Why Guild Wars 2 is the most 'Square' world
That is factually not true. How many games have you played to think this?
Just look at this map from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and tell me that’s square (the bright green lines are the borders of the maps):
In a programming sense, it’s absolutely true. The “map” as far as the files are concerned, would be that entire image. If you could “break” through the walls, you’d be able to explore that empty space until you hit one of the edges.
That is factually not true. How many games have you played to think this?
Just look at this map from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and tell me that’s square (the bright green lines are the borders of the maps):
In a programming sense, it’s absolutely true. The “map” as far as the files are concerned, would be that entire image. If you could “break” through the walls, you’d be able to explore that empty space until you hit one of the edges.
Well, yeah, but why would you want to explore the un-programmed mess outside of the borders? And why is this such a big deal anyway? This is literally the first thread/complaint I’ve seen about the maps being the shape they are, so this is likely an isolated incident. Even if it wasn’t, why complain? It’s…already there, and has been for two years. Doubt they’re gonna change the old maps now.
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That is factually not true. How many games have you played to think this?
Just look at this map from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and tell me that’s square (the bright green lines are the borders of the maps):
In a programming sense, it’s absolutely true. The “map” as far as the files are concerned, would be that entire image. If you could “break” through the walls, you’d be able to explore that empty space until you hit one of the edges.
I just so happen to be a game dev myself and I can tell from experience that you’re still wrong. Map design isn’t even a programming thing, it’s an art and design thing.
I’m 100% sure if you break out of the map borders in Zelda you’d not end up in a square map. Same goes for many many games.
In fact GW2 is one of the few games I know where most maps are (near) perfect squares and the game doesn’t even do a good job at hiding that fact. The fact that most mountains look perfectly straight and form perfect squares has always bothered me, but I’ve learned to live with it in the past 2 years.
Who cares???
Who cares???
I do. It makes GW2’s world look overly artificial which breaks my immersion quite a bit.
It’s not so bad that it makes GW2 unplayable for me, especially since I spend most of my time in PvP or WvW, but it does bother me a tiny bit every single time I press ‘m’ in PvE.
I don’t understand why the artists at Anet decided to make all their maps rectangular. Not only that, but why did they make all the natural borders (mountains etc.) rectangular as well? It looks artificial, ugly, fake and for some people it’s immersion-breaking.
In fact GW2 is one of the few games I know where most maps are (near) perfect squares and the game doesn’t even do a good job at hiding that fact. The fact that most mountains look perfectly straight and form perfect squares has always bothered me, but I’ve learned to live with it in the past 2 years.
Well, that’s a separate argument that I’d actually agree with. But the question from the OP as I read it was “why are the maps all square?” to which the fairly simple answer is, “because all game maps are square, some are better at hiding that fact better than others.”
Now, I won’t argue that Arena.net is very lackluster at hiding it.
Your point about it being immersion breaking makes no sense. You can only see the square shapes of the zones from the map. You can’t tell while running around the zones.
In fact GW2 is one of the few games I know where most maps are (near) perfect squares and the game doesn’t even do a good job at hiding that fact. The fact that most mountains look perfectly straight and form perfect squares has always bothered me, but I’ve learned to live with it in the past 2 years.
Well, that’s a separate argument that I’d actually agree with. But the question from the OP as I read it was “why are the maps all square?” to which the fairly simple answer is, “because all game maps are square, some are better at hiding that fact better than others.”
Now, I won’t argue that Arena.net is very lackluster at hiding it.
I don’t think it’s a separate argument. As I understood the OP he was actually complaining about the exact same thing I just complained about in my post you replied to.
And again, not all game maps are square. Many are, but an equal amount are not. There are multiple ways of designing a game map and sometimes they’re square and sometimes they’re not.
Your point about it being immersion breaking makes no sense. You can only see the square shapes of the zones from the map. You can’t tell while running around the zones.
I can definitely tell while running around the zones, but it’s most apparent when opening the map.
Since the original Devs came from WoW and were familiar with that game’s seamless maps then I’m going to assume there was a particular reason why they didn’t put it into this game, as nice as that would be.
Perhaps someone with computer knowledge can say what the disadvantages of a seamless world are to the game’s engine.
I think the reason is simple – they had a working engine in GW1 which rely on instancing (ie restricted and focused maps) and they just went with a that design instead of rebuilding it from the ground. You dont just “put” something like a seamless map into a game. Its a core part of its server architecture, how transitions are handled.
But I dont know what Anet was really thinking. I am hoping it was “we just want to make a great game!” but it may have been “a new engine is going to cost us what?!?!?” :P
My guess (judging from the loading times when you transition between zones) is that there is something in the rendering process of Guild Wars games that makes it impractical for the world to load seamlessly as one map.
