Good article. I started playing MMO's when the origional EQ was launched and have played many others since. In my experience worlds being too big is more of a problem then worlds being too small. The origional release of EQ was nearly perfect for the server load. You saw people in nearly every zone, yet there was still plenty to explore. Certain dungeons were a little crowded but overall seeing people everywhere made the world feel alive. The first expansion Kunark was all the addition they ever needed, the world was plenty big enough after that. But they kept releasing expansion after expansion to keep the revenue flowing. It got to the point the population was so spread out the world felt dead. SWG was the same story. As soon as they allowed player cities the population was spread out all over those huge planets and the world seemed dead. You wouldn't even see a soul in the biggest cities in the game. I hope Bioware gets this right.
one thing to keep in mind with tor is that not all planets will be big horizontally but may be built more vertically. so would be exploring more levels, whether they be underground or rising into the air.
since we are talking planets here figured i would just link these(and before anyone says anything about graphics, these vids are from mid 2009 and early 2010):
figure i would add this as well. its from a former member of a fansite(now a member of the bioware staff) that attended the jedi immersion event last year. he managed to get to coruscant with about half a hour of playtime left and got to explore a bit
also here that person is describing his time on coruscant for their podcast. the whole episdoe is about what he exprienced during the event but the coruscant part goes from about 45:00-49:00
Oooh SWG was a sandbox so the large Worlds count for something.... Well saldy wrong.
I think that an open world that can be explored is a necesity in a real MMO that hopes to acheive anything ; Hub based grab and bash max level in 10 seconds is as useless and is a concept that doesn't.
How much variety and exists in people who actually make an effort so how much of a Sandbox this game is , is yet to be seen. Base assumptions which this article makes are poor.
Maybe SWTOR will be a so called Theme Park MMO which is a cheap shot . Because reaching max level is easy. Enjoying the jhourney is not and I think this game will provide options and variety few MMOs have provided recently.
Lets wait and see
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
To quote Iron Man 2 "Size doe matter, don't let anyone tell you different"
long answer, SWTOR is one of the fewer games that can mix sandbox together with RPGThemepark, with a few of the world setting extremely large and able to sustain player constructions and such. And as someone before me stated, planets like Coruscant should be designed to be feel highly populated, densed and packed, more like a themepark game
SWTOR certainly had the budget to do this, certainly had the team capable of doing this, but did they do it? I don't think so. The game might still be great in the end, might still be hugely populated, but it probably still wouldn't fit the expectation I had for the game, considering what resources they had, compared to other game companies.
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW? As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
In Star Wars games the size IS important. This is a "Galaxy far, far away' after all and galaxies usually don't have the size of a shoebox. So yeah the planets have to be huge and space close to endless.
On the other hand, most important would be: the game has to be 'Star Warsy' but I guess that won't be a problem in this game. Now get it out already!
mmo's should be vast!!! its a virtual world so surely in the whole sence of the meaning virtual we should expect it to be relartively realistic in terms of size and scale, and how we travel around.
im not a huge fan of insta travel, i beleive it removes something very important from the game.
I personally believe that the world size needs to be big enough so people don't feel cramped or the enemies are right on top of each other, but not so big that you go miles without seeing anything at all.
The large size worked in galaxies because they meant you to have houses, so that empty space was suppose to be cities. at least i believe so.
As for Bioware, all their housing is on the ships so they don't need a lot of empty space, a little is nice so you don't feel cramped. Also each world has to have a reason for why it looks the way it does. It's fine to have a big open world but there needs to be a reason. No way do i expect a place like taris to have wide open ranges, as most of that was city scape and thus most of it would be ruins.
As for the question at the end on exploration. They did state they will be promoting exploring (i'm not expecting sandbox types) of their worlds and rewards for those that go off the beaten path. What they are though is unkown and probably won't be known until after someone discovers them.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I personally believe that the world size needs to be big enough so people don't feel cramped or the enemies are right on top of each other, but not so big that you go miles without seeing anything at all.
The large size worked in galaxies because they meant you to have houses, so that empty space was suppose to be cities. at least i believe so.
As for Bioware, all their housing is on the ships so they don't need a lot of empty space, a little is nice so you don't feel cramped. Also each world has to have a reason for why it looks the way it does. It's fine to have a big open world but there needs to be a reason. No way do i expect a place like taris to have wide open ranges, as most of that was city scape and thus most of it would be ruins.
