Just watched & listened to Cynical Brit's overal impression so far. Essentially 40+ minutes of continuous gameplay in the Norn area and despite the environments looking pretty appealing I couldn't help noticing a couple of things really impacting the "open worldness";

The big one:

- The amount of loading screens.  Every time you zone in or out of town, personal instances or fast travel: pretty hefty ones too (on his system around 30 seconds each, it looks like he even short cutted some of them (as some bars run to 100%, others are suddenly cut short at low percentages), probably to make the vid more appealing). (EDIT: apparently some loading screens can in fact skip from 5% to 100% and the vid might not have been edited afterall)

This reminded me very much of Swtor or AoC, even though Swtor's "worlds" are larger than GW2's zones, you frequently had to travel between them; i.e. staring at loading screens a lot. To me personally that became a frustrating aspect. It looks like in GW2 this may even be a bit more impacting due to the frequent use of fast travel (as the time spent physically traveling towards an objective will be much shorter once you discovered an area for the first time and once you are done with something, you can instantly fast travel out it seems).

Specifically personal story related ones:

- Conversation breaks: pulling you out the world around you and into a conversation setting, playing out a predetermined exchange of lines (without choice it looks like). This is a lesser interuption in my eyes but it will mean a lot of skipping for many people.

- Instanced areas in the open world: running into certain areas prompts you into accepting entering an instance or not and another loading screen, venture too far out and you leave the open world instance.

In total it ammounted to an impressive number of interuptions from the immersive flow of an open world experience: fight some mobs, fast travel to town *loading screen*, run to npc, fast travel back *loading screen*, run to objective, enter instanced area *loading screen*, fight for a few minutes, complete task, fast travel back to town *loading screen* , etc. (It's obvious how the fast traveling mechanic, rather than a natural, real time means of transport is responsible for most breaks).

I hope they will be able to optimize the game somewhat more in order to make the loading screens less time consuming but I reckon people would do good to invest in a SSD if they haven't already, to cut the annoyance down somewhat.

What remains to be seen if these frequent interuptions are typical for mainly storyline gameplay or not: it could be that while doing mainly random dynamic events in the same zone, they are much less of a factor.

Anyway, this might sound a bit dramatic but I was a bit disappointed about that aspect while watching this vid. I didn't expect to see them so frequently in a 40 minute session and it drains some of the "persistance magic" out of the beautiful surroundings and turns them into a series of somewhat more artificial back drops, rather than a consistent world which might change dramatically around the next corner while you physically travel without interuptions between destinations.

So what's your thoughts on this?

edit: Changed the description of when loading screens happen: loading screens between open world zones themselves (while not fast traveling) haven't been confirmed yet.

edit: added description to kinds of occurances to reflect the difference between personal story and other content.

I will tell you my thoughts once I experience it on april 20th.

I'm a bit worried about the loading screens, but I'll have to wait and play untill I can say much about them, if I find my self spending a lot time at places, not needing to run through them so much, who knows.

One thing I do know, though, your sig will live up to it in this thread ;)

I seen it as well. Basically you firstly get a load screen when you enter or leavethe town, You also get one every time you teleport but the last one is something you get in "seamless" games like Wow as well.

Those I don´t have any big issue with. I don't plan to use much fast travelling at all and I certainly wont run in and out of the town all day long. That would leave me with a few loading screens every day, not enough to be really annoying (and I have 4 raided SSDs).

I am more worried about those stuff that invited him to instances when he was far out in the map, I don't get if those were part of the personal story or what they were. They can get annoying and might be something to worry about.

Originally posted by DarkPony

Just watched & listened to Cynical Brit's overal impression so far. Essentially 40+ minutes of continuous gameplay in the Norn area and despite the environments looking pretty appealing I couldn't help noticing a couple of things really impacting the "open worldness";

- The amount of loading screens.  Every time you zone in or out: pretty hefty ones too (on his system around 30 seconds each, he even obviously short cutted some of them, probably to make the vid more appealing).

This reminded me very much of Swtor or AoC, even though Swtor's "worlds" are larger than GW2's zones, you frequently had to travel between them; i.e. staring at loading screens a lot. To me personally that became a frustrating aspect. It looks like in GW2 this may even be a bit more impacting due to the frequent use of fast travel (as the time spent physically traveling towards an objective will be much shorter once you discovered an area for the first time and once you are done with something, you can instantly fast travel out it seems).

- Conversation breaks: pulling you out the world around you and into a conversation setting, playing out a predetermined exchange of lines (without choice it looks like). This is a lesser interuption in my eyes but it will mean a lot of skipping for many people.

- Instanced areas in the open world: running into certain areas prompts you into accepting entering an instance or not and another loading screen, venture too far out and you leave the open world instance.

In total it ammounted to an impressive number of interuptions from the immersive flow of an open world experience: fight some mobs, fast travel to town, , run to npc, , fast travel back , run to objective, enter instanced area, fight for a few minutes, complete task, fast travel back to town , etc. (It's obvious how the fast traveling mechanic, rather than a natural, real time means of transport is responsible for most breaks).

I hope they will be able to optimize the game somewhat more in order to make the loading screens less time consuming but I reckon people would do good to invest in a SSD if they haven't already, to cut the annoyance down somewhat.

What remains to be seen if these frequent interuptions are typical for mainly storyline gameplay or not: it could be that while doing mainly random dynamic events in the same zone, they are much less of a factor.

