Guild Wars 2

I would like to make a thread about a topic that I have in mind quite some time now.
I’ve played GuildWars 2 since the release and something what bothers me further and further is the missing depth the maps have.

The issue can be parted in two different problems:

1) Missing depth in towns: There are no corners. You got wide places everywhere but almost no corners, secret places or alleys, very few accessible houses and confusing measurement for objects.
Basically, what I mean is, for the most part, if you can’t look behind a corner from afar, you probably wont be able to get behind this corner.

2) Missing detail in landscapes: I’m not talking about grass, trees or the texture quality. I am talking about the lack of realistic landscapes, caves, bays, hills, anything that would give some variety. There are already some things like that, but it’s not common. The areas without anything on it beside a tree or a rock are way too dominant.

I know these things are like they are for the sake of the performance but I hope this could be considered for future maps.

So what I’m suggesting is to get rid of big wide areas which are simply empty. Areas which fill no purpose but to be passed. I would like to give roads and routes more meaning by cutting of some other paths and by “concentrating the action” on those roads. The other parts of the maps shouldn’t be meant to simply travel through, that’s what the raods are for, but to be explored. Nice landscapes, that aren’t easy accessible, neither to see them, nor to travel to them.

I would like to explain the problems I have by showcasing Drytop, the new map. There is a village, which is basically just a wide place with two rocks in it and a canyon which hardly fills any purpose. If I think of an oriental town I think of small, winding alleys between all houses, lots of angles and impasses. Prosperity, the town, is basically just one wall and one house you can go into. It greatly lacks detail. Another thing I would like to point out is the lack of details in the skybox. if you go all the way up to the diving goggle and look around, you hardly get the feeling of being in a real desert or wasteland. I think this feeling could be easily countered by a better skybox which has some hills, dunes or Oases. It would get perfect if the skybox of one map would teaser the landscape which can be found in the next map. A map which also greatly lacks detail is Snowden Drifts which I highly dislike. Almost the whole left part of the map serves no purpose at all, it’s just a big, open, wide area which is completely boring. There is no difference if you would take the southern route, the northern route or the road in the middle. It lacks also proper mountains. Either there is a single rock which is so steep that you can’t climb it or it’s just a flat hill.

I would at last leave some positive things, areas where the map creation has been done right or where the current map design doesn’t suffer that much.

Map creation done right: Salma District. This is what I think would be a good rate of detail. Personally, I would like to be able to walk into all houses, I know this wont be possible. But I would like to get into every third house atleast, I would like to have smaller but more ways around, more to explore, more secrets to discover.

Where the current map creation works:
Wayfarer Foothills. The current map design waives large woods or anything that blocks your vision, mostly because it would hit the performance too hard. This is however the problem I have with the most maps, the quantity of stuff you could find. A map which that doesn’t apply to is Wayfarer Foothills, where you would expect, based on its snowy mountain theme, no great detail. Yet the south part of it has a good degree of detail, it simply fits.

You’re not realizing the actual scale of the game world. Unless Tyria is on some dinky dwarf planet, traveling from The Grove to Divinity’s Reach would take a day or two if traveling by pack animal if using realistic measurements. The entire reason there are Asura Gates to facilitate travel not because it’s easier on players, but because the distances they’re spanning are just that great. I would not be surprised if the scale was close to 1:100, or even 1:500.

Aidan Savage.2078:

You’re not realizing the actual scale of the game world. Unless Tyria is on some dinky dwarf planet, traveling from The Grove to Divinity’s Reach would take a day or two if traveling by pack animal if using realistic measurements. The entire reason there are Asura Gates to facilitate travel not because it’s easier on players, but because the distances they’re spanning are just that great. I would not be surprised if the scale was close to 1:100, or even 1:500.

And that is the reason why the world lacks detail? I would say, if the maps are already smaller than they should be, then the devs should put more stuff in them. Seriuosly, the lack of detail is neither caused by the size of tyria, nor is it affecting the size of tyria, neither good, nor bad.

