The media I've seen (screenshots, videos, livestreams) are all gorgeous and amazing. Seriously, I am so anxious to move into Terminus.
One thing I have not seen (yet?) is wide open expanses. Places like west commons or northern ro. Deserts and plains.
One *huge* mistake made in another unnamed highly visible, cancelled game development was that they made the land topgraphy too busy.
It got tiresome like a constant buzzing of sound tires your ears. Also there is a very real psychology of immersion that suggests the player has to fill in details with their subconscious to increase immersion (let THEIR brain) imagine things. This counts for details of the land as well. So don't overdo the rocky, bumpy, jagged, harsh terrain.
Lovely rolling dunes and waving fields of grasses and gentle sloping wide open plains are just as important.
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/scenery/qey2hh1-plains.jpg
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/scenery/northro-dunes.jpg
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/scenery2/westwastes-tundra.jpg
^^ Hi, ~16-year-old graphics, but yeah, much love for wide-open areas~
I have always wondered....
... do some people turn down all the higher details/foliage to get an advantage?
PvE: spotting roamers more quickly / further away
PvP: spotting other characters hiding in long grass/shrubs?
My fondest 'scary' moment was 1st time arriving at Emerald Jungle iin EQ. Foliage *everywhere* so you cannot see more than 5 feet in any direction.....
..... and then a tiger or gorilla jumps out at you!! aaaarrrrgh!
..... running away only to crash into another ... and another!
Evoras said:My fondest 'scary' moment was 1st time arriving at Emerald Jungle in EQ. Foliage *everywhere* so you cannot see more than 5 feet in any direction.....
..... and then a tiger or gorilla jumps out at you!! aaaarrrrgh!
..... running away only to crash into another ... and another!
I loved EJ! For this reason and the amazing atmosphere, EJ was perhaps my favorite zone to travel in. The City of Mist was a popular destination, so running back and forth across EJ was never dull! It got especially fun when I could go into the neighboring Trakanon's Teeth, but the ten or so levels I spent dodging those reds until they were green through the jungle will stay with me forever.
I enjoy large, flat areas in MMORPGs. It is nice to have a skill while traversing them, like tracking, that is almost a prerequisite; especially in an area like Western Plains of Karana.
Pantheon Dev's, please play Neverwinter and trip over tiny pebbles for an hour, forcing you to jump like rabbits the entire time. A stupid twig in the ROAD should not block your path and make you jump over it. ugh.
Yes to a bunch of wide open style zones, loved all those EQ zones like the ones linked above!
In saying this for those zones that are quite mountainous I would hope that virtually all sections in zones are reachable, mountains should not become walls that are unable to be passed or climbed. Of course if a slope is a sheer edge then this should not be able to be walked up, but i would like to be able to climb to the top of a big mountain by finding angles and rocks etc to climb up or jump across from one to the other. This doesnt mean there has to be meaningful content on the top of a mountain but a nice view for some screenshots goes a long way!
Yup. Totally agree with you Fazool. A huge expanse of nothing can be compelling too. It's horrible if it's the only thing the game has, and it's bad if there's never a reason to be there. But it's also kind of annoying the have to dodge and weave thru clutter to do absolutely everything in the game. Not to mention that it's harder to convey that spooky forest feeling in those places wher you really want it, where the player is realy concerned about what's behind the next tree if the whole freakin world is a spooky forest.
Evoras said:My fondest 'scary' moment was 1st time arriving at Emerald Jungle iin EQ. Foliage *everywhere* so you cannot see more than 5 feet in any direction.....
Wow, yeah, Emerald Jungle probably had one of the most striking first impressions to that extent... Dark, thick forest, not much visibility, an unsafe port-in area, creepy background noise, tough mobs with no pattern or predictability in their roaming areas and mixed undead and live... The first few times I was in that zone, I was so nervous because it felt so dangerous compared to the norm... "Get me out of here asap"... Emerald Jungle, to that effect, I thought was particularly well done. (Of course, these same traits made it an unpopular zone save for questing and getting to/from Sebilis and the City of Mist -- which, for the latter, actually, made it well-travelled, even if only as a go-between.)
Retsof said:Pantheon Dev's, please play Neverwinter and trip over tiny pebbles for an hour, forcing you to jump like rabbits the entire time. A stupid twig in the ROAD should not block your path and make you jump over it. ugh.
I was active in Landmark closed beta and cheerleading for EQN. They made this same tragic mistake in LM just like you described. The only effective way to move around was to bunny hop everywhere. Blades of grass would impede your movement. This wasn't because it was beta, this was a fundamental game engine issue.
To make matters worse, they made the topography too "busy" - everything was exaggerated. My suggestion to them was to take all the geometry of the entire world, including sticks, trees, grass, hills, mountains, everything and simply scale the Z-axis down by 90% - flatten everything - it was SO bad.
Then, to make it even worse, they had created their own new engine called Forgelight. The problem with FL was that the 3-dimensional experience was "off". The depth perception was wrong and the appearance versus travel distance changed at different rates. For example, you could look across a football field and see a dandelion. As you ran towards it, it grew 5X as fast as it should until it was waist high. But, then you retreat back and it shrinls 5X too fast until this shrubbery looks like a weed. It's hard to explain but we had a lot of deep technmical discussionms on the forums about 3D transformations and objects and scaling etcera.
I, personally, am convinced this topic was one of the two that ended EQN.
Shayken said:I'm confused, did anyone say they weren't going to have zones like these ? I'm sure if they made them once, they'll do it again ;) haha..
No one explicitly said they weren't, but they've only shown topographically busy areas. It's more than just the surface map of the ground - it's also the jaggedness of the mountains, the size and quantity of rocks on the ground - everything. Busy stuff looks "sexy" but it actually makes for less satisfying gameplay.
fazool said:I was active in Landmark closed beta and cheerleading for EQN. They made this same tragic mistake in LM just like you described. The only effective way to move around was to bunny hop everywhere. Blades of grass would impede your movement. This wasn't because it was beta, this was a fundamental game engine issue.
To make matters worse, they made the topography too "busy" - everything was exaggerated. My suggestion to them was to take all the geometry of the entire world, including sticks, trees, grass, hills, mountains, everything and simply scale the Z-axis down by 90% - flatten everything - it was SO bad.
Then, to make it even worse, they had created their own new engine called Forgelight. The problem with FL was that the 3-dimensional experience was "off". The depth perception was wrong and the appearance versus travel distance changed at different rates. For example, you could look across a football field and see a dandelion. As you ran towards it, it grew 5X as fast as it should until it was waist high. But, then you retreat back and it shrinls 5X too fast until this shrubbery looks like a weed. It's hard to explain but we had a lot of deep technmical discussionms on the forums about 3D transformations and objects and scaling etcera.
I, personally, am convinced this topic was one of the two that ended EQN.
I agree. EQN was broken from the ground up. Aside from Sony's valiant effort at trying to minecraft EQ ...
It's easy to add stuff later. If beta testers mention a place looks or feels empty, then add away. I just hope they keep to the basics now and worry about adding fluff later. Otherwise it's just ends up a mess.
edit: fixed quotes
Xaruk said:http://everquest.allakhazam.com/scenery/qey2hh1-plains.jpg
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/scenery/northro-dunes.jpg
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/scenery2/westwastes-tundra.jpg
^^ Hi, ~16-year-old graphics, but yeah, much love for wide-open areas~
Ahh yesssss... Allakhazam... Now that takes me back!
