If every gamer played games for travel and exploration this would be a no brainer.
The thing is gamers have different motivations for playing MMOs so - sadly no, not all games need a huge wlderness area.
Wilderness shouldn't just remotely constitute about travel and exploration. Of course there should be NPCs/Mobs and compelling content in between. When I speak about Wilderness, I am simply not implying just 3d models of environment every where with nothing to fight or do.
I think rift had the right idea with how to do open world content. GW2 does it as well but I dont think as interactive as rift, but zone events mattered and left a lasting effect if not done. Monsters could take over certain areas and destroy things making the world feel alive and that an adventurer's actions mattered. Also the level scaling and giving end game rewards for participating even if they happened in low level areas wasnt a bad idea as well.
I see a lot of people talk about housing in MMO's but most of the recent releases address this with instanced housing.
One of the things SWG did so well was to provide enough terrain that anyone could go out and place a house pretty much anywhere they wanted and not have to worry about cluttering up the landscape.
This led to player made towns and opened up all sorts of opportunities for the players, from making a mall to pvp battles between factions. It's a shame that this has been missing from MMO's for so long.
A big world with plenty of open space not only allows for exploration but for real communities to form. I'm all for it.
To me the majority of fun in almost any game is exploring the world...imo that has what has hurt the MMO genre more than anything is the lack of exploration....The genre became so obsessed with quests that it forgot about the world...We went from brave explorers to mindless quest zombies who just went thru the motions on our way to max level.....Many of us for years have been saying give us a game with great exploration and we havent got it yet.
To me the majority of fun in almost any game is exploring the world...imo that has what has hurt the MMO genre more than anything is the lack of exploration....The genre became so obsessed with quests that it forgot about the world...We went from brave explorers to mindless quest zombies who just went thru the motions on our way to max level.....Many of us for years have been saying give us a game with great exploration and we havent got it yet.
I love exploration too. So much that I love metroidvania games. Because in them, even when I've fully explored an area and found all it's secrets... there are still things that stick out as being explorable. I have to take note of them and come back later when I have more abilities that give me more exploration options (like wall jumping, breaking barriers, keys, etc).
If every gamer played games for travel and exploration this would be a no brainer.
The thing is gamers have different motivations for playing MMOs so - sadly no, not all games need a huge wlderness area.
Wilderness shouldn't just remotely constitute about travel and exploration. Of course there should be NPCs/Mobs and compelling content in between. When I speak about Wilderness, I am simply not implying just 3d models of environment every where with nothing to fight or do.
I know what you meant as far also including other content.
However my point stands - there are essentially types of gamers that have next to zero tolerance for "not being in the middle of the action" within 1 min of logging in.
This is why fast travel, LFG, teleport to friend/group and many other convenience features kept getting added over time - as a large % of active playerbase became averse to MMOs with lots of "dead time" (travel, setting up groups, etc...)
This is directly opposite of your "I like MMOs that take a lot of time" player who is a minority today.
I know this is off the subject but I believe this is valid. I would say its safe to assume most of the MMMORPG players that played in the Pre-WoW era were the vast majority of MMO players who wanted this sort of game play experience. Everquest, DAoC, SWG to name a few. WoW essentially brought in non-mmo players into the genre that most won't appreciate the foundation what really makes a true MMORPG. Community, Immersion, and world experience, not lobby games. The argument that this style of gameplay is rare may seem that way because of the flood of non-mmo players in the post WoW era.
Any thoughts on any interesting places anyone would like to explore in my game world map?
I find the Northeastern corner of the map to have quite a bit of potential.
Stone Forest sounds like it could be a pretty neat little area to explore. Plus, you have a mountain/cliff city nearby - Yodiah. You've also got a "Dragon Sanctum" dungeon deeper past the Forest.
If you have any type of activity related to water/marine life, sailing, etc., then just on the other side of the peaks you have the Bay Barbarian. The Bay is a nice little enclosed water zone which could be tapped into. Though, the name sounds weird.
To top that off, on the opposite side you have a mini-"Great Wall of China". If that were something you could trek across, that'd be quite a view.
Other areas of interest: - Eternal Blizzard is like a giant flashing beacon saying "Don't go this way", so naturally I would want to go there.
