Let's look at Mabinogi's "map efficiency".

• Rydian wrote on 2015-03-31 05:36
  When creating video games in general, you want to be efficient with your resources. This means, among other things, not including large empty areas of maps that players won't see.
  
  (Those of you that remember the time when players had to take drastic measures just to load Tara might care more about this than others.)
  
  Mabinogi has been in development for many years and has had a rotation of developers over that time, so some resources are created differently than others. Let's look at some of the maps out there and see how well this concept has been held to over time.
  
  
  Tir Chonaill is first on the list.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/tBUUj7gm.jpg]

  
  We can see that this is pretty well-done. They didn't bother texturing areas outside normal camera view, and the landmass is shaped in such a way that there's nothing outside of areas players can naturally get to.
  
  
  Dugald Aisle comes next, of course.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/NZd0sLPm.jpg]

  
  Same deal as with Tir, so these were designed with the same aspects in mind and are done well.
  
  
  Dunbarton, everybody knows what this is like.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/2g9Ajnwm.jpg]

  
  Nothing special here, nice and efficient.
  
  
  Gairech Hills is an older area as well,
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/4m2tPYVm.jpg]

  
  Pretty efficient, nothing to point out.
  
  
  Osna Sail...
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/Bu71LuKm.jpg]

  
  Impressively efficient!
  
  
  Emain Macha is the first map of interest.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/owmShaTm.jpg]

  
  First of all, "Where is Ceo!?", it's on its own map. Second, in Emain if you look at the northeast and southeast exits you'll see that the terrain ends pretty close to them. On the other hand the western exit, which is relatively newer (added when Blago was added) has quite a bit of unused space after the exit, a trend you'll unfortunately see in newer maps.
  
  
  Iria (Rano) is next 'cause they did something new there.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/B9jqZKsm.jpg]

  
  Unlike the previous maps, when Iria came out Devcat realized that their existing map system wouldn't handle excessively-large maps properly. So what they do with Iria is divide the map into tiny little squares and then load groups of them at a time (the grouping is displayed as dotted lines on the minimap), and only load what's within a certain distance. This is a decent way to handle it, and as you can see below...
  
  
  Blago Prairie and other newer maps use this method.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/DZQDcNT.gif]

  
  Here you can see the distant terrain loading in, small squares at a time as I move. Blago Prairie is one of the relatively-newer maps and it uses this method to try to reduce resource usage. Unfortunately this method can also lead to developer laziness...
  
  
  Abb Neagh shows some of the resulting dev inefficiency.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/6C3vHxxm.jpg]

  
  There's a ton of terrain the player will not see under normal circumstances. Wasted space on disk, wasted space in RAM (even when not rendered) and wasted additional loading time. In addition, Abb Neagh's lake shows one problem with Mabinogi using props for things like lakes.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/ff5rAvQm.jpg]

  
  Decoration objects like this need to be loaded at all once, which is fine... when it's not that damn big. At least it's just this lake, right? ... Right?
  
  
  Corrib Valley is an interesting case.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/YgnA48Rm.jpg]

  
  From this first pic, it looks alright. That's all the areas the player is intended to normally visit, there's not too much.. except that Corrib Valley, as a newer map, also does the "load on demand" thing and actually has a ton of wasted space on the map in the corners.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/ZfzPYgcm.jpg]

  
  As well a where the river ends there's good chunks of the map the player won't see.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/RoRxD8Gm.jpg]

  
  So... not doing so hot here anymore. But at least it's not as bad as...
  
  
  Tara. ... Just. ... Tara. Ugh.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/mcbM3GMm.jpg]

  
  Apparently Tara believes that the entire floor of the city and the front quarter of the castle are important enough objects to be one solid thing that's always rendered. Needless to say this is kinda' bad. But at least the actual Castle map is better, right? ... Right?
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/tIQ8obwm.jpg]

  
  lolnope, apparently the map thinks that it needs to load the entire floor of the city even in the castle map.
  
  
  
  
  So... in general, the older maps are more efficient. The newer ones are made using newer techniques that would allow them to load faster, but the devs put less effort into efficiency over time instead and we end up with slower-loading maps due to map sizes being increased far beyond what we can actually travel.
  
  
  Bonus: Cobh is weird.
• ZeroPantz wrote on 2015-03-31 06:02
  This is very interesting. I can see now why it always takes much longer for me to load into Tara and why Cobh can be a bit laggy. I don't like lag but I also am not really fond of the maps where areas of the map are invisible and load in when you move closer though I understand the purpose. I've set it up so that I can see things pretty far up ahead in my settings though, I am glad they did offer that option, it may make it a bit more laggy but I rarely notice the difference personally.
  
