Gotta love zoning or...

I guess there was an idea behind the zoning. Not only are there limitations to the Unity engine, but there is also a good idea behind its flexibility. It is easier to expand the map with more citys now, than it would have been had we had a zonining-free world. What do you prefer though? Was the idea of zoning a good idea?

 

It would have taken them soooo much longer to create a massive world and fill it all in if it were seamless. Just think of all those open areas on the overland map that don't have zones... That would all need to be filled in, and they couldn't have cloned zones temporarily like they did.

It would have been a lot more work and I feel made each area less interesting overall for a small team to pull off.

 

To me open world is the only sane way to go :/
This isn't a subject we are allowed to talk about tho Yet to see the changes that was supposed to happen because of scenes (landscape changes and the like)

conclusion = VERY bad idea

 

I don't think it has anything to do with "optimization of the code", I don't think its about the code at all, I think its a world building thing and Lord Dreamo is correct, by having the dual layer world they can build an overland map and build individual scenes and save a TON of time as compared to having a complete seamless world.

Whats ironic is that with other MMOs that actually have a large seamless world, once you add in fast travel and people play for a bit, most of that world which people spent time building is ignored as people just zip around the map to get to their next objective anyway

Having said all that, the poll doesn't include my response which would be, no I really do not like zoning I think it hurts immersion having to wait to "load" the next zone, but I do completely understand why they did it.

 

+1

 

I used to hate it, but I see the benefits, faster development of areas (I know i know, cloning, but they are gonna fix things in these clones). For a small team, this makes most sense. The amount of unique zones is pretty high and that number is going to rise from here. Load times are drastically reduced with an SSD hard drive, and things load faster every major release... so I've gotten used to the idea of zones! I expect is will be easy to update areas too 'on-the-fly' in the future without needing a 1gb patch!

 

I don't think zoning is the problem, it's the time it takes for loading screens. Even with an ssd still takes too long.

 

Zones are just too small, we need new zones 3-4 times larger with high level content, also it will solve the problem of 70-80-90 level gap.

 

If it only a second or two, most would not complain. Maybe they should consider some trickery to get you in the scene fast and postpone some of the heavy lifting for after you zoned.

 

Maybe it's just a matter of opinion, but using an SSD myself I never thought loading screens were that bad. Ever play Diablo 1 on a 1x cd drive?! Now that's slow... Haha. Or any console game is actually slower than SOTA, I watched my friend play Skyrim on her PS3 and I was shocked.

 

I think once the overland map feels more alive it won't seem so bad. That would definitely add to the "world" feel immensely.

I remember when they first added seeing other players on the overland map and I was amazed how much it added to the feel. I've often stopped and chatted with people, ran into aquaintences etc. but just seeing people running around makes it feel bigger and more alive.

 

I think it was the right answer. I'm sure more could be done to make things more seamless and to fill in more content. But that can happen over time.

 

I dunno, everytime I'm sucked into a random encounter, I think "great more waiting with 2 loading screens I didn't want to have to bother with". Maybe once they're on the overhead map it will be better and I can avoid them if I choose to, which normally I would because there's not much in them to make it worth the time. I know they added a few better resources like silver in them but that's not enough for me to not just run for the nearest exit every single time I have to be pulled into these things. It's an annoyance for me, loading screens should be 5 seconds tops imo.

 

I don't really have a problem with it personally. But I don't have long load times.

 

30 seconds for zoning.. and 30 seconds for loading new scene.. too much
for me.. the timer of recall/teleport must be decreased to:
10 seconds for a teleport skill of 40+
7 seconds for a 50+ teleport skill

the recall/teleport using scrolls (like UO) is nice
the thing that i hate is to USE FAKE FRIENDS like RUNES....

better to use RUNES like UO..

imagine a gate opening on central OWL to transport newbyes and other players without money or without teleport scrolls to a WEDDING PARTY.. or to a PVP tournament.. (usual things on UO)

if there are issues with locations for runes.. just make on every city a ROUNDED teleport basement (somewhere on the scene.. not at the stone gates) to mark a RUNE... you have to search the RUNE TELEPORT BASEMENT...

 

Random encounter's, on the other hand, ARE noticeably bad for loading like this.. not so much for an area you plan to stay in a while. Maybe the dev's can somehow preload these smaller random encounter scenes?

 

I for one am not a fan of Zoning, But I (we) lost this argument years ago once they started down this path and there is no going back. What I can tell the Devs now is before launch date they need to put some major attention to how often and how fast we do zone, because I feel this will drive away new players as it is now. I'm a hard core UO guy, i'm not going anywhere but the "Kids" coming into this game later will not have the same nostalgic appeal as an old UO veteran and they will most likely just quit out of frustration. We have to be able to walk more than 5 minutes without staring at another zoning screen to keep the immersion. Here are a few suggestions.

1) Find a way to merge all of Brittany Central and Suburbs into one Zone this is a very large player concentration area so some heavy server power would help please the masses.
2) Make a few Zoning areas HUGE! so we have some sense of exploration or be able to run off and farm resources with less people, maybe some PvP areas and some PvE.
3) I'm not a programmer but there has to be something we can do to make zoning faster.
4) Give people something better to look at on the zoning screen maybe a player of the day screen shot or help full hints or secret map locations for treasure. give them some reason to not mind looking at the zoning screen.
5) The basement zoning really stinks nuff said about that.

Just a few thoughts, I'm sure nothing here is new but I wanted to stress the importance of addressing this zoning issue before you launch. This very well may break the game. I would double down on the money and time needed to make this better.


I

 

I like your suggestions, however, it will probably not happen due to the technical limitations of the Unity engine and the way they have used it. If I remember correct the registered version of Unity DOES have an option to extend the landscape area, but I doubt the code has been prepared for that.

 

Hopefully episode 1 just does so well that we can have that open world in future episodes!

 

A point not yet mentioned is the dynamism offered by the current design. Scenes can be rapidly updated to support sieges, natural disaster and before/after scenarios. This isn't possible with a single-scale map.