Designing Telon's Oceans

[Arctic_Slicer]

When designing a fantasy world most designers make an Earthlike world. In video games especially MMPORPGs however the Earthlike World has become lessened some in recent years. In a novel there is no problem with designing the map to be Earthlike as all irrelevant places can be left out. In an MMPORPG however the whole world is there for players to explore in however an Earthlike world generally means having a 70/30 split between water and land. The problem with MMPORPGs however is that most of the adventure takes place on the land and when there is ocean travel it is usually bypassed by a charted boat ride or skipped via teleportation. In the upcoming "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes" however ocean travel is supposed to be very important and with their support for the player being able to go just about anywhere they can see this would also mean designing lots of underwater content in addition to the land content. While it would be cool and probably well received by the players I just don't see this happening anytime soon even with a game as innovative as "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes".

For the design of "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes" the Earthlikeness of the world's oceans are probably going to be lessened by quite a bit probably accounting for less than 30% of the world's surface. While this isn't bad it is somewhat hurtful to the realistic fantasy world that Sigil is trying to create. While I am sure they want to make the oceans as big and Earthlike as possible it is almost a given they wont be as the long boat rides across the mostly empty oceans would hurt the game aspects of the world. I expect Sigil to find the best happy medium in this regard and suspect that oceans will become more Earthlike in future MMPORPGs as the technology to do so becomes better.

While Telon's oceans probably wont be as big and vast as we all hope and want them to be we can have faith that Sigil will do their best to make them as interesting and fun as they can be.

[Pirotess]

I dont know, from the posts I have read on the subject, it seems like they are going to put far more work into the water portions of Telon than any previous game. Typically games put at most a thin ring of mobs in the shallow waters around continents. Everquest, EQ2, DAoC and WoW all did it that way. Vanguard however is expecting players to actually fight while sailing around on their boats, presumably far out to sea with some of the larger sea going vessels. That right there is a large improvement on how the water portions of a fantasy world are handled.

Imaging sailing into an area dotted by thousands of islands and as many pirates. Imagine having to work your guilds Armada of ships deep into the area to face the high level head of the pirates or a fearsome sea monster. Those are things Im expecting to see from what the devs have said so far. Whether it materializes or not is of course the question.

That said I certainly hope they dont stop there. Imagine some of the fantasic worlds they could design underwater. Gigantic cave systems, huge vertical trenches who's walls are bristling with mobs to engage. From what we've seen of Brad flying around showing us that the Vanguard engine is capable of some amazing heights, I can only imagine it is also capable of some amazing depths as well. I look forward to seeing the oceans of Telon come alive and make the oceans of previous games look forgotten by comparison.

[Aredhel]

ok....You can stop imaging now! I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it!

And I agree that, from what we were privilged to witness, anything is possible and, with the talent and innovative techniques and thoughts, it will happen!

[Arctic_Slicer]

I am not saying it's possible but having that much water based content would talk lots of time and man power to develop. Designing the land based content alone talks lots of time and money to develop and the fact is most content is generally land based. While I think it would be awesome to have a world that really was a 70/30 split I don't think it is likely to happen in "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes". While sea based encounters will be awesome it has already been said by Brad that ship to ship combat will not make it into the game by release. So if there is ever ship to ship combat it will probabally be in an expansion. Still it would be completly awesome to explore a world that is more water than land.

[Cobalt Katze]

Originally Posted by Arctic_Slicer

Still it would be completly awesome to explore a world that is more water than land.

That's exactly the path Pirates of the Burning Sea is taking. There's still land content, but the vast majority (and all combat) is ocean-based.

[Arctic_Slicer]

Originally Posted by Cobalt Katze

That's exactly the path Pirates of the Burning Sea is taking. There's still land content, but the vast majority (and all combat) is ocean-based.

Nice to know. I haven't actually heard about the game before today so I really don't know much about it. Should be worth checking out if they do oceans right.

[Aredhel]

Pirates looks interesting! I've played around on thier site before! Just not something I would want as a steady diet!

[Greymain]

Actually most of the ocean life is in shallow sea near coasts. we know that Sigil will have sea monsters like krakens in the oceans. Hopefully a few giant squids as well. Sea living Humanoid mobs (mermaids ) and I know Brad is a fan of undersea cities.

The one aspect of oceans that would be nice is wind and current but that is I fear too much to hope for.

[Arctic_Slicer]

Originally Posted by Greymain

Actually most of the ocean life is in shallow sea near coasts. we know that Sigil will have sea monsters like krakens in the oceans. Hopefully a few giant squids as well. Sea living Humanoid mobs (mermaids ) and I know Brad is a fan of undersea cities.

The one aspect of oceans that would be nice is wind and current but that is I fear too much to hope for.

Wind, current, and more advanced weather systems would be a very nice addition to any MMPORPG but there is only so much the developers can do with their alloted time and budget. I am sure Sigil would love to have these things and I am sure they will add these things if it's possible but I wouldn't hold your breath for them as they would be a much lower priority than alot of the other more important features. One can dream though.