Very concerned! Dev pls read

I was so excited for this game like alot of other people and still am but when i saw a video of the gameplay and saw how its all instances it greatly concerns me and disappointed me. Frankly im shocked that sir richard would do that because he seems like an explorer/adventurer type and having no real landscape between towns i dont think is a big mistake but a hugeeee mistake....i get why your doing it, makes it easier/cheaper since your a small company but doing that takes away what i believe uo was and every mmorpg is. Just walking around the woods and exploring between and towns and not knowing what ur going to see or find or whom or what ud run into is the best part about mmorpg...i remember how exciting it was in uo when i had to walk through the woods to get from town A to town B how my heart was in my chest because i didnt know if it would run into a red or not...and when i did my heart would start to rush and it became an experience and stuff i remember to this day...its what really lacked in WoW for me. The system you use by just bypassing all that to me is a mega huge mistake and shocked richard would agree to that. I know you wana get the game out fast and i know its expensive and takes time but doing it the way it is could loose you much more money in the end then if you do it the right way now. One of the many best parts about UO over WoW and other mmorpg was no instances! And silly me i thought u would do the same where you could walk into a dungeon and many many people could be in it..i dunno if the dungeons without instances is feasible today but getting rid of all that land and traveling and adventure will be a huge mistake. It also just looks cheap with the wall in the woods....As a backer i know id rather wait longer and do it right then play it the way it is or at least know in the future you plan to fill the world out entirely. I hate it if this comes off as being picky or demanding im not on either im just telling you it will be a huge mistake business wise in the long run, if you dont fill out the land.

 

1. This is not an MMORPG. It is a selective multiplayer RPG with single player (offline) mode.
2. Aside from it being cheaper to create only "instances" instead of a huge open world, it allows the devs to exchange and add scenes more easily. So a meteor could come crashing down and it would be rather easy just exchanging this scene instead of having to alter the whole landscape.
3. It is not true that there is no wilderness to explore between the scenes. There is a huge world map you can roam around in. There will be things happening in this world view, too.

 

First I don't agree with OP.
Second it is an MMORPG, just not a WOW clone. It is what I've heard RG call a hybrid MMORPG. Just because it has different modes doesn't make it any less.

 

I agree with knell just because you can play offline doesnt not make it an mmorpg...richard said himself its an rpg and you play with lots of people from around the world hence mmorpg...the only reason to do instances is for money purposes and just because theres are areas to wander around still isnt the same thing as to free roam around...i want to walk to the towns myself and when i dont want to walk id like to ride a horse or take a zepplin...it greatly cuts down on the adventuring and not to mention the annoying factor to have to instance in each town or place you enter...this annoyed me in WoW but at lease that was only the dungeons....you could walk from town to town and you didnt have to instance when you finally arrived to any town...to get an overhead map and instance from one town to the other from the complete opposite side of the map basically instantly im losing all that adventure in between...just the fact that i cant freely roam around i think is bothersome.. That id get a wall if i start to walk into the wood outside a town...this is just crazy to me and id hate to see a great game go down to tubes because of this...i like everyone here have been waiting a long time for the new uo inspired game and i think this a huge thing that could ruin the game...i hate to be that person that says you have to do this or that becuz uo was this way and i liked it i get richard wants to make a game everyone likes but this to me is one thing every mmorpg or whatever you wana call it has to have...to be able to freely adventure and go anywhere you want and explore the places in between the towns...that to be honest is not half the fun, but most the fun and id be willing to bet that 99% the players feel that way....

 

The physical world is not instanced in the same way that other games are, the players and the NPC's are. It's an important distinction to make. The housing and the scenes are all permanent between all player perspectives. That's a change from other games that use instancing to segregate player population. (i.e. Everyone has their own instance of the same house)

What this means to the OP is that the land IS "filled out". The world is being hand crafted one scene at a time. But to lower production costs and manage the technical requirements of a large multiplayer game like this, the decision to use this design was made.

I do agree it would be optimal from a player's perspective to have no instancing, no load screens, and to create a giant world capable of supporting millions of people at the same time (just in case that number is needed) however with the exception of having load screens, there's really not much of a downside is there? Not that I can see.

