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How large are MMO worlds now REALLY? A comparison in world sizes

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  • TerranahTerranah Member UncommonPosts: 3,575

    Perhaps it would be better to measure the number of steps it takes to get from point A to point B, as opposed to how fast. 

     

    Using speed seems very misleading. In the real world, if I walk 10 miles or drive that distance in a car, it is still 10 miles but the time interval will be very different.  Using time to traverse seems very misleading.

     

    With steps taken or number of strides, even if walking time is slow or fast depending on the game, assuming we are talking about a human avatar relatively realistically proportioned, strides would be accurately reflect distance.  

     

    Someone may have already said this previously, sorry, I'm tired.

  • TerranahTerranah Member UncommonPosts: 3,575

    Originally posted by Z3R01

    It's not the size but how the zone is used that counts.

    I would rather a smaller zone with a variety of areas, mobs, quest content, dungeons and dynamic group focused mechanics than a big open dead world where it takes my ten minutes to mindlessly grind mobs.

    This thread has given me a bit of insight into maybe why I don't particularly care for themepark mmos.  Themeparks are packed full of mobs and content.  Take LOTRO for instance.  It was so packed with mobs it felt at times like I couldn't move 10 feet without catching agro.  It was exhausting.  By contrast, I found SWG much more relaxing.  I could explore, take in the sights, reflect.  There were mobs to kill but they were not every few feet.  And there were things to do, just not game directed tasks, but player directed.  I didn't mind travel times.  It was a journey and travelling was part of the adventure.

     

     

  • stayontargetstayontarget Member RarePosts: 6,519

    Originally posted by Terranah

    Originally posted by Z3R01

    It's not the size but how the zone is used that counts.

    I would rather a smaller zone with a variety of areas, mobs, quest content, dungeons and dynamic group focused mechanics than a big open dead world where it takes my ten minutes to mindlessly grind mobs.

    This thread has given me a bit of insight into maybe why I don't particularly care for themepark mmos.  Themeparks are packed full of mobs and content.  Take LOTRO for instance.  It was so packed with mobs it felt at times like I couldn't move 10 feet without catching agro.  It was exhausting.  By contrast, I found SWG much more relaxing.  I could explore, take in the sights, reflect.  There were mobs to kill but they were not every few feet.  And there were things to do, just not game directed tasks, but player directed.  I didn't mind travel times.  It was a journey and travelling was part of the adventure.

     

     

     That sounds more an issue of bad mob / world design.  Why do they always have to have mobs that agro everything so much that it impeads travel and exploration.  This has less to do about themepark or sandbox and more about Dev's failure at making an enjoyable world enviro.

    Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...

  • TerranahTerranah Member UncommonPosts: 3,575

    Originally posted by stayontarget

    Originally posted by Terranah


    Originally posted by Z3R01

    It's not the size but how the zone is used that counts.

    I would rather a smaller zone with a variety of areas, mobs, quest content, dungeons and dynamic group focused mechanics than a big open dead world where it takes my ten minutes to mindlessly grind mobs.

    This thread has given me a bit of insight into maybe why I don't particularly care for themepark mmos.  Themeparks are packed full of mobs and content.  Take LOTRO for instance.  It was so packed with mobs it felt at times like I couldn't move 10 feet without catching agro.  It was exhausting.  By contrast, I found SWG much more relaxing.  I could explore, take in the sights, reflect.  There were mobs to kill but they were not every few feet.  And there were things to do, just not game directed tasks, but player directed.  I didn't mind travel times.  It was a journey and travelling was part of the adventure.

     

     

     That sounds more an issue of bad mob / world design.  Why do they always have to have mobs that agro everything so much that it impeads travel and exploration.  This has less to do about themepark or sandbox and more about Dev's failure at making an enjoyable world enviro.

    You're right.

  • lthompson94lthompson94 Member Posts: 194

    Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

    Found some more info and put them in a picture.

     

    First the whole world of Tyria, incl all the continents of the expansions (Cantha, Elona, EotN areas) with Kalimdor in it as size comparison:

     

     

    And Asheron's Call's  Dereth, Darkfall's worldmap and the 2 largest continents of Vanguard, Thestra and Qalia (Kalimdor as comparison is in the DF worldmap):

     

    I think besides SWG and maybe EQ those are the biggest MMO worlds of the MMO's still active.

