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

I signed and want to emphasize the idea here as well.

This games in my opinion NEEDS to be made more "massive" to please thousands of wandering MMO vagabonds waiting for something like UO. I fear that this will be too much of a Diablo style game where you zone into little areas with a few friends, and not really experience the danger or repercussions (or possible new friendships) with other people out and about in the world.

The idea of moving around a world map and then entering a zone is an immersion killer for me, and I really fear this game's longevity if there isn't a huge open world to explore. I don't like the idea of not being able to have a house out in the wilderness, or not running across other players/monsters/animals/resources in an interactive world instead of zoning into little areas. Will we be able to see other players wandering the world map? The prototype video makes it seem like that would be very cramped. It doesn't promote the idea of an open sandbox world, it promotes a very traditional console JRPG feel, which is fine for single player games, but it does NOT mix with online games.

The more massive and open you make this game, the longer players will stick around in the world. We NEED nooks and crannies to explore and a vast open world to travel around and get lost in. I fear that people will get done with the story, and then after that the game will feel small and restrictive, without a lot of the player interaction that keeps the game surviving. I love finding player shops in the wilderness and just browsing, seeing people's stuff, going around the outskirts of a town to mine and chop down wood, but just far out enough where there is danger of monsters and murderers. Just worried that the devs are trying to appeal to way too many camps of players and the final product will be stretched thin. A long-lasting sandbox MMO will be successful, so PLEASE rethink the world map hub!

 

I love the idea of a living breathing map versus a static monoscale map. Also, Dualscale is beneficial to the development of the game moving forward.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but starting a petition is ridiculous.

 

The mini-map could work well. But based on the tech demos we have seen so far it seems to be lacking 'something'. I'll compare it to Ultima V and Civilization 5 to illustrate.

In Ultima V the world felt alive, and it was dual scale. The landmass was fairly large, there were movement penalties based on terrain, and there were frequent random encounters. It had limited visibility in deep forests, and it was easy to become lost.

In Civilization 5, the landmass is not all that large, but limited movements per turn make it difficult to explore, adding to the perception of a large world. There are also random encounters like Barbarians making exploration dangerous.

The biggest challenge facing LB and the devs in my opinion is how to make the world feel huge without diluting the zone content. I don't think it would be much fun to have a gigantic mini-map if it means 90% of the zones have 3-4 minutes of content.

So, if in SotA the Avatar were not permitted to advance beyond an octagon he/she has not traversed in the zone/3rd person view it will make the world seem huge! In my opinion that will add immersion and exciting exploration, since it will make the decision of 'where do we go next' more important. And, it will make it feel more rewarding to discover the whole world.

 

I'm thankful that B answered my question on the livestream regarding travel impediments basically being part of the design. Basically he said that there will be things like mountain passes and other choke points that force players to enter scene-level view to proceed to the other side, which admittedly does have a JRPG'ish feel to it but I don't think that's especially bad. Most older JRPG's have a good length and still feel exploratory, even though the story is basically linear in the vast majority of titles.

I think if you really have a look at the way the land mass is structured, travel will be difficult enough, even sans "random encounters". B suggested that such areas will be 'cleared' after being traversed once so that it won't be a hassle to pass that way again. Personally, I think that it'll have to be an inconvenience, otherwise the whole concept of village or local commerce won't really be a "thing". I discuss that and ways to kind of 'pin' players into localities for periods of time to help develop a sense of community at length <a href="https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=fully-segmented-regions">in another thread</a>, but suffice it to say that I think after some play testing the map will probably feel large enough to keep people from only hanging out in the main city like they do in other games.

 

Dual scale map give them a lot more room to do things, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest....at this point do you honestly think they would change it?

 

I don't see why they wouldn't change it if people really wanted them to. I don't see it as being a big deal though, the big deal was being able to just go anywhere at the drop of a hat, leading to full centralization of commerce.

 

@urganite if they change everything that people ask them too, this will be a mess of a game...they need to filter this stuff. 3 pages of forum chat doesn't make it a great idea.

 

I think the duel scale thing is something that is set in stone and I'm sure it will work fine

 

I support the idea of a Monoscale map 100%. However, (and forgive me if this has been covered already, I did not read every post in this thread) it seems to me that at this point in the game development that switching to a monoscale map would not even be possible.

I would think that would require a complete overhaul of pretty much the whole game, which would push the alpha, beta, and release dates way back, and this is just not something I could see them doing

As much as I would LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE a monoscale map (UO FTW!!). I don't see it happening

 

I understand why it's dual-scale and I'm happy to give it a try and I think in the end it will end up being a lot better than we imagine it will be.

 

Dual scale! Take me back to my Ultima roots starting with Ultima III on my old Atari 800 -- well my PARENTS old Atari 800!

 

http://img0.joyreactor.com/images/templates/solo/no.jpg

Dual Scale looks neat-o.

 

Switching from duo- to mono-scale would mean creating a completely different game. I doubt very much that at this point the development team could make this switch without throwing out a significant amount of what they have created so far.

But by all means vote with you money. If you don't want a duo-scale map, don't back this kickstarter project. Plenty of mono-scale rpg's and mmorpg's out there.

I'm looking forward to see how they will use the duo-scale to change the world easily. Based on what you have done so far, you will enter another instance when visiting the same poi. No more seeing the same event happening over and over, only players who haven't done that event will see it. No more re-spawning of mobs minutes after you've killed them. No running back and forth for several minutes between quest giver and the 10 rats you're asked to kill. No more prolonging the content by making travel 90% of questing.

In mono-scale games everything feels to close together. The next village or dungeon is only a few minutes on foot. Cities remain unrealistically small, because otherwise it would take to long to get to the other side. When traveling from A to B either you can already see B when it should still be far away, or the buildings of B just pop out of thin air when you're halfway between A and B. And still after the first time we find it boring to travel from A to B, so developers add fast-travel methods which always feel artificial.

On the other hand i've never understood why houses need to be instanced. I would love a game where you can open a door and enter a building without a loading screen. Even better i'd like to look through windows and see other players/npc's.

I do hope though that the duo-scale will not mean a lot of small instances. Please no travel from one instance to another and then to yet another. Only travel from the overland map to a poi and back please.

 

+1 for the monoscale map. Especially if vr like the occulus rift comes into play later after release.

 

Having both would be nice and flexible for all types of gameplay.

 

I vote Dual-scale.

They know what they're doing.

 

Totally agree.

It should be like in Ultima Online where you actually felt you were in the world all time.

 

For shame folks.....

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path..." - Shroud of the Avatar Trailer

I play RPG's to escape the compartmental nature of modern existence. I can't walk off into most wilderness areas near my home because there are fences and no trespassing signs. Law and decency prevents it. The hiking paths that exist are pre-trod and usually must be driven to.

Conversely, the majority of my Ultima Online experience involved running through the woods to explore. I would look at the cloth map when I wasn't playing and plot a journey for myself through realms I had never explored on foot. On a big, stale, world map that quality of adventure is COMPLETELY lost, I am sorry. You'll never have the "in-between adventures" of which I could recount dozens of stories. Instead you have zones, and zones are for neat little games that like to create narrow, artificial experiences.

As someone previously stated (in as many words), satisfaction is found in the journey, not the destination. Many people may use fast travel to get where they need to go, but what about people who rely on slow travel as the mainstay of their role play experience?

 

I'm sorry but I like the idea of a dual scale map. I was a huge fan of the ultima nes games and would like to see that style of game brought back.

 

/agree with the original poster. Let's not have a little scaled-map to travel around the world. It will make invasions and city siege preparation much too easy to just walk a few inches to the town you're trying to conquer/overrun.