55 replies to this topic

[AWOL 01]

So I've been thinking about the scale of the actual objects/features on the maps and why they are so massive. I realize having these huge canyons and mountains makes finding cover easier, but it also takes away from the fact that you're piloting a 10m+ tall machine.

In my opinion, it would really help the game to have more realistically sized and laid-out maps. If you look at War Thunder/WoT, their map design really adds to the immersion. Then compare this to MWO where we have 100m+ tall crystal towers and trees as large as the Empire State Building.

I know this probably won't change anything, just putting my thoughts out there.

[Johnny Z]

Scale can be improved in this game a lot more *cough* First person mechbay *cough* but the maps look amazing and they are still under construction.

There are a few other missing elements like proper pilot eject and others that can improve immersion and scale.

Edited by Johnny Z, 25 April 2016 - 08:00 AM.

[Felbombling]

Not sure what Wisconsin is like as far as forests go, but out here in B.C. there are some massive trees. Some Douglas Fir trees on Vancouver Island are 800 years old, as wide as 29 feet in diameter and upwards of 250 feet tall.

[Barantor]

I get more perturbed about the over use of cliffs in the maps to make inaccessible areas. I realize you can do it with sci-fi, but the amount of inaccessible areas in the middle of the maps needs to be taken to almost nil. Some areas should be easier to JJ or require JJs, but the cliffs on Forest Colony feel so 'tacked on'.

[Revis Volek]

I guess you dont get out much, multiple story tall mechs aren't that big compared to mountains, trees and cliffs.


NOt to mention we are on ALIEN WORLDS, that may not even have carbon based life, how can you say there planet would have the same trees and formations as our own?


None of these battles take place on Terra (Earth).

[Thunder Child]

Polar Highlands was a good map. Large scale, easy to lose an Atlas in terrain, but more of a rolling hill feel to it, with good sight lines.

We just need some more objective based scenarios to suit the larger maps (CW doesn't count).

[Remillard]

Having tiny humans running around and occasionally getting trod under foot would really help the sense of scale :-)

Or maybe Ewoks on the Forest map :-)

[Metus regem]

StaggerCheck, on 25 April 2016 - 11:44 AM, said:

Not sure what Wisconsin is like as far as forests go, but out here in B.C. there are some massive trees. Some Douglas Fir trees on Vancouver Island are 800 years old, as wide as 29 feet in diameter and upwards of 250 feet tall.

I know right! I love living here in Victoria, well Brentwood Bay anyways....

[Thunder Child]

Remillard, on 25 April 2016 - 12:45 PM, said:

Having tiny humans running around and occasionally getting trod under foot would really help the sense of scale :-)

Or maybe Ewoks on the Forest map :-)

Ewoks would encourage a Lawsuit. But we could have those bird things from that weird Lost in Space Novel, Far Country.

[Suko]

StaggerCheck, on 25 April 2016 - 11:44 AM, said:

Not sure what Wisconsin is like as far as forests go, but out here in B.C. there are some massive trees. Some Douglas Fir trees on Vancouver Island are 800 years old, as wide as 29 feet in diameter and upwards of 250 feet tall.

I live in Seattle. I know about trees. I have 150 ft tall trees right outside my house. I used to live near the redwood forests in California, so I've seen some of the largest trees this planet has to offer.

That said, you do realize that a 250 ft tall tree is a sapling compared to these freaks in Forest Colony, right? I was vocal about the absurdly large size of the new Forest Colony trees since day 1. They are ridiculously large. Even ignoring the fact that capillary action would not allow such trees to even exist in an earth-like pressure/gravity, these trees literally are the size of the Empire State Building. WAY TOO BIG to give a real sense of scale to anything.

Disclaimer: Forest Colony is one of my favorite maps. But I had to ignore the scientific part of my brain to actually enjoy the scenery.



If we assume that Atlas is 40 ft tall, then we're looking at trees around 800 ft or higher on that map.

Edited by Suko, 25 April 2016 - 01:31 PM.

[Felbombling]

Suko, on 25 April 2016 - 01:25 PM, said:

That said, you do realize that a 250 ft tall tree is a sapling compared to these freaks in Forest Colony, right? I was vocal about the absurdly large size of the new Forest Colony trees since day 1. They are ridiculously large. Even ignoring the fact that capillary action would not allow such trees to even exist in an earth-like pressure/gravity, these trees literally are the size of the Empire State Building. WAY TOO BIG to give a real sense of scale to anything.

Disclaimer: Forest Colony is one of my favorite maps. But I had to ignore the scientific part of my brain to actually enjoy the scenery.



If we assume that Atlas is 40 ft tall, then we're looking at trees around 800 ft or higher on that map.