- Obek's Mirror: exploring a mountain lake and following its attached river to the sea to see where it goes.
- Hoarfrost Dragonlands: Given there's a raid zone in the back, and the ominous frost/fog shrouding the area on the map, it appears as a challenge. Honestly, that area sort of reminds of of the Western Wastes or whatever it was called in EQ1. Plus, I just like frozen landscapes.
Well as i often do i will use a reference. Vanguard was huge and it became a very early problem,it made areas look empty,made the game look empty. Also what i have seen games do to create that lost feeling is just take a smallish map and wind you around in a circle 10x where if was a straight line would take 3 minutes.
Yes i love discovery but i want it to be meaningful or even to support the LORE.I feel Super Mario is a really bad analogy because that si the sort of thing i detest in these modern games,they are becoming too silly with ideas that do not support the LORE one bit.Perfect example ,in GW2 that super mario map,to me that looks out of place and just silly.
What these games lack,at least for me ,is realism,plausible ideas but for too many all they want is silliness,like jumping games and puzzles and races.You know this is SUPPOSE to be a ROLE playing game,not a cartwheel park,although you'd never know it since games have so many characters doing somersaults and back flips. I do not think one developer sits there BEFORE making the game and asks him/herself what a world would be like and does it make sense.I can tell what type of developer i am dealing with in the first 2 minutes of a game,i know right away if i want out or continue to see further.
Super Mario was not an analogy, I was simply stating that is where my love for game design started. I don't know how you got that as an analogy though?
I do agree that the game world needs to follow a rule set and that rule set is established by lore with substance and purpose.
I do agree, I sometimes feel like I am not even apart of a game world and I am playing side games in a console game. It is quite annoying, WoW and GW2 do what you describe.
Vanguards problem wasn't size it was lack of content with the size and a low player population. It wasn't a really true testament to the game or the size of the game because it was released before it was truly finished. Unfortunately, Vanguard is the only MMO that we could compare it too because that's all we have in a way.
Lack of content lol, don't know which Vanguard you were playing but it didn't suffer from lack of content. At first it had no end game raiding but most of the group dungeons were like raids compared to some mmo's.
Some took days to complete and spanned multiple levels.
You could play the game for months and not see a lot of content. In fact after seven years I still could find quests that I hadn't done. The game shipped with over 100 dungeons, some of these were vast.
A vast world is not meant to have a city round every corner or npc's at every turn.
Nope, Vanguard had it's problems but content wasn't one of them. The raid situation changed as time went on starting with Ancient Port Warehouse.
You could run for several minutes in vanguard without seeing any mobs NPCs nothing. That definitely is lacking content. The sheet gap between various content heavy areas made it seem remarkably empty.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Many actually prefer smaller worlds or quick travel options to skip the boring parts.
A large world to explore first has to have a good reason to do, except for one type of gamer tours of the scenery hold little appeal.
In the real world wilderness is actually quite dull. You can go for miles and miles seeing virtually nothing but more rock, desert, snow, forest with little else of interest.
I think I would prefer a "smaller world" with more activities than a huge empty one.
Also, IMO MMORPGS are best when they encourage player interaction and vast worlds can inhibit this as complained about by some in Vanguard.
There are solutions for that, and besides even in small worlds do those players use fast travel all the time. The actual large wilderness is only a problem for that type of player the first time they go from point a to b.
I like the wilderness IRL, there is actually a lot to see but some enjoy that, others don't. Of course, certain type of wilderness are more interesting then others.
But of course a huge randomly generated forest with nothing in besides a few homicidal wolfs gets boring, exploring a forest should both give you some places with rare plants for crafting, a few old ruins, some rare spawns and more then a little fluff they thrown in to make the place more interesting.
Still, I agree with OP. Old mysterious woods have been part of RPGs since D&D first came out. And I like exploring as long as there actually is things to find.
To me the majority of fun in almost any game is exploring the world...imo that has what has hurt the MMO genre more than anything is the lack of exploration....The genre became so obsessed with quests that it forgot about the world...We went from brave explorers to mindless quest zombies who just went thru the motions on our way to max level.....Many of us for years have been saying give us a game with great exploration and we havent got it yet.
