[Suggestion] Real Open World

[Ryjuk.9384]

I've been playing Guild Wars 2 for 3 months and fell in love with the game very quickly. The aesthetics and atmosphere of the game are wonderful. Many areas are so lovingly designed that I probably spent half of my playing time exploring the individual areas. For me, no other MMORPG has such an impressive game world as GW2. The feeling of being in a big, wide game world and finding something interesting around every corner quickly disappears as soon as I ride into another area. I find the portals at regional borders and the loading screen very annoying for the illusion. That does not correspond to my understanding of "open world".

So I hope ArenaNet will change that at some point. I don't want to always go through portals and have a loading screen when I ride into a neighboring area. I don't see any technical necessity in this.
 

Edit: A compromise for me would be that the areas are still instantiated, but the transitions are not visually noticeable.

How about other players? Does that annoy you too, don't you care or does someone even like it?

Edited July 3, 2021 by Ryjuk.9384

[Baine.9650]

Maybe for gw3, because the arena transitions is actually an infrastructure choice, and you can't change those well into the lifetime of a game.

 

I dislike open world - too much latency issues. Look at WvW. Its a huge map, but lags often in large scale fights if you don't have a monster PC, and 80% of the fights in wvw is large scale.

 

Just feels to me that theres a tradeoff between** gameplay experience and immersion due to technical limits and I rather have a game thats fun

 

Edited July 2, 2021 by Baine.9650

[Telgum.6071]

34 minutes ago, Ryjuk.9384 said:

I find the portals at regional borders and the loading screen very annoying for the illusion. That does not correspond to my understanding of "open world".

Then your understanding of open world is wrong, because open world means being able to explore and freely move for most of the playable map. You can be level 2 and walk into a level 80 map: that's open world. If you want to go from the Groove to the volcano at Mount Maelstrom, you can choose different paths to do so: that's open world too.

 

40 minutes ago, Ryjuk.9384 said:

I don't want to always go through portals and have a loading screen when I ride into a neighboring area. I don't see any technical necessity in this.

Are you sure? So do you think the current Queensdale would need the same resources that Gendarran Fields + Queensdale + Kessex Hills + Harathi Hinterlands all packed in the same instance? I don't know dude, doesn't seem logical. Seems more like doing maps in different instances allows faster loading screens, low use of resources and therefore, the capability of small computers like mine to run the game.

 

And even if it doesn't work like that, I don't find the "portals bad because it breaks illusion" argument very solid. Your character being able to resurrect doesn't break the illusion?

 

"GW3" lmao...

[Ryjuk.9384]

1 hour ago, Baine.9650 said:

I dislike open world - too much latency issues. Look at WvW. Its a huge map, but lags often in large scale fights if you don't have a monster PC, and 80% of the fights in wvw is large scale.

I understand the problem. This would increase the hardware requirements, which would be problematic for some players. A compromise for me would be that the areas are still instantiated, but the transitions are not visually noticeable.

[Ryjuk.9384]

1 hour ago, Telgum.6071 said:

Then your understanding of open world is wrong, because open world means being able to explore and freely move for most of the playable map. You can be level 2 and walk into a level 80 map: that's open world. If you want to go from the Groove to the volcano at Mount Maelstrom, you can choose different paths to do so: that's open world too.

Not wrong, but more complete. My definition of "open world" also includes your definition, only with the addition that the world map is uniformly.

[Ryjuk.9384]

1 hour ago, Telgum.6071 said:

Are you sure? So do you think the current Queensdale would need the same resources that Gendarran Fields + Queensdale + Kessex Hills + Harathi Hinterlands all packed in the same instance? I don't know dude, doesn't seem logical. Seems more like doing maps in different instances allows faster loading screens, low use of resources and therefore, the capability of small computers like mine to run the game.

I did not claim that such a limitation has no advantages. The fact that it has advantages does not mean that it is technically necessary. A compromise for me would be that the areas are still instantiated, but the transitions are not visually noticeable.

