Today’s topic is one that I find fascinating because it contains numbers, and I like those! However, there is something very important for you to understand about these numbers and that is that they are subject to change. We are still in relatively early days of development for many aspects of the game. It is clear the developers have a good handle on what they want and how they want to get it, but some of the detail will only come through testing and iteration. That is the case when we discuss the size of the world, or more accurately the time it takes to travel across it.
When the news came to the forums this week that we are looking at 48 hours to cross from one side of the map to the other, I was, well… rather confused! I have mostly played theme park games up until now and try to get from one side of the map to the other just isn’t a useful metric. Let’s take the behemoth World of Warcraft. How long does it take to get from one end of Kalimdor (a continent) to the other? Who cares! It is never something you are going to do as part of normal game play. When quests lead you between areas with much back and forth the overall time to travel a continent is irrelevant, even if it is less than an hour as the crown flies (according to this source).
In an open world sandbox game where people are encouraged to travel and explore, like Chronicles of Elyria, it can really make a difference. But is that a good travel time? It is across the whole map, but how are we travelling? What does that actually mean for a player? How will that impact my game? Continue reading