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Hiding Linearity
This is something rifts does really bad. Warhammer also does it really bad. It mostly comes down to zone design. It can be a major contributer to breaking immersions. Normally this is hidden by smart placing of quests hubs as well as artful use of terrain. Age of conan though small zones hides a lot of it linearity by terrain which is very artfull crafted (some zones are pretty bad though i agree).
WoW does it partly by terrain, partly by scope and by moving you around quests hubs in different manners.
War and Rifts use the horrible system of having one road and bad guys showing up on the right and left hand sides. There are a few half hearted attempts to hide the linearity but nothing in comparison to how it is done in other MMOs.
Comments
I could care less if the initial 10 levels worth of questing is linear. Based on my experience in beta 3 I am ordering and subbing this game.
Then I hope you enjoy your empty game a month after release. If the begining aint that good, how do you think the end game is going to be?
People stick with WoW and alot of their starting zones suck. Sure the new goblin or worgen areas are currently top of the genre but before them a lot of the starting zones just suck.
let the guy play whatever he wants man, im sure if he will play the game he will know if he wants to continue playing or start looking for another game
It's better in the later levels?
OMG LINEAR GAME!!! LINEAR GAME!!!!
Really?!?!?!
Come on, next you guys are gonna say if a game has levels its on rails and a theme park. Oh and it sucks and will fail, and it has to be a WoW clone, but it will never have as many subs. Or better yet no jumping so its crap...wait it has jumping, I know lets complain about no doors to walk through or something crazy like that. How about all the quest hubs will be overrun by mobs in a week because the zones will all be empty but that ONE guy all by himself.
And if that dont work, we can always find another game thats going through Beta and do all this about it instead.
Let me guess I am a troll now because i am talking about a specific aspect of the game that is not strong?
If i say something slightly negative I am a troll. If you say something slightly posetive you are a fanboy.
People need to stop getting their panties in a twist and actually talk logically about aspects of the game. Both good and bad.
I never really had this feeling tbh. I have been running back and forth between hubs, but not because quest told me so. Maybe your mentality is simply wrong? I mean true if you follow quest you will follow a linear path. Even the starters quest in darkfall are linear in nature. You go out kill thing turn it in and go to the next quest giver.
As a crafter though I have been running back and forth between some hubs. Making my cloth there move somewhere else while skinning beast and mining to produce my armour and melt my ore in an other hub. I also find that the quest itself seems to be sending you to diverse places. This is more true in the Deviant side though. I have no other idea how the other zones look like though, but in my opinion linear is linear and no way to hide this fact by making the player run from the other side of the word to make it feel less so. With you actually do on the Gaudian side.
Then you have the rifts. With can take over you quest hub! This means you either have to clear it out or go to the next quest hub and see if they have some quests for you to do.
Never once in my post did I ever say anything about trolling. Did anyone see me say it there? Didnt' say fanboi either did I?
I simple stated a fact and made a point towards it. ALL games are as linear as the player decides to make the game play experience. Having content in a game design that allows for people to be guided through the game if they so desire does not make it a damn linear game. Playing the game linearly makes you a linear game player. You the player are in full control over how you chose to play a game, even Rift. Creating the 5th, 8th, 23rd thread on a gaming forum with the exact same topic of how a game is linear because YOU see it as such in the way YOU chose to play it....well.....
This ^ is exactly my point right here. This gentleman played Rift in a manner that wasn't linear. And to him it wasn't a linear game. He did see how it had the ability to be if you wanted to approach it that way, but it wasn't forced upon you. This is my experience as well.
Linear is the way Rift was designed to be played. I think this was a smart choice for the kind of game it is. Where i am faulting them is their inability to hide it. This thread is not about linear being good or bad. This is about hiding linear questing to provide greater immersion while still providing the easy and lack of annoyances linear questing brings.
As you said if you wanna talk about the merits or faults of linear questing there are 20 other threads to choose from.
No your post did not call me a troll.
But you did post
"Come on, next you guys are gonna say if a game has levels its on rails and a theme park. Oh and it sucks and will fail, and it has to be a WoW clone, but it will never have as many subs. Or better yet no jumping so its crap...wait it has jumping, I know lets complain about no doors to walk through or something crazy like that. How about all the quest hubs will be overrun by mobs in a week because the zones will all be empty but that ONE guy all by himself."
Non of which i plan or saying or have ever said. If you want to attack me for something use arguments I state, not what your imagination thinks i am saying.
Same here. Not really sure why Rift is more linear than other games of the same genre. I played it without crafting, as it was beta, but the game has a nice flow to it.
Rift delivers in terms of what Trion announced.
True but see thats the point here isn't it. You say Rift is linear to a fault in that it isn't hiden very well at all. Its obvious enough to cause conflict with your emersion. I on the other hand say I played Rift in this last BETA event, and once out of the tutorial never noticed it being linear at all because of my choice in how to play the game. I didnt find it to be overly linear, and most definately not to a fault that it cause any conflict with my emersion into the world.
The point you made in your opening post said one thing, I'm simply disagreeing with you and stating the reason is we play the same game differently. That its not the design of the game that makes us see it different, its how we play it that does.
Oh and well aint that the issue right there. I never was attacking you, thats why I didnt try and use an argument you stated. You decided all on your own I was attacking you, then you came up with this to say I failed on my attempt to attack you. Its quite humerous actually. Like your attacking yourself for thinking someone was attacking you, when the only one attacking you was you. Never once was that directed at you, never once did I assume it was something you were going to say, not once was it ever meant as an attack against anyone. You assumed a lot there.
