arontimesMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
You can get an open world effect by disabling travel through the world map and instead adding transitional areas between the major adventure zones. Kind of like how Baldur's Gate 1 was made...
For those of you who haven't played Baldur's Gate 1, there were many zones in between major cities and other landmarks, and you had to travel to the edge of the map to go to the next area. Some maps opened up new areas when you reached the north/east/south/westernmost edge of the map, and a rare few opened up up to four new maps with each cardinal direction. However, once you had unlocked a map, you could travel to it through the world map. For example, rescuing Dynaheir from the Gnoll fortress required you to go through several transitional areas populated with monsters and perhaps even quests and treasure.
For something closer to Neverwinter, in Neverwinter Nights 1, there was no world map. To travel from the city core to the Blacklake District required you to physically travel there by transitioning from the city core to the actual Blacklake (yes, there was a transitional zone that served as a buffer between most of the city and the rich people in Blacklake, but I digress.
In these two games, having to physically travel between areas instead of teleport in through the world map gave them a feeling of openness. Perhaps we can compromise between instantaneous travel and open world travel by providing transportation services such as teleportation (fastest and most expensive), skyship (cheaper but still expensive), to horse-drawn carriages, and so on. You would still have the option to save money by walking and riding on your own, but you risk random encounters and an increased, non-instantaneous, travel time.
You could even foster some roleplaying by having players patrol the roads to keep them safe for travelers. They're still killing monsters, but it's being done for social reasons.
All open world means to me is that once per session or more I have to get on some kind of travel system (flight, horse, speeder) and get essentially a timeout while the game slowly has me cross the world while I can do nothing to play the game.
You obviously haven't played WoW, Rift etc then. In these games, open world really is open world. It was one of the big 'wow' factors in WoW when the game first released.
Whilst fast travel options exist, you can if you wish walk (or ride etc) from one end of a landmass to another. All these games do is break the world up into continents which then require a loading screen.
They will never revamp this to an open world set up. Open world games are very taxing on the system, this is why the graphic detail is so much better on this game. It doesn't have to have as much loaded in at one time. If it was going to be open world, it would have to be built that way from the beginning. They will release it as a new game before they converted this one.
When you not see a loading screen, and you have a poor hard drive, then u see a small leak. When you run over the Open World Map of Skyrim or Oblivion sometimes you can see "Loading Region" but without a loading screen. And in Oblivion you see always a loading screen when you go in a dungeon or a city, so Oblivion is NOT a Open World Game? ^^ In Hellgate the "Open Word" is made from hundreds of single maps. For me is Open World the ability to go there and back again the world with OR without a loading screen.
Alright... Open worlds are nice, because they make you feel as if you'd be immersed in them, some games have huge open worlds (skyrim, wow). But, an instanced world like this one can be much bigger than that because you can create thousands of new maps, also with better graphic quality.
I'd like to add that there is no way to change this so stop filling that pointless poll.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"The harder the game, the better."
The main zone of Millennium City seems much larger than that of Protector's Enclave to me, so I think they could make larger zones than the ones they have done already. I imagine they want to leave some room to have somewhere to go to make new areas more impressive to players over time. I wouldn't mind some zones that have no story associated with them at all, that are simply there for people to go monster slaying in, with perhaps some well hidden dungeons also not tied to the storyline.
I would of loved open world. BUt come on these guys cant even get this instance world done right what makes you think they could ever hope to do Openworld
This has been one of my few gripes about the game. A very tiny linear on rails world. And this last event where I have been online and participated repeatedly and got 120 bones and no Blue skeletal dog. Which has really pissed me off and frustrated me to no end. I stopped logging in and thought to my self well maybe there are other games that reward participation?
Many of cryptic's games have been instanced, and it wasn't a big problem. Some of the instances can be huge, but still instances, and of the issues I've ever had in any Cryptic game I have played, instancing has never been one of them. I am wholly more concerned with Cryptic hammering out bugs and refining and adding content.
Firstly, its quite doubtful they could open it up to openworld so this is kinda pointless.
also, I dont even think openworld brings any real value to the game. Do you honestly think it is possible to make an openworld faerun realistically? neverwinter is huge. the whole game would just be one city. i much prefer it the way it is, as opposed to minature cities/regions other MMOs employ.
otherwise I am not playing and the game can die quickly;
honestly making the game open world is probably the only thing that can save this title and possibly allow it to flourish
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited June 2013
There's no way to simply "open it up."
It's really, really not simple or even mechanically possible.
However using NWN PW style travelling should be implemented.
There needs to be more exploration but seamless Open World is really not a true possibility. When players can design their own outdoor maps I'll really start pushing them to start working on expanding the outdoor persistent exploration zones that aren't simply hubs but until then the cold hard truth is that seamless open world is unlikely to ever happen.