    AC's Dereth is stated to have a landmass of 576 sq miles, and VG's Thestra continent a landmass of 112.5 sq miles.

    That's kind of surprising.  I figured Vanguard to be massively larger than WoW.  But if you take all of WoW landmass (Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Outland, and Northrend) it's about the same size.  You figure Kalimdor = Eastern, Outland is reportedly the size of both continents combined (counting all the floating islands etc), and Northrend is supposedly even bigger than Outland.  I have not tested these reports on Outland and Northrend though, and you can't make a by-side map comparison since they are self contained maps.

    If this were true, WoW is looking a lot bigger than people give it credit for.  It just doesn't "feel" the size of Vanguard.  Hmmm, I'm going to have to look into that, maybe try to find some hard numbers on Outland/Northrend sizes.

     

    EDIT - It would appear that Outland being the size of the two continents combines is false.  It would appear it's roughly 6 x 6 miles, as opposed to 10 x 4 miles give or take for a full Azeroth continent, putting it roughly (a few miles smaller) than one Azeroth continent.  I haven't determined Northrend yet. 

    So, WoW fans, sorry, it's pretty small in terms of mass - even with Outland/Northrend/Cata.  I would guesstimate it to be about 4 times the size of Kalimdor, with all continents/maps being roughly the same size.

  • MMO.MaverickMMO.Maverick Member CommonPosts: 7,619

    Originally posted by lthompson94

    That's kind of surprising.  I figured Vanguard to be massively larger than WoW. 

    From what I recall from former investigating and measuring is that Vanguard's continent Dereth is about 3 times the size of Kalimdor. So that'd make Dereth about 1.5 times the landmass of WoW vanilla complete, or a bit larger than WoW vanilla with Outland combined.

    The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's

    The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
    Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."

  • wyldmagikwyldmagik Member UncommonPosts: 516

    Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

    Originally posted by lthompson94



    That's kind of surprising.  I figured Vanguard to be massively larger than WoW. 

    From what I recall from former investigating and measuring is that Vanguard's continent Dereth is about 3 times the size of Kalimdor. So that'd make Dereth about 1.5 times the landmass of WoW vanilla complete, or a bit larger than WoW vanilla with Outland combined.

    Dereth has nothing to do with vanguard its asherons call landmass.

  • MMO.MaverickMMO.Maverick Member CommonPosts: 7,619

    Originally posted by wyldmagik

    Originally posted by MMO.Maverick


    Originally posted by lthompson94



    That's kind of surprising.  I figured Vanguard to be massively larger than WoW. 

    From what I recall from former investigating and measuring is that Vanguard's continent Thestra is about 3 times the size of Kalimdor. So that'd make Thestra about 1.5 times the landmass of WoW vanilla complete, or a bit larger than WoW vanilla with Outland combined.

    Dereth has nothing to do with vanguard its asherons call landmass.

    Ah crap! Lol, I meant Thestra of course, replaced it in the quote above image

    The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's

    The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
    Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."

  • Mystais1Mystais1 Member Posts: 7

    Perhaps I missed it but I believe WWII Online has the largest world map, by far.  230km x 120km (non-instanced).

     

    http://battlegroundtools.com/maps/oldmaps/swgcomparebig.jpg

  • TamanousTamanous Member RarePosts: 3,025

    Goddamn I miss the old school exploration of Dereth :( .

     

    If Turbine doesn't revisit AC in the future I will be very upset ... and none of the AC2 style crap.

    You stay sassy!

  • xaritscinxaritscin Member UncommonPosts: 350

    i wonder how much have advanced the field of world simulation, i see the maps in this thread and i wonder if we can now create even bigger worlds. 

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403

    Originally posted by xaritscin

    and i wonder if we can now create even bigger worlds. 

    Yus.  Theoretically anyway.

    I've seen two engines make the claim that they have the capability of 100k players in a single zone.  That's double the (usual) max server operating capacity--can you imagine every player on the server gathering in one big combat zone?

    Now it's unlikely we'll ever see that, so there's never any real proof of such claims.  So take it with a grain of salt.

     

    Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.

  • xaritscinxaritscin Member UncommonPosts: 350

    i heard something about that in one of my concept threads, maybe the engines can do it but i still feel pissed that servers have to define it, because loading such a gigantic world with a huge population of characters at the same time its still a pain in the ass...

    also seeing that big worlds can be fun too, the problem is that there's not enough content, i think a good way to keep players interested would be to have big zones with few quests but few quests with great rewards, but because they need players to cross long distances, even they could use quest mounts or something like "ride this chariot throught this places and carry it with x item and take them to their final destination in x city or town" and you would have to deal with wandering mobs and the like...

