact that its a dog.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
ok all you who are saying the zones are going to be bad you simply aren't understanding why they are doing the zones and it is because of the fact that the actual world that it is based off of is huge they are doing zones so that they can take you to key locations within the world without you having to run for thousands of miles across barren waist lands if they were to make this game seamless then people would have to run for thousands of miles in order to get to the exciting places
ok all you who are saying the zones are going to be bad you simply aren't understanding why they are doing the zones and it is because of the fact that the actual world that it is based off of is huge they are doing zones so that they can take you to key locations within the world without you having to run for thousands of miles across barren waist lands if they were to make this game seamless then people would have to run for thousands of miles in order to get to the exciting places
You'd probably do well to stop parroting that line - it isn't really convincing anyone.
No one's arguing that there can't be zones at the borders of these far-flung regions, it's the fact that within each major region (or key location, as you call it), each zone is supposedly only 1-2 km. That's nothing.
The real reason has probably already been pointed out - that being the fact that there's going to be a console port - so just leave it at that.
I don't mind zones if they are done somewhat creative. Like paying for a boatride and then zoning over see or a river, or some other way to use in game means to explain the zoning. While zoning I would enjoy to watch some king of animation rather than a loading screen, if they are using animations for quests, I don't see why not use them to show zoning too.
ok all you who are saying the zones are going to be bad you simply aren't understanding why they are doing the zones and it is because of the fact that the actual world that it is based off of is huge they are doing zones so that they can take you to key locations within the world without you having to run for thousands of miles across barren waist lands if they were to make this game seamless then people would have to run for thousands of miles in order to get to the exciting places
You'd probably do well to stop parroting that line - it isn't really convincing anyone.
No one's arguing that there can't be zones at the borders of these far-flung regions, it's the fact that within each major region (or key location, as you call it), each zone is supposedly only 1-2 km. That's nothing.
The real reason has probably already been pointed out - that being the fact that there's going to be a console port - so just leave it at that.
Convincing or not, its the truth, and 4 square kilometers is quite large for a game zone by today's MMO standards.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Hemingway
I personally dont mind the zones xcept for one thing. If there are certain choke points in zones the those could be camped. And in a game based on pvp that could go bad real fast. So if in fact there will be those chokepoints i hope the implement something to counter abuse (im sure their not stupid not to), one thing any player hates more than getting ganked is getting pwned w/o even knowing you were in a fight cuz you were still in a black screen of doom. I sure FC knows about these gripes though and if their smart they have something to counter such practices as well.
ok all you who are saying the zones are going to be bad you simply aren't understanding why they are doing the zones and it is because of the fact that the actual world that it is based off of is huge they are doing zones so that they can take you to key locations within the world without you having to run for thousands of miles across barren waist lands if they were to make this game seamless then people would have to run for thousands of miles in order to get to the exciting places
what's so bad about this? There could be side quests and all sorts of discovery and levelling along the way.
Comments
It depends on how they are implemented. I'm sure most people would like to do without loading screens when traveling around the game world if they could. It takes away from immersion. As most people who played DAOC or Everquest can remember, they can also be easily exploited when fighting NPCs or other players. What worries me the most is that is is a regression in gaming technology. Most modern gaming engines use paging systems (LPs). To say that we are using zones so we can put more detail in the gameworld doesn't fly since the same thing can be done with LPs and without loading screens. I just think it was a bad early design choice by the devs. Does it mean the game will suck? of course not.
DAOC fixed most of those problems by having "safe keeps" you ported into and even when porting into the frontier dungeon they started doing damage to people near the entrance that stood there for over a minute. So I feel confident they will employ similar strategies to keep the zone entrances camp free. Besides World of Warcraft pvp is horrible so if the pvp actually has a point like in DAOC (God i loved that game) then I'm all for zones.
Thirty years of gaming experience...not sure if I should be proud of that
www.mmoexaminer.blogspot.com
do u want lag? if so then yeah fine lets play aoc all laggy and junk >_>
I think people fail to understand that in order to portray remote areas of Hyboria, then there is no other way to do it than with Zones. I guess that some people aren't aware of the fact that AoC is based on a license, and that license comes with a world that's already defined:
hyboria.xoth.net/maps/hyboria.gif
Funcom want to portray some key locations in Cimmeria, Stygia and Aquilonia, eventually I'm sure, filling out the key locations elsewhere. You do realise that there is a huge distance between these places? In fact Hyboria is meant to be out world some 12000 years ago, and before the great Ice Age. As you might notice, Hyboria bears a resemblence to the Eurasian an African continents. So in terms of scale, the distance between Cimmeria and Stygia is the distance between Sweden and Algeria. A f#@king long way.
Welcome to 1999.
Seriously, what now zones = good because after all AOC is using them
I have never minded Zones so this is no biggy to me but i can't stand fanboydom. Sorry to hate , but id rather hate and think then love and Dee de Deee.
why are they doing it ... most likely it how they setup it up in the early stages of the game... tho seeing this makes me wonder how much of the AOC hype is just that .. After all they are using zones because its easier to code for it. and if your coders have issues addressing that then....
But still i am still playing many games with zones and they are wonderful as could AOC be ... but lets not go out and paint the fact that AOC is using outmoded zones as a GOOD thing.
"I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves; that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day." - Thomas Pain
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
AOC will be using a modified anarchy online graphics engine. Expect it to have massive lag during pvp and other such problems and limitations parallel to the ones ao has.
A good thing? Not really. If it was possible within reason for AoC to have a seamless world, I'd still be playing it, but would be somewhat disappointed with FC. Of course, I mean Seamless like WoW is, not Vanguard.
However, like I keep saying, no matter how easy or hard the two methods are compared to each other, a true seamless world is quite simply not realistically possible within the Hyborian world, while remaining remotely true to lore.
Whether or not seamless is an overall "better" option, zoned is the only option open to the devs.
Welles, they are using a graphics engine that has been completely rebuilt based around solving the problems AO had. Huge fricking difference. Will it be perfect? Doubt it, nothing ever is. Will it have all or even most of the same problems AO did? almost definitely not.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
You'd probably do well to stop parroting that line - it isn't really convincing anyone.
No one's arguing that there can't be zones at the borders of these far-flung regions, it's the fact that within each major region (or key location, as you call it), each zone is supposedly only 1-2 km. That's nothing.
The real reason has probably already been pointed out - that being the fact that there's going to be a console port - so just leave it at that.
You'd probably do well to stop parroting that line - it isn't really convincing anyone.
No one's arguing that there can't be zones at the borders of these far-flung regions, it's the fact that within each major region (or key location, as you call it), each zone is supposedly only 1-2 km. That's nothing.
The real reason has probably already been pointed out - that being the fact that there's going to be a console port - so just leave it at that.
Convincing or not, its the truth, and 4 square kilometers is quite large for a game zone by today's MMO standards.No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway