Originally posted by Dream_Chaser

Originally posted by Loke666

But I think GW2 have less dead zones than most MMOs since you actually get some reward for completing lower zones.

See, I can't buy that as being true. Why is it that every server I checked out had all waypoints contested in Orr? Why is it that a common, running joke on tumblr for quite some time was pretty much the same? Why are there loads of screenshots of Orr with every waypoint contested, completely empty of players? I just don't buy it. I know fans want me to buy it, but everything I've seen with my own two eyes is contrary to that.

Let me paint you a picture. With a picture. That's just one I found whilst searching for a few seconds on the Internet, and there are hundreds more like it. If the servers are really so unabandoned, then why are waypoints everywhere so very contested? The empirical evidence is completely contrary to your opinion; yet it supports my own.

 Why don't you just log in and take your own picture? Oh thats right, you can't, because you have no idea what you are talking about since you don't own the game.

People stopped doing Orr ages about when they nerfed the rewards. The zones are still less dead than other MMOs, its just that Orr requires a large amount of players to control the maps. Most avatars of the gods would be impossible with less than 50 people.

Originally posted by Dream_Chaser

Originally posted by Loke666

But I think GW2 have less dead zones than most MMOs since you actually get some reward for completing lower zones.

See, I can't buy that as being true. Why is it that every server I checked out had all waypoints contested in Orr? Why is it that a common, running joke on tumblr for quite some time was pretty much the same? Why are there loads of screenshots of Orr with every waypoint contested, completely empty of players? I just don't buy it. I know fans want me to buy it, but everything I've seen with my own two eyes is contrary to that.

Let me paint you a picture. With a picture. That's just one I found whilst searching for a few seconds on the Internet, and there are hundreds more like it. If the servers are really so unabandoned, then why are waypoints everywhere so very contested? The empirical evidence is completely contrary to your opinion; yet it supports my own.

So, here we have the obvious facts.

1) You don't play the game

2) You gain your perception, from a screenshot that you have no idea what server, what time of day, or what month even that it was taken

3) This screenshot shows a small portion of a single map.

4) You feel that you have a valid opinion to share, even though you are admittedly ignorant of any truth. 

and the final FACT

5) Every single post you ever make in the future is going to be interpreted as having come from the same quality of knowledge.

thanks for sharing your ignorant, misinformed opinion and I honestly mean that in the nicest possible way.

Originally posted by botrytis

 

Sorry the areas in WoW are 2X smaller than GW1 - there was a discussion about this along time ago. GW1 and GW2 have basically the same area size. You really dont know what you are talking about. WoW has loading screens also - when you fly from area to area - that is a loading screen.

In WoW, I can walk / mount / fly from one side of the continent (collection of areas) to the next without any loading screens.

It gives this feeling of an actual continent since you can go through multiple areas.

In GW2, I can walk from one AREA to the next and see a giant swirling portal with a loading screen at the end of it.

Like I said, you just feel 'boxed in'.

I really really want to know why ANet did it the way they did since it shatters the perception of 'world' and makes you feel like you aren't in a continent but in a game level.

One loading screen to load up level 1-15 area!

Another loading screen to load up level 15-30 area!

etc.

Back on topic, ANet accepted the problem 'as is' in the AMA which was 'mid level is dead'  so yes, it is factually (according to ANet) wasteland / dead / barren but the content can be done solo.

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by botrytis

 

Sorry the areas in WoW are 2X smaller than GW1 - there was a discussion about this along time ago. GW1 and GW2 have basically the same area size. You really dont know what you are talking about. WoW has loading screens also - when you fly from area to area - that is a loading screen.

In WoW, I can walk / mount / fly from one side of the continent (collection of areas) to the next without any loading screens.

It gives this feeling of an actual continent since you can go through multiple areas.

In GW2, I can walk from one AREA to the next and see a giant swirling portal with a loading screen at the end of it.

Like I said, you just feel 'boxed in'.

