Anyone else disappointed with San Francisco's map design?

[Shismar]

After some fairly uninspiring map designs in the areas before San Francisco, I must say that the area south of the Golden Gate Bridge turned out to be an even larger disappointment. I was hoping to see some serious three dimensional map design in the city.. densely packed ruins of large buildings, open facings where the various floors of structures were exposed like a cutaway view of ruined offices, ..... 5 years of development and the maps we ended up with.. I just don't get it.

Yes, I completely agree and have voiced similar criticism before. I get it that they can excuse this sad state with the Battle of Defiance and the terraforming, but they really did not have to go that route and just place some landmarks in an uninspired and boring landscape and say Done!

Due to this I avoid SF for anything but the main mission. I rather drive around in Paradise vendor hopping. At least it looks nice.

[jnt]

They did the equivalent of having the UI overlay say "Market Street" and having nothing there but a melted street sign :P

[Voc13]

I want to also nip the "urban environments can't be done in an MMO" excuses in the bud before they start:

Urban in an MMO 1

Urban in an MMO 2

Urban in an MMO 3

Urban in an MMO 4

Urban in an MMO 5

Urban in an MMO 6

You get the idea.

You have got to be kidding me. So you post a bunch of APB images, which I'll give credit they do a nice job of an urban multiplayer game. But that game had less content than this one. It also had no world map space compared to this one. The size of a city sector in APB is about half to a quarter of the size of any area in Defiance. Oh ya, lets not mention the fact that Defiance is a Massive Co-Op game and APB could only fit 40 or 80 players per map shard. So yes, from my own developer perspective an urban environment can be done, but not in this game. Not if you want 40people on the screen at once. Do that in APB and server crash. I mean seriously lets talk SW's that do 64v64 in the world where other players are running around and you want to show off APB like its comparable.

[Hope499]

Yeah...I got there last night, and I am actually WAY more dissapointed than I thought...

Like...its NOTHING like I thought....I got the impression that San Fran was rushed with little to no thought in it. Like....ok, I could understand the first area being a bit baren....but then this?

WHo the hell wants to hang around a grey, ugly, flat, lifeless enviroment? I could take a dump on a napkin and spread it around, with a better result.

Cmon Trion...honestly the DLC better have some crazy *** jungle, a forest or giant ice caves or somthin to make up for this trash...

[Upgrade]

I too was initially disappointed with San Fran..after a time i began to enjoy the large amount of peaks to jump from..it is a bleak landscape, a post-apocalyptic desert..

[jnt]

I too was initially disappointed with San Fran..after a time i began to enjoy the large amount of peaks to jump from..it is a bleak landscape, a post-apocalyptic desert..

Yeah, its saving grace for me is the unabashed joy of spending 5 minutes driving around like a lunatic. It's awesome there are no small shrubs or bricks that stop your car instantly.

[EdgeTW]

You have got to be kidding me. So you post a bunch of APB images, which I'll give credit they do a nice job of an urban multiplayer game. But that game had less content than this one. It also had no world map space compared to this one. The size of a city sector in APB is about half to a quarter of the size of any area in Defiance. Oh ya, lets not mention the fact that Defiance is a Massive Co-Op game and APB could only fit 40 or 80 players per map shard. So yes, from my own developer perspective an urban environment can be done, but not in this game. Not if you want 40people on the screen at once. Do that in APB and server crash. I mean seriously lets talk SW's that do 64v64 in the world where other players are running around and you want to show off APB like its comparable.

Not sure what you're going on about. I've participated in 20v20 battles in APB before (they are some of the most chaotic and fun). That's "40 people on the screen at once". Obviously the servers aren't rolling over and dying when 40 people get into the same area like you claim. That's not even counting all the other sets of players who are having their own additional missions in the same area. And I hate to be the bubble burster here, but Defiance only renders other characters out to 75 meters, where as APB renders them out to 100 meters.

APB also allows up to 100 players per city map instance (not "40 or 80"). You act like Defiance isn't phased and instanced out the wazoo. On top of that they're sporting much more realistic vehicle physics, handling vehicle collision, NPC AI controlled pedestrians and vehicle traffic *all over the place*, destroyable terrain features.. you act like there's not a lot going on there.

In Defiance, San Francisco is about 2.5 km across, where as APB is about 1.5 km across (a bit more than the "half to a quarter of the size of any area in Defiance" credit you're trying to give it). Not that it matters since they're not loading the entire map into memory all at once, it's streamed on the fly (something done in both games, by the way). And APB makes way better use of the space it has, from building interiors and back alleys, overpasses, sewage pipes, rooftops, underground garages, docked ships, etc, all used as play-space. There can be twenty people fighting in the building right next to you and you wouldn't even know it (save for the sound of nearby gunfire). They're pretty densely packed compared to Defiance's San Francisco open wasteland.

This is not a "which game is better" thread, it's a "why did SF turn out so lame" discussion. But, go ahead, keep making excuses for it.

[Str8Murked]

It's terrible and very very boring with hateful mobs and horrendous stealth snipers etc. just hate it it sooooooo much.

Yes this, I have gotten in to the habit of just randomly spraying rooftops trying to find that one stealth sniper that is holding me up.

[Kye Azreal]

Agreed. The funnest part about SF was taking down Nim's Assistant in "Down Town SF" if you can call it part of a town at all. I'm still a huge fan of this game but the lack of populated areas and key RPG elements that make an MMO feel like an MMO are disappointing .

[HanPL]

Yep also disapointed.
I was hoping for Stalker/I am Legend vibe (Destroyed/abandoned city and buildings. ) instead I saw one big terrain land that's annoying as hell to travel.