Guild Wars 2

What happened to the creativity of the maps like in gw1? every single zone is a square or a rectangle, theres no imagination or variance.

Well what difference would it be if they were different shapes?

Vol.5241:

Well what difference would it be if they were different shapes?

it would look more natural for one, not just squares placed all next to eachother in a grid.

I think the use of squares was a choice to make it easier and less cluttered to differentiate between zones, not to mention make it easier to design the map.

It’s become more or less an assumption by portions of the player base, that GW2 was launched with many points still in development.

As a result, many parts of the game suffered.
Earlier in development, they probably planned to shift around the boundaries more later, but other things simply took priority once the launch date was decided.

It bothers me too, but it doesn’t ruin the game for me.

I like it. It reminds me of GTA: San Andreas where rival gangs could take over your territory and it was visible on the map. Dynamic events.

Interesting that the Risen don’t take over the zones dynamically, visible on the map. Players could go back to save the zones and fight back the invasions. Oh well.

My money is that it is one of those things devs say “uh whatever we’ll change this later, now let’s focus on…” during development but then it remains like that.
Procastrinating until it’s too late is built-in the genetics of every dev in the world.

Does a good job at reminding me it’s just a game when I, uh, immerse myself in GW2 too much.
The wake-up call used to be my gf but she’s even more addict than me now.

They aren’t actually square, though- I mean, the perimeter of every zone has a squiggly-shaped border of mountains or whatever that you usually can’t permeate. You can’t actually access the full rectangular area of the border shown on the map… It’s very rare that you can ever touch the actual “edge” of a zone lengthwise or heightwise. In other words, the zones themselves aren’t square, they’re just represented as squares on the map.

Kristine Heath.1483:

What happened to the creativity of the maps like in gw1? every single zone is a square or a rectangle, theres no imagination or variance.

You DO realize all the maps in GW1 were square or rectangular as well, right?

It bothers me too, but it’s a small error. There are other, larger issues, which bother me more—and at the end of the day, none of them have made me throw the game away.

Kristine Heath.1483:

What happened to the creativity of the maps like in gw1? every single zone is a square or a rectangle, theres no imagination or variance.

Which gw1 zones were NOT rectangular?

Edit: Rhea’s Crater seems to not have a rectangular edge since it’s eastern most point is further east than the outpost’s western edge

What’s yer beef with squares? They’re keeping the world neat and orderly.

Doggie.3184:

What’s yer beef with squares? They’re keeping the world neat and orderly.

Everyone knows that Trapezoid > Square.

All maps, in ANY game, by sheer restriction of the way coordinates work, are square. Arena.net just saw fit to use 98% of these squares/rectangular maps instead of shaving off a third of them as impassable mountains for the mere illusion of uneven borders. Your PC still has to load that third, there’s just nothing (else but terrain) in it.

Even seamless worlds, Azeroth for example, are built within a square. It’s a bloody huge square per continent, but a square none-the-less. That’s why they have the forced drowning bit when you swim out to sea: they don’t want you hitting the invisible wall.

I dont know… I get a distinctly circular vibe from Divinity’s Reach.

It doesn’t seem that square when you’re in the map so I don’t mind.

The map divides zones into squares because it’s easy to read. The actual zones (you know, when you’re out actually playing the game and not just staring at the map, porting around) tend to have relatively natural looking borders.

Although it is a minor issue, the sarcasm/condescending responses in this thread are out of hand. Good job Guild Wars community! Always impressing!

Anyway, yeah the square-shaped maps do seem kind of unnatural and weird, especially viewed from the world map. It doesn’t really leave a whole lot of mystery when exploring since you know exactly where the maps will end. There were quite a few oddly shaped maps in the first game and it was particuarly neat coming across random zones that were far off from the main path the game took you through. Now all the zones are clearly labeled on the map and easy to guess how far they’ll take you. Though I honestly believe the maps are this way due to making map completion less of a P.I.T.A. Remember how rediculous cartography was in the first game to the point that most used a mod to help them out?

Red Falcon.8257:

Procastrinating until it’s too late is built-in the genetics of every dev in the world.

I know this is a joke but I’ll answer as a software developer (its my job). Please keep in mind that this is my experience and isn’t necessarily true for the whole industry.

We do not procrastinate because we never stop working. No matter what I’m doing (also my colleges from what we discuss) I’m always thinking how to solve scripting issues (even at home in bed looking at the clock and it say’s 2:00am).

