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Is the world seamless?
dyermaker714
Member UncommonPosts: 192
This is a deal-breaker for me and I hope they don't ruin SWTOR by making it zoned like EQ. Is the game-world open ended i.e. seamless or is each zone instanced and separated by a loading screen?
Comments
dang you have some high standards (but hey, everyone's different). Sorry I actually don't know myself...but it would be nice if it was seamless (although it won't bother me if it isn't). Hopefully someone who knows can answer your question (assuming that they've already told us)
high standards lol good one. if that is a deal breaker then maybe mmo's are not for him
You asked about seamlessness and then instancing. You know these are two different things, right?
Zoning is seperating the world into pieces that you have to zone in/out of.
Instancing is creating another copy of a zone.
They have mentioned that the transition between Flashpoints (i.e. Instances/Dungeons) from the planet will be seamless. You could walk in and out of an instance with no load time, but the Flashpoints WILL be instances.
And while I don't recall anywhere that it's been listed, I'm going to guess that inter-planetary travel will not be seamless. That would be absurd. My guess is that planets will be seamless, seeing as they're making Flashpoint transition seamless, but who knows in this day and age?
Someday we'll all look back on the age of computers - and lol.
I would imagine that they are going to use phasing to make the choices affect gameply. It will be interesting to see what BioWare does to make the choices work so that you can make choices that affect your world, but still play with your friends who might have made different choices.
If this early in the game's beta process you have "deal Breakers", then you are already leaning towards the hater side of the equation.
The scale of the world maps is supposed to be fairly large, so I can't see how you'd expect there to be no load screens connecting some inner/outer sections from time to time.
From what I have read and seen from interviews of the writers. It seems that the class choices will effect your class story arc and world choices will be part of a larger story that you will not be able to effect on your own.
What I mean is that they will be creating 8 class stories, 2 big world stories, flashpoints that are like group dungeons in other games then thousands of open world quests. So no phasing will be needed because they will have created all the stories to go together.
If you chose to kill a captain in your class story arc. Then that captain will be gone in your personal story arc chain. It would make sense that the writers would not have that captain show up anywhere else in the open world that some will see and others won't.. It will just effect how NPC's interact with your character during group incounters. So a NPC may be afraid of you in a conversation because you killed the captain, but not afraid of another player that did not kill the captain.
With the way BW writes stories, I don't think they will use phasing. It will be a seamless open world on each planet. With instances for your story arc, world story arcs, flashpoints and PvP warzones. All seamless with open doors that are colored to signify what they are and who's story it belongs to. So if you are grouped, only the person that has the quest can enter for the first time. After they enter, it will change to green so all the others in the group can enter the same instance. But a class story will only allow the quest holder to answer questions to move the story along. Open world stories and flashpoinst will be for open answer and rolling for who's answer will be used for the quest. But as the dev's have said, your answer in a group incounter will be counted for light and dark points regardless of which roll wins to progress the quest.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
No phasing you say? So... how do they deal with the possible consequences of a world story arc?
Or world story arcs have NO Impact on the world outside? You go in, do your thing and come out to the SAME environment even if you just destroyed a Sith invasion armada and fought a huge battle?
Beside the fact that your own personal story arcs already use "phasing" in the sense that the captain you kill stay dead and the whole environment change to reflect that, but I understand those are in your own personal story so they won't count much... but I would be a bit disappointed if the world story arcs, that looks to be quite epic affairs, would leave the world exactly the same way it was.
A small disappointment, I am sure they can do it without changing the environment but I was given the impressions those arcs tell the story of a whole planet... and as such it seems evident that the planet won't be in the same state at the start of it ( ie: the first time you set foot on it) and at the end of it, but maybe that is just the impression I had.
And what do you mean by "With the way BW writes stories"? Bioware has never made MMos before... and phasing is exactly how stories are told in single player games.... your actions impact the world and there are visible changes to the places, people and things around. something MMOs usually did not have.