Exploration is a byproduct of open world game-play.. It's not something that holds up very well for long term play. Once you've seen it, you've seen it. Even large game worlds take little time to fully explore.
It's also especially troublesome in extreme level based scenarios without some type of scaling. As you run out of go to areas rather fast. This is why quest content is the go to content delivery device. It's easier to offer in an ongoing cost effective way. The second easiest is dungeon/boss content. Exploration not so much, that takes introducing large scale areas on a routine basis. WHich would require making them interesting as well... How would any company do that?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
You could run for several minutes in vanguard without seeing any mobs NPCs nothing. That definitely is lacking content. The sheet gap between various content heavy areas made it seem remarkably empty.
It was the same way in SWG, especially on what were dubbed adventure worlds... It was large swaths of generated trees and plants, with little in the way of hand made content. Most of it was good for nothing more than mob grinding. Even the POIs left a lot to be desired.
Large worlds need real content, that is the crux of the problem, it's simply smarter to build smaller worlds with little travel in between content hubs. You keep people engaged easier that way.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I know this is off the subject but I believe this is valid. I would say its safe to assume most of the MMMORPG players that played in the Pre-WoW era were the vast majority of MMO players who wanted this sort of game play experience. Everquest, DAoC, SWG to name a few. WoW essentially brought in non-mmo players into the genre that most won't appreciate the foundation what really makes a true MMORPG. Community, Immersion, and world experience, not lobby games. The argument that this style of gameplay is rare may seem that way because of the flood of non-mmo players in the post WoW era.
In the early days most didn't know what they wanted in these games because they were new. In those days there were no real expectations because many were playing their first or second MMORPG. Even the devs were winging it, offering what they could deliver at the time. Which were large worlds with mostly generated terrain, featuring a few POIs strung around to serve as "content" (highly static areas with mobs that served no purpose but to die, and a few assets put together by hand for eye or nostalgia candy).
As time went on expectations grew, people expected the worlds to offer something more than generated terrain and static mobs that told no story. Here we are.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
population has and always will be biggest problem.... not size of wilderness...
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Well as i often do i will use a reference. Vanguard was huge and it became a very early problem,it made areas look empty,made the game look empty. Also what i have seen games do to create that lost feeling is just take a smallish map and wind you around in a circle 10x where if was a straight line would take 3 minutes.
Yes i love discovery but i want it to be meaningful or even to support the LORE.I feel Super Mario is a really bad analogy because that si the sort of thing i detest in these modern games,they are becoming too silly with ideas that do not support the LORE one bit.Perfect example ,in GW2 that super mario map,to me that looks out of place and just silly.
What these games lack,at least for me ,is realism,plausible ideas but for too many all they want is silliness,like jumping games and puzzles and races.You know this is SUPPOSE to be a ROLE playing game,not a cartwheel park,although you'd never know it since games have so many characters doing somersaults and back flips. I do not think one developer sits there BEFORE making the game and asks him/herself what a world would be like and does it make sense.I can tell what type of developer i am dealing with in the first 2 minutes of a game,i know right away if i want out or continue to see further.
Wow, I've never heard anyone bad mouth Super Mario World lol. You really do hate all games don't you? Are you going to yell at me to get off your lawn next?
Any thoughts on any interesting places anyone would like to explore in my game world map?
I find the Northeastern corner of the map to have quite a bit of potential.
Stone Forest sounds like it could be a pretty neat little area to explore. Plus, you have a mountain/cliff city nearby - Yodiah. You've also got a "Dragon Sanctum" dungeon deeper past the Forest.
If you have any type of activity related to water/marine life, sailing, etc., then just on the other side of the peaks you have the Bay Barbarian. The Bay is a nice little enclosed water zone which could be tapped into. Though, the name sounds weird.
To top that off, on the opposite side you have a mini-"Great Wall of China". If that were something you could trek across, that'd be quite a view.
Other areas of interest: - Eternal Blizzard is like a giant flashing beacon saying "Don't go this way", so naturally I would want to go there.
- Obek's Mirror: exploring a mountain lake and following its attached river to the sea to see where it goes.
