I have increased my sub rate twice now so I am a steadfast devotee and supporter.
I want to to make a constructive criticism:
It seems very easy to overdo it on topography. I got into a big discussion on the EQ3/N/LM forums as a tester and one of the mistakes they made was to overindulge in topography. They exaggerated the vertical variations in the land and the ground and the groundcover. To a point of uncomfortable and totally immersion breaking.
I've seen a lot of images and videos of PRF and I'm mildly concerned this might be a repeated scenario.
Remember, EQ1 had tons (and tons) of rolling plains. Big, wide open spaces, miles of sand dunes, etc. Places where you could see to the horizon.
There doesn't seem to be enough of that. From what I've seen, 90% of the Terminus land appears to be very rough.
Don't overdo that. We all know the old adage that the Earth is as smooth as a billiard ball. Just keep that in mind. Too much vertical and roughness in topography really is a bad thing.
I know they are sexier from a game-world perspective but they are harder to code, require more processing, are hard to navigate, restrict the view and make the world seem smaller or claustrophobic.
So, please : not every zone has to look like the Rocky Mountains. We need amber waves of grain and enameled plains (and arctic tundras and giant deserts and grasslands, and swamps).
fazool said:I have increased my sub rate twice now so I am a steadfast devotee and supporter.
I want to to make a constructive criticism:
It seems very easy to overdo it on topography. I got into a big discussion on the EQ3/N/LM forums as a tester and one of the mistakes they made was to overindulge in topography. They exaggerated the vertical variations in the land and the ground and the groundcover. To a point of uncomfortable and totally immersion breaking.
I've seen a lot of images and videos of PRF and I'm mildly concerned this might be a repeated scenario.
Remember, EQ1 had tons (and tons) of rolling plains. Big, wide open spaces, miles of sand dunes, etc. Places where you could see to the horizon.
There doesn't seem to be enough of that. From what I've seen, 90% of the Terminus land appears to be very rough.
Don't overdo that. We all know the old adage that the Earth is as smooth as a billiard ball. Just keep that in mind. Too much vertical and roughness in topography really is a bad thing.
I know they are sexier from a game-world perspective but they are harder to code, require more processing, are hard to navigate, restrict the view and make the world seem smaller or claustrophobic.
So, please : not every zone has to look like the Rocky Mountains. We need amber waves of grain and enameled plains (and arctic tundras and giant deserts and grasslands, and swamps).
We haven't seen 90% of Terminus. We've seen likee maybe 10% or 20% of one outdoor zone, Avendyr's Pass, and like 5% of another, South Saol Peninsula. AVP is a rocky terrain as it is butted up near the mountains. SSP was much less rocky/mountainous. You could see far.
That's something I haven't really thought about and I have to agree.
There is nothing wrong with large plains and open fields. While South Saol is slightly open, its no karanas. It is still quite treed.
Plus large, wide open areas should be quicker to develop. Anything that expedites the process should be strongly considered at this point.
You're absolutely right, Kalok. We've seen what, 3 zones on the streams? @Fazool it stretches all credibility to extrapolate from such a small sample to say the entire world will have, as you say, 'exaggerated vertical variations.' It is not beyond the realm of possibility that more of the world will be mostly flat than it will be mountainous. Hold off until we see more of the world.
Fully agree with everything OP said.
Big, open vistas are immersive.
Also, i would add if every square inch of the game world looks "beautiful", then nothing (not even the unique landmarks that are meant to stand out) will look "beautiful".
Simpler graphics with unique easter egg location finds like in EQ were rewarding
philo said:That's something I haven't really thought about and I have to agree.
There is nothing wrong with large plains and open fields. While South Saol is slightly open, its no karanas. It is still quite treed.
Plus large, wide open areas should be quicker to develop. Anything that expedites the process should be strongly considered at this point.
SSP isn't intended to be plains.
There are plains on the atlas. As well as deserts.
Technically we have seen NPCs in these zones:
· Amberfaet
· Avendyr's Pass
· Black Rose Keep
· Halnir's Cave
· South Saol
· Thronefast
· Tower of the Reckless Magician
· Wild's End
But only Avendyr's Pass seems to be fairly well fleshed out as of the the last videos with over 80 unique NPCs per my last accounting. And there is nothing to say any zone has not been re-done since we last saw it. Which can happen at these phases of development.
Go to the new Reddit and look at the 366 images they posted there. Very, very few open space outdoor zones.
First,
I wanna say thanks for bringing this up. But, I would agree that it more than likely wont be even close to an issue. And really before making this type of post, make sure youre making fact based concerns. Meaning the statement of seeing as much of the game world as you stated was very erronous. Its a good point to bring up though and a concern worthy of mention to the devs, so they understand a concern that may be shared by many a player in their desire to have a more realistic environement based upon real world diversity rather than everything being a beautiful wooded forest etc. But as mentioned before I doubt that VR would do such a thing.
As a table top world designer elevation vs map size has always been a challenge. Big continents 10s of millions of square miles tend to have relatively little elevation change compared to its overall land masses. Then you have locations like New Zealand and Japan which are basically a mountain chains sticking directly out of the water.
