Guild Wars 2

Leviathon said:
Actually on the subject of mounts it does get really annoying in main cities with people mounting and hopping all over the place, or just a "sea" of mounts - yeah screw you mount system (and the horse you rode in on) < :)
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Possibly the most annoying thing In SWTOR (Minus the gameplay :eek:) was all the people on mounts in the Republic fleet. A space station with all your vendors and merchants and trainers etc and people flying around on hover bikes etc :confused:
 
No1newts said:
I didn't realise that :(

It's a bit like the channel system in swept which irritated. GW2 seems such a large and expensive project in surprised they couldn't afford a little extra (or a lot whatever :p) for a fully seamless world.
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It was actually my single biggest concern on the official GW2 Forums, too. When I first reached the end of the massive and awe-inducing Human quest zone and witnessed an instance portal... my heart positively sunk :(. This isn't an MMO, in my opinion. Every single mainstream MMO that I have played which uses this 'loading portal' system really shatters the illusion, for me at least, of playing in a large and persistent world. I don't know why, it just seems like a real atmosphere ruiner. It sucks when you realise that the higher level players are actually playing on an entirely different shard of the server to you, separated by several discrete zones; it also makes each quest-zone just seem more like a large levelling sandbox, rather than a zone with any contiguous relation to a wider 'continent'. There is no continent, per se, it's just a chain of quest-zones stacked next to one another with instance portals.

I did have to seriously consider asking for a refund when I discovered this. I can't explain why it feels so important and integral to the MMORPG experience. It's just something intangible and hard to qualify.
 
InKursion said:
It was actually my single biggest concern on the official GW2 Forums, too. When I first reached the end of the massive and awe-inducing Human quest zone and witnessed an instance portal... my heart positively sunk :(. This isn't an MMO, in my opinion.
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I don't see how what you are saying makes it any differant to any other MMO, so instead of a random line on a map seperating zones you get a portal? Who cares, you can still go through them.

In terms of higher level players being somewhere else, of course they are, that is the case in every MMO, you can't just randomly wander from the starting area to a high level area and expect to be able to play there effectively or expect the higher level players to stick around in the starter zones, though GW2 does actually allow this due to the down leveling system meaning you technically could stay in the first area.
 
I do think mounts would have been nice in the game, as when just exploring and looking around it feels like the character movement speed is quite slow. WvW was also quite bad as although I've seen videos of teleport locations in youtube vids I didn't have many when I tried it this past weekend and had a lot of time spent just running from place to place.

I guess the lack of mounts could be because if they wait and add them in at a later date or patch, it will make that update look more important and as if they are adding lots of new features to the game.
 
Actually in many MMO's you can accidentally wander quite naturally with your new-player curiosity and find yourself confronted with big bad monsters and impressive-looking players in the space of 15 metres. Does nobody remember wandering from Redridge north to the Burning Steppes in WoW? Going from killing little Harpies to seeing giant ogres of ?? level? Or crossing the river between Goldshire and Darkshire and suddenly finding the light blocked out and you in a whole different place of higher-level evil? That creates a massive feeling, in my opinion, like you are really part of this huge, continuous world, with everyone in it. Not to mention the fact that the landscapes would drastically change in those distances - seamlessly, just as you explored.

With loading screens, you become aware that your client is being reshuffled and moved to a different part of the server; you're entering a different bubble. With the non-linear approach of GW2, it really feels more like a sandbox. You load into a sandbox for a certain level range and that is pretty much the serious 'border' of your 'Massive' world. Everything outside that is quite literally elsewhere, in terms of virtual real-estate. Again, it's something that's hard to qualify in words, and it's something that will feel more important to some people than others. Good for you if it doesn't bother you! Personally it breaks the illusion for me.
 
InKursion said:
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similar to my feelings.

I'll get on with it and enjoy the game (as long as its fun :p) but it does feel less like a world and more of a load of random disconnected places through such obvious phasing.

As I say for such a big project to scrimp in this way is surprising. On that note would/will they be saving a large amount of money by instancing over fully persistent? Of is there some other reason.

Also I remember distinctly running into Burning Steppes from Redridge, that was going to be my example. I was trying to run to IF not realising that there was the tram, died quickly and was really miffed for a while until someone explained :p
 
I think it's just a fundamental engine restriction, from the way they have built the game from the ground-up. It's disappointing, because when I heard they were going to create a 'true' MMORPG with GW2, one of the first assumptions I made from that information was that it would therefore have a large, persistent world. This was one of the main things I got excited about and pre-ordered for :(
 
No1newts said:
similar to my feelings.

I'll get on with it and enjoy the game (as long as its fun :p) but it does feel less like a world and more of a load of random disconnected places through such obvious phasing.

