Alot of MMORPGs that i have played over the years have had loading screens and such when you switch from one area to another - matrix online is good recent example. You would get a loading screen from one district of the city to another.

I think that in todays world, we have more than enough computing power and technology to ensure seamless enviroments in STO. I am talking about beaming from your ship down to a planet with no waiting time, just the 5 to 10 second transporter effect/cycle - i am talking about manually taking your shuttle into the atmosphere of a planet and flying it down to the planet surface with no loading or transition screens. I am talking about the demise of the long lived and much hated loading screen where you have to wait 2 freakin minutes for your computer to load the next enviroment.

We have enough technology to make it happen.

What does everyone else think?!?! Are my needs a part of tomorrows world?!

I agree with BLZBUB. Its absolutely possible to make the universe look and feel seamless when the transitions are made in a clever way: Turbolifts, Transporters, Shuttleflight, Public Transportation, Warp Transfer, Wormholes...

All this can serve as a highly sophisticated loading screen, that makes you totally forget what it actually is: A nice distraction during loading times.

when you take a shuttle out of your ship, as the bay doors open...the outside environment loads along the edges of the opening doors. And as you enter the atmosphere, there could be cloud layers that you pass through, which are hiding the terrain loading as you descend!

Thats the kinda thing i meant acutally, i just didnt have time to expand as much as i wanted to.

Of course there is still going to be loading involved, but as long as you make the loading occur in a dynamic enviroment where you can still do stuff, the issue of loading screens becomes irrelevant.

People hate static loading screens cos you just have to sit there and wait, there is nothing you can do.

I hope they will implement it.

I am curious, how is loading handled in game likes WOW? Anyone know?

I am curious, how is loading handled in game likes WOW? Anyone know?

In Guild Wars, when you go to any other area than the one you're in now (leaving/entering a town, entering the next area of a mountain range, traveling to another continent) you get a loading screen. When you've recently (as in, during the last hour) been in that area it takes only a few seconds, if you've been there longer ago, or worse: never, it can take a few minutes.
Mind you, these times are on my computer, wich only just makes the minimum system requirements.

I think seemless loading is great, but may not be always practical. High-end computers can probably manage seamless loading, but what if you're playing on a computer wich barely meets the requirements? I think they would start lagging whenever the player even comes near a new area. For this reason I suggest that maybe you could have a setting wich allows you to choose wich to use, something like:

[ ] Use seamless loading (the area you are approaching will load in the background)
[ ] Use a loading screen (any new area you enter won't begin loading untill you actually enter, and you will see a loading screen till it's fully loaded (greatly increases performance on slow computers))

Yeah, but if you're going about it that way, you would basically be replacing a loading screen by a loading video clip, is that what you're suggesting?