Petition tochange the dual-scale map in Shroud of the Avatar to a monoscale map

I'm good with the dual scale map.

 

I never said procedural generation can't generate a lot of detail... I said that procedural generation is very difficult to tune to having specifically designated points of interest that you might have wanted to appear a certain way beforehand. For a predesigned world or continent, trying to use procedural generation for it to create a uniform scale experience that still conforms to the designed map and its characteristics is not generally a tractable problem.

If the playable area were being designed based around whatever procedural world generation algorithm that somebody had come up with, then that can sometimes work very well (although I've seen games that utilized this approach in the past and the developers still end up getting criticized by players because the procedural generation simply cannot provide the same diversity of detail as play areas that are hand-designed from the ground up do, and the complaints run along the general lines of it being "too repetitive" or "too predictable"). SotA, however, is being evidently built from a continent that has already been mapped out, so trying to invent a procedural terrain generation algorithm that would actually produce that map as output is probably impossible without the code taking up more space than the map itself.

 

markt "I never said procedural generation can?t generate a lot of detail? I said that procedural generation is very difficult to tune to having specifically designated points of interest that you might have wanted to appear a certain way beforehand."

I don't think it's that difficult.

 

agree for monoscale map.. it's more immersive

 

+1 monoscale

 

Nah. I really dont see the problem with they got

 

I totally understand what Richard said about using the dual-scale map, but I much prefer the mono-scale map used in U7 and UO. It's way more realistic for one thing.

Dual scale map reminds me of Dragon Warrior which I played when I was young.

Maybe if the dual scale map was super detailed it might be okay.

 

@Hadriel "I don?t think it?s that difficult."

On what basis do you come to that conclusion? I'm curious... have you ever personally worked on a project that worked that way?

I'm certainly not saying you can't make it a procedural generation system that is extremely detailed, only that if you tried to build one that would work around a preplanned world or playing area, you're liable to find trying to make it look like what you or the artists had envisioned previously to be an exercise in frustration. Even if you manage to succeed, you're still liable to end up with something that your artists, who may want a lot of creative input in the way things look, aren't really going to have the ability to further customize without the software engineers spending inordinate amounts of time all over again retweaking the algorithm. In the real world, based on what I know about the nature of computation, this is just not a tractable problem in the general case.

 

Hadriel, et al. Sure you could procedurally generate the landscape, but then what's the point of exploring when it's all just procedurally generated rocks and trees. Seems pretty boring to me.

Regarding monoscale, you either have a map so large that travel can take considerable time - A Tale in the Desert has a map that takes over a 12 hours to walk from top to bottom - or you shrink your map and distances become unrealistically short - I could walk the breadth of UO Britannia in under an hour.

If anything, I think a workable monoscale map breaks the immersion more than it facilitates it.

 

I love the dual-scale idea.

Shame on all of you!

 

I'm not up on all these map buzzwords. Being perfectly honest until discussion about SotA started, I haven't remembered hearing of them before!

Tell me, what difference does it really make? Everyone is upset that they have to wait a second or two between points of interest and the overland map?

Besides, from how it sounds like they want to deploy updates to the game on the fly, it sounds ultimatly easier to make an update to the overland map, if it was just the overland map and nothing else. Or turn that around, create a point of intereste and connect it to the overland map.

Times change, this will hopefully be a very nice dynamic setup. Lets change with them and put the old ways to bed.

 

This debate has been going on here, as well: http://ultimacodex.com/2013/03/revealed-the-ultimate-rpgs-map/

Some interesting comments there concerning procedurally-generated "filler spaces" between points of interest, and how much additional work that actually translates into for the team. Also some discussion about the earlier Ultimas making keen use of their dual-scale maps to include points of interest, and how modern 3D engines can still support this.

Sorry for just dropping a link and running; normally I'd try and summarize points made, but that's more than I have time for just now.

 

@Ultima Codex - I did say you were going to get pretty busy

 

Why do you love it? It is inferior in every way to a monoscale map like in Ultima VII.

 

Agree also. Would like the feel of one zone rather then entering and exiting a area.

 

It's not really so much that I love the idea of a monoscale map as much as I realize it's impractical to show cross country travel at the exact same scale as in-town travel (for the same reasons that you don't try to manage a map of your entire state or country at the same scale as you would look at a map of just your own city). Sure, it's theoretically possible, but still it's incredibly unwieldy. Even if computer memory and storage were not a problem (which it probably would be), if you do end up showing everything at the same scale, you end up either with the situation where you have vast distances between specific points of interest, and the cross-country travel becomes very boring, making for a lousy game, or you end up effectively reducing the distance between points of interest, and because it's at the same scale as city travel, you end up feeling like what should be many dozens or even hundreds of miles of travel is actually only the equivalent of a handful of city blocks.

Now that said, it might be practical to create a sort of seamless transition between the two scales, so that switching between them is not as jarring for people, although I don't know if the development team is willing to invest the time in creating that technology, and I wouldn't even blame them in the slightest if they weren't prepared to go that route because as a computer programmer myself, I think I have an inkling of the kind of effort it would take to make it work well enough to be transparent to the player. If they could pull it off, however, that could be wicked-awesome.

 

+1 Definitely favor monoscale.

 

I would like to have the choice to exit a town and walk straight to a tree to chop some wood for trinkets. Let's say I exit the town, and am forced to zoom out if on a pathway, if i walk to trees I should have the entire forest at my disposal in monoscale fashion. Or if I walk into mountains, I should have to fight my way through pathways of Mountainous terrain in monoscale fashion. The only thing that i would be happy with in terms of dual-scale is average pathways. Even bridges should be monoscale, because I like to fish off of bridges.... I want to be able to fish off a bridge in the middle of nowhere. Not be forced to fish off a bridge in the middle of town where everyone can see.

 

The game world is going to grow, and become very large, and I wouldnt be surprised if it scales to a third resolution to be honest.

Im all for the dual scale map. Let these guys do their magic. If anything, maybe give you guys an option to lock the map at a single scale. Im not sure I see an issue with having a dual scale map.

 

I too was surprised to see the dual design but after hearing the reasoning behind it, I fully support it. Besides the fact that LB must feel it is in line with his vision for the story and gameplay, I like the idea of the team being able to create content easier, faster, and cheaper, along with players possibly being able to impact the map more often as well. I imagine those changes on a set map would be very hard to implement. Therefore I think the dual map has more pros than cons. I have not yet gotten the feeling that this dual style will lack in exploration fun. I don't need to examine every plant I walk by, and I will still get to 'explore' the full map and discover new areas. The areas/scenes themselves may be chock full of details to explore, anyway!