Which would you prefer?
Given we play in a highly instances environment, would it be feasible and a better option in the short term to allow for a player to front-load much of the game environment within an instanced room.
i.e. Loading all accessible (by level/faction/other) sector blocks on initial game login and being then sorted into our various 'Instances', (Alpha Quadrant Instance A - 250 players) ( Alpha Quadrant Instance B - 33 Players) etc
Ideally this might remove the time associated with map moving per sector block and reduce loading screens to missions. Saving some extra seconds for most, some minutes for others and alot of eye-rolling for all every time we face yet another loading screen for jumping a border.
I for one would favour spending 2 mins etc as I log in initially to load the current quadrant/galaxy map and then go about my business... you?
Comments
Take a look at Warcraft. Giant open world. But aside from the tech issues, it's a magnet for hacking even with Blizzard's warden software and virtually no other MMO team would dream of allowing that much data to be handled client side.
Jack Emmert said awhile back (proudly) that the Cryptic Engine had never been TRIBBLE to his knowledge.
Now... That isn't QUITE true. I can rattle off about five to ten occasions when it was. Give me a dummy account and I can do it because I think I understand the principles behind doing it fairly well.
But even adjusted for playerbase sizes, Blizzard's engine gets TRIBBLE thousands of times more regularly than Cryptic's and it's due to data being preloaded and client data/packets/stored data in RAM being allowed to shape gameplay.
You could design content around that or stream chunks of content (which is what WoW does and the principle behind their "phasing" tech).
Doing so creates security holes in the game that can be TRIBBLE. Anything in RAM is something that can be exploited, with or without additional software. It also can create very unsavory bugs.
I once got stuck in a completely empty "phase" in WoW through no malicious intent on my part because of a login error that corrupted my character data. I can also tell you how to mod clientside data, dupe items, and break content in that game. (For example, getting a Worgen out of the starting area in that game.) It creates a LOT of issues, both exploits and bugs.
What's more sensible, generally, is to load content in small chunks but to mask the loadscreens better, which is something devs have increasingly expressed interest in doing.
Even a basic warping at 'high speed' animation which covers a loading bar style still picture.. anything has to be better - but I guess not preloading.
oh well.