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Ultima IX Ascension - Still largest gaming world for 3D RPG?
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Gabboflabbo
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Joined: 29 Jan 2003
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Arena
   

Wasn't Arena bigger than daggerfall? Considering Daggerfall was just one province in all of Arena.

I always remember trying to walk / run from one city to another and never seeing my position move on the map. Then eventually giving up and riding the horse.
Post Mon Jun 30, 2003 3:07 pm
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Chekote
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quote:
Originally posted by oozle
Ok let me clarify what I had in mind

1. Morrowind's gameworld is huge granted. But it is just so static. It's as if u're viewing a slideshow. Trees don't move,

the sceneary is sooooo repatative. With the exception of a few towns here and there it looks like bitmap images. The animations are also very poor of the characters (like stike figures)

2. The world of gothic lives and breathes (trees move in the wind, there is fauna all over)

3. Ultima IX was similar for its time, given the world was so vibrant

In terms of shere size, Ultima IX was massive. Gothic 2, although big, is no match to the size of Ultima IX's gameworld.

However, size of a gameworld is not everything. If size alone were the decisive factor, Morrowind would easily take the cake.

However, for it to be believable, the gameowlrd really needs to be a "world" not just a bunch of images!


I agree completely.

and in response to an earlier post. I am not a fanboy in any respect. for me to be a fanboy, surely I would have to praise gothic just because it is gothic and not because of its strengths? I am not saying Morrowind is a bad game. Far from it. I

played and enjoyed Morrowind for many weeks.

To compare Gothic to Morrowind in the form of geology is a no brainer.

Hexy:

I really dont understand why you keep getting so upset and emotional about all this. I mean Morrowind isnt perfect and neither is gothic. If I am offending you I apologize, but this is just my oppinion.

Let me try and sit on the fence for a bit and try to compare the good and bad points of each game:

Morrowind:
Good Points:
Amazing Water
Amazing Sky
Amazing weather
Very high interactivity with objects (Not the environment).
Very pretty and varied architecture.
Lots of varied fauna.
Very organic look to everything.
Amazing depth to the customization of your characters looks and abilities.
Huge world.
Freedom of choice

Bad points
Repetitive landscapes
No true mountains/cliffs/caves in the external cells
Very few large fauna (Forests etc)
Single plane rivers
Landscape seems too smooth & curvy, not very natural
Dungeons are repetitive and similar
Story is too slow
Characters are not very interesting

Gothic:
Good Points:
Nice Water
Amazing grand waterfalls and rivers
(Yes the one outside the old camp is amazing, go to its root at the top of the mountain near the necromancer tower and follow it all the way down to the old camp, THEN tell me its not amazing.)
Massive mountains and cliffs with a more natural look(There is nothing in morrowind to match the mountain you start at in the 1st Gothic) Go to the top of the cliff on your left as you come down from the mountain and take a look over the Old camp and see the mountains in the distance. Show me anywhere in Morrowind where a view like that exists)
Huge world.
Amazing forests
Lots and Lots of dense large fauna
Lots of interactive fauna (Admittedly not as much as Morrowind)
Lots of depth to character customization and career paths ( Again admittedly not as much as Morrowind)
Very interesting and fun wilderness to explore
Nice traditional architecture

Bad Points
Controls
Textures can be a little fuzzy at times
admination of main character could be better
As you said, Underwater could have been better
Voice acting is inconsistent
Bugs (Like worrying about doing the wrong task first and screwing up the game/story)
Not as varied architecture as Morrowind

Once again: This is all just my personal oppinion. It in no way means that one game is better than the other. I just personally prefer Gothic. As you can see from the list above, they have roughly the same good and bad points. To me, I just love exploring natural environments, and Gothic has always satisfied me more in that area than Morrowind.

Once again, sorry if I offended you.
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Post Mon Jun 30, 2003 3:08 pm
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Hexy
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Awww... jeeez... this is getting silly.

quote:

Ok let me clarify what I had in mind

1. Morrowind's gameworld is huge granted. But it is just so static. It's as if u're viewing a slideshow. Trees don't move, the sceneary is sooooo repatative. With the exception of a few towns here and there it looks like bitmap images. The animations are also very poor of the characters (like stike figures)

2. The world of gothic lives and breathes (trees move in the wind, there is fauna all over)

3. Ultima IX was similar for its time, given the world was so vibrant

In terms of shere size, Ultima IX was massive. Gothic 2, although big, is no match to the size of Ultima IX's gameworld. However, size of a gameworld is not everything. If size alone were the decisive factor, Morrowind would easily take the cake. However, for it to be believable, the gameowlrd really needs to be a "world" not just a bunch of images!



