Guild Wars 2

Hello!
I want to ask, if there is chance or considering making Guild Wars 2 one big, non-instanced map, like World of Warcraft. I think none loading screens will make game more enjoyable and gameplay will be smoother.

Thanks! ^^

So you are saying gamplay will be smoother by introducing tons and tons of lag? O.o

Thats a new one. We already know what happens to a zone when the GW2 skill queue hit its limits at around 300 people and it aint pretty. You want thousands in the same zone?

If they will start something like this, they can buy better servers.

HeavyBoySK.6893:

If they will start something like this, they can buy better servers.

All they need to do is buy better servers and reconfigure the game to remove all portals. That sounds easy enough, in my head when I think it. Occasionally I wonder though if the things I imagine are actually more expensive and harder to do in reality.

Edit: /s

Of course, since the portals dont line up exactly that means a lot of new terrain and a lot of blending effects (weather, light etc) between existing zones. So yeah, a lot more work than just a new server. Don’t see how it could help raise funds for them, its a feature that wouldn’t create revenue I think, so unlikely to happen.
I’m not against it, just cant see it.

Oh, and when areas get overcrowded that means generating a whole new world, not just another zone. So. nuh…

Just a flesh wound.3589:

HeavyBoySK.6893:

If they will start something like this, they can buy better servers.

All they need to do is buy better servers and reconfigure the game to remove all portals. That sounds easy enough, in my head when I think it. Occasionally I wonder though if the things I imagine are actually more expensive and harder to do in reality.

I think this may be relevant.

I suspect the way other games have seamless transition between maps is that as you approach the edge of your current map, the nearest adjacent map is loaded in the background. That to me doesn’t sound like a trivial change. Not impossible, but also not something that could be done quickly. For example, how would this work with mega servers, where there’s not necessarily going to be an equal number of instances of each map? If the answer is fewer, higher capacity servers, as some seem to have been suggesting, won’t that mean every map’s events will need revisiting to balance for the increased numbers?

I’ve only played one game that had the seamless transition, but it there seemed to be a quiet zone with no enemies around where you crossed over, similar to how there’s no enemies right on top of the portals in GW2. Basically the only difference is you lose the loading screen between maps. If that’s it, it sounds to me like a lot of work for very little gain.

Ragnar Stormcaller.6253:

Of course, since the portals dont line up exactly that means a lot of new terrain and a lot of blending effects (weather, light etc) between existing zones. So yeah, a lot more work than just a new server. Don’t see how it could help raise funds for them, its a feature that wouldn’t create revenue I think, so unlikely to happen.
I’m not against it, just cant see it.

Oh, and when areas get overcrowded that means generating a whole new world, not just another zone. So. nuh…

That’s a thought. They’d have to remove/rework the way new maps are created in response to population changes.

They’d also have to remove all the border mountains and make new terrain in its place.

Rather than buying new servers, wouldn’t they need a new engine? This is asking an old engine that is the gw1 engine with its portals to do a new trick.

If they could do it, Guild Wars 1 is still playing on this engine. I wonder what bugs that would throw into that game if this game was radically restructured to eliminate portals and make a seamless world.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

HeavyBoySK.6893:

If they will start something like this, they can buy better servers.

All they need to do is buy better servers and reconfigure the game to remove all portals. That sounds easy enough, in my head when I think it. Occasionally I wonder though if the things I imagine are actually more expensive and harder to do in reality.

I hope you are not actually serious …

Khisanth.2948:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

HeavyBoySK.6893:

If they will start something like this, they can buy better servers.

All they need to do is buy better servers and reconfigure the game to remove all portals. That sounds easy enough, in my head when I think it. Occasionally I wonder though if the things I imagine are actually more expensive and harder to do in reality.

I hope you are not actually serious …

What? You’re saying people can make suggestions that are actually far more difficult to do and expensive than what they say it will be?

On the other hand… that does explain a lot of the suggestions I’ve seen on the forums.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Khisanth.2948:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

HeavyBoySK.6893:

If they will start something like this, they can buy better servers.

All they need to do is buy better servers and reconfigure the game to remove all portals. That sounds easy enough, in my head when I think it. Occasionally I wonder though if the things I imagine are actually more expensive and harder to do in reality.

I hope you are not actually serious …

What? You’re saying people can make suggestions that are actually far more difficult to do and expensive than what they say it will be?

On the other hand… that does explain a lot of the suggestions I’ve seen on the forums.

No, I just wished people who make suggestions would take a few seconds to think about it first.

Khisanth.2948:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Khisanth.2948:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

HeavyBoySK.6893:

If they will start something like this, they can buy better servers.

All they need to do is buy better servers and reconfigure the game to remove all portals. That sounds easy enough, in my head when I think it. Occasionally I wonder though if the things I imagine are actually more expensive and harder to do in reality.

