Lack of Open Spaces: A Design Decision

DarkWombat

I was wondering if any of you have noticed that Elder Scrolls Online does not seem to have the massive open spaces as any of the single player Elder Scrolls games like Skyrim, Oblivion, etc. The Whiterun area in Skyrim is a good example of that:

https://tespostcards.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/whiterun-plains.jpg

Everything seems a lot more bunched up. Do you think this was a design decision, because this is an MMO? And you need mobs every 10 feet?

AlnilamE

I take it you have not been to Cyrodiil?

nerevarine1138

AlnilamE wrote: »

I take it you have not been to Cyrodiil?

This. And not every city is all that cramped. You can easily spend hours running around Wayrest or Mournhold. And there are lots of spaces outside the cities with fairly stunning views.

ShadowDisciple

If people could understand how MMO works alot less questions like this would occur.

Compromises needs to be made...mmos are relatively open world but there needs to be some streamline, period.

DarkWombat

ShadowDisciple wrote: »

If people could understand how MMO works alot less questions like this would occur.

Compromises needs to be made...mmos are relatively open world but there needs to be some streamline, period.

Ummm. excuse me. Youa re talking to a 44 year old gamer who has played MMOs since Ultima Online.
See Lord of the Rings Online and World of Warcraft's Barrens for MMOs with wide open areas.

DarkWombat

AlnilamE wrote: »

I take it you have not been to Cyrodiil?

Been there, done that. It is not even close to the openness of Oblivion's Cyrodiil. Trees and small hills are strategically placed everywhere to either take away and hide and disguise the game engines lack of ability to show far away areas, or, because Zenimax thinks we all have ADD, and need something, anything, in front of us at all times.

nerevarine1138

DarkWombat wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

I take it you have not been to Cyrodiil?

Been there, done that. It is not even close to the openness of Oblivion's Cyrodiil. Trees and small hills are strategically placed everywhere to either take away and hide and disguise the game engines lack of ability to show far away areas, or, because Zenimax thinks we all have ADD, and need something, anything, in front of us at all times.

Of course it's not as open as a single-player game. The single-player game didn't have to talk back and forth with the server and constantly render new objects/players in the landscape. And this isn't a bad thing, though for some reason you see an interesting landscape as indicative of ADD.

You still might want to take off the rose-colored glasses, because both Skyrim and Oblivion had some serious issues when showing long-distance views (objects became less smooth, fewer objects visible, etc.).

Majic

ShadowDisciple wrote: »

If people could understand how MMO works alot less questions like this would occur.

Perhaps you should explain this reasoning more thoroughly so the developers of MMOs which already do feature vast, wide open spaces will be able to understand why their games shouldn't be working.

s7732425ub17_ESO

Go play Alik'r Desert with the fog turned off.

KhajitFurTrader

Majic wrote: »

ShadowDisciple wrote: »

If people could understand how MMO works alot less questions like this would occur.

Perhaps you should explain this reasoning more thoroughly so the developers of MMOs which already do feature vast, wide open spaces will be able to understand why their games shouldn't be working.

@nerevarine1138 gave a good answer above: it's all about LOD and rendering budget. Having vast, wide open spaces with long viewing distances demands trade-offs, because a) MMOs are supposed to run and look good on a wider range of machines, and b) the very dynamic and undeterminable number of highly detailed, high poly-count objects (a.k.a. player characters) that can be in a scene at any give time needs to be taken into consideration.

To give examples of the trade-offs to be found in the two MMOs that have been mentioned above:

• LOTRO has a very dated rendering engine, dating back to even before DDO. In the distance, objects like trees are represented as 2D sprites, only to be replaced with their 3D counterparts at coming closer. The same is the case with landscape (especially rock) textures; only at short distances are they replaced with higher-resolution ones. I always found this very noticeable process to be immersion-breaking in an otherwise beautifully designed landscape and wouldn't want to see this in ESO under any circumstances.
• WoW with its cartoony graphics has been at the lower edge of polygon count from the get-go. Even with the latest improvements to character models, it's still not as detailed as ESO is.

So they both may have longer LOS, but the LOD of ESO they have not. This may as well be a design decision, yes.

Gix

DarkWombat wrote: »

Everything seems a lot more bunched up. Do you think this was a design decision, because this is an MMO?

It's definitely a design decision but it has little to no relation to the fact that this is an MMO.

DarkWombat wrote: »

And you need mobs every 10 feet?

Also a design decision and a common trait for MMOs.


Could they have done things differently? Oh hell yeah but what may or may not be better is very subjective and any objectivity would require us to know all of the design goals and limitations.

Kaizxen

Why do you feel that the open spaces are necessary? What do you feel they add to the game?

Honestly, this sounds more like a request for reduced mob density, rather than a request for more open space. I don't necessarily disagree with wanting a bit more space between mobs in some areas, but I don't see the value in having huge empty areas.

nerevarine1138

Kaizxen wrote: »

Why do you feel that the open spaces are necessary? What do you feel they add to the game?

Honestly, this sounds more like a request for reduced mob density, rather than a request for more open space. I don't necessarily disagree with wanting a bit more space between mobs in some areas, but I don't see the value in having huge empty areas.

This is my question, too.

The OP brought up the Barrens in WoW, but that zone actually went through some massive changes because it was giant swathes of reddish-brown nothing. It was boring.

I've seen plenty of open spaces in Tamriel, but I'm glad they aren't as open as that. There's just nothing appealing about seeing vast amounts of nothingness.

Lied

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

The OP brought up the Barrens in WoW, but that zone actually went through some massive changes because it was giant swathes of reddish-brown nothing. It was boring.

I miss it personally. There are obvious pros to fast travel and rails/lanes for points of interest, but there was just something impressive feeling about the world in early EQ1 when you went from the end of one continent to the end of another. The world felt big/wild and less subdued. Exploring felt more like exploring and less like simply filling in the fog on your map.

That's definitely not for this generation and not for this MMO, nor would I want to force that on anyone else--all I can say is "good times"

BBSooner

Cyrodiil and Alik'r Desert immediately come to mind for large open spaces. The plains west of Whiterun will probably be open as well when it gets released.