I don't care for overland travel

Correction on my part, player created campsites are a must

 

Huh, the overland map. In my opinion it just ... sucks, excuse my french.
I read all six pages and wonder why nobody has mentioned Mount and Blade. They have an overland map there, and I never ever felt it to be wrong to be there. It is part of the game layout.
In U4 to U5 - which were the first Ultimas I played - they were cool. I was in my early teens then...

U6 was the first "not scened" one, iirc. I loved the change. Adored it. It gave me the feeling of ONE world.
Doom was ok, level after level. Then I played a gazillion of clones. THEN I played STALKER. Wow, ONE world!
Since then the gaming industry showed me all the settings / scenes / towns etc. can be stitched together seamlessly, I never again could appreciate instances or scenes. Entering a dungeon without a loading screen or even a break in my moving into it feels just... right. If I enter the cellar of my RL house I don´t get a blackscreen, do I? So, if a game wants to offer me a world to hunt / battle / craft / cook in, why does it have to have loading screens? If you say " The system doesn´t allow / is unable to cope with" a seamless world, I say: You didn´t try hard enough. Or: You don´t have the funds. Or: You´re lazy.

That being said I have to state: The OL map isn´t a "won´t play" for me either, because there is so much I like about SotA. But! But! But! Getting rid of it would be highly appreciated.
I´m totally with the "It brakes the immersion for me" - poster ( sorry too lazy to look your name up).
I wouldn´t mind watching my avatars / horses butt for some minutes, as I would encounter highwaymen, wild animals, or just the random stag. It makes a world feel alive. I could choose to circumfere an encounter or to react on it. In-Scene-SotA looks soooo nice, so alive. I cross mountains on the OL map and I don´t get the view. Why? Don´t tell me it can´t be done. It could, if devs had the will and the vision. And the funds, maybe. ( side note: When reading comments in blogs discussing SotA the OL map is one of the main arguments people rage about it. Get rid of it, you win more players, which means: way more funds). There are so many screenies of Skyrim that made me think "Wow, I´d love to see this", and in-scene-graphics of SotA could do that too. Why not let us enjoy this?
So, the OL map seems to be a "vision"-thing to me. RG and his folks want it. Ok, they are the bosses. I don´t have to play according to their rules, sure. Still, it is not very 21st century-esque.

Another thought on the OL map: When you dream of seeing other players / campsites / battlesites on the map... how cramped will it get? Stuffed with campsites! Imagine 30k players online. Every 50th caming. How much campfires do you see on the map? Like in any damn hex!

And the loading times for scenes are just ridiculous. As someone stated before: seeing SIX loading screens when traveling from Owls Head to Braemar, just to tell the hunter guy the girl prefers to stay in a cave with those bandits? Huh...
THAT would be a dealbraker for me, when the final version didn´t manage to shorten the loading times at least by factor 10......

Disclaimer: Sorry if this is an awkward read - non native english guy here.

Tl;dr:
Get rid of the map. Give me a WORLD to enjoy. Stating you can´t is saying you don´t know how to or you are too lazy

 

I think your English is good. But this leading sentence peeked my curiosity. I was wondering what the origin of "sucks" was and if you were French. I did some digging and the origin of the word dates to around 1928 in the US, just before the great depression. Trivia is interesting sometimes.

Cheers!

 

Thanks, as I stated in another post: Ultima IV made me learn english. Trivia is ALWAYS interesting

 

Archaeopteryx, I understand the sentiment.

As many of us in the IT industry, and perhaps you, understand the use of the OL map is necesstatted by the compromise of SotA being built on Unity. RG & co. no longer have the freedom of building their own graphics engine from scratch. They made this compromise in order to realize the greatest and fastest return on their, and all of our, investment. For now we must all ride this train that were on. Further enhancements to the core Unity engine may enable the type of overhaul that many have suggested.

I thoroughly agree that the use of instances and the OL could, and should, be better explained. Both to the community and to the Player as Avatar. I'd suggest something like:

• "The Avatar moves from Scene to Scene by using the Overland Map. Upon exiting a scene, you will be presented with the Overland Map...This represents the way in which the saga of the Avatar skips the less dramatic sections of the story."

For the time being, we may be well served by proposing the changes discussed in this thread as possible Stretch Goals. This would respect that the Development Team would need to devote additional resources to this aspect of improving the SotA experience.[/list]

 

The problem is that it isn't feasible to abandon the dual-scale map with a stretch goal (which is why I think that other thread should have been locked). It is a MAJOR fundamental change to how the game is handled.

People generally aren't really objecting to the map itself so much as the loading screens between scenes. People want a seamless single scale map with no loading. The entire game is designed as instanced scenes for a number of reasons. Devs can add new scenes/content easily currently. They can have multiple instances of a scene and keep all players on one server rather than splitting people across multiple/servers/shards.

