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World Maps: The Minimum Expectations of 21st Century RPGS

Discussion in 'Release 4 Feedback' started by DNA Cowboy, Mar 28, 2014.

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  1. Canterbury

    Canterbury Avatar

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    And those games weren't MMOs. What might not be fully comprehended yet is that this game is going to be played a lot differently... a LOT differently... especially over time, than a single-player Ultima.

    This is a world people will be seeking to live and exist in, alongside other players, beyond the confines of playing the episodic storyline -- and that's something people didn't do in the single player Ultima games.

    For that reason alone, the developers are obviously making new choices. Thus the addition of a fantastical, pop-up storybook... into a game that's an interactive story... makes sense on several different levels to me.
     
  2. DNA Cowboy

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    Look what I found (World Map starts at 50 seconds) listen to what he says..."we zoom down into a close up look into the 'zones' (hexes) ...."



    That's what I would like and tbh expected.

    Also,
    Sign this guy up (Count Napoli), his first attempt at a map is better than the one we've got! :p

    [​IMG]
     
  3. Canterbury

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    If you imagine the look of the weekend's map, but you can zoom out to the level of the above map, you're likely on the track of where they're taking the map. I imagine being able to pull out to that level to see the whole map, then as you zoom in closer, you start seeing the mountains and trees are paper pop ups, and some things become animated as you get closer, etc. I believe you need to "think bigger" and beyond what you saw at the weekend, in relation to what it will become.
     
  4. DNA Cowboy

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    If what you say is true then that would be acceptable but only if there is detailed 3D geographical locales, towns, mountains, etc as you zoom in.
    I think what we need is for Chris to perhaps mock up what the finished product may look like rather than stun us with that awful R4 paper map when we actually thought we were getting this:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    We need to get this wrapped up following reports of fan anger which is starting to slip out.
     
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  5. Canterbury

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    That's the way I read their intention via a piece from Starr Long (IIRC who wrote it), and it sounded pretty good. I realise it's a huge departure to what there was, but even when you look at the older style, it's not like you pull out and see a realistic reproduction of where you were... there's still quite a lot of difference between the instance and the mini map view, so I never saw it as a perfect solution anyway. But I totally take onboard the massive leap to the newer version.

    But, who knows... the commentary they've received on the paper version from everyone who's not me, might have already put it to the sword. I hope not... but who knows.
     
  6. Sunsanvil

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    I think I could resolve this paradigm in my mind (and you and I might come closer to the same page Canterbury :) ) IF (big if) the following could be implemented:

    A) We could transition from hex to hex without going out to map, with just a brief "loading area" to interrupt. Even at that I question if, where most of us have more RAM and cores than games know what to do with, if some pre-caching of the next nearest hex could cut the transition time down (but thats a separate topic).
    B) This is a big one: If the map had TWO zoom levels. The more abstracted, cloth map level we have now, and a closeup level where a single hex almost fills the screen, in 3D, with a decent representation of the hex with rudimentary detail only, but which would show, for example, the street plan of a town, the overal path/forest/mountain layout, and moreover where you are in the hex (with a pinpoint or whatever). Basically a miniature of the actual zone.
    C) Areas not yet traveled at at least the above mentioned zoomed in map level are obscured.
    D) No arbitrary quick travel (save for Moongate and/or other in game travel system which could include "rally points" at dungeons, town-to-town horse cart, boat charter etc).
     
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  7. Golem Dragon

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    Why are ppl upset over the fact that the art style they decided to implement for an overworld map does not match a "prototype"? It was a prototype which means that it was just that... a prototype to show the proof of concept of a dual scale map system. It never meant that we were promised an ultra realistic 3-D Graphical Overworld map. In fact, the prototyle demo that ppl keep referencing was made using bought assets to quickly put together the prototype... the game at that point had a smaller team and there was almost no art done by the team for that feature at that point.

    A ultra stylized map like what was in R4 , can have a polished and high quality graphical look, but still have that stylized look like that of a paper map. This would then mean, that the overworld map would match what Richard said in that article that was linked to by an earlier post but still keep things within what we were actually promised... a dual scale map system for faster traveling as well as great way to have random encounters and other unique uses of hexes for content to be easily expanded and added over time.

