Mortal Online Forum » General Discussion » Will there be zones and/or instances?

Please say no to both.

Originally posted by Gladeous

Please say no to both.

No and no. At least, that's the overall concensus and plan. Can't say anything for sure obviously until the game is in a more "final" stage, but the developers certainly want to try and stay in a seemless direction, and the community polls seem to suggest we agree. 

Here is your answere .... I am sure u like what the CEO says. :D 

"Q: How large is the game world going to be? Will it take a long time to go from one end to the other?

A: The first continent we are launching is about 64km2, not including undergrounds and dungeons. It’s pointless to compare "scale" to other games if you don’t know their speed and means of travel, but in MO, jogging from one end to the other (horizontally across) in a straight line, if that was possible, would take you approximately.. 40 minutes? And although it’s hard to say how large the world will feel until it’s filled with real players, right now it feels very big. The 64km2 is currently entirely seamless and has no instances, something we really hope we will be able to keep for release. The rest of the documented world consists of 5 more continents of similar size."

http://www.gamesnafu.com/readarticle.php?ArticleID=180

40 minutes is not very long.

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Originally posted by ncryan10
40 minutes is not very long.

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Its a PVP oriented game, they need to contain the players in a smaller land mass in order to promote conflict.  Large worlds to explore really aren't condusive to that playsttyle.

Isn't Farcry 2's world something like 50km^2? Thats almost 40 Miles squared. how long would it take you to walk 40 miles? Scratch that, if you could jog indefintely, how long would that take.

Now if mounts are common (thinking of the trailer), it will start feeling small. Far cry, you get jeeps, etc and travel moves a lot faster then. But in fairness, after a while, travel gets annoying. So maybe its not so bad.

That does not also include the underground, etc. so we'll see. I am hopeful, darkfall has the gameplay features i want, but it looks like a cat tird. Since MO is using the UT3 engine, a great look and stable engine, i have high hopes that we can finally have both decent art and excellent, meaningful gameplay.

Originally posted by joshe

 

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Originally posted by ncryan10
40 minutes is not very long.

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Would you like to spend traveling through 1 continent a whole week ?

 

No but  they said jogging, it takes 40 minutes to go across horrizontally, maybe from North to South is far because in WoW the eastern kingdom takes three hours on mount I think. Agon in darkfall takes 8 hours i think. 40 minutes just doesn't seem impressive at all

I have to somewhat agree, but think about it.
That's squared. That's a lot of land to explore. And who's going to walk in a straight line across a continent?

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Originally posted by ncryan10

No but  they said jogging, it takes 40 minutes to go across horrizontally, maybe from North to South is far because in WoW the eastern kingdom takes three hours on mount I think. Agon in darkfall takes 8 hours i think. 40 minutes just doesn't seem impressive at all

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As Zageron said: this is the time of going from point A to point B in a straight line.
You didn't consider
- landscape and its obstacles (f.e. bridges)
- interaction between players (f.e PKers)
- pve obstacles (what if a monster eats you?)
Of course riding on a mount would make the trip faster.

I pointed it already on official forums:
Would you like to run through empty continent for 5 hours, seeing at most couple mob spots. Or rush through a fully living continent within 1 hour ?

I always choose 2nd option. I want to play, instead of looking at the sky.

Originally posted by ncryan10

40 minutes is not very long.

Anyone who's seen the Kalimdor/Agon comparison map knows that it takes roughly an hour to cross Kalimdor going North to South.  I don't know how you felt about it, but Kalimdor seemed big enough to me.  Granted, I don't know if that 65-70 minutes was on mounts or on foot.  If they intend to have 5 more continents of similar size, that's pretty damn big overall.  Also he says "jogging from one end to the other (horizontally across) in a straight line, if that was possible, would take you approximately.. 40 minutes?"  This suggest that it would take 40 minutes with no obstacles getting in your way, basically if you could fly at jogging speed the whole way.  I have to imagine it would actually take longer than that considering changes in terrain.  Again, 6 continents that size is actually pretty impressive, I think.  Especially for a game that's been in development for such a short period of time.

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Originally posted by tcosaddict
Especially for a game that's been in development for such a short period of time.

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3yrs of planning and already 4 yrs in development don't sound that short to me ;)

Originally posted by Kyleran

Its a PVP oriented game, they need to contain the players in a smaller land mass in order to promote conflict.  Large worlds to explore really aren't condusive to that playsttyle.

 

Wrong.  No way does the world need to be smaller to promote pvp, and no way, in a "sandbox" game do you need to forcefully corral players in order to promote conflict.

Look at Darkfall.  Its a large world, and perhaps larger than MO?  And it isnt instanced.  I dont like DF, so this is just a comparison.

I'd hate to jump into this game and get hooked, only to find out I was mislead by another development team.

Originally posted by joshe

 

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Originally posted by ncryan10

No but  they said jogging, it takes 40 minutes to go across horrizontally, maybe from North to South is far because in WoW the eastern kingdom takes three hours on mount I think. Agon in darkfall takes 8 hours i think. 40 minutes just doesn't seem impressive at all

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As Zageron said: this is the time of going from point A to point B in a straight line.
You didn't consider
- landscape and its obstacles (f.e. bridges)
- interaction between players (f.e PKers)
- pve obstacles (what if a monster eats you?)
Of course riding on a mount would make the trip faster.

