I don't care for overland travel

I think once the main continent is opened up the towns will be more spread out, and longer roads to take, but you are right for now, it is a small and cramped map at the moment.

 

So, I see this a lot from non-Ultima, UO-only players. The concept of instancing in SotA isn't explained very well, and people who are coming from sharded MMOs only see it as a bad thing. Let's call it "global matchmaking" for now.

Global matchmaking does not have shards. There will not be 10-15 servers that only hold ~6000 players at peak (WoW) or megaservers with 10-15 instances within them (Neverwinter, most modern MMOs). There's just one, for everyone in the world.
That means that someone in Brazil logging into Shroud for the first time 5 years from now will see the castle that someone has been paying rent for since launch, even without ever having met that person. It also means there will be filtering, but it aims to be a more intelligent kind of filtering.

The game will automatically put you in instances that have your guild mates, your friends, your party members, your friends of friends, people you have partied with before, etc etc in descending priority. This means that if you've seen someone once, chances are you'll run into them again. This is great for building community. Its also supposed to be seamless, so you can't *tell* you're migrated between instances. Each area is supposed to feel as "populated" as the last. A global server structure helps to ensure this. No area should be completely empty because its pulling players from all around the world, mostly ones you know, and no area should be way too full because there are multiple instances.

I quoted the bottom part of your post because it's highly applicable to understanding SotA's global matchmaking. In UO, if your friend was on another shard, short of paying for a server migration (did they even do this much back then?) you were screwed or had to start a brand new character. Here, it doesn't matter who you want to play with, as long as they're online you can find each other. There's never going to be any "Did you play on _____? Do you remember _____?" for SotA, it'll be "did you play SotA? do you remember me?"

 

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

I totally understand that now, but IMO the overland map still needs to go in its current form. If they can create these seamless instances for the cities/towns, why not create them for the forests, tundras, deserts and fields "between" them as well? Put an instance there that is nothing but hills and trees that takes 8-10 minutes to cross by foot and 3 mounted (or whatever scales properly) and let us travel normally to keep the immersion. They can be pvp hot spots, etc..

I'm just of the camp that it kills immersion, and worse... while I'll still play either way it'll be a game killer for some of the more thick headed mmo purists as well as the younger generation coming up who expect more real feeling travel. Not everyone has played the Ultima series (a tiny % of the newer MMO ppl I'm afraid) and it'll be perceived as negative by them.

Keep the overland map for single player mode but give MMO mode a "real" area to cross. Why not?

I'm

 

Perfectly said.

 

The Multiplayer variant is the Single Player one in a MMO-like framework with instancing. There are plans to make it more varied, including events and roaming mobs, etc.

PvP hotspots are created organically by players in areas of high activity. In this particular case, I would imagine Open PvP areas (duh) being one such hotspots. You do not need an illusion of a seamless map to achieve that.

You are literally suggesting 8-10 minutes of traveling tedium in the name of that legendary immersion. Thats being one step removed from "press X to pay respects.", if moving a figure through an overland map makes you enjoy a game less then watching a horses butt for 10 minutes, I don't know what to tell you.

 

What I'm suggesting is not "traveling tedium". What I am suggesting is the unknown. It's exploration, its wandering; "What lies ahead..?".

"Watching a horse butt" in no way does justice to the thrill of trying to uncover what is in store for the gamer as they progress though uncharted territory. When you look at the overland map you know whats up ahead every time because you can see this town is over here and that town is over there.. etc. When you step out of your town to travel you should wonder: "What else is out there?" "Which direction should I take?" "Whats just over those mountains?" . That legendary immersion that you are downplaying as a gimmick to stare at the back of an avatar (or it's mount) is a very real and important part of the game.

If they don't include it in this game then so be it, I won't be mad. I just think it's a bad decision.

 

Exploration still happens within the action zones, plenty of secret stuff to unlock and to find in there. You are still exploring and finding new areas, which you are then exploring in detail, that is not mentioning events and other overland tidbits. Nothing of what you are saying here can't be done via the overland map, while the scene/instances make it way easier to add new areas/events to the mix.

And let's not kid ourselves, it's not like MMOs or even non MMO "sandbox" game do not have a finite amount of places to visit and find and are often big corridors, but concealed to make them bigger then they are.

 

Sorry you feel that way! There are tons of world map-driven RPGs that have kept great immersion and exploration, though.
You may not be a fan of the JRPG genre, but FF7, Wild Arms, and Blue Dragon all have incredibly detailed, live-feeling world maps.

 

So, you are saying they should invest resources in two different play modes and let people playing single player use the map. This doesn't make sense.

 

ill try to put this in a different way. as i am one who is not really found of the overland map. not a deal breaker for me ill still play but i don't like it.

i have 2 kids that play this game. i had to get on one of them yesterday for cussing. he was not happy he hit an instance on the over land map.

