Question for the 2013 early backers

Yea, I don't think the banner should appear until you're relatively close to the city. What I really would have liked is for the map to have a better scale, for it to be bigger, so you didn't see so many towns on your screen at the same time, so there would be no need to hide the banner in the first place. I guess we're not having that.

But I don't think the clouds ever made sense. Just restrict our field of vision; don't let us zoom out so much. Don't let us see over mountains., etc.

Well, we need regional weather ! Then regions that have fog would be covered with fog; regions that were cloudy would have clouds, etc. That would be the best thing, really.

 

Just my point of view, but I think FOW could be great for the following reasons :

• Increase the pleasure to explorate an unknown world. As a new arrived avatar in a whole new world, why would we have to know everything on the map till the begining ?
  
• Could make a IG cartography skill usefull to draw maps when you have discovered aera with points of interests (and then sell maps to players so that they won't have the FOW themself

 

I'm not necessarily "pro fog of war" but allow me to offer some counter arguments:

• Just because some people have created 3rd party tools, it doesn't mean that everyone enjoys using them. I personally despise the concept with a burning frustrating passion. I'm one of those people who want more maps in the game because I want the game to provide the tools within the game. Not because I want to know everything immediately.
• Just because we have tons of people who know the overworld map by heart, it doesn't mean that it was intended for us to be spoiled as such.
• Having maps as items in conjunction with the game could:

1. 1. Make it interesting loot that isn't necessarily combat or crafting related.
   2. It would almost act as a secondary quest log visually showing us where we've been. And maps could remove some of the fog of war as we gain maps of specific locations.
   3. Give completionists a more visual representation of their goals.
   4. Give some of us a sense of wonder and exploration not knowing what's on the horizon.

• Why do we have night time and torches in the game? Isn't that a similar form of annoyance? Couldn't the game be 100% visible and 100% of the time? Well, this is a very similar thing.

 

~I'm Not in the Fog of War Fan Club Because it Would Hinder Our Game's Future~
A future as yet to come... This is because...

Our world is full of loading screens through instances. Having the fog taken away allowed for a more open range world view where even the clouds, storms and stars in the sky could be more enjoyable adding to a more "real world globe effect". And we all know that it isn't the same as UO's world in that way, so it (in my view) needed more to allow for a better world gaming effect. We can also see others, or our friends passing by, which makes for a more socially connected world, like... "where are you or where is he going?" sort of social connections. The ease of play without the fog was well welcomed by me because it will allow more visual chase for when our coming smuggler runners begin to run the gauntlet attempting to carry their illegal goods to their destinations across the map. If they are carrying, they will be flagged for PvP as well as I suspect that even non-PvPers will likely also have their chance to catch them as well, because they are carrying contraband. Such a chase couldn't very well happen in such a fog of war environment because it would then just be too easy for the rabbit to evade all the fox that are after them.

So there are allot of reasons for this effect not to be in our game because of our future game's gaming challenges...
That video was made well before we even had Owls Head. Which for our newcomer's information, was our first ever scene to be able to be seen in...
We weren't even an island to walk around way back then...
~Time Lord~

 

In a 3D game, I think the FOW is not needed.

Of course, I am partial to the original cloth map style the appeared first after the game had multiplayer.

 

Intersting, what is this smuggling feature you speak about ? Reminds me of Elite Dangerous (really enjoy smuggling illegal goods between systems on that game!), I had not heared of that before.

 

Fog of War is great for RTS games, where you are slowly revealing the map of an area you don't know. Conceptually, this works for new Avatars who do not know the lay of the land. Indeed, in Single Player Offline, I'd be a fan of this. But online, the story of the game is actually secondary; far more important will be a sense of community and shared worldbuilding. FoW makes this extremely difficult, as each character needs to fight through the lack of visibility, in addition to difficult navigation, lack of light sources, random encounters, and general usability. Remember that most games with FoW have a static map, always positioned in a specific orientation, not a rotatable scene like SotA.

 

~Smuggling and Smugglers~

Our Lord British has mentioned this a few times within our early standup talks and here's the jest of what's possibly coming in our future...

