Guild Wars 2

What GW2 is missing that MMORPG’s get wrong so much is the easiest thing to do. “Open Space”…that’s right. Open-space of plains, forests, deserts and oceans makes the world feel more alive and thriving. But most MMORPG’s forget this element and the world ends up feeling rigged, constrictive, and in the end, suffocating.

It would be nice when GW2 opens up more maps, north of Tyria and the Crystal Desert, that they make things more open and less rigid. Not every inch of the game needs to be filled with action….let the game breathe a little and people will feel less confined in the game. The art to crafting a world is illusion…the illusion that the world was naturally made, not by man. Hopefully GW2 implements this, or a future MMORPG does….

There has only been a a handful of games that successfully done this. I will not name drop…lets see if anyone can guess the MMORPG’s I speak of

It would be nice to get some feedback

I agree. But to me personally what this game is missing is an expansion or real updates.

I hope these ideas are implemented in a future expansion

i’d love to see a real open world design… but at this point it would require an entire map-overhaul which could take months or even years

’Not every inch of the game should be filled with action"

I support you in that. But what makes you go back to a zone? Usually it’s to actually play the game. And walking around for a few minutes and not really do anything but smell the flowers and look at the skybox wouldn’t really work for a lot of people.

You would be very tired of a zone very quickly. There is a thing as too much action. But too little would be very bad as well.

:)

I think it’s better they make all the current map useful in some way than start expanding boarders. In the end a large portion of any mmo world isn’t going to be explored much but many zones died off too early. As much as I too would like to see boarders move out, I respect the decision to work on the current content first.

Like off the top of my head, legendaries, dragon fights, dungeon farming (cof p1), guild enhancments. Just the few topics I see appear often on this sub-forum.

I’ve got to agree with you, OP. I think the world is wonderfully crafted, but I do feel it do with a few more pockets of serenity. Pockets devoid of cluttering terrain, aggressive mobs, and endless chains of events where players can just drink in the open space and enjoy the peace and quiet would be a welcome break from the arduous work that is saving the world from destruction.

I have to make a small comparison to WoW, I was just looking akittens maps the other day and I was feeling like “wow, there are so many maps, so much variety”. And I know that maps in Guild Wars 2 are a lot bigger, but we could use more variety, or more maps.

However, the main problem with more maps is that we need more players, or else we’re going to have more half-dead maps like Harathi Hinterlands, Straits of Devastation and Southsun before the update.

It’s extremely depressing if you’re doing chain events in Straits of Devastation all by yourself, and I wouldn’t like to experience that again in any other zone. Perhaps a LFG tool could fix this, so players from other servers can come and “guest” on your server and help you out with an event.

Why would they make large open areas with no action, for those few people that would like it but 99% of the time these places would be completly empty. Sounds like a waste of resources to be honest.

Lorvul.5482:

What GW2 is missing that MMORPG’s get wrong so much is the easiest thing to do. “Open Space”…that’s right. Open-space of plains, forests, deserts and oceans makes the world feel more alive and thriving. But most MMORPG’s forget this element and the world ends up feeling rigged, constrictive, and in the end, suffocating.

It would be nice when GW2 opens up more maps, north of Tyria and the Crystal Desert, that they make things more open and less rigid. Not every inch of the game needs to be filled with action….let the game breathe a little and people will feel less confined in the game. The art to crafting a world is illusion…the illusion that the world was naturally made, not by man. Hopefully GW2 implements this, or a future MMORPG does….

There has only been a a handful of games that successfully done this. I will not name drop…lets see if anyone can guess the MMORPG’s I speak of

YES YES YES, A MILLION TIMES YES.

Because if it was not think of Cursed Shore been everywhere. Now that would SUCK!.

+ Zones/Areas like Wayfarer Foothills ->Borealis Forest would be AMAZING.
There are some amazing zones in GW2 and others not so good.
Make the zones full of colour and life.