The game needs load screens to load new assets into memory. Load screens will improve and become faster, but it is pretty much impossible for them to go away and become single scale.

This has nothing to do with Unity being the rendering engine actually.

 

Amen!! I pray to the gods of New Britania that this will happen.......soon. **lights an incense and starts chanting**

 

I think the difference in developers and players is that the devs know there have to be things that aren't always convenient to the player where as the player thinks this is inconvenient and it sucks that I have to do this in order to proceed....

There has to be resistance to what you want to do in order to provide a challenge.

 

Nope, it'll be selective, just like player-to-player encounters will be selective. You'll be more likely to see your known friends, and occasionally see strangers.

 

Nice. But... where´s the logic in that?

If the map has to be kept for all etenity, well, then that´s that. I can live with it - is certainly reminds me of U4 and U5

 

Same logic that is in instancing and only being pulled into the same scene with a certain number of other players

If you went into a deep forest scene and thousands of other players went into the same scene, and you saw them all, and they killed all the enemies and harvested all of the resources before you came in, it would completely ruin the game and any sense of immersion.

I'm really tired of seeing MMOs where I go into a dungeon and some boss I have to kill for a quest is missing, and there's a bunch of other players there camped out waiting for it to respawn.

 

I disagree. A game should be a game. Fun. If something is not fun, what's the point? If someone hates something, why in the world would they subject themselves to it day after day? And even the word "challenge" is subject to each person's perception of what is challenging or just a pain.

I'm not saying that everything should just be a complete cake walk with no challenges. But when a "challenge" for some people is nothing more than a hindrance and a time-sink for others, then I see nothing wrong with providing alternatives if those alternatives take nothing away from anyone.

Judging by the feedback I've seen here and elsewhere, I'd have to say that it's a pretty even split on the overhead. Some love it, some hate it. If they added recall, for instance, how could that possibly hurt anyone who enjoys the "challenge" if someone else takes an easier or faster route to avoid what they consider nothing more than tedium for the sake of tedium?

The thing is, and some people keep forgetting and/or overlooking this, is that everyone is different. What one person loves, another person may hate. In my opinion, one of the worst things a game can do is to insist on forcing a particular "feature" down the throats of those who hate it when there are harmless alternatives that could be put in. Well, if they want those people to play, that is.

I realize the overhead is here to stay. But for me, I see it as some kind of mini game rather than a map. At least that's what it's turning into and what some people are clamoring for. Personally I didn't mind the "paper" map when they were trying it out because to me a map should just be a map. Actually I love maps. I just don't like playing on them.

Then after the huge uproar on the forum, they went back to the idea of what we're getting now. And adding encounters! A particular burr under my saddle. So now we have these encounters that some people love. That's fine, I'm happy for them. But I hate them. So where does that leave me? Sucking it up I guess. They see it as fun and a "challenge," and some insist that everyone else who plays the game should also be made to "enjoy" it every time they want to get somewhere. But like I said, we're all different. I see it as a royal pain in the nether regions. If it gets any more "interactive," I swear I'll have a hard time deciding if the map is the mini game or if the map is the game and the scenes are the mini games. lol.

tl/dr. I really do feel that if they were to provide an alternative (such as recall *cough *cough) for those who do hate it, that there would be fewer people walking away because of the overland map. I may not be walking away because if it myself, but a lot of people have.

 

First, I don't take into consideration comments like "a lot" or the "this many agree", since they really have no place in a personal comment other then a way to add weight to what you are saying, so I just ignore those.

I have no issue with recall, what my statement was with was those that believe there should be "nothing" that inconveniences them because it isn't fun....it shouldn't be not fun, but at the same time, it shouldn't be not fun because you have to spend time traveling somewhere...they need to make traveling interesting enough that it has fun encounters and reasons as well. It's the equivalent of saying I don't like having to fight to gain xp because you don't have fun with that....

These comments that it is a mini game is weird....I mean, having things that happen on the map and interactivity is considered a mini game because of what reason?

I haven't forgotten/ignored that we are all different, but I believe they shouldn't design 15 games to appease 15 different people because they have different views.

EDIT: This could also be one of those areas you see a split in perception of those who like the casual aspect of MMO's or those who like the more detailed CRPG's.

 

It's perfectly ok for you to ignore "a lot." However, if the devs are interested in making the game appeal to as wide an audience as possible, which they've stated they are, then "a lot" is relevant and I doubt there's any danger they will be swayed by my saying it or not saying it, nor do I say it as an attempt to sway them. How else should I have said it? lol. They can see all of the feedback themselves, and I'm sure are already well aware of it.

