More planets like tatooine.

[Msicr]

I would like more planets like tatooine, with stuffs like the jawa baloon.

[Master_Reuben]

What I'd like to see are planets which are less singularly planar. The fleets and city planets especially I think could do with some depth/height to make them feel more dense. If you think about Orgrimmar (yep I'm using this as an example) and a few other places in THAT MMO, you had overhead bridges and underground tunnels in the same instance as everything else. Yes, we have different levels accessed by elevators, but that's not the same.

 

Give greater variation in the y-axis for locations accessible by toons, and you get a more dense and vibrant feeling world, and things feel less linear.

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

Give greater variation in the y-axis for locations accessible by toons, and you get a more dense and vibrant feeling world, and things feel less linear.

 

Yep, there´s almost nothing going on in the y-axis, that´s quite disappointing. All laid out flat and mostly hard angles.

Not to forget no deep waters for swimming or diving areas, just kneedeep water everywhere.

[murshawursha]

I'm going to assume that by Y-axis you all mean Z-axis.

 

I have mixed feelings. I'm not entirely opposed to the concept, but it can make navigation an absolute pain in the ***, as half the time you'll show up to a waypoint or quest marker or whatever only to realize you're supposed to be above/underneath where you currently are, which means you have to wander around some more to figure out how to access the different level, etc. Plus, depending on how world maps are designed, it can make them nearly impossible to use effectively. SWG in particular was guilty of that; in places like the Warren, NK Necrosis' lair, and the Death Watch Bunker, the overlay maps were practically useless for navigation because, since they're two-dimensional, it was impossible to tell what elevation you or the area you were trying to get to were.

[Master_Reuben]

Yeah I guess I said y-axis because I was speaking about the vertical (like from the point of view of your toon, y will be up and z will be towards/away) but anyway, whatever.

 

I don't see map navigation as a massive problem, or rather a problem big enough to stop devs doing more of what I was suggesting. If you think about maps used for navigating the locations I mentioned that were in WoW, they were clear enough so that you could tell if whatever you were navigating to was on say an overhead pass or if you had to take a lower route to get there.

 

Anyway, IMO that sort of problem isn't too big of a deal as I said. Alternatively, 3D maps? Or, more easily implemented would be just adding the extra dimension in the co-ordinates (x,y,z).

Edited June 6, 2012 by Master_Reuben

[Stenrik]

I love the idea and visuals of city planets, but try to move away from the hallway model and more to the "grid" model like how Corellia is. (Corellia still isn't a perfect example because of all the deadends and such, but I like how you can often choose your route).

 

I bring it up because I'm assuming the OP liked Tat because of it's more open nature and I didn't want to see this thread become "anti-city-planet." But... maybe the OP just likes Jawa balloons.

[jgelling]

Yeah, it's a fair point: Tatooine is the least rail-like planet in the game. Quesh is the most rail-like, strangely more so than even the starter planets! It's not really that there's so much wide open space to explore so much as the planet is just giant and pack-full of quests, but the desert areas aren't congested with rail-like enemies and questing.

 

I'd definitely agree with this.

[Vitas]

I know I'd love to see more explorable worlds available soon. There's already a thread up where you can discuss, list and vote which worlds you'd like to see added:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=212256

[Master_Reuben]

It's not so much that the visual design of the game worlds is bad. Obviously, lots of people love it and I can understand that, but I feel it's more to do with if well-designed areas feel like a part of the same world the toon is in. Making mountainous areas, cityscapes and the like more than just backdrops and more a part of the world the toon has access to would create a much greater sense of immersion.

 

Perhaps that's one of the main reasons I liked places like Orgrimmar and the like: there was a greater sense of immersion because I knew there was at least the potential of activity going on overhead and underneath me, and that the good visual design I could see was more than just framing for a corridor towards the next place to level up.

 

Also, and this is may be the wrong thread for this, but I reckon the fleets could be more interesting. Like what do we have? We have a circle, and to top it off each faction might as well have identical fleets as far as lay out is concerned (the visuals of the Republic fleet in-game I find much more appealing but I can see why Vaiken Spacedock looks the way it does but anyway). I know there's a sense of practicality to it, but I reckon some of that can be sacrificed to make the structure of these hubs a little more interesting. Maybe?

[Master_Reuben]

As a TL;DR and a bump: The planets LOOK fine and good, but they don't feel very amazing once you start walking around and I feel this is mainly due to the single plane feel of every instance (and to a lesser extent and on a less crucial note, the lack of weather cycles and other stuff mentioned already in this thread).

 

Like Nar Shadaa looks awesome, but after first glance the world feels like a linear path and every level of the city is separated so there's no interactivity between points in the character's y-axis (or the map's z-axis, if you will).

[Master_Reuben]

And back to the stuff about the fleets: the other day I was taking a shuttle from Carrick to Gav Daragon on the pub fleet and I thought how cool would it be if there were a whole bunch of shuttles flying between these metal space behemoths while all the players running around on them could literally see them out the windows of the ships/spacedocks. Make the fleets a more visually pleasing experience by creating some player-driven movement between the ships of the fleet and allowing it to be seen even when you're not shuttling around the fleet yourself.

 

Also keep in mind the idea I've been going on about most in this thread and that is of giving the game world some vertical depth without separating levels in the game by instance loading/instant travel elevators, but rather ramps/walkways/moving lifts between levels FROM WHICH you can see at least parts of levels below or above, creating a more dense and less single-planed feeling. All this would make the fleets much less boring.

 

DC Universe Online gives a little inspiration in the way of creating an open feeling for the main hub of an MMO faction (moreso the heroes HQ than the villains). Combine that open feeling with the potential to make the fleets like bustling harbours of shuttles and starships and the place where you spend most of your time in the game becomes so much more appealing.

 

The more I think about it, the more I reckon the fleets need a complete overhaul, or at the very least add or change part of it and use questing and vendors to traffic players to that area. Do something like this and the fleets actually become a hub of space shuttles and toons moving around an actual fleet rather than players running around on a circle (with some 50s occasionally flying to another ship so they can do an op. or whatever)

 

The idea is: use player-driven movement to make the game more appealing. When I first started playing MMOs, the thing I liked most about them is that I'm running around a virtual world and I can see other people doing the same.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Master_Reuben