What happened to all the overland hexes?

For the number of players in the world, and the workload they have in the pipe, I think this was a good plan. They will be able to focus on detailing what's there and expanding as needed. If the population goes up they can add more locales.

 

Very good point, but I think there's going to be quite a few scenes still, just not 4000. There will be anywhere from 70-100 unique scenes on Novia, and I'd expect just as many custom, unique ones now based on the new direction. And yes, I also agree that there should be wilderness scenes where it should feel like you're away from civilization, away from other people, alone in the wilderness. But they can balance that via tuning the player caps specifically for that scene.

This is where we need to test that instancing logic and how to balance that based on the purpose of the scene. As far as I'm aware, they have not yet tweaked the player caps on a scene-by-scene basis and all scenes are using the global default (64 players). I could be wrong. For the swamp scene, they could have easily dropped it down to whatever seems right, or even pulled you into a single player experience. Or, ya know, balance the MOBs too, either having more of them relative to player cap, or make them harder, or whatever.

The swamp scene really demonstrates there's still so much more balancing that needs to happen, from number and placement of mobs, their levels, player caps, etc. If there's dynamic tuning going on based on the influx of players into the scene and what they're doing (mass killing), then that certainly wasn't working

But spawn camping is an unavoidable circumstance of any scene when static NPCs and resource nodes are....well, static.

 

Of course.

But part of the rationale they gave for the change suggests that they think there are too few people in every scene instance... which leads me to think they find it a problem for people to be isolated in random wilderness scenes. Of course, at significant POI it would never be a problem even doing it the old way, because they have more traffic directed to them.

I just don't have any idea how the devs are thinking on this.

 

For me it is the exact opposite. Now they have to improve the overland map even more, because it is the part of the world we are left with for exploring. So I want to see more and different encounters, not only fights. Skilluse to find hidden (random) hexes for gathering resources etc.

 

Yea I'm expecting a lot of things other than monster encounters. Weather. They suggested there'll be gypsy caravans. Also hunting of players who have contraband. Etc. A lot of things that would be made more difficult with a click and go system.

 

So much needs to be done on the map now to make up for this change. I don't think people realize how quick 25 small areas as one poster stated will become old. Another said this shows that it's not a MMO...I think this shows that it is because they are worried about population in each hex, where in single player you wouldn't care.


No one has stated how resources work now...is there limited amount in a smaller amount of hexes?

 

Yea, exactly.

And non-MMO doesn't mean entirely story-based. There are a lot of open-world single player games.

 

I think they need first to do the overword map of the hidden vale and balance it for everyone and then think about the map of Novia. As you can see the game is on the edge between mmorpg and single RPG. They need to use their own system and not to copy systems from other MMORPGs. Last changes were great, but the unique feeling from the game is getting slightly away. I think there are lots of solutions to prevent the game from become grindy and spawn based game.

 

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Yup, It has become OLD, Ha. I want my 25 Hexes per area back!!!

 

What does this mean with the addition of POT's? Did the scene creation for POT's bump the wilderness hexes then? And now, with about 50-100 POT's or more - did we just shift to a more urban game?

 

I really hope there are more scene jams. They don't even have to be "scene jams" since two days to develop something isn't enough time to put the TLC/polish needed.

As was mentioned earlier, the Devs have missed a huge opportunity in making a truly diverse world that could easily fill up the map. The overland map itself is coming along great but be it MMO or SPO, exploration is key.

 

After playing more I want to mention even tho we know much more is coming in regards to our map.

Since we don't have an open world to play in, at least our map could have more open world feel.

Ability to go anywhere and not having to walk around water (as mentioned before), and mountains will make the map so much better.

I also would like to be able to click on a area and go there, who says we wanna be in the map all day long, sheesh. It's a transport area for heavens sake.

Ok well I know I am speaking from what I know at this moment and not from all that hasn't been revealed to us yet since the map is far from done,
but just my take right now, if it helps. **cheers**

 

I am undecided on the map change. Seems like much less destination choice and less exploration potential with this new approach. That's a big deal. I didn't need 4000 unique hexes. The thrill of having 100 potential scenes come up in across 4000 hexes may have been better than the thrill of knowing that one of three or four scenes will come up in 40 big hexes.

 

The most important message for me is the possibilities this direction opens.
Before it was not possible but now that they bind every hex they make to an area they open a new door:

The possibility to be able to travel within the hexes!
The ability to amend each hex in the first person so if you travel within them they feel like one world.
They just have ti connect now each hex exit in a believable way with the next beside it.

All this is doable now, what before was not.



This has become suddenly doable and i think that is for me the most non outspoken reason i am supporting it.

This set up could mean :

We create a option to be able to make travel within hexes , in a believable way, possible incase we want that one day.

I do believe that they can't say it that this might be the plan now. But technically this is the first step this way.
Like Everquest 1 travel.

 

Um, what?

Those areas are not close on the overland map....at all. You want to ruin immersion more allow movement like that.

 

I don't personally care about overall world population in regards to areas we should be able to explore.

 

Like i said this is the first step.

Now the next you might see is small amendments over time in the lay out on the first person maps.

Lets discuss it. How much bigger do you think every hex needs to be and how many more hexes you need for the starter island to make us happy.

I would argue not so much.
Compare the sice of the map of everquest 1 with the amount of hexes they had and the sice one had. They at the end had a fingercountable number of connected hexes.
And all had been happy.

To many want a huge world.

But copy paste random was a bad idea.
That does the opposite. Make it feel unreal.

What makes a world "feel" big is different hexes. Even if it far less amount.

Or look at never winternight. ( it has the same system).

 

Well, first I would argue that they have to meet the double the map size that they mentioned on kickstarter. Then I would say just by what they did here the first island is significantly smaller, with less areas to enter and explore. Is Everquest the standard we are aiming for? Also, that idea of a system takes out any need for the overland map and allows users to bypass any negatives of traveling that map....like random encounters and any other things they may add to make traveling more meaningful.

 

I think double the map promise is a word definition game.

I think random copy of the same on a larger, double sice" map does not make a world bigger as i can enter all these hex on the half map also.
Why go to 10 wood hexes further away to chop a tree? if the hex beside me does the same. It Creates a random wood map out of the 5 different they developed. ( they not even have 5 different wood maps today)


The overland map is not content.
Random copy of the same is not more content.




I only think different looking hexes create a larger world.

More content for me is different hexes. Hence the only real way to create larger world.

 

Well, that wasn't how I originally thought they would do it....I hoped they procedurally generate a lot of hexes to allow us to have deep forest and long planes that are not all exactly the same.

Overland map is content and I think you are completely wrong on that. There is no reason it should not be. That's like saying when you travelled in ultima 5 the world map was not content. They have a huge potential to make the map more meaningful, just like many other areas of the game.