2 days ago i was in a party that we couldn't cross the map cause ever step it seamed one of the party members hit an instance. i hit 2 back to back ran through the first one just to get out and the first step i took i hit another. we ended up zoning out and having everyone zone back together.

im sure everyone can remember getting lost at one time or another when exploring uo. running from mobs just to see whats behind the next hill. some really fond memories their. I personally feel that not having maps like that will take away from game a big portion of what alot of mmo players love. exploring. getting lost. mind u we hate it when it happened but we loved finding that secret treasure or that daily drop rare. it was about exploration.

i fully understand this is pre beta. the big map is not our yet nor is alot of the places to go. their will be plenty to see and plenty of places to go as the game gets closer to launch. it is my belief and many others that the overland map takes away from what we liked the best exploring. treasure hunter maps running through hell and back trying to find just the right coordinates. sos rowing the ocean trying to find 1 spot seeing new things. the overland map to me seems stale. i have walked it over several times now their isn't anything really new to see. adding a few roving bandits and caravans i don't think will give it a new feeling. safer travel and more than likly faster travel than walking uo.

this is not an immersion thing as im honestly confused by its various uses between threads on seemingly unrelated ideas. so i wont comment on that aspect.

as much as i would like to offer a solution to this i don't have one. its a wait and see what happens and i hope it will satisfy my exploration fetish.

on a final note both my kids really dislike the over land map. 3 of my friends who i am trying to get in the game and have them buy an account have tried this game using my account and their not really digging it either. im sure some love it and i wont take that opinion from you if you do.

 

I wasn't a fan of the overland map at first either. But over time I have come to enjoy it and think that it is the best choice for the game especially with them wanting everyone on the single server and not wanting housing to be instanced and so on. Open worlds are nice and I do like to explore. But like silencer said there is not an infinite amount of stuff to explore and discover even in open world designs and the overland map does not take away exploration completely I mean there is still stuff to explore/discover in the actual zones. Not to mention who knows they may add a fog of war like affect to the overland map so you will have to actually walk around and explore on the overland map as well to disover every place. They also have said they can add content much faster using the overland map. Which will hopefully keep things fresh and interesting. One problem I do have with the system right now though is the loading times. It is still prealpha though and hopefully they have plans to greatly decrease loading times by release.

 

There is abolutely no reason why the map won't work with treasure hunts etc....it just has to be added....

Also, if you are traveling with a group I can see them adding to the map that it will load you all into a scene instead of just the one guy, it just makes sense.

 

I love the map.... sure beats riding some animal for X amount of min when you travel least now you can change your mind and simply turn around and go back.

 

Well that is why even in "open world" designs they pretty much have to add instant/fast travel options because a lot of people hate spending lots of time traveling. I think especially when you have already traveled that same area over and over again.

 

I think something that might work great on the map later on is player created content. Remember the old Monkey Island games which only showed locations on the map you knew about, then upon hearing of a new location, it became visible? Well, lets say I go to a player-controlled NPC, and he gives me a quest that takes place in a forest. Suddenly a new location appears on the map in the middle of the forest, I go there, do the player-made quest, and then the location disappears. Same thing with remote housing -- I can have a house in the wilderness that potentially only me and my friends can see.

 

The current map is a vast improvement over the first one, or maybe there's been more than one. Anyway, my husband and I are split on this issue. He seems to like it, at least that it's a lot better than before.

Me, not so much. I don't think they can change needing one since it's not an open world.

But there are 2 things that bug me about it.

First is, you can't scroll out to see the whole map and need a map in your pack if you want to see a whole village layout, or the continent layout. As a new player, if I needed to go to another town, I had no clue what direction to head. And I guess that's all fine if someone wants to just wander and explore. Or if you haven't discovered a city yet, it probably makes sense you couldn't see it on the map, but you should be able to look at a larger overview.

2nd thing is, when I'm on the path (and it's hard to stay on it due to scaling), sometimes I slow down to a crazy slow creep, without even knowing why.

There is technically a 3rd thing, the random events. My husband loves them. They're annoying to me. At least the frequency anyway.

So my suggestion to improve the overland map (since we are probably stuck with it) is
1. to allow us to scroll further out to see larger areas
2. make points of interest appear as we discover them, or cities permanent on the map (I'm thinking Skyrim here)
3. make random events more random and not potentially back to back
4. make it possible to see the overland map, regardless of where you're at (city, village, dungeon)

 

Given the option between overland map, or no overland map, I'd choose no overland map. Unless there is something specific with Unity not being able to dynamically load content, I don't see any technical limitations as to why SotA couldn't have been implemented as one large seamless world while also still supporting selective multi-player and the "one server" model. Many months ago @Chris mentioned that switching to a seamless world now would be a large hit to schedule and budget, so I suspect that also played into why the original proposal included an overland map. The alternative is technically challenging and costly.

At this point I'd be happy to see some improvements made to zone loading times. And, I'd like to see random encounters have an option to not be pulled in. Traveling to different parts of the world already has 2 loading transitions; Current zone to Map and Map to New zone. Adding 2 more loading transitions (Map to Encounter and Encounter to Map) for every random encounter along the way is annoying at best. And, let's add 2 more transitions to this when traveling to a dungeon that's only accessible from within a zone.

 

Right. That's why I think we're stuck with the overland map. I wish we weren't either.

 

Nah actually I think your vision should be restricted more -- it should be like your character's field of vision more than a real 'map', more like in early Ultima games.

However, there would be nothing wrong with putting a map item in the game that you could open up and use to find your position, like you can do with town maps.

 

If the overland map were restricted more to someone's field of vision, there would be no point to an overland map.