Originally posted by tephys Exploration is fun but at that size, it'd be a single player game wouldn't it? The moon...hmm...thats roughly 3 times the size of North America..still too large.
People such as him, always jump to conclusions before they even read more about a game. But that doesn't bother me, I would like a more open-minded and mature population on DnL anyways.
People such as myself? Or people who don't read the entire thread. I wasn't referring to DnL at all. I was responding to the person who wanted world the size of the Earth...which is far beyond even DnL.
Actually if I can do the beta I would be more likely to play the game and maybe get some of the 600 members of BKB in WWIIOL to play it with me. Some of them play SWG too but are getting bored with it.
I agree that size is not everything and infact it takes years to fill the map with content.
Take WWIIOL for instance. The total area of the map is 920,125 Square Kilometers but at present there is 27,600 Square Kilometers that is actually filled with content.
Mow here is the kicker. Technology is the key here. Several years ago it was thought impossible to have maps the size of this and what DnL have accomplished. They have done so by advancing technology. They will continue to improve by continueing to push technology.
CRS is currently working on the Terrain II engine that will drastically improve WWIIOL. It is going to reduce the resolution from 400 meters to 45 meters.
Another feature is along the lines of what I'm talking about. The new engine is going to allow for extremely fast creation of cities and other terrain features. This will allow them to create much more content in many more square kilometers.
Other game makers will do the same.
This can only be a good thing so long as content is the focus, not size. If content is the focus then the size will add to the grand scale.
Originally posted by xplororor Hey! How come Rubi-Ka is not mentioned?!? It is the MEGA-PLANET that Anarchy Online takes place on. (Then add the landspace from the Shadowlands expansion.... )
I don't know what size those Worlds are! If you have anyway of working those out, please share your results and we can put them up with the others!
I have explored every single playable land surface in SWG and AO. I would say the main planet in AO - Rubika is roughly the size of 4 planets in SWG.
The poster named Psyichic brought up an INCREDIBLE AND WONDERFUL POINT -
The real judge of how big a gameworld is should be the playable parts.
- EverQuest for example, DID that survey take into account the oceans in EQ? Or just the landmass? Because EQ has the BEST swim feature out of every single MMORPG ever. (AO is second.) In EQ players can swim ANYWHERE in the oceans, and to the bottom too. And the oceans are H-U-G-E! If one counts the oceans in EQ as the playable part, then the world of EQ easily doubles in size.
- Star Wars Galaxies also has some nice swim features. But there is not much water. The planets that do have water have mostly rivers, tons of ponds, streams, and a few lakes. There are only small parts of the oceans shown on the planets that have oceans. Nowhere like EQ which has the entire ocean on the planet. Players can swim in the water if it is deep enough. But SWG is made up mostly of actual land in the majority of the game. Even on planets that have water.
- Now Anarchy Online. Technically AO's landmass = 4 planets in SWG. BUT if one counts the AIRSPACE then AO could come very, very, close to being the BIGGEST game of all. AO has the BEST atmospheric flight feature out of every single MMORPG ever. No other MMORPG is second, third, fourth, etc... because no others have this feature. I am not talking about levitating (like in EQ for example). Everything one can do in real life in a Helicoptor, Airplane, Ballon, Zepplin, one can do in AO. Everything. (Instead of helicoptors, airplanes, balloons, etc.... AO has Airships/spaceships... one can also fly by shapeshifting into a Dragon, or other flying creature, and there are some professions that allow one to fly like Superman - or more like the position Magneto flies in.)
How big is the airspace in AO? How many "levels" is the airspace in AO? Ahhhh..... something for someone to throughly study.
And of course there is the water in AO too heheh. AO has swiming, but not as nice as the swim features in EQ. AO's planet is mostly land, with very little water. There is a huge, mega-river, and maybe tiny parts of an ocean shown on the planet. There are also a few other smaller rivers, and some swamps, ponds, and lakes. There is even a sewage system in the capital city, simular to the sweage system in EQ, but far larger, and better. (The toxic sewage automatically drains a tiny bit of your hitpoints non-stop everytime you stand in it. )
Huge like D&L is rediculous. SWG had just enough spcae that you couldnt see everything in a month, and environments didnt get old either. SWG has just about the right size world for me, maybe a little bigger but you gotta make sure there are things there to look at and do, not just boring worlds.
In my opinion, SWG doesn't have any interesting features outside the cities. The wilderness is pretty stale and the only thing of note are the various groups of creatures who roam the countryside. You see an occasional outpost or mining facility, but there really isn't anything interesting to do there.
Well, the world size announced by DnL is ridiculous. I don't see what interest it could have, except from a marketing point of view. In people's mind, "big world" can easily equate "lots of content", even if it's far from being true.
