Worst offenders of "zone rehashing"
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I'd say Daggerfall was one of the "best" offenders though. Very few tilesets reused thousands of times but I never felt for a second I was in the same place twice.
I know Oblivion did it somewhat, in dungeons especially. And WoW's inns and caves came to my mind quickly too. But I never felt any game did it so blatantly or unpleasantly as Dragon Age 2.
It's not just about how much they reuse art, it's also how skilled they are at it.
Tuco
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Oblivion/Skyrim and WoW etc were much more acceptable because they had these massive worlds to fill. DA2 was much worse because it was a much more dense game.
To put it another way, Skyrim had 20 different tilesets used in 300 places and DA2 had 4 different tilesets used in 20 different places. The other thing they really got lazy on was re-using entire levels and locking a few doors.
Daggerfall is a bit of an extreme case for that because they set out to create a stupidly large world and unabashedly randomly used content to create it. But after 20 or so dungeons you're guaranteed to think, "Ok this room again" everytime you move to a new cell.
I think Mannimarco (King of Worms)'s dungeon, Scourg Barrow, used pretty much every dungeon block and was a real bitch to navigate through. I'd love to see it recreated in Skyrim. Or Castle Wayrest.
To put it another way, Skyrim had 20 different tilesets used in 300 places and DA2 had 4 different tilesets used in 20 different places. The other thing they really got lazy on was re-using entire levels and locking a few doors.
Daggerfall is a bit of an extreme case for that because they set out to create a stupidly large world and unabashedly randomly used content to create it. But after 20 or so dungeons you're guaranteed to think, "Ok this room again" everytime you move to a new cell.
I think Mannimarco (King of Worms)'s dungeon, Scourg Barrow, used pretty much every dungeon block and was a real bitch to navigate through. I'd love to see it recreated in Skyrim. Or Castle Wayrest.
EQ2 is the worst for this, at least in the MMO space. 2-3 main dungeon templates in KOS xpac that were recycled in their entirety or in part. Their design mantra was a simple Ctrl+C Ctrl+V keyboard macro that was stuck in the on position.
They released an entire full-priced xpac that consisted of half a dozen small dungeon templates that the player could use to make their own dungeons. That idea fell flat on its nuts.
They released an entire full-priced xpac that consisted of half a dozen small dungeon templates that the player could use to make their own dungeons. That idea fell flat on its nuts.
Quaid
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Wat?
Guk and Sebilis? Just because those are the only zones you decided to grind in doesn't mean that's all there was. 25% is a more realistic value.
Bullshit. 70% of endgame Enemies? How about Plane of Fear, Plane of Hate, Vox, Nagafen, Trak area in Sebilis, Chardok, Veril Sathir, Veeshan's Peak? Just because you had 2 zones that featured frogs heavily (Lower Guk and Sebilis) doesn't mean 70% of the first 2 expansion's endgame were Frog models.
If you're arguing leveling areas in both original and Kunark, I would argue Solusek B was just as used as Lower Guk, and lots of folks avoided Sebilis and went to Chardok and Howling Stones instead.
Khane
Got something right about marriage
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Not disagreeing with the overarching premise of the post but... weren't Chardok and HS ghost towns until their revamps?
Quaid
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Falstaff
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Sol B for life. I fucking HATED Lower Guk.
HS was great but needed a pre-formed group usually.
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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Well ya. All the fucking plebs just gravitated to Lguk and Seb so there were always groups to be had (see: Swags endgame EQ experience)