  Also why in the world did they make Tara castle a seperate area to load into if the entire city is still going to be rendered when you enter it...? That's pretty silly. Wasn't the point to reduce lag? At least, for Tara city itself the castle area isn't entirely rendered out, though I believe the impact of lag is mainly the city since it is so big. I don't see the buildings in Tara city map though, does this mean they did apply distant terrain loading in, for those?
  
  Also for Corrib valley, that entire patch of unused space you can't normally even see, if you fall down to the river you can get up there at a certain spot and it's actually possible to move over that area. It's quite a large area and seeing as we are able to actually walk on it, it makes me wonder if it was not originally made for another purpose that they never got around to putting in for some reason, other than a lazy waste of space. I am not really knowledgeable on these subjects, but I did hear that developers usually don't put in the coding for walking in areas that you "can't" get to anyway?
• Rydian wrote on 2015-03-31 06:37

  Quote from ZeroPantz;1269572:

  Also why in the world did they make Tara castle a seperate area to load into if the entire city is still going to be rendered when you enter it...? That's pretty silly. Wasn't the point to reduce lag? At least, for Tara city itself the castle area isn't entirely rendered out, though I believe the impact of lag is mainly the city since it is so big.

  Yeah when that change happened everybody was wondering why because it doesn't make it less laggy.
  
  

  Quote from ZeroPantz;1269572:

  I don't see the buildings in Tara city map though, does this mean they did apply distant terrain loading in, for those?

  Seems so yes, though Mabi treats certain buildings differently than others. For example in Taill, the gates are always loaded in even when the city or walls aren't, which is weird.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/HXA30zqm.jpg]

  
  
  Same with some of the farm plots and other random objects.
  
  

  Quote from ZeroPantz;1269572:

  I am not really knowledgeable on these subjects, but I did hear that developers usually don't put in the coding for walking in areas that you "can't" get to anyway?

  The way mabi is made it's the opposite. Maps are made of a flat ground terrain and all of it is walkable unless there's boundary objects or props explicitly placed on top of it to stop movement.
  
  This is why when people get into the water in Emain and Cobh and such, they can walk around on it.
• Darkboy132 wrote on 2015-03-31 06:59
  Oh wow, I always wondered why Iria loaded extremely fast but Tara took too fucking long to load... Good to know more science.
• Rydian wrote on 2015-03-31 09:50
  Okay, homesteads win the "useless space" award.
  
  This is a max-size one.
  
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/volO7xhm.jpg]
• Syliara wrote on 2015-03-31 09:57

  Quote from Rydian;1269585:

  Okay, homesteads win the "useless space" award.
  
  This is a max-size one.
  
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/volO7xhm.jpg]

  
  
  Well they might continue expanding homesteads later on so that might just be space for "just in case we need it" situations.
• Darkboy132 wrote on 2015-03-31 10:02

  Quote from Rydian;1269585:

  Okay, homesteads win the "useless space" award.
  
  This is a max-size one.
  
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/volO7xhm.jpg]

  
  
  What about outlaw homestead?
• Space Pirate Nithiel wrote on 2015-03-31 10:29
  As someone that regularly hangs out on the other side of the river in Corrib Valley I can verify that the wasted space is massive. I can walk so far south that my cursor actually goes off the map and starts running around in my inventory.
• Osayidan wrote on 2015-03-31 14:51
  I'm curious about hilwen mines entrance, where the NPCs are... I leave a lot of alts there for daily job and it takes forever to log in on those characters. However for my alts that are left on any other map, even Tara, I log in almost instantly. So there must be something weird going on there.
  
  
  -- sent via mobile
• Qnjo wrote on 2015-03-31 14:56
  That's some really interesting info, thanks for sharing.
  
  And what about Belvast? From my experiences, this is the most laggy area in the game.
• Slayerj wrote on 2015-03-31 16:59
  I knew it! I knew it was the ground in tara all along! Damn you lazy devs!! lol
• Kingofrunes wrote on 2015-03-31 17:03
  Devcat has gotten lazier over the years in other areas than maps. Looking through packet data reveals as much when you compare their newest efforts/work compared to past efforts/work.
  