I hope you are not actually serious …

What? You’re saying people can make suggestions that are actually far more difficult to do and expensive than what they say it will be?

On the other hand… that does explain a lot of the suggestions I’ve seen on the forums.

No, I just wished people who make suggestions would take a few seconds to think about it first.

I’ve made that suggestion, and I’ve been told it’s not my job to do so. It’s up to ANet, they say, to decide whether or not the suggestion is worth considering. It’s not up to us, they say, to point out that a suggestion is expensive, time consuming and won’t pay for itself.

So when you see “junk suggestions” on the forum that ask to completely revise the game at great expense and time for little gain then all you should do is smile and point out minor flaws because it’s not wanted to say that it’s not practical.

I’m not sure any server upgrades are required. The entire world is already stored on our computer. All that’s needed is a portion of the next map be moved off of our own HDD or SDD and into our machine’s memory, so it can be rendered as needed. It’s arbitrary whether a small amount is moved, in the direction we are moving, or we take time to move a large amount (a whole zone) even though we are not going to use much of the new zone at any one time, and perhaps never during that session.

The player centric range calculations are already done, I.e. how far you can shoot, are you near enough to an NPC or an object to interact, how much of the map to send to the rendering software, etc. Range checks are simple, and done literally thousands of times per second. Adding a calculation to activate loading a map tile is trivial, and it’s from your own HDD or SDD that it happens.

The basic problem is that they did not choose to do it that way, even though it was common art at the time, and there is no incentive to do it now. I.e. cost money to break the map up into tiles, create software to load it as background, but generates no money.

If the GW2 world had been done as 4000 tiles, instead of the 40 something zones we have now, it would have worked fine.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

HeavyBoySK.6893:

If they will start something like this, they can buy better servers.

All they need to do is buy better servers and reconfigure the game to remove all portals. That sounds easy enough, in my head when I think it. Occasionally I wonder though if the things I imagine are actually more expensive and harder to do in reality.

It’s about as trivial as reconfiguring a car to fly by putting wings on it.

Sounds easy huh? I mean it already got an engine and a body, what more could you possibly need? All you need to do is push the accelerator and off you go up into the air!

Think about that for a moment and then consider if it still sound easy enough.

Edit: In regards to the above post the game assets may be on the drive – that’s not what need servers. GW2 is an MMO. It cannot magically handle unlimited zone populations.

Dawdler.8521:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

HeavyBoySK.6893:

If they will start something like this, they can buy better servers.

All they need to do is buy better servers and reconfigure the game to remove all portals. That sounds easy enough, in my head when I think it. Occasionally I wonder though if the things I imagine are actually more expensive and harder to do in reality.

It’s about as trivial as reconfiguring a car to fly by putting wings on it.

Sounds easy huh? I mean it already got an engine and a body, what more could you possibly need? All you need to do is push the accelerator and off you go up into the air!

Think about that for a moment and then consider if it still sound easy enough.

Thought about it.

I think I needed to add an /s

Michael.9403:

I’m not sure any server upgrades are required. The entire world is already stored on our computer. All that’s needed is a portion of the next map be moved off of our own HDD or SDD and into our machine’s memory, so it can be rendered as needed. It’s arbitrary whether a small amount is moved, in the direction we are moving, or we take time to move a large amount (a whole zone) even though we are not going to use much of the new zone at any one time, and perhaps never during that session.

The player centric range calculations are already done, I.e. how far you can shoot, are you near enough to an NPC or an object to interact, how much of the map to send to the rendering software, etc. Range checks are simple, and done literally thousands of times per second. Adding a calculation to activate loading a map tile is trivial, and it’s from your own HDD or SDD that it happens.

The basic problem is that they did not choose to do it that way, even though it was common art at the time, and there is no incentive to do it now. I.e. cost money to break the map up into tiles, create software to load it as background, but generates no money.

If the GW2 world had been done as 4000 tiles, instead of the 40 something zones we have now, it would have worked fine.

You don’t quite understand how the game works: there is not one bit of software involved in a map, there is one ANet server, and up to 150 different clients, all working on the same simulation at the same time, with latencies between them of up to 500ms on a good day.

Your client has the map data, yes, but the server is authoritative about everything, even if it happens to trust the client with some details such as what was being aimed at when the skill triggered. (Sometimes. This is, incidentally, true of every multi-player game out there.)

So … you don’t just have to have your client read the next bit of the map, you need the server to handle that. Right now that’s one process per map instance, with a bounded amount of space because of the zone boundaries, and with a bounded amount of actor involvement, because of the per-map player count limit.

What is being proposed here requires changing — radically changing — that design, both client and server-side, in a way that is pretty much identical to “write a whole new MMO, but reuse the assets”.