Yes, they probably used some kind of procedural generation of terrain, wildlife, and such. It doesn't means that it'll make an interesting world.
You'lll have valleys, mountains, lakes, and wildlife over square miles and square miles of landmass, but everything you'll find all over there will most likely support the same gameplay, so all it'll do is dillute the player base.
Huge randomly generated world aren't very interesting. Frontier Elite II on amiga, which fitted on a single floppy disk, used fractal and random generation to create a whole galaxy, filled with hundred of millions of systems. Each of these had a name, planets, and a fair amount of them had space stations and stuff. Well, it didn't serve much purpose since a fraction of these was enough to access all of the different gameplays.
Sure, people will find it nice because there will be no KS, no camping over a limited amount of mob, etc.
But at the same time, there will also be much less interaction and I think the result will be a less communicative community.
I prefer what funcom did with the shadowlands expansion of anarchy online: the world is kinda small (way smaller than rubi-ka, although RK is pretty big), but entirely made by hand, and designed like, as they say, "outdoor dungeons".
What it means is there's lots of passages, hidden stuff, catwalks, caverns, tiers and stuff. It's much more interesting than the elevation maps peppered with mobs, vegetation and rocks usually seen in most MMOs.
Even on RK, while most of it was probably randomly or semi-randomly generated, there's lots of poi (outposts, factories, roads, willages, and various other unique installations) that have been added by hand, and are placed in a logical, sensible way that would be hard to automatize.
If rubi-ka had been ten time bigger, they wouldn't have been able to pull this kind of stuff.
40k kilometers is huge, so what will be the means of transportation in DnL? I think the second largest game (coming out) will be MxO, last time I heard it was 24k kilometers and this wasn't including the accessible buildings and crap.
But I agree that larger doesn't mean better (*cough* in game worlds), and the bigger they are the more weary I am of lag, travel, zones, and just plain getting lost.
As the MMOG worlds grow larger, I think the games will be more fun. It is nice to always have a new zone to explore, and a huge world full of mystery and suprizes. EQs world seemed large, until they added the PoP books. The books make life MUCH easier, but took a lot away from the game as far as making the world seem large. You can pretty much get anywhere in 5 minutes. It was kind of cool when druids and wizards actually had a use for their teleport spells. I guess I am kinda old school EQ at heart.
Bigger just means you wont see people as much. Personally I think they need to get off of the "bigger is better" trend and work on balancing size with exploration vs. content vs. amount of people.
You dont want it to big where people will feel lonely or to small where explorers wont feel there is anything hard to get to and make suire you dont put a whole bunch of space just to have space.
Comments
People such as him, always jump to conclusions before they even read more about a game. But that doesn't bother me, I would like a more open-minded and mature population on DnL anyways.
People such as myself? Or people who don't read the entire thread. I wasn't referring to DnL at all. I was responding to the person who wanted world the size of the Earth...which is far beyond even DnL.
Actually if I can do the beta I would be more likely to play the game and maybe get some of the 600 members of BKB in WWIIOL to play it with me. Some of them play SWG too but are getting bored with it.
I agree that size is not everything and infact it takes years to fill the map with content.
Take WWIIOL for instance. The total area of the map is 920,125 Square Kilometers but at present there is 27,600 Square Kilometers that is actually filled with content.
Mow here is the kicker. Technology is the key here. Several years ago it was thought impossible to have maps the size of this and what DnL have accomplished. They have done so by advancing technology. They will continue to improve by continueing to push technology.
CRS is currently working on the Terrain II engine that will drastically improve WWIIOL. It is going to reduce the resolution from 400 meters to 45 meters.
Another feature is along the lines of what I'm talking about. The new engine is going to allow for extremely fast creation of cities and other terrain features. This will allow them to create much more content in many more square kilometers.
Other game makers will do the same.
This can only be a good thing so long as content is the focus, not size. If content is the focus then the size will add to the grand scale.
I have explored every single playable land surface in SWG and AO. I would say the main planet in AO - Rubika is roughly the size of 4 planets in SWG.
The poster named Psyichic brought up an INCREDIBLE AND WONDERFUL POINT -
The real judge of how big a gameworld is should be the playable parts.
- EverQuest for example, DID that survey take into account the oceans in EQ? Or just the landmass? Because EQ has the BEST swim feature out of every single MMORPG ever. (AO is second.) In EQ players can swim ANYWHERE in the oceans, and to the bottom too. And the oceans are H-U-G-E! If one counts the oceans in EQ as the playable part, then the world of EQ easily doubles in size.