  • DewmDewm Member UncommonPosts: 1,337

     

    I don't know about "distance running, or driving. or warping"  

     

    BUT I do know from my experience that FFXI was much larger then WoW, with wow I could run S. to N. in around 30 minutes.

    in FFXI I would take close to a hour. I mean going from Sand'o ria (sp?) to the dunes took almost 30 minutes running flat out.

     

    And as far as EVE is concerned. I've heard that you can "travel from one side to the other without warps"....I call bull, untill someone has done it...or even from one star system to the next....I call bull.

     

     

    Please check out my channel. I do gaming reviews, gaming related reviews & lets plays. Thanks!
    https://www.youtube.com/user/BettyofDewm/videos

  • jpnzjpnz Member Posts: 3,529

    Originally posted by Dewm

     

    I don't know about "distance running, or driving. or warping"  

     

    BUT I do know from my experience that FFXI was much larger then WoW, with wow I could run S. to N. in around 30 minutes.

    in FFXI I would take close to a hour. I mean going from Sand'o ria (sp?) to the dunes took almost 30 minutes running flat out.

     

    And as far as EVE is concerned. I've heard that you can "travel from one side to the other without warps"....I call bull, untill someone has done it...or even from one star system to the next....I call bull.

     

     

    You can not travel from 'one side to the other without warps' in EVE.

    That is factually false.

    There are games that lets you do that though.

    The Elite series and the Evochron series comes to mind.

    Gdemami -
    Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.

  • ArcheAgeArcheAge Member Posts: 363

    Originally posted by jpnz

    Originally posted by Dewm

     

    I don't know about "distance running, or driving. or warping"  

     

    BUT I do know from my experience that FFXI was much larger then WoW, with wow I could run S. to N. in around 30 minutes.

    in FFXI I would take close to a hour. I mean going from Sand'o ria (sp?) to the dunes took almost 30 minutes running flat out.

     

    And as far as EVE is concerned. I've heard that you can "travel from one side to the other without warps"....I call bull, untill someone has done it...or even from one star system to the next....I call bull.

     

     

    You can not travel from 'one side to the other without warps' in EVE.

    That is factually false.

    There are games that lets you do that though.

    The Elite series and the Evochron series comes to mind.

    Vanguard is one of those games as well.

  • ArcheAgeArcheAge Member Posts: 363

    Originally posted by xaritscin

    i heard something about that in one of my concept threads, maybe the engines can do it but i still feel pissed that servers have to define it, because loading such a gigantic world with a huge population of characters at the same time its still a pain in the ass...

    also seeing that big worlds can be fun too, the problem is that there's not enough content, i think a good way to keep players interested would be to have big zones with few quests but few quests with great rewards, but because they need players to cross long distances, even they could use quest mounts or something like "ride this chariot throught this places and carry it with x item and take them to their final destination in x city or town" and you would have to deal with wandering mobs and the like...

    Vanguard has a vast world with vast amounts of content,you could play for 2-3 years and not see a lot of content,especially lower level content.

     

  • ArcheAgeArcheAge Member Posts: 363

    Originally posted by xaritscin

    i wonder how much have advanced the field of world simulation, i see the maps in this thread and i wonder if we can now create even bigger worlds. 

    Hold on to your seatbelt..

    http://www.mmoculture.com/2011/03/darkness-and-light-epic-mmo-in-making.html

  • SirLornSirLorn Member UncommonPosts: 212

    Here are some other sources for DnL, these give you a better visual relation to just how big it was besides the #'s and map allrdy posted....

    Just putting the links - 

    http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/577/darkmaphighqual8pc.jpg

    Kingdom Al Drifa - http://bjorlyn.tripod.com/mapofaldrifa.pdf

    Kingdom Light - http://bjorlyn.tripod.com/mapoflight.pdf

     

     

  • ArcheAgeArcheAge Member Posts: 363

    Originally posted by SirLorn

    Here are some other sources for DnL, these give you a better visual relation to just how big it was besides the #'s and map allrdy posted....