As for the question at the end on exploration. They did state they will be promoting exploring (i'm not expecting sandbox types) of their worlds and rewards for those that go off the beaten path. What they are though is unkown and probably won't be known until after someone discovers them.
according to information from last years jedi immersion event, you could get exp for exploring. i remember one person say(i believe it was a member of darth hater) that they lvled from 1 to 2 with out doing anything other than walking around. that they had gotten the exp from filling in a codex entry by coming across some area or building. whether or not this is still the case is unknown though.
I like bigger areas to explore and do not mind when doing a quest that I do not see a few ppl in the area as this in the long run can cause problems with finishing a quest faster especially if they r doing the same quest and do not group if sent a group invite, some ppl seem to think they r missing out on something if they group!
I loved Asheron's Call, the land mass was great in it's time and prob even now, a couple of friends and I decided we would run from the bottom and up the map on the east side, it took us just under 4 hours.
By the time I went into SWG they already had personal transport - but even so their land masses on the different planets were great to explore and having to Survey for places to put down my harvesters, I had to travel quite big distances from the cities, but also liked to go and just explore.
WoW was good to explore as well, lots of places hidden in the game with no real game function, villages, Dwarf Air Strip etc.
So I hope that swtor do have a fair amount of land mass to explore with some hidden delights just waiting to be discovered.
I am an Abstract sort of Creature Who Dislikes any sort of Restraint If you try to pigeonhole me I Will Break Free!
I hope there is some size to the world. I don't know that I would even know how much world there needs to be. Like you, I enjoyed running around in SWG. Running around in the desert exploring was interesting with the purpose being discovery. The scenery was unique and there was the chance of finding some scary creatures out there as well, or yup, finding like-minded friends.
One thing that I really appreciated in SWG was getting rewarded for completing a mission without having to run back to the mission terminal! Like, why can't we get our reward without having to run back to the quest giver in all these MMO's? The missions at Jabba's had us coming back and that was when I discovered that THAT is not really that much fun! Back and forth, back and forth.
I really like the exploration of new areas, so I must go with large worlds. But (there always is but) there must be content for large worlds, exploration of nothing is not exploration. With out that town or ruins or cave at the end to find, the running around is pointless waste of time.
I hope there is some size to the world. I don't know that I would even know how much world there needs to be. Like you, I enjoyed running around in SWG. Running around in the desert exploring was interesting with the purpose being discovery. The scenery was unique and there was the chance of finding some scary creatures out there as well, or yup, finding like-minded friends.
One thing that I really appreciated in SWG was getting rewarded for completing a mission without having to run back to the mission terminal! Like, why can't we get our reward without having to run back to the quest giver in all these MMO's? The missions at Jabba's had us coming back and that was when I discovered that THAT is not really that much fun! Back and forth, back and forth.
They stated that you could do several things via comm in swtor
pretty sure youi can call back to your companions to have them do some crafting, and call quest npcs to update the quests. You also don't actually have to be present when a group does a mission as you'll appear as a hologram if you so choose. Though you can talk you'll be barred from actaul contact like hitting someone as your a you know hologram. This way if you really don't feel like running all that way you don't have to, but there are advantages if you do as well.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Obviously you need a balance between things to do and immersion, that's just common sense. Personally I think the key is in the setting. Star Wars spans a whole galaxy and then some. Because of this it needs to feel epic and BIG. Planets need to feel like planets and not like little quest hubs.
I agree, well said. i myself enjoy vast worlds to explore and have adventures in. I too enjoyed the old swg when you had to walk everywhere. i remember trying to walk out to jabba's it really felt like a dangerous adventure in itself, i didnt need a quest to enjoy it!I'm trying not to make any judgements on SWTOR until i can play it for myself. I am interested to see how the final game comes out.
I agree, well said. i myself enjoy vast worlds to explore and have adventures in. I too enjoyed the old swg when you had to walk everywhere. i remember trying to walk out to jabba's it really felt like a dangerous adventure in itself, i didnt need a quest to enjoy it!I'm trying not to make any judgements on SWTOR until i can play it for myself. I am interested to see how the final game comes out.
serioulsly man.....you dont mind to walk 9000 meters for every quests ?? let say today you need to do 5 quests before you go to sleep. then you realize you have to walk 9000 m * 5 times...
i also liked to explore when swg was 1st released . then i started to get fustrated when i noticed i have to do the same for every quests. with bike or mount doesn't make any different.
Very much so. It can make or ruin a game. A common mistake many developers make is making worlds too 'small'.
These are MMOs we are talking about - and there are human psychology factors at play here too. Make a world too 'small' and you can kill the 'feel' of it. Destroy immersion. Lose your customers.
Do vast areas of massive (empty) space ruin a game? No. Not always - it depends on the game.
Does a smaller world with less travel time improve a game?. Again, no - it depends on the game.