 

I'm all for making things simpler for the sake of greater depth. If it was a 2d game like Ultima Online I would be happy.
So much time and money is spent on the latest and greatest 3d and whether or not someones fingers bend when they
pick up a fork that games these days don't have the depth. More depth and easier to add depth. Less bending fingers.
I like how they can easily insert new areas. I also like how they can have random areas, events and battles on world map.
Instead of a static landscape. I still like how the maps worked on the old ultima games and the excitement of the unexpected
and potential for secrets and surprises. Random, unforeseen battles and events.

At first I didn't realize you can double click anywhere on the map to enter that hex. Hopefully this will be more obvious
for folks new to the game.

 

OP, some advice from Captain Jack Sparrow. While some here in this forum may agree with your concerns at some level, you need to take care to address these things properly.

Format thee topic and message properly. Don't beg for dev replies and use shorthand kiddie text speak in your very first, double, post.
Don't pop out a wall of text which comes off stinking like you are a backer jumping in to post your first message as a forum doppelganger.

You know, jump in, introduce yourself somewhere before posting a big unending paragraph. Allow Mata to say "welcome" and then reply to a few posts here and there, establish yourself and your beliefs, gain a personality and history here and then jump in with a little bit of meat.

Captain Jack Sparrow thinks that your words would carry to more and make a lasting impression. As it is now, this can't carry on unless some windbaggery begins to take place. Seems that we have already begun, it is a good thing that we have enough wind in this forum to sail Captain Jack's ship around New Britannia several times over!

 

Welcome Brand0o!
Yes the instances are small and they know this. This is an RPG first and they were not always open world domains that you could get lost in. This project was pitched so generally that you could get almost anything and I believe that each of us see the end product differently.

I admit that things look somewhat bleak now but I see an amazing amount of potential in this project. The best thing you can do is stay involved and help the community be the game you want.

Face it, when this ships the team will probably move on to the next episode, another Portalarium project etc. In the end you have us. So even if they make a total dog of a game we can offer more than over world zones and flashy graphics. The base game is pretty cheap and I think it will work out for most people. I hope you stick around.

 

Hmmm, the vote stands as 1 yeah, 22 nays so far....

Welcome to the forums!

 

So many people have left this community that you're not likely to find agreement here. What we have left is really the hardcore supporters.

That said the hex system is awful.

 

It's all about the intended direction of the game. What is the most important design goal.

Seamless world doesn't allow them to streamline content. The hex system does and it can be quickly changed on a whim without shutting down the entire game.

 

learn to use paragraphs. i won't bother reading it otherwise. i see this from time to time and people need to be corrected on it.

 

This was hard to read. I usually do not complain about the format, but then, I usually do not read badly formated messages. Well, the form is not really important so to your views...

1. Instances are different than in other games, the world is persistent the binstances just allow some players to play in singleplayer. And they also allow more players to visit the same place even if it is full. I think that 99% of time you will not notice them, only exception will be extremely big events and attempts to visit some dungeons without being in the same party.
2. And even though I would love open game without map, this will allow a lot of great things to happen, so I do not see much issues with this design decision. Sure, it has its downsides but it has some upsides as well.

Oh and welcome to SotA forums!

PS: SotA is also MMORPG, not just MMORPG (this is not for OP, it is for Lord_Darkmoon and Death-Knell)

 

Welcome brandOo!

 

My dear brandOo. One's writing should and does reflect the writer's attitude towards his audience. If you won't take the minimum of time to format and correct your mistakes, it appears that you have little respect for your audience. Why should the reader put an effort into something that the writer obviously didn't?

 

"mega huge mistake" Marlin. Goodbye thread.

 

I normally wouldn't and certainly shouldn't respond to a person that resorts to flaming others, but I just couldn't resist this time (sorry for that).
If you'd spend 20 more USD, you'd be able to read up on what would have to happen for your wish to come true. It's very easy to blunt out demand others to do something that they lack the ressources to do and way more tricky to actually try and help them to gain these ressources. Most unfortunately, the Portalarium members do have to pay rent (and servers ) and eat, which they can't do without money. Hence, I'm going to increase my pledge another time (soon) and gift the game to a friend of mine.