Ok, two things...

• You do realize that you've spent maybe 50x more time looking into the forest colony tree size issue than I have, right?
  
• 
  
• These are alien worlds with alien trees. Maybe some massive reptilian creatures took a poop on the seedlings and they are mutant trees... able to get water from the surrounding air instead of 'capillary action', or whatever Dr. Treedoctor wants to come up with.

/sarcasm off

[Suko]

I can forgive oversized trees via "space magic", but as per the OP's point, making trees so freakin' huge just makes a mech feel like a guy walking through a forest. If they pulled the size down by 1/2 on the super giant trees, you could still make it feel exotic, but also give the sense of scale that this game lacks. Having more foliage and undergrowth would help too.

I will give them credit for something; they did add the science stations (Ewok houses) around the base of some of the trees. These are infrequent, but when I see them they do help hit home with that sense of scale and makes my brain go "oh yeah, these trees are huge and I'm in a giant robot, not just some slow dude trekking through the forest".

Edited by Suko, 25 April 2016 - 02:00 PM.

[Johnny Z]

Suko, on 25 April 2016 - 02:00 PM, said:

I can forgive oversized trees via "space magic", but as per the OP's point, making trees so freakin' huge just makes a mech feel like a guy walking through a forest. If they pulled the size down by 1/2 on the super giant trees, you could still make it feel exotic, but also give the sense of scale that this game lacks. Having more foliage and undergrowth would help too.

I will give them credit for something; they did add the science stations (Ewok houses) around the base of some of the trees. These are infrequent, but when I see them they do help hit home with that sense of scale and makes my brain go "oh yeah, these trees are huge and I'm in a giant robot, not just some slow dude trekking through the forest".

First of all mechs are not quite as large as some assume I think, although I don't know the details.

The buildings in MechWarrior Online for instance are actually really small for the most part and a 'Metro" map could do with building way larger than any in game currently.

Trees? In a low grav world trees could get crazy huge. Maybe a more primitive world ecology wise or something. Really all irrelevant to maps that are currently under construction in a game currently under construction.

- These maps look awesome.
- Scale a inter activity like trees being knocked down has been improving.
- These maps make for excellent game play. Those that say other wise are disrespecting maybe some of the best combat in a video game to date so stuff it.

BTW quit making me look like a cheerleader for this game by saying such stupid things. Thanks.

[Suko]

Johnny Z, on 25 April 2016 - 02:11 PM, said:

BTW quit making me look like a cheerleader for this game by saying such stupid things. Thanks.

What stupid things would those be? The scientific principals I linked to that define the natural limit on tree growth or the numbers I used to determine the height of that Atlas, which come from Sarna.net and MWO? I always strive to correct my own ignorance, so if I made a mistake, I'd love to rectify that.

Johnny Z, on 25 April 2016 - 02:11 PM, said:

Trees? In a low grav world trees could get crazy huge. Maybe a more primitive world ecology wise or something. Really all irrelevant to maps that are currently under construction in a game currently under construction.

Which is why I said in an Earth-like pressure and gravity. Was that not clear?

Btw, you do realize we are talking about sense of scale an immersion in this thread, not about map quality and
"how it plays", right? I'm just making sure you didn't skip to the end of the book thread and missed all the good parts in-between.

Edited by Suko, 25 April 2016 - 02:21 PM.

[MauttyKoray]

AWOL 01, on 25 April 2016 - 07:51 AM, said:

So I've been thinking about the scale of the actual objects/features on the maps and why they are so massive. I realize having these huge canyons and mountains makes finding cover easier, but it also takes away from the fact that you're piloting a 10m+ tall machine.

In my opinion, it would really help the game to have more realistically sized and laid-out maps. If you look at War Thunder/WoT, their map design really adds to the immersion. Then compare this to MWO where we have 100m+ tall crystal towers and trees as large as the Empire State Building.

I know this probably won't change anything, just putting my thoughts out there.

Ever been to the grand canyon? Seen giant redwoods? Been around mountains?

We're not fighting on a single planet, or even Earth. Think of one planet where trees dominate the landscape like Giant Redwoods while large hills/rock features scatter the landscape (forest colony). Think of another that is arid and filled mostly with desert where wind has eroded large rocks and the little water there was eroded massive canyons before drying up (there are what look like river beds in canyon network if you look). Or an extremely tropical, swampy planet (viridian bog) without human interference until recently. Take into account temparature, climate, gravity, etc, and a whole alien world of flora and landscapes begins.

These are the kinds of planets, foreign to what we know, that we've gotten and personally I'm loving them.

Edited by MauttyKoray, 25 April 2016 - 02:23 PM.

