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What prevents....my immersion...and worries me.

Discussion in 'Release 13 Feedback' started by Lordy2, Dec 19, 2014.

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  1. Sir Cabirus

    Sir Cabirus Avatar

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    Yes, I know. Maybe I was a little bit to unspecific :) But to determine these differences will cause network traffic too. And there is the player population which surely changed every time you enter a scene. Nevertheless - I'm sure there is enough room for optimizing the network routines via a local cache or other methods.
     
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  2. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

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    Indeed, "Instancing is Not Instant" :(
    :oops: I'm not sure if this idea could help, yet it is "an idea" which could cause a better one to come from other players here or our Dev team...

    What if there were some animation of walking into that instanced scene? It's my feeling that there will be "no perfect solution" unless instances become so fast loading that we never see them loading. But if there will always be 10 seconds of loading time, then (to me) then that's 10 seconds where there is no entertainment happening and no excitement builder to the happening instance. 10 seconds in any entertainment industry is a very long time by modern standards... everything from movies to any YouTube video success shows this to be true, that no matter what it is, when the screen goes dead, or there is a wait for anything, then anything with those 10 lost seconds does brake the viewer's immersion into whatever they were watching or being entertained by.

    Here's an example of 10 seconds of entertainment...


    So my question is, "what sort of 10 second entertainment would be better than what we have now?"
    Finding the right question is often times more important than the answer ;)
    because without the proper question, there can be no answer o_O
    Good Question dudina, let's find a 10 sec. answer :confused:
    ~Time Lord~:rolleyes:
     
  3. Morkul

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    Things that are semi static as houses and decorations would only need a tiny bandwidth to check (transfer of a checksum) for actual changes you really don't need that much bandwith. It looks like they don't use any type of delta right now so there are room for huge improvements but on the other hand must they start to implement it soon before they get too far in to network implementation.

    As you said, avatars is the only thing that really make a considerable change between loadings but again I have a really hard time to see that so much data needed for each avatar.
     
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  4. Duke Death-Knell

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    I have an old computer and it takes me the same. I think his point is that it shouldn't take 10-30 seconds.

    Of course I've never been a supporter of "immersion" per se as I'm sitting at my desk staring at a monitor. Kind of an immersion issue to start with. Now when we get OR some day, then I'll complain about immersion.
     
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  5. RuvalSioned

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    The problem I see it is yes while we are in 2014 and load screens should not cause such long delays into the instance. From down under with a slow ping that is made worst. The problem is the look and feel of the load screen screams 1998. Yes this is Alpha, but we need to raise these issues so the Dev's know this is cheap looking. The tech being used will have to load these scenes, but how they load into those scenes will either make the game look polished or in it's current form, laughable.

    I tried to convince a good mate of mine to buy into this game, I showed him and he could not believe we had a load scene screen with no animation or one that sat loading for 20 seconds+. We both had a chat, what would be better is if the huge bar with load crap is removed ( we don't give a crap whats loading ), move it to the bottom right corner of the screen, and animate or do something a bit more 2014 with the load screen. There are many options, and TBH it maybe on the Dev's list of things to do in the future. But we need to make sure it is actually on that list :)

    The second thing was the GUI.. don't get me started on that mess ( yes yes Alpha and all ), and I still not convinced the combat will attract many people to this game IMHO.

    I remember back in the day getting very excited about Neverwinter Nights 2, when it came out it was really "Game loading 2", and IMHO destroyed the NWN brand.. I can see the reviews for this game if things are not changed or improved, "We then proceeded to leave town, the overhead map loaded ( 10-20 seconds ) and we moved our character south for 10 seconds, was then pulled into a encounter ( another 20 seconds load ), we ran out of the instance and back into the overhead map ( another 10-20 second load ).. not sure if we were playing load online, or SoTa" :)

    Cheers

    Ruval Sioned
     
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  6. Lordy2

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    what i need it's just the feeling of living in a borderless populated online world.

    So far this feeling is absolutely absent...and it's actually the first time im having this sensation in a MMO/SMO....i tested almost every title hitting the market from Meridian59...to UO where i was an official Counselor on European Shards....been working in this mmo industry for a decade...but really this lack of "real world" is starting to be a serious issue for me. Something i underevaluated at start...it's not the loading itself...its the fact that each single scene lives a proper life without being a part of the bigger picture...Unfortunately this is not something will improve with time or releases as the game was planned this way.

