How much does a seamless world matter to you?

[rusty_shackleford]

Does it negatively impact your gameplay experience if a game is broken up into discrete levels?

I tend to see this come up a lot in reviews and was surprised by how much it bothers people when a game isn't "seamless"

[Bertram_Tung]

hubs are best

[Cipher]

I prefer it but not if its in lieu of actual content.

I'll rather have discrete levels that are well thought out and are designed with intention than Ubisoft openworld slop popularized by AssCreed.

On the other hand, Starfield loading screen extravaganza is an insult, even small one room shops require a loading screen. I think Elite Dangerous has it right, proper optimization and asset streaming so the "world" in this case the galaxy, appears as seamless because the game hides the loading from the player.

I like that Daggerfall is seamless and if you see a mountain over in the distance you can ride your way up to the base of that mountain with enough time. But, would it be really terrible if we had something like the Baldur's Gate map that is broken down into connected stages that have loadings in between? I don't think so.

[rusty_shackleford]

Forgot to add that this isn't about loading screens

[Magick]

Depends... If the game is good and the levels are long enough, it's alright.
But I'd rather loading screens over "levels". If it's an RPG.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It greatly depends on the game.

In Trails, I would not want my time wasted travelling through lots of filler streets in Heimdallr or Edith. I would rather just get to the few important city districts with their handcrafted NPCs and shops that matter. Loading screens and instances mean nothing to me in this scenario.

For WoW, I definitely would enjoy the game less if the zones were disconnected instances like in Final Fantasy or Guild Wars. A large part of the appeal of WoW is that it is the simulation of a fantasy world in which you are seamlessly going anywhere.

[Bhaalspawn Jr]

As long as the game keeps me captivated by its gameplay and story, I don't care about it being seamless or not.

[Stack of Turtles]

At a minimum, I like for the world to be spatially connected so that you still walk through continuous space, even if there are loading screens along the way. Some games aren't harmed by being broken up into levels, but I definitely prefer a seamless world.

[Norfleet]

Does it negatively impact your gameplay experience if a game is broken up into discrete levels?

It doesn't. "Seamless" just means "highly compressed and filled with nothing". Consider the largest "seamless" worlds in existence. They're MAYBE a few hours across, tops, with a human-scale world covering MAYBE a few dozen square miles. I'm perfectly okay with smaller points of interest that you transit between with an Indiana Jones travel map montage. Where hell was that U-Boat going, though?

[enisey]

Does it negatively impact your gameplay experience if a game is broken up into discrete levels?

I tend to see this come up a lot in reviews and was surprised by how much it bothers people when a game isn't "seamless"

If you mean a short loading screen when entering a building, like Skyrim, it bothers me a little. I generally dislike losing control and being ripped out of immersion and wasting time staring at a loading screen. It's slightly worse when I'm not sure if it's the right building or some other scenario where I have to leave and enter repeatedly. It also gets me thinking about technological limitations when I can't take certain things between load screens.

However, if you can demonstrate some benefit like more detailed interiors/cities, I may consider the trade-off worth it. It's not that big of a deal, and I would probably only mention it in a review if it was particularly annoying and common.

[J1M]

I think it's important to have a sense of place that's communicated visually, but a map with an X on a loading screen does that just fine for me. I don't need to walk there.

[Roguey]

I don't care as long as the loading times aren't more than a few seconds. And if they don't put something distracting with them, like how the first Witcher includes a wooshing sound effect that gets annoying when you're entering and leaving buildings.

[Spacekiddo]

I hate worlds where women have rights
With ****
With women who don't worship my character the moment he appears
And too little carry capacity for my loot goblin playstyle.
Otherwise, seamless worlds are fine.

[MrTwinkls]

I wanted to say hubs with separate locations are superior but I am not so sure anymore. Does Underrail's small interconnected zones count as one seamless world? It reminds me of a completed jigsaw puzzle.

[Tweed]

Anyone who says they don't care about loading screens needs to be reminded of Invisible War. Even with a fast computer the amount of loading and segments eats ****.