[Johnny Z]

Suko, on 25 April 2016 - 02:19 PM, said:

What stupid things would those be? The scientific principals I linked to that define the natural limit on tree growth or the numbers I used to determine the height of that Atlas, which come from Sarna.net and MWO? I always strive to correct my own ignorance, so if I made a mistake, I'd love to rectify that.



Which is why I said in an Earth-like pressure and gravity. Was that not clear?

Btw, you do realize we are talking about sense of scale an immersion in this thread, not about map quality and
"how it plays", right? I'm just making sure you didn't skip to the end of the book thread and missed all the good parts in-between.

First of all we on earth are missing at least a few elements that are known in theory to almost for sure exist yet no one has found them yet. Most likely because they are out in space somewhere. These elements could in theory explain almost anything in this fantastic sci-fi universe called MechWarrior Online.

As far as I know about this, which isn't a lot, the periodic table points almost for certain to missing elements in an almost mathematical way. As in 1, 2, 3, 4, ?, 6, 7, ?, 9, etc.

Edited by Johnny Z, 25 April 2016 - 02:32 PM.

[Accused]

Physics is not one of PGI's strong points.

With that said neither is scale.

[Suko]

Johnny Z, on 25 April 2016 - 02:24 PM, said:

First of all we on earth are missing at least a few elements that are known in theory to almost for sure exist yet no one has found them yet. Most likely because they are out in space somewhere. These elements could in theory explain almost anything in this fantastic sci-fi universe called MechWarrior Online.

Do you know how science has predicted the existence of those "missing elements"? Also, those elements exist for FRACTIONS of a second and then decay into non-existence. Nearly all those "missing elements" are predicted to only be generated in lab conditions and cannot be found in nature. If they're responsible for Space Miracle Grow, I would be very impressed.

https://en.wikipedia...ond_element_172

Edited by Suko, 25 April 2016 - 02:37 PM.

[Johnny Z]

Suko, on 25 April 2016 - 02:36 PM, said:

Do you know how science has predicted the existence of those "missing elements"? Also, those elements exist for FRACTIONS of a second and then decay into non-existence. Nearly all those "missing elements" are predicted to only be generated in lab conditions and cannot be found in nature. If they're responsible for Space Miracle Grow, I would be very impressed.

https://en.wikipedia...ond_element_172

Now your talking about the collider they just finished building spanning between Switzerland and France. Ok so what? Think there isn't any missing elements out there in space? Think again. They are probly hoping to get lucky and find some on Mars or another planet in our solar system even. Which is at least a small part of why going into space is being done.

Almost all of what people know now has been known for a long time, in some cases a very long time, except very very few exceptions. The only thing holding everything back was production capability. 100 years ago everyone was riding horses except very few. Like .0001% or something. 85 years ago the largest vehicle to ever take to the skies to this day was flying around. The Chinese had gunpowder for how long? They just didn't use it. The Roman empire didn't like using it either.

When Marco Polo came back from China and was going to make gunpowder among other things public the first thing they did was throw him in prison.

Edited by Johnny Z, 25 April 2016 - 03:49 PM.

[Mister Blastman]

Johnny Z, on 25 April 2016 - 02:39 PM, said:

Now your talking about the collider they just finished building spanning between Switzerland and France. Ok so what? Think there isn't any missing elements out there in space? Think again. They are probly hoping to get lucky and find some on Mars or another planet in our solar system even. Which is at least a small part of why going into space is being done.

Almost all of what people know now has been known for a long time, in some cases a very long time, except very very few exceptions. The only thing holding everything back was production capability.

Missing elements aren't a magical solution to our problems. Everything you see, feel or can touch was created by a star, either through the stellar furnace or supernova. And we can mathematically predict what elements will be created by almost any star and know this is so through observations and a technique called spectroscopy, and through this technique, we have cataloged the chemical composition of countless stars, our local planets and moons and in some instances, exceptionally large planets found with Kepler. We don't have /those/ planets entire composition--in most cases, only the atmosphere because we must observe them when passing in front of a star and capturing the light emitted from the thin atmospheric layer.

So, with that said, back to your comment about missing elements... most every planet and object in our solar system originated from the same dust cloud that was itself residue from another stellar explosion, thus the distribution of elements on our own planets will be representative of said soup and most likely, won't present any fantastic surprises that we haven't already found here on Earth.

Exceptions being of course rogue dark planets which could have been captured by our sun (see hypothetical planet 9).

So at best you have a misunderstanding--CERN is critical for research into unknown elements but, more importantly, into the subatomic structure--both bosons and fermions and other mathematically predicted sub-components we have not found yet.

Lastly, your post about all this did little to address his original question where you wrongly insulted him in reply.