Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Does size really matter?
SpiritofGame
Member UncommonPosts: 1,332
NO, not the size of that!
I mean the size of the Vanguard gameworld.
An interesting thread over at the Official Forums which contains several posts by Aradune Mithara (I find it impressive that this guy finds the time to read and post on message boards. Starbucks must be making a fortune from his office.) concerning an actual test he ran on Thestra, with a Rank 3 mount, level 30 character, once with invuln on and aggro off (could disregard mobs) -- and again with invuln off and aggro on (the hard way).
~~~
Quote 1:
Since the world has changed content-wise the last time I made this run, here's what I'll do at first -- I'll get an average level 30 or so player with a level 30 or so horse and have it timed in two ways:
1. with GM powers, turning aggro off, run from the extreme west of Thestra to the extreme east (this would be the longest segment of Thestra). I'll get you that time.
2. using the same character and horse, do the same run, but this time with aggro on, using roads, and trying to avoid encounters. And then I'll get that time.
Give me a few days after the weekend to get you these numbers. These times will give you an idea of Thestra as the 'crow flies' and then as a player would typically cross it, at a level where he could either avoid or defeat the majority of encounters if he stuck to the roads.
1. with GM powers, turning aggro off, run from the extreme west of Thestra to the extreme east (this would be the longest segment of Thestra). I'll get you that time.
2. using the same character and horse, do the same run, but this time with aggro on, using roads, and trying to avoid encounters. And then I'll get that time.
Give me a few days after the weekend to get you these numbers. These times will give you an idea of Thestra as the 'crow flies' and then as a player would typically cross it, at a level where he could either avoid or defeat the majority of encounters if he stuck to the roads.
~~~
Quote 2:
Ok, discliamer: We are still in beta 2.*** Lots of things can and will change. This includes content density, difficulty of travel (how mobs of different cons respond to you, dynamic aggro radius, how fast most of them are vs. your mount, etc), mount run speed, etc. So please keep that in mind. In any case, I think 45-60 minutes going across the longest part of one of our continents at mid level) is fine, and it also jives with my experiences when I was leveling up my warrior from 1-36 earlier in beta. Also, if you look below, he shows the coordinates of the regions he started and began at -- he went from -30 to -20, so he traversed 10 2km by 2km regions (20km approximately).
So our test engineer Dantrin ran this test for me and here is what he said (thanks Dantrin, and thanks for doing it so quickly -- you rock!):
-------------
Ok I ran these tests and here at the results.
I had invulnerable on and aggro off and ran from Hero’s plain -30 26 to Eastpoint -20 26. I used a Rank three horse and was able to do it in 35 min. You would have to figure a level 30 players would have at least a rank 2 horse so tack on an extra 10 min. So figure an overall travel time of 45min.
Ok this time I had agro on and invulnurable off and tried to stay to the roads as much as possible. It took me 49 min doing it this way. If you figure the rank 2 horse factor in another 10 min making the total travel time about an hour.
__________________
Brad McQuaid
CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
Exec. Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
Brad McQuaid
CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
Exec. Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
~~~
Later he added:
~~~
That's correct. Qailia is roughly as large, and the Kojanese Archipelago smaller, but made up of several islands, so traveling will involve both horses and ships (and there is also sea and underwater content in the area as well).
***btw, straight from the horse's mouth
Edit: Whoops, sorry, forgot the link: http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39812
Comments
The bigger the better
.....I hate small game worlds.
I agree; I need room to move about.
Usually I base "size" on the original Asheron's Call landmass which was seamless, like Vanguard, but lacked underwater content (you could only wade but not swim in water -- "fishing" later added).
Old AC was BIG -- had one main continent and a "Direlands" (high level) continent separated by an inland sea but connected by two narrow landbridges. Later, off-island areas were added. There were no mounts in the game but players had a Run Skill so they could eventually travel at mount-like speeds (and could jump very high and tolerate greater falling damage through a Jump Skill).
Vanguard's seamless world, two continents, plus an island archipelago (at launch) would be larger than AC1, and include water travel and fully explorable underwater areas -- plus "internal" areas like dungeons. Unlike WoW, which is a big seamless world but has many inaccessible "barrier" areas, there will not be untraversable areas in Vanguard. If you can see it, you can go there, it is said.
I remember that in AC, it was a daunting task for the Devs to try to fill up such a massive, seamless area; however, they made the terrain interesting, varied, added various outposts (castles, towers, etc.) and it was a world I really liked.
Many said that the wilderness was "empty" and had "no content."
This was not precisely true.
