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

I've been thinking about the dual scale map thing, and my initial reaction was kind of negative. The idea is really growing on me now. One of the common arguments for a monoscale world is that it's more immersive. I think this is only the case the first time you explore the world, but it quickly becomes a hurdle that you have to navigate to get to where you want to go. Sure, the walk between two towns was awesome the first time, but then you fast-travel between them to get on with the game. It's also a lot of work to make these areas that absolutely nothing happens in.

The other advantage of the overworld map is how easy it is to add new content. It's very easy to make new events occur that dramatically change the nature of the world. This would be prohibitive in a monoscale world where they'd have to re-render the changed area completely.

This project is ambitious enough as it is with a dual scale world. I want the work done on the important aspects of the game rather than fluff that I'll admire once, and try my best to avoid in the future. So I guess the bottom line is: I didn't sign this petition.

 

UO was essentially a dual scale game once recall became pretty much universal. You hung out at your house, or in town, and when you wanted to go somewhere, you used Recall. People rarely walked anywhere. Why waste limited development resources to make something people have decided by their behavior that they don't really want?

 

nobody said there will be recall spell in sota..

 

I'm for the duel scale..I like what I see so far...and the time that the artists would have to spend filling dead space between POI's can be spent on a fuller experience across the game.

K

 

I just used that as an example. Where it is available, players typically make use of things like Recall, or Portals, or whatever.

 

@Owain agree, but imagine UO like world, without recall ?

 

embarassed. you guys are talking about a completely different subject. ignore me forever.

 

I understand the reason for dual-view.

Take Skyrim for an example, once you reached a point of interest (like a city) you end up using fast-travel. Who'd want to go back and forth by normal-travel?

I don't care if it's mono or dual view, as long as it has plenty of player-interactivity.

 

It can be good either way. I just wish people would at least keep an open mind before petitioning that game-central features are changed.

 

Im whit LB 100%. Maybe SotA ll be the first step for THE super RPGMMO in the futur. Like Ultima serie was for Ultima Online.


/Prey

 

Re.Recall
I played a char on UO for near 12 years who was suspicious of magic and got nauseous by teleporting. He would gate, if not quite rarely, always reluctantly. Since he preferred a horse to a teleport we discovered that with all the recall no one knew directions to anything anymore.
AKA Filbert Eggcup@Cats

 

I prefer a permanent isometric monoscale map. But I am curious to see if LB and his team can pull off the dual-scale map without ruining the "Ultima" feel. I was really hoping that they would take the isometric view to a new level of detail and sophistication rather than go to any type of 3D view.

 

A new thought about dual-scale vs. mono-scale maps. If they would make the transitions between the two views better, the break in immersion wouldn't be that hard.
Here is my thought on it:
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=better-transitions-from-map-view-to-scenario-view

Zooming in from map view when you enter a scenario until fog clouds the view, in the fog it loads the scenario view. After "exiting" the fog, the game zooms further down in the adventure zone. You would have default isometric view but could change it to third-person or first person if you want to.
When exiting a scenario, the camera goes to isometric view again, zooms out to the fog, "fog loads" the map view and zooms a bit further out until you get the regular map view.
Of course this should work rather fast.

 

Well, Lord_D it's just a frill, right?
Open world, monoscale exploration is not there, and you still feel like re-playing instances from the map

 

totally agree with you man
i'm really excited about this project and i was waiting for it
and until now the only thing that disappointed me/i dont' like is the bird eye map final fantasy style that totally kills immersion and realism..you guys created the best open worlds monoscale full explorable ever made
what's wrong now??

 

I would prefer a monoscale map but as I think that they won't change this, they could at least make the transition between map view and scenario view more natural and "fluid".
And of course the map view needs to be much more detailed in the final version with higher-res textures, animals roaming around, day/night cycle and weather as well as more objects like rocks, bushes, flowers, grass etc. on the ground. Cloud shadows for clouds higher above would be great, too and maybe some long-hanging clouds drifting by occasionally.

 

The dual scale map is something that worked well in the Ultima series, but I can see being extremely awkward and counter immersive in an MMO. However, because we do not know what is the Portalarium's vision of the Multiplayer of SotA (is it an MMO, or just a LAN multiplayer game, maybe a low count server?), I can not make a true judgement about the usefulness of this feature.

Personally, I like the idea of being able to log into a world and being able to walk across the playable space without changing my game view mode, ie: UO, Oblivion, etc.

I will gladly sign this petition (though I am not registering to third party websites quite yet)

 

Gameplay is key and I would hope the developers make choices that are not the standard old RPG. I think no matter what this game has to be different. A monoscale clone of Skyrim et. al. would be disappointing, and I think a dual scale could be still quite immersive. If the game play is great and different, no one will mind either.

Personally I would prefer dual. There are very few who actually engage an open map long-term as the comments about other games show. It's not a good gameplay element just a wow gee-whiz part that quickly loses interest.

If there were a lot of places (and not just villages and towns) it might satisfy those who desire to roam or be alone.

 

Agree! No dual-scale please, it will destroy the ambiance of gameplay...

 

Alright so I was skeptical at first when I saw the dual-scale map tbh, but I watched the prototype and it seemed to work. Then I pondered more on how interaction would happen in the multiplayer world and I thought, you know, this isn't so bad, I don't want to have to walk 500 miles to that dungeon and then 500 more back to town.

Eventually most MMOs end up with instant travel. Why not just <a href="https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=travel/#post-2313">incorporate it from the start</a> and work on the actual content and scenarios you'll be spending your time in (besides getting to said scenarios lol)

Did you by chance get to <a href="https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=3095">read this</a> and see the <a href="http://youtu.be/XQ_4-rwb5yg">video where the Tech Director, Chris Spears</a>, discussed the decision to use the dual-map? It's actually quite a good bit of information.

Perhaps when you enter a PoI the map zooms down into it from the world view ala Google Maps. But to speak frankly, we all know we're playing a computer game. It's kind of expected that some sort of loading screen will happen even if it "breaks immersion" for a few seconds. Just saying, I'm sure we could live with that.