Guild Wars 2

I feel like this game would be really cool if zones werent instanced off from each other. I think this may be a reason why they decided not to have a balloon ride taking us to DR and having it just be a loading screen instead. Other than that I think it gives the world a more open world feel if nothing is instanced.

It’s likely a technical limit.

I agree, instanced zones is a big turn off for anyone trying to immerse himself in this game. But the one thing that really shouldn’t be an instanced zones are city! For god sake, they should be part of their respective map, not an instanced zone.

The Overflow system.

If players wanted to go to, say, Lornar’s Pass, uninstanced zones would most likely send them to the overflow even if the majority of players are in, say, Lion’s Arch.

we just need animated/interactive loading screens to make this seem continuous.
no need to explain how because it is worthless anyway. They won’t do it

They are not instances as such, if anything they are more like “closed, open areas” if that makes sense.

I expect they are like this for various reasons such as:

1 – To have the area maps completion be viable.
2 – To give each area it’s own feel and in a way background story.
3 – Were worked on by different creation teams at the same time so the world could be made quicker (all at once) and then just added together.
4 – As someone else said to give us better chances of being on our home servers by splitting the areas up and sharing them around on different servers and such to help keep this a reality.

5 – To help us as the players know where and when we should be able to visit certain areas thanks to the maps/areas being level advised/based

I’m sure there’s tons of other reasons but all in all I prefer it like this. :P

Paulytnz.7619:

They are not instances as such, if anything they are more like “closed, open areas” if that makes sense.

I expect they are like this for various reasons such as:

1 – To have the area maps completion be viable.
2 – To give each area it’s own feel and in a way background story.
3 – Were worked on by different creation teams at the same time so the world could be made quicker (all at once) and then just added together.
4 – As someone else said to give us better chances of being on our home servers by splitting the areas up and sharing them around on different servers and such to help keep this a reality.

5 – To help us as the players know where and when we should be able to visit certain areas thanks to the maps/areas being level advised/based

I’m sure there’s tons of other reasons but all in all I prefer it like this. :P

Reasons 1, 2 and 5 could be achieved with a seamless world.

Whilst I agree it would make it more immersive, Lotro has a seamless world and it’s now catching up with itself 5 years on. The number of people suffering 15-20min load in times and other lag issues with each new zone added, is growing rapidly. It’s why I rarely log in there anymore..just too long a wait compared to other mmos

This is one of the main negative points,about the design
of GW2.
Zones are like the levels of a instanced action rpg
game,and they are 100% separated,all with the same
unnatural rectangle borderlines.
They don’t feel,and for every practical reason,they are
not part of a seamless world.
At least,when in the zones,the terrain and environments are beautifully
designed,and that makes it a bit easier to forget about the Tetris like map.
This kind of zone separation and the overflow maps,are two features
I hope no other MMO will copy in the future.
It is good for the developer but bad for the gamer.

Its not realty worth doing you can make a world seamless but why? Most players only play in a given zone most of the time in all mmorpgs. You will find that you cant do as many tricks with a seamless world such as world bosses that changes the zones they are in.

It would be awesome. For one thing it would free them up a lot to be creative in the area of map design. Ever notice how pretty much every zone is a valley with mountains on 4 sides? xD

But as others have said, there are technical limits. There is streaming map tech that works for some games, but it is complicated and can not necessarily be applied to every game.

I’ve been thinking about this as well. Obviously it must be a technical reason but having all the zones separated by a portal sort of takes away the feeling of a large, inter-connected world. Usually when I go from one zone to the next I really have to “think” that I’m just wandering into nearby land rather than a whole new world so to speak.