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What are zones?
Gintoh
Member UncommonPosts: 329
And what does a zoneless world mean?
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Gintoh
Member UncommonPosts: 329
And what does a zoneless world mean?
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Zones are different area's in a game, it's like the game world was cut up into little sections. The sections are generally divided by loading screens.
By a zoneless world I will assume you mean a seamless world or an open world. A seamless world is one were you could literally run from one end of the game world to the other without ever encountering a loading screen.
Where a game with zones is like a bunch of tiny worlds linked together with loading screens a seamless world is one large world.
A zone is simply an area that you load into in a game. Generally when people refer to "zoneless", they mean that you can walk around the world without loading screens, though technically any game can have distinct areas that they call zones even without loading screens.
Do all the top 10 MMORPG have Zoned world or Seamless world?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
zoned games somethimes are much better that seamless because dev can put more stuff in there and game performs betterBestSigEver :P
There are a lot of both games. WoW and Lotro are seamless, whereas AoC and EQ2 have zoned world.
Zoned world allows the developers to use a little better graphics, as the graphics can be loaded when player is waiting in loading screen. Whereas seamless games can be more pleasant and immersive as there aren't artificial boundaries or wait on loading screens, especially in a game with flying mounts like WoW loading screens as you fly around would be irritating.
But even the seamless world games can have really good graphics (Lotro), and zones in zoned world games can be really big. Ultimately the difference between them isn't so large.
Ever play Warhammer Online? In that game you pass to the next zone and you hit a loading screen.
Thats a "Zoned Game"
In a game like WoW when you pass through to another zone you get no loading screen it just puts the name of the zone on your screen and thats it. Thats a "seemless world".
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Just thought I'd add that even the seamless worlds are zoned in the sense that they have distinct areas. And that usually Seamless means a wide seam with nothing going on in them except for terrain.
Might have a single wandering mob here and there that wanders from zone to zone but the seam is there. The new zone is just loaded in the background while you still get to play.
Ofcourse from a user perspective if you get the message "Loading, please wait" on your screen that is definalty a seam.
If the developers did place some content on the seamless border you would end up pulling your hair out from lag in fights and mobs running back to their spawn point cause their tether doesnt reach the other zone.
Though in PvP games both the seamless and clearly defined borders work for ganking as killing someone while their computer has to do a lot of work to show the new zone while still having the old zone loaded in memory is huge advantage. Usually means they can see you, attack, and kill you before you even know they are there.
In some seamless worlds, though, you aren't channeled through a mountain pass or similar funnel between zones. Unless you stick to the main road, So atleast there you have a much greater chance of avoiding the gank.
This also works in PvE though, as many EQ players will remember. "Keep Right When Zoning" or you run the risk of loading straight into a train dumped at the exit.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."