Anyway, this might sound a bit dramatic but I was a bit disappointed about that aspect while watching this vid. I didn't expect to see them so frequently in a 40 minute session and it drains some of the "persistance magic" out of the beautiful surroundings and turns them into a series of somewhat more artificial back drops, rather than a consistent world which might change dramatically around the next corner while you physically travel without interuptions between destinations.

So what's your thoughts on this?

 

Those loading screens, instances and conversation breaks are all part of the personal story which happens to be completely optional. If you have specific scenes you want me to see then tell me what part of the video they're in because I'm not going to watch 40 minutes just to tell you exactly what the loading screens are from.

Disturbing news. I doubt it is a game breaker for most. Thanks for all the information though.

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Originally posted by DJJazzy
I will tell you my thoughts once I experience it on april 20th.

---

We'll see how it goes. Whether it's gonna be so exhausting as you fear it to be, I'll have to see by playing myself - who knows what my machine can handle?

Yeah there is quite a bit of loading screens.

World is zoned. Well it is not as bad as in some games ,but still.

Just that kind of mmorpg. It is not necessarily very bad thing , but it deffo is not good thing either.

It is open enough to be called mmorpg and not coprg like GW1 was, but it definately is more zoned that Vanguard or even WoW.

At least that what I heard.

Well this is game you look and play for diffrent reasons than reasons someone was playing in example UO or will play AA.

At least I will. 

That way I will be able to have fun with both GW2 and AA. Diffrent games , diffrent reason to play.

Now to get enoguh time to play two mmorpg's at same time (in 2013) , ehh  I usually stick to one cause I don't have enough time for more ,but I will see maybe I will make an exception...

Originally posted by romanator0

{snip}

Those loading screens {snip} completely optional..

The loading screens between zones aren't :P

Can't be as bad as Rift (93%)

Instant travel = loading screens, well mybe becouse im used to it from gw1 i dont mind it. But seriously how do you want them to make it without them ? You simply cant have whole world preloaded in memory to have instant travel without loading screens ... Even in WoW which creates illusion of seamless world, when you port somewhere you get loading screen.

Originally posted by star

Originally posted by romanator0

{snip}

Those loading screens {snip} completely optional..

The loading screens between zones aren't :P

Have you seen any? I would like proof that they are actually there and I haven't seen any.

Could be something that gets annoying, though wont know till actually playing the game. Hopefully it isnt too intrusive.

Originally posted by romanator0

Originally posted by star

Originally posted by romanator0

{snip}

Those loading screens {snip} completely optional..

The loading screens between zones aren't :P

Have you seen any? I would like proof that they are actually there and I haven't seen any.

The only way to prove this is by showing beta footage. The problem is it has to be press beta footage. Everyone else is still under NDA.

I haven't found a single video of anyone from the press going to the next zone, after Queensland. Which is a shame.

Most of the loading stuff is from the personal story if I'm not mistaken. And if you choose to fast travel a lot as well.

The conversations (which most are from the personal story I believe) are a design choice in which a lot will dislike. I don't mind them but I do agree they take you out of the world.

If you want to keep your loading to a minimum then don't do the personal story and don't fast travel.

Originally posted by star

Originally posted by romanator0

Those loading screens {snip} completely optional..

The loading screens between zones aren't :P

Yeah, but beside the in and out of town which will be annoying if you are the type who can´t decide where to be, TBs and others only had loading screens when fast travelling, which is also optional.

What I have been told are the entire norn area zoonless beside Holbrok and the dungeons. Then you also have a load screen when you move to another races area.

It is more than I wanted but it ain't that bad, even the town was huge compared to AoCs small zones.

Originally posted by Skarecrow7

Could be something that gets annoying, though wont know till actually playing the game. Hopefully it isnt too intrusive.

Loading screens are very annoying in an open world game.  One of the reasons I hate the teleport system.  Teleport system is too good not to use, so everybody will eventually use it.  It is one of those features we all will use but in my opinion are bad for the game.

The RIGHT answer is to make travel meaningful, not eliminate it.  You can do this in one of two ways:

1) Make interesting things happen while you travel

2) You make travel divide the world into zones seperated by long distance for regional gameplay (EVE sort of does this)

Originally posted by romanator0

Have you seen any? I would like proof that they are actually there and I haven't seen any.

Here is the portal that takes you into DR:

We know that there are loading screens when you enter towns and move from one race area to another, those are facts.

Then there are into instances,  for the personal story or dungeons.

Some of the "zoning in & out" from what looked like DE's looked a little annoying.  The load screens for fast travel is understandable and I doubt will be too much of a hastle.  I havent heard anything from the press in terms of this being obstructive to game play. 

On a side note, I think Pony is dangerously close to being "outed" as a true GW2 fan.

I did try to find a gif from Game of Thrones, where that knight beheaded his horse during the jousting tournament, I couldnt find it though. 

Loading screens was when he decided to switch to his personal story. Personal story has to be "instanced" couse your choices affect the world. Your world.

Also WvW is instanced like Daoc was... Could you pass the gates at Daoc without 1 shotted from guards?

When is something is in this HUGE scale technology has adapt so ppl dont qq later.

I dont see WvW as instanced tho since the maps are so big that looks like continents in other games, also does not limit you on when you can enter or with who and the fight happens any time during the day keeping the flow.

Lets be realistic and enjoy what this game has to offer and its certainly a lot more from other games + you buy it once and end... You get what you can from this and if u dont like it you dont play again.