**I am a community member speaking from a perspective with programming and video game development experience. For all I know there could be some super epic behind the scenes update planned but I wouldn't hold my breath for it.
it's not a problem that we have instances
the possible solution could be, when you go through the gates in protector's enclave, you get to a zone right behind the gates, there you can explore or follow the roads to some other zones.. basically an "open world" with loading screens when transitioning from a zone to another.. and for those who want to get to a particular zone fast, there are portals
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited June 2013
That's how NWN PW were often made. There were often gaps and such but general between major cities and zones you would have around 10 or so "wilderness" zones which have different dungeons, caves and points of interest.
That is definitely something I want to see at some point in the future, ujavcad.
I prefer an open world but it's never gonna happen.
Rise of the Fell King - A Forgotten Realms campaign (work in progress) NWS-DS38FJ5R8 Part One: The Fell Cavern (looking for feedback!) NW-DTWX9RBQH Hopefully more to come!
I think there are certain limitations to what their engine can support and more open and vast instance might mean more lag.
And even if they add it there will be a riot that the zone is too big and empty and lots of traveling and no portals and no people around. Like it was in SWTOR.
Right now they are too small but you see people around.
After might be too big and lots of rage.
There is no open world because this is the typical themepark "stand in town and wait for queue while we browse the zen store" game, if there were an open world it may distract from their store.
Comments
For those of you who haven't played Baldur's Gate 1, there were many zones in between major cities and other landmarks, and you had to travel to the edge of the map to go to the next area. Some maps opened up new areas when you reached the north/east/south/westernmost edge of the map, and a rare few opened up up to four new maps with each cardinal direction. However, once you had unlocked a map, you could travel to it through the world map. For example, rescuing Dynaheir from the Gnoll fortress required you to go through several transitional areas populated with monsters and perhaps even quests and treasure.
For something closer to Neverwinter, in Neverwinter Nights 1, there was no world map. To travel from the city core to the Blacklake District required you to physically travel there by transitioning from the city core to the actual Blacklake (yes, there was a transitional zone that served as a buffer between most of the city and the rich people in Blacklake, but I digress.
In these two games, having to physically travel between areas instead of teleport in through the world map gave them a feeling of openness. Perhaps we can compromise between instantaneous travel and open world travel by providing transportation services such as teleportation (fastest and most expensive), skyship (cheaper but still expensive), to horse-drawn carriages, and so on. You would still have the option to save money by walking and riding on your own, but you risk random encounters and an increased, non-instantaneous, travel time.
You could even foster some roleplaying by having players patrol the roads to keep them safe for travelers. They're still killing monsters, but it's being done for social reasons.
Taking a break from Neverwinter indefinitely...
That took some doing.
You obviously haven't played WoW, Rift etc then. In these games, open world really is open world. It was one of the big 'wow' factors in WoW when the game first released.
Whilst fast travel options exist, you can if you wish walk (or ride etc) from one end of a landmass to another. All these games do is break the world up into continents which then require a loading screen.
I'd like to add that there is no way to change this so stop filling that pointless poll.
"The harder the game, the better."
I hope that going forward the zones get progressively larger and more epic though.
Firstly, its quite doubtful they could open it up to openworld so this is kinda pointless.
also, I dont even think openworld brings any real value to the game. Do you honestly think it is possible to make an openworld faerun realistically? neverwinter is huge. the whole game would just be one city. i much prefer it the way it is, as opposed to minature cities/regions other MMOs employ.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
otherwise I am not playing and the game can die quickly;
honestly making the game open world is probably the only thing that can save this title and possibly allow it to flourish
It's really, really not simple or even mechanically possible.
However using NWN PW style travelling should be implemented.
There needs to be more exploration but seamless Open World is really not a true possibility. When players can design their own outdoor maps I'll really start pushing them to start working on expanding the outdoor persistent exploration zones that aren't simply hubs but until then the cold hard truth is that seamless open world is unlikely to ever happen.
**I am a community member speaking from a perspective with programming and video game development experience. For all I know there could be some super epic behind the scenes update planned but I wouldn't hold my breath for it.
it's not a problem that we have instances
the possible solution could be, when you go through the gates in protector's enclave, you get to a zone right behind the gates, there you can explore or follow the roads to some other zones.. basically an "open world" with loading screens when transitioning from a zone to another.. and for those who want to get to a particular zone fast, there are portals
That is definitely something I want to see at some point in the future, ujavcad.
Part One: The Fell Cavern (looking for feedback!) NW-DTWX9RBQH
Hopefully more to come!
And even if they add it there will be a riot that the zone is too big and empty and lots of traveling and no portals and no people around. Like it was in SWTOR.
Right now they are too small but you see people around.
After might be too big and lots of rage.
Non cash mounts are slow as fk.
Just go and play Elder Scrolls Online when that is released if you want an open world...Neverwinter is not going to change in this respect.
and i prefer a loading screen over 30 mins of useless running
What I'd like to see is more areas inside of the Forgotten Realms. So that the travel map is full of places where we can go.
"The harder the game, the better."