- Star Wars Galaxies also has some nice swim features. But there is not much water. The planets that do have water have mostly rivers, tons of ponds, streams, and a few lakes. There are only small parts of the oceans shown on the planets that have oceans. Nowhere like EQ which has the entire ocean on the planet. Players can swim in the water if it is deep enough. But SWG is made up mostly of actual land in the majority of the game. Even on planets that have water.
- Now Anarchy Online. Technically AO's landmass = 4 planets in SWG. BUT if one counts the AIRSPACE then AO could come very, very, close to being the BIGGEST game of all. AO has the BEST atmospheric flight feature out of every single MMORPG ever. No other MMORPG is second, third, fourth, etc... because no others have this feature. I am not talking about levitating (like in EQ for example). Everything one can do in real life in a Helicoptor, Airplane, Ballon, Zepplin, one can do in AO. Everything. (Instead of helicoptors, airplanes, balloons, etc.... AO has Airships/spaceships... one can also fly by shapeshifting into a Dragon, or other flying creature, and there are some professions that allow one to fly like Superman - or more like the position Magneto flies in.)
How big is the airspace in AO? How many "levels" is the airspace in AO? Ahhhh..... something for someone to throughly study.
And of course there is the water in AO too heheh. AO has swiming, but not as nice as the swim features in EQ. AO's planet is mostly land, with very little water. There is a huge, mega-river, and maybe tiny parts of an ocean shown on the planet. There are also a few other smaller rivers, and some swamps, ponds, and lakes. There is even a sewage system in the capital city, simular to the sweage system in EQ, but far larger, and better. (The toxic sewage automatically drains a tiny bit of your hitpoints non-stop everytime you stand in it.
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Huge like D&L is rediculous. SWG had just enough spcae that you couldnt see everything in a month, and environments didnt get old either. SWG has just about the right size world for me, maybe a little bigger but you gotta make sure there are things there to look at and do, not just boring worlds.
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Well, the world size announced by DnL is ridiculous. I don't see what interest it could have, except from a marketing point of view. In people's mind, "big world" can easily equate "lots of content", even if it's far from being true.
Yes, they probably used some kind of procedural generation of terrain, wildlife, and such. It doesn't means that it'll make an interesting world.
You'lll have valleys, mountains, lakes, and wildlife over square miles and square miles of landmass, but everything you'll find all over there will most likely support the same gameplay, so all it'll do is dillute the player base.
Huge randomly generated world aren't very interesting. Frontier Elite II on amiga, which fitted on a single floppy disk, used fractal and random generation to create a whole galaxy, filled with hundred of millions of systems. Each of these had a name, planets, and a fair amount of them had space stations and stuff.
Well, it didn't serve much purpose since a fraction of these was enough to access all of the different gameplays.
Sure, people will find it nice because there will be no KS, no camping over a limited amount of mob, etc.
But at the same time, there will also be much less interaction and I think the result will be a less communicative community.
I prefer what funcom did with the shadowlands expansion of anarchy online: the world is kinda small (way smaller than rubi-ka, although RK is pretty big), but entirely made by hand, and designed like, as they say, "outdoor dungeons".
What it means is there's lots of passages, hidden stuff, catwalks, caverns, tiers and stuff. It's much more interesting than the elevation maps peppered with mobs, vegetation and rocks usually seen in most MMOs.
Even on RK, while most of it was probably randomly or semi-randomly generated, there's lots of poi (outposts, factories, roads, willages, and various other unique installations) that have been added by hand, and are placed in a logical, sensible way that would be hard to automatize.
If rubi-ka had been ten time bigger, they wouldn't have been able to pull this kind of stuff.
40k kilometers is huge, so what will be the means of transportation in DnL? I think the second largest game (coming out) will be MxO, last time I heard it was 24k kilometers and this wasn't including the accessible buildings and crap.
But I agree that larger doesn't mean better (*cough* in game worlds), and the bigger they are the more weary I am of lag, travel, zones, and just plain getting lost.
As the MMOG worlds grow larger, I think the games will be more fun. It is nice to always have a new zone to explore, and a huge world full of mystery and suprizes. EQs world seemed large, until they added the PoP books. The books make life MUCH easier, but took a lot away from the game as far as making the world seem large. You can pretty much get anywhere in 5 minutes. It was kind of cool when druids and wizards actually had a use for their teleport spells. I guess I am kinda old school EQ at heart.
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Bigger just means you wont see people as much. Personally I think they need to get off of the "bigger is better" trend and work on balancing size with exploration vs. content vs. amount of people.
You dont want it to big where people will feel lonely or to small where explorers wont feel there is anything hard to get to and make suire you dont put a whole bunch of space just to have space.