There were MANY dungeons to be found, some small towns, ancient "ruins," random quest NPCs, mob fortresses, hidden portals, "Tusker" camps (loved them), etc., and naturally TONS of mobs who, if you were bored, would be very glad to chase you all over creation.
In fact, I remember that AC had so much content (albeit spread out in a large world) that there was a separate, third-party, update-able map utility that most people used (AC Explorer). I would not be surprised if something like this may be needed for Vanguard:SoH at some point.
I am thinking that some NDA-breakers who have said that Vanguard has "no content" and is "a featureless shell of a game" are probably NOT familiar with large seamless worlds. (BTW, the planet of Rubi-Ka of Anarchy Online was also enormous, and while not technically seamless, the zones were contiguous (touching) so it seemed as if it all was one large landmass -- it was BIG but definitely had content. EQ was the same way.)
I also know that content additions are part and parcel of MMO development -- remembering that AC, AO, EQ, DAoC grew enormously over the course of POST-release (live) development, through patches and expansions.
Overall, since I felt AC1's Dereth was huge and that Vanguard's Thestra, Qalia (Kay-lee-ah) and the Kojanese Archipelago together will be much larger, I would say even I will have enough room to feel comfortable.
~ Ancient Membership ~
Big is not always better. Look at SWG's worlds, huge but barren and lacking any content. WoW's world was the best of any game I have seen. Not only huge but content everywhere. One of VSOH's world designers said awhile back it is their desire to not only make a huge world but to pack every inch of it with content. If they can do that it will be great. But please we do not need another big empty world like SWG.
Spirit's post has got me wanting to play Ac now.
Sorta hoping in this large world they -- at some point -- deem to add a bit more solo/casual content for my Ranger and Druid to explore.
Just a thought.
~ Ancient Membership ~
What I do like is that the dev's are hand-painting every inch, so there is no copy and paste regenerated terain showing up all over the place.
-W.
i agree, bigger defiantly does not = better but i have never played sw:g so i wont comment about that. i also agree wow's game world is the best as far as how the content is distributed throughout a good sized world.
hopefully vanguard's world will be similar to that at some point, and to be honest i believe that is one of the main reasons wow is so popular.
at the same time newer games need to have a big world as well as have it filled with tons of content or it just wont be as successful, just like the folks at sigil always say "content is king" it is very important in determining how successful and fun a game will be IMO.
go play Dnl and tell me bigger is better
i hate small worlds as well as huge worlds with little content.
thing is DnL doesnt have the minimum content.... i wouldnt even dare to call it a game cause there's really nothing to do besides using the "flight" simulator. i think vanguard will have alot more to look forward.
i agree, bigger defiantly does not = better but i have never played sw:g so i wont comment about that. i also agree wow's game world is the best as far as how the content is distributed throughout a good sized world.
hopefully vanguard's world will be similar to that at some point, and to be honest i believe that is one of the main reasons wow is so popular.
at the same time newer games need to have a big world as well as have it filled with tons of content or it just wont be as successful, just like the folks at sigil always say "content is king" it is very important in determining how successful and fun a game will be IMO.
WoW had a good sized world and it was well populated with PoIs and the mobs weren't all randomy... My only problem with it is that it felt so small...mostly due to the Griffon transport system, and felt even smaller once they started adding in more griffon points and flight paths....the connected flight thingy they added a patch or two ago magnified it.
The only time the world felt big was when I was walkin' around on foot.....a few weeks later and even the furthest zone was just a hop skip and a jump away.
yep thats true that happens with most of mmo's these days the world gets smaller and smaller as u go up in lvls cause they keep giving u more traveling resources. i hope vanguard is dif. concerning that matter.stuff like teleports/griffons (teleports r expensive when ur a newbie to the game and as soon as u get to the end game its so cheap theres no reason not to use it all the time), 250% speed epic mounts that sucks aswell... got frustrated in wow when i got my lvl 40 mount the world just seemed so small suddently.
hope sigil finds a way of balancing travelling.
the size of the world and the traveling system are two different things, yeah wow has alot of griffon towers that makes it feel small.
but if they didn't have that feature the world would be decent sized with alot of content, witch is good....my point is if vanguard has a bigger world with alot of content like wow does it will be great, and i already know that traveling wont be as easy as it is in wow so in my mind thats not even a issue.
I was just pointing out that you could have a big world filled with content and your players could get no satisfaction out of it due to other related mechanics. Doesn't matter how big the world is or how well it's filled if you're bypassing the content in it 95% of the time =P
good point, witch is why I'm glad there wont be much of that in vanguard.