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First Impressions.
BarCrow
Member UncommonPosts: 2,195
I broke down and bought the game. Great so far...but man..the instancing. They should call this game Pocket Worlds. I hear so much complaining about instancing and lack of an open world in other MMos and then this comes out...and so many seem to like it so much. People who complained that SWTOR was instanced to hell yet dont find this worse in that way...are talking out of their arse.
Only thing that has really bothered me so far is instancing...usually it doesnt but this game seems extreme with the "swirling portals".
Combats cool. Wish it wasnt tab targetting and more like TERA or RaiderZ but still very fun imo. I like the gradual upgrade and unlocks of skills without seeing a trainer. I know you'll need tol ater for some things but not at the beginning.. The items you can pick up off the ground and use (RaiderZ does this too). All add a little something different and keeps it a bit fresh. The community areas/quests are great. Mobs dont seem to fuck around here...and the last ditch efforts (downtime recovery) is great.
I like the customization....right now I'd say its "baby bear". Just right. Though more is always good with customizing an avatar. I especially like that you can change the basic colors (the ones you have a choice of in character creation) of your gear without paying in the market.
Quests and stories are engaging enough and the world looks fantastic. I have 3.4 ghz cpu i7 2600..8 gig ram..win7 (64)..gtx580 and it runs great. Usually 45-60 with vert sync on with all settings maxed. Pretty bad server lag at times but it just launched so that will clear up I'm sure.
I haven't made it too far yet....10th level Char Warrior....5th level Human thief....but I think I can safely recommend the game to those who are not all about end game.. Hell if its no hurry for you wait a few months..I'm sure the box price will drop....as it does with most games ("fail" or not). then its smooth sailing. The shop doesnt seem to have much of importance ..well...it really has nothing you need..so this can truly be B2P.
Well just a quick 2 cents at the start...
Comments
I don't see as so much instancing like you seems to see.
There is of cource Zone instance to another zone but the zones are really big no cave instances they are all open.
Then ofc its the personal story yes those is complete instance there is a reason for it wich you can look up yourself.
Then we have the other swirling portals as you say, those are only to travel long distances to other races capitol cities and the last one is PVP.
So no I dont see how this can be almost the same as SWTOR.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
I always looked at zoning as the layers on top of each other..mirror maps..of a sorts to handle load. Instancing I always viewed as having to enter a doorway/portal to get to another area of the world or "inside" of something..like a dungeon..or building..ship..whatever. The former as I view it is fine...i having no problem with zoning.the latter... Instancing as I view it... is annoying to me as it breaks the illusion of a wide open world. Especially with noticable load times.
If I made a map..and cut it into even pieces. Allowing you to examine a piece of the world separately from another person. That's how I see instancing.
Now take each piece and copy it 50 times to create a stack. Allowing more than one person at a time to see that section of the map. That is how I view zoning.
Simply put. maybe too simply.lol.
I might have it reversed to the way it actually works. Conceptually anyway,
This has been explained before but I'll put it here as well. All MMO's are zoned/instanced. Even World of Warcraft...Some games are better at hiding it than others. For instance WoW; it uses a combination of terrain sewing and server bridging to achieve what looks like an open world when it is actually a collection of seperate zones. You don't notice that you are moving form zone to zone because things are preloaded once you reach the threshold of the previous zone. So the player has no clue that somethng was loaded. On lower end systems you may notice a slight stutter for a second or two and then you're right back to the action.
But yes...all MMO's are zoned. Guild Wars 2 does it to keep sys req's low and server costs at a minimum. Very smart on their part. Not to mention the zones are HUGE!
Combat doesn't have to be tab targetting, play with the targetting option in settings and you can manually aim to your hearts content, but good luck.
When you swing your sword in GW2, it doesn't matter if your target is behind you. If there are MOBs in the swords path, they are taking damage.
Former xFire user... I only wanted a game tracker and messenger, not a screenshot taker, video recording, broadcasting piece of bloatware.
I dont need it explained. i understand that all mmos are zoned/instanced. That alone is not my issue. Some are just more obvious than others. i appreciate it when a developer will go out of the way to make it SEEM as seamless as possible. Unlike some others ...i don't see this game as transitioning seemlessy.
I don't hate the game..just think they..and other developers...could have aimed at a smoother transitioning from one zone/instance to another.
i also get some annoying loading times..so maybe its just launch lag for now..hopefully it goes away.
None of its game-breaking though.
Thanks for the tip...
A simple explanation: Travelling between Divinity's Reach and Queensdale shows you zoning. DR is a zone and QD is another zone, so it's zoning. Going into a Personal Story area is instancing, because you go to a different (from those of other players) instance/version of that zone. So yes, I think you've got it backwards.
Zoning doesn't bother me much. Especially because GW2's zones are huge. You can spend over ten hours in a lvl 1-15 zone, only facing loading screens when you go to a city or a personal story instance.