- Hoarfrost Dragonlands: Given there's a raid zone in the back, and the ominous frost/fog shrouding the area on the map, it appears as a challenge. Honestly, that area sort of reminds of of the Western Wastes or whatever it was called in EQ1. Plus, I just like frozen landscapes.
Thanks for your feedback! I find it interesting how different people would enjoy different biomes/regions in my game world map.
I believe there is a realistic Stone Forest somewhere in Asia and I got the idea from there. It's also a rough terrain to navigate as a player and you could get lost. There are many Dragons that still dwell there. What makes the Stone Forest a very compelling but yet horrifying place is that there are Stone Creatures that camouflage perfectly within the stone structures and could sneak attack players at any moment. There will be a bit of suspense in that zone.
In the second age, The Age of Kings, the Dragon Sanctum use to be the Throne to the Dragon King. Now in the sixth age, The Age of Tranquility, Dragons are remote and sparse. Dragon Sanctum is controlled by a shadowy sect called the Shar which is the main antagonist NPC. They are attempting to resurrect the Spirit of the Dragon King there.
I don't have much marine or underwater content planned. Bay Barbarian does sound weird, actually sounds like something you'd hear on a Godzilla movie lol. The idea for Bay Barbarian is simply a coastal region where barbaric viking like tribes dwell.
The Attican Wall is something of wonder. It was constructed in the fifth age, The Age of Judges by the Judge Attican. It was a means to keep outsides from entering this known world because of the blight stain it left. It was essentially an effort to keep the evil that has been done in this part away from other regions.
The Eternal Blizzard is also constructed by the Judge Eternai to keep everyone out from the Northern Lands of Guratos. Players can enter the Eternal Blizzard but will eventually die as you will get lost. Also there are tower sized icicle spikes that will rain upon players that will instantly kill them. The Attican Wall, Eternal Blizzard and Wandering Sands are 'natural' boarders to keep players in the known world. Of course they each of those three will garner access to expansions . The Wandering Sands gives players, some Fever that will make you lose your sense of direction so you'd wander until you die.
I could imagine Obek's Mirror to be a gorgeous sight for players. Unfortunately, on the other end of the lake is the Helm of De'marr, a Noble House built for conquest.
Everquest's arctic zones in Velious were fantastic, Great Divide, Eastern and Western Wastes were great. Hoarfrost Dragonlands are also another Dragon centric zone. Gonthos is apart of the Frost Tail Clan of Dragons and wants to reclaim himself as the new Dragon King. Lair of Gonthos is the first Raid Campaign for players to get flagged for raiding.
You could run for several minutes in vanguard without seeing any mobs NPCs nothing. That definitely is lacking content. The sheet gap between various content heavy areas made it seem remarkably empty.
I agree. The poster above you disagreed though. I thought more zones should be populated with more NPC mobs. I did really enjoy Vanguard it did Wilderness good but the landscapes where not as compelling as I'd hoped they would be. But again it was an unfinished game. It's not a bad thing if a zone or two has empty areas to give an eerie empty vibe to it but not every zone of course.
I'm all for having a vast world of 'unexplored' wilderness as long as there are useful things you can do there. If there are sights to see, new, unique creatures to fight, hidden dungeons to find, etc. that's fine. If it all looks the same and is loaded with the same kinds of boring creatures and encounters throughout then why bother with it? For a vast wilderness to work It has to make people want to explore and not make them wish they had some sort of fast travel to bypass it. To accomplish that you need to make it rewarding for the player to take the road less traveled (or no road at all). You could stick to the main road or use some means of fast travel but then you might be missing a rare boss encounter with a legendary item drop, not find that buried treasure, miss out on being the first to enter a new hidden dungeon, or not get the crafting materials you need to make your new weapon. Not only does it have to look great but also it needs the possibility of rewarding the player somehow.
You could run for several minutes in vanguard without seeing any mobs NPCs nothing. That definitely is lacking content. The sheet gap between various content heavy areas made it seem remarkably empty.
I agree. The poster above you disagreed though. I thought more zones should be populated with more NPC mobs. I did really enjoy Vanguard it did Wilderness good but the landscapes where not as compelling as I'd hoped they would be. But again it was an unfinished game. It's not a bad thing if a zone or two has empty areas to give an eerie empty vibe to it but not every zone of course.
