Feedback talk:User/Guild Wars 3 perhaps/World Building and the Death of the Map Jump

suggestion

wow that's one big good suggestion: support --Frozen Ice Prince 08:54, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

ohai! and we've had larger feedbacks ^^ --The Holy Dragons 08:56, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok, here are my thoughts.

Yes to death of map jump, I totally agree with your idea. Instead of trying to get to the end of the game to visit elite areas, I should want to experience every area this much. However there are some issues, as no decent charachter would visit a piss easy area, so perhaps you have an idea of how to solve this. SImilarly what happens if you log off and arent in an encampment and could this be exploited with people half getting to a destination and then relogging in?

Map jumpings death also has the problem that, I want to play with two of my mates on opposite sides of the world with lots of trekking in between so what do we do? I also see problems with proggressing in the storyline this way so perhaps there should be a couple of realms for world-building, that all level 20's ( if thats the cap) can access, also solving the idea of good charachters wanting to revisit easy places.

I think maybe an idea that would increase peoples wants to go out far from town would be, the further from town you are, the harder the enemies get, and the more interesting the landscape becomes ( like in zinns secret lair.)

Another good idea to link onto yours in base positioning. We should reward people who build in hard to get to, obscure places because they are tactically good, like ontop of a rock that you must climb up and down means centaurs can't stampede it, and its easier to repel centaur archers ect...

I'm sure lots of other people will have ideas, but these are mine and maybe if you like one or twwo of them you could edit them into yours ( get a sort of ever evolving article going till we have a really well rounded idea.)212.139.253.4 14:03, 6 March 2011 (UTC) Lol I forgot to sign in.

One thing both of you seem to forget is that there ARE time restraints for those playing. People have to work/go to school/run errands/etc. We don't always have time to hike through half a continent. Sometimes, its good to be able to get stuff done quickly. Some form of map traveling is going to be in place, and thats how most of us like it.--Will Greyhawk 00:26, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

/agree with will, while I love ur concept of a dynamic world where you have an impact as you explore( [1] ), there is the big problem of: "oh hey my buddy just logged on, let's go adventure together... Wait I'm in The Grove righ now and he was in Ebonhawke when he got off last night... I guess we can't hang out then:(". again city thing sounds super cool, reminds me of starwars galaxiesIndigo121<

OP Response Start

(OP here responding to all of the above at once) In retrospect, I agree that my original suggestion of no more map jumping is a little extreme. I think where I was headed with it was a Jonathan Swift-ian exagerration to make a point. That point being that the game - despite how expansive and beautifully rendered the world is - would be no different in terms of actual play if you simply placed every town and outpost in a line on a neutral gray background and told the players to jump from one to the next and complete a mission at each location. As it currently stands the world is just non-interactive filler. Very pretty filler, but still filler. I want to see that change; I want to see the world become an integral part of the game.

I can completely see the point made by those who present the situation of what happens when you want to play with a friend who's on the opposite side of the world. With no map jumping, you wouldn't be able to do that. And that runs counter to the spirit of what I'm trying to achieve; more interaction rather than less. Even my first-considered compromise solution of permitting map jumping only between the major cities of each race doesn't solve that problem. I certainly don't want to see people prevented from playing with their friends. But my original suggestion would do just that; achieve greater interaction with the game world at the expense of interaction with the players in that world.

Here's one compromise suggestion: Map jumping just anywhere could be eliminated (or at least reduced to just the major city(ies) of the various races in which the Asura have constructed large jump gates) but the ability to map jump to your friend's location could be added. The way to preserve some sense of "in-game-edness" of this suggestion is the addition of what we could call Miniature Asuran Portals (MAPs for short). You buy a MAP and you're permitted to jump to the location of anyone on your friends list who is also carrying a MAP. It could be a one-time purchase or a quest reward (like the rez sig in pre-Searing Ascalon).

Of course, if you haven't previously traveled to the location where your friend is currently at, you wouldn't be permitted to jump there (which is no different than the current system; you're not allowed to jump somewhere you haven't already walked to before). In this way interaction with your friends is maintained and a somewhat greater interaction with the game world is added, as well, per my original suggestion.

