Do you think that the PoE could be larger?

[Sador1978]

Seriously, get on GMaps and draw a 9 s/km box in an area roughly analogous to the geography we saw in the 9 min gameplay trailer, which to be honest was quite similar to my home in Alabama.

As some examples:
https://1drv.ms/i/s!As49bsHGo_aKnqkrghNdVavdlW6zjQ
https://1drv.ms/i/s!As49bsHGo_aKnqkqp1GGT3OGJqBYXw

Sorry for the links, I can't link from Photobucket apparently and it won't upload from Onedrive, but in both those examples, there's a LOT going on.  That box around my home represents 80% or 90% of my daily life.  The one in NYC probably represents 100% of a lot of people daily life.  All taking place inside of nine square kilometers.

Basically, my point is that we aren't fighting a war when we go to the Plains of Eidolon.  We're conducting recon or other very specific objectives.  Objectives that don't require us to be able to see over the horizon.  Given that we're on foot most of the time, that is a LOT of walking.  There just isn't any need to have the kind of space you are talking about for what essentially is a 4 person adventure team.

[Lady_Lumia]

I would not mind if the area could larger, because there are other "survival games" where the map size is much larger than PoE supposed to be and still can run on low end pcs. Depend on what they will add to the engine part and what players will get in the prefferences.

50km2 would be nice but then there need to be a reduced amount of objects on map. The player limit there is already so there won't be so much problem or atleast hopefully there will be better connectivity than on relays.

 

Edited September 5, 2017 by Lady_Lumia

[OniDax]

2 minutes ago, Archistopheles said:

That's besides the point. I don't actually care one way or the other about that game.

The point was that you can have a galaxy worth of stuff, but the actual content is stretched thin, or you can have that same amount of content jam-packed into a 3x3. I'll take the smaller space, thank you.

What makes you think Warframe will have the same amount of content jam-packed into a 9km² space? Based on what DE's said PoE will include, I expect relatively little content in a smaller space.

[Archistopheles]

3 minutes ago, A-p-o-l-l-y-o-n said:

What makes you think Warframe will have the same amount of content jam-packed into a 9km² space? Based on what DE's said PoE will include, I expect relatively little content in a smaller space.

The content they have is the content they have.

We're talking about how much space in in between whatever content there actually is. 

[PrVonTuckIII]

2 hours ago, SupremeDutchGamer said:

im not DE. but i do work on game design every now and then and i can tell you no. they wont. because the plains still need to be functional on a toaster. unless we get a renderdistance setting then toasters are already going to be struggling with the plains.

2 hours ago, aligatorno said:

They probably won't. 9km is not exactly small. They are already doing concepts for different worlds, Venus is their next target. I`d rather have some variety rather than same but bigger. 

2 hours ago, ashrah said:

as we all wish to be bigger they count on performace to for wide playerbase...

Thank you; I had not considered the performance issues. Your responses are appreciated.

2 hours ago, DesFrSpace said:

Snip

What is this about? I only brought up PS2 as a reference. I didn't state that it was what I wanted WF to be, or what it did wrong. 

1 hour ago, Archistopheles said:

This is general discussion, so you're talking to the community right now. So with that said:

If all you care about is size, then you should be playing "No Man's Sky". They have infinite planets, with infinite space, and zero gameplay.

I would rather DE make 3x3 packed full of stuff than double the area with the same amount of stuff. Traveling is boring. Action is king.

That's.... not really the point, but alright. I simply brought up the larger maps because I felt that 3x3 was on the smaller sides as far as other open-world maps went, and I thought I'd ask.

[Lost_Cartographer]

When it comes to open world, bigger does not = better.  Content makes the open world, not the area it covers.  Skyrim's and Fallout 4's open worlds are relatively well done because there's usually something over the next hill.  They make sure there's interesting locations dotting the map with a little space separating them all.

It can make more sense for a developer to outline a small area, fill it, then expand the play area and fill that, as opposed to just dropping down the biggest space they think they can afford to get away with and try to fill it.  Because while seeing a sea of sand dunes looks cool and all the first time, if there's nothing of interest in it, people are quickly going to want to get to the other side of it as quickly as possible and think of it as a stupid waste of space.

Plus unlike most games with open worlds, Warframe is going to explore multiple set pieces.  The quantity of area will be covered by the quantity of 3x3+ locations we could have to explore.

I personally rather a bunch of detailed 3x3km maps with different environments and enemies than one really big environment that's a little more sparse on details.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Littleman88

[Legion-Shields]

The bigger the map is, the more content DE will be able to cram in. 

 

There's no unspoken rule that says bigger maps have to have less content.

 

[Avynire]

PoE maybe a trial for DE to introduce "open world (plains)" to warframe, and if it is well received they might add more Plains and maybe larger in the future. 

Making the plain too large might cause some player to complaints if there are lots of back tracking quest or mission. Since so far the plan is parkour and archwing are the only method of travel. Most large scale open world game will need some short of fast travel system to efficiently cover all area.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Avynire

[Brasten]

The major problem is technical limitations. DE has done an outstanding job updating their Evolution Engine to handle PoEs size. However, they can't really push it much further. Outside of just the Engine limitations, there are practical considerations for our Clients.

1. Enemy/AI draw distance, and the number of active AI allowed. Warframe has an upper limit on the number of AI things running in the game so it doesn't kill lower end machines with weaker CPUs. You don't feel it as much in the Hallways mode, but on some of the larger Endless Interception and Excavation maps you can start to see it hitting the cap. On PoE with longer sight distances, you'll really start to notice it.
2. Space requirements. The Tile is not that large comparatively and you can get a larger map variety out of them. If DE wanted to push variety they could even see about mixing and matching tile sets (like with Orokin Sabotage). With PoE you're talking about a rather large (file size wise) static terrain map that can't really be combined with anything else. Unless you want Warframe to become a 60 GB or 120 GB digital download, DE can't really put in too many super large maps. We'll get a final estimate of just how big (file size wise) PoE clocks in at once its done, but my rough gut estimate is it adding 5 to 10 GB minimum of assets to support the Terrain map (that isn't being pulled from existing assets).
3. Development time. Bigger is actually worse from a content design perspective. You only have so much time to make set pieces and to prep some areas for dynamic hooks. You can pack all of that TIME into a smaller area to have more content per Unit of Distance. Or you can spread it out with very large empty gaps of "no meaningful content" just to claim having a big world. The current size of PoE is very likely just the right balance for Development Time vs Size vs Content.

 

1 hour ago, Legion-Shields said:

There's no unspoken rule that says bigger maps have to have less content.

 

See #3. Time is your constraint on content. The more Time you have, the more content you can make to put in a bigger map. If you don't have the Time, then your bigger map will be a content less wasteland OR you'll just have repeating content driven by algorithmic generation. See Minecraft, see No Man's Sky, see many of the X series of space games. I could, using Unity, the USGS Digital Elevation data, and some additional knowledge, create some stupidly large Terrain Maps. I could likely do it in a day or two if so inclined. However, there would be absolutely 0 "game" content in that space.

Now there are some things DE could do with the tech they've put into PoE. One thing that comes to my mind is putting PoE into Archwing scale. Take that 9 square kilometers and reduce everything in it to 1/4 scale. This gives you a truly massive play space for Archwing in Space mode. No more "going out of bounds" on Pursuit missions or fighting The Golem. It would likely be enough space to cover the whole exterior of some Grineer and Corpus ships.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Brasten

[Zandermanith222]

I think it's important before people get disappointed, that (as far as I know) Plains of Eidolon isn't a true open world.

It's basically just a new tileset, except instead of tiles, it's one big map. And instead of navigating via the Star Map, you get missions from Cetus and walk bullet jump out the gate to initiate them. The map doesn't need to be absolutely gigantic, there aren't other hub zones you can access by travelling around. It's a single hub, with a giant sandbox attached to it.

And that isn't necessarily a bad thing. People just needa know what they're getting into beforehand.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Zandermanith222

[OniDax]

1 hour ago, Avynire said:

PoE maybe a trial for DE to introduce "open world (plains)" to warframe, and if it is well received they might add more Plains and maybe larger in the future. 

Making the plain too large might cause some player to complaints if there are lots of back tracking quest or mission. Since so far the plan is parkour and archwing are the only method of travel. Most large scale open world game will need some short of fast travel system to efficiently cover all area.

Well, regardless of the size, I want more travel options than just parkour and archwing. Back tracking quests and such are fine if DE gives us several ways to travel.

[Hypernaut1]

38 minutes ago, Zandermanith222 said:

I think it's important before people get disappointed, that (as far as I know) Plains of Eidolon isn't a true open world.

It's basically just a new tileset, except instead of tiles, it's one big map. And instead of navigating via the Star Map, you get missions from Cetus and walk bullet jump out the gate to initiate them. The map doesn't need to be absolutely gigantic, there aren't other hub zones you can access by travelling around. It's a single hub, with a giant sandbox attached to it.

And that isn't necessarily a bad thing. People just needa know what they're getting into beforehand.

I have a feeling that many people are expecting the Warframe answer to Skyrim with PoE. I highly doubt there will be anything close to that, especially with only a year of development.

I personally just see it as one big interconnected tileset. As if they took all of Earth tiles and made them one. The fishing may be the extent of the extra activities you find in PoE. Other than that, all I expect as extra activities to do would be the same as any other mission in WF. Not much more than scanning items, secrets and hunting down some patrols. 

As far as size goes, the game doesn't need to be huge because it's not an open world game. It's just a large tileset for a mission.

 

[Xgomme]

I'd rather have a smaller but interesting map (GTA IV / ~16km² iirc) than and empty bigass map like GTA V, Just Cause or any modern "walk simulator zombie survival" games map (H1Z1, etc)

 

Compared to GTA 4 and knowing we'll have other zones like this, to me it's pretty big enough. The real deal will be with the content of those plains, empty or not empty, that is the question

[-QUILL_PETER-]

I think Fuel set the perfect bad example for this. That game has THE largest Open World game map to date. But it also has very little to do, and each area is just a very cheap recolorings of the others.

[kgabor]

It's fine for now as long as it will be expanded in size and content with time to make it endgame worthy.

[SilvaDreams]

Can it? Yes. Will it? Dunno. Remember PoE is an experiment and if all goes well we'll get bigger and better versions on other planets.

[Sziklamester]

I would not mind the larger maps if there will be much more content. This is currently will be a test phase and if the peoples impressed with PoE update overall then they could improve and expand the map. Also new maps will coming soon, so we can get possibly a new Earth open world, Venus one, Mars one and maybe Mercury but not sure if DE wish to bother with barren worlds because there would be nothing really. Mercury is used only for asteroid mining and the other maps have possibilities.

Also these maps still buggy and on Mars there are a lot of blank spot with no textures which needs to be fixed. Also I would like to see more non openworld tiles too because that can add a lot to the mix. There is also a lot other types which missing and need to be done.

Performance wise this cannot be terrible because this game not an iron eater so it shouldn't be eat so much memory. The larger maps can be handle well in other games those works only one thing need to be fixed before larger maps is the locations, loots, enemies and everything filled with fun. Large maps only good if there is something to explore and if the randomity there then you won't find twice things there. If they make fix maps and not random generated then they need to make it interesting to be useful.

 

[Vlada91]

I think De show us how much is big the open world map. Maybe we didnt see 100% but we did at least 80% and in next open worl map is probably going to bee bigger because they know now what they doing....

[TheGodofWiFi]

Baby steps my man, baby steps. Lets just see how POE turns out before we start asking for bigger open worlds.

[SDGDen]

On 9/5/2017 at 9:13 PM, Kaotyke said:

Wont it be... useless because, in a way, the host will have to render every place the other players are anyways? In 9 km², 4 players can scatter.

thats.... not how rendering works... rendering as in visual rendering (the thing we use videocards for) does not have to be done by host. the only thing the host needs to do is to calculate where exactly the player is, where the enemies are and what both of them are doing. probably using a low-poly model without any textures or physics or fancyness to represent the landscape. this is all done using the CPU and is usualy done without any concern for where they are in relation to the host, but instead just using fixed or relative coordinates depending on generation method. (plains can be fixed coordinates. normal tileset style generation would be relative to the anchorpoint of the current tile) same goes for players. which takes up less processing power since these points (tileset anchorpoints or the fixed coordinates of a single tile like the plains) dont change. they are set when the tile is loaded and from then on you only realy need to have then loaded into ram.

 

meanwhile renderdistance dictates how far the player can see and thus how many polygons get rendered at once. they probably already have a renderdistance thing in place where distant objects get replaced with low-poly versions but if you want GIANT openworlds you absolutely need a renderdistance for potatoplayers. 

 

although this does raise some concerns for how well plains handles for potato players anyways.. since my CPU is almost potatoquality (A10 7800) i cant play on infested missions with 60FPS unless its defense because the AI takes up way too much CPU. especially when hosting. so i wonder if they are going to dynamically alocate tasks to different players depending on how much power their CPU has. which would be the best option. but also severely cripple ping for systems on wifi or satelite.

[Miser_able]

The plains probably won't be made bigger, but they said they might add more maps if it goes well, and those maps could be larger. 

[Recel]

It all depends on what is on the map rather than how big it is. If the 3x3 Km we are going to get will be mostly empty scenery than making it larger is pointless in the first place. Plus, if it has lots to do, lots to find on that 3x3 Km it won't feel small.

[Vlada91]

We can hope that in this new open world map we can have some dungeons and secret buildings for parkour... and some how's because of that map become bigger....