1. The animations of characters ARE FAR more VARIED than those of Gothic. You have humans, male and female (for the most part). And, that's it. All with the same bodyform etc.
As for the stickfigure comment... Morrowind characters move far more smoothly than Gothic character's stale, jerky movements.
Static? You can manipulate FAR more things in the world of Morrowind than in Gothic. The friggen shields and swords you find in Gothic look like retarded crayon paintings... untouchable... just a part of the scenery. Completely dumbed down from Morrowind. YEAH, THAT'S STATIC FOR YA!
Environments run with eachother in a very smooth way compared to Gothic(just look at those ice environments, or the shore to forrest parts).

2. Lives and breathes... yeah, funny that the sky (both midnight and day) moves and looks horrible. The water of Gothic? THAT'S THE most STATIC stuff I've seen.

The FLORA of Gothic was nothing compared to Morrowind, which had a FAR more varied flora. In Morrowind, water in hot spring bubbled, and oozed. Far more better than whatever Gothic could come up with.

And, Chekote, don't worry about me. I'm having a BLAST reading this. Haven't you noticed?

quote:

Repetitive landscapes
No true mountains/cliffs/caves in the external cells
Very few large fauna (Forests etc)
Single plane rivers
Landscape seems too smooth & curvy, not very natural
Dungeons are repetitive and similar
Story is too slow
Characters are not very interesting



The combined nature sceneries of Morrowind outnumbers those of Gothic.
True mountains? I have already explained that Morrowind has FAR more mountains/rock formations and rocky areas in general than Gothic has.
Outside environment? Ashlands, grassy areas, hill areas, mountainous areas, islands, swamps and rocky beaches? What does Gothic have? Mountains, rocky areas, icy areas, forrests and... uh... forrests?

The MERE different SORTS of dungeons in Morrowind Daedric ruins/slaver caves/6th house caves/dwarves castles/sewers/dunmer strongholds/ancestral tombs/crystal caverns OUTNUMBER most of the dungeons in Gothic.

Story and characters? I'm sorry, but that has NOTHING to do with world size.

quote:

Nice Water
Amazing grand waterfalls and rivers
(Yes the one outside the old camp is amazing, go to its root at the top of the mountain near the necromancer tower and follow

it all the way down to the old camp, THEN tell me its not amazing.)
Massive mountains and cliffs with a more natural look(There is nothing in morrowind to match the mountain you start at in the 1st Gothic) Go to the top of the cliff on your left as you come down from the mountain and take a look over the Old camp and see the mountains in the distance. Show me anywhere in Morrowind where a view like that exists)
Huge world.
Amazing forests
Lots and Lots of dense large fauna
Lots of interactive fauna (Admittedly not as much as Morrowind)
Lots of depth to character customization and career paths ( Again admittedly not as much as Morrowind)
Very interesting and fun wilderness to explore
Nice traditional architecture



Nice water? Cannot even BEGIN TO COMPARE to Morrowind's anti aliased water. The water is static, cluttery, and boring. Horrible to swim in aswell.
Forrets are amazing? With those overused 2D MODELS? It's dense, I'll give you that, though.
The rest does NOT concern the matter we discuss. Which is: Which has the most biggest/life like/beautiful/varied environments/world? Gothic or Morrowind?

Last, but not least. WAS there EVER a FOGGY DAY in Gothic?
Case, I dare say, is closed.
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Post Mon Jun 30, 2003 3:35 pm
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piln
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[sorry if this is a double-post... server problems ]

quote:
Originally posted by oozle
...I would anyday prefer a game to be created where the player feels there is no scope for them to explore the entire world as it simply is too large.


Yeah, me too. As long as there are plenty of things to do, as there were in Daggerfall (scripted quests, generated quests, all the different guilds, religions, etc, banking, stealing, buying property... and so on). It certainly had its faults, but Daggerfall probably gave me a sense of immersion in a whole world (not just a confined setting like in Gothic & System Shock, for example, although there's nothing wrong with that).

quote:
However, this will not happen in a 3D game for a long time yet... Unless of course they invent a randomised 3D world that just keep respawning itself...


Well, that's kind of how Elite was created... not random (from the players' point of view), but the developers used algorithms to generate thousands of worlds, saving them from doing all that work by hand (which would have been impossible - and the original design was many times bigger - they actually scaled it down to make it more manageable!). I don't know much about Daggerfall's development, but it seemed to me that similar techniques may have been employed there.

quote:
Originally posted by Gabboflabbo
Wasn't Arena bigger than daggerfall?...


I thought I'd heard that, but I haven't played enough to know for sure.

quote:
Originally posted by Hexy
Awww... jeeez... this is getting silly....


That is the most pertinent part of the whole argument!
Post Mon Jun 30, 2003 4:12 pm
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Jaz
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I played Arena, but it was so long ago I don't really remember (though I loved it, of course). But I needed 7 months to NOT finish Daggerfall whereas I played merely three or so months around the Arena area.
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Post Mon Jun 30, 2003 4:43 pm
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Finarfin
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pixel-shaded water.
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Post Mon Jun 30, 2003 5:42 pm
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Chekote
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quote:
Originally posted by Hexy

Story and characters? I'm sorry, but that has NOTHING to do with world size.



