Scale was RE: AC2 was RE: [MUD-Dev] Total Annilation of Downtime

[Amanda Walker]

On 12/17/02 4:33 PM, Brian Hook <brianhook at pyrogon.com> wrote:

> People rarely noticed, and what it did was give a sense of
> massiveness to everything.  It also gave you a sense of speed,
> which was important.  As speeds have decreased to become more
> realistic, games have felt slower and players have complained.

Indeed.  I should probably elaborate that I'm not necessarily saying
that I'd prefer completely realistic scales and speeds.  However,
the scale oddities are more jarring to me than speed.  I have less
trouble with "I can run 60MPH" than "a town is three buildings, and
I can see the next town a stone's throw from this one."

Travel time is a problem.  People in AC goosed up their run speed to
the max the engine would allow just to be able to get from place to
place faster; SoW is the single most requested buff in EQ; players
regularly complain about having to jog out to missions in AO; etc.
Some games address this with increased speed, some with decreased
scale.  Both are valid, I'd just rather be a supherhuman in a
normal-sized environment than a regular human in Disneyland :).

> For a hoot, look at the size of a doorway in a typical FPS.  It's
> about the size of a garage door in real life.  If you were to put
> in a real sized doorway (30-36" wide), the amount of precision to
> navigate through there at full speed (30mph) is tough to acquire.
> It looks like a slot.  If the door was sized normally in height,
> you'd constantly feel that you were about to slam your head into
> top of it.

Well, some of that is a result of the wide-angle field of view
(which also increases the sense of speed, I realize).  In FPSs I
often narrow down my fov a bit to make things more "realistic".  It
also makes it easier to aim, which is pleasant.

Amanda Walker


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