    In my opinion, Civ 5 does not have the best graphics for a top down map. However, because it is the view you have for almost all of your gameplay they made sure it was polished to the point where you can tell what things are when it comes to the typography and cartographic elements like units, resources, towns/cities, etc. I have issue with some elements of scale in Civ5 when comparing some things but it never lessened my love of the game or the amount of hours i have put into playing the game solo and with friends. However, when you look at the importance of these elements, by going realistic ,it would have been to the detriment of the game and not to the benefit of the game.

    I see some similarities between the prototype overworld map and the R4 overworld map and do have some issues that caught my eye initially... such as, we have no way to know that Owl's head has a tesla tower for defense on the overworld map.... other symbols that would be good to help show off the uniqueness of towns with defense systems and those who don't should be played up. However, by knowing that this is only phase one of the map, and based on Starr's comments, they have tweaks and other features they wanted to have for it but did not get to implement those yet (fog of war, zooming in and out, animations, etc).

    Do not be so hasty in judging things so harshly yet. There is a time and place to be quick to "poo-poo" a feature (lack of jumping at R1 for instance).... The Fog of War and zooming and panning features are something that, regardless of what art style will be implemented on the final overworld map, will be needed and important. Those features will be coming. Games that use ultra stylized art styles in elements of the game have done so for various reasons... sometimes to their benefit, sometimes for their detriment... Honestly, I am still trying to put together all my thoughts and feelings about the new map and I plan on making a giant post on one site about it when I get there. I can see alot of good things about the highly stylized one they implemented but i can also see what many of the downsides are.

    So far the only thing I can say for certain is that too many ppl in the community are taking things that were said as what the dev team's thoughts are as promises which were never meant to be taken as promises. I find this very disappointing that people are attempting to read into things that deeply and assume things that should not be assumed. Keep up the discussions but please... PLEASE... keep things civil and don't just bash the dev team.... just cause something is hyper stylized does not make it outdated graphics.... the world of digital art is always improving and you can go super stylized but in really super high def graphics and not have anyone even notice the fact that such high detail was done. Maybe what would be best is just a nice hangout stream where Richard, Starr, Chris, and others talk with the community and help us better understand what was going through their head and why the choices made were made....

    I look forward to more details posts as well from the dev team as well before I make any judgement. Honestly I am torn, but I am going to hold myself from making any final statements that say that I want them to stick with it and keep working on this stylized view or to go back to a more highly realistic view for the overworld map.
     
  8. Dorham Isycle

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    @Chris @Darkstarr I think what may of happened is you Devs have been playing & working with the ks map for a year every day, day in & day out. You guys got tired of it & seeing anything else seemed like a good idea. I don't think it was but I can see why you may of come to this fork, oops, wrong turn......
     
  9. Lord_Darkmoon

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    I hope you take into consideration the fact that those of us who do not want the stylized map do not want it because it looks bad. We do not want it because it is no substitution for exploring the world. Looking at a map and roaming around in the zoomed out 3D world are two totally different things and one cannot substitute the one for the other. So if they stick with the stylized map, they are taking out the exploration aspect from the game.
    Also they can keep this stylized map in the game as a map, but for roaming around in the world, we want the 3D zoomed out view back.
    Also, you as an Ultima Dragon should understand how important the world-exploration aspect of an Ultima-like game is.

    Another thing: We were promised a dual scale map, but a zoomed in Third Person view and a map are not dual scale. Look at Ultimas 1 to 5, they were dual scale, because just the SCALE changed and not the whole style and gameplay. The overworld scale looked the same as the scene/indoor scale just with one difference: the SCALE.

    Also if you watch the RTX Video, Richard Garriott clearly states that this is generally the final form of the game and he shows the 3D overland view. Watch the video, he says it around minute 22:40:


     
  10. licemeat

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    This map makes doesn't make me feel like I'm traveling across the land. I feel like I'm simply moving a marker to a hex type and exploring it. I'm sure there will be more to the map than what has been implemented already but if there were a vote...I'd go with the demo map. Something about seeing real trees and rivers makes the world feel like a real world. As it stands now, I know there is a world and I have traveled across it exploring it but I don't really know what it looks like. The map is really good and the 3D effect is awesome but I would rather see that when I do cartography and not when I want to see the world as it is.
     