    Just putting the links - 

    http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/577/darkmaphighqual8pc.jpg

    Kingdom Al Drifa - http://bjorlyn.tripod.com/mapofaldrifa.pdf

    Kingdom Light - http://bjorlyn.tripod.com/mapoflight.pdf

     

     

    The game i linked is not Dark and Light,it's being totally remade and the world and lore has nothing to do with the old DnL.

    Dark and Light was 15.000 sq miles the new Darkness and Light will be 40.000sq miles.

    Dark and Light was big though,it was massive so 40.000sq must really be unthinkable lol.

    I was in beta and played the game long after many had left,even when it went FTP i was still there on and off.

  • SirLornSirLorn Member UncommonPosts: 212

    I am aware that what I linked is from NPCube's and Farlain version....I was typing mine up and you posted your reply....coincedence, also aware of the Snail games development, it is a new graphics engine, but they are still using the mafet engine, and hopefully the same world size...so calm down =P

     

    My guild and I were also in the 'beta-gift' release ourselves...

  • ArcheAgeArcheAge Member Posts: 363

    Originally posted by SirLorn

    I am aware that what I linked is from NPCube's and Farlain version....I was typing mine up and you posted your reply....coincedence, also aware of the Snail games development, it is a new graphics engine, but they are still using the mafet engine, and hopefully the same world size...so calm down =P

     

    My guild and I were also in the 'beta-gift' release ourselves...

    Lol, i am calm but as for world size,nope it will not be the same.

    Darkness & Light will be 40.000 Sq miles

    Dark & Light was 15.000 Sq miles so we are in for a vast world which makes the first Dark & Light look small.

  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441

    Originally posted by Terranah

    This thread has given me a bit of insight into maybe why I don't particularly care for themepark mmos.  Themeparks are packed full of mobs and content.  Take LOTRO for instance.  It was so packed with mobs it felt at times like I couldn't move 10 feet without catching agro.  It was exhausting.  By contrast, I found SWG much more relaxing.  I could explore, take in the sights, reflect.  There were mobs to kill but they were not every few feet.  And there were things to do, just not game directed tasks, but player directed.  I didn't mind travel times.  It was a journey and travelling was part of the adventure.

    I don't really see how that is a themepark Vs sandbox thing. You can easily make a sandbox packed with mobs or a themepark with large empty areas (Vanguard comes to mind).

    Exploration work in both types as EQ already have proven, the issue here is more that many companies puts in too many weak mobs everywhere because they think that is more fun that fewer more powerful. It isn't.

    There is a perfect amount of content in a certain space, the real problem is that most modern games have a rather small world so they press in as much junk as they can there, even if that kills of part of the immersion with MMOs.

    I am not really for the old 8 hours journey to get from Freep to Kel every time, then the journey in itself gets boring but I am for large open areas with lots of space for exploration. MMO forests just doesn't feel like a forest anymore because they are just a few trees with almost as many trashmobs as trees in.

  • SirLornSirLorn Member UncommonPosts: 212

    Yeah I know that's what the person on MMOculture says....but folks don't realize that NPCube Farlan brought Snail onboard back in the day....they obviouslly have rights on the IP now.....and it says they will use the Mafate engine, maybe they added more....but I doubt it, until we get some real info from Snail Games, it is speculation.....here

    http://www.snailgame.net/en/dnl_e.shtml

     

    They have been working with the original since like 05.....

  • ArcheAgeArcheAge Member Posts: 363

    Originally posted by SirLorn

    Yeah I know that's what the person on MMOculture says....but folks don't realize that NPCube Farlan brought Snail onboard back in the day....they obviouslly have rights on the IP now.....and it says they will use the Mafate engine, maybe they added more....but I doubt it, until we get some real info from Snail Games, it is speculation.....here

    http://www.snailgame.net/en/dnl_e.shtml

     

    They have been working with the original since like 05.....

    I am not one of those folks lol,i know all about Farlan/NPCube and SnailGames and yes i know they have been working on the game since 05 lol.

     

    Savage horizon was Dark&Light but with a different name for the china market.

    Darkness & Light is not savage horizon it's the whole game reworked. The towns cities and lore are complently different.

    Ive actually got a recent vid of the new Darkness and Light but i can't locate it. 

     

    Ah here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12xsh4DP4h0  not much though..

    Also visit the Dark&Light forums you should still be able to log in with your old account..

    A few of us are still there..

    http://www.darkandlight.com/forum/showthread.php?t=72716

    Added more what?

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