I’m guessing this as well. Imagine walking from Kessex Hills all the way to Divinity’s Reach without a loading screen, seeing every NPC, player and event going on. That’s a lot of graphics having to be rendered all at once, and a lot of spell effects (depending on culling settings) rendering at once.
Also, I heard that GW2 is running off of a heavily modified GW1 engine, so that may be another reason. I can’t cite a source (forums…y u no fix?) and Google just gives me comparisons to the two games.
Wiki does say that about the engine: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2
“Guild Wars 2 uses a heavily modified Guild Wars game engine which includes support for true 3D environments, more detailed environments and models, better lighting and shadows, new animation and effects systems, plus new audio and cinematics engines and a more flexible combat and skill-casting system.”
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
ANet may give it to you.
There is no way it would take you “months” to run though an openworld version of this game.
the WoW main landmass is something in the line of 60-80 square miles if I recall correctly… Daggerfall is somewhere around 60 thousand square miles. And it still only take like a week realtime to walk through.
Can you imagine the amount of development time it would take to create a world that would take months to run through?
A world like that would be pretty amazing, though (as long as there were also shortcuts, of some kind!).
Wouldn’t have to worry about endgame much, as the entire game would take years to explore, let alone complete.
“Turns out when people play the game, they don’t admire your feet at all.” sephiroth
(edited by Tigaseye.2047)
Never played WoW, can you jump/climb literally everything you can see? Are there jumping puzzles and hidden nooks/rewards for playing like a goat on a mission to break the map?
I’ve always thought the terrain of gw2 is amazing, the free roaming and lack of invisible walls is a huge plus. I played TERA for about 10 minutes recently, walked into four invisible walls and uninstalled it.Just imagine walking from Frostgorge Sound to Cursed Shore without a loading screen.
You’ll still be blocked by mountains too high, but you’ll have the freedom to travel through different routes to another zone. This isn’t possible with GW2, since the only way out is through a portal or waypoint.
Here’s something to think about, if this was really an open world as you’re suggesting, would you mind taking a real time month or so to walk from Frostgorge Sound to Cursed Shore, because that’s how big the world would have to be in order to represent what you can represent by having instanced zones. That would be like walking from New Brunswick, Canada to Miami, Florida…that’s how big the land mass is in relative terms…I don’t think you’d enjoy it all that much.
As for the OP, have you ever really walked along all of those so called ‘square’ maps, I can tell you they’re not. I mean really get up along those ridges and other points, they’re a little more jagged than you think, and keep in mind, not all of the terrain is represented on the map, only the zones themselves are represented, not the transitional terrain between zones, that’s probably what you’re missing the most, and personally, I don’t really care. I don’t play the map.
Of course it wouldn’t take a month.
What on earth are you talking about?
Play the free trial of WoW – it will probably will take you a few hours, to run (without mount) from the far corner of one continent to the far corner of the opposite one (you’ll have to take a ship/airship to cross the ocean).
There is no way it would take you “months” to run though an openworld version of this game.
Of course, with the free version of WoW, you can only level to level 20, so running through high level zones will be virtually impossible; but still, the point remains that once you’re max level (so, don’t have to worry about mobs) running doesn’t take very long.
As someone else pointed out the WoW landmass is only 60 – 80 square miles, and Daggerfall is like 60,000…well, imagine Tyria in it’s entirety: you’d be looking at something like 6,000,000 square miles. Are you going to tell me it wouldn’t take months to traverse 6 million square miles of landscape?
(edited by Zaklex.6308)
Since the original Devs came from WoW and were familiar with that game’s seamless maps then I’m going to assume there was a particular reason why they didn’t put it into this game, as nice as that would be.
Perhaps someone with computer knowledge can say what the disadvantages of a seamless world are to the game’s engine.
I think the reason is simple – they had a working engine in GW1 which rely on instancing (ie restricted and focused maps) and they just went with a that design instead of rebuilding it from the ground. You dont just “put” something like a seamless map into a game. Its a core part of its server architecture, how transitions are handled.
But I dont know what Anet was really thinking. I am hoping it was “we just want to make a great game!” but it may have been “a new engine is going to cost us what?!?!?” :P
My guess (judging from the loading times when you transition between zones) is that there is something in the rendering process of Guild Wars games that makes it impractical for the world to load seamlessly as one map.
I’m guessing this as well. Imagine walking from Kessex Hills all the way to Divinity’s Reach without a loading screen, seeing every NPC, player and event going on. That’s a lot of graphics having to be rendered all at once, and a lot of spell effects (depending on culling settings) rendering at once.