I understand where you're coming from & understand you're not arguing against recall, but again, I have to disagree on the other parts. In fact I'm not sure that we're even at odds on the issues. I just see "challenge" and "inconvenience" differently than you. I don't feel that what some people consider fun encounters and interesting are "needed" in any way, because for some people those are not fun encounters and not interesting at all. They may be "needed" for you and "a lot" of others to enjoy the game, and that's fine. And whether you like the term "a lot" or not, unfortunately it's true that a lot of people will not be playing this game solely because of the overland map. Where there's a harmless alternative, then why should anyone care if someone else bypasses a few of the things they think everyone should be "enjoying." It's not at all the same as saying they don't want to fight to gain xp.

Well, this one is a whole lot harder to articulate because it all boils down to my own personal perceptions. How much time do you have? lol. When I'm playing a game and I'm in "the world," and I then open a map, it's a map...a tool...to help me get where I'm going. I've not left "the world." When they had the paper map, and it was nothing more than a means of getting where I wanted to go, I saw it as an interesting alternative to recall. A little slower but tolerable. Maybe a little better than looking at a slow loading screen while recalling. When I want to get somewhere, I just want to get there. If I want to go out exploring, I prepare for that and go do it. But if I'm crafting and *oh snap* I forgot <insert items here> and damn it all, they're in <insert city here>, I go on the overland map and instead of going where I need to go, I have to play silly games on my way like being sucked into scenes I'm no way prepared for or interested in. Anyway, back to what I was saying, this overland map is not a map at all. Not really. I see it as a mini game because you are doing things on it. You're moving your character around, etc. It's entirely different from the scenes. So which is "the world" and which is not? I'm sure this makes no sense to most. It's just my perception. And as I've said, it's not a game breaker for me but it sure would be nice to have a way to bypass that if I want to.

***********
edit: And I forgot to add that people are asking for more and more "things to do" on the map every day. The more they add to "do" on the so-called map, the more I will see it as a mini game. (or is it the scenes that are mini games, I forgot again. lol)

I'm not sure how adding an alternative would be asking them to design 15 games. I haven't seen too many asking for the map to be removed. But I have seen a few good suggestions for providing an alternative for those who would prefer not to use the map. I don't understand why there's so much resistance to someone bypassing it.

Agreed.

 

To me, its less about challenge, than forgetting the point of the game.

Look, if you're crafting and you forgot an item, why would you blame the game and not yourself for forgetting the item? Back when I was playing Ultima 5, I would have to remember to bring all of the reagents I needed to mix spells, and all the potions I needed, and store up on food... or else I might be in a bind. I didn't blame the game for bringing up encounters. In fact, if the game didn't have any encounters at all, there would be very little game left.

I don't support unnecessary tedium in the game; in fact, I think, where it can be reduced without changing the nature of game, it should be. But I think people sometimes lose perspective on what the game is about. So for instance, you'll have crafters who complain that they can't make items in bulk instantly. Why? Because its harder for them to rake in the gold and become rich from crafting! Or you might have hunters complaining that monsters don't respawn as fast. Why? Because its harder to do monster farming and get rich from farming them! All of these things completely miss the point of the game and turn it into something unfun, into just a form of grinding.

Personally, I feel the same way about doing away with travel and encounters. Traveling, having time pass, needing to camp, running into trouble on your way to places, is part of the point of the game... and when it starts becoming an inconvenience to you, you're missing the point.

People always bring up the idea that anything that's "work" is automatically tedious and unfun. If were true nobody would do hobbies like model train building. I never found U5 unfun or any of those old DOS games; in fact I consider them better games than a lot of newer ones that are around.

 

I want to clarify one of my points.....when I said that I don't take into consideration "a lot" I meant when people use it in arguements as part of their evidence. It is an unmeasurable and doesn't really add anything. That's not to say that I don't believe that there are others who share that feeling, I just think people should argue it on their own merits.

Exactly, redfish.

 

I thought that we were going to get a feature that is similar to Recall or Gate Travel, where the user can jump to other parts of the map, maybe this is a direction worth pursuing. To give the individuals who dont want the overland map an option to remove it altogether from their gaming experience by giving them the tools that they need to do so. Some may like the overland map, and some may not, but I know that both would love to have some degree of recall/gate travel.

 

We'll have lunar rifts that go from one location to another, and then LB suggested there would be some other means of fast travel, but it'll come at a cost and/or have some cooldown (which I think is appropriate).

 

This is exactly what I was against...every time someone complains about a feature someone wants a new idea/cut it out of their game experience. The map travel is a part of what the game is, cutting it out so only a those who want the risk of travel have it is nota solution.

Like redfish stated their will be travel mechanisms that people can use, but it doesn't totally skip map travel.