All Quiet on the Arcen Front

[LaughingThesaurus]

Oh, that's something I like to hear. I'll probably notice cool stuff when the beta gets in full swing.

[Aklyon]

Everyone will notice cool stuff, probably.
But then, like the Path of Exile loading screen says occasionally, There Will Be Bugs. Whether or not they'll be noticeable as well is probably something else entirely.

[Nanashi]

Silly request, but are you putting in mapping or rename-chunk features? If we're going to spend a lot of time on the same chunk, it could be nice if we could stick signs all over the place - which might help multiplayer or games which have been suspended for a long time. And I think it's easier to tell someone to go to "Eagleface forest" than say "that bunch of trees near the mountains northwest of the camp".

If you're going to put obstacles all over the map which need doohickey X to unlock, it'd be even more important. And you could have amusing Castlevania-esque region-name-overlay when entering the chunk.

[keith.lamothe]

"Eagleface forest"

Ah, good times.

[Aklyon]

Customizable region name overlay?
Sounds like the sort of thing you could randomize for hilarious results. (Also sounds awesome)

Though seeing how arcen's previous name generator worked, Environ would turn into the codename for the AI's planet Murderusoon.

[keith.lamothe]

Though seeing how arcen's previous name generator worked, Environ would turn into the codename for the AI's planet Murderusoon.

Given that this is AVWW we're talking about, it would probably generate a name I saw in an AIW test last week: "Genremurder"

[Aklyon]

Whatever it turns out to be, those could be pretty neat to have eventually. Not really a priority when you compare it to other stuff we know so far about AVWW2 though.

[Oralordos]

Meh, far more likely to be a planet I saw in my game today. Murderbites sounds like it goes with a world full of creatures right?

[x4000]

Chunk names and region names are definitely out -- you're spending far less time per region than you used to be able to. Our goal is about 10 minutes to fully explore a region now (as opposed to 8+ hours as someone noted). In other words, that's about four times the time you spend in an average Mario level.

We've greatly condensed the need for maps, too, as part of this. I don't want to get into that yet until you can see how well it works for yourself.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Oh, I said 8 hours, but that was only exploring every cave to depth 1, and filling out every room (by only entering it, if it were useless) on the maps. I'm pretty sure your exploration time can get to infinity and beyond, if caves can go infinitely deep.

[tigersfan]

Oh, I said 8 hours, but that was only exploring every cave to depth 1, and filling out every room (by only entering it, if it were useless) on the maps. I'm pretty sure your exploration time can get to infinity and beyond, if caves can go infinitely deep.

Yeah, but that won't be happening this time around.

In fact, most of the time, there won't be a case of having to explore an exterior region and a cave. It will be one or the other.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Ah, so say a region just won't have a surface, and will only have cave? I was figuring that you'd only explore caves if you really really wanted to, or needed the items within... kinda like how in Valley 1, you just kinda grab 10 or so of each gem by going into a couple gem vein rooms, and you were set for quite a while.

[tigersfan]

The regions with caves will have a very small surface area, just big enough to contain an entrance in the cave.

I'm pretty sure that you'll need to go into a cave sometimes to gain access to the parts of the map on the other side of it. But, the caves won't be nearly as expansive or confusing as they were in AVWW1.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Ahh, that sounds kinda nice. So, caves are caves, not just really really dangerous mines.

[tigersfan]

Ahh, that sounds kinda nice. So, caves are caves, not just really really dangerous mines.

Correct.