I'm not sure where I read it but I thought I remember the guys at BioWare hinting at the fact that there should be no loading screen (zone loading) between space and ground. Which would mean that everything would be seamless, between worlds, between zones/ server boundaries even on planet. No walls? If that's the case it sounds like a marvelous breakthrough.

 It has always been possible. The only thing preventing people from doing so before was, you could never fly. :) Lotro is near-seamless, only reason it has seams because of instances. And because moving colissions isn't "easy" to make ( gratz to DF for making it! ), so they had to instance the houses. 

that would be messed up

being on the ground jumping on ship and flying to another planet w/o zoning?

good dreams hope they come true

This from the company that brought us the "Mass Effect elevator", the ultimate in no-zoning technology!

Originally posted by nezroy

This from the company that brought us the "Mass Effect elevator", the ultimate in no-zoning technology!

ROFL   Different engine

As I said on the TOR forums

I would love to see this, don't get me wrong. But the stress on the servers that would most likely cause would be mind blowing. There will probably be at least 1-2 loading screens.

Originally posted by tillamook

Originally posted by nezroy

This from the company that brought us the "Mass Effect elevator", the ultimate in no-zoning technology!

 

ROFL   Different engine

Maybe, but same company, and they were willing to live with that solution and call it "no loading". In short, even if they officially say "there will be no zoning in TOR", well... the proof is in the pudding and I'll believe it when I see it, to throw out a couple of cliches.

We don't know yet but I think it's safe to say it wont be one big seamless experience.

You guys shoould read more about the hero engine and how it works. IT is an engine designed specifically for MMOs, the company that made it, simultronics explained in detail how  it streams loads

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

You guys shoould read more about the hero engine and how it works. IT is an engine designed specifically for MMOs, the company that made it, simultronics explained in detail how  it streams loads

yep, and I also remember how they said there shouldn't be a loading screen between ground and space.

Seamless World and Instances

Utilizing a room visualization system, an area can contain an unlimited number of rooms. Rooms can in turn be set to render or not render adjacent rooms, greatly saving on render times and costs.

Transitional pieces can then be utilized to allow large scale texture bank swaps as a player exits one area and enters another. This powerful and flexible system delivers stellar performance and the appearance of a seamless world.
 

Morphing Technology (character creation)

Powerful morphing technology allows nearly limitless customization options, quickly and easily.
Full Body morphing technology allows you to set morph targets that can be adjusted by any mechanism you desire. Using these simple morph targets, HeroEngine automatically morphs the rest of the character -- even its skeletal system if need be.

Use the Facial morphing controls to let players customize their appearance. Hundreds of facial controls are included, and adding more is simple. To top it all off, everything is integrated into the facial expressions and lip synching tools contained in the HeroBlade client.

Originally posted by John.A.Zoid

Seamless World and Instances

Utilizing a room visualization system, an area can contain an unlimited number of rooms. Rooms can in turn be set to render or not render adjacent rooms, greatly saving on render times and costs.

Transitional pieces can then be utilized to allow large scale texture bank swaps as a player exits one area and enters another. This powerful and flexible system delivers stellar performance and the appearance of a seamless world.
 

Morphing Technology (character creation)

Powerful morphing technology allows nearly limitless customization options, quickly and easily.
Full Body morphing technology allows you to set morph targets that can be adjusted by any mechanism you desire. Using these simple morph targets, HeroEngine automatically morphs the rest of the character -- even its skeletal system if need be.

Use the Facial morphing controls to let players customize their appearance. Hundreds of facial controls are included, and adding more is simple. To top it all off, everything is integrated into the facial expressions and lip synching tools contained in the HeroBlade client.

 

I remember seeing that, one of the reasons why I think the game will flow with no loading.

I still think they'll want to do a console version so it'll be more like Guild Wars with Micro Transactions and no monthly fee.

Originally posted by John.A.Zoid

I still think they'll want to do a console version so it'll be more like Guild Wars with Micro Transactions and no monthly fee.

I was thinking the guild wars system as well, but now I'm not so sure it will be free. I do suspect there will be extras that have no real effect on gameplay that you can purchase from a store. In game items could be various non game breaking items. Nothing super exclusive or better than what's available in game, nothing that allows you grind faster, become stronger, just stuff that you could most likely live without. For some it might just be easier to buy the swoop outside the game and have it to use in the game.  I’m also pretty sure they may sell things like ring tones, cell phone wallpapers, iPhone apps ect. Blizzard has a store that sells similar items. Maybe items you can buy off an NPC can be bought outside the game, but items that players make are not.

I’m ok with others purchasing game items outside the game as long as it doesn’t give others an unfair advantage, and it’s nothing I need to play the game that I can only get if I purchase it, and it’s not based on some BS lotto system.

Anyways who knows what they are gonna do, I doubt if it will suck, they seem to be trying to avoid suck with this MMO.

Was SOE's Planet side seamless? I played it for a while, then actually realized that it was awful lol. But I barely remember any loading screens..

Originally posted by hvc801

Was SOE's Planet side seamless? I played it for a while, then actually realized that it was awful lol. But I barely remember any loading screens..

Loading between islands but you stayed on one island for like 8 hours at a time.

Lets get one thing straight here, BioWare Austin is NOT BioWare Edmonton, the guys working out of Austin are seasoned MMO developers with a rich past in many successful mmo's. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Jade Empire etc etc etc give absolutely zero indication on how the MMO will function, may as well just get that out of your mind right now.

Vanguard already has a seamless world, and a few years back Wish (which was cancelled) also ran without any loading screens. It's not something new, but does require some advanced networking to do the handoffs between the servers in a smooth way. Client side we've already seen many examples of games that run without loading screen, so the main issue is with balancing the server load and moving players between servers.

With all the negative experience people had with AoC's loading screens this year, I think designing an MMO without a seamless world in mind is a bad business move.

Originally posted by silmaril

Vanguard already has a seamless world, and a few years back Wish (which was cancelled) also ran without any loading screens. It's not something new, but does require some advanced networking to do the handoffs between the servers in a smooth way. Client side we've already seen many examples of games that run without loading screen, so the main issue is with balancing the server load and moving players between servers.

With all the negative experience people had with AoC's loading screens this year, I think designing an MMO without a seamless world in mind is a bad business move.

Just Say No, to loading screens

They can do that but it doesnt mean sandbox, instead it would trick the player.

For example in Dead Space doors open with a animation but its actualy loading next room/zone.  Some doors open slower if the players hasnt been there already.  Thats pretty much what they are doing but on a bigger scale.

Originally posted by tillamook

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

You guys shoould read more about the hero engine and how it works. IT is an engine designed specifically for MMOs, the company that made it, simultronics explained in detail how  it streams loads

 

yep, and I also remember how they said there shouldn't be a loading screen between ground and space.

Could be something like Spore, where you click the mouse-wheel and go up, up and into space and a galactic map, of course that's a single-player universe with only the player around, but let's hope they can pull it off with hundreds of people doing the same thing, zipping back and forth between planets, or at least creating the illusion of doing so, as long the dreaded loading screen stays far, far away :)

Will SW:TOR be BioWare's first game ever without massive amounts of loading screens/zoning? If so, it sounds like they picked the right engine for it.

I find it hard to believe there won't be any zoning at all, especially how they emphasize how much story they plan on giving this MMORPG.  That leads me to believe there will be lots of instance zones at least.  That doesn't mean the rest of the public maps won't be zone free though.