Guild Wars

[Ghryphen]

Yeah there are zones, basically any small new area has a zone. Walk up to a town, load new zone, leave the town to a small swamp area, load a zone. At least planetside is obvious that each continent would be a zone, but that one zone is huge. In eq2 each zone is like a tibes map size.

[Stang]

A guild for WoW? Hmm we have one already ATF . But Im sure you guys will want some wacko name or something .

[KitZune]

Every game has zones, and they are not "one huge zone"
Basically some games choose to do "seemless" zoning where you do not reach the "edge" of a map and move to another one... instead you seamlessly move from one area to the next with seemingly no load. Lineage 2 is a good example, you can very visibly see the zones, the seamless zoning is not done very well. Every now and then your computer will lag as it loads the next area. Basically in seamless loading, you load the zones BEYOND your vision, as well as the one you're currently in. everytime you move into a new zone, you load the adjacent zones again... It's REALLY annoying because they don't stop play to load, they try to load while you're playing. In lineage 2 it would cause all sorts of ugly glitches including falling through the world to an endless expanse of grass below the map.

Games with seams (FFXI is one I've played) are BEAUTIFUL because the ENTIRE zone is loaded when you are in it. No loading as you go. For computers, such as mine, with less RAM... this is an awesome choice.

Personally I just don't think computers have made it far enough for seemless worlds to be possible yet. Resident evil does it really well, but that's a much smaller scale of a game. My opinion: Seamed worlds are a little better right now... Only because theirs a better chance the game will be more pretty with the surroundings.

And yes, I'm positive that Planetside has zoning too... it would be impossible to load an entire continent into anything less than like 2gig of ram.

[SiFi]

There's a simple answer, Kitz: Get more RAM

[Aluscia]

Not simple.... He has an HP computer, which is almost like Dell in their propriety...

[insaneferret]

my dad uses a dell and i was able to upgrade it with over the counter DDR ram no problem, i think they've cut back on the proprietery everything idiocy, pretty much the only proprietary component in the dells are the crappy motherboard

[Ghryphen]

I know they all have zones, however I prefer the seamless loading. I never had that problem in lineage. I could run across the world with relatively no loading problems. Occasionally I could tell it was drawing things in beyond my view, but for the most part it is pretty smooth.

Even SWG there is no zone feeling, though it does visually load things only within your view more like a mobile zone.

PlanetSide I am not so sure about, I have not noticed anything typical to seamless zone loading, it plays as one single huge map for me.

I don't know, eq2 is the only game I have played so far with such a massive amount of long loading zones. I just am not used to that. I like to see into the open gates of the city and see bustling citizens moving about as I approach it. eq2 is a little claustrophobic.

[Gambit]

Laur, in my experince, Dell is one of the least proprietary of the decent major brands.

HP isn't too bad.

One place I worked had Compaqs (pre-merger), and they had a standard AGP graphics slot -- but it was set about an inch too far back on the motherboard to use an off-the-shelf card. When they do stuff like that for no better reason than lock-in, it really annoys me...

On the other hand, there was that period when Dell reversed a couple cables in their mobo power connector. If you mixed their mobo or ps with a standard one (meaning you didn't replace both), it'd fry! The justifiable outcry was loud enough that they fixed it pretty quick.

[KitZune]

My computer is incredibly modular... I could change anything I want inside it. The ram is not propriatary. However the computer CAME with 256... I put in another 256... so in order to get more ram, I'd have to replace both sticks... and I do not have money : P

My new job won't give me enough for a while either... but upgrading my computer is top priority

[Ghryphen]

Well, I got a card from SOE today that said they are sending a copy for review, so it looks like I will have a EQ2 account no matter what.

[Aluscia]

I hate you!!! Dammit.... How can I get shweet free stuff? Can I get moderator status or smthn? lol

[Ghryphen]

hehe

[Stang]

I picked up that card today and opened it and it scared the crap out of me . The thing talks to ya .