I like the exploration into the bush that usually (in a well made game anyways) ends with a fun little item/thing/LOOT reward after some of the “Off the beaten path” wandering. Or, if your feeling VERY inspired, have unnoffical quest like linking in these off the beaten path expositions. (Think Golden Chocobo and your on the right track)
“Too open” is Fallout/Oblivion (IMO), but perhaps a tad more then TQ/D2 would be just right.
Neat “Mini bosses” off the beaten path are a nice touch too.
In my opinion, an open world approach is a very nice thing, but very difficult to implement. Several other gameplay mechanics are affected and have to be changed accordingly. I’ll try to desribe some:
Open World / Old-School Gameplay Experience
If designed properly, the player will finish an open-world area in about the same time as an old-school area. The difference: If a player has finished an old-school area, he will have seen (nearly) everything of it - he will probably have cleared all fog of war, have defeated all monsters, plundered all chests. He will have done everything the designer has planned and prepared for him. An open-world environment, on the other hand, is never “finished”, but it merely serves as a setting for various parts and aspects of the game. The player roams the area freely, without quickly meeting with boundaries and limits, thus being able to find his own way and create his own, personal gameplay experience. To him, the level feels less like a small, pre-defined labyrinth, and more like, well, a great, big, open word.
As you see, an open-world approach surely has it’s benefits, and at first glance it may seem much better than old-school level design. As I said before, though, it’s very difficult to do. The major problem is: If a player tries to play an open-world area like an old-school area, exploring it completely, trying to do and find everything, gameplay suffers greatly: Slow progress becomes tiresome for the player, the area gets boring and repetitive, the positve open-world effect is gone once the map is fully explored, etc. A game that has a half-baked open world and is played like an old-school game is clearly inferior to every well-designed old-school game.
Exploration
An open-world environment is not supposed to be completely explored, thus you have to make sure you neither force nor urge the player to do so - let him decide for himself how long he wants to remain in an area. Exploration is no longer a valid requirement for anything. For example, just placing some quest-giver NPC deep in the wilderness for the player to be found (as mentioned in the first post) is a total no-go, because players who want to do all quests will be forced to do old-school exploration to find them. Instead, place some kind of kick-off in a non-open-world area. Let’s say you really want that quest-giver hermit deep in the woods - instead of making exploration the only way to find him, just add an NPC to the nearby town (=non-open-world area) that tells the player about the hermit and gives some general directions (e.g. “south of the big waterfall”). In this case, players might still stumble upon the hermit by chance, but they aren’t forced to do old-school exploration in case they don’t.
Of course, many players will spend some additional time exploring, especially if the area is designed nicely, so don’t forget to add lots of rewards: mini-bosses, treasure-chests, challenging fights, beautiful scenery, etc. Just don’t add something that might be painful for the player to miss.
User Interface
A map that looks like a zoomed-out version of the area and represents the player’s progress in exploration is well suited for old-school games, but not for an open-world approach. They encourage players to explore the entire map, and they become too crowded once the areas get very big. What you need is a less detailed, more abstract map, that focuses on landmarks, and the general arrangement of different areas. Also, you’ll need to add features that help players navigate big open-world areas. For examples, an option to mark locations on the map would certainly be useful. Also, an option to select a destination (town, landmark, custom mark on the map) to have an arrow or something to help you find the way would prevent players from getting lost.
Putting open-world areas to good use
On the developer side, open-world areas have a major disadvantage: they are way bigger, thus take more time to design. Also, the player might not see everything you create, further increasing development time in relation to play time. To make up for this, you have to make sure your open-world areas are put to good use. Unlike an old-school area that is finished once the player has passed through it, an open-world area should remain useful as long as possible.
