Well, some cities in EQ were horrible. And being large made their horrible design all the more painful.
The city I hate the most is Crescent Reach. It's a mess. Right after that comes Katta Castrum (TBS). What a mess and jumble of garbage.
The combination of awful *AND* large are painful. At least a tiny city you can get out of quickly. Qeynos was a cheese-maze but it was small so tolerable.
Now, conversely HateB was pretty nicely sized - a little crowded but my favorite zone of all time.
Original FP was great.
An interesting thing might be for VR devs to poll players on scoring all zones and cities. then tally those up and see if there are any huge iwnners and losers, then look at those and see if there is anything in common with the ones folks love and the ones folks hate, including size.
To the OP's point, I want thronefast- along with other places- to be big but personally not too big.
For instance, what I liked about the latest stream with cohh, before the all-stars stream, was how that Orc village area looked big, but seemed close as they were traversing through it. Perhaps it was a trick of perspective and if so an effective one. I would prefer not to spend 3 min running across a flat square to get to the other side.
In a newbie city I am thrilled to spend an hour or two just figuring out the maze of the city, how to get out and where basic stuff is. Then some time in later levels I am just as fascinated by spending another half hour to an hour discovering the small nooks and strange NPC's in one small area in that same newbie (maze) city. The point I am getting at is: the stimulation of a static environment with its constant newness. This wears off after a while and turns into a sense of accomplishment as a player when I can confidently navigate this maze at higher levels quickly and efficiently. Many psychological mice would also agree with me.
Interestingly, this maze that once seemed huge, I understand now as being small because of my knowledge of it and the speed with which I pass through it. The size itself hasn't changed, but rather my understanding of it has changed. It is no longer new. I dont think the answer is to make it bigger- someone mentioned Old and new freeport earlier. In that case I dont think it was the size but rather the disorientation of the accomplishment (knowledge of the maze) that upset the players. Likewise I dont think its possible to make a static environment stimulating outside of alternate decoration but I think some ideas may be found in zoo management. Those enviroments are static but something must be done to keep the animals stimulated- granted the animals cant go out and adventure but you get my point.
Kalok said:My point is, based on the videos, and cities in the other MMOs that I have played.... EQ, EQ2, and Vanguard, Thronefast seems downright small. Too small to be a major city without room for all of the stuff that is needed to represent that.
That being said, it is entirely possible that there is ALOT of "outter wall" missing from the viideos.
By the way... I am *NOT* saying, "Boo hoo! There wasn't much content in the city." This has nothing to do with the actual content that is in there. It has to do with the area being shown (by piecing togethher the various streams) vs the area needed for a large meaningful city.
Kalok,
It's funny you mentioned this because when I was watching the stream I thought the exact same thing; at that point in development, Thronefast appeared to be rather small in terms of overall area. Specifically, what was presented in the stream I imagined as being the entry way and city commons only. I found myself hoping that there would be more area to give it a larger feel as it is one of the major cities. I admit that there was significant gray-boxing and other decorative elements were not in place yet. These elements, once complete, would change perception as there would be various focal points, differences in perspective, etc. and these would lend to an area that contributed to the city as feeling larger or more full.
But even then, I am imagining substantial area for crafting, residences, areas that lend to city logistics (prison, dungeons, farms, orchards, roads, etc.), a royal palace, parks and gardens, permanent shops, etc. I hope to see the city expand out beyond the bridge (before you enter the city) in the way of farms and whatnot and some more development beyond what the streams revealed inside as well. Also, a major city ought to accommodate adequate space to meaningfully allow the function of lore, factions, and quests.
I too like to explore the major cities and I appreciate that space isn't wasted. It's awesome to turn a corner into a seemingly forgotten nook in the back of a city and find something that will actively change your experience be it a quest NPC that appears, a secret hatch to an unknown area, or something the perception system will reveal. I'd feel short-changed if most of the player activity in a city is saturated in a small area (bank, crafting booths, AH) while the rest of the city space is empty and without meaning for the PC. So I am not looking for an immense area covered with husks of pixels that players cannot really be part of.
I totally understand what you mean though Kalok and I'm regretably surprised that others have engaged your points so negatively instead of exploring your observations more openly and with more curiosity. But I getcha.
wow. i thought this wasn't a WoW Toxic-ass community?? beefcake and many others are being complete tools.
