Don't like the invisible walls and tunnel forests...

IMHO there shouldn't be any invisible walls. I went in to the forest to explore, but those invisible walls are really not something I was expecting in this game tbh. Makes the world and game feel very cheap.

 

What would the alternative be?

Are you suggesting that we should be able to walk far enough in any direction and eventually get out of the zone we're in? I'm not sure how I feel about that, it seems like a good idea from a convenience standpoint, but a bad idea from a town design standpoint (that would make it much harder to make scenes where you're meant to progress certain areas first).

 

A necessary evil for a low-budget game. You just have to squint and pretend you are in a vast forest and don't intend to walk past the treeline

 

We can use the power of imagination to believe this is an immersive world.

Those invisible walls? A wizard did it!

 

No, I agree, and I don't think it should be a necessary evil. Just give us the cartoon fade out when we get to that "invisible line"... the scene extends at least a couple more feet after that, so start fading out and let us leave the hex.

It would make it a lot easier to leave hexes as well ! Nothing worse than walking along invisible lines or being told to "turn back" like in Oblivion... I don't know why games do this... is there a technical reason ?

 

Likely monetary. We're constantly being told how poor the company is and how there's no money for extra features. Why would they divert their time away from a cheaper solution?

 

Well, i do not see something wrong with the hex system. Thats back to the old Ultima's and i think, if i am not wrong, that was the initial intention of the Kickstarter campaign. For me, i like this overland and hex system, but the 3D areas feels a bit small sized. I would love to see bigger areas as like e.g. In EQ 2.

 

Go to the Brave Coast and tell me that's small... The sizes of the hexes are not uniform. Some are small and some are large.

 

I don't want to question the hex system.. I like it. Just make it that it is either possible to leave the hex in all directions more or less, or try to really make a dense forest and let me collide with a tree or sth. It just annoys me that I clearly can't walk between some trees were i should be able to walk through.

I am sure the mappers can find other ways of doing it. IMHO the hex system is absolutely fine, I just don't like how the edges of the hexes are designed right now.

 

I think the problem is the unity engine does not support a seamless world very well (like the ones of skyrim and minecraft). You can have the entire world loaded in memory at the same time, so the game is divided in multiple scenes, or hexes as we call it. Considering how slow the scene loading is, I doubt a dynamic scene transition is going to work. A seamless world is possible, but much more challenging, especially on unity I think.

Now the other problem is how you are going to make the walls on the scenes. To be honest, the invisible walls bothers me, but not that much... I would rather have good lighting (I know, they are working on that, they might be working on these walls as well)... but both is better of course.

 

I havent run to the edge of a hex yet I think, but it sounds not so fun with an artificial barrier.

I think I saw developer @Chris posting something about this in another thread yesterday, I can't remember which.
If I remember correctly the devs are currently undecided on how exactly they want to allow hex transition, but if they want to they can allow walking from one hex to another (via a loading screen).
(I could have gotten this wrong though)

Edit: I found the post I was thinking of, where Chris writes a bit about hexes and scenes:
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ay-to-kill-immersion.12080/page-2#post-204384

 

In all games when you enter an instance you may think its a vast landscape but its really just a box like dungeon with trees instead of cave walls holding you in. The only solution is a full world to explore and they will not be doing that. Plus they have found its a lucrative money maker selling Players instanced towns.

 

Well, their entire model from the beginning was an instanced game, and they were very upfront and transparent about that.

It provides several benefits, like being able to dynamically hot swap hexes (i.e., a town in the game eventually is destroyed by a plot event, so they swap it for a ruin and next time you go there it's a ruin... much easier to do with the instance/hex system)

A full world is hard to do with a large number of players. Novia, in total area, will be *much* larger than Skyrim, a single player game. It won't be a Theme Park like ESO. Yes, it means that we're going to have to deal with loading screens a lot and it means we'll have to work to create scene variety. I'm hoping once they have it running they take scene improvements and submissions from dedicated community members to fill those 16,000 hexes with unique scenes and points of interest that will make it worth going into them. I think over time, it's possible - look at what dedicated communities did for Bethesda's flawed games as far as mod content, for example. I really hope they leverage that.

Also we are on an indie budget. We don't have the huge amount of money a big developer would give us, but we can do stuff like have this small team try to respond to some of our concerns, which they've done, and they obviously care about trying to accommodate everyone and to make the best possible game they can on 4.2 million dollars.

Also, we don't have a corporation that is only concerned about filling the pockets of the top dogs and shareholders pushing the game or restricting what it can be, which is a big benefit but it means we have to be realistic about what is possible in the time frame and cash situation we have. I know you know this, but it's easy to lose sight of this when you are playing and see the potential but are frustrated by it's limitations, which is why I am bringing it back up.

I know people aren't used to using unfinished software and it scares everyone, even me, at times, but bugs get fixed, or at least most of them do. Think about how stable OS X Yosemite will be compared to it's current unstable betas or iOS 8 beta2 compared to beta1 for example, and how the final products won't have any of those weird issues. We just need time and patience and a little more understanding from us, the community, instead of the fear and vitriol that we all sometimes succumb to.

Bottom line is, if this game is successful and we can build a fun world that is good enough and people live in and enjoy it, then over time more people will come and we can expand and improve to all the things we really want eventually. UO, while flawed, was a living breathing community with a lot of cool stuff going on, and I think we can achieve that with this game. There is no point in thinking and worrying about the alternative honestly.

 

At first I was very sceptical about the dual scale map. I wanted to explore the world as a whole. But over time I grew more and more fond of the dual scale map and even fell in love with it after playing Ultima V again and imagining that it would be similar in SotA. As long as they improve the map - not only visually - but in terms of what you will be able to experience and do on the overland map I am very happy about it.

But I also think that invisible walls are - an now come our favourite words - immersion breaking I think that when you reach the border of a scene there should either be a natural barrier or you should be taken to the overland map.

 

this has nothing to do with dual scale maps, hexes, seamless worlds, money or time.

Time and money they already put in to it, and extra time to make some trees ? it is a really rediculous excuse. thst time is already spent making the invisible walls. I argue it is the same or less since all you need to define is the exit barriers.

All that is being asked for is the same thing that happens on the plains hexes that you can exit from any direction. When you get to an edge, it already has a mechanism to let you know.

There are not a lot of good technical reasons that can't happen. It would even amount to the same cyclorama we have now, just not right up in your face, but at a distance, to make it appear that there are more trees, ruins, swamp, whatever, beyond when it starts to fade you out.

It is movie magic, not a hammer to your face.

 

They could have achieved that with a full world to explore its only like adding a new instanced dungeon/area it happens in all MMO's now were they may use an area for a festival etc it can be changed anytime.
Being bigger than Skyrim which as you say is a single player RPG is irrelevant.
I doubt they will fill half of those hex and 32000 loading screen just to visit them once would be a nightmare.
It being in Pre Alpha does not change the fact its got walls to area's.
It would have been better to make the fully explorable world even if smaller concentrating on Crafting PvP/PvE Combat and left out the housing until a later episode, it can't be changed once its released.
It could even have launched as a SPO RPG and gone to MMO at Episode 2 they would have had longer then to optimise the MMO and have it ready in Fall 2015.