How 'Big' Does the Game/World Feel?

[WorldofWorkcraft]

It's hard to gauge the size, seeing as how there's lots of levels as well. For instance, The Grove may not look big, but its rather tall with a bunch of levels, so looking at a map doesn't do the size justice. When you look at a map, you see the x and y axes, but you're completely unaware of the z axis. I think that's right. 2-D vs. 3-D and all that jazz...

The main reason I feel the game seems big is because of the feeling of an alive world. On the way to doing something, you may get swept somewhere else. Dynamic events give you a feeling that you're apart of the world and that it's constantly changing/growing, so that illusion (half illusion) really contributes to how big the world feels.

From the get-go, you'll find yourself being swept away in dynamic events, traversing the terrain in jumping puzzles, and having fun exploring mini-dungeons. It's weird to play. Sometimes it may feel small if you just go from heart to heart or have every waypoint and can just teleport anywhere, but all in all, it feels pretty big...

..also...it is big..so there's that..

[melodramocracy]

My initial feeling is that it certainly feels adequate. Not so small that I'm really wishing for more, but nothing that makes me go "holy shit, this is absolutely enormous". Portaling or loading between zones always adds to the compartmentalized feeling of some games (this was very evident to me in SWToR), and I get a little tiny bit of that same feeling here, though not nearly as bad.

I really can't pass full judgement however, as I only attended one BWE, and there's much I didn't see.

For the record, WoW doesn't feel all that huge to me either (ex AC player), so...

[garraeth]

Here is the globe. I added the same area with red as seen in video and map above (it is there, a bit hard to see) ^_^:


Colorful areas on that map are what we have seen on GW1.

Here is clean globe map without known areas http://i.imgur.com/JAyuE.jpg

So nutz how massive that is... o.O

Especially considering ALL the water is playable real estate too!

[Kouki]

My initial feeling is that it certainly feels adequate. Not so small that I'm really wishing for more, but nothing that makes me go "holy shit, this is absolutely enormous". Portaling or loading between zones always adds to the compartmentalized feeling of some games (this was very evident to me in SWToR), and I get a little tiny bit of that same feeling here, though not nearly as bad.

I really can't pass full judgement however, as I only attended one BWE, and there's much I didn't see.

For the record, WoW doesn't feel all that huge to me either (ex AC player), so...

Are you sure your not letting your memories of likely your first mmo Asheron's Call get the better of your nostaliga?

How could a game from nearly 10 years ago compare in scale? without being empty etc.

[melodramocracy]

How could a game from nearly 10 years ago compare in scale? without being empty etc.

Well, there was a lot of somewhat empty space... or space with really nothing but random spawns of mobs. Still, it is a discussion on how large the world is, not about the content in it. And given that it was a game with no loading or zoning at the time, it felt like an absurdly large playing field, even if your character had extremely high run speed.

There's a map floating around that compares landmasses of several MMO's, but I really can't vouch for its accuracy:

http://www.mmorpg.com/newsroom.cfm/read/16920

[Kouki]

Well, there was a lot of somewhat empty space... or space with really nothing but random spawns of mobs. Still, it is a discussion on how large the world is, not about the content in it. And given that it was a game with no loading or zoning at the time, it felt like an absurdly large playing field, even if your character had extremely high run speed.

There's a map floating around that compares landmasses of several MMO's, but I really can't vouch for its accuracy:

http://www.mmorpg.com/newsroom.cfm/read/16920

The thing is this sense of scale is largely due to how filled in areas are instead of being empty space there is life in them.
An giant empty world would not hold me well, consider that minecraft worlds are giant but empty as well how far out do most ppl venture on their worlds there is no point to unless you need space to build something.

So games with empty void are just as lacking in scale imo.