This suggestion is not completely out of character with the game; in the intervening 250 years, the Asura have advanced their jump gate technology to the point of miniaturization. Credit Vekk with it even to maintain some in-game continuity and lore. The Vekk MAP 1000; now with more locations coast-to-coast. If you want to get really deep into the lore connection, you can even tie in Vekk's invention of miniaturization with the accident that killed his father. In attempting to gain closure, Vekk recreates the experiment that killed Gadd in an attempt to figure out what went wrong. However, he makes some modifications which lead to successfully increasing the power output of the crystal array. Said crystal arrays then become integral to the miniaturization of Asuran jump gates. But I digress.

Another compromise solution would be to do the following. Each of the races' capital city (or tree in the case of the Slyvari) has an Asuran gate at the beginnng of the game but no other towns/outposts have such gates. One task for players interested in doing so could be the building of Asuran gates throughout Tyria, thus extending the jump gate network. This could be done in the already-established towns and outposts of the game but also in player-created towns. The building of a gate should be a fairly expensive and epic undertaking requiring the cooperation of many players.

As the network grows, more and more of the world becomes increasingly easier to travel to. There could even be the challenge thrown in of some enemy within the game who attempt to destroy the gates (because they're encroaching on their territory, for example). This may lead to dynamic events who's goal is the defense of the gates. If the gate is destroyed, it would have to be rebuilt as part of the dynamic event chain. This could lead to all sorts of interesting strategic and tactical aspects of the game as a critical area gets cut off from the network and players have to scramble to rebuild the gate before an enemy force marches on that area, for example.

The large gate network would co-exist with the personal MAP system. The in-game explanation for why everyone can carry around a personal jump gate at minimal cost while the large scale gates are so expensive and time-consuming to build is that the flux matrices used in jump gates have energy requirements that scale exponentially as the size of the gate increases. The reason larger gates are built at all is because they can permit larger amounts of matter to be teleported than what is possible with the pesonal MAP devices. This offers strategic and economic advantages when trying to teleport an army or a merchant caravan, respectively, and thus justifies the increased cost to build the larger gates.

As to what to do about someone who logs off but didn't actively encamp prior to doing so, I would suggest that the encampment happens automatically when you log off. In this case, the encampment would be an ability of all players from the very start of the game with no limitations (e.g. not a consumable, not a time-limited skill). When you log back on, you're in the same location that you logged off at (albeit inside of an encampment now). Alternately, if you neglect to actively encamp prior to a log off, you log back in at the last town you visited. However, since that has a certain punitive feel to it, I don't personally like that idea.

My reason for suggesting the encampment in the first place was to provide a tool for players to actively explore and travel through the world without needing to rely on towns and guild halls to save their progress as well as make them feel like they are part of the world instead of just passing through it. Also, keep in mind that I'm not suggesting encampments (and outposts, villages, and towns built upon them) are instanced. They would be persistent with the larger game world. I envision the encampment being just a tent and maybe a campfire built right out in the open in the surrounding environment. Perhaps it would have a ring around it denoting its boundary (kind of like an elementalist's ward) but is otherwise in the game world.

The critique of what to do about no decent character wanting to visit a piss easy area. Good point. Here's my take on it. What you are critiquing speaks more - I think - to an inherant limitation of linear game design rather than my suggestion of greater interaction with the world. Though I certainly didn't speak to this in my original suggestion, I think this is a good place to mention that the artificial constraint of specific game areas being easier than others needs to be eliminated as well. Let's consider breaking with the model that whole territories of the game world should be "easier" while other territories are "elite" with increasingly greater and greater challenges in between. Why not have a mix of challenges in every area?

ArenaNet is already moving towards this model - if I understand correctly - in their World versus World. In that game-within-the-game, I've heard it stated that all levels of players will be able to contribute meaningfully to the success of their faction/server/etc. There will be tasks to complete or enemies to face that only the uber-elite will be able to undertake. But there will also be easier - but no less critical - missions which will be suitable to lower level characters. So why not extend that model to the entire game?