Also, I heard that GW2 is running off of a heavily modified GW1 engine, so that may be another reason. I can’t cite a source (forums…y u no fix?) and Google just gives me comparisons to the two games.
Wiki does say that about the engine: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2
“Guild Wars 2 uses a heavily modified Guild Wars game engine which includes support for true 3D environments, more detailed environments and models, better lighting and shadows, new animation and effects systems, plus new audio and cinematics engines and a more flexible combat and skill-casting system.”
Because of editing issues, I’m making this a separate post. Please carefully note the wiki article about the GW2 game engine is from the original GW wiki, and no from the GW2 wiki. Now I know for sure the networking architecture was enhanced and reused for GW2, but they found out that they couldn’t modify the rest of the engine to provide what they wanted to do so everything else was built new from the ground up to support the systems they wanted to put into the game, and also allows them to improve it like they are with HoT.
Hmmm .. not that i really have a problem with th squares .. but this looks different.
On the other hand RIFT also had a “seamless” world, and not closed zones like we
have in GW2.Guild Wars 2 isn’t trying to present a seamless world, though. The individual maps in GW2 should be thought of as separate but related paintings perhaps by different artists. Hell, watch how the moon changes from one map to the next…there’s simply no visual agreement there.
GW2 goes all-out for the painterly effect (just look at the edges of the screen) so why not a square canvas?
The zones in RIFT also had all their indivudual styles. Its more just a technical aspect
of the engine i think. I also wonder if it was related that i never really got much more
than 40-50 FPS in Rift.
EVERY MMO is awesome until it is released then its unfinished. A month after release it just sucks.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.
When you open the map – Yes squares everywhere.
When you play it – Not even a slight feeling that you are in the middle of some boxed map. In my honest humbly opinion this game has some more issues to resolve then this.
Never played WoW, can you jump/climb literally everything you can see? Are there jumping puzzles and hidden nooks/rewards for playing like a goat on a mission to break the map?
I’ve always thought the terrain of gw2 is amazing, the free roaming and lack of invisible walls is a huge plus. I played TERA for about 10 minutes recently, walked into four invisible walls and uninstalled it.Just imagine walking from Frostgorge Sound to Cursed Shore without a loading screen.
You’ll still be blocked by mountains too high, but you’ll have the freedom to travel through different routes to another zone. This isn’t possible with GW2, since the only way out is through a portal or waypoint.
Here’s something to think about, if this was really an open world as you’re suggesting, would you mind taking a real time month or so to walk from Frostgorge Sound to Cursed Shore, because that’s how big the world would have to be in order to represent what you can represent by having instanced zones. That would be like walking from New Brunswick, Canada to Miami, Florida…that’s how big the land mass is in relative terms…I don’t think you’d enjoy it all that much.
As for the OP, have you ever really walked along all of those so called ‘square’ maps, I can tell you they’re not. I mean really get up along those ridges and other points, they’re a little more jagged than you think, and keep in mind, not all of the terrain is represented on the map, only the zones themselves are represented, not the transitional terrain between zones, that’s probably what you’re missing the most, and personally, I don’t really care. I don’t play the map.
Of course it wouldn’t take a month.
What on earth are you talking about?
Play the free trial of WoW – it will probably will take you a few hours, to run (without mount) from the far corner of one continent to the far corner of the opposite one (you’ll have to take a ship/airship to cross the ocean).
There is no way it would take you “months” to run though an openworld version of this game.
Of course, with the free version of WoW, you can only level to level 20, so running through high level zones will be virtually impossible; but still, the point remains that once you’re max level (so, don’t have to worry about mobs) running doesn’t take very long.
As someone else pointed out the WoW landmass is only 60 – 80 square miles, and Daggerfall is like 60,000…well, imagine Tyria in it’s entirety: you’d be looking at something like 6,000,000 square miles. Are you going to tell me it wouldn’t take months to traverse 6 million square miles of landscape?
I’m clearly missing something, here.
All you would need to do, for an openworld environment, like WoW, is open the zones up, so you could run through them, from one to another, without running through a portal/loading screen (or any other barrier).
Obviously, there are almost certainly technical limitations that would prevent that, in GW2, but if it was possible, it wouldn’t have to make the world much bigger than it is now.
If you mean that you would have jarring changes between zones (i.e. desert to snow, or whatever) without adding tons more land in between, then I get what you mean.
However, WoW has that kind of thing and people just accept it.
Each entire continent acts as its own openworld entity, but every zone within each continent has its own distinct ecosystem.
