[Cubical]

Originally Posted by DustyPorViva

First off, smaller overworlds will not be a breeding ground for social interaction. People will always clump in specific levels regardless of how small the overworld is. Look at UN. People are always at Town Center. That has nothing to do with the size of the overworld. You could crop UN down to just Town Center as their whole overworld and people would still be clumped outside of OSL, thus the rest of TC is equally as 'useless' as the rest of the overworld.

Yes, but people do tend to leave the area sometimes. If you know players will not be visiting a certain area what is the point of creating the levels? Just to cause the players be further away from other players and walk further? possibly it's just to make the developer pull out his hair. I know I log on UN and see people all over the overworld whether they are PKing new players that are trying to quest or just going having a guild vs guild pk fest. If you were to make the world smaller more guilds may be inclined to join in on the festivities or just random players.

Originally Posted by DustyPorViva

However, like I said I've argued this a lot so I'm going to simplify things:

Making an overworld small is not going to magically fix the problems you mentioned. It has nothing to do with the size or content of the overworld but the attitude of the developers. The only way a large overworld would be a waste is if it was poorly planned and executed... and surprise, that's exactly what happens! UN's overworld isn't what I'd consider huge, but it's a ****ing maze to navigate through and mostly empty/unfinished. You can't just go from one town to the other, most of the time you'll end up at a dead end. Most UC servers will start with a huge overworld, simply with the intention of 'wowing' players with the size. They'll never have the manpower to fill it.

There are countless other examples that back up what you say, but I don't agree with the real problem being the size of the overworld, but the developers behind them. I'm not condoning 50x50 gmaps and such, but I'm against the idea that overworlds should be a max 10x10 because people think it will magically make the server better. Better planning and execution will make the overworlds and servers better.

I'm not saying that it will fix all the problems by itself, it would require other things to draw the players out of their idling spots. Lets use your example from the recent thread you posted about your project.

Originally Posted by DustyPorViva

To close, there is a lot I just can't put into words. The amount of planning I had put into, ideas that were never brought to live(thus screenshots or videos can never show). For example, I had planned to turn the quest for Graal's into a huge interactive quest for all players to get involved. It involved exploring and finding the four hard-to-find shrines. Each would have a large Guardian that you had to defeat to claim the Graal. Each color guard(for each color Graal) had various strengths and weaknesses. The Graal's weren't clientside. Only one person could hold a Graal at a time. Eventually after all four Graal's were claimed you could return them to a large Shrine that would make an island raise out of the ocean that lead to the Golden Realm. Any player could enter it then, and it would stay raised for a few hours, or days.

I'm saying that if you give the players something to do on a smaller overworld they would be more inclined to walk over a level or two to participate than they would if they had to travel 20 levels. Lets use kingdoms for an example, I never participate in events that happen on the overworld just for the sole fact I have to walk then walk back which takes ages. Although if there is an event warp to something like lets say a spar that will put me back to where I was or close to it I always join. Don't mistake what I'm trying to say. I'm not saying you couldn't achieve the same thing with a big overworld. With that being said, walking 3 or 4 levels is alot different than walk 10-20 to participate in something. I'm also not saying that bigger overworlds don't have their place on servers but if you see players doing something close by you're more likely to join in than you would be if they were doing it like 15 levels away.

As for it being easier on the development staff, it is and it would probably cause your staff to create higher quality work because

1. They know their work will be being actively viewed by players
2. They are volunteers and do not want to spend countless hours doing unpaid work.
3. They don't want there work to just be a filler

With that being said it seems as if there are more advantages not just development wise but player wise in having a small overworld.

Originally Posted by Vega001

I don't think I completely understand what you're trying to say here. You seem to be directly associating large overworlds with pointless content. The fact remains that the more levels there are in an overworld the more places you can exclusively put content. Sure you could fit the same amount of content into a smaller overworld, but then you might have to put content for multiple, different things in the same place, which might not bode well for gameplay. I can't imagine any content that is designed to be pointless. I believe whenever someone develops something to add to a server, it is because he or she genuinely believes players to find it interesting and entertaining. It is up to each and every player to decide for themselves whether content is or is not pointless.

You aren't limited to your overworld when adding content, there are countless ways to expand the area that gameplay can take place. Take Shangra la for example if you remember it. They had multiple small overworlds which expanded gameplay and you could access them through areas on the overworld however they were sort of like how aeon is where certain place you could only use guns and such but I'm sure you get the point i'm trying to make. As for pointless content, I'm talking about filler levels that are not just a hassle for developers but players. I know when I'm playing I don't want to walk 15 levels around a mountain just to get 1 level above me.

Originally Posted by Vega001

A developer would not need signs to navigate around an overworld because they would (should) know where everything is. Ergo, the purpose of putting signs in an overworld would be to help players find their way around. Any decent developer would know to put signs at forks and turns in paths, so players shouldn't get lost at those places. Furthermore, it is my belief that any player that seriously wants to learn how to navigate a new overworld would try to remember how they arrived at where they are and would consult their map (that most servers have). On a server like Zodiac, where new players are constantly traveling to a dungeon, dying, and traveling there again, I don't think remembering how you got somewhere is as problematic an issue as you claim it to be.

It is more of a problem than you may think, trying to figure out where to go is so daunting to new players which has been what turned almost every player away from graal that I have tried to introduce. It's not only me I'm sure other people have that exact same problems when showing their friends how to play.

Originally Posted by Vega001

To my knowledge, most servers (and most other games) that enable warping to locations require a player to have visited those places before. The purpose of warping is to enable players to travel to a location of importance quickly. While you are right that, under normal circumstances, the levels between points A and B would be wasted because of the warping, I believe there is a significant fact you are overlooking. A lot of content is not located directly next to (or even in the same level as) a warp location. Instead, players often have to travel through other, nearby levels to get to the content. This would mean at least some of the levels that you mentioned would be wasted, would actually not be wasted. Moreover, many levels on an overworld like Unholy Nation's are host to playerhouses. The players that own these houses most likely would not consider the levels that contain them to be wasted.

The levels that have player houses on them are obviously not pointless because they serve a purpose. People are lazy, it's a known fact that players do not want to go far out of their way to do something and if it comes down to it they just won't do it at all. While you are right about people walking past levels but what's the point of adding 4x4 levels of just trees that players have to walk all the way around to get to something on the other side. I can understand making players go out of their way for quest but general gameplay shouldn't require people to jump through hoops to do something simple.

I sort of lost track of what I was talking about in half of those comments I just made because I'm talking to a friend on the phone before I leave but hopefully it doesn't confuse anyone. If there is any confusion please let me know.