Well, not everywhere in a huge wood should have loads of mobs and stuff, you just need enough hot spots to make exploration fun and rewarding. A huge wood full of critters every yard can be annoying.
There is a perfect ratio between empty and full that makes exploration most fun, but I think you need some testing to get it just right. VG might have had a bit too little of it.
I'm all for having a vast world of 'unexplored' wilderness as long as there are useful things you can do there. If there are sights to see, new, unique creatures to fight, hidden dungeons to find, etc. that's fine. If it all looks the same and is loaded with the same kinds of boring creatures and encounters throughout then why bother with it? For a vast wilderness to work It has to make people want to explore and not make them wish they had some sort of fast travel to bypass it. To accomplish that you need to make it rewarding for the player to take the road less traveled (or no road at all). You could stick to the main road or use some means of fast travel but then you might be missing a rare boss encounter with a legendary item drop, not find that buried treasure, miss out on being the first to enter a new hidden dungeon, or not get the crafting materials you need to make your new weapon. Not only does it have to look great but also it needs the possibility of rewarding the player somehow.
Indeed, a huge wilderness area filled with just wolfs is a waste of space.
As for the fast travel options I wouldn't include it until you at least been to both the starting point and your goal at least once by slow traveling. Exploring is fun and I think most players agree with that, but really long time going to and from the same places many times can feel tedious for most of us. Particularly if the content you pass is far below you in level.
This is a difference of opinion on what is immersive. Most people don't seem to find traveling immersive. I personally do. Everything I watched and read growing up consisted of characters going on long journeys and a lot of that time was just wandering through forest, plains, desert, jungle, or wherever they were. It is fairly difficult to explain what is immersive about it. The best I could do is to give an example.
One would be traveling through a forest with all the bugs and animals making noises. The night comes and everything is dark. It's not having something every 5 steps that make's it scary. Likewise, the forest might become silent triggering panic. It's that emptiness where you feel you are alone. There is no way to see where you are going because of the forest canopy.
Another example would be walking through the desert. There aren't much in the way of landmarks and the dunes are always changing. There might be sandstorms or quicksand. Large parts of it will be empty, though. This will simulate the feeling that you are never going to find your way out.
Generally what you get in games now is a GPS and a list of tasks to complete. It defeats the purpose of adventure games creation. They don't prompt any emotions. You just jump in and complete a few tasks on your list. Obviously, a lot of people enjoy going through very mechanical tasks where they don't think much outside of combat. Even in the combat, they don't think much unless they are doing some kind of group or raid combat.
This is a difference of opinion on what is immersive. Most people don't seem to find traveling immersive. I personally do. Everything I watched and read growing up consisted of characters going on long journeys and a lot of that time was just wandering through forest, plains, desert, jungle, or wherever they were. It is fairly difficult to explain what is immersive about it. The best I could do is to give an example.
One would be traveling through a forest with all the bugs and animals making noises. The night comes and everything is dark. It's not having something every 5 steps that make's it scary. Likewise, the forest might become silent triggering panic. It's that emptiness where you feel you are alone. There is no way to see where you are going because of the forest canopy.
Another example would be walking through the desert. There aren't much in the way of landmarks and the dunes are always changing. There might be sandstorms or quicksand. Large parts of it will be empty, though. This will simulate the feeling that you are never going to find your way out.
Generally what you get in games now is a GPS and a list of tasks to complete. It defeats the purpose of adventure games creation. They don't prompt any emotions. You just jump in and complete a few tasks on your list. Obviously, a lot of people enjoy going through very mechanical tasks where they don't think much outside of combat. Even in the combat, they don't think much unless they are doing some kind of group or raid combat.
I wholeheartedly agree. I think what you're describing is the ambient atmosphere that a wilderness could bring to the player. Everquest did a good job prompting emotion for their style of wilderness. For instance, I remember when it turned night time in the Eastern/Western Commonlands where I was leveling a lowbie. The ambient noise of insects, animals growling and other naturalistic sounds sparked an emotion that made me feel that I was indeed in a wilderness despite the bad graphics and boarded/walled in zone I was in. It was quite nice. Sometimes sound alone could prompt emotions.