Obvious zoning makes a huge difference.
I hope it's updated in the future.
Zoning isn't as bad as in Swtor though. Let's break it down in Swtor.
It'd basically just take some UI tweaks to make the combat more like Tera's. You can even dodge your opponents, just by breaking range or LOS. Took me a while to realize this, because it uses such a familiar tab target setup. It's really more of a hybrid, though.
As for the instancing.. yeah, the reason I don't complain about it, is that it's not the kind of instancing that bothers me. It's just the personal story which uses the kind of instancing I hate, and that's just a tiny part of the game.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
It's the overflow "zone" that sucks. Considering probably 80% of the time playing pve is spent in an "overflow" it means that 80% (or more) of the people you're pve'ing with aren't even from your home server. Makes community pointless, and to quote many of my former posts, makes reputation not only not matter, but makes it not even exist.
In that definition, almost all MMOs are instanced, since they use multiple servers to segregate the population. I beilieve EvE uses one server though. Some one correct me if i'm wrong though.
Overflow will go away over time. The game hasn't even been out for a week yet, so that means most servers are at capacity, and that's why people are moved to overflow. They are already opening 2 more German servers, and one more French server in Europe. This means they are opening servers based on concurrent users and opening new servers when it's needed, instead of opening 20 more, then having to merge them or shut them down in 6 months from now. I'd also rather be playing in an overflow server, than waiting in line just to play. Queue times is a terrible service.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Well i will be lol at for getting technical :P
I think it is good people understand exactly what a game does.
A ZONE is also a map,the reason it is called a zone is because EVERY map NEEDS ZONAL properties.You can have several zone properties throughout that same map/zone.MOST people relate to a zone by the visual crossing from one map to another,however zones can be right in front of you but invisible to the eye.
Example friction/gravity is a zone property.The more properties and setting everything in the game has the more depth it allows.More examples can be lighting/fog there can be zone sounds/music tons of options.
An INSTANCE is what someone menmtioned a mirror copy of a map that only certain people can enter.it would lock out the rest of the gamers not in your group/alliance.It basically separates your group from the game world population.Instances USUALLY have a maximum while world zones/maps might not.
Personally zones never bothered me,instances sort of do bother me because they contradict MMO gaming.
What i really don't like is server instances.This is because i like to see all the people on my server,i want to run into them and say hi everyday.if they are on a different instance everyday,then it ruins total immersion for that world.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Zone channels wouldn't be enough to solve the problem. Lots of MMOs have zone channels, but they can still only fit so many people on a server. Tera didn't have a problem, because it didn't have as big of a launch. SWTOR and Rift make better comparisons. They had channels, but still needed queues.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Right what's the difference of:
1. Real Lions Arch
2. Overflows of Lions Arch or Instance 2,3,4 of Lions Arch
?
The only way a game is non-instanced is if everyone in the game or on a server (I'll count that to) can all be in the same area at the same time. Cities or Dungeons. Now face it there are a lot of loud mouths that will not be happy until that happens and scream bloody murder on a MMO if it doesn't. We are now far away from that and that comes with a whole series of issues as well. But some have that stuck as that is THEE definitive measure of a MMO and those that don't adhere can be bashed with no end.
This game is instanced I feel in the general terms most use. What makes it better then GW1 is there are huge area's where many can be at once conducting battle, GW1 did not have that. But nowhere near everyone... off to Overflow for those beyond that limit and who knows how many overflows there are? So overflows are basically an intance. I don't hate on the game for that, but I feel it's honest and calls spades spades.
I agree WoW has better instancing. But I do not see the problem in GW2. Yes you have to instance for story, but thats to be expected and if your going to complain about it then I bet you the same person who would complain that people keep killing you story boss int he open world if these instances were removed....think about it.
Secondly stating that swtor has better instances shows a lot ignorance of both games or shows that your a troll.
I had to deal with 2-3 loading screens to cross the galaxy in thw swtor. GW2 has the option for you to load ONCE to anywhere you like, twice if you wanna keep costs down.
Where this also differs to swtor is that you don't need to instances as often. Trooper storyline anyone? how many times to corusant and back di you have to do just to talk to one npc?
I played through the entire starting zone of gw2 for charr, i went to the city 3 times (thats 6 lots of loading) before i complated the zone (which took me a long while)
The way I see it is if you are having to load a lot you playing wrong and move around too much. Don't blame a game for you tarded playstyle.
If you continue to make sweeping statements like you know what everyone everywhere thinks about a certain topic then I am going to shout at you.
It easy to type 'I think this is the worst game ever'
Rather than the 'This is the worst game ever'
Someone took the terrain files and pieced them all together as a map and then transposed it onto a globe. It made me feel better knowing the world was at least created as a whole even if they are cut up into zones like EQ. The amazing part is how little both the GW1 and GW2 content is on the total map:
Nice. thanks for the info.