Overland map clarification

I am very confused right now.
I am reading more and more posts regarding the overland map which I simply cannot understand.
People are complaining that the travel on the overland map is too slow, some even want to have instant travel to locations. On the other hand people are crying for an open seamless world which would bring very long travel times with it. I am confused.

So what is the overland map and what is it meant to be in the game? Maybe the devs could chime in and clarify it.

Here is my understanding of the overland map:

First of the all the term "map" is misleading as it is no map in the sense of you pulling out a map and clicking on the location to travel to. It is more of a second gameplay layer, a different scaled world view. Think of it as zooming out and out and out until you see the world and then being able to explore it and travel around.

During the Kickstarter phase it was said that there would be much more to the overland "map" than just traveling from one location to the next. There will be encounters - we already have random encounters. But there will be roving encounters, too. So we will see enemies and NPCs traveling around in the overland view. We can engage them if we want. Those won't just be fights. We can talk to traveling merchants, gypsies etc. even get quests, hints etc.
Also if I understood correctly there will be things to discover on the map, for example hidden scenes that just appear during certain conditions, for example certain times of day and certain weather.

I am not sure if all of this is still the case so if a dev could clarify what the plans for the overland "map" are that would certainly help.

So basically the overland "map" is a zoomed out version of an open world. This is one reason why I don't like the new camera view as it gives the impression of actually being in an open world in third person view which it isn't (the other reason is the scale in third person view and the awkward camera auto zooming).

But even as people want to be able to travel around an open seamless world they are now crying that instant travel would be better or at least very fast traveling. I think the travel speed should maybe even be reduced to create the feeling of traveling around in a big world. With roving encounters we will be able to experience a lot on the "map" so why skip this? For me this sounds like casual gaming - sorry, not meaning to offend anyone. But it reminds me of playing the browsergame Shakes and Fidget. Just clicking on the action you want to perform. No more exploring, just a game that is stripped down to ist basics. Wanting to have a fight ? Choose it, autofight, end, loot. The same with SotA. Wanting to continue the quest in another city? Click on it, be there instantly, do it, end, loot.

I think traveling on the overland map should be an integral an important part of the game. There is not much there yet, as we are still in pre-alpha but crying for a removal of the travel aspect just confuses me.

 

I reckon travel speed is appropriately fast for an empty map at the moment. I've spent long minutes wandering around the new area around PaxLair where there is pretty much nothing. Beautiful to see the first time round, but then you just can't wait to get somewhere, anywhere.

Next release we should finally see roving creatures, but that's not enough to make it interesting (though it makes random encounters much less annoying). If non-hostile NPCs, caravans, gypsies, hidden scenes and so on were in, then I'd be ok with traveling at half the speed we have now, because I wouldn't need to walk thousands of miles just to find something to do.

 

I know you are hoping for a reply from the Devs so I don't want to derail too much, but just to comment on my feelings. So for this game there is very little land travel we can do, which is due to the hex system. So our main travel is at this time map travel which is our land mass. So that is one reason people or I should just speak for myself, that is, want to move, go forth, and explore. I so want to explore, if not land mass, I want to explore the map, everywhere in fact, but it is slow if you are off road. It does not need to be quite that slow. It is like inching along, and not a bit realistic, not that realistic is totally what concerns me. I just want to move. I would even love to climb mountains and valleys, cross rivers in many more places, see roving npcs, carts, dragons, and just enjoy the map. To me it is not a map, it is our world. True we go into scenes to do most things, but the map is being created in such a way that it is our world outside of these scenes and it is not exactly a map to me. I do believe much more is coming for map travel and that it is just not implemented yet. I also believe that as with many things in this game haven't necessarily turned out the way any of us think they will, which perhaps in many cases is due to constraints of one sort or another. This in turn causes development surprises and unexpected outcomes. The way this game is being developed cannot fit to any architectural design or mold. In the end I feel many things will end up much more interesting in my opinion. Perhaps if that aspect was known in the beginning the project would have taken another course. So I still love the project and can't wait for the many more surprises. As to quick travel, no one is able to forsee how that will work. It seems to be under wraps due to story perhaps. For now we keep zoning because we need it, later the system that is planned will come in. For now in this phase of development we have had to make do with what is there and almosst everything is incomplete so it is difficult to gage. I loved that Lum said questing abilities are limited because NPCs can't yet follow us. Now what a nice 'hint' that was. I love hints.

