Hello, I was wondering, is there any MMO with a spherical world?

If not, why not? are the maths too complex to do? Guess no more complex than the equations to make a 3d enging (believe me I know, i have a thick book full of them of which I understood zilch).

Originally posted by altairzq

Hello, I was wondering, is there any MMO with a spherical world?

If not, why not? are the maths too complex to do? Guess no more complex than the equations to make a 3d enging (believe me I know, i have a thick book full of them of which I understood zilch).

How do you know that not EVERY mmo is spherical? The sun comes up and sets, traveling across the sky. Most games are not in a perspective that you would be able to say what sort of world it is, just like real life. If you are on the ground, walking around, everything looks flat. If you are VERY high up, THEN you see that it is spherical. :P

 deja vu... I feel like I've seen this thread before.

Infinity: The Quest for Earth is the only MMO I know of that will have true spherical worlds. It's more of a space combat simulator though. Eve Online also has spherical worlds, moons, stars as well but you can't enter their atmosphere or interact with them.

 The question isn't possibility, its practicality. Why have a world that big, when players will simply congregate to the instances and quest areas. Large worlds in that scale only have a place in sandbox games, where real estate is a top resource.

It's harder to make and doesn't add anything to gameplay.

Unless you're only talking about traveling around the world in a circle (and not actually having the world be spherical-shaped,) which is doable with little effort but also little to gameplay.

Originally posted by Rallycart

Originally posted by altairzq

Hello, I was wondering, is there any MMO with a spherical world?

If not, why not? are the maths too complex to do? Guess no more complex than the equations to make a 3d enging (believe me I know, i have a thick book full of them of which I understood zilch).

 

How do you know that not EVERY mmo is spherical? The sun comes up and sets, traveling across the sky. Most games are not in a perspective that you would be able to say what sort of world it is, just like real life. If you are on the ground, walking around, everything looks flat. If you are VERY high up, THEN you see that it is spherical. :P

Well, in a spherical world you can get to a point walking towards it following the shortest distance, or towards the opposite direction and going all around the world. You know, Columbus and all that.

You guys are putting too much into it.

Flat world = no defined size of the world = plenty of room for expansion.

Round world = finite space = expansion has to take place in alternate world/reality/realm/space

Originally posted by NovaKayne

You guys are putting too much into it.

 

Flat world = no defined size of the world = plenty of room for expansion.

 

Round world = finite space = expansion has to take place in alternate world/reality/realm/space

Not entirely true. Expansion could consist of renovated/remade old territory. Like Cataclysm :D 

Originally posted by Rallycart

Originally posted by altairzq

Hello, I was wondering, is there any MMO with a spherical world?

If not, why not? are the maths too complex to do? Guess no more complex than the equations to make a 3d enging (believe me I know, i have a thick book full of them of which I understood zilch).

 

How do you know that not EVERY mmo is spherical? The sun comes up and sets, traveling across the sky. Most games are not in a perspective that you would be able to say what sort of world it is, just like real life. If you are on the ground, walking around, everything looks flat. If you are VERY high up, THEN you see that it is spherical. :P

You know its not spherical when you can teleport across the known world and its still the same time of day, for one thing.

Originally posted by Persephassa

Originally posted by NovaKayne

You guys are putting too much into it.

 

Flat world = no defined size of the world = plenty of room for expansion.

 

Round world = finite space = expansion has to take place in alternate world/reality/realm/space

Not entirely true. Expansion could consist of renovated/remade old territory. Like Cataclysm :D 

Also you can have huge oceans to be filled with continents. And the whole underground. Also wow made Outland.. no problem there.

Populous Online, I'd like to see that.

Well one thing that a sperical/round world would add, Is that you wouldn't always have to travel the exact same route. I mean I dont' care whether you are playing FFXI, WoW, EQ1 you end up taking one path or another. ALOT of times.

So lets take WoW for an example, if I was in thunder bluff I wanted to get to undercity. 90% of the time i'd go to orgimar and then travel to undercity.

Where as if the world was round. I could just go from thunder bluff to undercity direct. It'd be alot cooler.

Originally posted by Dewm

 

Well one thing that a sperical/round world would add, Is that you wouldn't always have to travel the exact same route. I mean I dont' care whether you are playing FFXI, WoW, EQ1 you end up taking one path or another. ALOT of times.

 

So lets take WoW for an example, if I was in thunder bluff I wanted to get to undercity. 90% of the time i'd go to orgimar and then travel to undercity.

 

Where as if the world was round. I could just go from thunder bluff to undercity direct. It'd be alot cooler.

It's not because the world is 'flat' that you can't go directly from one to the other, it's the fact they're on different continents and WoW segregates them.

I think you just want a sandbox open world, it doesn't matter what shape it is. A flat world works just fine, unless you start looking at the world from space.

Originally posted by Czargio

Originally posted by Dewm

 

Well one thing that a sperical/round world would add, Is that you wouldn't always have to travel the exact same route. I mean I dont' care whether you are playing FFXI, WoW, EQ1 you end up taking one path or another. ALOT of times.

 

So lets take WoW for an example, if I was in thunder bluff I wanted to get to undercity. 90% of the time i'd go to orgimar and then travel to undercity.

 

Where as if the world was round. I could just go from thunder bluff to undercity direct. It'd be alot cooler.

It's not because the world is 'flat' that you can't go directly from one to the other, it's the fact they're on different continents and WoW segregates them.

I think you just want a sandbox open world, it doesn't matter what shape it is. A flat world works just fine, unless you start looking at the world from space.

Well what I meant was, in a standard map if I was to go from A-D I have to go through B & C, BUT in a spherical world I could go from A-D without hitting B & C.

Spore is the only game that features a spherical world.

Originally posted by solareus

Spore is the only game that features a spherical world.

Populous The Beginning immediately springs to mind, and I'm sure there are more.

As far as I know off, the only game I know that actually features spherical worlds is EVE Online, but even then you still couldn't actually land on the worlds, but in the coming expansions we will get to.

My guess is that technologically, game developers do have the resources to do such a thing, but unless it's a priority and it will add to the game world, they probably won't bother with it.

UO has a spherical world. Although the game is 2D, you can set sail from one end of the world and swim all the way around.

Originally posted by heartless

UO has a spherical world. Although the game is 2D, you can set sail from one end of the world and swim all the way around.

Again old MMOs shining in the desert of imagination we have now.

Originally posted by altairzq

Originally posted by heartless

UO has a spherical world. Although the game is 2D, you can set sail from one end of the world and swim all the way around.

 

Again old MMOs shining in the desert of imagination we have now.

Tell me about it. It's a shame that a game developed over 10 years ago offered so much more than any of these so-called modern "MMORPGs."