3 ms·
> Sadly this design principle has fallen by the wayside in recent years. Sadly this is due to new content being added as disparate “continents” that exist apar
by nkrisc 5y ago
> Sadly this design principle has fallen by the wayside in recent years.
Sadly this is due to new content being added as disparate “continents” that exist apart from the rest. Recently, content that had multiple zones on the same continent still has no loading screen. But since they have to adding new places to go to, and all the existing land being accounted for, they add new “continents”. But even new zones that get added mid-expansion are also separated by loading screen since they were never accounted for in the initial set of zones for the expansion. These days you might pass through several loading screens just going from one place to the other as you magically teleport around the world and cosmos.
Funny enough, the world felt larger when it was smaller because it was rare you ever encountered a loading screen.
- littlestymaar 5y ago> Funny enough, the world felt larger when it was smaller because it was rare you ever encountered a loading screen. It's not only about loading screen. The world felt larger, because you had to walk and take the fly path a lot! Going from one end of the world to the other took literal minutes in flight. Then after they introduced the group search feature which automatically teleported you in the dungeon you had chosen, the world felt much smaller, because in practice you were only seeing a tiny part of it.
- nkrisc 5y ago100% agreed. The cross-realm and phasing/layering they introduced further shrunk the world as well. While I think those features were ultimately good for gameplay reasons, they definitely stole from the magic of the original game.