Edited July 2, 2021 by Ryjuk.9384

[Telgum.6071]

3 minutes ago, Ryjuk.9384 said:

Not wrong, but more complete. My definition of "open world" also includes your definition, only with the addition that the world map is uniformly.

No, open world has one meaning. What you are saying has nothing to do with open world, because OW is a game type and your portal critic is just level design that could exist or not in a open world game. So is widely wrong.

 

6 minutes ago, Ryjuk.9384 said:

I did not claim that such a limitation has no advantages. The fact that it has advantages does not mean that it is technically necessary.

If you want to attract the maximum amount of players then yes, is technically necessary. And more important: is logical, because fast loading and lower use of resources is more important than immersion or "not breaking illusion".

 

To be honest I'm impressed, I've never expected to see people arguing against separate instances because of "illusion breaking" or "that's not open world", but I guess you can see everything on forums.

[Zephire.8049]

24 minutes ago, Ryjuk.9384 said:

I understand the problem. This would increase the hardware requirements, which would be problematic for some players. A compromise for me would be that the areas are still instantiated, but the transitions are not visually noticeable.

The thing is that transition points such as portals have to exist as it shows where a point is. Without that, new players won't know where to go and it's harder to tell if a transition point is bugged if you can't tell where it is exactly. Some breaking of immersion for some players is preferable to new players getting frustrated and quitting because they don't know where to go. Plus it allows people to start playing as soon as the core files are installed as you don't need to download the full game as maps are separated.

 

Fun fact: the reason why the spawn point after the human tutorial was changed to be outside rather than inside the inn was because players would use inanimate object tonics to block the doorway and a lot of new players thought it was actually blocked and had no idea where to go.

 

While they could alter the map to make it clearer, they would have to do that multiple times for every single map and that's a lot of work.

 

9 years in and a lot of stuff is set, especially on an ancient engine and servers that have lag on current-sized maps. (Yes sometimes it's player hardware but the servers themselves can't handle large areas that have active players without impacting everyone on that map)

 

Instanced maps like in GW2 also helps concentrate players so the world feels alive because you actually see people outside hubs.

[Ryjuk.9384]

14 minutes ago, Telgum.6071 said:

No, open world has one meaning. What you are saying has nothing to do with open world, because OW is a game type and your portal critic is just level design that could exist or not in a open world game. So is widely wrong.

maybe you're right, maybe i'm right too but perhaps there is also no uniform definition of "open world". That's not the point for me either. I have set out what my definition is. And you're just telling me that definition is wrong. Which doesn't solve my problem.

 

14 minutes ago, Telgum.6071 said:

If you want to attract the maximum amount of players then yes, is technically necessary. And more important: is logical, because fast loading and lower use of resources is more important than immersion or "not breaking illusion".

I understand better your arguments regarding the technical advantages. But perhaps these advantages can be retained without disturbing the illusion.

 

16 minutes ago, Telgum.6071 said:

To be honest I'm impressed, I've never expected to see people arguing against separate instances because of "illusion breaking" or "that's not open world", but I guess you can see everything on forums.

I find this sentence unnecessary and passively aggressive. Please avoid such comments.

[Dawdler.8521]

An open world require a completely new remade from scratch engine. Its impossible to "remove" borders, or make the zones "larger" as is. Thats not how this type of heightmap instances work. In best case scenario, if Anet started today, you'd be looking at a minimum of 5 years development and the cost of an entirerly new game. There is no point. If GW3 comes out with an open world, great. But it aint gonna happen in GW2.

[kharmin.7683]

Take every map in GW2 and make them all one instance?  All of them?  Latency is bad enough on some bosses during dailies and you want to exacerbate that?

 

Good luck.

[Omega.6801]

No.

[Ayrilana.1396]

The OP is confusing sandbox with open world. While all sandboxes are part of the open world concept, not all open worlds are sandboxes. Similar to the fingers and thumbs saying. 
 

I don’t believe a sandbox would really work for an MMO and it appears the majority of studios agree as they don’t do it. 

[Fueki.4753]

The Amazon Web Servers barely can handle the game as it it right now.

I don't want to know how bad it'd become if all maps shared one instance.