Dude posts a concern about the size of a city and gets beat like a dead horse.
So much for that 'super friendly and helpful' community... where the hell is the friendly discussion?
"put your tinfoil hat back on"
"this is Pre alpha" duuuuuuuhhhhhh... really?
This game will be dead as hell 1 year after a release IF there ever IS a release. This community looks to be Just as Toxic as any other I have seen.
I was going to pledge to further the cause, but this community has me thinking that this game will be a douche-fest just like every other game out there.
There is a lot of open space in those videos. Imagine a fuller, fleshed out city. Along with hundreds/thousands of pc's and npc's running around in such a relatively dense area. There is no need to compare it to norrath or azeroth cities, it really is a different game all together. There really is alot of space shown there that is essentially empty. Alot can fit into that space.
Maybe even the potential for underground areas (sewers, dungeons, crypts, etc) under the city proper???
arazons said:There is a lot of open space in those videos. Imagine a fuller, fleshed out city. Along with hundreds/thousands of pc's and npc's running around in such a relatively dense area. There is no need to compare it to norrath or azeroth cities, it really is a different game all together. There really is alot of space shown there that is essentially empty. Alot can fit into that space.
Maybe even the potential for underground areas (sewers, dungeons, crypts, etc) under the city proper???
It is currently aa very small space. You can, literally, run across it in less than 30 seconds. That is my concern. Do I think it will be made larger? I sure hope so. Like others said, cities are supposed to be the hubs of civilization. There should be all sorts of living, commerce, and crafting areas. The current videos show a space that is far too small for all of that.
I'm glad Flapp said it, because I was wanting to say the same thing.
I thought the same thing when I first saw that video, Kalok. Truth is we have no idea, but the devs are smart and sensitive, and we trust they'll release the cities with the appropriate feel. Hopefully Thronefast will have the area it looks like it should have from the outside, and it'll be partitioned interestingly.
For as long as High Lord Braradune, Emerald Wizard of the Avenging Flame, draws rarefied breath, hope still lives!
From the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ_JPRJAurE)
69sec to cross the thronefast bridge, one way.
4km/hr = 1.11 meters/sec
8km/hr = 2.22 meters/sec
12km/hr = 3.33 meters/sec
So, the Thronefast bridge length is somewhere between 69*1.11 and 69*3.33 meters long. Taking the midline/jogging approach, let's go with 138m (452.75ft for the 3 countries on earth that don't use metric).
The first area beyond the door (around 18:52) is about 15 jogging seconds across, or again, ~30m/~98ft.
Using only travel time as a measure, Thronefast is a very large city, objectively. If you go into EQ1 today (in P99, for example) You can jog/run(no SoW) across the entirety of West Freeport in under 20 seconds. That's from the west gate to East Freeport.
The left side of the area, (left of the entrance area, past the gate) is at least 100 jogging seconds across, and likely more. (20:33 - 21:45 for half the distance)
This makes the widest part something like 3-4 minutes jogging-time edge to edge for the city width, at a bare minimum, and likely far more, from the view distance while they're looking around.
Take out your phone and start a two minute timer. Now press and hold a key while it's counting down. Do you really want to burn the bridge time (1m9s) plus crossing half of this entire city (another 1.5-2m) every time you visit?
The market stalls (29:37 to 29:54) is another 20 second jogging time. Each side of the parade grounds/market square center appears to be roughly 30 jogging-seconds on a side. So, 60m/200ft * 60m/200ft , minimum (and likely larger). 38k-40k sq ft?
From stalls to stalls, across the parade ground width (31:30 to 32:06) is about 35 jogging seconds across, so my numbers are conservative.
In EQ1, setting aside zoning time, you can/could be in and out of WFreeport, to the bank in NFP, in under a minute, from the west gate. That is simply impossible, with the bridge alone, for Thronefast. Crossing the Thronefast parade square alone would take you longer than crossing west freeport.
Hence, in every way you can estimate from that video, Thronefast is bigger, it will take longer, and it will be less "convenient" than Freeport. And I'm pretty sure they're moving a lot faster than my estimates, which means it's just that much bigger, but the travel times (jogging, without SoW, I'm presuming) still offer a fair comparison.
It would be very interesting to see a developer overlay the size of WFP over top of the Thronefast market stall parade grounds, for a comparison. I'm pretty sure it would fit entirely within it with room to spare.
vjek said:Well.. they're not going to re-do all the cities multiple times before launch, they don't have the manpower or time, so.. I'm not sure why anyone would have the impression this isn't what they're going to test with?
