View Single Post
  #1  
Old 05-17-2010, 07:01 PM
Cubical Cubical is offline
Banned
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 1,348
Cubical has a brilliant futureCubical has a brilliant futureCubical has a brilliant futureCubical has a brilliant futureCubical has a brilliant futureCubical has a brilliant futureCubical has a brilliant future
Why are small minimalist overworlds deprecated?

I have always liked overworlds that were simple and small and I really don't know why they aren't being taken advantage of more often. Not just that but the over detailing of levels causes players to go around unnecessary obstacles. It seems like everyone wants to have a huge overworld even through it is extremely unnecessary for a wide variety of reasons.
  • Lack of social interaction
    This is one of the main problems with some of the current servers, they are just so big you have to go way out of your way to interact with someone when you could just walk a level over and do the same thing on a smaller world. In my opinion Graal is more about social interaction than anything else and having a huge gmap hinders your ability to constantly interact with the player base.
  • Unnecessary development work
    Another thing that makes getting a UC server off the ground so much more difficult. Nobody wants to go and detail 1024 levels on a server that they are not even sure will get off the ground. I know a lot of people worry about running out of space for the content they want to add in the future but aving a smaller overworld doesn't mean it will keep you from adding new content. If anything it just means you can think of new and unique ways to connect it to the overworld. For example you could have a cave system that is a 25 level gmap to expand your server to include more things for a player to do. However if you did that those levels should follow the same guidelines as my next point. Your overworld should follow my next point as well.
  • Pointless content
    This sort of goes hand in hand with my previous point and my next point. I personally think there should never be any content/level that has no purpose. If I wanted to walk around aimlessly all day and look at pointless content, I'd go play wow and waste 16 hours exploring random towns that have little to no point. I'd like to reiterate what I said about graal being a social game and this totally contradicts that in so many ways. Pointless content draws the players away from the other players in not only travel time but the time it takes them to find what they are looking for. There's no need to have 500 levels of water and make them walk around in circles on a cliff to get to the top just to realize 'Hey, this house on top of this mountain that I spent 20 minutes climbing has absolutely no purpose.'
  • Much harder for newer players
    I would like to use Graal Kingdoms(although zodiac has same some of the same problems) as an example of how hard it is for new players to actually remember how they got somewhere. I cannot remember how many times I have had to show the same people the exact same places on Kingdoms. The overworld is huge and not to mention 98% of the levels are just grass and trees. It's extremely daunting to players when they have spent an majority of their day roaming around in the same spots only to find out that they were right next to where they needed to go the whole time. It's not like you see other players on the overworld and can be like 'Hey! Could you tell me which way bomboria is?' The most common problem with friends that I have tried to get to play graal is they are just so lost while playing it they can't have fun.
These are just a few of the reasons a smaller overworld can be better and cause not just your player base but your development staff to be more content while playing/developing.

Now on to the second part of my question and reasons why it's ridiculous, over detailing of levels. I don't know why everyone feels a need to throw random grass indentations or raise the grass in every level, make dirt paths that go absolutely nowhere, a bunch of random tiles to fill up blank areas. This sorta coincides with the point I made about Pointless Content. Sure you can't just leave the level blank but you shouldn't fill it up 5000 tiles, maybe a few things of tall grass here, a rock, a few bushes. I have the same problem when it comes to making levels but I have been trying to stray away from it. I personally think classic has an overworld that is easier on the eyes than anyone currently in existence. I think more developers should take after how classic levels were designed and ditch the whole 'lets make a level and throw cliffs and jagged paths and things to block the players everywhere.' Ok, enough about this because I'm sure this whole section has been covered multiple times by multiple people.

Now for my original question. Why are small minimalist overworlds deprecated? Could anyone explain why a 10x10 overworld with simple level detail tends to be looked down upon. I have a feeling that even if the overworld was one of the prettiest things on graal that It would be denied for classic status just for it's size and lack of level detail. What I don't think everyone understands is we don't have 1000 people on each server so why create 4000 pointless levels?

Last edited by Cubical; 05-17-2010 at 07:28 PM.. Reason: typos
Reply With Quote