In a "starter" area there will be enemies suitable for all levels of players. The way to explain why the end-game dragon camping out on the mountain top above the level 1 village hasn't reduced it to smoldering ashes yet is (A) too small to represent a threat to the dragon and thus is ignored, (B) the dragon has its hands(claws?) full defending itself against the uber-elite players who've come to vanquish it, or (C) allowing the village to remain (for now) somehow plays into the dragon's larger plans for world domination later on. Since there are hints that the dragons are more than mere flesh and bone - being akin to elemental forces of nature itself - maybe they grow in strength the more people are in fear of them. Wiping out the village would actually eliminate some of its power base; thus it suffers it to remain intact.

From the uber-elite player perspective, the "starter" area would have a mix of enemies of varying difficulty and thus give them a challenge even in these zones. And this makes sense consistent with the suggestion of, "...the further from town you are, the harder the enemies get...". An established town would have subdued any major threat to its existence a long time ago or the town would never have had the opportunity to be built and grow to begin with. Thus, nearby enemies will be relatively weak because otherwise they would have posed too much of a threat for the town to have been built in the first place. As you move further out into the wilderness, now the enemies become more of a challenge. Then, as you get closer and closer to the next town, the enemies start to thin out and become weaker and weaker again. So enemy strength follows a curve based on how far you are from established towns rather than a linear progression across an entire continent. Also, different areas can present different challenges rather than a simple easy area/harder area. Think of our own world. You don't expect to be attacked by a Grizzly Bear in New York City or Los Angeles. But that doesn't mean you're completely safe, either. The challenge there is coming under attack by murderers and thieves. Camp in the backwoods of Yellowstone and the likelyhood of being the victim of a serial killer is next to nothing. But you better not leave any food lying around unless you want a close encounter with Smokey the Bear. We need to start thinking in terms of curves and circles rather than lines and boxes.

To avoid having the level 80 player wipe out all the level 1 monsters, you either implement the current dynamic that ArenaNet is using of down-leveling such players in those areas and/or give absolutely zero reward for killing anything that many levels below your's. Only now, instead of the down-leveling being applied to huge regions of the game, it's applied on a much smaller, localized level. But I agree there may not be an elegant solution to this one that doesn't smack of contrivance. Then again, the whole down-leveling dynamic already seems kind of contrived to me. I mean, if I'm level 80, I'm level 80. Where I go shouldn't change that. I understand and accept that it will promote more interaction between players by eliminating the compartmentalization of the game along character levels. It just strikes me as an inelegant solution; but I don't know that I have a better one to offer at present.

Yes, I am all for good strategic and tactical positioning of colonies. I think that will happen as a sort of natural evolution of base construction and why I didn't mention it in my original suggestion; I just took it for granted. I envision an outpost being built in a "bad" location. Said outpost gets overrun by centaurs. Players who built the colony now realize that where they chose to build it was a bad location. When they go to build a new colony they will position it in a better location. This will naturally evolve into in-game common sense/general wisdom (e.g. "when building a colony in centaur territory, build in a high, rocky area that is difficult for centaurs to reach"). That gaining of knowledge will be its own reward as the players who build colonies in such inaccessible spots won't have their time, effort, money, and resources wasted through the destruction of their outpost. The reward will also come in the form of more players visiting that outpost, buying/selling/trading there, and perhaps setting up crafting stalls/shops (with the income that will come with them for the colony) because it is a secure oasis in the harsh wilderness. I don't think there would be a need for any additional reward beyond that (i.e. in-game dialog box popping up and proclaiming, "Congratulations! You've built an outpost in a location inaccessible to centaurs. Reward: 1000 gold pieces!").

In response to "One thing both of you seem to forget is that there ARE time restraints for those playing. People have to work/go to school/run errands/etc. We don't always have time to hike through half a continent."