This isn’t by choice mind you, and it is something I have come to accept as a necessary evil. I have solved so many scripting issues while in the shower, cooking, on the tram, walking the dog, playing Guild Wars 2 and even when overseas on holiday. It’s never done consciously, it just happens.

Trying to explain the complexities of a script to someone who isn’t actively building scripts on a daily basis is like hitting your head against a brick wall, you may as well try and teach evolution to a fundamentalist christian, it can’t be done.

StormageddonBK.9842:

Red Falcon.8257:

Procastrinating until it’s too late is built-in the genetics of every dev in the world.

I know this is a joke but I’ll answer as a software developer (its my job). Please keep in mind that this is my experience and isn’t necessarily true for the whole industry.

We do not procrastinate because we never stop working. No matter what I’m doing (also my colleges from what we discuss) I’m always thinking how to solve scripting issues (even at home in bed looking at the clock and it say’s 2:00am).

This isn’t by choice mind you, and it is something I have come to accept as a necessary evil. I have solved so many scripting issues while in the shower, cooking, on the tram, walking the dog, playing Guild Wars 2 and even when overseas on holiday. It’s never done consciously, it just happens.

Trying to explain the complexities of a script to someone who isn’t actively building scripts on a daily basis is like hitting your head against a brick wall, you may as well try and teach evolution to a fundamentalist christian, it can’t be done.

This is exactly how chapter 1 to chapter 2 felt in college. Like learning to crawl, then next step is learning to create an artificial intelligence that can route traffic to over 30 countries that is on a space station, on mars, and the directions are in Arabic. :P

For simplicity.

Makes seeing the zone perimiter better. But at the same time when going to an adjacent zone it still feels they are separated in a non-linear fashion.

I think it is a good design.

Timbersword.9014:

All maps, in ANY game, by sheer restriction of the way coordinates work, are square. Arena.net just saw fit to use 98% of these squares/rectangular maps instead of shaving off a third of them as impassable mountains for the mere illusion of uneven borders. Your PC still has to load that third, there’s just nothing (else but terrain) in it.

Even seamless worlds, Azeroth for example, are built within a square. It’s a bloody huge square per continent, but a square none-the-less. That’s why they have the forced drowning bit when you swim out to sea: they don’t want you hitting the invisible wall.

this doesn’t have to be the case. I’ve programmed a game, and while squares are the easiest, they are not the only thing possible. if it can be expressed as a mathematical equation, it can be used as a map perimeter. squares are just one of the easiest to express, and processing power is an issue.
circles are also pretty easy to express. and by extension, ellipses. it’s not even that hard to do interesting circle-type shapes using equations (such as a pear shape). Every zone would need it’s own equation for where the borders are, which can be tricky and much more time consuming than: “how big of a rectangle do you want?”
so that’s the why and a reasonable alternative

personally, I’m not so hung up on each area being rectangular as why there happen to be rectangular-shapped mountain ranges all over the place. most of the boundaries /should/ be open land, but a mountain range always seems to pop out of nowhere. even where it’s open ocean between bloodtide and sparkfly, there happens to be a mountain range at the border. Now, of course mountain ranges are natural borders, but there should be some variability at least. maybe have the border between harrathi and gendarran be an open field with a line that is the portal instead of a giant circle portal.

I’m fine with the zones being square, I just wish the world map didn’t look like a grid when viewed from orbit. In GW1, the map edges flowed into one another in a much more organic manner. There was a lot of empty space on the map too. In GW2 everything has been jigsawed together, and there are very few seamless transitions.

i kind of like them being rectangles. If i was missing a section in a zone i could easily look and see if i didn’t have a smooth corner. Which would be an obvious hint i was missing some part of the world.

Explore the zones without pressing M. Problem solved.

Harathi Hinterlands northern edge isn’t straight, which I think is kind of weird.

Any other shape would probably make me wonder if I was missing part of the zone.

A circular map is just a square map in which you can’t get to the corners :-)

Red Falcon.8257:

My money is that it is one of those things devs say “uh whatever we’ll change this later, now let’s focus on…” during development but then it remains like that.
Procastrinating until it’s too late is built-in the genetics of every dev in the world.

And stomping devs for bugs that they introduce/miss fixing, while working under-resourced towards deadlines that are determined by a business unit which has never produced anything tangible except a kitten, is in the job description of their managers, stakeholders, and customers/players.

All in good fun here, but most of the dev haters can barely dial a telephone and have the audacity to suggest their criticism is even vaguely informed.

Divinitys reach is circular!