I pointed it already on official forums:
Would you like to run through empty continent for 5 hours, seeing at most couple mob spots. Or rush through a fully living continent within 1 hour ?

I always choose 2nd option. I want to play, instead of looking at the sky.

Also the type of equipment you may be carrying will slow you down. Also remember everythings going to be explorable along the way.
 

Originally posted by ncryan10

40 minutes is not very long.

I guarantee you there will be zones,it is impossible to do otherwise,without making a real cheap game.In saying that,40 minutes is VERY long,it pretty much gives you an idea the zones may be larger than anything in the giant game[ Vanguard].The average time to travel across a games zone is about 10-20 minutes,so yes 40 is HUGE.

This can be a little misleading by stating continent,because a continent can span across more than one zone.

Being that the game will have a large contingent for PVP,having a large world is IMO a VERY good thing.

Originally posted by Wizardry

Originally posted by ncryan10

40 minutes is not very long.

I guarantee you there will be zones,it is impossible to do otherwise,without making a real cheap game.In saying that,40 minutes is VERY long,it pretty much gives you an idea the zones may be larger than anything in the giant game[ Vanguard].The average time to travel across a games zone is about 10-20 minutes,so yes 40 is HUGE.

This can be a little misleading by stating continent,because a continent can span across more than one zone.

Being that the game will have a large contingent for PVP,having a large world is IMO a VERY good thing.

Guarantee?  Interesting.  The devs recently put in writing and in this community presentation,

www.mortalonline.com/forums/10390-power-point-poll-ppp.html

that "Mortal Online features seamless, instance-free continents where you have the freedom to go anywhere without encountering loading times or invisible walls. The first (of 5) continent, Myrland, is 64km2 not counting caves, mines or dungeons."

Far Cry 2 was, I believe, 25 km2. 64km2 means 8 miles per side, assuming a squarish landmass. Oblivion's traversible landmass was, I believe 6 square miles. Just some perspective to consider. I think the starting continent will be a decent size, if the scale is done right. Remember, a gameworld kilometer won't feel like a real world kilometer, if that makes any sense.

Wait. It's 40 mins for one continent and the article said there would be 5. Shouldn't it take longer?

Originally posted by Rokchant

Wait. It's 40 mins for one continent and the article said there would be 5. Shouldn't it take longer?

It looks like 1 continent on release.    The rest will be added later after launch in updates or expansions.  

For release it will be big enough I think, I saw somewhere that its roughly the size of Oblivion pre x-pac and that to me is pretty decent to start off, I am also glad they are not releasing everything at once, people will settle down in the first continent as new continents get released it will allow for people to explore, move in to settle down in remote places it will also give new players and guilds a chance to be part of the game rather than joining in on an already fully estabilished world where they have absolutely no chance of growing.

I found this quote:

"Quenos to Freeport largest cities on Antonica in EQ (never tried it yet, but I've been told) takes about 30 minutes on foot."

So it seems it will be pretty much like EQ. We also got new continents with expansions. Norrath in EQ classic (first 3 expansions) felt very big.

Originally posted by joshe

 

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Originally posted by ncryan10
40 minutes is not very long.

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Would you like to spend traveling through 1 continent a whole week ?

 

Depends on mode of travelling. On foot? Yes, definetely as that would be realistic. But for practical purposes there has to be quicker modes of travel, like horses and such.

Originally posted by rav3n2

For release it will be big enough I think, I saw somewhere that its roughly the size of Oblivion pre x-pac and that to me is pretty decent to start off, I am also glad they are not releasing everything at once, people will settle down in the first continent as new continents get released it will allow for people to explore, move in to settle down in remote places it will also give new players and guilds a chance to be part of the game rather than joining in on an already fully estabilished world where they have absolutely no chance of growing.

I agree with raven, someone said it wont premote conflict having such a largly scaled map.

also i've just woke up so this is a sandbox game right? so what if guild have to build their guild towns / cities next to vital resources just like in a RTS kind of game (We'll go build there because there's iron or w/e) and i dunno, curtian buildings for your towns need a required ammount of that resource if you get me?

I have almost next to nothing knowledge about what the game will REALLY be like :)

But People wanting to move into new continents with their friends might be like "Wtf those guys have most of the resources over there, Lets go raid their shit. Maybe just looting their resources, or completely destroying their town or w/e. The constant need for resource's will push people to go stab someone, and take their bag of goodies.

Actually al the above i just made up off the top of my head to make a solution for the problem that largely scaled lands wont premote conflict, and we have to consider how they are going to do that. But the Above is just a suggestion from my brain cells.

But yeh even with that said, it would be cool though right? Their will obv be some downsides though....  i dunno like i said its just an idea

64 square kilometer is roughly 9.5 times the size of the central park (Central park is 8km long and 0.85km wide).

A normal adult male walks about 5km an hour without breaking sweat. Crossing 8km would take about 96 minutes or 1h 36m.

A horse can go as fast as 60 km/h and would cross the 8km in about 8 minutes. This is however race horse speed. More realistic would be around 12 minutes.

While this does not seem to be really huge, it still should be big enough for the first area. They said 40 minutes to cross the 8km (assuming it is a square map) seems to be ok for running speed if you can not run all the time.

KJ