There are lots of factors here;
Is the game mainly PvE?
Is it PvP?
What is the setting?
What is the player density? (Players per 'unit' of area)
What should player density be? (Again - very important in the context of a game)
What should the travel times be (in the context of the game)?
Comments
Good article. I started playing MMO's when the origional EQ was launched and have played many others since. In my experience worlds being too big is more of a problem then worlds being too small. The origional release of EQ was nearly perfect for the server load. You saw people in nearly every zone, yet there was still plenty to explore. Certain dungeons were a little crowded but overall seeing people everywhere made the world feel alive. The first expansion Kunark was all the addition they ever needed, the world was plenty big enough after that. But they kept releasing expansion after expansion to keep the revenue flowing. It got to the point the population was so spread out the world felt dead. SWG was the same story. As soon as they allowed player cities the population was spread out all over those huge planets and the world seemed dead. You wouldn't even see a soul in the biggest cities in the game. I hope Bioware gets this right.
one thing to keep in mind with tor is that not all planets will be big horizontally but may be built more vertically. so would be exploring more levels, whether they be underground or rising into the air.
since we are talking planets here figured i would just link these(and before anyone says anything about graphics, these vids are from mid 2009 and early 2010):
Making of Coruscant
Returning of Taris
Studio Insider – Experience Coruscant (not a vid)
figure i would add this as well. its from a former member of a fansite(now a member of the bioware staff) that attended the jedi immersion event last year. he managed to get to coruscant with about half a hour of playtime left and got to explore a bit
http://www.torocast.com/index.php/news/swtor-news/item/384-from-tython-to-coruscant-my-six-hours-with-swtor
also here that person is describing his time on coruscant for their podcast. the whole episdoe is about what he exprienced during the event but the coruscant part goes from about 45:00-49:00
http://www.torocast.com/index.php/the-podcasts/item/387-torocast-special-report-number-2
Oooh SWG was a sandbox so the large Worlds count for something.... Well saldy wrong.
I think that an open world that can be explored is a necesity in a real MMO that hopes to acheive anything ; Hub based grab and bash max level in 10 seconds is as useless and is a concept that doesn't.
How much variety and exists in people who actually make an effort so how much of a Sandbox this game is , is yet to be seen. Base assumptions which this article makes are poor.
Maybe SWTOR will be a so called Theme Park MMO which is a cheap shot . Because reaching max level is easy. Enjoying the jhourney is not and I think this game will provide options and variety few MMOs have provided recently.
Lets wait and see
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
While the topic is a good one to discuss, it could of had a better title. I think we can do without the innuendos.
Sounds like a personal question. Ask your father. lol That's funny cause I thought of Darth Vader with the father part.
To quote Iron Man 2 "Size doe matter, don't let anyone tell you different"
long answer, SWTOR is one of the fewer games that can mix sandbox together with RPGThemepark, with a few of the world setting extremely large and able to sustain player constructions and such. And as someone before me stated, planets like Coruscant should be designed to be feel highly populated, densed and packed, more like a themepark game
SWTOR certainly had the budget to do this, certainly had the team capable of doing this, but did they do it? I don't think so. The game might still be great in the end, might still be hugely populated, but it probably still wouldn't fit the expectation I had for the game, considering what resources they had, compared to other game companies.
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW?
As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
In Star Wars games the size IS important. This is a "Galaxy far, far away' after all and galaxies usually don't have the size of a shoebox. So yeah the planets have to be huge and space close to endless.
On the other hand, most important would be: the game has to be 'Star Warsy' but I guess that won't be a problem in this game. Now get it out already!
mmo's should be vast!!! its a virtual world so surely in the whole sence of the meaning virtual we should expect it to be relartively realistic in terms of size and scale, and how we travel around.
im not a huge fan of insta travel, i beleive it removes something very important from the game.
I personally believe that the world size needs to be big enough so people don't feel cramped or the enemies are right on top of each other, but not so big that you go miles without seeing anything at all.
The large size worked in galaxies because they meant you to have houses, so that empty space was suppose to be cities. at least i believe so.
As for Bioware, all their housing is on the ships so they don't need a lot of empty space, a little is nice so you don't feel cramped. Also each world has to have a reason for why it looks the way it does. It's fine to have a big open world but there needs to be a reason. No way do i expect a place like taris to have wide open ranges, as most of that was city scape and thus most of it would be ruins.
