One thing that would really help this game from an exploration standpoint is the lack of a detailed map. I know its very expected in games these days but not having a great map makes you really on paying attention to the world around you and landmarks and pathways. It also lends excitement to exploration as you are always wondering if you are going to be able to remember how to get back to town.
One of the best things a game like Morrowind had going for it from an exploration standpoint was the lack of a detailed quality world map.
*Edit* I am relatively new to following this game and I noticed the map issue is already discussed at length. I am firmly in the no map camp
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The best course of action is to have something like CU is doing where cartography exists to some degree based on active exploration but would become less accurate over time anyway related to how dynamic the world is. The impact of this is larger in a game like CU where maps locations and who controls them can vary wildly.
I certainly agree though that the more that remains hidden and changing from maps benefits the game more than openly revealing every location eventually.
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The more and more I think about it, no maps.... I'm looking forward to drawing my own map
Its weird too, I can easily become disoriented in game worlds, but in real life it never happpens, I have an extraordinary sense of direction.
Lets put it this way, if those people in the Blair Witch had me with them, it would have been a very short, and unexciting adventure.
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
If the vocal minority don't want a map....just turn it off/don't use it. Problem solved.
- Albert Einstein
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Here is an opportunity for VR to do something different. Instead of needing to resort to 3rd party sites for maps, have maps be a completely in-game experience. Quality of professional art and convenience of having the map immediately available. Make the game as self-contained as possible, without requiring spoiler sites to supply basic information.
It would be really simple to have a Pin-and-Sticky-note system imposed over a static map, requiring an in-game face-to-face transaction to share or exchange maps. In a game purporting a social experience, increasing the number of times players need to interact with one another seems like a very desirable thing. And finally, no more 'how do I download the maps' questions.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Except people will just create maps and upload them to websites and everyone will download them.
There is no way to prevent this, maps will be available for anyone to use in some form and people will use them.
If VR doesn't want to make a map/mini-map system so be it, I will have one no matter what though so they're wasting their time.
I can see a benefit to not having to do any of that work though, could free up time to work on other things.
Like I said, no matter what they do I (and everyone else) will a have map, so...feel free to waste time trying to avoid it I guess?
Playing FFXI i often found some of the maps tough to figure out,so i had to visually learn them and my surroundings.It paid off in the long run,i didn't even need a map after awhile.
Just look at real life,do we walk around with a magical map all day long,no of course not ,we learn our surroundings.
Yes it also helps in the discovery aspect.IDK how anyone would be like WHOA there is the Empire State building...Well yeah Joe it says right there on the map Empire State building,what did you expect to find there McDonalds?
However if you had no map and stumbled onto a great site,then it would much more exciting than seeing McDonalds on a map.
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"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
GPS pointers letting you know precisely where you are and where you need to go are terrible. Removing maps entirely in any setting advanced enough to make them (like ... ink and parchment!) is deliberately left out to artificially delay players.
Actually I didn't realize the lack of maps is usually something I enjoy until this post.
Etrian Odyssey on the DS had the ability to grid out your own map on the second screen and I loved that aspect of the dungeon crawl. It really adds to the whole idea of exploration.
Edit: Group with them and also be in close proximity.
The 100% crystal clear maps will be available for free. Again, there is no way around this lol.
I suppose I get where you are coming from if you come from the point of view that "every game should have every option completely optional for me and everyone gets to choose what their difficulty is and where they can all go and how easy/hard getting places and whether or not they can have pvp or not etc, etc etc"
But the idea behind games is really about the shared experience, confronting the same obstacles and because of this sometimes requiring the help of other players in order to make strides toward personal goals as well as group goals.
And it certainly is about having uniform rules for everyone.
Does there have to be fast travel? Yes and No. But "pick one and move on". Does there have to be pvp? Yes and No. Pick one and move on.
Map? Same thing.
by putting limitations on players you also challenge them to be clever and creative and to create unique experiences both personally and socially.
Uniform rules for everyone also creates larger meaning when x player can down y boss solo or Z guild can make their way through X dungeon better than anyone.
And that creates possible goals for people to strive for and possibly attain or even beat if it makes sense to do so.
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