  *shakes head*
  
  So much inefficiency.
• Zekkii wrote on 2015-03-31 18:18
  They should have made Tara a volcano and advertised the resulting computer/laptop's heating as an advanced virtual reality feature.
• Kiru wrote on 2015-03-31 19:44
  o3o no wonder i love iria. yet i hate tara.
  Please show more maps i loved this topic and im curious as whatmore you have to show.
  im also curious on beforementions maps above: Belvast and the area near hilwenn.
  also from eprsonal experiance could you show the map in Fillia?
  
  some of the old maps are plain simple and logical, indeed not so laggy. but i have a theory as to why these maps are having so much 'unnessesairy land'
  arnt almost all of them fly zones?
  It would explain why theres the additional data, its so you dont see the enge of the maps. when you fly near the edges of the flight areas, this is just my personal thought i could verywell be wrong. but concidering we can fly quite the high distances. we would be able to see quite far from some heights having them add more land on the edges to not show you the endless void behind the barriers.
• Rydian wrote on 2015-03-31 21:15

  Quote from Darkboy132;1269588:

  What about outlaw homestead?

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/evo7glem.jpg]

  
  
  I wish we had these as our homestead backgrounds or something.
  
  
  

  Quote from Osayidan;1269610:

  I'm curious about hilwen mines entrance, where the NPCs are... I leave a lot of alts there for daily job and it takes forever to log in on those characters. However for my alts that are left on any other map, even Tara, I log in almost instantly. So there must be something weird going on there.
  
  
  -- sent via mobile

  Surprisingly there's nothing outside the normal viewing area that I can see, nothing seems amiss.
  
  
  

  Quote from Qnjo;1269611:

  That's some really interesting info, thanks for sharing.
  
  And what about Belvast? From my experiences, this is the most laggy area in the game.

  Okay Belvast might just beat Tara for "biggest waste".
  
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/1DEBiHYm.jpg]

  
  
  I'm located at the Wanted Board, and you can see the square of tan ground that's actually loaded around me.
  
  Meanwhile 70% of the rest of the island itself feels the need to stay loaded at all times...
  
  And ScaryBeach?
  
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/UHl9BLdm.jpg]

  
  
  Oh yeah let's just keep the ocean loaded at once, no problem right? =D
  
  
  

  Quote from Kingofrunes;1269621:

  Devcat has gotten lazier over the years in other areas than maps. Looking through packet data reveals as much when you compare their newest efforts/work compared to past efforts/work.
  
  *shakes head*
  
  So much inefficiency.

  What, we don't have a packet ID for this?
  Well let's just encode this packet inside another packet! =D
  
  
  

  Quote from Kiru;1269633:

  o3o no wonder i love iria. yet i hate tara.
  Please show more maps i loved this topic and im curious as whatmore you have to show.
  im also curious on beforementions maps above: Belvast and the area near hilwenn.
  also from eprsonal experiance could you show the map in Fillia?

  For these shots I used a bug (that's been patched) to get outside of the boundaries in any flight area.
  
  Edge of the map in Zardine...
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/aKcpOhUm.jpg]

  
  Notice how the map stops being accurate to the terrain outside the render distance, but the terrain keeps going.
  
  The fake front of the Tara castle that's loaded inside Tara.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/u4krGOGm.jpg]

  
  Clicking on where the door should be gives a false "you cannot move while unconscious" message.
  
  The river dividing two Iria areas, and where it abruptly ends.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/JKACKtBm.jpg]

  
  
  The rafting river start.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/8xtRXHPm.jpg]

  
  
  Chopped up terrain in Connous.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/itk6spQm.jpg]

  
  
  Physis And The "WTF U R DOING GROUND?" Adventure
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/r3IWOW3m.jpg]

  
  
  Hey guys wanna' ride on lava?
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/8hKeieTm.jpg]

  
  Like I said stuff is walkable unless explicitly stated otherwise.
  
  Big expansive wasteland.
  

  [Image: http://i.imgur.com/QfG1dk0m.jpg]

  
  
  I miss using Friend Summon Capsules and homestead kidnapping to take people under the ocean in Physis and stuff and getting to watch them freak out...
  
  

  Quote from Kiru;1269633:

  some of the old maps are plain simple and logical, indeed not so laggy. but i have a theory as to why these maps are having so much 'unnessesairy land'
  arnt almost all of them fly zones?
  It would explain why theres the additional data, its so you dont see the enge of the maps. when you fly near the edges of the flight areas, this is just my personal thought i could verywell be wrong. but concidering we can fly quite the high distances. we would be able to see quite far from some heights having them add more land on the edges to not show you the endless void behind the barriers.

  This is a reason that some of the newer maps have extended edges up until a point, but right now they're extended far beyond what you can see even with flight. For the Corrib shots I had to walk outside of the map, and for the Iria shots above I had to get outside the map as well to even load these areas.