I really really want to know why ANet did it the way they did since it shatters the perception of 'world' and makes you feel like you aren't in a continent but in a game level.

One loading screen to load up level 1-15 area!

Another loading screen to load up level 15-30 area!

etc.

 

 

Back on topic, ANet accepted the problem 'as is' in the AMA which was 'mid level is dead'  so yes, it is factually (according to ANet) wasteland / dead / barren but the content can be done solo.

On the other hand I can shoot my rifle in GW2 and bullets are actual projectiles that interact with the world.

So sure, it feels like a world, but the way the world works shatters the perception it is a real thing. Feels like a movie set where everything is fake.

So for now, either you have a real physics engine or a open world with few loading screens and few things happening without the player having to start it.

Originally posted by jpnz

I really really want to know why ANet did it the way they did since it shatters the perception of 'world' and makes you feel like you aren't in a continent but in a game level.

They did it so that they could give you a game with better graphics than WoW.  It's all a matter of trade-offs.  You could have preferred that each area have half as many textures used twice as often in order to get rid of the loading screens, and that's perfectly legitimate.  Others would take the opposite view.  ArenaNet had to pick something and go with it.

Though if you have map travel, you're going to have loading screens, regardless of any other trade-offs.

Originally posted by kitarad
When you fly in WoW that is a loading screen ? Have you even played WoW ? You can walk that distance and there is not one loading screen in between and that flight is over area and there is not I repeat IS NOT a loading screen unless it is between continents. The vessel between continents is the zeppelin and not the bat or griffin rides those are over area you can traverse by foot or horse/warg or whateevr mount. Come on Kalimdor and the other continent whose name escapes me where huge and much larger than one zone in GW 2. Please do not try to dissemble.

While gryphon rides and so forth aren't exactly loading screens, they serve the same function as loading screens.  They force you on a particular route so that the game knows exactly what textures and models you will need loaded far ahead of time, and then can spend the route loading them and have all of the ones you need for the area when you land loaded when you get there.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by kitarad
When you fly in WoW that is a loading screen ? Have you even played WoW ? You can walk that distance and there is not one loading screen in between and that flight is over area and there is not I repeat IS NOT a loading screen unless it is between continents. The vessel between continents is the zeppelin and not the bat or griffin rides those are over area you can traverse by foot or horse/warg or whateevr mount. Come on Kalimdor and the other continent whose name escapes me where huge and much larger than one zone in GW 2. Please do not try to dissemble.

While gryphon rides and so forth aren't exactly loading screens, they serve the same function as loading screens.  They force you on a particular route so that the game knows exactly what textures and models you will need loaded far ahead of time, and then can spend the route loading them and have all of the ones you need for the area when you land loaded when you get there.

The individual continents are non-instanced; the gryphon rides used to be the only way around, and thus you would be under the constraints you listed, but they re-designed the world with Cataclysm and you can take your own personal mount, not on a flight path and fly from zone to zone, not using pre-set paths, but however you want to fly there.

Not trying to detract from your statement; WoW is still heavily instanced, but the 'world' in large part, is not.

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by botrytis

 

Sorry the areas in WoW are 2X smaller than GW1 - there was a discussion about this along time ago. GW1 and GW2 have basically the same area size. You really dont know what you are talking about. WoW has loading screens also - when you fly from area to area - that is a loading screen.

In WoW, I can walk / mount / fly from one side of the continent (collection of areas) to the next without any loading screens.

It gives this feeling of an actual continent since you can go through multiple areas.

In GW2, I can walk from one AREA to the next and see a giant swirling portal with a loading screen at the end of it.

Like I said, you just feel 'boxed in'.

I really really want to know why ANet did it the way they did since it shatters the perception of 'world' and makes you feel like you aren't in a continent but in a game level.

One loading screen to load up level 1-15 area!

Another loading screen to load up level 15-30 area!

etc.

 

 

Back on topic, ANet accepted the problem 'as is' in the AMA which was 'mid level is dead'  so yes, it is factually (according to ANet) wasteland / dead / barren but the content can be done solo.

