Big fan of the game, but not the overview map...

Have you seen the new map parts?

How can you not love these

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...rafting-of-novia-overworld.21856/#post-325919

 

Those are spectacular rune_74! Now if I could have my random encounters played out on that map I would be happy .

 

I'm right there with you... Portalarium doesn't really seem open to feedback or engaging the community with this sort of issue. Without badmouthing their process I will just have to say that I don't like it..

My faith has truly dwindled with the current batch of dev threads which mostly prove that Portalarium is doing what they want to and will only look to the Dev+ and community for bug feedback/minor tweaks. It's kind of a shame.

Many people would disagree with me, I know, but the latest pictures really only show that they haven't taken much if any of the years worth of discussions/debates/feedback into account.

They seem totally focused on making the OW a "3d experiences" or some such thing.. Abe has been working away for 5+ months and this is the first time that he's posted about his work?

Hmm..

 

So, you notice that he's been with Port for 5+ months, but ignore the "jack of all trades" comment and the rest that more than implies they had him doing things other than being dedicated to his work on the Novia mainland map. For the portion of that five months he's been working on it, I'd say he's done a damn fine job. How many others work for Port that we have heard from only intermittently, if at all?

What exactly is it that they haven't responded to or input they have ignored, other than pushing ahead with the Overland Map/Scene Map split?

 

I don't really understand what you are complaining about to be honest.

 

How about, what the hell is the point of having a Dev+ community?

 

They are not just looking to the dev+ community. They may seek initial input first there but always open the floor after for everyone. The input they seek from the community is from the entire community.

And as Rune said, I'm not sure what your gripe is?

 

And I'm sorry that I didn't reply to the OP's original question...

For me, no...not entirely. It is reminiscent of a vintage style 2d rpg, and overland travel could be made more interactive directly on this map as we traveled, if that is how they wanted to implement it. Most games have some type of instancing, and Sota is no different in that respect. Sure you don't get the same feeling as traveling in a 3d open world, but if you loved UO, or any type of 2d game with that perspective, I can only speak from my personal experience...but it was very immersive.

I could easily see traversing this map with friends/guildmates all mounted and ready to explore... UO style, (perhaps engaging in some battle directly on this map), then dropping down into a dungeon or town in a 3d scene upon arrival. For me, that would be immersive *shrugs*.

I wont toss around the "immersion ball" though, because what is immersive to some, is not to others. It's all a matter of opinion.

Tracker

 

Agreed. Also allows the design team a much easer way to introduce new scenes/ areas on the fly, and remove them.

 

That is the difference between listening to non-developers and developers.

 

I'm sorry you feel that way. What would you like to see from the devs that would change your perception?

 

I'm not opposed to the random encounters entirely. I just would rather see the pack of wolves, or undead up ahead of me on the map, and fight them there directly, instead of being pulled into a scene all the time. If random encounters pop you in and out of the world map in the final product, I'm good with that...though I would like my encounters to be played out on the world map, and my destinations dropping me into a 3d world.

There could be many scenes/points of interest along the way (and I'm sure there will be), that could drop you into a 3d world, but the more I see of the travel map as it develops, the more I want to play "out in the open", so to speak.

Tracker

 

Apparently they mentioned seeing wandering monsters is the plan....

 

What does that even mean?

The dev+ stuff isn't any different other then minor tweaks.

Are you saying they should ask the dev+ crowd more or less?

I'm of the mind that forum members shouldn't have sweeping control to change things based on the whim of the moment....people generally don't know whats good for them and do not like anything that would cause harm.

 

Your generalizing between different members too much. Yes I agree many people simply show up and fire off ideas here and there. Others spend their weekends drafting concise plans for submission, others have real pro game development experience, some are actual qualified coders. So there is a huge variance in talent.

I consider the Dev+ group to be the insider group and seeing that how much more they have paid in relation to regular accounts they should be taken much more seriously. But there is no structure made for this.

1. Portalarium says: we have dev+ group for interested game designers/theory crafters/idea ppl/etc
2. community says: here's 100's of pages of discussions made by dev+ people who are very serious to contribute and debate the design for what we think is right for Sota
3. Portalarium says: we don't have enough time to go through all those threads, let alone actually discuss those things. Here's what we are doing instead.
4. Portalarium says: we are a small company without that many resources.
5. <go back to the top of the list>

What should they do? I'm not sure but I don't think they were/are prepared to actually embrace the concept of "crowd sourcing" a game of this nature, indeed they have mostly just entertained the thought for marketing purposes IMHO.

PS sorry i didn't mean to derail this thread

 

Yes, but do they plan on us fighting these monsters on the map, or when we approach them do we drop into a scene? Fighting these encounters on the map itself would give a vintage/rpg feel to the game...larger more involved or grand encounters/points of interest etc., could be played out in scenes you drop into perhaps?

Tracker

 

Is "crowd sourcing" = "crowd development"?

 

It is when you say you have dev+ status level and interaction.

Sorry I shouldn't have started this discussion here. I will be lurking at the dev+ forums

 

Mike - I think I now understand what you're saying. I won't disagree with some of that (e.g. people spending lots of time with proposals, yet whether it just became white noise is unknown). I'll watch out for your posts down there.

 

People keep saying "look how beautiful it is". (or similar statements) Those of us who hate the map aren't saying it's not nice looking... it looks great... beautiful actually... it's just in my opinion while it's great for a single player game, it has no place in a MMO type of game. It ruins the feeling of playing in a true "world".

To me, the overland map is like the sun, and every other area is like a planet revolving around it. If you want to go anywhere in the game you hop to the middle (the sun) and skip and jump to whatever city you're looking for. Sure, it looks like a map and some take longer to get to than others but it takes a lot the fun out of traveling, takes exploration out of the game, and makes the game feel like a series of connected dungeons with different atmospheres, not a real explorable "world".

The byproduct is that every zone literally becomes a circle, has one entrance that is also the exit (like a dungeon in any MMO) and puts invisible walls into the game around the perimeter so I can't go climb that mountain I see in the distance, or even go into the forest 10 feet from me.

In UO there were areas that we KNEW we took a risk going through because they were pvp hotspots and "reds" were usually in the area. The fact this isn't a "world" but a series of rooms we can choose to go into or not removes that realism and immersion.

Yes, the map looks wonderful, but using it takes so much out of the game and is literally decades old in MMO function.

I know we're stuck with it, but I also know it'll keep people from playing. It's one of the things people I am trying to recruit from my MMO guilds keep throwing in my face and using as a reason not to play.

If there was some way the single player game could have it, but the rest of the zones could be connected like in other mmo's it would make me so happy.