Neither does the rendering of water surfaces...

I just simply dont agree with most of what you say about the environments. You keep going on about 2D models and all I see that is 2D in gothic is wall fixtures and grass. most everything is 3D.

And no matter how many names you give the different environments in morrowind, the fact still remains that they are all pretty much identical apart from the textures on the overly rounded rocks & floor. Gothic has truly unique geology. I agree that it is mosly of the same type, BUT the fact remains that the geological structures just outside the city of Khorinis are probably more diverse than the whole of the Morrowind Isles put together.
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Post Mon Jun 30, 2003 6:08 pm
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the mighty stamar
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Joined: 01 Feb 2003
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The graphic art in morrowind is the best in any game created ever, to this day. Look at the Ogrim monster. Even some of the user made models are amazing, like the ones in wilderness mod. Every 3d game has a skeleton... Look at morrowinds skeletons and compare them to any of them, they will look bad.
The people who drew some of the 3d models in morrowind are probably the best at what they do, Im sure other companies try to hire them away if they havent already. Not all but many, you can tell there are many different artists in morrowind.

The graphic art in gothic is actually pretty bad compared to average games. It looks a little cartoony.
Post Mon Jun 30, 2003 9:52 pm
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Chekote
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Yes you are completely correct. But I am not talking about any of that. I am specificaly talking about geological formations. e.g. Rocks, mountains, cliffs, rivers, forests etc. I agree that Morrowind is prettier when examining specific things such as a single creature or a single tree. But in regards to geology and overall environment immersion, gothic is far more interesting and has a lot more attention to detail.

This does not include any kind of architecture. Although Gothic does have very nice architecture. I agree its not as diverse as Morrowind.
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Post Mon Jun 30, 2003 10:20 pm
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Shrapnel
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quote:
Originally posted by Shmaugus
I HATED MORROWWIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thats all i have to say except what they already said size don't matter its the graphics that do


1st part I agree with, amen brotha
2nd part about graphics...I think gameplay and story make the game.
You said it yourself...Morrowinds screenshots blew me away, but when I actually played it, I almost fell asleep with boredom and I hadnt even left the ship yet.

Is U9s world bigger than even G2?
Im not sure, I remember getting around in U9 a lot faster than travelling through the G worlds
Post Tue Jul 08, 2003 6:19 pm
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corwin
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What a silly topic. U9 is actually a very small world folded in on itself to make it appear larger. I remember travelling what should have been nearly half way round the world from Brtiannia, climbing a hill and jumping down into the castle gardens. What a joke!!
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Post Thu Nov 20, 2003 12:27 pm
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TheMadGamer
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Morrowind
   

Morrowind certainly has the ability to be as interactive as U9. Unforutnatley, there are only brief glimpses of this throughout an otherwise mostly static environment. Now don't have a cow, I think MW is great! But it's true that some of the more interesting world and object interactions are few and far between.

I played throught the main quest of MW back in August, so I'm a bit fuzzy already on the names and locations of things. But there was one cavern where one group of monsters were battling another group of monsters and you had to help one side to solve the quest. That was great. But I never saw anything else like that throughtout all the rest of MW.

In the final battle with Dagoth, there are some neat environmental changes. I wondered why there weren't more things like this throughout the rest of the game. Perhaps I missed a few others, I don't know.

Bloodmoon has a quest scenerio that reminded me greatly of the exapnsion pack for Ultima VII where you put a heart inside a stone golem.

So the MW engine does have the capability for a good deal of object and world interaction, it's just that there isn't a whole lot of it relative to the size of the landmass available.
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Post Fri Feb 06, 2004 6:03 pm
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Dunmer King
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I love them both, but I love the feeling of being able to "live" in one town the whole time you play with food and drink and entertainment. Gothic gives me the town living feeling more then Morrowind, and Morrowind's rain does not stop under roofs, Gothic rain won't fall if you are under cover.
Post Mon Jun 21, 2004 9:19 am
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Whailor
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Just to add to the topic - U9 world is not bigger then G2 world. With the time it takes from Khorinis to run to the ancient temples, I'll circle the whole Britannia in U9 (excluding the islands, of course).
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Post Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:02 am
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Lanael
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Xenus ( Boiling Point ) will have the largest world ever in a RPG.
Yes, it's a RPG; not in a heroic fantasy theme, though.
Something like Deux Ex with a big world... ( 25 km x 25 km )

But does size matter ?
Immersion, through good quests, interactivity, good sounds, etc... are more important IMO.
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Post Wed May 11, 2005 2:39 pm
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