The persistent world...

[LiTos456]

Drum roll everyone, litos is making a thread!
Alright you devs, you got some talkin' to do.
And if you won't talk, pray that you ever will again!
Anyway, I wanted to ask about how exactly you travel from place to place, what the rest of the world in the game is for and how do you get in these player areas. So far we are assuming there's a large world separated by loading screens, and then there's a separate map for each player. How do you explain this?
Also loading screens could get bloody annoying sometimes... Is there gonna be quick travel or something?

[sneaky_squirrel]

Interesting question, I have another oen up my sleeve ;p.

How often do you plan on making important world events take place?

[MrBlack103]

And another one :

If so, what kind of events would they be?

I would like to see random invasions of massive NPC armies in a given region, or even target a specific guild?

[Jean=A=Luc]

You click on a place you want to go to, move across the "world map" and when you arrive the area loads and voilla!

[Darathor]

For Litos, you walk.

For the events, big stuff happens like suddenly a giant rebellion has taken place in almost every human town or something and they must fight off the rebels before they take over.

[Konstantin Fomenko]

...how exactly you travel from place to place, what the rest of the world in the game is for and how do you get in these player areas. So far we are assuming there's a large world separated by loading screens, and then there's a separate map for each player. How do you explain this?

Not quite. Think Total War games. You move armies and select cities on the World Map. But unlike Total War, where player only gets into RTS view during the battle, in DoF player can at any time see his Army/Town in RTS view (be it in some forest, desert or a town). And when it comes to managing the town, or army - again please can only do this in RTS view.

And yes there are load screens, but right now in the not-so-optimized engine you are looking at 8 to 15 seconds long load-time. We`ll try to push this down to 4-5 seconds.

How often do you plan on making important world events take place?

There are lots of World events - but we are unleashing them as players progress through the quests, instead of a specific date. Example of world events: civil war in human realm, orcs vs humans war, elves vs orcs war e.t.c

[LiTos456]

I still don't get it. I've never played total war games. Can you explain more please? Do you mean you can walk your army around using the world map, and then jump into RTS view whenever you want and you'll be put there where you walked your army on the RTS map?

Damn that was a long sentence.

[sneaky_squirrel]

Like how the evnts take place ;p.

[Konstantin Fomenko]

U got it Litos!

Like how the events take place ;p.

Well, lets say war between Humans and Orcs is declared. Player recieves a quest to visit the capital city where the war is explained and announced through a cinematic.

Human and Orcish players can now attack each other (before they couldn`t do this on a large scale)

Player would also be given several Player vs Player quests to move forward the story of this war. One of these quests can involve creating an alliance and going after one of large enemy NPC towns.

[Josh Warner]

Originally Posted by Konstantin Fomenko

Not quite. Think Total War games. You move armies and select cities on the World Map. But unlike Total War, where player only gets into RTS view during the battle, in DoF player can at any time see his Army/Town in RTS view (be it in some forest, desert or a town). And when it comes to managing the town, or army - again please can only do this in RTS view.

And yes there are load screens, but right now in the not-so-optimized engine you are looking at 8 to 15 seconds long load-time. We`ll try to push this down to 4-5 seconds.

That sounds great, I really liked the way Total War handled it, and this sounds even better, also 5 seconds would be more than awesome, 8-10 is more than acceptable though.

There are lots of World events - but we are unleashing them as players progress through the quests, instead of a specific date. Example of world events: civil war in human realm, orcs vs humans war, elves vs orcs war e.t.c

Quests as in, one player gets so far in the quest line? Or so many people complete quests, like to start a war vs humans as orcs, there would be a bunch of regular quests to kill/fight humans and such, do enough of them and you start a real war?

And as far as continuing it "Player would also be given several Player vs Player quests to move forward the story of this war. One of these quests can involve creating an alliance and going after one of large enemy NPC towns." is it whichever side completes a 'final' quest to decide the winner of the war, or some sort of slider based on the number of successful quests completed by either side and first to reach a certain point wins?