Most zones surrounded by mountains

Most zones surrounded by mountains

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Radiobiology.6185

Radiobiology.6185

Okay, so i know i will be flamed for creating this thread seeing as you get flamed for anything that can even be slightly percieved as negative about the game. But rest assured pro-arena net lobby, i do love this game and will keep loving it for years to come, so with that out of the way, lets get to it.

Is it just me or does anyone else find it a bit awkward that almost every zone in this game is a little perfect square surrounded by mountains? Now it was a while since i played guild wars 1 but i feel like the zone borders there felt a bit more natural, maybe because the game didnt have any jumping. Maybe Anet should think about trying to make the zone borders look more natural going forward instead of always going with the easy solution of mountains?

Comment below what you think about this issue.

Most zones surrounded by mountains

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: penelopehannibal.8947

penelopehannibal.8947

I think the majority of the issue can be resolved easily if not every part of the mountains was grey-brown. Make some of it green, light-brown, beige or white (depending on zone) so it at least doesn’t appear too square.

Okay, so i know i will be flamed for creating this thread seeing as you get flamed for anything that can even be slightly percieved as negative about the game. But rest assured pro-arena net lobby, i do love this game and will keep loving it for years to come, so with that out of the way, lets get to it.

You didn’t really need to write this bit tbh.

Blood & Merlot [Wine]

Most zones surrounded by mountains

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Posted by: Ubi.4136

Ubi.4136

This is pretty funny in that my wife literally just made that comment to me last night.
We both played GW1 and she asked me if the maps were all squares/rectangles?
Then she commented that she finds it strange that all the maps in GW2 are the way they are.

Lost in the Maguuma [TC]
Te Nosce [TC]

Most zones surrounded by mountains

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Posted by: Lethalvriend.1723

Lethalvriend.1723

Coordinates are pretty much all about what you can fit in an x, y, z box and to make the most use out of a map that’s i.e. 200 × 100 meters they fill up most of the area. It’s also easy to align with other maps. What other games do is trick you by using a smaller part of the actual map size, you’ll never know that it’s still made up of blocks like that but under the hood they definetely are.

Just draw a grid on a piece of paper, how do you get the most play area out of that single grid? You fill it all up. The good thing with having a third axis is that you are far less limited if you’re willing to go underground or over the ground level and you can see it in Heart of Thorns maps, the last 2 don’t use the full ‘grid’ that’s available. At least not for regular play.

I’m guessing they simply thought it was the best way to create big maps at one point in time, you have to realize GW2’s engine is very old and they started on it when PC’s were far less powerful.

Most zones surrounded by mountains

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Posted by: Illconceived Was Na.9781

Illconceived Was Na.9781

I am not bothered by mountains. I just think the design is ugly: too many square borders, just like we used to find in the original single player RPGs. Even some of those games managed to be less rigid in defining borders by using (crooked) crevasses, impassable forests, unnavigable rivers or seas.

That said, I don’t really see that it’s worth doing anything now, five years later. It’s one of the least-charming aspects of an otherwise beautiful game, but I’m sure it’s a horrible amount of work to change it at this, late date. I’d rather they set the idea aside for 2025, when they are working on GW3.


Okay, so i know i will be flamed for creating this thread seeing as you get flamed for anything that can even be slightly percieved as negative about the game. But rest assured pro-arena net lobby, i do love this game and will keep loving it for years to come, so with that out of the way, lets get to it.

This paragraph doesn’t really help explain your point. People can disagree with you without being “pro arena-net”. As you note, you can be a fan of the game and dislike things in it.

Put another way: no need to apologize for having a point of view.

John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”

Most zones surrounded by mountains

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Posted by: Danikat.8537

Danikat.8537

It bothers me too.

I understand why they did it from a game design perspective: each map is actually self-contained in a cube so the actual edges have to be square. If you run into the actual edge weird things happen, mostly this jittery effect where it’s like you’re sticking to the invisible wall, and also it looks really unrealistic because the ground just stops in a perfectly straight line and then there’s nothing but sky (and sometimes water) beyond it. So they need to hide it somehow and, on a one-off basis, a mountain which is too steep to climb is a much more natural barrier. Making those mountains follow the actual edge of the map allows them to use the maximum amount of space within it.

The problem is when you have a game with lots of adjacent maps and you use that same trick over and over you get…well GW2’s world map, with it’s endless array of perfectly straight north/south and east/west mountain ranges, everywhere, regardless of the surrounding geography, and the end result looks extremely unrealistic.

Having said all that I want to thank the OP for not asking for the existing maps to be changed. That’s the usual request when this topic comes up – for Anet to “just” remove all the mountains or even remove the map boundaries all together and make the entire game into one continuous map. Which of course isn’t going to happen because they’d have to basically re-build the world from scratch.

I completely agree that they should try to avoid this going forward. We have seen slight improvements with some newer maps – for example many of the HoT maps have thick foliage (aka walls with a tree pattern on them) or impassable vines or crevices around the edge – or the world appears to keep going and you’re just told you can’t venture that far – which at least only breaks my immersion when I’m actually there and can’t see any reason I can’t keep gliding rather than annoying me every time I look at the map.

It would be nice to see that improved on. For example if it’s true that we’re going into the Crystal Desert maybe they could borrow a trick from Dragon Age Inquisition (and various other games with desert maps) where if you try to walk off the map a sandstorm blows up and you’re forced to turn around. (Just actually make it effective, unlike DA:I when it was first released where you could just ignore that and fall off the world.)

Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).

“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”

Most zones surrounded by mountains

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Posted by: Paulytnz.7619

Paulytnz.7619

Okay, so i know i will be flamed for creating this thread seeing as you get flamed for anything that can even be slightly percieved as negative about the game. But rest assured pro-arena net lobby, i do love this game and will keep loving it for years to come, so with that out of the way, lets get to it.

Is it just me or does anyone else find it a bit awkward that almost every zone in this game is a little perfect square surrounded by mountains? Now it was a while since i played guild wars 1 but i feel like the zone borders there felt a bit more natural, maybe because the game didnt have any jumping. Maybe Anet should think about trying to make the zone borders look more natural going forward instead of always going with the easy solution of mountains?

Comment below what you think about this issue.

Yeah tbh I do agree. I like that the maps are mostly perfectly square or rectangle but I do agree with regards to it being mountains 99% of the time as borders.

I was playing some Dragon Age 3 recently and it really struck out at me how differently they did it in that game and the various other options they used.

Some of the things they used instead of mountains all the time were:

1 – Rivers that you could not cross or enter
2 – Deep thick forest edges
3 – Big canyons or gorges

Not only did it add more variety, realism and immersion to the environment but it added a very good look and feel to the game. I got that “wow this looks awesome/cool” feeling all over again instead of “oh, more mountains, nm carry on….”

Don’t worry OP, at the time I also felt like speaking out about it here and was going to make a thread as well but tbh these days besides discussing it with just ourselves (the players) what’s the point? Nothing much changes anymore, they just don’t have enough resources or seem to bother about the little things anymore and that just makes me feel .

Actually it’s not the fact that they have little resources or dedicated resources to certain things that makes me sad. I think it’s more the fact that they don’t even discuss anything much with us these days us. So it feels like if they can’t even talk with us about the things we would like what’s the point? Even if it’s just a:

1 – “that sounds cool maybe we will think about it in the future” or

2 – “that’s cool but right now we just can’t…” or

3 – “that can never really happen sorry because….”

Hopefully now you get my point, not (filter lol) bagging on anyone just how I see it.

Since when did this business of being a hero become being a business?