    Im not saying that this sensation is something common to all of you or that this makes the game crappy. Not really. Im just saying that FOR ME, and for the way im used to play a persistent world, such limitation is, again i repeat for me, crucial and makes me wonder...

    That said, i will certainly wait and see...honestly speaking though, in the beginning i had a Duke account + a Lord account....now i only have a Lord Marshall account....and considering my options.....so PLEASE force me to go back on my steps and reach again the Duke level ok?

    Im honest guys, and im speaking to Devs, the game is aiming too much to the Hard core community, to make the *Boom* something has to change in my opinion.

    Lord Marshall Vulcano, aka Lordy
     
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  7. Town-Portal

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    I 100% agree.

    I cant understand why we go back. Ultima Online had zero loading times... or very brief ones only.
    Dark Age of Camelot had loading times when entering dungeons/instances, but not zones... you could sometimes get a brief lagspike, but that was it.
    EverQuest 1 had loading times between zones... but i feel even those were done better than the SOTA ones.
    I am soooo tired of the Random Encounter loadtimes. And yes, the overview map is an immersion ruiner for me also, but i get it, it will stay!

    It has to be possible to not have loading times in 2014/2015... someone needs to make a super-engine... (not SOTA, but someone else... please!) :)
     
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  8. Campbell

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    Seems to me like we've come a long way with only 30 second load times. I think they should release this game on 5 1/4 floppys optimized for the C64...then we could have a lively discussion about load times.

    But I do agree it gets tedious to wait on scenes to load. Especially frustrating when you change your mind on the overland map and go back from whence you came.
     
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  9. ThurisazSheol

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    ...i like the load times. lets me crack open another beer, or in some cases like ardois, open another bottle of mead. and pour.

    usually by the time i'm done, the game has just finished loading, i take a sip and continue on my epically fuzzy journey into all the 1's and 0's that make this place a reality.
     
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  10. Morkul

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    Well loading times are way too frustrating for me at this point. Yes I know it's an alpha but devs really need to optimize the loading times to R14 if they want to see some really good multiplayer interaction.
     
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  11. Dorham Isycle

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    Would it be possible to load the houses & players close to entry point & load progressively further as you approach.
     
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  12. King Dane

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    I suspect the load times will grow shorter as the game is further optimized. Hopefully this is the case.
     
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  13. XcomVic

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    They will have no choice to to optimize that down to 5-10secs. Too many impatient people these days and no one likes to waiting on a loading screen BUT I do remember EVEN WoW has loading screens especially when getting on that ship to move between continents, so even the big guys use it. Just not as much because their zones are bigger.
     
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  14. XcomVic

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    Where are the servers located at?
     
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  15. enderandrew

    enderandrew Legend of the Hearth

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  16. XcomVic

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    ohhhhh.... then good. I live on the East Coast. It's a Central Location. So it has NOTHING to do with Ping times. Or DL speeds (I have 100MbpsDL). Just poor PRE-ALPHA optimizations which will be worked on when they come back from break before it's a hot topic and everyone hates it! And they want to do better and get more players in here and they know people hate loading screens. :)
     
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  17. enderandrew

    enderandrew Legend of the Hearth

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    The long load times have more to do with unloading everything from memory and then loading everything for the new scene back in. I think Chris said that they might be able to improve that system where if there is a shared asset between two scenes, they never unload it in the first place so they don't have to reload it. That should help.

    If we're using a 64-bit client, how about the game just determine that certain assets are really common to all scenes and keep them loaded all the time. RAM is plentiful these days. Use it. Loading/unloading from disk is REALLY slow.
     
  18. redfish

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    I put up a transcript of the R12 post-mortem.

    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...12-postmortem-rough-transcript-minutes.18938/
     
  19. Duke Death-Knell

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    Actually Google passed up Overland Park because the city gave them a hard time. OP pettitioned google later but was told "maybe later"
     
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  20. Lordy2

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    Dont compare loading times of a game like WOW with something like 100 times the maps actually available in SOTA. It is obvious that some loading it's ok...SOTA though its absolutely sluggish if u really want to compare with WOW... (now it's pre alpha bla bla bla...and again loading times its just a little part of my problem...but it seems some ppl is stubborn and stops just there)...my problem is that i would like a single big world...not 200 micro instances living in their own time and space...
     
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