 

Agree with the main point and the spirit of the OP, which is that it would be better to have the whole world filled out. I understand that may not be practical. But it would be nice if not for issues related to memory and dev time. I will miss the ability to just roam, explore. Take a long walk or a long ride. See the sights. Have random encounters.

There is this myth that the map is huge and the world is large. In fact it is a few dozen instances and the vast majority of the map, the land in between instances, doesn't exist. Too bad.

But if new content is continually delivered, instancing will occupy people. Hopefully the land is filled in over time to add to the enjoyment of the game.

 

Darkfall Online was sold as the "largest MMO map ever created". It was said that it would take hours to walk from one side of the map to the other.

What that translated to was long walks by yourself with nothing going on. I'm still not sure what the point of it all was.

I also want to bring up my D&D experience as a player and a DM. Many years ago I played D&D with a guy that basically spent every waking moment of his life designing a D&D world all his own (although it was actually his version of the Forgotten Realms). He attempted to plan for every detail of the world, and even attempted to calculate mundane details like "how much a bar of soap costs in the northeast region of the map" and "on this date in time what are all the 500+ NPC's that he's created doing".

No kidding, the guy could tell you what every NPC had for dinner. He could tell you the average income of Waterdeep. He knew all the stats for every Wizard of Thay. He was an encyclopedia of Forgotten Realms lore and day to day occurrences.

It was both sad and impressive at the same time. And as players went in and out of his D&D world, he would often grow upset with them because players do not follow a script (not the good ones anyway) and they would often "pick up a rock" or "walk down the wrong street" when the DM would not expect it. This would require him to stop our gaming sessions so that he could "play out the ramifications of what may or may not be occurring" based on some seemingly unimportant detail. No I'm not making this up, a player could literally overturn a rock and he'd stop the session only to return 3-5 weeks later after sitting in his basement rolling dice day after day. Weeks later he would show up and continue the session, often saying something like this, "Or last session was interrupted by an event. Nothing of consequence has happened, as far as you know."

I found this method of DMing to be a lot of wasted motion. I don't DM like that.

What I do is create a large world, and then sprinkle in 10 to 20 possible events. I then give players incentives to get from one event to the other. I don't really care what order it happens in, and I don't really care if one event never happens or all of them happen. It's up to the players to decide what they want to do and when they want to do it. If a player tells me they're going to stand around looking at paintings all day, that's fine. But don't be surprised if you suddenly find yourself in the middle of an event you never saw coming. I've been credited by most of the people that have played with me as being a lot of fun as a DM because nothing ever gets boring and it seems like it all fit together in a believable way.

But to each their own. I'm sure some people would prefer that every detail be "filled out" and no stone was left unturned! For me, I'm more than comfortable with the instanced world where events are sprinkled inbetween and there's a short way to get from one to the other.

 

Welcome, brandOo. The foregoing posts touch on a number of aspects of your request and your posting style. I hesitated as to whether jump in here or not, but thought I should just to underscore some points which are positive:

- You have joined a game which will be significantly different from others. Why? Because Richard Garriott and Starr Long are involved.

- You also have the privilege of getting in "on the ground floor," before the launch. This means that, as the Dev's say over and over and over in their videos, "nothing is cast in stone." And this means, above all, you need to have patience. Give them time to work their magic. Give them time to grow the game. Open your mind to new possibilities and new ways of doing things. Don't judge any of it at this point. Watch as many videos as you can - and still, keep your mind open as you watch them. Some of the videos you find will have older material and there may have been changes made since they were made.

I am not certain of your age, and as such, I will not judge your posting style. It all takes time. Patience is hard for many of us, no matter what the age. But please do not judge this game as it stands now. Do not assume that the Dev's will do things as other game developers have. Sit back, watch this unfold, and be grateful you have a view of it.

I hope you stay and become a part of this community. That's all I have to say.