As for the question at the end on exploration. They did state they will be promoting exploring (i'm not expecting sandbox types) of their worlds and rewards for those that go off the beaten path. What they are though is unkown and probably won't be known until after someone discovers them.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
according to information from last years jedi immersion event, you could get exp for exploring. i remember one person say(i believe it was a member of darth hater) that they lvled from 1 to 2 with out doing anything other than walking around. that they had gotten the exp from filling in a codex entry by coming across some area or building. whether or not this is still the case is unknown though.
I like bigger areas to explore and do not mind when doing a quest that I do not see a few ppl in the area as this in the long run can cause problems with finishing a quest faster especially if they r doing the same quest and do not group if sent a group invite, some ppl seem to think they r missing out on something if they group!
I loved Asheron's Call, the land mass was great in it's time and prob even now, a couple of friends and I decided we would run from the bottom and up the map on the east side, it took us just under 4 hours.
By the time I went into SWG they already had personal transport - but even so their land masses on the different planets were great to explore and having to Survey for places to put down my harvesters, I had to travel quite big distances from the cities, but also liked to go and just explore.
WoW was good to explore as well, lots of places hidden in the game with no real game function, villages, Dwarf Air Strip etc.
So I hope that swtor do have a fair amount of land mass to explore with some hidden delights just waiting to be discovered.
I am an Abstract sort of Creature
Who Dislikes any sort of Restraint
If you try to pigeonhole me
I Will Break Free!
I hope there is some size to the world. I don't know that I would even know how much world there needs to be. Like you, I enjoyed running around in SWG. Running around in the desert exploring was interesting with the purpose being discovery. The scenery was unique and there was the chance of finding some scary creatures out there as well, or yup, finding like-minded friends.
One thing that I really appreciated in SWG was getting rewarded for completing a mission without having to run back to the mission terminal! Like, why can't we get our reward without having to run back to the quest giver in all these MMO's? The missions at Jabba's had us coming back and that was when I discovered that THAT is not really that much fun! Back and forth, back and forth.
Why is any reply that comes to my mind dirty? ... Must be me...
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I really like the exploration of new areas, so I must go with large worlds. But (there always is but) there must be content for large worlds, exploration of nothing is not exploration. With out that town or ruins or cave at the end to find, the running around is pointless waste of time.
I'm a fan of large world's, and I'll be suprised if Bioware can pull off what they want.
Size does matter. It always does.
Of course, you have the quantity vs quality argument and we all know which one wins here in the end
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I agree that there is nothing special about having huge open areas to explore, a good example is SWG.
like the author of this article said "dead-space". it must be just right, cannot be too huge or too small.
Which FF Character Are You?
They stated that you could do several things via comm in swtor
pretty sure youi can call back to your companions to have them do some crafting, and call quest npcs to update the quests. You also don't actually have to be present when a group does a mission as you'll appear as a hologram if you so choose. Though you can talk you'll be barred from actaul contact like hitting someone as your a you know hologram. This way if you really don't feel like running all that way you don't have to, but there are advantages if you do as well.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Small fix for al the players who simply want to walk around in the game......
put a wraparound code inside a small area and let them loop over and over :P
here, endless exploration xD
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW?
As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
I agree, well said. i myself enjoy vast worlds to explore and have adventures in. I too enjoyed the old swg when you had to walk everywhere. i remember trying to walk out to jabba's it really felt like a dangerous adventure in itself, i didnt need a quest to enjoy it!I'm trying not to make any judgements on SWTOR until i can play it for myself. I am interested to see how the final game comes out.
serioulsly man.....you dont mind to walk 9000 meters for every quests ?? let say today you need to do 5 quests before you go to sleep. then you realize you have to walk 9000 m * 5 times...
i also liked to explore when swg was 1st released . then i started to get fustrated when i noticed i have to do the same for every quests. with bike or mount doesn't make any different.
big space = dead space = pointless...
Which FF Character Are You?
Does size matter?
Very much so. It can make or ruin a game. A common mistake many developers make is making worlds too 'small'.
These are MMOs we are talking about - and there are human psychology factors at play here too. Make a world too 'small' and you can kill the 'feel' of it. Destroy immersion. Lose your customers.
Do vast areas of massive (empty) space ruin a game? No. Not always - it depends on the game.
Does a smaller world with less travel time improve a game?. Again, no - it depends on the game.
There are lots of factors here;
Is the game mainly PvE?
Is it PvP?
What is the setting?
What is the player density? (Players per 'unit' of area)
What should player density be? (Again - very important in the context of a game)
What should the travel times be (in the context of the game)?
So, who am I? What do I know about all this?
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2587797#2587797
Oh and SWG is not the biggest world out there
(although - to be fair - I have yet to confirm this by my own measurements)
Oh and I have data on a few other worlds now too.
{mod edit - resized image. Please keep under 600px wide}
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.