Seamless Transition cRPGs

By seamless transition in cRPG Design, I am referring to the ability of cRPG combat units, projectiles and AoE hazards (gases, explosions and spell effects) to seamlessly transition between interior and exterior environments that constitute battlescapes or explorable zones. Thus, in moving between indoors and outdoors, there is no loadscreen, no delay, no lag and no immersion-breaking indication whatsoever that we have moved into or out of a building, cave or other natural or man-made structure.

Seamlessly transitionable area design facilitates advanced tactics and increases immersion during exploration. For example, a gunfight can start within a building and spill out onto the streets. Or a gunfighter on the street can take cover within a building. The enemies can also follow the gunfighter into or out of buildings -- seamlessly. The battle is not interrupted at all because the building and the street are part of the same battlescape, yet they differ.

In seamlessly transitionable areas, doors, gates and other security portals are not painted on and nor are they transition triggers: they are authentic interactables that can be opened, moved through and closed behind us. Or blown up. Likewise, windows. They can be shattered and fired through.

The reader may deem the concept basic. Well, it is -- in concept. Yet many underservedly famous AAA RPG Games don't feature doorways. In such AAAs, doors are painted on as mere teleport-triggers; that is, we don't move through a doorway but instead teleport to a separate area altogether. Seamlessly transitionable area design is in actual fact quite rare, even among famous classics. Baldur's Gate doesn't have it. Morrowind Overrated doesn't have it. And many of the RPGs influenced by them don't either.

Yet X-COM UFO Defense featured seamless transition between interiors and exteriors in 1994. We could disembark from of our aircraft and walk into a building. Then we could walk up a flight of stairs to arrive on the first floor of the building. Or we could take a grav-lift to another level of a UFO. No loadscreen, no delay and no lag -- seamless. 28 years ago. And X-COM is decidedly NOT a simple game: it is mechanically complex even by today's standards. Also, I do not care if even older games than X-COM have seamless transition because they pale in comparison to X-COM on a game-mechanics level.

Examples of Seamless Transition

A bullet fired from inside a building hits an enemy outside the building. And vice versa:

A bullet fired from outside a building travels through the building and hits an enemy on the other side of the building. The bullet enters the building by shattering a window (shown below in wireframe). The enemy gave away his position by opening the door.

Depending on the power of the Jagged Alliance 2 weapon, a bullet can penetrate two window panes en route to its mark; possibly more.

Firing from within one building into another, across a garden and fencelines:

Firing a rocket into a building through a gaping hole ripped open by a previous rocket:

Firing downwards at an exterior courtyard from within an interior (but dangerously exposed) elevated position:

Seamless transition is usually accompanied by verticality and destructibility. Together, they come under the cRPG Design category of Perspective. cf. Isometric cRPGs.

In planning a prison raid at Tixa JA2, we can plant C4 on any wall to blow open a gaping hole and then seamlessly transition to the interior.

Seamless transition is usually not employed in surface-to-subterranean transitions if both areas are large. In the above example, even Jagged Alliance 2 loads the dungeons beneath the prison. There is usually no seamless transition between large sectors, zones or areas in cRPGs either. The restrictions are put in place due to hardware limitations (RAM size and CPU speed) and design considerations. For example, battles could become unmanageable in large areas filled with aggro, thereby tanking framerates and increasing difficulty to unreasonable levels (hordes).

Some cRPGs that lack seamless transition still allow hostile AI-controlled combat units to follow player-controlled combat units back and forth between streets and building interiors. What happens is, after a loadscreen the aggro suddenly spawns at the transition point, ready to continue the battle. Depending on enemy number and the number of scripts that are firing at the time, such sudden spawning can cause notable lag as the engine scrambles to update the situation. cf. Bounty Hunter BG2 setting snares.

List of the Best cRPGs Featuring Seamlessly Transitionable Areas

• Jagged Alliance 2 (Sir-Tech, 1999)
• X-COM UFO Defense (Mythos Games, 1994)
• Fallout 1 (Interplay, 1997)
• Fallout 2 (Black Isle Studios, 1998)
• Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (Troika, 2001)
• X-COM Apocalypse (Mythos Games, 1997)
• Silent Storm (Nival Interactive, 2003)
• Diablo 2 (Blizzard North, 2000)

In complex cRPGs, seamless transition is a reliable indicator of developer design and coding prowess. And exquisite taste in cRPG Design. Notable cRPGs that do not employ seamlessly transitionable areas include all Infinity Engine, Aurora Engine and Electron Engine games, as well as their derivative engines.

Morrowind Overrated is also notable for not featuring seamlessly transitionable areas.

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