An example that springs to mind is Sholazar Basin, which is a jungle type zone in the middle of a largely Scandinavian style (so, largely tundra and snow) continent (Northrend).
There are lore reasons added for the sudden changes, to an extent, but still.
The point is, you originally design the entire world as an openworld continent/set of continents and can make it pretty much any size you want and the difference between adjacent zones as smooth, or as jarring, as you want.
“Turns out when people play the game, they don’t admire your feet at all.” sephiroth
(edited by Tigaseye.2047)
Never played WoW, can you jump/climb literally everything you can see? Are there jumping puzzles and hidden nooks/rewards for playing like a goat on a mission to break the map?
I’ve always thought the terrain of gw2 is amazing, the free roaming and lack of invisible walls is a huge plus. I played TERA for about 10 minutes recently, walked into four invisible walls and uninstalled it.Just imagine walking from Frostgorge Sound to Cursed Shore without a loading screen.
You’ll still be blocked by mountains too high, but you’ll have the freedom to travel through different routes to another zone. This isn’t possible with GW2, since the only way out is through a portal or waypoint.
Here’s something to think about, if this was really an open world as you’re suggesting, would you mind taking a real time month or so to walk from Frostgorge Sound to Cursed Shore, because that’s how big the world would have to be in order to represent what you can represent by having instanced zones. That would be like walking from New Brunswick, Canada to Miami, Florida…that’s how big the land mass is in relative terms…I don’t think you’d enjoy it all that much.
As for the OP, have you ever really walked along all of those so called ‘square’ maps, I can tell you they’re not. I mean really get up along those ridges and other points, they’re a little more jagged than you think, and keep in mind, not all of the terrain is represented on the map, only the zones themselves are represented, not the transitional terrain between zones, that’s probably what you’re missing the most, and personally, I don’t really care. I don’t play the map.
Of course it wouldn’t take a month.
What on earth are you talking about?
Play the free trial of WoW – it will probably will take you a few hours, to run (without mount) from the far corner of one continent to the far corner of the opposite one (you’ll have to take a ship/airship to cross the ocean).
There is no way it would take you “months” to run though an openworld version of this game.
Of course, with the free version of WoW, you can only level to level 20, so running through high level zones will be virtually impossible; but still, the point remains that once you’re max level (so, don’t have to worry about mobs) running doesn’t take very long.
As someone else pointed out the WoW landmass is only 60 – 80 square miles, and Daggerfall is like 60,000…well, imagine Tyria in it’s entirety: you’d be looking at something like 6,000,000 square miles. Are you going to tell me it wouldn’t take months to traverse 6 million square miles of landscape?
I’m clearly missing something, here.
All you would need to do, for an openworld environment, like WoW, is open the zones up, so you could run through them, from one to another, without running through a portal/loading screen (or any other barrier).
Obviously, there are almost certainly technical limitations that would prevent that, in GW2, but if it was possible, it wouldn’t have to make the world much bigger than it is now.
If you mean that you would have jarring changes between zones (i.e. desert to snow, or whatever) without adding tons more land in between, then I get what you mean.
However, WoW has that kind of thing and people just accept it.
Each entire continent acts as its own openworld entity, but every zone within each continent has its own distinct ecosystem.
An example that springs to mind is Sholazar Basin, which is a jungle type zone in the middle of a largely Scandinavian style (so, largely tundra and snow) continent (Northrend).
There are lore reasons added for the sudden changes, to an extent, but still.
The point is, you originally design the entire world as an openworld continent/set of continents and can make it pretty much any size you want and the difference between adjacent zones as smooth, or as jarring, as you want.
Here’s a simple test, walk up to a zone portal in GW2 and look at it, then look in it, notice anything? If you look closely, you do not see the next zone through the portal, but you see the pathway continuing on into scenery that resembles the zone you’re in, it’s used to give the illusion of distance between zones. What I’m talking about with an open world, is just that, real sized world, with distinct ecosystems and biomes that you travel through, that’s why I said 60 million square miles, none of the the desert just happens to go right into snowing mountains bs…example, a 3d map of the U.S that your computer generates in real scale that you can enter and walk around in…now imagine Tyria that way.
Add some instanced squares pls.
Yeah this squares hurt my eyes but i am afraid that they can’t do anything about this now.
They use square maps because it’s simpler, and the maps feel square because they want to use as much available design space as they can in the area.
If they really wanted to, I’m sure they can take a map and fill in the outer ring with mountains even more so than they do now to make the area into a circle or whatever weird oblong shape they wanted. That is something that most MMOs do already, but it still doesn’t change the fact that map is still going to be square in the end of the day or a smaller part of a larger square map.