Lorvul.5482:

.lets see if anyone can guess the MMORPG’s I speak of

WoW – Elwynn Forest (Goldshire → A classic, such a nice place to chill out. the other thing is that Elwynn forest enters into Westfall and westfall/elwynn forest enters into darkshire, and darkshire is like elwynn forest except darker, darkshire also has that nice mini villege too.

^ That all in general is a classic, the whole feeling of it is great.

Aion?- Some nice zones.
Tera?- That zone with the rainbow/clouds/green grass/tress/hunting lodge/etc

NOT rift anyway, rift is a great game but in my opinion most of the environment/zones are very dark and lacking creativity. There’s no real feel to it, also the beach in rift is also like dirt. etc…

Mentalhead.5721:

It’s extremely depressing if you’re doing chain events in Straits of Devastation all by yourself, and I wouldn’t like to experience that again in any other zone. Perhaps a LFG tool could fix this, so players from other servers can come and “guest” on your server and help you out with an event.

Yeah your very right about the LFG tool, it would be amazing to have it in GW2. So much more people would be using it and its so much fun to do anything in mmos with others (in a party/etc)

skullfire.6503:

’Not every inch of the game should be filled with action"

I support you in that. But what makes you go back to a zone? Usually it’s to actually play the game. And walking around for a few minutes and not really do anything but smell the flowers and look at the skybox wouldn’t really work for a lot of people.

You would be very tired of a zone very quickly. There is a thing as too much action. But too little would be very bad as well.

:)

Think of Cursed Shore.
Have you ever ever gong to Cursed Shore because of its “beauty” .
Cursed Shore is a hell zone, so dark and dirty.

Even in WoW you would have the amazing Uldum which is AWESOME. The whole feeling of it, to colorful. The artists/designers in WoW really captured some amazing zones in WoW.

Where would you radar go? Cursed Shore or Uldum in WoW. Think of Mount Hyjal too in WoW, and even the city Darlan. And don’t you forget:
Grizzly Hills.
Zangarmarsh
etc…

Knight.1084:

skullfire.6503:

’Not every inch of the game should be filled with action"

I support you in that. But what makes you go back to a zone? Usually it’s to actually play the game. And walking around for a few minutes and not really do anything but smell the flowers and look at the skybox wouldn’t really work for a lot of people.

You would be very tired of a zone very quickly. There is a thing as too much action. But too little would be very bad as well.

:)

Think of Cursed Shore.
Have you ever ever gong to Cursed Shore because of its “beauty” .
Cursed Shore is a hell zone, so dark and dirty.

Even in WoW you would have the amazing Uldum which is AWESOME. The whole feeling of it, to colorful. The artists/designers in WoW really captured some amazing zones in WoW.

Where would you radar go? Cursed Shore or Uldum in WoW. Think of Mount Hyjal too in WoW, and even the city Darlan. And don’t you forget:
Grizzly Hills.
Zangarmarsh
etc…

I’d rather chew of both my feet than to look at anything in wow. I despise the game with a passion.

Huh…I actually think the world is well designed. The zones feel open to me, without having paths everywhere that restrict exploration (like GW1 did). A lot of places have yellow mobs like moas and boars just roaming around, creating some ambiance but not forcing you into fights every step. If the world is too big you start getting bored cuz it takes you too long to get to the good stuff. Without mounts (and I like it that way) we get to truly explore Tyria on foot rather than letting it pass us by as we zoom to the next spot. Too much open space is pretty but boring.

What I would like to see are more “towns” throughout the world. Places like Beetletun and are great spots to relax in and not feel like I’m in the middle of a barren field. But as we progress through the game, the war gets grittier and we only see smaller military outposts & forts rather than towns.

I would feel less claustrophobic if they did away with map boundaries. You know… have a seamless world?

