Instances + Minimap Travel = Backwards Compared to Open Virtual World

To make the argument for a two-scale map, I present one of the problems I have run into while playing modern open-world games: running through acres of nothing to get to a destination. In worlds where locations are separated with vast distances of wilderness, I found myself getting bored (in some cases, falling asleep) while wandering through what was mostly the same terrain over and over again. It would seem that on nights where sleep was difficult to be had I need only run around for a couple miles through the Capital Wasteland of Fallout 3 or the province of Tamriel in the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion before the sandman visited and got me yawning. The same could be said of Ultima Online before the discovery of Runestones and Runebooks that allowed teleportation to other locations.

I'd also argue that quality "immersion" can rarely be found while traveling between locations in a vast world. Yes, all that scenery is beautiful and adds flavor to the world. But when the terrain is mostly the same no matter where you are and there is little else to do there except run into a few mostly identical random encounters... what is it all for? I can't make camp for the night in an "immersive" way (menu -> wait or sleep for a duration -> screen blacks-out for a few seconds to simulate sleep is not "immersive"), and the long travel simply adds empty space with nothing to interactive with other than hostile NPCs and wildlife to toss arrows at.

 

I don't care if it's monoscale or dualscale, I want player interactive.

Anyone know that feel when running from one side of a map to another in WoW? Ugh.

 

I'm... honestly a little shocked. Having a dual-scale map has nothing to do with immersion. Does watching a video of a primitive build of a world map really have you thinking, "this will break my immersion"? When you were playing Ultima 4 and 5, did your immersion immediately get broken when you left a town to go to the world map? Was your immersion broken similarly when you left the first person dungeons and the game switched back to tiles and sprites?

I understand the want for a fully realized 3d game with a high-level of interactivity, but lack of immersion is a poor argument. There are just as many benefits of having a dual-scale world.

-Development time and costs are reduced greatly. This isn't a AAA MMO, it's a Richard Gariott game.

-Encapsulated encounters are easier to script and implement. Would you rather have a complete, individual encounter tailored to your avatar, or would you rather have world quests that simply reset every 20 minutes? Which really breaks your immersion?

-ENGINE LIMITATIONS. Unity isn't the god of all game engines. To create a truly massive-feeling world, and one that can be constantly built upon and changed, requires extremely sophisticated technology, not to mention hardware to run it. Some of the things the team is trying to do with SotA may simply not be possible with a full 3d world, and would require scrapping so much work (including the beautiful cloth maps Richard has made). I ask again, which breaks your immersion more - a world map, or your computer sputtering to a halt or crashing?

Just because there's a second scale to the travel map doesn't mean exploration won't be just as fun or that the world isn't as detailed.

 

Sure it breaks immersion. Every time the game loads into the other perspective you get ripped out of the experience. This breaks immersion.

 

I'd love to see a monoscale map implemented as a stretch goal.

A dual scale map with small instanced areas just doesn't fit the sandbox-style gameplay they seem to be aiming for. It's my number one turnoff for this game, and it could be a dealbreaker, depending on how well they pull off the rest of the game. I can see why budget might constrain them, but to be honest, given the choice between the existing two scale map, and having the *entire* game be in a 2D top down view like the current overworld map, I'd choose the latter.

 

GearworkDragon "To make the argument for a two-scale map, I present one of the problems I have run into while playing modern open-world games: running through acres of nothing to get to a destination."

That's what portals, mounts, flying mounts etc. are for. Fast travel options which drastically reduce travel-time.

 

The biggest problem here is probably to do with a mixture of people wanting an MMO and a SP game.

I could go on and on about the negative points for instances in MMO games. It destroys the feeling of a world for me. Technically it is a problem - but if UO could manage it to some degree 10-20 years ago, I don't know why we cannot handle it today with better technology.

It is irrelevant though - this is not meant to be an MMO.

 

With $1.000.000 you cant make a full virtual world? Geeze! I'm not too happy ether with the two types of maps. We saw this on the screenshots and alpha of Ultime Forever and it was really a let down.

 

I agree completely with Hadriel on this--instancing and minimap travel completely breaks most of the potential immersion of SotA.

I think this is a multi-faceted problem, though. On the one hand the development costs and want to make an "Ultima 3/4-like" game are reasons for supporting this approach. However, most other reasons seem to support avoiding it.

For example, instances, by their very nature, produce resource and economic problems due to their 'farming' properties. I've heard RG say in these recent SotA videos that this is behaviour that they'd like to avoid.

Additionally, switching the users experience during game play is at best distracting--and at worst can reduce the experience to 'a boardgame'. The latter is particularly true if the Usecode of the game is basically absent--which appears to be the case from the demo; valid commands appear to be "Move, Observe, Interact."

