Originally posted by Unlight

Originally posted by RodimusPrime

I have been doing research on this game, and don't get me wrong, I hate the first one with it's invisble walls and lack of jumping, but after watching a ton of videos I can say now that I am impressed and the game truly brings back some of the old school playstyle back into the genre. I have noticied a lot of loading screens in the videos I have watched. Is that just people traveling between waypoints or does it really have that many loading screens? I will probably pick up the game after feed back from the stress test and next BWE .

Zone maps are big.  Really big.  You won't be seeing load screen between them very often because you won't need to switch zones very often.  And because the maps are that big, people will often take a shortcut by using waypoints and that will trigger a load screen.  I also found that there are a few load screens within cities, much like the one leading to your home instance.  There seem to be a couple of mini-instances in cities, that seem designed to accommodate separate cutscenes later, probably associated with your personal story.  I think I came across two or three per city and they often lead to special points of interest on the map that you will gain XP for when you find them.

Aside from that, I think the only other place you'll see them is when entering dungeons or when you enter your personal story at an ingress point located in the world.  But when just playing and doing events, you only see them when moving between the zones unless you choose to fast travel.  You could easily play for hours and hours in just one zone and never have a need to leave it, so you'll never be exposed to a load screen.  It mostly depends on how you like to play.

^^^ This. ^^^

Dear OP,

you have not been the only one to criticise that. And ArenaNet has responded to that with GW2. You are going to love it!

Traveling between zone has a loading screen that takes noticeable time.

Traveling between waypoints in a zone puts up a perfunctionary load screen that takes almost no time.

Generally you don't switch zones much, although due to the way the personal story makes out you might make a number of transitions between the city and starting area.

However if you solely leveled on dynamic events, which is easily possible, you would probably not zone at al for 5-6 hours of play easy.

Originally posted by RodimusPrime

 I have been playing SWTOR since it came out so they do not bother me that much, as long as they don't make the game seem as disjointed as SWTOR can be, also as long as there not as long as SWTOR loading screens sheesh.

Oh, there's nothing anything close to as obnoxious as that...   I played SWTOR.   There came times where the thought of having to put something in my ship's hold wanted to make my cry.   Run down long, long hall.   Door.  Load screen.   Door.  Load screen.  Ship.  Door.  Take off.   Load screen.  Inventory.   Reverse.

Nothing like that...   OMG.  So not like that...  

Leaving or entering the main city will be your biggest loading screen frequency.   It's one screen and on a pretty fast rig like mine, it was over in less than two seconds I guess...    The same with personal-story instances.   Very quick.  Never had time to read them or really get any sort of impression of what I was looking at.   Just too fast.

I can't remember how fast the other zone loading screens are.  I didn't do a lot of zone changes because they were so big and i was trying out classes more than exploring that I didn't really get out of the starting zone until Sunday...   And, by then, I was tired 12-hour gaming days and not paying a lot of attention.   So, obviously, it must have been fairly quick as I don't really recollect it...

The elevators in the city...  I didn't even know there was a loading screen.   I really never saw one, just a quick-redraw as the game moved me.    The teleporting with fast travel...   Depended where I was going.   Loading screen across zones.  Otherwise just a redraw (unless it was too fast like the elevator).

But hardly at all.  

Originally posted by RodimusPrime

I have been doing research on this game, and don't get me wrong, I hate the first one with it's invisble walls and lack of jumping, but after watching a ton of videos I can say now that I am impressed and the game truly brings back some of the old school playstyle back into the genre. I have noticied a lot of loading screens in the videos I have watched. Is that just people traveling between waypoints or does it really have that many loading screens? I will probably pick up the game after feed back from the stress test and next BWE .

GW1 is nothing like GW2.  I hated GW1 myself which is sad because I will miss out on HoM stuff but ohh well.  With that being said though there are loading screens between Major Cities i.e. Lion's Arch and between each zone i.e. between the 1-17 zone and the 15-25 zone.  But in 3 days of hardcore PvE'ing I rarely went through a zone because I spent alot of time in 1 particular area.  So no you wont be zoning every 10 mins, but on average you may have to zone once an hour at most if you play the game routinely.