For example, let’s say there is a great big forest the player has to pass through from west to northeast to get from town A to town B while progressing in the main quest. In town A, you get a quest concerning a missing person and some info about a great cave, both located south of the road. If you do some exploring north of the road, you might also encounter an old woodcutter who gives another quest. If you don’t, you get info about hin in town B. Also in town B, you get info about some ingredient for alchemy, item crafting or whatnot that can be found in the forst, enabling you to see it and pick it up. After progressing further in the main quest, you end up in town F, located in the south-east of the big forest. There you get a major side-quest that requires you to travel through the forest to town A, through a part of the forst you might not have seen before. By that time, one or two minor sidequests become available in town A, also taking place in the forest. Also, you’ll have learned of more ingredients since your last visit to the forst, so you could also go searching for those. Some of the most prominent areas in the forst may change over time - let’s say there are the ruins of a freshly destroyed inn along the road, swarmed with the monsters who destroyed it. If you return there later, the ruins are overgrown, and inhabited by undead.
Speaking about monsters, since the player is encouraged to re-visit the forest often, monsters have to become more challenging. Place monsters who only appear if the character has reached a certain level, making mobs bigger for stronger characters. Add heroes who cast enchantments to make mobs stronger. Have monsters automatically being replaced by better ones.
Long story short, always make sure the forest keeps being a place worth visiting. It is not level 2 that becomes obsolete after reaching level 3, but a part of a great, big gaming world.
I guess there is a lot more to be mentioned, e.g. how to have quest rewards remain attractive if the player does a quest later than usual, how to handle difficulties (open world stuff keeps the world interesting, so the player’s less inclined to leave it for a fresh start in another difficulty), etc. But this post is already pretty much tl;dr, so I’ll leave it at that =)
I think you could cater to both styles easily. The best way to keep casual players on track is to keep navigation easy and detailed so no one gets lost on the map. You could then stray as far as you wanted for that exploration some desire and still be able to get right back on track once your ready to move forward.
That brings you back to the forward progression. You want to make exploration optional yet rewarding while allowing players to follow a narrow linear path to an end goal.
Keeping side quests separate from quests in the main path would help keep things simple for people who wish to just plow straight through the game in the main story line. While leaving lots of small openings for people who have more time and ambition to explore additional content.
Sounds ideal to me anyhow.
There could also be a marker that shows up on the minimap pointing in the general direction of both the main quest (in one colour) and an actice sidequest (in another) that way all you have ot do is follow the compas if you get a little lost or distracted. I think sacred had something like that. Of course those markers could just point to regions or dungeons rather than the exact spot so you have to at least do a little hunting around to find whatever it is you’re looking for.
That is basically what I was getting at. You want the world to be large and expansive but easy to find your way around in. With decent navigation you can do a lot more.
i dunno about navigation, for instance, i know it isnt the same thing but
compare Morrowind and Oblivion
In Oblivion a NPC tells you Go to the cave of the damned for instance, i’ll mark it on your map
In Morrowind a NPC will tell you that very same cave, he’ll tell you something along those lines: The cave of the lines … * insert story here * … to reach it you have to head north until you reach the pinnacle rock and then look south around the edges of the northern bank of the lake…
imo that feels MUCH more immersive.
I hated the compass in oblivion, felt like it was more or less lazyness of the developpers. i tried turning it off but you just get near to no indications on where to go…
My point being, i’d rather have a NPC tell me specific info on where to head (with kind of area titles popping on screen or signs and crap) rather than having a pointer
I’ve been playing Sacred1 with a couple of friends a lot lately, and one of the things that is the most appealing is the mostly open world. There’s nothing stopping you from simply running past all the mobs and getting to the endgame area, assuming of course you survive the higher level mobs.
The world feels a lot more convincing when you open the map and plot out your own course, and choose for yourself whether to engage the wildlife on your way there. What we found was that at first we’d play like a “traditional” arpg and kill our way to every objective, but eventually just started killing the mobs that were technically in our way. This also had mounts “make sense” in a way that I haven’t seen in an isometric arpg before, with how they gave a defense bonus and could set off a short buff that let you power through crowds - something that wouldn’t really fit in diablo2 or TQ where the areas are designed to be tackled on foot.