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  11. DNA Cowboy

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    All you said would have validity if it wasn't for one thing and one thing only: RG himself stated that was the map concept we were getting, if you read my earlier post I've put up exactly what he said on the record along with the article link. Even in the above video posted by Lord Darkmoon RG is demonstrating the game and says (of the World Map) "this is the final form of the game". (at 22:50)
    We all expected tinkering but this isn't tinkering, this is a complete and utter disaster as far as I'm concerned, old school rpg fans like me were expecting a vibrant, interactive and detailed WM in keeping with every other Ultima game, the fact that the game has multi-player elements should not interfere with that vision considering many other mp games have implemented world maps well.
    The problem is this huge development is possibly SoTA's gamebreaker for many fans :(
     
  12. Golem Dragon

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    1) yes he said "Generally the final form of the game".. .GENERALLY!!!!! ie: the concepts are being shown as to what they want to do... art style is still using much of the assets from the unity store and thus finalized art style is not done... so what was in the RTX Demo and all other demos means nothing when it comes to art style, fine details of combat, pvp, housing, merchants, conversation, etc... and as you and everyone else has seen, things are changing, evolving, being polished, etc. Stop assuming that things cant change mid development for any number of reasons.

    2) this highly stylized world map did not detract from my exploring during R4, I still went to every hex and tried to enter each one to see if i could find all the scenes that they put in... I did find them all and enjoyed trying to find them all... I also think a fog of war would help enhance this feeling of exploration in this style of map they chose to go with for R4 and I think my comment to Starr about how it needed it is well founded as it adds to that exploration feeling.

    3) one can substitute a map for a fully fleshed out 3-D and still keep the sense of exploration.

    4) 3rd Person view small scale and a zoomed out large scale map can be considered dual scale because you have 2 views at different scales... who cares if the art style is different. Just cause in Ultimas 1 - 5 the art style was the same doesn't mean that they are limited to that now. Back in the 1980s there were good reasons why art styles were so limited in games. Anytime you entered a village, town, castle, keep, combat, dungeon.. you changed to a small scale view... yes it was still top down just like in the large scale map, but just cause the viewpoint was the same, doesn't mean viewpoint cant change now... heck, viewpoint changed to 1st person in dungeons for exploring until you were in combat or left the dungeon. In the large scale maps you could see wandering mobs... we may still see that, we don't know all the tweaks and changes they have planned yet for the large scale stylized paper map... maybe we will see a paper dragon that moves around and is animated.... maybe we will see lil paper wagons moving around...

    5) if areas have a chance for a random encounter type in the realistic 3-D top view overworld map from initial prototypes and demos and you not knowing till you enter the small scale view what kind of encounter it is, how does the realistic map have any sort of advantage over the stylized paper map? It doesnt, you get same small scale area no matter what, and you still get no sign on the large scale map as to what kind of encounter.
     
  13. smack

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    So a few questions that need clarification:

    - Will there be unique scenes for every single hex on the map?

    If there are going to be unique scenes for every hex, then there is no reason why you can't have scene-to-scene (hex-to-hex) travel exclusively. You just build the scene with enough exit points for each side of the hex, or you can limit where the exit points are to direct travel on the overworld along a specific path. This is as close to 1:1 mono scale world as you can get, but I think most of us would prefer this.

    If there are going to be only a finite number of scene variations per biome (hills, mountains, forests, swamps, roads, etc), how many different variations can we expect per type?

    Since you randomly enter one of those depending on where you are on the overworld then scene-to-scene doesn't work since there's no relation between any hexes. This brings up an issue similar to what Sunsanvil said above: the hexes in between the POIs (towns, dungeons, ruins, etc) have no real meaning or relation to anything. You can double-click on a hex down into a particular biome and are presented with one of the finite variations which are all different in some way. There's no continuity of the travel, no real continuity of the map. It doesn't feel like you've traveled from Owl's Head to Braemar if the scenes in between are randomized.

    - How close will we get to the Game of Thrones visual style?

    While we know we can't have 1:1 mono scale world, and I fully support the dual scale map design, most of us would like to know the answer to the above question as well as further thinking on the overworld map design moving forward. I had a negative reaction to the art style, as I was not a big fan of the 2d cut outs like a children's map popup book. But Starr's clarification that they intend to go "Game of Thrones" style made it clearer what they were intending to do. R4's implementation was far from it as it has been said they stuck it in at the last minute. So I am very much looking forward to seeing enhancements to it in future releases.

    However, all of us looking at that trailer will now be expecting that level of quality and polish. What visual bar will you now be setting, given you don't want to invest into something we will only spend 10% of our time on vs. a trailer that likely cost $1M to produce? What will be animated, any dynamic lighting/shadows, weather effects, objects moving on the map, etc. A little more insight into the new direction will help clarify things quite a bit.