What I think would be a successful form of wilderness design would be a balanced blend of the following.
1. Realistic environment design for the zone that would spark adventure. I am reminded of when I go hiking to a new place. I may follow a path but I come to a crossroad. One direction may be a straight path through the thicket and another may be a path that goes up or down elevation. If a design can allow a player to question where they want to go with intriguing environment design that would be a good start for an immersive wilderness. Even if they are off the beaten path. The idea is to have the player question where they want to travel too. Of course once you have explored the whole world nothing is a surprise anymore. Which leads me to my next point. Of course this will mean more graphical rendering for more polygons when you travel which unfortunately may result in lag and a better machine to run it.
2. Dynamic Content: While you can aesthetically enjoy a wilderness through visual magnificence and great ambient sounds there has to be some dynamic content to help the player keep on questioning. Dynamic content would include a revamp of how we perceive NPC AI. I'll say it again, I really wish EQNext had a lunch because I was very curious of how their emergent AI would've worked. The type of dynamic content I am insinuating is simply to change how NPC's behave in a particular zone or what types of NPC's are in that zone and change spawn points. NPC behavior can be emitted in many different forms. There should be a blend of the following: Roaming NPCs, ones that guard a tower or a ruin or something, scouting regiments that scout the zone and are always on patrol, NPC's that are simply escorting something from point A to point B and players can intercept that and gain some reward. Maybe an NPC that is running really fast to get to somewhere to give a message about something. I am sure there are other different things NPC's can do that could be interesting to provide dynamic content.
3. Ambient Noise and Design: Just like you mentioned in your post @Flyte27 ambient atmosphere can help cultivate that emotion of immersion. Just like the example I gave above about the Eastern/Western Commonlands in EQ or simply how Kithacor Forest changed at night and spawned undead everywhere. Perhaps it could be a shift in zone music. Or simply it could just be a silent area and the only things you hear is the wind whistling off stones and trees to provide an eerie feeling. Ambient design could also mean emptiness but only where it's warranted. You don't want to have emptiness just for the sake of it. Certain zones should give off that feeling and others shouldn't.
Everquest didn't have dynamic mobs, but it did have lots of wandering mobs that might sneak up on you. I remember Everfrost being especially bad. There were often weather conditions that would make it hard to see. A shaman would often sneak up you. They had long paths to wander and they were difficult to kill as they had root, heal, and unlimited mana. In the Karana's you could be wandering safely and a Lion, Hill Giant, or Griffon, would sneak up on you. If it was raining or foggy it would be more difficult to detect these things. As you point out Kithcor forest was a pretty nasty place at night. If Kithcor was much larger and you couldn't just stick to the zone line it would probably have been a great zone for first time exploration. Another forest that could be somewhat tricky was Nektulos forest. I often died and couldn't find my corpse because it was designed in such a way as to be confusing to navigate. It wasn't even that large of a zone. I would imagine a forest to be much larger. Pantheon Rise of the Fallen sounds promising. I'm hopeful it will provide some of the things you are mentioning. I know they won't have maps and GPS. So far they are also limiting fast travel to class spells. How they implement zones and atmosphere is another story. What is interesting is that most games I played as a younger person didn't have such structured tasks to perform and paths to follow in game. Often, they would rely more on atmosphere through sound, puzzles, or graphical trickery.
Comments
One of the things SWG did so well was to provide enough terrain that anyone could go out and place a house pretty much anywhere they wanted and not have to worry about cluttering up the landscape.
This led to player made towns and opened up all sorts of opportunities for the players, from making a mall to pvp battles between factions. It's a shame that this has been missing from MMO's for so long.
A big world with plenty of open space not only allows for exploration but for real communities to form. I'm all for it.
Stone Forest sounds like it could be a pretty neat little area to explore. Plus, you have a mountain/cliff city nearby - Yodiah.
You've also got a "Dragon Sanctum" dungeon deeper past the Forest.
If you have any type of activity related to water/marine life, sailing, etc., then just on the other side of the peaks you have the Bay Barbarian. The Bay is a nice little enclosed water zone which could be tapped into. Though, the name sounds weird.