Ohio is around 50k square miles and has an elevation change of just over 1000ft in a few points so other than the occasional hill and river gorge its pretty darn flat. In comparison New Zealand is a little over 100k square miles with an elevation change of 12k feet with large portions over 6000ft. North America (depending on how you measure the ice portion) is just under 10 million square miles with to major mountain ranges which we will call an average peak height of around 10,000ft for the Rockies and 5,000ft for the Appalachians with several unusually tall peaks and a couple volcanoes that are unique standouts.
To my knowledge, no MMO has even 50,000 square miles of content yet which lends itself much more small island maps rather than giant continents. Usually the small island maps are centered on peak geography rather than central flat land. You can create an MMO with zones on a large scale continent but your zone lines transport you hundreds if not thousands of miles in an instant. Once you get to teleportation zone lines it starts to make representative extreme geography be your zone lines though it does tend to make the game feel much more like a theme park with wack-a-mole content exibits.
It is a difficult balance between realistic geography, technological zone line limitations, content density, travel times an content creation manpower. I would love to see a game fully make a continent or two even the size of New Zealand but I doubt Pantheon can be that game.
zewtastic said:Technically we have seen NPCs in these zones:
· Amberfaet
· Avendyr's Pass
· Black Rose Keep
· Halnir's Cave
· South Saol
· Thronefast
· Tower of the Reckless Magician
· Wild's End
But only Avendyr's Pass seems to be fairly well fleshed out as of the the last videos with over 80 unique NPCs per my last accounting. And there is nothing to say any zone has not been re-done since we last saw it. Which can happen at these phases of development.
Out of the ones you have listed, the following are an indoor zone, city, or a "dungeon":
Amberfaet
Black Rose Keep
Halnir's Cave
Thronefast
Tower of the Reckless Magician
Ruins near Wild's End
The following you only catch a glimpse of:
Wild's End
The following outdoor zones are the only ones "shown":
Avendyr's Pass
South Soal Peninsula
Even the areas leading up to Ambeerfaet, Black Rose Keep, Black Dagger Keep, etc are just more of Avendyr's Pass.
Other than zone population and itemization, I suspect that they are alot farther along than most of us, including myself, think that they are. They've been working on the game for more than two years now after the "major revamp" back in like 2015 or 2016. I'm not saying that there isnt still alot of work to do. WHat I'm saying is that I suspect the world (as opposed to the population) is more fleshed out than we think it is. They've mentioned on multiple threads that they want the world to be mostly fleshed out prior to alpha.
Kalok said:WHat I'm saying is that I suspect the world (as opposed to the population) is more fleshed out than we think it is. They've mentioned on multiple threads that they want the world to be mostly fleshed out prior to alpha.
I guess you need to define what you are meaning when describing a zone and how far along it is in development. Will alpha start with or without crafting, harvesting, quests, etc.
-The basic landscape
-1st Art pass
-2nd Art pass
-Buildings, structures, towers.
-non-aggro NPCs
-Aggo NPCs
-Overland dungeon areas.
-Quests
-Harvesting nodes
-Itemization of everything
I don't want to put words in the OP mouth.. what I am somewhat gathering is zones like the Karanas was flat for as far as you could see. And when you ran 10 mins, it was still flat for as far as you could see. Some would say this open flat empty area ( minus the random roaming mob ) was a waste is space, and a pain in the butt if you did not have a SoW. And it was, but how many of us remember that zone? It was one of the small things that we loved to hate, it was a natural flat waste of space that was perfect for the game. Do not think you have to fill every area with something, that's not as realistic.
I do hope for desert with dunes oasis pyramids ect somewhat open.
Rolling grasslands in a zone with rocks and lakes. open i hate to refrence wow but similar to Nagrand from outland.
So i agree a few zones need very little elevation.
I do remember when Vanguard launched there was a lot of area that was more empty and unfinished looking. Soutwatch area near New Targonor comes to mind. They slapped in some non aggressive deer and hogs but it was barren land and undeveloped and you could tell. There was several of these places all through Telon in Vanguard. I didn't mind them. I knew it was oppotunities for dungeons, or other areas down the road. However I do know some players seen it as unifinished like their flying mounts and just decided that since it wasn't on the box it was junk and left the game.
As a person who spent the first week or two just running around exploring Vanguard and seeing the vast world and how amazing it was...I like areas to feel open as well. I liked that. But other people didn't. So apparently it's a double edged sword. I also know that it's bad juju to expect a world to be something close to what it is prior to alpha or beta or even launch for that matter. You have to go into these things with no expectations when viewing a game through Alpha or Beta eyes. There's a lot left to do and it will sway your opinion of the development and the game in general
I agree with the OP. Above all things I hate having a lot of heavy forest areas where you cannot see and keep walking into trees and getting blocked.
A variety of terrain is nice ....including heavy forests ...... but remember this is a game not a photo op and areas where we can actually play are better than pretty areas where we cannot.