Mystic.5934:

this doesn’t have to be the case. I’ve programmed a game, and while squares are the easiest, they are not the only thing possible. if it can be expressed as a mathematical equation, it can be used as a map perimeter. squares are just one of the easiest to express, and processing power is an issue.
circles are also pretty easy to express. and by extension, ellipses. it’s not even that hard to do interesting circle-type shapes using equations (such as a pear shape). Every zone would need it’s own equation for where the borders are, which can be tricky and much more time consuming than: “how big of a rectangle do you want?”
so that’s the why and a reasonable alternative

personally, I’m not so hung up on each area being rectangular as why there happen to be rectangular-shapped mountain ranges all over the place. most of the boundaries /should/ be open land, but a mountain range always seems to pop out of nowhere. even where it’s open ocean between bloodtide and sparkfly, there happens to be a mountain range at the border. Now, of course mountain ranges are natural borders, but there should be some variability at least. maybe have the border between harrathi and gendarran be an open field with a line that is the portal instead of a giant circle portal.

So it doesn’t necessarily need to be the case, but still in all actuality, one could make a pear shaped landscape in a rectangle, but to reiterate, Anet opted to make the most of the space on each map rather than giving us thin valleys and cliff sides with the occasional big flat area like one might see in Aion.

What really sets people off is that they open the map and realize the maps are in squares, when from the ground level, no one is the wiser. This is an issue of where ignorance truly is bliss, and those that find themselves no longer ignorant of the map layout getting hung up on the fact they’re running around in a box. Everyone else realizes that’s not what it feels like when moving from heart to heart, or they simply don’t care. After all, if it took the individual opening the map to figure it out, it wasn’t much of a problem to begin with unless they decided to have an issue with it.

Maybe Anet should have just stuck with a “hand drawn” map with squiggly lines and no identifiable features save for some icon for each territory, like with Aion’s world map, instead of laying them out side by side like Anet does here in GW2? Though I personally prefer GW2’s world map. I like to see all the links.

I agree and it really bothers me too. It wouldn’t bother me too much if the mountains actually looked natural opposed to the + ot T shape we have now. People will say “Well they aren’t a perfect line” but its way too close to 90 degree angle for it to even look close to natural. (im talking about mountains in zone boundaries, not inside).

In GW1 the mountains still looked realistic despite the zones still in a rectangular or square form and it was never obvious. GW2 however leaves me to wonder what they were thinking when they designed the world. Take a look at Cursed Shore south area for example (the lake area east of grenth). Unexplored it looked like a natural body of water connected to the ocean that you can view but instead you get a giant straight wall of coral crap. What was the reasoning behind this? Why not just leave it the way it is and add exhaustion zone.

Arcturus.5846:

I agree and it really bothers me too. It wouldn’t bother me too much if the mountains actually looked natural opposed to the + ot T shape we have now. People will say “Well they aren’t a perfect line” but its way too close to 90 degree angle for it to even look close to natural. (im talking about mountains in zone boundaries, not inside).

In GW1 the mountains still looked realistic despite the zones still in a rectangular or square form and it was never obvious. GW2 however leaves me to wonder what they were thinking when they designed the world. Take a look at Cursed Shore south area for example (the lake area east of grenth). Unexplored it looked like a natural body of water connected to the ocean that you can view but instead you get a giant straight wall of coral crap. What was the reasoning behind this? Why not just leave it the way it is and add exhaustion zone.

Have to agree with this. However this is a drastic change in a sense and many players need to feel annoyed about this for anything to be done.

Ugh… don’t get me started on the Tetris map… I will never understand why they made such an immersive world yet decided to make the actual geography of the world completely break immersion.

Justin.7163:

Although it is a minor issue, the sarcasm/condescending responses in this thread are out of hand. Good job Guild Wars community! Always impressing!

Anyway, yeah the square-shaped maps do seem kind of unnatural and weird, especially viewed from the world map. It doesn’t really leave a whole lot of mystery when exploring since you know exactly where the maps will end. There were quite a few oddly shaped maps in the first game and it was particuarly neat coming across random zones that were far off from the main path the game took you through. Now all the zones are clearly labeled on the map and easy to guess how far they’ll take you. Though I honestly believe the maps are this way due to making map completion less of a P.I.T.A. Remember how rediculous cartography was in the first game to the point that most used a mod to help them out?

Just so you know…

There are named areas on the map you can get 100% world completion without ever seeing.

Why are there zones in the first place? Why can’t it be an open map like Asheron’s Call?

They are probably all squares so new zones can be easily placed in, on the map.

I don’t care that they’re square, but what bothers me is that most of them are divided by a bunch of brown hills that shouldn’t be there.