I think, if anything, my suggestion would solve the problem of having limited time to play the game rather than exacerbate it. In the current model, challenges scale up as you travel across the continent and progress through the storyline. To get to those more challenging areas requires a considerable investment of time in level grinding as well as traveling by foot to open up more and more of the map. Another drawback is it effectively compartmentalizes the game world. You wind up only visiting areas whose challenges are commensurate with your current level. Eventually whole areas of the map are more-or-less abandoned because there are no challenges left for your character to face in those regions. Ironically, then, the playable areas of the map are actually shrinking while simultaneously gaining access to more of the game world. Of course, there's nothing currently preventing your level 20 character from returning to Ascalon and kicking the snot out of every level 5 devourer you come across; but my guess is most players don't do that.

Though I didn't speak to this directly in my original suggestion, I think the unspoken assumption built into it is that there would be challenges of all levels in all regions of the map. The idea that a whole territory of Tyria is only populated by level 5 monsters and below is kind of silly. Instead, do as the one responder suggested above and which I expanded upon; scale challenges locally and along a bell curve rather than a linear progression. The starter village will be surrounded by monsters of up to level 3 perhaps. Move a little further out into the surrounding farmland and countryside and the monsters scale up to level 6. The woods on the edge of the farms have monsters of level 9. The mountains above the forest have monsters of level 12. The cave in the highest peak of the mountain range houses an even higher level boss. Then, as you start to descend the mountains into the next valley over, the monsters' levels begin to decrease in a similar progression, until you reach the next village. Likewise there would be dynamic events that would scale in difficulty based on proximity to the village. To mix things up a little, every so often an especially tough monster or dynamic event pops up in an area in which lower level monsters or dynamic events would normally be found, presenting an extra challenge for those inclined to try their luck. The boss monster in the cave comes down to the forest for its monthly "grocery shopping" trip, a level 9 monster dwelling in the forest is displaced by the boss and starts threatening farmers in their fields now, etc.

This localized scaling can also be paired with region-wide or continent-wide scaling, as well. Though I don't like the linear progression model of scaling that currently exists, I think when combined with localized scaling that it can still make sense. For example, I think it's reasonable to expect that the monsters living around the base of an active volcano are likely going to be a tougher lot than the ones relaxing in the lush lowland fields. But localized scaling can still be applied here as well. The monsters at the volcano's base are level 9 perhaps. As you move up the sides of the volcano towards the caldera the monsters will become increasingly higher in level from that base starting point of 9.

So, bringing this all back to the issue of limited play time and wanting to get things done quickly. If there are challenges for players of all levels right outside the door of the "starter" areas (or a short walk into the forest or up the mountain), then no longer do you have to trek across half a continent to find a challenge worthy of your character's level. You'll be able to find challenges in practically any area of the map with very little to no time wasted traveling to get there. Thus, the need for map jumping is even further reduced. Of course, to follow the storyline, there will be game mechanics in place to encourage exploration and travel to other areas of the map. But all along that journey as well as once you arrive at your destination there will be monsters and dynamic events appropriate for your level. Now you're playing the game every time you log on rather than wasting time traveling just to get to the next mission start or more challenging region.

It can even be done in stages. Let's say you want to travel across the mountain range to the next village over (perhaps to benefit from a skill trainer or gather information vital to the struggle against the dragons, etc.). You log on and head out from the village you're currently in. Along the way there are some monsters spawning that are above average and a dynamic event or two involving some farmers having difficulty with monsters eating their crops. You slay the spawners and complete part of the dynamic event chain. But your time is limited and now you have to log off. No problem; you set up your encampment right out in the farmers' fields for the night and call it a day. Tomorrow you log on and wrap up the dynamic event chain you started yesterday before heading for the woods at the edge of the farmlands. Once in the forest there are some more dynamic events to complete as well as some more challenging monsters to slay. You also stumble upon an old hermit who cautions you about the boss monster dwelling in the cave at the top of the mountain pass, setting off another dynamic event. You start working your way up the flanks of the mountain, coming upon ever more challenging monsters in the process. By this time, you have to log off again so you set up your encampment on the mountainside for the night. A couple days pass before you can log on to play again. When you do, it's off through the mountain pass to confront the boss monster of the hermit's dynamic event. That in itself may spawn some additional chains that are integral to the storyline. Time to wrap it up for the day again, encamping in the foothills below the mountain pass. Another couple days later you're logged back in again. A few more dynamic events and monsters to slay and you've trekked to the new village.

