Originally posted by gainesvilleg

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)

That can indeed be fun but Anet did this choice to make it easier to group with your friends.

Getting from Freep to KEL was a long journey if your guildies needed you.

Booth systems have it´s charm but this is what fits with Anets policy.

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.

Well, every time he fast travels, whether it is through the map or by accepting an invite to insta-join other people on their quest, shows a loading screen. I think some of those are inter-zone but I am not sure. (Like this one around the 16:00 mark which also seems to be cut short ((as earlier ones in the vid showed the bar fully loading to 100% ))

It would be strange (but nice) if physically traveling between zones would be seamless when most people would only experience that seamlessness only the first time and use fast travel once they discovered the new zone.

Originally posted by Loke666

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.

Besides the ones for the cities that we've known about since 2010?

Originally posted by DarkPony

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.

Well, every time he fast travels, whether it is through the map or by accepting an invite to insta-join other people on their quest, shows a loading screen. I think some of those are inter-zone but I am not sure. (Like this one around the 16:00 mark which also seems to be cut short ((as earlier ones in the vid showed the bar fully loading to 100% ))

It would be strange (but nice) if physically traveling between zones would be seamless when most people would only experience that seamlessness only the first time and use fast travel once they discovered the new zone.

That's a transition to a personal story instance. Not a transition between 2 open world zones.

Originally posted by romanator0

Originally posted by Loke666

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.

Besides the ones for the cities that we've known about since 2010?

Whenever the NDA gets lifted I guess we'll know for sure :/

Originally posted by Maephisto

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. 

Those were part of the personal story...

Nah, even fans don't like everything about the subject they like. To be worried of certain things just show that you at least still have your judgement left.

Try saying the word "Jar-Jar" to any Star wars fan and you will get it. .)

Originally posted by DarkPony

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.

Well, every time he fast travels, whether it is through the map or by accepting an invite to insta-join other people on their quest, shows a loading screen. I think some of those are inter-zone but I am not sure. (Like this one around the 16:00 mark which also seems to be cut short ((as earlier ones in the vid showed the bar fully loading to 100% ))

It would be strange (but nice) if physically traveling between zones would be seamless when most people would only experience that seamlessness only the first time and use fast travel once they discovered the new zone.

that particular one is one of his party members entering their personal story, so it is asking if the rest of the group wants to join them

Originally posted by romanator0

Originally posted by Loke666

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.

Besides the ones for the cities that we've known about since 2010?

you could have said that from the start. ;)

But there are portals also when you move from the charr zones to the norn or human zones and so on as well so there are some. But I think it will be fast travelling and city portals that will be the most annoying parts and I think I can live with that.

It is not that hard to minimize the need to zone there...

Loading screens are to prevent excess stress on servers i think we all need to remember that the reason why some instances are there is to seperate some of the stress put on one server by applying it to acouple servers. Remember in the end the more graphics there is and more people the server takes stress hits thus seperating it adds for a smoother game play experiance. Now as far as teleporting loading screens they have been around forever mainly because most people would complain if they had to ride horses to travel to some areas like vanialla DAOC had or what WoW still currently has for alot of its within world experiance. They could simply make super fast flying paths but in the end it will still be something people complain about cause then you would hear well why not just give me a loading screen and port me there ^_^.

IF your playing the game to enjoy the story the pauses between the game such as conversation or zoning into a instance will add suspense and u wont really mind it.

If your playing the game to burn through it and just get to what u like (end game content) and or personalized pvp character for WvW then the instances might bother u. In the end tho do loading screens really matter to u alot? then invest 100bucks get your self a SSD drive put ur gw2 and gw2 will boot up faster into the game and maybe that will make u feel better about the ingame loading screens.

Honestly, this stuff never bothered me in any MMORPG.

My first two MMORPGs were EQ and UO.  In EQ, there were TONS of zones so I kind of got used to them.  They don't really bother me.

And in UO, you fast traveled just about everywhere.  So once again, I got used to it.  And honestly, I prefer being able to fast travel everywhere.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Maephisto

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. 

Those were part of the personal story...

Nah, even fans don't like everything about the subject they like. To be worried of certain things just show that you at least still have your judgement left.

Try saying the word "Jar-Jar" to any Star wars fan and you will get it. .)

Mesa sooo smilen to see'en yousa. Wahoooo!" 

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).

 

- 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.

...

So what's your thoughts on this?

 

The world is zoned, but the zones are HUGE! You can spend hours doing things and never see a load screen. Trust me on that. Things also aren't optimized yet, when they are load times will be reduced.

Conversation breaks are exclusively part of the optional personal story. Once you're past the training area (where the personal story begins) you never have to see one again if you wish.

The instanced areas in the open world are entry points into your personal story. Again, optional. If you're doing your story, you'll go somewhere specific, enter the instance for the story, then leave back to the persistent world when done.

Originally posted by romanator0

Originally posted by DarkPony

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.

Well, every time he fast travels, whether it is through the map or by accepting an invite to insta-join other people on their quest, shows a loading screen. I think some of those are inter-zone but I am not sure. (Like this one around the 16:00 mark which also seems to be cut short ((as earlier ones in the vid showed the bar fully loading to 100% ))

It would be strange (but nice) if physically traveling between zones would be seamless when most people would only experience that seamlessness only the first time and use fast travel once they discovered the new zone.

That's a transition to a personal story instance. Not a transition between 2 open world zones.

