You could call me a Desert Madman cuz that's where I spent most my time in MMORPG's. Also gotta love a zone with a huge mysterious lake in the middle. A remote outpost furthest away from any city is one of my favorite places to use as a hub. A hugee mountain you can climb up all the way with paths or otherwise and look off in the distance from so high up. A dangerous and dense jungle is fun too, where you can get lost easy if you don't follow the river. Lastly, open ocean zones cuz that means boats, travel time, making friends, falling off, and getting eaten or drowned, all good fun.
@Raidan - I LOVED Unrest. I spent so many days in there, many of them being chased out with trains. I just loved the whole concept of the place.
One of the other places that really gave me that same feeling was Castle Mistmoore. I used to love the feeling of sneaking around inside the castle, totally on edge, just sure there was going to be another see-invis creepy freaky vampire around the next corner. The whole place just set your teeth on edge in a good way.
So I guess the moral is that I really like places that have an easily recognizable theme and story. Some of the other popular zones like Guk or Sol just seemed kinda haphazard to me. Like there was a random design of a place and a story attempted to overlay on that. But the places that really sunk in for me were the ones that had a story from which a layout was built.
Kilsin said:What are some of your favourite areas in MMORPGs, for example, desert, snow, forest, oceanic, volcanic, swamps/marsh etc. or do you have another one to share?
Edit: changed to "in order" of favorites.
In no particular order:
Underground cavernous areas (dark, dingy, stalactites and stalagmites);
Claustrophobic dungeons that are foresty/humid/aquatic/jungle (think CoM, Seb, Guk);
Desert coastal (oasis styles, Nro, OT);
Oceanic (open seas, travel, dungeons, would appreciate proper swim mechanics this time around) NOTE: If there are actually sizeable areas to explore, this moves up to number 3;
Spooky themed environments (MM, Unrest, Najena, Befallen)
Green hill forest style (think qeynos hills or rathe mountains - Not so much Kunark areas like FM- FM was just short for FML);
Upstate NY- Seriously. Tall pines reaching to the sky,with tall Oaks and Birch interspersed some.
Fir trees dressed in long green gowns spradically. Light green Ferns growing as high as your shins between forest and opening in forest ( form boulders or high places) from a brown and leafy floor.
Lots of trees but a high canopy above and a low growth below allowing you to see through the trunks in a mottled shade. The bright area over that hill must be a lake, and it is.
The freezing stream is found leading to it amongst the mossy rocks. IN some places all the rocks, more like boulders or roots of mountains taking up almost a foundation of space, sometimes veined with sparkling quartz. A double take- is that a small cave or dark openingin the rocks, could be, but you find an old forgotten house with a sapling growing from the roof.
Inside- damp smell of earth and mold and old books leaning bent oddly together on a shelf- interesting antiques if you could only feel yourself motivated to refurbish them, thick bottomed panes of glass in ornately cut window frames making you wonder why this can't be done today if this was normal, then.
IN summer.
And then in winter the lake is frozen- and you could see for miles if it were not for the rolling and hilly terrain at the paws of the catskills.and the snow is waist high but soft from having to sift through the towering trunks of pine branches.
Don't get me started on Fall-
Kilsin said:What are some of your favourite areas in MMORPGs, for example, desert, snow, forest, oceanic, volcanic, swamps/marsh etc. or do you have another one to share?
The deepest, darkest and most dangerous place in a dungeon hundreds of meters from any point of safety where only a group that has a deep understanding of their class, the classes in the group plus how all those skills and abilities interact, can survive.
This isn't exactly what you asked, but for me anything that added to immersion. Any area where the environment came alive (ably assisted by sounds and music). Many of the areas already listed above did it for me (blasted work, late to the party!): the frozen wastes of Everfrost peaks (I felt my bones chill with that wind), the dreadful heat in the Desert of Ro (no wonder those poor guys went mad), the dangers of Unrest or Mistmoore (creepy indeed, especially at that level), or the absolute joy of the Happy Halfling Home (who couldn't smile when you entered Rivervale and heard that tune?).
But you could just as easily toss in the East Commons tunnel for me. Sure - it was a big somewhat squarish ugly hole cut in the side of a dull colored hill, but throw in a bunch of gamers seeking community, a bit of imagination and it turned the place as lively as any market in Marakesh. You could easily get lost shopping the wares, your head on a swivel taking in the sights, sounds, and yes - even smells (I swear some of those ogre merchants got pretty ripe, particularly the ones that never ever seemed to leave to go bathe).