Read your own quote. Making absurd claims of what the next arguments were is an attack.
I played rifts in the same beta event. the tutorial and the free march zone. Its the freemarsh zone which I had a problem with. If you disagree with then then disagree don't go spouting off a bunch of off topics hoopla.
This isn't eve darkfall or UO. There are not tons of choices of "How" to play the game. Rifts add some variety to it but given the fact they spawn at the same level of the nearest quest hubs forces further linearity.
This is a linear questing game. Its made for that. You move from hub to hub. This is not a fault to the game. Its good game design. What I am talking about is making the game world feel alive while retaining this ease of play.
Uh huh, so I didnt attack you in the first place, and you thought I did, so what, now your gonna attack me??? Your too much fun. NO I did not attack you, NO I did not say jack diddly shit to you that was intended to provoke you. Your paranoid and think everything is an attack against you. Relax man, its not all about you. I told you before, you said you think Rift is linear to a point it effects your immersion, I disagree. Thats it, thats all there is to it. Stop trying to make more of a fight out of it. Really, there is no fight, we just disagree. I play differently than you obviously. I dont see the issue you see. No amount of arguing or trying to pick a fight is ever going to change the fact we just dont see it the same, so stop trying already.
uh huh
I played to lvl 20, its still linear. Just get on a track, and go in a straight line. The fact that more than 1/3 of the entire leveling in Rift takes place in one very linear zone should worry just about anyone. The map is divided into two ends in which the Guardians have their linear path for leveling up in each zone, just as well as the Defiant. The contested zones will mainly be around port Scion. The map is tiny in case you havent noticed so, linearity is kind of a given.
I think your point is well-taken. It doesn't hide it, at all. I felt the same problem with Aion most recently. I simply followed the road through the zones. Despite others claming that that's how other RPGs are, I never felt or noticed it before Aion. I see it again with Rift. Perhaps it opens up after 20 though, and allows a more diverse path. On the Defiant side, it's hard to see ever consuming that same content again.
I don't think it's just nostalgia either. I've decided I'm an explorer at heart, and some games don't allow for it, at all. Not even a hint of freedom. If that's your thing, Rift doesn't (at least through level 20) suit your needs. Thankfully, I can see that from beta and won't need to buy it.
Your precious WoW is the most linear game ive ever played, Every single alt i play on WoW levels in the same matter and the same area's for fastest leveling
And it has 13 million
Linear is not an issue in todays MMO
There's also nothing linear about random rift invasions
I agree with you: Linear is not an issue for most. Here's the scary part for me. WAR eliminated their different starting zones; EQ2 eliminated their different starting zones. AoC pushed everyone through Tortage. The push is in the direction Rift is headed.
I think the critics of the linear gameplay are in the minority. Companies aren't ignoring the masses; they're pleasing them.
But for many of us, linearity is still an issue in today's MMOs--Rift, its newest member, may branch out after 20. I'll wait and see, and hope.
WoW is certainly NOT the most linear game out there. In fact, Blizzard was smart enough to have starter zones for the multiple races, that, regardless of race you could go to a different zone and play at your own pace. Each alt will have multiple options for zones. Zones also included content that was for much higher levels as well. In other words, the progression was far from linear. You dont even have those choices in Rift.
Linear IS an issue for "todays mmorpgs". To say its not is just silly.
There's nothing truly random about the "rift invasions". The randomness you do get is when they spawn but not where they spawn and where they go. Its fairly predictable in many ways. They use the same spawn points, the mobs that come out of the rifts are pretty much all the same thing with just the occasional change in model, their pathways are preset. Play it long enough you see the pattern. Over 1/3 of the game's leveling experience is so linear, it makes every aspect of WoW seem non linear.
To be honest, I am not sure how or why one would hate WoW so much and yet love Rift at the same time. If you "hate one" you will really "hate the other" unless you are just being stupidly biased. If WoW is the king of Generic mmorpgs, then Rift is the Peasant of Generic mmorpgs. It doesnt really do much thats better than WoW and its basically a shallow mirror of the core design choices. The two hooks in Rift are the "rifts" and the sub-class system, which really are not all that spectacular at closer glance.
If you like the game play it, if you don't like it then don't play it, problem solved, that was easy.
"Linear is the way Rift was designed to be played. I think this was a smart choice for the kind of game it is."
That's a double positive that doesn't make sense. It is a smart choice for it to be created linear when it was designed that way?
I'd be worried if it wasn't designed to be a linear game then 'smart' for it to be created that way.
If you don't get my point; you are saying that it was smart to make the game linear AFTER they had already designed it to be linear.
It won't be empty because I'll be there too. I really enjoyed the first 20 levels so does the reverse of your argument hold true?
I agree a lot with what you have to say here, especially the last paragraph. I don't see anyone who dislikes WOW liking RIFT, all of the things that people tend to dislike in WOW are present and just as strong, if not stronger in RIFT.
You have a point there. I have only seen the first 20 levels of course so it can be better later but the terrain really give you the impression that the game is small and linear.
Forests and mountains are 2 things many other games use to make the world look more interesting and while rift have some smaller mountains and hills the closest to a forest I seen where what I would call "a few trees".
I hope this gets better later.