GW2 zones are large enough, content rich enough and detailed enough that you can spend 6-12 hours in a single zone. I've been working on world completion the past two weeks at a non-rushed pace and I hit a zone portal about every other day. Sorry, but that isn't immersion killing in any way, shape or form.

I also prefer GW2s way point system. 5-15 minute flightpaths in WoW was never my idea of fun and seeing the ugly "seams" where the patchwork of zone designs fit together wasn't very conducive for immersion.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by kitarad
When you fly in WoW that is a loading screen ? Have you even played WoW ? You can walk that distance and there is not one loading screen in between and that flight is over area and there is not I repeat IS NOT a loading screen unless it is between continents. The vessel between continents is the zeppelin and not the bat or griffin rides those are over area you can traverse by foot or horse/warg or whateevr mount. Come on Kalimdor and the other continent whose name escapes me where huge and much larger than one zone in GW 2. Please do not try to dissemble.

While gryphon rides and so forth aren't exactly loading screens, they serve the same function as loading screens.  They force you on a particular route so that the game knows exactly what textures and models you will need loaded far ahead of time, and then can spend the route loading them and have all of the ones you need for the area when you land loaded when you get there.

I agree with Quizzical. It might as well be a really, really long loading screen. I think some of the longest flightpaths were close to 15 minutes of flight! People complain about 10 second load screens, try maintaining your patience when you have an hour to play WoW and it takes 15 minutes to fly to the zone you intend to play in!

Flight paths weren't there for immersion in WoW, they were there as time sinks.

GW2 isn't a subscription game and thus has no need for time sinks.

Originally posted by fiontar

 

GW2 zones are large enough, content rich enough and detailed enough that you can spend 6-12 hours in a single zone. I've been working on world completion the past two weeks at a non-rushed pace and I hit a zone portal about every other day. Sorry, but that isn't immersion killing in any way, shape or form.

I also prefer GW2s way point system. 5-15 minute flightpaths in WoW was never my idea of fun and seeing the ugly "seams" where the patchwork of zone designs fit together wasn't very conducive for immersion.

Essentially you travelling from a boxed area to the next boxed area but in GW2 you get loading screens (and the portal) that makes that restrictive feeling even worse.

Like I said, the whole thing is just;

One loading screen for 1-15 area!

One loading screen for 15-30 area!

It just doesn't give that whole 'large world' vibe. I can understand why ANet decided to up the graphics rather than have a large open world but I would have preferred it the other way around.

Last I checked, I can still walk / ride / fly from one end of the continent to the next in WoW. You can't in GW2 cause you are essentially travelling from one box to the next.

Originally posted by Bladestrom
What other way would allow the quality of content with an open world while being runnable on the average pc?

Quality of content or quality of graphics?

Unless I'm missing something, the DE / mob (content) is handled server side.

GW2 looks better than WoW; you'd hope so since WoW is what, 7 years old now?

The trade-off of not having a 'world' but a series of connected boxes with large swirly portals at the end?

Like I said, I personally would have gone the other way.

Originally posted by natuxatu
Having lvled up 3 to max and working on my forth I can tell you that it's pretty bad at mid-lvl in fact most people just skip it all together and dungeon run or craft past it, sadly... 

Currently leveling my 3rd just by WvW cause mid-level is dead.

Hopefully the 'sometime in 2013 fix' will encourage people to be out in the world more.

I am told one of the more popular ways is to grind gold in your 80s and craft your alt to 80.

Originally posted by Mortemia
Man, I actually quit warhammer back in the days just because it felt like a singleplayer adventure due to lack of players. It was a cool game though. Guess I've missed the GW2 boat too then, wouldn't make sense to get it now.

I'd say take a look later in the year.

ANet has posted a bunch of stuff in their 2013 blog to 'fix' the problem. Actually about half of that blog was about the fix and the new game design they had to come up with as well.