To top that off, on the opposite side you have a mini-"Great Wall of China". If that were something you could trek across, that'd be quite a view.
Other areas of interest:
- Eternal Blizzard is like a giant flashing beacon saying "Don't go this way", so naturally I would want to go there.
- Obek's Mirror: exploring a mountain lake and following its attached river to the sea to see where it goes.
- Hoarfrost Dragonlands: Given there's a raid zone in the back, and the ominous frost/fog shrouding the area on the map, it appears as a challenge. Honestly, that area sort of reminds of of the Western Wastes or whatever it was called in EQ1. Plus, I just like frozen landscapes.
i want fast action in mmo. not walking simulator
Lack of content lol, don't know which Vanguard you were playing but it didn't suffer from lack of content. At first it had no end game raiding but most of the group dungeons were like raids compared to some mmo's.
Some took days to complete and spanned multiple levels.
You could play the game for months and not see a lot of content. In fact after seven years I still could find quests that I hadn't done. The game shipped with over 100 dungeons, some of these were vast.
A vast world is not meant to have a city round every corner or npc's at every turn.
Nope, Vanguard had it's problems but content wasn't one of them. The raid situation changed as time went on starting with Ancient Port Warehouse.
I like the wilderness IRL, there is actually a lot to see but some enjoy that, others don't. Of course, certain type of wilderness are more interesting then others.
But of course a huge randomly generated forest with nothing in besides a few homicidal wolfs gets boring, exploring a forest should both give you some places with rare plants for crafting, a few old ruins, some rare spawns and more then a little fluff they thrown in to make the place more interesting.
Still, I agree with OP. Old mysterious woods have been part of RPGs since D&D first came out. And I like exploring as long as there actually is things to find.
It's also especially troublesome in extreme level based scenarios without some type of scaling. As you run out of go to areas rather fast. This is why quest content is the go to content delivery device. It's easier to offer in an ongoing cost effective way. The second easiest is dungeon/boss content. Exploration not so much, that takes introducing large scale areas on a routine basis. WHich would require making them interesting as well... How would any company do that?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Large worlds need real content, that is the crux of the problem, it's simply smarter to build smaller worlds with little travel in between content hubs. You keep people engaged easier that way.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
As time went on expectations grew, people expected the worlds to offer something more than generated terrain and static mobs that told no story. Here we are.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
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I believe there is a realistic Stone Forest somewhere in Asia and I got the idea from there. It's also a rough terrain to navigate as a player and you could get lost. There are many Dragons that still dwell there. What makes the Stone Forest a very compelling but yet horrifying place is that there are Stone Creatures that camouflage perfectly within the stone structures and could sneak attack players at any moment. There will be a bit of suspense in that zone.
In the second age, The Age of Kings, the Dragon Sanctum use to be the Throne to the Dragon King. Now in the sixth age, The Age of Tranquility, Dragons are remote and sparse. Dragon Sanctum is controlled by a shadowy sect called the Shar which is the main antagonist NPC. They are attempting to resurrect the Spirit of the Dragon King there.
I don't have much marine or underwater content planned. Bay Barbarian does sound weird, actually sounds like something you'd hear on a Godzilla movie lol. The idea for Bay Barbarian is simply a coastal region where barbaric viking like tribes dwell.
The Attican Wall is something of wonder. It was constructed in the fifth age, The Age of Judges by the Judge Attican. It was a means to keep outsides from entering this known world because of the blight stain it left. It was essentially an effort to keep the evil that has been done in this part away from other regions.
The Eternal Blizzard is also constructed by the Judge Eternai to keep everyone out from the Northern Lands of Guratos. Players can enter the Eternal Blizzard but will eventually die as you will get lost. Also there are tower sized icicle spikes that will rain upon players that will instantly kill them. The Attican Wall, Eternal Blizzard and Wandering Sands are 'natural' boarders to keep players in the known world. Of course they each of those three will garner access to expansions
I could imagine Obek's Mirror to be a gorgeous sight for players. Unfortunately, on the other end of the lake is the Helm of De'marr, a Noble House built for conquest.