As I say for such a big project to scrimp in this way is surprising. On that note would/will they be saving a large amount of money by instancing over fully persistent? Of is there some other reason.

Also I remember distinctly running into Burning Steppes from Redridge, that was going to be my example. I was trying to run to IF not realising that there was the tram, died quickly and was really miffed for a while until someone explained :p
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The technical aspects art and code of a seamless world are huge. WoW works due to texture sizes, low poly, lack of lightmaps, multi texture blending, small shader count, normal maps?, vertex lighting etc. All the new shaders, poly counts, geometry counts add up and blow the frame rate. Looking at the frame rate as it stands now they have a lot of optimisation to do with the current system. So you can imagine a seamless world with the current art!

This is totally from art point of view so god knows how difficult it is with code.
The complexity of the art in some of the new games I'm not sure how they would get it to work with current tech.

My reference for this is the game I'm currently working on which operates over seamless maps. The amount of restriction this adds to development is vast. With the load/instance screens you get to add so much more to the world at the price of seams in the world.
 
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The alternative is to develop a way of streaming the content as you near it or cross a threshold, as opposed to loading the entire world map at once. I'm pretty sure WoW uses this technology now? Though I can't be sure.
 
InKursion said:
The alternative is to develop a way of streaming the content as you near it or cross a threshold, as opposed to loading the entire world map at once. I'm pretty sure WoW uses this technology now? Though I can't be sure.
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That is a different system.

WoW allows you to stream game data as and when you need it so you can start to play earlier without having 100% of the client locally. For example you only actually need a fraction of the 25GB client to play in the starter areas so you can do that while the higher zones stream in the background or when you come across them in real-time.

It still eventually downloads everything to disk but it's a download management technique rather than abolishing instancing.
 
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Sin_Chase said:
That is a different system.

WoW allows you to stream game data as and when you need it so you can start to play earlier without having 100% of the client locally.

It still eventually downloads everything to disk but it's a download management technique rather than abolishing instancing.
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You're talking about a different system Sin which doesn't impact on performance but is linked in the same way. InKursion was right and most games use this now. It works with room bounds and will load says 4 bounds in front and behind to your current position. This is why fogging is used to stop the engine having to load say 10 room bounds in front in games and breaking the frame rate.

Say GTA for example you're not going to be rendering or loading every single texture from the start. You turn off what you're not viewing only loading room bounds your travelling to and from.
 
TheMeekon said:
You're talking about a different system Sin which doesn't impact on performance but is linked in the same way. InKursion was right and most games use this now. It works with room bounds and will load says 4 bounds in front and behind to your current position. This is why fogging is used to stop the engine having to load say 10 room bounds in front in games and breaking the frame rate.

Say GTA for example you're not going to be rendering or loading every single texture from the start. You turn off what you're not viewing only loading room bounds your travelling to and from.
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Ah, I was picking up on the instancing conversation earlier and assumed Inkursion was talking about WoWs streaming client rather than an engine/world delivery method.
 
InKursion said:
I would much prefer it if GW2 had that system!
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It currently will be loading like that but the amount of work needed to get it seamless like WoW with the current art it uses would be not viable I guess.

For example lighting setups and weather systems without load screens would be a pain in the backside. Remember you have 100s of artists working on these chunks and areas and matching up lightmaps would be a massive task. You essentially have to lightmap the world in one go but with different directional lights.... oh jesus.

Dynamic lighting would probably work but the impact of the frame rate!
 
I've actually confused and put myself into a panic thinking about this. I asked one of the lead coders from the Project Gotham series about this and he confused me even more!

I could never be a lead and manage this level of art!
 
TheMeekon said:
The technical aspects art and code of a seamless world are huge. WoW works due to texture sizes, low poly, lack of lightmaps, multi texture blending, small shader count, normal maps?, vertex lighting etc. All the new shaders, poly counts, geometry counts add up and blow the frame rate. Looking at the frame rate as it stands now they have a lot of optimisation to do with the current system. So you can imagine a seamless world with the current art!

This is totally from art point of view so god knows how difficult it is with code.
The complexity of the art in some of the new games I'm not sure how they would get it to work with current tech.

My reference for this is the game I'm currently working on which operates over seamless maps. The amount of restriction this adds to development is vast. With the load/instance screens you get to add so much more to the world at the price of seams in the world.
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Ah that's interesting thanks :)

So could you chuck enough money at it with the best tech etc and make it work or do you think because of the graphical quality today's computers/connections would just fail at the requirements?
 
I don't know much about game-design, but all I can say is that other games have managed to have relatively beautiful, portal-free worlds! GW2 is a great looking game but - pardon my blaspheme - it's not that stunning. I would much rather turn down the graphics detail a notch and be able to run from one zone to another. It's just part of the 'massive' experience.
 
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