Effectively-zero loadscreens

Sy

Well-Known Member
Nov 16, 2018
363
719
93
sya.li
#1
It's possible to mitigate the negative effects of load screens by reducing the amount of activity-downtime.

There are two things I propose:

- Zero downtime inventory
- Zero downtime chat

Ember won't have enough load screens to really need to tackle inventory as a problem, but it's worth describing.

Imagine being in a game, and hopping on a taxi, changing zones or entering into a dungeon, and your character inventory is still accessible. You can still pull up and look at your character, the attributes and the like. You can still dismantle, enchant and swap. The fact that the world your character is in is being loaded has nothing to do with the actual character you're in.

Zero downtime chat is something very few games tackle, likely because it's impossible at the foundational level. The idea is the same as above, where chat is completely seamless and never goes away just because other things are loading.

Some games are just barely catching on when they have account-based instant messaging services, like Blizzard's Battle.net, but even their in-game chat still gets removed at load screens. Many games also wipe the chat log on every login, which is abhorrent. I am still haunted by that one whisper I never read, because I was doing programming, was constantly reloading the UI, and did that before I noticed a message.

I also wonder that if permissions exist for my.em8er.com if an out of game chat can exist in-browser in there.

The entire thing can also be done such that the initial game client has chat cooked in, and the character inventory is loaded next, and the game can load after. This means I can open up the game client and just chat if I wanted to, or I can look at my inventory and I don't even have to "load the game".
 

Wyntyr

Omni Ace
Ark Liege
Jul 26, 2016
6,336
11,601
113
Florida
#4
If there has to be loads from zone to zone, similar to FF, perhaps the player just follows thru on the transport mode. For example, if you're gliding you continue to glide. If you're skimming you continue to skim. If you're on a bike you continue to drive.
 
Jul 26, 2016
23
17
3
#5
Strong supporter of this idea,

"Beam me up scotty" zone goes black fade while unloading, character still visible with hud display/inventory/chat.. loads in background then fades in

Separate chat server though would mean you'd wouldn't have a zone chat though, unless you're talking about just clan/guild
 
Likes: Pandagnome