Everquest's arctic zones in Velious were fantastic, Great Divide, Eastern and Western Wastes were great. Hoarfrost Dragonlands are also another Dragon centric zone. Gonthos is apart of the Frost Tail Clan of Dragons and wants to reclaim himself as the new Dragon King. Lair of Gonthos is the first Raid Campaign for players to get flagged for raiding.
Hope you enjoyed a little lore
For a vast wilderness to work It has to make people want to explore and not make them wish they had some sort of fast travel to bypass it. To accomplish that you need to make it rewarding for the player to take the road less traveled (or no road at all).
You could stick to the main road or use some means of fast travel but then you might be missing a rare boss encounter with a legendary item drop, not find that buried treasure, miss out on being the first to enter a new hidden dungeon, or not get the crafting materials you need to make your new weapon. Not only does it have to look great but also it needs the possibility of rewarding the player somehow.
There is a perfect ratio between empty and full that makes exploration most fun, but I think you need some testing to get it just right. VG might have had a bit too little of it.
As for the fast travel options I wouldn't include it until you at least been to both the starting point and your goal at least once by slow traveling. Exploring is fun and I think most players agree with that, but really long time going to and from the same places many times can feel tedious for most of us. Particularly if the content you pass is far below you in level.
One would be traveling through a forest with all the bugs and animals making noises. The night comes and everything is dark. It's not having something every 5 steps that make's it scary. Likewise, the forest might become silent triggering panic. It's that emptiness where you feel you are alone. There is no way to see where you are going because of the forest canopy.
Another example would be walking through the desert. There aren't much in the way of landmarks and the dunes are always changing. There might be sandstorms or quicksand. Large parts of it will be empty, though. This will simulate the feeling that you are never going to find your way out.
Generally what you get in games now is a GPS and a list of tasks to complete. It defeats the purpose of adventure games creation. They don't prompt any emotions. You just jump in and complete a few tasks on your list. Obviously, a lot of people enjoy going through very mechanical tasks where they don't think much outside of combat. Even in the combat, they don't think much unless they are doing some kind of group or raid combat.
What I think would be a successful form of wilderness design would be a balanced blend of the following.
1. Realistic environment design for the zone that would spark adventure. I am reminded of when I go hiking to a new place. I may follow a path but I come to a crossroad. One direction may be a straight path through the thicket and another may be a path that goes up or down elevation. If a design can allow a player to question where they want to go with intriguing environment design that would be a good start for an immersive wilderness. Even if they are off the beaten path. The idea is to have the player question where they want to travel too. Of course once you have explored the whole world nothing is a surprise anymore. Which leads me to my next point. Of course this will mean more graphical rendering for more polygons when you travel which unfortunately may result in lag and a better machine to run it.
2. Dynamic Content: While you can aesthetically enjoy a wilderness through visual magnificence and great ambient sounds there has to be some dynamic content to help the player keep on questioning. Dynamic content would include a revamp of how we perceive NPC AI. I'll say it again, I really wish EQNext had a lunch because I was very curious of how their emergent AI would've worked. The type of dynamic content I am insinuating is simply to change how NPC's behave in a particular zone or what types of NPC's are in that zone and change spawn points. NPC behavior can be emitted in many different forms. There should be a blend of the following: Roaming NPCs, ones that guard a tower or a ruin or something, scouting regiments that scout the zone and are always on patrol, NPC's that are simply escorting something from point A to point B and players can intercept that and gain some reward. Maybe an NPC that is running really fast to get to somewhere to give a message about something. I am sure there are other different things NPC's can do that could be interesting to provide dynamic content.
3. Ambient Noise and Design: Just like you mentioned in your post @Flyte27 ambient atmosphere can help cultivate that emotion of immersion. Just like the example I gave above about the Eastern/Western Commonlands in EQ or simply how Kithacor Forest changed at night and spawned undead everywhere. Perhaps it could be a shift in zone music. Or simply it could just be a silent area and the only things you hear is the wind whistling off stones and trees to provide an eerie feeling. Ambient design could also mean emptiness but only where it's warranted. You don't want to have emptiness just for the sake of it. Certain zones should give off that feeling and others shouldn't.
Sorry for the novel, just my two cents.