I do not agree with your suggestion of getting rid of wide open spaces. I for one think, if done right, wide open space can create a decent sense of scale and atmosphere. I do agree that some areas just do not feel right.

But my problem with some areas is the opposite to yours, I find some of them too cluttered with things. I think the problem is they have made them too cluttered with functional scenery. What I mean by this is they have added things for the sake of jumping puzzles and vista, etc, but these platforms and strangely angled rock outcrops just do not fit sometimes.

As to the level of detail, I agree, this is lacking in places. That is if you mean small details like plants and bushes, etc. Wooded/foresty areas in this game feel lacking because all you sometimes get are trees, and nothing else, or very little else. But I think that mainly comes down to time and resources, though performance may play a small role in it.

There are some truly stunning zones, Timberline springs to mind for me, but I agree there are some zones that just do not hit the mark. They lack something, and for me that something is almost always atmosphere and feeling. It feels to me like (in some zones) they have sacrificed the look and feel of the area to put in a vista or jumping puzzle, rather than getting the atmosphere right first and then trying to work in these things. Sometimes it really stands out to me and can ruin the feel of the area. However, when they get it right, the jumping puzzle can be a thoroughly enjoyable and atmospheric piece of content.

Looking back though, I generally think that the direction in map design has gradually shifted in Anet over the years, even as early as Factions for GW1. The feel and atmosphere in most of the zones in GW1 was spot on. You really got a sense of the zone, from the dessimated wasteland of Ascalon to the humid and dense (without too much clutter I might add) jungle of Maguuma to the arrid Crystal Desert you can get lost in. But Factions started to lose that in places. Not many mind you, they still had a good feel in most places, but some lacked that real atmosphere. And that lacking started to show more and more with each expansion for some reason. I do not know why that is, only Anet can know why that is. But now we have GW2, and while, like I say, many zones look and feel great, there are a lot of areas that just fail to hit that atmospheric mark.

I’d just like to finish by talking about Dry Top. This new zone ‘segment’ is a mix of good and bad. I like the open area you get when your past the crashed Zeph ship, but not so keen on the crash site. While I understand it is supposed to be a mess and chaotic, I feel it is too forced. They have tried too hard to push vertical jumping content in our faces and it has had an impact on the feel of the area in my opinion. I like JP’s and jumping content in general, don’t get me wrong here, I really am not complaining because I dislike JP’s or anything like that, I really enjoy it. But I do not think they should impact the feel of an area as much as some of them do.

I’d also like to add that the tumble weed and sandstorm effects are simply amazing, and really bring that desert feeling to life. More of this please Anet. The feel of a zone is not just about how many trees or rocks there are and how they’re placed, it’s also about sounds and atmosphere effects. Seeing a small cloud of snow blow off a drfit really adds something the drift alone cannot. So more effects please, but not too many

Overall, I like the look and feel of GW2, but I agree that some areas need improvement. And I really feel that the atmosphere needs to take first priority over jumping content.

Well, I’m not often having the feeeling that some place got sacrificed in order to put in a jumping puzzle. If you look at Morgans’s Leap in the Caledon Forest as example, I would say it fits almost perfectly. Yet again the lake near the Morgan’s Spiral doesn’t fit. Ther’re ship wrecks and a giant crayfish. I’m not saying that the lake in general does not fit, only the implementation doesn’t. Also the next JP, Dark Reverie does fit very well. The only thing I dislike is the area above this JP, behind the mountain. There is again an open area which fills no purpose. Adding something more, like exotic plants or a small cave, anything would help to break the feeling of just having an area which is not used.
A good example of unused space is the Black Citadel. The alleys are so wide and barely anyone is using them. The alleys are just too wide. Yet again the Gladium District is very nice but rather small. I would like to have more parts like the Gladium District and less like this open areas.

At last, I’m not suggesting to get rid of all wide areas but to get rid of areas which fill no purpose.

I understand what you mean. The one thing I have often wondered when I see these empty unused spaces is did/does Anet have plans for this space? It may well be that they made it large and open so they can add things to it laters. Well, I can hope anyway.