Then I'd say have no fear.  GW2 managed to flow well despite the inclusion of loading screens(to my surprise).  Nothing at all like the "disjointed" feeling one gets from traveling in SWTOR.  I suspect the only time you'll be bothered by them is when you travel from one zone to the next on foot.  But again, they load really really fast.

I only encountered one invisible wall and that was when I tried to swim out of the Lion's Arch harbor.  I then looked down to see a giant whale cruising below me and forgot about the wall.  Well played ArenaNet, well played... 

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Originally posted by Homitu
... What's more, some of the transition loading screens seem to give the option to travel to one of a number of locations.  It seems as if there was a transitory passageway that they decided to forego entirely and just have players teleport past. ...

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I've seen a couple of these too, but that was only because of it being Beta. If the zone that a portal would normally lead to wasn't available for the Beta, it would sometimes give you the option to go to a different zone instead.

Originally posted by RodimusPrime

I have been doing research on this game, and don't get me wrong, I hate the first one with it's invisble walls and lack of jumping, but after watching a ton of videos I can say now that I am impressed and the game truly brings back some of the old school playstyle back into the genre. I have noticied a lot of loading screens in the videos I have watched. Is that just people traveling between waypoints or does it really have that many loading screens? I will probably pick up the game after feed back from the stress test and next BWE .

First off, let me say I hope you enjoy the game.

I guess elaborating more on why you hated the first game would be useful here. Mechanics-wise they are very different games, but the art-style & lore of the games are VERY similar. GW2 'feels' like your in the GW1 universe, but the mechanics definitely are much difference.

Another thing you said, which is troubling, is that you feel GW2 'brings back some of the old school playstyle back into the genre'. I'm not sure what you are referring to about this, but I hope you aren't setting yourself up for dissapointment on this. GW2 is a very unique game. I know not everyone will agree on that, but I'm telling you; if you play & enjoy GW2, you will find yourself staring back at a genre full of games that no longer cut it anymore. It sucks, cause there are literally no other games like it that you can play, while waiting for GW2 to get released.

When it comes to an 'oldschool feeling', there are really only 3 things in the game that I can say gave me that:

1) Exploration: I have not played a game that made we want to explore like GW2 since EQ2.

2) Community: It's been a VERY long time since I've played an MMO that has a good sense of community (and people working together). Rift had it for a time, but it was short lived.

3) WvW: Definitely brought me back to DAoC.

Everything else felt entirely different. Most likely it'll be a very new experience for you. Just don't make the same mistakes as some other people have, and focus on the shinniest objects on your map. Anet added hearts in an attempt to give people a sense of direction (because earlier testers were confused about where to go for the dynamic events. Not realizing that you are just supposed to go explore and see whats out there). However, many players have assumed that the renown hearts are the dynamic events, and that those are all the game has to offer as far as PvE goes. Doing so will mean you are missing out on at least ~80% of the PvE content, if not more.

Loading Screens:

Since this is what you asked about specifically, they are present. If you absolutely hate even the thought of a loading screen, they may bug you. For the most part they are very quick, and non-obtrusive. There are a few exceptions, though. Your personal story is heavily instanced, and separate from the world (looks like a green glowing star on the map). If you set forth to do a lot of your personal story quests, expect a lot of instances. Other than that, zone portals are where you are going to get your loading screens (or if you are teleporting between zones a lot). As others have mentioned, more often than not, you will be so busy in any given zone, that you can easily spend hours without experiencing a single loading screen. It's very easy to get lost in the world. Especially if you take the time to look around.

As others have said, the size of the zones (huge) often means loading screens are pretty rare unless you're travelling a good distance across the world, in which you might hit 2 or even 3 en route to a different starter area, for example.

I found them to be a non-issue, but the last MMO I bought was swtor - which had excessive loading screens and drove me (and my wife after seeing the difference) to buy  SSDs (which was a great decision).

Now in GW2 the loading screens are such a brief flash that I don't even get to read the little blurbs unless I see them in a youtube video. I personally never had any issue with them being intrusive.