This is not even remotely practical.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I think I needed to add an /s

I’d go whole hog and make it a “/sarcasm” or even use “[sarcasm begins] …[/sarcasm ends]” for those not used to the trope/notation. (Well, go ‘whole walnut’, if you’re a vegan.)

And even then, you’ll encounter the poster who insists that sarcasm isn’t a useful rhetorical device for pointing out flaws in an argument made by someone who isn’t seeing the issue.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

You don’t quite understand how the game works: there is not one bit of software involved in a map, there is one ANet server, and up to 150 different clients, all working on the same simulation at the same time, with latencies between them of up to 500ms on a good day.

Your client has the map data, yes, but the server is authoritative about everything, even if it happens to trust the client with some details such as what was being aimed at when the skill triggered. (Sometimes. This is, incidentally, true of every multi-player game out there.)

So … you don’t just have to have your client read the next bit of the map, you need the server to handle that. Right now that’s one process per map instance, with a bounded amount of space because of the zone boundaries, and with a bounded amount of actor involvement, because of the per-map player count limit.

TL:DR version:

I certainly understand the server’s role in computing results and handing them back.

You have missed the OP’s issue, which is "why can’t we have seamless zoning. "

If you make the zones smaller, the zoning will happen faster, until it appears seamless. No software changes needed, just map organization changes that need not be visible to the players. Arbitrarily choosing to make a huge area load at once gives us what we have now.

Seamless map flow was common art in games prior to GW 1, never mind GW2. I will not speculate on why they did not implement it.

ANET won’t do it now because they have no incentive. Spend money, make none in return. There are many things in the current game that might have been done differently at the beginning, but they can’t be redone now.

Michael.9403:

If you make the zones smaller, the zoning will happen faster, until it appears seamless. No software changes needed, just map organization changes that need not be visible to the players. Arbitrarily choosing to make a huge area load at once gives us what we have now.

If you have ever played the personal story it should be obvious that idea would not work. Most of the personal story instances are very small AND they take place in locations where you already have the surrounding environment already loaded into memory because they take place in the same spot prior to entering the story instance. Despite that there are still loading screens required.

After five years, this would be an impossible task — the whole world system would have to be changed (map completion only being one of the many things). That’s a silly request at this point, really.

And why on earth would you want that anyway? This has been GW’s style since GW1, and it is one of the good aspects of this game. Previous reponses explained the benefits of several separated maps compared to one huge world map.

I really think the fundamental coding of the game simply doesn’t allow it. Given that each map really is one instance, and much of it is loaded at once, I think it would require an engine recoding – i.e. rebuilding the game from the ground up.

Michael.9403:

SlippyCheeze.5483:

You don’t quite understand how the game works: there is not one bit of software involved in a map, there is one ANet server, and up to 150 different clients, all working on the same simulation at the same time, with latencies between them of up to 500ms on a good day.

Your client has the map data, yes, but the server is authoritative about everything, even if it happens to trust the client with some details such as what was being aimed at when the skill triggered. (Sometimes. This is, incidentally, true of every multi-player game out there.)

So … you don’t just have to have your client read the next bit of the map, you need the server to handle that. Right now that’s one process per map instance, with a bounded amount of space because of the zone boundaries, and with a bounded amount of actor involvement, because of the per-map player count limit.

TL:DR version:

I certainly understand the server’s role in computing results and handing them back.

You have missed the OP’s issue, which is "why can’t we have seamless zoning. "

If you make the zones smaller, the zoning will happen faster, until it appears seamless. No software changes needed, just map organization changes that need not be visible to the players. Arbitrarily choosing to make a huge area load at once gives us what we have now.

So close, but… nope. Riddle me this: when you say “seamless zoning”, do you imagine standing in one spot and looking out over an empty field, then walking ten feet and seeing a half dozen players right next to you — suddenly appearing from nowhere?

I can’t speak for you, obviously, but I’m willing to put money on the fact that isn’t what you expect: you think of a single, continuous world that looks like a current zone: you can see things to the limit of vision, and don’t usually get things randomly popping into existance you didn’t see before.

Unfortunately, while simply making zones smaller might help address the issue of a “continuous” world for static objects — mountains and houses — it wouldn’t address the need to have vision across the “zones”, for dynamic objects like players, NPCs, monsters, etc.

So, you wouldn’t just make the zones smaller, you would also need to ensure that the servers hosting the maps communicated appropriately across those zone boundaries for those dynamic things, which is a huge increase in complexity. (Also, has a performance cost, and requires additional memory and network bandwidth, and introduces a whole new category of synchronization issues and unpredictability in debugging.)

I know it’s really tempting to see this as a simple problem, but it’s absolutely not. Companies that build correct and functional seamless worlds have my admiration, because while it’s not an MMO, I work on distributed systems of comparable scale and it’s some of the hardest and most annoying problems out there.