All along this journey you've been encountering dynamic events that are moving the storyline along as well as your character's personal development. You may even find, upon returning to the first village, that it has been overrun with monsters thrown into disarray as the balance of power in the region has shifted following the death of the boss monster in the mountain pass. Now whole new dynamic events are spawned as well as new monsters to face. And all of this happens within the distance between just two villages and without having to map jump or grind your way through a long distance journey in one sitting. In other words, practically all of the time you are logged into the game is spent playing the game; not journeying somewhere half a continent away before you can start to play.

Final random thought for the evening. One of GW2's tag lines is, "What's your story?" Maybe if this suggestion we're discussing is ever implemented, the next tag line can be, "Build your world!"

Thanks for reading. Guild Wars 3 perhaps 01:41, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

OP Response End

I love this idea (I always wanted my own little slice of the world!). SUPPORT!!!-- Necro Shea Mo 03:31, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Natural Disasters Too Punitive (originally titled "derp")

6. Natural disasters such as avalanches, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, mud slides, tidal waves, tornadoes, and volcanoes could take out the random colony here and there.

I wake up, log in, my 2 months of blood, sweat and tears are gone because of an earthquake that just had to happen to keep the world from overcrowding. /ragequit 82.95.85.186 01:13, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback. The original suggestion was written in the spirit of a brainstorm/stream-of-consciousness idea. It wasn't intended to be a be-all-end-all solution or even address all of its own shortcomings in its initial conception (which I already freely admitted to in a previous response). It was putting forth an idea and then let's see where the discussion leads, dissecting the idea further to reveal pros and cons.

Now that you've revealed a con of natural disasters being too punitive after all the hard work required to build a colony (and I agree with you, by the way), what solution would you offer to deal with the potential problem of overcrowding/overpopulation of player-built outposts, villages, and towns?

Perhaps natural disasters as an overcrowding limiter could be kept but simply scale back their destructiveness. Instead of total annhilation of an entire outpost, village, or town, perhaps they act as challenges for a colony to overcome or as a means of forcing colony inhabitants/owners to keep up with the maintenance of their outpost, town, or village. A money sink, if you will. For those players who are actively engaged in the upkeep of their outposts, villages, and towns, the occassional lost building or fortification or two to a natural disaster here and there will not be insurmountable. It may even help foster a greater sense of community as the inhabitants "pull together" to rebuild in the wake of the disaster.

Conversely, those players who have either overbuilt relative to the funds they have available for future maintenance or become complacent about their colony (or even abandoned it altogether) will find their outpost, village, or town slowly downgraded to the point where it achieves a natural balance of what they're realistically able to maintain in the former scenario or completely destroyed (slowly, over time) in the latter scenario. And this is as it should be. If a player(s) have essentially abandoned their outpost, village, or town and are no longer actively maintaining it, there should be mechanisms in place to remove it from the map to make room for others. This would be one such mechanism. In the case of the player(s) who overbuilt beyond their ability to maintain the colony, natural disasters would be just one of many potential methods for shrinking the colony down to a manageable size for that player(s).

I also never envisioned natural disasters being a daily (or even weekly) occurrence in the game world; quite the contrary, I think they should be rather rare. But I do think that with all the rewards that would come from building outposts, villages, and towns, there should also be risks involved; natural disasters being one of those risks. It could even be taken so far as giving the players the option when building their outposts, villages, and towns of constructing counters to natural disasters. A sea wall to protect against a tsunami, for example. Players are then faced with making cost:benefit choices when building their colonies; spend the extra money upfront to guard against a natural disaster or keep the money and take their chances.

This doesn't have to be a single, irreversible fork-in-the-road decision, either. Maybe when just starting out, the players building an outpost, village, or town don't have the resources to build the sea wall right now. Later, as they amass more money and resources, then building the sea wall becomes a realistic option for them. But in the meantime, they chose to take the risk of building their colony without one. If they get hit with a tsunami before it's built, that was their choice; c'est la vie. Then we're back to what the natural disaster was intended to be; a limiter to rampant, uncontrolled growth across the entire map by making players pause and carefully consider their options and their level of commitment before engaging in colony building.