 

Also, I don't remember any other MMORPG than WoW that uses your "real" open world.

Even FF14, the arguably most popular MMORPG right now, uses portals to cut off maps from each other.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

If maps have a player limit of say, even 100, then can you imagine how many different instances there would be of this purported 'entire World map'? 

Talk about players saying all zones are dead!  Geez! 

[Khisanth.2948]

Uh huh ... "suggestion" because a game developer can completely redesign their game engine with the snap of a finger right?

[Fractured.3928]

Getting a kick out of all the people pretending they know how GW2's engine works.  It helps to say "You think it works like X", not that "It DOES work like X".  Unless someone has an Arenanet mark on their user, I think its safe to assume that they have no clue how the engine actually works.

 

Secondly, people are also acting like there aren't several other MMO's out there that does exactly what the OP is asking....without issue.

 

And lastly, I honestly don't care either way.  I just think the people desperately fighting the OP for no reason is kinda silly.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

I think the claims that an instanced world as opposed to a so-called "open world" are caused by two things:

 

1) the player's first (or maybe best) multiplayer game experience was in a world that did not have zone portals.  This creates an expectation; and 2) a failure to suspend disbelief, likely caused by. inability or unwillingness to let go of that expectation.

 

I don't have the problem the OP cites.  My first such game was Guild Wars, so by the time I got to WoW and discovered the "open world," I had no such expectation, and the experience was at best an, "Oh." one, though tbh for me it wasn't even that.  Also, I tend to believe that if I am suspending disbelief on so many aspects of the game and gameplay, one more is no big deal.

[ugrakarma.9416]

will need a insane hardware to remove borders, its just mean load the actual bunch of map info X number of maps(40?). i noticed number of players on map have impact on load screen too, loading entire world in a single instance will make game playable to ppl with 30gb of RAM only, and some futuristic hardware..

Edited July 2, 2021 by ugrakarma.9416

[Astralporing.1957]

5 hours ago, Fractured.3928 said:

Secondly, people are also acting like there aren't several other MMO's out there that does exactly what the OP is asking....without issue.

Out of curiosity: which ones? Because i can't think of a single major title with this feature.

[Dawdler.8521]

7 hours ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

will need a insane hardware to remove borders, its just mean load the actual bunch of map info X number of maps(40?). i noticed number of players on map have impact on load screen too, loading entire world in a single instance will make game playable to ppl with 30gb of RAM only, and some futuristic hardware..

Ridiculous. There are already games that does open world, such as Black Desert Online.

 

The point is that it would still require a completely new engine and infrastructure - literally all of it - to change to a continous streaming world. Just something as basic as patching the game would no longer work like in GW2 because it wouldnt be able to load patched instances as it goes (the reason GW2 have one of the smoothest patching cycles in all MMOs, unlike those that has to bring servers down for hours).

 

So its possible but not feasable.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

7 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Out of curiosity: which ones? Because i can't think of a single major title with this feature.

I think BDO qualifies, not that I want GW2 to be like a Korean sandbox MMO.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

Separating all the maps into their areas and connecting them through loading gates will always be peak open world. They can localize each area better and even update them better rather than a whole world at once. And you can truly make a world limitless by just adding areas and even shifting pieces.

[Astralporing.1957]

4 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

The point is that it would still require a completely new engine and infrastructure - literally all of it - to change to a continous streaming world. Just something as basic as patching the game would no longer work like in GW2 because it wouldnt be able to load patched instances as it goes (the reason GW2 have one of the smoothest patching cycles in all MMOs, unlike those that has to bring servers down for hours).

Thanks for reminding me of that. I even brought that up once in one of the earlier threads on the issue, but completely forgot about it this time. And the fact that the open world being made out of separate large instances (instead of consisting of one big zone) is an important part of why they are able to do such seamless patching is something we really should remember.

[Ryjuk.9384]

On 7/2/2021 at 2:10 PM, kharmin.7683 said:

Take every map in GW2 and make them all one instance?

didnt say that. all i want is that the transitions are not visually noticeable.

Edited July 3, 2021 by Ryjuk.9384