Number of nodes & map design

ArchivedUser

Im still trying to grasp my head around the size of the world map, although the underground achievement was a plus for me it remains to be seen on the maximum number of nodes unless we already know the anwser. But all i know is the maximum number of metropolis level we can have which is 5. And im not even sure how many nodes will a metropolis lock?

All this is to come to a crusial point, say there are 5 metropolis in the world, does it mean that there wont be anymore space to develop? Because its really important for us to know every detail of info on how the stragey is going to play out on the World map.

Because honestly, hardcore players are going to easily progress and hold 5 Metropolis. Sure there will be wars. Let me use the real World analogy, not every square feet of our world is controlled by government, thats where terrorists move in, ungoverned space. I just think it's a good idea to make the World bigger then its intend it now.

ArchivedUser

5 metropolises plus a bunch of cities and a bunch of towns and bunch of villages and a bunch of camps.

ArchivedUser

Other than what @Dygz said: it will Also largely depending on what kind of hc players you are talking about, some might be heavily into PvE but that alone will not progress a node that much. Same if its only PvP and so on. So to "dominante" a node you will need a bit of everything, not to mention people into politics.

The very Nature of the game makes it open and interesti g for both casual and hardcore, IMO

ArchivedUser

Julemanden said:

Other than what @Dygz said: it will Also largely depending on what kind of hc players you are talking about, some might be heavily into PvE but that alone will not progress a node that much. Same if its only PvP and so on. So to "dominante" a node you will need a bit of everything, not to mention people into politics.

The very Nature of the game makes it open and interesti g for both casual and hardcore, IMO

Exactly what drew me in to the Ashes! I am not a fan of a  PVP game unless it (PVP) has a purpose and Intrepid IMHO is doing it's best to blend both PVE & PVP together.  The concept of this game seems so big that it's sometimes hard to wrap the mind around it. 
Or is that warp the mind around it? 
Or maybe I just have a warped mind.

CylverRayne

ArchivedUser

SO do we still know how many total nodes we will have on the world map? I still think for a game like this you will need at least  20 to 50 nodes. The world map has to be huge like EVE online, since a lot of the play style resembles that game.

ArchivedUser

I have the feeling they don't even know how many nodes they are going to end up with at the moment. Since you have island, and a whole underworld (described as a kind of hollow earth) set of nodes to contend with also. Actions on the ground will affect nodes underground and vice versa. People keep trying to guess world size off of Alpha 0 numbers which is just not going to work. Node area size will vary based on terrain restrictions and a set defined borders. The nodes ZOI will change dependent on its level of development, but not its actual border. Don't forget you have 5 castles that are their own nodes by right, with 3 smaller connected military-only nodes that function outside of the regular node system, so there are 20 "nodes" just for that. I think that for them to come out with what they have fully envisioned and promised mechanicswise you are looking more in the neighborhood of 100-150 nodes. Design of individual nodes will get much faster as development goes on and they have pre-generated assets in place like Lava Pool 1 Node Level 3 and Underwater Grotto 2 Node level 4 in place for artists assigned to layout those terrain maps. Don't forget, they have a huge window of time still to get all the buff and polish in place before release, and like building anything, once the foundation is done, the rest of the construction goes up pretty easily.



Edit to remove reference to underwater nodes as they are confirmed to be not in game.

ArchivedUser

I can imagine remote areas of the map where player bandits exist with precious resources which is monopolized by them and will kill you on sight if you try to harvest it. Kind of like EVE online where if you go low sec space you will get killed by pirates.

ArchivedUser

It will be sometime before we get a true idea of what the actual size of the world will be, perhaps by alpha1 much of the game world will be in place. All we can do at this stage is wait and see, I do anticipate Varra being a very large place to explore.

ArchivedUser

Any hard information on the total number of nodes we can level throughout the world, so it can give us a sense on the immensity of Verra?

ArchivedUser

There has been no hard information released. My personal theorycrafting leads to 90-100 nodes. The planned mechanics for castles and number of metros with zoi overlapping and other stuff we know about doesn't lead to a much lower number. Unless of course they are trying to make only 5 specific regions that metros could be located in, which goes against everything we know. Once again. Pure speculation on my part.

ArchivedUser

I'll leave the theorycrafting math here -
A0 seems to be able to hold 4 node sized areas if you count the starting portal as a node sized area - we here that the final game is expected to be 30x the size of A0 which gets to 120 node sized areas -5 starting areas -5 castles -15 castle specific nodes gets to the awkward number of 95 normal nodes - which I'd sort of expect to be rounded up or down into a prettier number

ArchivedUser

I honestly would love to see neutral node/s which players will not be able to control. Maybe like very high levelled difficult area where to survive you need to be well prepared with a team of 4-6 people. Such a place would be a challenge both for PvE and PvP players. PvE players would face the obvious challenges such as dangerous monsters, where PvP would not only mean kill the other players but also not die from monsters suprise. From places like this always stories and legends come out (videos of impressive wins or funny fails) and you never know what you will find there, what mystery you will uncover.

ArchivedUser

My guess would be 30-60 nodes, not including the castle system.  So 10-20x the size of Alpha 0, plus the castle areas.  They want a certain number of players per server which would need to be taken into account.  How many people do you want per area, etc?  If the world is too big it will start to feel desolate and that nobody is on the server.  Let's say they want about 10k per server.  With 50 nodes that's a couple hundred in the vicinity of each node or about 40 actively online.  For grouping/raiding, I'd assume you want a couple hundred active players in each major area(about 3-4 nodes).  Obviously clumping happens that is a huge part of the game, and these numbers are purely guesses.  When Alpha 1 starts we should get a good idea how many people each area should hold.