Personally, I would strongly prefer an environment like Ultima 7, or Serpent Isle. In these games there are very few unnamed NPCs; the world is continuous (e.g., no loading screens, no instancing). This would allow people to be invested in the environment itself, rather than just an instance.

Also, on a side note regard development costs: If there was an interest in pursuing the continuous world model, and keeping the 'boardgame' approach, it might be possible to merge the two. This would involve having different 'resolutions' of map detail.

Perhaps in the 'nearest' resolution, where you view your own player, all details are shown--and movement is allowed. In the 'further' perspectives different amounts of the overview/map could be shown. This could replace the "f3" style interaction of different games and still give an 'active map' feel to the game--something few (if any) other games have leveraged!

Just a thought.

 

I just want to point that, for me, dual scale world really DOES break the immersion. Or maybe not the immersion, but the "rythm" of the gameplay. One of the things I liked the most from UO (I knooow that this is not uo... I just miss this...) is the danger feeling of the whole map. I was always playing like tense. And I completely loved that. I was not expecting this thing of SotA since Lord British said i'ts not "a viable business model" anymore, but making it dual scale really aggravates the thing.

You might not get the point. I still lack a bit of english to make this understandable. Sorry if I lost your time!

 

yeah guys
please please open virtual world fully explorable to improve and extend over time

 

I don't see the issue here. Why compare SotA to Skyrim, instead of something like Dragon Age or The Witcher? Open virtual worlds have their own problems as people have said in this thread, I would rather Richard create the game he thinks is best.

 

@Hadriel

"That?s what portals, mounts, flying mounts etc. are for. Fast travel options which drastically reduce travel-time."

Tell me you see the irony of this statement. You just made the case for immersion-breaking transitions between the scales, but teleporting from place to place is fine? You've also highlighted exactly what's wrong with vast monoscale maps. You travel somewhere ONCE and then never see that content again for the rest of the game. That's a lot of extra work for something no one even sees the second time they travel somewhere. Why not focus on things that matter, like actual content?

 

Nyxator, you nailed it right on the head! Bravo.

 

^What he said.

I would be happy with either, but RG is obviously excited about his dual-scale hex map system, so we should be appreciative instead of domineering. The immersion argument also seems a bit overblown.

There are a thousand things that can break your immersion more. Opening a save game window, having a naked player run by named Buttmunch, fiddling with the text parser for 20 minutes trying to get the NPC to say what you want...

If you ask me, the videos shown already look a lot more immersive than certain games of the past.

 

That is Lord Buttmunch to you!

 

Personally i like the change of view when you exit from a town or from a dungeon or from an "instance". I like the idea to move in the world like in civilization. Explore and find a point of interest. Enter in it, having an adventure and so on. The encounters and try to avoid them.
Buy an area of the map and build a farm, a inn or a city....or possibility to create a Point of interest.. (I know i am running with fantasy now)

I find boring the games where i must stay 10 mins with the finger on "W" key and watch my horse run to a destination.

Just i don't like the world map where i press a location and i teleport over there.

 

I don't know what people are talking about in UO and not traveling to a place again. I stopped playing UO after EA broke it so maybe they changed it and removed all reason to return to certain location.

Treasure Maps would constantly have me all over the world, as well as PvP. The fact that player housing was spread randomly through the map also gave reason to roam the map if you were looking for PvP action of some sort. Thats probably the one thing I miss about UOs open world map, in that it was the only MMO of many that I was not funneled into one particular zone or set of areas for my skill set in effect making other obsolete or pointless.

 

"Funny thing that on KS main page isn?t stated clearly that it?s a single player game but ?Multiplayer Online Game ? which can also be played solo player / offline? ? maybe we have too high expectations?"


I'm not so sure it's "designed" to be single player. Here is an FAQ from Kickstarter:


"Multiplayer?! But what if I want to play offline?


The game can be played offline, no connection required. The character used for the offline version of the game will not be useable in the online version of the game for obvious exploit/hacking reasons. We are going to investigate ways to export your online character to the single player version of the game but the offline character will not be importable into the online version."


So to me this says the game will be either entirely online or entirely single player, you choose. People keep talking about it being a "single player" game, but it's not. This is a multiplayer game at heart.

 

I enjoy exploring, even through the landscape of an empty world, but I seriously doubt the mini map will be removed, it may be an oldschool tool but it could give the game some charm, I really wouldn't expect to see a fully persistent open world with vast forests until SOTA II, that is, if this game is successful enough to warrant this, I'm sure RG would love to have this in some future game, but the technology and bandwidth that SOTA was designed for had web/mobile in mind, to give the game a wider range of platforms and it made economic and bandwidth sense to include the mini map.