exactly the problem is not about the size of the combat, or the air vehicles or the tanks or other: the problem is how the game is designed.
I hope this will be the work of War council to point peoples to battles. And global map on strike cruiser (or what will be the base of operation), with marks to battles your faction participate in and how large this battles are, will help.
PS2 style EC is a lost dream, died, burried and utterly lost. Spin it how you will .. it will still be a mark of failure on this game forever and ever (expected lifetime of maybe 2 years for a lobbyshooter if its lucky and good ?) PS2 is openworld because it feels open world. That is the ticket right there, it allows enough freedom to feel open. Lobbyshooters simply cant provide such freedom of action. I mean if you want to gather 200 tanks and drive them in a convoy across the world, you should be able to. If you want to have a huge swarm of carrier planes, you should be able to. Its about the freedom. EC failed to deliver, new crew tried to spin it to "saving the players from an experience they totally dont want" and essentially spat in the face of people waiting for the next "PS2". PS2 aint perfect and never was, it still is the best open world shooter out there By a LARGE margin. For that it has my intrest and respect.
Ok... changing the question then. Let's suppose that's true the affirmation "Players can get lost in open world games, missing the best experience the game has to offer". In EC, that eventually will become a open world game, which mechanics you like to be implemented to prevent that? Other forum members already posted some ideas, like that the war council could prevent that, and things like a tutorial or a good communications system between players.... so guys, ideas?
Zoran is spot on. Having several hundred something hours in PS2 it's at its absolute worst when the game decides if and when you can play. Even during off hours i can't find fights with my preferred "smaller" battle sizes of 50~ players total, at most they're a dozen v dozen. Because of the game having no real checks and bounds when it comes to pop at any given fight bases can't really be built around the amount of players that will be present and thus creating an appropriately sized playground. Outposts are smaller and facilities are bigger but even then a Biolab with over 100 players per side for instance boils down to it being a dreadful experience as the attackers and snoozefest for defenders. For all the hate EC's imminent match system is getting this is where it's a blessing in disguise. Bases can now much more easily be structured around an expected number of players. In theory no more walking around huge desolate forts in a 10 v 10 or fighting over an outhouse between 100 players. And most importantly no more evenly sided fights being ruined by an RKO zerg from out of no where.
I was under the impression that the open arena was still going to happen but not at launch and probably not for a year after launch. Did that change at some point?
"Open Arena" isn't even a term existing within video game terminology. Attempting to change the definition of "open world" to counter comparisons to Planetside 2 or deflect the criticism leveled at Behaviour for their many changes of direction (conveniently done away with as "trolling", GG) isn't going to change the problems the development is currently facing or the lies we were told.
Lol, yeah I fully acknowledge that I'm very much a detail oriented person, which can cause a lot of frustration for me and others. And I've gone into this game with the intent of believing everything the devs tell us, which means that I'm an easy target for all of the devs vagueness and Trolling. I was very surprised when Nathan brought up Skyrim for his example for how EC will be an Open World which is "Packed with Content". Which led me to create this thread: http://forum.eternalcrusade.com/threads/eternal-crusade-eve-skyrim-planetside-shooter.46270/ The only things that they have told us that could be classed as Open World Content is the Tyranids, but they are currently planned to be in PvE Overflow Matches only. And the only other thing would be the Campaign Faction Objectives. So I'm not too sure what Nathan is referring to in regards to Content? The plan is that within 2-3 years from now the devs hope that Arkhona will have 4 Continents, which are each 16km x 16km. But each of these Continents will have Multiple (28) Closed Border "Open World Territories" within them, that are 2km x 2km. And each of these Open World Territories will have 3 Outposts and 1 Stronghold for the Factions to fight over. But there is a possibility that some of these Territories will be merged together, to make even larger Closed Border Open World Instances within the Continent. I'm still not sure if 3+ opposing Factions will be able to fight in the same Instance yet. But most likely not, as the latest statement from Brent is that: "There will only ever be two sides in a match, and if there are allies from a different faction than those two sides, then they will function exactly like they are on one of the sides. This is a ways away however, so we will look at it in greater detail in the future." ^This is yet another confirmation that there is never going to be an Open Arena Continent like PS2. H&G is actually a rather fun game, and it's also free. So I recommend that everybody here gives it a go, so they can get a bit of a feel to how EC will play, in regards to the Strategic Map which has multiple Instanced Matches connected via Lattices. It seems that most of us gamers are confused by the term "Open World" as Nathan has informed me that we are wrong. And I assume that he should know what he's talking about more than us, right? As far as I'm concerned Nathan has confirmed that EC will most likely never be an Open Arena Continent game like PS2. (Unless there's some revolutionary breakthrough in the Unreal Engine & Server technology within the next couple of years) And how could we have multiple separate "Game Modes" in an Open Arena Continent? These could only work in Separate Instanced Matches I would think. Yerp, it happened when Nathan came on board and quickly realised that the EC team were selling us a Pipedream, so he now has a much more realistic approach to the development of this game. As a salty veteran of PS2 (2000+ hours in-game), I'm fully aware of what Zoran is talking about. And this is how I've personally dealt with the inconsistency of gameplay over the past 3 years: 1) Be an Altoholic. I have characters in each Faction on the US West Server and characters in each Faction on the Australasian Server, which I rotate evenly between them with my gametime. (all 6 characters are BR 80-90 now) 2) I mostly play in Pub Platoons, so that I usually have a unique experience each time I play. As playing in the same Outfit can get boring sometimes, as they usually employ the same tactics over and over. 3) Whenever I get dissatisfied with the Platoon I'm in I leave it and find another one. 4) If I'm dissatisfied with all of the Platoons on offer I login as one of my other characters in 1 of the other Factions. 5) Play solely for the Objectives. KDR is almost meaningless in this particular style of Shooter, where getting killed is usually a minor inconvenience as it only delays you for a few seconds. 6) Go out of my way to try and "mix it up" by playing all the Classes and Vehicles. In regards to new players, they need to join Platoons so that they are informed of where they need to be and what needs to be done. But unfortunately not many people enjoy leading Pub Platoons, so there really needs to be a lot more tools and incentives to be a Platoon leader in PS2. But EC won't have most of the problems that PS2 has, as it's not going to be an Open Arena Continent like PS2. It's going to be multiple Large Instanced Matches with Closed Borders and separate Game Modes, which are connected to each other via Lattice Lines within a Large Continent.
At launch and in the future are two separate things though. i think it's been made clear that 'at launch' is going to be the way you describe.