Like so many things, if they keep redo-ing it, they'll never launch. If this world content is in pre-alpha, alpha and beta, why would they need to change it, significantly, prior to launch? It's just a city.
That's actually not true. As I said, once they complete the reference zone of Faerthale, they'll be revisiting prior zones so that all zones from that point on are designed with the same philosophies in mind. It may not be completely redone from the ground up, but it's not at all out of the question for them to still expand the size of the city proper if they see fit. Zones like Thronefast and AVP were originally developed a long time ago and they have learned a lot since then with the development of Faerthale, so it only makes sense to go back and apply those lessons to the previous zones. If they have learned enough from the revamps up until now (as they say they have) and developed a solid workflow, that should be the last time they have to overhaul a zone before launch.
"Faerthale is what we’re calling our “reference zone.” It’s a zone that, from beginning to end, will show how all of our zones will be built. As you know, we’ve been very forward-facing in our development. But with the development of an MMO, things change a lot - there’s new tech, new people, new realizations, etc. A lot of the zones we’ve shown have been around for a while, and when we first started, there were a lot of things we didn’t really know about optimization to make things look good and run well, which we’re committed to. We’ve also learned a lot about how that ties into design. So Faerthale is going to be the first zone that, when it’s finished, will cohesively bring together world building, art, game design, and implementation to show complete systems, such as atmospheres, perception, climbing, interactable objects, etc. That way, we don’t have to keep saying what it’ll eventually be like. Instead, we can actually just let players experience it entirely. It’ll be a huge milestone for us internally because it'll be the first time that we'll have a zone that is launch-quality. That’s really exciting."
I don't know how you can accurately calculate how much "time" or "manpower" they have since no launch date has been set and their workflow takes place behind mostly closed doors. We have seen the team make astounding progress in short periods of time (June 2016 - December 2016 being the prime example) and the team has and will continue to grow. But there's a method to the madness. Perhaps they have already decided they need to expand it before launch. Or perhaps the changes will be more subtle. We'll just have to wait and see. But EVERYTHING is a work in progress. It's not "just a city" when it's a place that thousands of players will call home and spend countless hours in.
Let's focus, Bazgrim. They're not intentionally completing, then planning, ahead of time, to completely redo, from the ground up, starting from scratch, every zone 5 times, right, from 2014 until 2021?
Then we agree in principle, and we can move back to the topic of the thread. ;)
I see some discussion here rather than universal agreement but I don't see anyone as being toxic. Maybe a word here or there that could have been more carefully chosen but that applies just as much to the OP as to those responding.
People are people - it happens. I've seen a lot worse on these forums and we are well behaved compared to the internet in general or the public forums for other games.
On topic - big can be impressive but huge and empty is more of an annoyance.
Personally I'd rather have a medium size city or even a small one where there is something to do wherever you walk than a huge impressive one where every 4 streets you find a usable doorway. Enormous inconvenience if tou want to find a particular trainer or city official or merchant or crafting facility unless you have the gigantic thing memorized. Especially in a game where 2/3 of the forum and maybe VR as well feels that a map is the creation of evil Gods to be avoided at all costs.
dorotea said:People are people - it happens. I've seen a lot worse on these forums and we are well behaved compared to the internet in general or the public forums for other games.
Off topic, but just this:
People react differently to the way their posts are received. I've only been in the forum a couple of months, but I have already been called 'lazy" and "rude" because I revealed that I prefer not to know too much about a dungeon and its bosses before going in the first time, and my proposals and opinions have been called "nonsense" and "terrible" by people who misunderstood completely.
When I get such reactions my entire day is ruined. I'm amazed that the OP didn't go into hiding but insisted that he had a point.
Jabir maybe I have been posting here too long (far less than some) and I have lost whatever sensitivity I may have once had.
I agree with what you say about your own posts by the way. And some of the inappropriate responses.
But this thread was more a question than a suggestion - the question being how big Thronefast is. People gave different opinions - no one ridiculed the question. Some people gave the opinion that we don't really know. But more or less like that - "we don't know yet". Not even a hint of "what a stupid question how can you possibly ask it don't you have any idea what pre-alpha means?"