    As such, I propose that one of the upcoming 1-year anniversary events be dedicated to the overworld map design.
     
  14. Golem Dragon

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    yep we still have zones that we zoom into that are of a certain size, etc... yes it was an intial overworld large scale map concept, there was no promise that that was what we were getting... concepts are just that, concepts... they are not final promises, there will always be changes. For all we know maybe there was an implementation issue with a realistic one that was causing issues with the implementation of some of the large scale map features they wanted like random encounters when you go into a hex, performance issues, etc. We don't have these details and it is NOT worth speculating about anything or judging this to the point of demanding change until we know more info. Honestly I don't care if you like it or dont like... I dont care if I like it or dont like it. It is too early to judge it, there are things that need tweaking with it and we just dont know enough about why the change from previous art style concepts.... the gameplay hasnt changed.. you still move around enter areas/hexs, etc... the only different is the art style... for all we know those other lil things like dragons, wagons, etc could be planned to be implemented in some form on the paper style map.
     
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  15. Davelington

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    I think it's important to note that none of the posts on these threads, at least that I've seen, have been about 'dev bashing'. Emotions are running high simply because this game means a lot to people, and this particular game mechanic change would take away a great deal from the quality of the gaming experience for many backers, myself included.

    On another note, it would be interesting to hear what kind of discussions are happening over at the dev+ forums. Could somebody fill us in?
     
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  16. DNA Cowboy

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    Hear hear.
    This MUST be resolved as a matter of urgency.

    ^^
    What he said
     
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  17. Sunsanvil

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    On the contrary, now IS the time to be discussing, debating, and sharing views. These pre-alphas exist for this very reason. I've said this before but clearly it needs repeating:

    While we are not, in any sort of legal sense, investors, we sure feel like we are, and justifiably so. It is our pseudo-investment which is paying Portalariums salaries in the short term. We have a darn near ethical obligation to discus, debate, and express opinions as part of this backer-based development process. Yet we are not the only customers Sota will ever have. If we were, it wouldn't be worth doing. They have to sell it to scores more people after release. To that end it is in everyone's interest, player and dev alike, to discus, debate, and express opinions. If every backer hates feature Y, then odds are so will future potential buyers. If everyone loves feature Z, then odds are so will future potential buyers.

    I'm sick to death of people calling for a cessation of constructive sharing on a forum which exists expressly for that purpose.
     
  18. Bubonic

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    To reaffirm other forum member's feelings:

    For me, in previous ultimas (i'm looking at you, ultima 5, one of the best crpgs ever created), the world map was MUCH more than just a travel device. It was a bird's eye view of the world. The fact that lord british's castle was the same size as my avatar, which was the same size as my boat, made absolutely no difference.

    I have very fond memories of "sprinting" across the world map in u5, chased by a dragon (or was it a wyvern?), desperately trying to reach the moongate before it caught me.

    I'm kind of amazed that you guys were surprised by the negative feedback, to be honest. Please, please, please bring back the bird's eye view of the world. Even if the paper map style is reworked, polished, and filled with little details, it still will not be as immersive as the classic Ultima view.
     
  19. sammakonkorvat

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    This was a very first version of an overworld map system, that they for whatever (probably very good) reasons switched to from the original idea. If making the kind of system we saw in the prototype simply isn't feasible, then I am all for the new one. There is a tremendous amount of ways the "paper map" can be and *will be* improved, if given the chance.

    I love exploration and I totally get the desire for that. I would also prefer to (sometimes) be able to travel seamlessly from hex to hex without having to "zoom out". That would probably make most people, who are complaining right now, satisfied. That might not be possible with the current resources or systems that are in place, though. That doesn't mean they should sacrifice a ton of hours towards making the prototype work, just because DNA Cowboy says so over and over again.
     
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  20. Golem Dragon

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    I am not for a cessation of constructive debate or discussion, but bashing something and judging it as terrible right from the get-go before we have details as to why the change as well as what other things they are envisioning to do to improve can be counter-productive. We do not know what the dev team is thinking nor what their vision is.

    We also have many to are giving an extremely emotional response and are not giving detailed feedback as to why it caused the emotional response... if it removed your feeling of exploration, give reasons why... give us the community as well as the dev team specifics and details as to WHAT caused those feelings as well as WHY you feel those aspects did bring about that response or emotion.... just saying it does something means very little because it doesnt help give the information needed to help improve something.
     
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