Is there a point to slowed movement speed on overland map?

I noticed while travelling the overland map that going through forest or different terrain types affects movement speed.

This would make sense... if you could see or interact with other players on the overland map and movement speed might make a difference.

As I understand it, I will only see myself on the overland map and I will not see or interact with anyone else until I join a hex. So what is the point of affecting travel speeds on the map? It seems rather pointless at best, and a little annoying at times.

 

I think it adds a little realism of wanting to stick to the roads, taking a shortcut will only be valuable if you know it's a shortcut. I don't know how player controlled farm zones will be yet but it may also give the benefit of having a lookout and being able to account for how long it will take another guild or such to arrive where you are.

 

Obviously its a work in progress, and I imagine eventually you could get surprised by brigands or creatures, like how it would happen in the old ultimas.

Terrain choice was a big deal in the old games if you were trying to run from a combat.

 

Movement on the map definitely needs some work, I agree. I am not sold on the new map idea as is, but having a fluid movement on the new map might make the transition easier...at least for me.

 

I'm not certain if this is just pre alpha, but I preferred the way they showed it in the videos. I have to agree about the roads - when click to move I wasn't certain if I was heading in the right direction or what was going on since they were moving on the roads. With an understanding that this is an alpha, I think this needs a lot of work.

To be honest, it almost seems the the SOTA team has taken on a scope much larger than what they can handle based on the team's size, so while we are getting "more", the quality is diminishing with each release. That's not to imply things won't improve (or that people can't have fun in the meantime), but I have a feeling development will need MUCH more time than what's in the timeline to actually achieve this. I don't have a problem with this, but I think everyone's expectations should be set.

 

Agreed. This map is pretty underwhelming.

I'd rather it be a 2D tile-based stick-man map at this point, like Ultima I thru V were. That's more immersive/believable than watching a chess piece slowly slide around a fold-out map of the world.



At this rate, you might as well just have a big menu of clickable/enter-able locales with a meter for "how long before an encounter" that depletes based off your chosen path.

 

I have previously stated that I feel the timeline with release in October is completely unrealistic. For multiplayer games, I have been part of beta testing that lasted 9 months. We are still pre-alpha and nowhere near feature complete. It seems to me that each of the unfinished rudimentary systems will still need weeks and weeks of attention from multiple people on the team. Toss in combat balancing and all the other issues in a multiplayer game and doing this thorough should take at least a year, unless they can forge ahead at a speed much faster than what we have seen the last few months.

 

Agreed. I feel like too much emphasis was placed on the wrong parts of the game.

*cough* Housing.
*cough gasp wheeze*

That probably should have waited, all things considered.

 

Many people on here said housing was a very important aspect....I didn't agree.

It will ost likely be delayed, not to worried about that...but I know some of you are going to flip out.

 

I'm like--not a major investor in this or anything--but I'd really, really be fine with waiting longer than October for a finished version of this. Having done some game development before, a tower defense game, we had "a working game" about a month in, and then took five or six months to turn that into a "surprising, unique, good game." Part of the point of going direct with the financing of this was to avoid arbitrary, corporate-imposed time pressures, right? I really, really like the game and where it's going--I have a good time with every release just screwing around with the conversation engine or exploring--but this release, although it's way more ambitious than something like maybe R3 was, just really felt a little stretched thin--esp the map. Being on the map and running around exploring should be like the best part of the game

 

Agreed. Also, the whole point of putting this together this way was to avoid the "EA-like" silliness of previous eras right? Including unrealistic or inflexible deadlines?

Take your time. Get it right. Please.

 

I think it is also fair to point out here...what we are seeing is not what is done in house. This is what they want to test. I'm sure that in house it is a lot farther a long in some areas then we are seeing, that has been the case of many games I have been involved with as well as the only sane way of releasing stuff.