Thus my opininion that this thread has been more or less civilized.
kreed99 said: For those that think we were being toxic at the OP: Y’all need to take a step back and read each response as well. I will apologize for my part, but this post is being rediculously overpowered as a troll post by the OP. There can be many reasons for the size and shape of Thronefast. Look up the original videos and compare the original design to the current and ask which is bigger? Consider maybe they need a small space protected by large walls for a reason? Consider also that many current zones can possibly get a revamp after Faerthale is completed as Bazgrim has very completely stated. I will no longer post on this thread as i do feel bad about how i reacted, but dont be troll’ish - Ask a question and respect opinions instead of arguing every point, thats my advice. Have a good day!
Except you're wrong. I didn't post it to be a troll post, nor is it intended to be. It is a legitimate questioning post.
Thronefast, as displayed in my two screenshots is INCREDIBLY SMALL for a "home city". Period.
Flapp said:wow. i thought this wasn't a WoW Toxic-ass community?? beefcake and many others are being complete tools.
Dude posts a concern about the size of a city and gets beat like a dead horse.
So much for that 'super friendly and helpful' community... where the hell is the friendly discussion?
"put your tinfoil hat back on"
"this is Pre alpha" duuuuuuuhhhhhh... really?
This game will be dead as hell 1 year after a release IF there ever IS a release. This community looks to be Just as Toxic as any other I have seen.
I was going to pledge to further the cause, but this community has me thinking that this game will be a douche-fest just like every other game out there.
Maybe if Kalok would consider the information posted by the others, instead of just arguing that he is knows the exact size of the final city, there would be less toxicity being thrown back at him. But, really, that whole concept Is lost on some people.
The streams do a poor job of showing how large the actual inside is. Even those that have actually seen what’s there have not seen it all yet. Before insisting what you have not seen yet is too small, wait until you actually experience it to make a judgment.
We are not allowed to discuss fight club here, so I can’t tell you what’s there. The next round will probably show even more.
However, as far as population, keep in mind the lore. You will not have NYC size cities. The population existing on Terminus is but a small fraction of their original homelands. Only parts were rescued. In fact, even many of their original gods were not brought to terminus. Add to that the constant strife, war, etc., and you will understand that the entire race idea is actually much smaller than Kalok tries to argue here.
Beefcake said:Flapp said:wow. i thought this wasn't a WoW Toxic-ass community?? beefcake and many others are being complete tools.
Dude posts a concern about the size of a city and gets beat like a dead horse.
So much for that 'super friendly and helpful' community... where the hell is the friendly discussion?
"put your tinfoil hat back on"
"this is Pre alpha" duuuuuuuhhhhhh... really?
This game will be dead as hell 1 year after a release IF there ever IS a release. This community looks to be Just as Toxic as any other I have seen.
I was going to pledge to further the cause, but this community has me thinking that this game will be a douche-fest just like every other game out there.
Maybe if Kalok would consider the information posted by the others, instead of just arguing that he is knows the exact size of the final city, there would be less toxicity being thrown back at him. But, really, that whole concept Is lost on some people.
The streams do a poor job of showing how large the actual inside is. Even those that have actually seen what’s there have not seen it all yet. Before insisting what you have not seen yet is too small, wait until you actually experience it to make a judgment.
We are not allowed to discuss fight club here, so I can’t tell you what’s there. The next round will probably show even more.
However, as far as population, keep in mind the lore. You will not have NYC size cities. The population existing on Terminus is but a small fraction of their original homelands. Only parts were rescued. In fact, even many of their original gods were not brought to terminus. Add to that the constant strife, war, etc., and you will understand that the entire race idea is actually much smaller than Kalok tries to argue here.
I never said I knew the size of the final city. Show me where you think that I did. In fact, I said that I hoped that the final size was going to be larger. Nice try at calling me out on something that I *DID NOT* say though. Perhaps if you read a little better you wouldn't have gotten miffed.
I *SPECIFICALLY* spoke about the size of the city AS IT WAS SHOWN IN THE VIDEOS; which is why I included screen shots from them.
How about you jump down off of that high horse now.
Guy's, come on, please be a bit more respectful and understanding of other peoples opinions. Not everyone will agree and many will have a different view but taking it personally is the worst thing in the world as it will always pit you against anyone opposing your ideas/suggestions.
Please keep it civil or I will have to close it down and I am enjoying the read so far.