All in all I think I just like the aspect of being able to choose whether to gun straight for the objective or to run around mopping up first. Sometimes I just feel like chilling out, bashing dudes, and discovering secrets. Other times I want to make progress as efficiently as possible.
plus in sacred one there are TONS of areas which dont have to be visited at ALL in order to beat the game… i mean… i spent most of my time exploring leveling and gearing up to finally head up north and start the main quest haha
In Sacred 2, in the elf area there’s an underground area that you can find that is as big as the above ground. It’s like the makers doubled the playing land WITH ABSOLUTELY NO END GAME REASON TO BE THERE!
At first I thought wow, what a cool place to explore, but then I started to think that a heck of a lot of work went into making this area, and no real reason for me to do it more than once (for the complete immersive feel). I resolved with my later characters to do the area when I got there, but as it was close to the end of the game, I usually bypassed to to finish the game and plow right on to the later difficulty (which always has better drops). Also, since sacred 2 completely randomized drops, there were no MIs to farm from there that you absolutely had to get, unlike TQIT.
Now that I think about it, a little extra exploring space is nice, but too much, it starts to become wasted junk.
Dejnov.
You have to distinguish between three things when talking about play style in this context: the play style required by the game, the style encouraged by the game, and the style used by the player (based on his preferences).
A proper open world approach allows for a rather big variety in the player’s personal play style, so far your statement is true. But there can not be a game that requires both old-school and open-world gameplay, for they are totally different.
Let me make up an example: Take one of those typical greek areas in Titan Quest, grassland with some Satyr camps. Now imagine that area would have been ten times as large in an attempt to include some open-world element into the game. Game mechanics remain unchanged, focused on old-school gameplay, thus the player is required to explore the entire map - there might be some quest-giver NPC somewhere on this large map, with some really important quest that grants a stat boost as a reward. Bottom line: gameplay remains just the same, the only difference is exploration taking way longer than usual, which will most likely get pretty boring. The introduction of open-world elements has actually made the game worst instead of better, for gameplay mechanics have not been changed accordingly.
Or there is a clearly visible road/track that leads through the camp on a short route, and all NPCs that are to be found off-track only offer exploration sidequests, that are awarded with Information (deeper insights into the game world - exactly the stuff that appeal to exploration players) and no stat boosts.
So any player can choose to stay on the path, or to go exploring, or to mix both. Caters both playstyles.
For more detailed information, see my first post in this thread
Roads won’t make any difference, as they are just a means of navigation - and not even a very good one, imho, for they encourage players to always follow the same path. As mentioned before, the tools I deem most useful are an abstract map with little detail that shows landmarks, towns, etc. (without fog of war), a feature to mark locations on your map, and an option to display an arrow pointing to a target location of your choice.
But, even if both your roads and my suggestion would be implemented, it would not fix a bad open-world implementation. Even if there is a road heading north, a signpost pointing north, a flashing mark on your map, an arrow on the UI and ten NPCs telling you to head north, it wouldn’t make any difference if the player is under the impression that exploring the entire area instead of just following the path is necessary.
Placing less important quest givers (that don’t grant vital rewards like stat boosts) in remote areas may seem like a good compromise, but it’s rather dangerous. I’m sure there are a lot of players who’d want to complete all quests, even if they aren’t very important, so you could easily break the game for them. Also, communication would be a most critical issue: how can you make sure players know the hidden quest givers can safely be omitted?
I think the safest way to encourage and reward exploration while making sure not to force players into old-school exploration is to use methods that don’t require one specific location. For example, if there are some kinds of ingredients to be found in an area, they could be found in several places all over the area. Same goes, of course, for monsters, hero monsters and chests.
To make those things, and exploration in general, more interesting, it might be a good idea to rely on “distance to civilization” in leveldesign - things like towns, roads, inns, traders or huts represent civilization, and the further you walk away from those, the scenery gets more “wild” (e.g. forest gets denser and darker), the monsters get stronger, the chests bigger and more ingredients can be found.
What I like about TQ is that you can explore right to the edges of a particular area and yet you still find the way to the next part of the map. Yes, I did get lost a few times at first, mainly because I couldn’t initially spot the exit to the next section, but in my early play and even now on normal with a new character I clear an entire area before moving on to gain that essential experience we all need to level up. I’m not a big fan of exploration for exploration’s sake, but I think TQ gave a good balance between wandering around seeing what you could find and progessing on the main quest as well. It’s nice to find a side quest tucked out of the way which you wouldn’t have found following the path as well as the more obvious ones you pick up in the towns and villages.