Thank you very much for having taken the time to read the original post, give it some thought, and post a legitimate concern. Guild Wars 3 perhaps 02:28, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately

The logic engine is already "done." They have either already done this, or it is too late to add. I think we'll see modern MMOs doing this though. They're all pushing for "dynamic worlds" without actually making them dynamic. It's a catch-22 because if you make a world truly dynamic, you lose quality control over it, and that's not something game developers like giving up. ~Shard 02:32, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Agreed 100% about the quality control. That's why I listed so many potential limiters to permit colonies to be built under semi-controlled conditions (from a game developer's standpoint) without having them completely overrun the game. One of them being having to be granted permission by a controlling race or faction before a player would be allowed to build in a particular area. And whenever we're talking about having to get permission from an NPC to do something in a game, what we're really saying is you have to get the permission of the game developer (by proxy through the interface of the NPC). Guild Wars 3 perhaps 02:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Guild Halls anyone?

Who else saw this idea and thought: 'I wish my guild hall was like this! With the amount of time we all spend on here our GH should be a thriving city by now!'. I vote for guilds to be automagically supplied with an encampment somewhere in the world which they can upgrade using all the bells and whistles in the OP's idea. It'd be great, the hardcore 'guildies' could feel a sense of pride for their guild and also a sense of contribution that I for one don't feel at the moment (I skulk in the background anonymously donating faction that doesn't really have an impact on my guild). MisterMister 17:34, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

See my suggestion.-- Necro Shea Mo 00:07, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Personal Transporter

OP here. In my previous response above, I had discussed creating personal-sized Asura Portals as a means of teleporting to a friend's location while still minimizing the use of map jumping (consistent with my original suggestion). I named these personal Asura Portals the Vekk MAP 1000 (short for Miniature Asura Portal).

Now during Asura Week on the GW2 official site, we're given this statement from the That Old College Try section:

“Master Boikk,” he supplied grimly. “No, Boikk’s just fine. He used a personal transporter the moment we stumbled onto the skritt city.”

So already in the lore it has now been established that the Asura have personal transporters; just like my earlier suggestion above. It wouldn't be that much of a stretch, then, to make these personal transporters the GW2 in-game method of teleportation rather than simply map jumping just anywhere. Guild Wars 3 perhaps 18:29, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Seemed to me that they were very rare and expensive.-- Necro Shea Mo 20:03, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed; that was my impression, as well. That is until the latest Asura inventions...MASS PRODUCTION and THE ASSEMBLY LINE ! That and not one but FOUR races' worth of dumb Bookahs to sell them to. Profit, profit, profit. Guild Wars 3 perhaps 21:01, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Umm.... Ohkay, my initial impression of you that was a joke-the part about the Mass production and assembely line, right?-- Necro Shea Mo 02:55, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Umm...yes. Well, at least partially. After watching the latest videos to come out of Asura Week, the little guys/gals seem quite advanced indeed. Mass production and assembly line technologies (process-oriented technologies rather than physical object-based technologies) would certainly be something they appear capable of. Did you see that shot of the golem factory?

Keep in mind that my suggestions are only half-serious. It's not as important to me that personal teleporters (or any of my other suggestions, for that matter) are implemented in the game so much as that the developers devise some way to make the larger world of Tyria part of the game rather than a boring backdrop to run through as quickly as possible on your way to someplace else. How, exactly, that is achieved is not as important to me as that it is achieved. We're at a point now where developers can no longer cop out by falling back on the excuse that the limitations of personal computers limit what they can create. That worked 10 years ago but we're past that now; we can create just about anything we can imagine on a computer these days. Whether that be a world or the interaction with that world.

I'm just trying to prod people to step back for a moment and consider the entire gaming experience and to stop designing games in which huge portions of it are just boring, uninteractive filler that you have to slog through on your way to somewhere else. Think of it as the philosophy of game design versus the technical details of game design, if that helps. Guild Wars 3 perhaps 03:27, 27 September 2011 (UTC)