I mentioned a while back how gorgeous Telara is, and I’ve been meaning to follow that up with some panorama shots. This is a shot of Meridian as seen across the Lake of Solace from the Shimmersand desert.
(click on the image for the full-size version)
Vistas of Telara
This is one of the reasons that I love MMOs so much. WoW has spoiled me with their seemless zone transitions, but we should give credit to Rift for having such a wide open world to explore without loading screens to get in the way. It is so amazing that you could start swimming (I assume, never been there) and eventually you would actually reach that city.
You absolutely could and without any kind of loading screens. There are actually a few achievements in the lake so you could make some side-trips while swimming across.
Some day someone will combine a large seamless world with a single shard/instanced design where the instancing is completely transparent and I’ll be in heaven.