So I was just going through the cloak quest on another alt, #40 something at this point.
I decided to count the load screen for one single quest.
8.
Eight load screens.
I was on the step where you go back to Uldum to the HoO for your first glimpse of the visions of N’zoth.
I talked to Magni, clicked a couple things, flew a short distance and then the quest was over. After loading 8 different times.
I think this should be very concerning for players.
Shadowlands is looking to be similar.
I remember WoW being so cool back in the day because of it’s seamless, huge world you could move around in.
No zone lines like Everquest. You only hit a load screen traveling between continents.
Sure we had instances, but those were only 1 facet of the game.
For me the “World” is lost in this poor design.
I’m all for fast travel options, but why design a quest that is just a series of fast travels with a couple dialog prompts?
Anyway, just my rant about WoW losing its wow factor a bit more.
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It might be why they initially put a SSD as part of the requirements. Having one drastically reduces how long loading screens last.
Though we’ve also seen people complain a lot if they ever start removing the dozens of fast travel options we have. Now that it’s out there, it’s not something they can easily go back on without a lot of people getting upset about it.
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It loads pretty fast for me. Get an SSD.
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OP is about number of load screens. Wonder how many people are going to come in here talking about how long load screens take?
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I didn’t notice it (Samsung NVME SSD) but I understand the concern.
Because those are instanced events it makes sense that they’re not able to make it as immersive as you’d like.
I think they are riding a balance between giving us cool experiences like visions and those instances of learning about them and making things convenient.
Op wasn’t about load times. It’s referencing the large number of load screens they went through for one quest (line I’m assuming). I don’t recall a single quest that had 8 load screens. Definitely at least 8 load screens while doing the entire quest line.
Doubt it would be 8 load screens if you didn’t take the shortest route and actually travelled to the locations instead of using hearthstones…
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When you have 2 straight expansions on nothing but island chains there is no more “World” of Warcraft… mon.
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What were the 8 loading screens?
How many were instant travel like hearths and portals rather than using a flight path or zepplin?
And, would I be correct in hearing that you would prefer less loading screens, so less portals or Hearth type items?
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The BfA portal system only made load screens even more noticeable.
What quest had you take 8 loading screens?
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It’s getting ridiculous. Even with a speedy NVMe SSD it can get to be an annoyance, can’t imagine what it must be like for legacy-style HD users.
What they should consider doing is consolidating the various little islands into larger servers — for example they could put Outland, Northrend, and Draenor on one roughly EK-sized world server and put Pandaria, Broken Isles, Kul Tiras, and Zandalar on another EK-sized server.
Additionally, they could start doing predictive loading, so for example when you start hearthing the game could start loading resources for your hearthstone’s destination in the background, so for a lot of users it’s already done loading by the time the hearth cast finishes. Something similar could be done with portals by predicting which portal the player is heading toward.
These two wouldn’t fix the problem entirely but they’d reduce it significantly.
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It really isn’t. The only loading screens are the ones to the Maw and Torghast.
If it’s a problem, get an SSD.
It’s a fair assumption to make that this is factoring into OP’s complaint. If I had to go through 12 loadscreens to complete a quest, but each one only lasted 2 seconds, I probably wouldn’t make a thread like this. It’s a pretty implausible expectation for the entirety of WoW’s world to be rendered when you first open up the game, so loadscreens at least to some extent need to be a reality.
They should have left the existing portals up.
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How would that have helped this case?
Funnel through dalaran/shrine instead of SW? Except the portal to Uldum is through SW only?
Going from the heart chamber to zoning into halls of origination can be 2 loading screens, but I have a sneaky feeling he did a lot of teleporting.
1). Zone out of heart chamber, fly to HoO
- zone into HoO
Most likely path:
-
zone out of heart chamber
-
take portal to boralus
-
take portal to SW
-
take portal to Uldum
-
zone into HoO
But OP’s complaint was that the excess of load screens kills the feel of a large, connected world. Nothing to do with time.
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Other than the flight between Org and Thunder Totem, what zeppelin trip doesn’t end up on a load screen? You just “travel” for 10 seconds 1st.
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Then I guess I’m having a hard time parsing out OP’s argument if it doesn’t have anything to do with time specifically killing the feeling of an open world. He uses the cloak quest as an example, but that quest specifically requires the player to to travel back and forth across separate continents and multiple instances; both of which OP acknowledges have always required loadscreens.
The very first expansion to WoW introduced continents and cities that you couldn’t even reach without loadscreens, so when was there a version of WoW in which loadscreens didn’t kill the feeling of an open world?
I think we understand that. Just saying it does feel significantly less noticeable.
If I was on a HDD still as I was on my last computer I’d probably be making the same thread.