Lorvul.5482:

What GW2 is missing that MMORPG’s get wrong so much is the easiest thing to do. “Open Space”…that’s right. Open-space of plains, forests, deserts and oceans makes the world feel more alive and thriving. But most MMORPG’s forget this element and the world ends up feeling rigged, constrictive, and in the end, suffocating.

It would be nice when GW2 opens up more maps, north of Tyria and the Crystal Desert, that they make things more open and less rigid. Not every inch of the game needs to be filled with action….let the game breathe a little and people will feel less confined in the game. The art to crafting a world is illusion…the illusion that the world was naturally made, not by man. Hopefully GW2 implements this, or a future MMORPG does….

There has only been a a handful of games that successfully done this. I will not name drop…lets see if anyone can guess the MMORPG’s I speak of

I agree. Anet’s been doing a great job at giving us fresh content with the Living Stories.

But, going along with your idea of open space; that would be really cool if they provided the players with vast open spaces where PvP is allowed anywhere and you could team up with other players and survive. There could be keeps and forts that you could capture and defend. Also there could be small towns that a group of players could take over and use for bonuses like merchants, NPC gaurds, etc. It would be a max level area and there could be world bosses where players would be forced to team up and defeat despite the fact that they could kill each other.

It would add more to the end game, which a lot of people are complaining about.

Knight.1084:

Lorvul.5482:

.lets see if anyone can guess the MMORPG’s I speak of

WoW – Elwynn Forest (Goldshire -> A classic, such a nice place to chill out. the other thing is that Elwynn forest enters into Westfall and westfall/elwynn forest enters into darkshire, and darkshire is like elwynn forest except darker, darkshire also has that nice mini villege too.

^ That all in general is a classic, the whole feeling of it is great.

Aion?- Some nice zones.
Tera?- That zone with the rainbow/clouds/green grass/tress/hunting lodge/etc

NOT rift anyway, rift is a great game but in my opinion most of the environment/zones are very dark and lacking creativity. There’s no real feel to it, also the beach in rift is also like dirt. etc…

Look at some zones in the games Everquest, Dark Ages of Camelot, and Vanguard. Zones were massive with just open fields….it would take 30 minutes in RL to just walk across them.

I disagree slightly. If any map has large, useless, empty space, the map will end up dead. You need a reason for players to be in a space, or they’ll simply ignore it.

This isn’t a one-player Zelda game. In a game that’s focused on multiple players, a space needs to have a purpose, or it’s not worth the developers’ precious time and the costs to keep that map up doing nothing on multiple servers. A big space that has purpose, however, can be welcome.

azureai.9764:

I disagree slightly. If any map has large, useless, empty space, the map will end up dead. You need a reason for players to be in a space, or they’ll simply ignore it.

This isn’t a one-player Zelda game. In a game that’s focused on multiple players, a space needs to have a purpose, or it’s not worth the developers’ precious time and the costs to keep that map up doing nothing on multiple servers. A big space that has purpose, however, can be welcome.

There are 2 different type of MMORPG’s…..You have “Sandbox” MMORPG’s and you have “Theme-Park” MMORPG’s. Everquest, Dark Ages of Camelot, and Vanguard were all able to do a nice hybrid of both MMORPG’s. This lead to the success of Everquest and Dark Ages of Camelot. A lot of MMORPG"s have become to “theme-parked”, leaving no little open space for player-based customization. Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be a hybrid, but it’s becoming more “theme-parked” like WoW became.

Having some “theme-park” content is nice, it attracts your “action junkies” and your “content junkies”…but these players don’t stick around in the long run. They come and go, but it’s your “sandbox” players who stick around for years upon years. UO, Everquest, DAoC, all had a fan-base that stretched over for half a decade. This is because there was always something for players to do. It allowed the players to be creative and create their own fun.

Now, I don’t want a 100% “sandbox” game. But I’ve been waiting years for that one game that found a medium between both types of games. Here is some beta footage of a game that is coming out in 2013 that is “sandbox” based and notice how open and free the world looks……