Ah ok. Anyway, would be nice if physically traveling between zones will be seamless. Curious about it.

Originally posted by DarkPony

Originally posted by romanator0

Originally posted by DarkPony

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.

Well, every time he fast travels, whether it is through the map or by accepting an invite to insta-join other people on their quest, shows a loading screen. I think some of those are inter-zone but I am not sure. (Like this one around the 16:00 mark which also seems to be cut short ((as earlier ones in the vid showed the bar fully loading to 100% ))

It would be strange (but nice) if physically traveling between zones would be seamless when most people would only experience that seamlessness only the first time and use fast travel once they discovered the new zone.

That's a transition to a personal story instance. Not a transition between 2 open world zones.

Ah ok. Anyway, would be nice if physically traveling between zones will be seamless. Curious about it.

I think everyone would like them to be seamless but I don't think they are (we'll just have to wait to confirm that).

Originally posted by romanator0

Originally posted by DarkPony

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.

Well, every time he fast travels, whether it is through the map or by accepting an invite to insta-join other people on their quest, shows a loading screen. I think some of those are inter-zone but I am not sure. (Like this one around the 16:00 mark which also seems to be cut short ((as earlier ones in the vid showed the bar fully loading to 100% ))

It would be strange (but nice) if physically traveling between zones would be seamless when most people would only experience that seamlessness only the first time and use fast travel once they discovered the new zone.

That's a transition to a personal story instance. Not a transition between 2 open world zones.

And I still stand by my 'there are portals/loading screens between zones' statement. It's fact. I'm sure if you were to browse the reddit leaks it'd be confirmed.

Originally posted by Volkon

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).

 

- 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.

...

So what's your thoughts on this?

 

The world is zoned, but the zones are HUGE! You can spend hours doing things and never see a load screen. Trust me on that. Things also aren't optimized yet, when they are load times will be reduced.

Conversation breaks are exclusively part of the optional personal story. Once you're past the training area (where the personal story begins) you never have to see one again if you wish.

The instanced areas in the open world are entry points into your personal story. Again, optional. If you're doing your story, you'll go somewhere specific, enter the instance for the story, then leave back to the persistent world when done.

 

Sounds relieving.

But about those open world instances, when they are only part of your personal story, does that mean the same area is just more open world when you are not on that bit of the storyline? Or is that specific area reserved for that instance?

Originally posted by Maephisto

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.

In my opinion the press never talk about things like this. They also look past tons of bugs in many games. I don't trust them.

That said, doesn't mean it's bad in GW2. Just sayin the press... well you know.

From hearing about it, I'd like to see less teleports (not complete elimination), mostly from getting to one major area to another. And substitute it with a mount about 3x your characters travel speed. Keeps everyone in world, you still get around well enough.

Originally posted by DarkPony

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.

Well, every time he fast travels, whether it is through the map or by accepting an invite to insta-join other people on their quest, shows a loading screen. I think some of those are inter-zone but I am not sure. (Like this one around the 16:00 mark which also seems to be cut short ((as earlier ones in the vid showed the bar fully loading to 100% ))

It would be strange (but nice) if physically traveling between zones would be seamless when most people would only experience that seamlessness only the first time and use fast travel once they discovered the new zone.

I'm not so sure it was curt short, the mouse pointer didn't seem to teleport from one place of the screen to another.

I've seen something similar in GW1 when the game is downloading files shortly after installation, sometimes it stops downloading if it deems the whole process too lengthy.

OR it could have been cut short like you suggested, I dunno. Not trying to grasp at any straw here.

Originally posted by DarkPony

Originally posted by romanator0

Originally posted by DarkPony

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.

Well, every time he fast travels, whether it is through the map or by accepting an invite to insta-join other people on their quest, shows a loading screen. I think some of those are inter-zone but I am not sure. (Like this one around the 16:00 mark which also seems to be cut short ((as earlier ones in the vid showed the bar fully loading to 100% ))

It would be strange (but nice) if physically traveling between zones would be seamless when most people would only experience that seamlessness only the first time and use fast travel once they discovered the new zone.

That's a transition to a personal story instance. Not a transition between 2 open world zones.

Ah ok. Anyway, would be nice if physically traveling between zones will be seamless. Curious about it.

It won't be, not completely, but it's also not a big deal... once you've been in, say, a new zone you'll have waypoints in there that you've been to. If you port back to town and return to the zone later you'll use the waypoints and have that load screen, same as all fast travel. It really doesn't take things away, unless you like to run across huge maps to get where you're going and back again while constantly being attacked by mobs that you've been levelled down to so you can't ignore them or you'll die.

Originally posted by DarkPony

Originally posted by Volkon

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).

 

- 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.

...

So what's your thoughts on this?

 

The world is zoned, but the zones are HUGE! You can spend hours doing things and never see a load screen. Trust me on that. Things also aren't optimized yet, when they are load times will be reduced.

Conversation breaks are exclusively part of the optional personal story. Once you're past the training area (where the personal story begins) you never have to see one again if you wish.

The instanced areas in the open world are entry points into your personal story. Again, optional. If you're doing your story, you'll go somewhere specific, enter the instance for the story, then leave back to the persistent world when done.

 

Sounds relieving.

But about those open world instances, when they are only part of your personal story, does that mean the same area is just more open world when you are not on that bit of the storyline? Or is that specific area reserved for that instance?

So far the personal story instances seem to take place in sections of the world that have copies made specifically for the personal story. So the personal story takes place in instances that look like sections of the open world.