As a bard another favorite area was East Freeport with the theater. Back, way back, at the dawn of time, our troupe (bards, one and all) would actually perform on the stage there and draw crowds. Crazy right? But it made the zone come alive, and people dashing through on their way elsewhere would stop, ask questions, and then sit down to watch. Many enjoyed it (some didn't, but de gustibus non est disputandum). After the show, we would group up with our new friends & critics alike and go slaughter many nasty things together.
Any area that makes you feel immersed in the game, not watching it from your chair, is one I remember best.
I am a big fan of forest and snow. Odd looking back on it but my absolute favorite zones were probably some of the smallest zones in EQ. Crushbone, Unrest and Mistmoore were my absolute favorites. You could probably tell i had a lot of Wood Elf alts. When I created my Barbarian Shaman I had to get him ported to Greater Fay to run those zones.
For me it is not really a particular landscape . What I prefer is when graphics, music and lore enter in resonance making a perfect whole . It is in that case that a player forgets that this place is merely virtual
Then it is irrelevant whether it is a mountain, a city or barren waste .
The best zone ever which is for me a perfection illustrating the above resonance is the Moria in LotRO .
Graphics :
Music :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL4B14hy8f4
Lore :
Well it is Tolkien ....
EQ was pretty near to this perfection in Kithicor and in a lesser measure Unrest where sounds, music , graphics and lore entered in resonance too .
Umbra said:I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
Yeah, once you get it in your backpack and boots you just can't get it out...
Personally am I a little bit tired of volcanic, particularly in dungeons. Certain games are filled with bad guys who want volcanic as their main dungeon theme.
My favourite area of all time is without contest Kedge Keep from Everquest 1.
Fully under water dungeon bring another dimension to the game where normally most areas in games follow the xy axis, underwater add the z axis dimension and a whole lot of new physics.
Since Kedge Keep and Plane of Water, I have yet seen other games embrasse the concept.
For myself, can't under estimate a small hamlet or sprawling port. Towns laid out with all sorts of shops, common areas, barracks, etc. can be so immersive traveling through the busy streets. Think Stormwind when WoW launched or Freeport or Kelethin at any given time.
As a LoTR fan I always loved what LOTRO did with environment to really create immersion. The leaves falling as I traveled through the Trollshaws or the vast openness of the Lonelands. Hard to forget those.
the concept of Western Wastes I always loved. Massive zone with high level dragons just wandering about in their natural habitat.
Id love to see seasons affecting the same zones over time.
- Rylas
"
Id love to see seasons affecting the same zones over time.
- Rylas"
This! Rain effects have always been nice and welcome! I can see actual snowfall accumulation being a potential issue, but what about changing seasons according to the time of year in game? I can see this being a pain to make happen in real time, but maybe changing the colors of the flora during regular maintenance downtime. With tools today, I'm not sure how costly it would be in terms of time/money to just change the colors/tones on existing art assests...I'm no game developer!
Irriaden said:"
Id love to see seasons affecting the same zones over time.
- Rylas"
This! Rain effects have always been nice and welcome! I can see actual snowfall accumulation being a potential issue, but what about changing seasons according to the time of year in game? I can see this being a pain to make happen in real time, but maybe changing the colors of the flora during regular maintenance downtime. With tools today, I'm not sure how costly it would be in terms of time/money to just change the colors/tones on existing art assests...I'm no game developer!
Yeah, it would be awesome but it require a lot of work. Far less if you change when resetting the server instead of actually having the trees sprout leaves, the leaves then turning yellow and fall off and then let it start to snow and let the snow slowly cover everything. It also would require far less data to be sent and processed between the host and the client if you change the season during the regular serverupdates. And yeah, I know that you are opting for the simplest way (and I agree with you) but the other solution should at least be mentioned.
I would restrict it to temperate areas at least (but change the weather patterns in tropical, sub tropical and artic areas during the winter so you get more rain or snow in those zones then, that is easy to do). It does open up a lot of interesting things like many crafting plants and fruits that just are avaliable to harvest certain time of the year, certain monsters that comes out specific seasons and so on.
But I think it is something that should be added after release, maybe in an expansion. While it would add a lot to the gameworld there are far more important things to get right before considering something that is cool but not a must.