Go with a more linear progression, just lots of it. You shouldnt have to spend too much time in one area, though most of them should have a few hidden quests to complete. And in light of Shawnmcks post, I say go all the way with it. If an Arcane Sanctuary exists in grim dawn I would be psyched!! It could be like a tear in the Rift, a kind of ‘Land of the Lost’. You could really do some amazing stuff with that , and I dont think it should be completely cast out as an idea. (Coming from 7 Years of D2 revival)
I am influenced by Torchlight .
I think that large maps are fine but maybe we should have many other paths to travel to the ‘main quest area’.
Like you explored a huge swamp,stumbled upon a strange rock and voila! a lone boulder gets moved revealing a staircase to a secret cave which could lead to the main quest area.Or you complete a side quest a man lends you his boat to cross a narrow brook.
Or an encampent of highly elite monsters who have tunneled their way to their boss’s encampent on his order to create a shotcut.
Or perhaps a barrel of gunpowder lies near blocked cave entrance.If you have a gun you can shoot it to expose the entrance,etc.
so it would make exploration rewarding while removing the fear of losing your way from the ‘main quest path’.
If I could describe myself, I would probably say I’m the “casual” gamer of these forums, at least compared to most. I loved D2, but I never cared for the multiplayer aspect whatsoever (I didn’t buy/sell/trade, didn’t do the ladders, didn’t PvP, didn’t care if my equipment sucked), and I basically stuck to single player. When I played TQ, I had the same experience. I played (still play) TQ entirely single player, and I would just have fun advancing in the game here and there whenever time allowed me.
That being said, I loved games like Oblivion/Morrowind/Fallout, Two Worlds 2 (someone will hate on me for saying that!), Mount & Blade, etc as well. There is something great about having an open world to explore inside of your sandbox, but you absolutely NEED direction with it too. As much fun as it is wandering around trying to discover new things or new quests, it is much better to have someone “direct” you to the aforementioned areas, so you aren’t wandering around aimlessly looking for who knows what.
The thing that I didn’t like about TQ, which I did like about D2, was the random level generators. It was never “completely” random, but the layout and random monsters changed every time you played. That gave D2 an extremely high level of replayability, whereas TQ was always the same. TQ had the problem where if you created a new character, you knew where every monster/boss would be, you knew where every quest would be, and you felt like you were repeating the same old thing over and over again. The whole fun of creating a new character was diminished because of that.
I’m not entirely sure if this is what you were looking for, but I think it might help. Even if you can’t create the whole random generator thing that D2 had, you could always create random generation of where monsters would be, what types, and so on and so forth. A level doesn’t need to be completely full of saiters/harpies/crows. The level doesn’t need the same boss over and over again. You could level them based on the area, and have tons of different monster types randomly generated each time you played through the level. This would help immensely with the tediousness of running through a past area again. I don’t want to know where everything is again if I create a new character. There needs to be some type of randomness ala D2, or the whole idea just becomes a struggle in deja vu.
FWIW, I liked the Escher level in D2. It was open so that you could use ranged attacks, but the spaces acted like walls. The teleporters were slightly annoying as pointless puzzles, but overall I liked it. But then again you cannot really do Escher-type stuff in real 3D…which is the whole point of Escher. Otherwise I cannot see how that level was any different from the others that had crevasses or lave separating paths.
That was one of the coolest levels in D2.
I’m going to draw from experience with my all-time favorite RPG here and suggest something:
have the areas broken up into chunks where there are several lateral exploration things and quests/secrets but have a clear cut “end-goal” for each area so that a player can either choose to fully explore an area and uncover all its secrets but they also have the option at any time to just go for the end goal of the area and make forward progress like you mentioned.
The end reward for exploring all of the side options/quests/alcoves of any 1 area should be that they are ultimately more prepared (maybe even more than needed) for the next area.
as long as theirs crates and boxe’s for me to smash along the way im fine with walking forever =o