Originally posted by aesperus

Originally posted by RodimusPrime

I have been doing research on this game, and don't get me wrong, I hate the first one with it's invisble walls and lack of jumping, but after watching a ton of videos I can say now that I am impressed and the game truly brings back some of the old school playstyle back into the genre. I have noticied a lot of loading screens in the videos I have watched. Is that just people traveling between waypoints or does it really have that many loading screens? I will probably pick up the game after feed back from the stress test and next BWE .

First off, let me say I hope you enjoy the game.

I guess elaborating more on why you hated the first game would be useful here. Mechanics-wise they are very different games, but the art-style & lore of the games are VERY similar. GW2 'feels' like your in the GW1 universe, but the mechanics definitely are much difference.

Another thing you said, which is troubling, is that you feel GW2 'brings back some of the old school playstyle back into the genre'. I'm not sure what you are referring to about this, but I hope you aren't setting yourself up for dissapointment on this. GW2 is a very unique game. I know not everyone will agree on that, but I'm telling you; if you play & enjoy GW2, you will find yourself staring back at a genre full of games that no longer cut it anymore. It sucks, cause there are literally no other games like it that you can play, while waiting for GW2 to get released.

When it comes to an 'oldschool feeling', there are really only 3 things in the game that I can say gave me that:

1) Exploration: I have not played a game that made we want to explore like GW2 since EQ2.

2) Community: It's been a VERY long time since I've played an MMO that has a good sense of community (and people working together). Rift had it for a time, but it was short lived.

3) WvW: Definitely brought me back to DAoC.

Everything else felt entirely different. Most likely it'll be a very new experience for you. Just don't make the same mistakes as some other people have, and focus on the shinniest objects on your map. Anet added hearts in an attempt to give people a sense of direction (because earlier testers were confused about where to go for the dynamic events. Not realizing that you are just supposed to go explore and see whats out there). However, many players have assumed that the renown hearts are the dynamic events, and that those are all the game has to offer as far as PvE goes. Doing so will mean you are missing out on at least ~80% of the PvE content, if not more.

Loading Screens:

Since this is what you asked about specifically, they are present. If you absolutely hate even the thought of a loading screen, they may bug you. For the most part they are very quick, and non-obtrusive. There are a few exceptions, though. Your personal story is heavily instanced, and separate from the world (looks like a green glowing star on the map). If you set forth to do a lot of your personal story quests, expect a lot of instances. Other than that, zone portals are where you are going to get your loading screens (or if you are teleporting between zones a lot). As others have mentioned, more often than not, you will be so busy in any given zone, that you can easily spend hours without experiencing a single loading screen. It's very easy to get lost in the world. Especially if you take the time to look around.

 Thanks for all the replies guys. I think what I hated about the first one was the mechanics. I went into it thinking it was an MMO, due to my lack of doing research on it. As for the old school feeling, it more of the things that remind me of EQ and some other games. The threat of death, enviromental traps, and the mechanics really look slick.

Quite a lot of loading screens. But context is important. 

There are loading screens in most MMOs (instanced pvp, instanced dungeons, teleportations, changing continents, changing between world 1 2 3 and 4 and so on).

 Like Skyrim, GW2 also has them when entering towns. And a town like divinitys reach has lots of loading screen. but a lot of it is optional. like skyrim. you can go through a door and will end up at the highest floor. but you can also access that floor on a different but time consuming method.

Also like Skyrim you got fast travel. open your map and teleport (for a fee) to a place that you have discovered. this is loading screens as well.

Unlike Skyrim however is zone loading screens. it took me 4-5 hours before I found the first "portal" to another area. kessex hills which is a 15+ area.  It didn't really bother me at all. the technical details in the game is amazing, so I didnt expect it to all be under one.

This is not a sandbox game, and it doesnt try to be. But its not a themepark either. No game is perfect. Everything has trade offs. 

yea i didnt like gw1 either man but from what i have played really enjoying gw2 great game sofar

All games have zones, no matter what it seems like.

For example: Runes of Magic. You could run from area to area and never see a loading screen, but it was a trick - in between zones there were long hallways/valleys/ whatever with no mobs. As you ran through, the game was swapping out memory.

You could get it borked up if you changed directions repeatedly.

Personally, I found that just as tedious.