A player comes to an NPC contraband dealer and is offered some gold if they would transport (something) illegal to another drop off NPC within another town. The Player accepts, then is flagged as a criminal and begins to run away from everyone chasing them that would recognize that they were engaged in a criminal activity. The contraband runner then leaves town on his way to the drop off. Possible announcements are made through some NPC messages that such a package has been known to have been picked up and on it's way to (fill in the blanks) city or place. This alerts many who have had their ears open to attempt to head them off at the pass (sort of speak) and the chase and intercept begins. Upon completion of delivery, the player is no longer holding and as such can't be pursued any further, yet all the while during the time that he had it, he was available to be intercepted by any and all players even if they were not flagged for PvP. If the contraband runner is caught up with, then this draws both players into a single instance, just as if it were one of our random instances. Upon successful death of the contraband runner, the player who captured (killed) the runner is then given a bounty for having done so.



That's not Dev+ information, that was told to us by Lord British as a goal for himself because he wished to get it programed into our game.
Pretty cool overland game I'd say aye?
~Time Lord~

 

Let's not forget that there are two different types of fog of war:

1. The kind that unveils shrouded areas as you explore them.
2. The kind that hides discovered areas with the latest information you had before you left.

While the later wouldn't really work, I can easily see the former work depending on the range that we can unveil terrain.

 

~We Also Have the Darkness~
The darkness of the night, and if it's cloudy, it gets even darker. Many people complain about that one...
~Time Lord~

 

There's a subtle yet important difference between "not knowing what's further ahead" and "not seeing anything at all".

 

~Yet Our World is So Small~


Once you've been everywhere or all over the overland map, it's sort of pointless in my mind unless there's overland creatures. Yet overland creatures are not on the map as we have those instances to which we are compelled to be grabbed by...
What would be the purpose of such a fog on the overland map anyway, because it's really hiding nothing new or surprising once a player has crossed it a few times.
~Time Lord~

 

Thank you, Gix;

I was asking a question, thank you for the answers.

While it's true that we as Outlanders have never been to this land before, and would/should not be intimately familiar with the lay of the land, those that were here before us would be... and would certainly have produced maps, and have knowledge of the lands of Novia. There are actually a couple of different things here that I see:

• First, the Physical Lay of the Land... the "Fog of War" aspect... This should/could be filled in by buying a map or maps from an NPC, finding maps as quest or loot items, or even through Dialog speaking with NPCs in addition to physically walking there. "Crier, how would I travel to Adoris?" "Take the road South and cross the Eylo at the first bridge. Follow the road through Eastreach Gap and beyond crossing the river at Solace Bridge and on past Soltown. Follow the road East form there until you reach Adoris" This would fill in that path on your map.
• The second is a record of where your Avatar has been. This could be implemented by Journal entries, which could then be flagged on the Overland or In-Game Novia map with some "I've Been Here" icon.

The second could likely be implemented... Given sufficient prioritization against other work... The first could likely be implemented on the presumptive in-game map of the continent, but the "Fog of War" on the Overland Map I believe was dropped as not technically feasible.

 

The nameplates and font is better. Why the change.

 

Perhaps I'm wrong but Wasteland 2, which is also a Unity 4/5 based game with a OW map has a FOW feature.

 

Like animals on the overland map, roving encounters...
And of couse like the focus on the single player aspect...
Too much has changed since the Kickstarter campaign and to the worse. This game is not what was announced during the Kickstarter campaign and - sorry if I have to say it - it is a shame. I would rather have played the game that was shown during the Kickstarter campaign. The game I was lured to give money for. A game that seemed to focus on single player gameplay and story. Now we have a MMORPG with focus on housing, dancing, stacking items into the sky and some IRC chat window for dialogues as well as some shoved in talking-pet companions which obviously are created so that the SP fans go silent once and for all...
I am so disappointed by how SotA has "developed"...

 

@Rufus D`Asperdi No prob.

Same could be said about crafting recipes but no one questions it.

Also, you might not have accepted it, but I already answered that question.

One of the problems I see with this, though, is that it might contradict what the devs are trying to do with the idea that there are no UI elements that help you figure out where to go. With that said, I find it's acceptable if it's something you unlock with dialogue (but that could still prove problematic).

For a Fog of War to truely be used to its advantage, I believe we'd need to be able to move the camera around the overworld map; which I'm not a fan of. Not that it couldn't be done otherwise (which is why I've been arguing in its favour) but there are still a few good reasons not to do it.

The thing with Wasteland 2, though, is that the game view is top-down. SotA's view in the overworld map is a bit all over the place.