[methoxetamine]

Depends too much on the game. I prefer Nioh 2's stages over seamless Nioh 3, but a proper seamless world like WoW is needed for MMOs imo and makes XIV feel like ****

[Lord of Riva]

Depends, Deus Ex Invisible war is aids, some games with gigantic loading times suck as well but segregated levels with short loading times? Doesn't bother me

[Magick]

Anyone who says they don't care about loading screens needs to be reminded of Invisible War. Even with a fast computer the amount of loading and segments eats ****.

Indeed but if it's a choice between that and a "level select", which would you rather have?
Of course "neither" is the correct choice, if available. But then you get multiple "crawling through a tunnel" / "squeezing through a narrow gap" segments nowadays.

[Xenich]

Depends... Seen both types done well... and seen both done horribly bad. I guess it really just depends on the game and how the developer wants to do things, but I don't have a preference if they are done well.

[J1M]

Anyone who says they don't care about loading screens needs to be reminded of Invisible War. Even with a fast computer the amount of loading and segments eats ****.

Technically that isn't a loading screen for a level. They are shutting down the game engine and restarting it for every map transition.

[Norfleet]

Anyone who says they don't care about loading screens needs to be reminded of Invisible War. Even with a fast computer the amount of loading and segments eats ****.

The occasional loading screen doesn't bother me, but if fact that I was going to have to load it was so predictable, it shows extremely ****-poor programming that the programmers were unable to predict that I was going to go there and load it before I got there. Like if I'm in a one-way corridor (because the devs aren't letting me backtrack), it's pretty much a given that the next thing I'm going to want to load is THAT NEXT AREA. WHY THE **** IS IT NOT LOADED BEFORE I GOT THERE? Are you people that incompetent that you can't predict the fact that I will do the only possible thing I can do next?

[Roguey]

Anyone who says they don't care about loading screens needs to be reminded of Invisible War. Even with a fast computer the amount of loading and segments eats ****.

Didn't notice this at all when I played it last year. Loading was solved with better hardware and solid state drives.

[anvi]

I love EQ but it had zones which was not that good. I mostly liked it except having edges of a zone made people hug the zone edge when travelling to avoid enemies. I noticed in Kunark they had patrolling enemies that wander up to the zone wall so you still need to dodge a bit. But you could get to most places without fighting by hugging the walls. I liked similar games in an open world with no edges to the world.

[J1M]

Anyone who says they don't care about loading screens needs to be reminded of Invisible War. Even with a fast computer the amount of loading and segments eats ****.

The occasional loading screen doesn't bother me, but if fact that I was going to have to load it was so predictable, it shows extremely ****-poor programming that the programmers were unable to predict that I was going to go there and load it before I got there. Like if I'm in a one-way corridor (because the devs aren't letting me backtrack), it's pretty much a given that the next thing I'm going to want to load is THAT NEXT AREA. WHY THE **** IS IT NOT LOADED BEFORE I GOT THERE? Are you people that incompetent that you can't predict the fact that I will do the only possible thing I can do next?

Xbox RAM limitation.

[Norfleet]

I liked similar games in an open world there aren't any edges to the world.

Even the real life open world has zone with edges, and if you cross over the edge, you get shot by the border guards.
Inside the Country that KILLS Illegal Immigrants...

[maidenhaver]

hubs are best

Except in Thief Deadly Shadows.

[TKVNC]

I actually quite like instanced zones - you can also make the world seem significantly larger, if done correctly.

Dragon Age: Origins did this well.

[DecadeRiptide]

I prefer seamless. Wish more interactivity were built into the environment as well tbh

[anvi]

I liked the mmo called Rift, they did a good job with the world. It was zones like EQ but they are so big that edges are miles away and usually in water or a mountain or something. Going around the edge of the map would take forever so the path of least resistance is through the middle of the map. It felt like open world. Also each zone also had an identity. When you do zone into a new area, the lighting and everything changes.

[TKVNC]

I liked the mmo called Rift, they did a good job with the world. It was zones like EQ but they are so big that edges are miles away and usually in water or a mountain or something. Going around the edge of the map would take forever so the path of least resistance is through the middle of the map. It felt like open world. Also each zone also had an identity. When you do zone into a new area, the lighting and everything changes.

When it first released it was great. Shame what happened to it in the end.