So following logic, if their stories already have big elements of "consequences matter" in their single player games, why do you think their mmo would be radically different and go instead for a static approach in which all decisions are in instances but they do not really affect the "real" world?
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
My quess would be that there will be a travelling screen of sorts between planets and between zones in the same planet. I doubt all zones in all planets are connected.
You will probably get to a travelling screen that is probably something like the Galaxy Map in Mass Effect 2 and on the planets something like Dragon Age.
Zones themselves should be seemless. Including instance transitions.
"This is a deal-breaker for me and I hope they don't ruin SWTOR by making it zoned like EQ. Is the game-world open ended i.e. seamless or is each zone instanced and separated by a loading screen?"
What we have heard and seen so far suggests that it will be persistent world. Different zones will not be instanced. Open-world should be similar to WoW with exception that you do not have loading screen when entering an instance.
One tester (E3) wrote that he did not even notice when he entered from a persistent area to an instanced area in an outdoor dungeon where he had to kill a boss. The boss was in instanced area, rest was open for all.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
I believe that the answer to Seamless is a Yes , but some Zones will be instanced (Storyline) . They have also instanced the area around quest givers for immersion purposes but playtesters have stated that this is seamless.
What "Skeaser" says is very relevant, as I think the OP is asking for seamless and no instancing....
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Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
If your asking about instances, yes theres instances (group pve/ battleground-like pvp). The rest of the world is probably seemless in terms of zones on a planet, but from planet to planet its probably zoned seperately as you have to take a ship. Not like you can just walk off the atmosphere and glide to another planet.
The transfer between planets may still be seamless , if no loading screen actually pops up.
From what I have seen so far it looks seamless... jut not single instanced everywhere ... a lot of quest givers are instanced if not all.
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
My original post was poorly worded (it was like 2 in the morning or something like that) basically what I meant is will the world be seamless as in like WoW or zoned like AoC.
So it sounds like each planet will be seamless, and the transition between them will have some sort of loading process which is fine with me. I just hate when each zone is separated by a pause or loading screen, its just lame and kills immersion for me but thats just me and everyone's got different preferences so w/e.
This game looks incredible I hope they pull it off
People make deal-breakers of the weirdest things.
Just play the damn game before coming to conclusions.
And if it doesn't have seamless zones, it's a deal breaker for you. That's a conclusion you came to from the very beginning.
This made me lol irl. I completely agree XD
i can't say that I remember one loading screen while i played the demo. It was pretty seamless. They did have "flashpoints" but there weren't too many of them. The flashpoints are pretty much an area where a boss is or a story line is. You walk through some pink/ clearish wall thing and enter your story line... Didn't have an effect on the players around. There were still plenty of players and it didn't feel like an instance. When you walk through the clear pinkish wall thing through the doorway to your "fkashoints" there is no loading screen there either. It was pretty fluid. Says something like "story line activate for "insert name"
Everything I've seen says "seamless", even when going into instanced dungeons (I read something that said when you go into a dungeon, it's hard to tell you just stepped into it since there's no loading screen). I've not heard anything about whether the main world will be instanced (but I hope not).
main world from the demo i played was not instanced. This was a demo so I am not exactly sure how the game will play out , but it seems like playing any other MMO .. Aion , WoW... games of this nature. Were no loading screens no instances.. unless you can consider a "flashpoint" an instance. Flashpoints didn't have a loading screen either. Just a clear wall entrance with a color to it you walk through it and you enter your story. Without a loading screen.
Zones are a non-issue for me. Zoning, no zoning, makes no difference to the game play as far as I'm concerned.
I don't mind going through a load screen for a zone. Absolutely doesnt' bother me one bit.
yeah, I agree. Zones don't really bother me either. Well, to a degree. I hate having to CONSTANTLY go through instances. It gets annoying. :P I like more gameplay and less loading screen. If you've played Aion, that kind of instancing doesn't bother me. Of course, you can't possibly expect this game to be an open world, because it's Star Wars...there's more than one world.
Argh