 

There is absolutely no merit to fast travel when the Overland is a game mechanic in itself. It would be an easy way to skip random encounters etc. There can be fast-er travel via boats, carriages etc which is a convenient gold sink, but nothing that lets you teleport across vast distances. That is aside from Moongates which can be offset by the waiting time incurred from the day-night cycle and are obviously less common.

 

I guess there is a common missunderstanding i was a victim of as well.
The overland map as it is at the moment is....well...sorry...crap.
There is nothing to do, nothing to see. Beside 2 or 3 random ecounters without any real meaning.
So, at the moment, the overland map is wasting my time. It really is. The travel speed got better with last patch, sure. But it is still an annoyance.
As soon as the overland map works as you (Darkmoon) described it, it will be pretty awsome.
Fact is: i didn't know they plan this stuff for the overland map untill recently.
So don't be surprised if people don't like it. There hasn't been much clarification about this apsect of the game so far.

 

I thought the overland map WAS the fast travel. Better than going through every instance from Braemar to Owl's head.

 

At least I can finally see where I'm going. I wouldn't mind a static camera for the overworld map so long as I can zoom out far enough to see where I'm going.

 

Lunar Rifts

That seems to be SOTA's future form of fast travel that we already have seen. How will they be integrated with the overland map?

 

It is not like there are not plenty of hidden short cuts within the game.

But of course that requires some exploration.

But i know plenty!


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Talk to the Ardoris Shipwright. He mentions inland canal travel.
I'm sure that there is a lot more functionality, in regards to the overland map, still to come.
Air ferries were also mentioned in the very early days.

 

I'm not really confused. The same people who've wanted an open seamless world also have wanted mark/recall everywhere and rune books. Basically, they just want Ultima Online 2.

But I think there were many things that were wrong about UO, and this was one of them.

I'm still not sure why you think its a problem that there's some degree of rotation on the overland view, though. If you remember, in the original map style, they let you zoom out more. Now, they're restricting the zoom out so your field of vision is more limited, but they're allowing you to tilt the view to see the horizon -- and that makes up for the zoom limitations. I think that change is good. It makes the view more like real life; you'll be able to see mountains in the distance, and the path of the road, dragons and other flying creatures, astronomical events, and so on -- without having the kind of "omniscient" view of the world we were allowed before -- its harder now to see over the mountains.

Personally, I'd like the world to be a bit larger so you see less in the distance, and that would make things feel a bit less crowded. But that's also a separate issue. The tilting view also works well with Abe's map style and makes it feel like everything has more dimension. The original map was kind of flat and was okay just from overhead, but the new style is full of hilly slopes and volume, and I think the tilt adds to the feeling.

Of course, I agree that the camera freedom should be restricted a bit so you can't go to these really silly, extreme looking perspectives, but I don't think it should go back to a static view.

 

A bit of tilting is ok. But with the camera we have now the scale is totally off.
Yes the scale is off on the overland map in general but it is much more apparent when you can look up. If you look down on things it doesn't look as extreme as it is now.
Also I think the zooming should be restricted. We should not be able to move the camera as close to the avatar as in the scenes. I think this gives a wrong impression of the overland map. It just looks wrong.
Another thing is this auto-zooming that is very annoying.

Ideally - at least for me - would be that we could zoom out very far. Maybe even until we see a third to half of the continent. We should be able to tilt the camera to see the horizon. But we should not be able to tilt the camera so much as to be able to play from a third person-view or even from a "look up at the sky"-view. I know the devs want us to look at the sky to see things happening there (shardfalls?) and to see the alignments of the stars etc. So I think there should be a way to temporarily look up at the sky, maybe by pressing and holding a key. But being able to look at the sky all the time while moving around just looks so wrong on the overland map.
Another thing is the scale. Either the avatar needs to be much smaller or the avatar should automatically shrink when we zoom down and grow when we zoom up. Also we should not be able to move the camera very near to the avatar. This way we would not get the impression of the overland map being a scene in which the scale is totally wrong. With a restricted zoom factor (and tilting to see the horizon) and an isometric view which can temporarily be made to look up at the sky, the overland map would be another gameplay layer that is another view and not a regular scene with a very strange scale.

 

I basically like it, but honestly a bit bigger would be nice.

If half the people are complaining its too much one way and half the people are complaining its too much the other way, chances are its just right.

 

IMO the overland map is almost the worst idea ever for any MMO. It's a huge immersion spoiler. If it's meant for fast travel then I ask what was wrong with UO's Recall and Mark system? You still had to travel there once to mark and mark was a relatively higher level skill. Make it expensive, whatever... but get rid of OVERLAND MAP!