Open worlds are great whenever there is clear effort put into them to make them unique instead of just trying to copy what Bethesda or Rockstar does (which even Bethesda's efforts aren't the best).
I'd say the best open world game I've played in recent memory is The Witcher 3. Its world design is just enthralling and interesting, and the quests you're given in that game (even the side quests) actually feel like they had some effort put into them and feel unique and connected to the world as a whole. It's basically the type of open world that Bethesda worlds come just short of reaching (and would probably reach if they had better writers...).
Funnily enough, I've also found myself enjoying Watch_Dogs 2's open world recently. It is your standard fair Ubisoft open world to some degree, but just your ability to interact with it at any point and see the world even react to itself, by itself, is definitely interesting.
Just Cause 2
I'm surprised he hasn't brought it up.
Though i suppose it can still be fun and entertaining with that grappling hook but that's literally the only redeeming thing about it. That and it's MP.
[QUOTE=Ott;51615372]Hindsight is 20/20[/QUOTE]
Yes it is, but I knew what NMS was going to be right from the start. I didn't care for it and wasn't hyped for a moment. My friend also knew what it was going to be right from the start, he looked forward to release, bought it, played it, and enjoyed it for what it was.
Honestly, if you thought NMS was going to be an amazing super game that revolutionises everything and has this massive, deep and explorable galaxy with all sorts of amazing sights, and aliens to see, with multiplayer and alien civilizations and this and that, then frankly, you brought the disappointment upon yourself. If you thought it was going to be an average space survival crafting game, then you looked at the marketing and the footage and interpreted it like any not dumb person would.
[QUOTE=Rossy167;51615450]Yes it is, but I knew what NMS was going to be right from the start. I didn't care for it and wasn't hyped for a moment. My friend also knew what it was going to be right from the start, he looked forward to release, bought it, played it, and enjoyed it for what it was.
Honestly, if you thought NMS was going to be an amazing super game that revolutionises everything and has this massive, deep and explorable galaxy with all sorts of amazing sights, and aliens to see, with multiplayer and alien civilizations and this and that, then frankly, you brought the disappointment upon yourself. If you thought it was going to be an average space survival crafting game, then you looked at the marketing and the footage and interpreted it like any not dumb person would.[/QUOTE]
The developers lied too much, in videos and interviews, for anyone to really blame the fanbase tbh. Overhyping is dumb, but they advertised an almost whole other game. The guy even kept pretending multiplayer was still a thing on release day on twitter and then went completely dark when everyone was mad that it was a lie.
[QUOTE=Rossy167;51615450]Yes it is, but I knew what NMS was going to be right from the start. I didn't care for it and wasn't hyped for a moment. My friend also knew what it was going to be right from the start, he looked forward to release, bought it, played it, and enjoyed it for what it was.
Honestly, if you thought NMS was going to be an amazing super game that revolutionises everything and has this massive, deep and explorable galaxy with all sorts of amazing sights, and aliens to see, with multiplayer and alien civilizations and this and that, then frankly, you brought the disappointment upon yourself. If you thought it was going to be an average space survival crafting game, then you looked at the marketing and the footage and interpreted it like any not dumb person would.[/QUOTE]
NMS showed that there were a lot of people who didn't - and possibly still don't - understand the limitations of random worldgen. After the first delay I saw a lot of people throwing around the idea that Hello Games was "refining" NMS' worldgen to make it more interesting. Unless your code straight up doesn't work the only thing you can do to make a randomly generated world more interesting is add more content for the game to generate, which is functionally equivalent to adding content into a linear game except you have less control over how it spawns. Random and procedural worldgen are used to assist other elements of the game. Bringing them to the forefront is a [I]terrible[/I] idea and no amount of "refining" is ever going to make it not terrible.
[QUOTE=shadow_oap;51615632]The developers lied too much, in videos and interviews, for anyone to really blame the fanbase tbh. Overhyping is dumb, but they advertised an almost whole other game. The guy even kept pretending multiplayer was still a thing on release day on twitter and then went completely dark when everyone was mad that it was a lie.[/QUOTE]
But what sort of moron do you have to be to have actually believed those lies? The evidence was clear, it looked like an unremarkable survival crafting game with procedural world generation. The fact that anyone got hyped for that in today's gaming scene baffles me.
I was cautious about NMS. I was sure that Hello Games could pull off the concept of a seemingly "limitless" universe because procedural generation, but due to lack of info (and the info we got being vague as fuck), I didn't get too hyped about it.
And honestly, I don't mind NMS because of that. I don't love it, nor do I hate it. It's just a thing. A thing that part of me hopes will become more interesting after some updates, but that I expect to not really change drastically in any meaningful way without some mods maybe.
At the very least, it's pushed the concept of a space exploration game out of the corner it was in, and might pave the way for a game that will satiate the hunger NMS left people with by doing things "better."
I remember finding Farcry 3 somewhat boring, and the only reason I did anything other than the story was to get signature weapons. Really felt like you cleared out one base, you cleared out them all. The real important thing about sandboxes is that there has to some stuff worth exploring for, otherwise it's just, well, a box of sand.
funny he uses skyrim as an example of a good open world when the game has a lot of fucking nothing too. Pointless bandit camps and caverns with generic loot. There's a ton of villages too that aren't interesting because every NPC has one line, two at best.
Older TES had this issue too but I'd argue to a lesser extent and I remember in Oblivion most NPCs had something to say at least. Or the villages had their own little hidden secret
[QUOTE=ashxu;51616484]funny he uses skyrim as an example of a good open world when the game has a lot of fucking nothing too. Pointless bandit camps and caverns with generic loot. There's a ton of villages too that aren't interesting because every NPC has one line, two at best.
Older TES had this issue too but I'd argue to a lesser extent and I remember in Skyrim most NPCs had something to say at least. Or the villages had their own little hidden secret[/QUOTE]
I hated how in skyrim the "secret" was shoehorned in your face within 5 minutes of being there. Like yelling at me "here's the big quest for this village/town!" I don't know, I kind of wish it was a bit more difficult to find or unexpected (but then how would we appeal to the casual gamers?) It just felt uncreative.
Like a lot of open world games.
[QUOTE=ashxu;51616484]funny he uses skyrim as an example of a good open world when the game has a lot of fucking nothing too. Pointless bandit camps and caverns with generic loot. There's a ton of villages too that aren't interesting because every NPC has one line, two at best.
Older TES had this issue too but I'd argue to a lesser extent and I remember in Skyrim most NPCs had something to say at least. Or the villages had their own little hidden secret[/QUOTE]
Pretty much every TES game has the issue of a lot of things feeling very copy pasted, which mostly comes down to Bethesda's development habits (making areas based on pre-made kits).
It got around it though in the older games by actually having interesting writing and quests. With Skyrim and Fallout 4 having their quests so diluted, the flaws of their formula have only become more obvious, even if they put more effort into making the world than before.
The Yakuza games have the best open worlds. The city is pretty small compared to other open world games but on the flip side there's a ton of detail crammed in there and tons of stuff to do.
I'm very happy he called out Division for this because much as I like the story and even the gameplay, it is such a criminal [I]waste[/I]of an environment as beautifully detailed as it is.
All the side missions outside of the story missions (hell, just [I]barely[/I]) feel repetitive, and generic. All this is then conveniently explained away by the fact that it is a loot based game, so the loot is all that matters. It's aggravating, because the game on highest settings is mind-numbingly beautiful, has small details that have gone into the environments to make them very believable, but....there's just no content, no story. Here and there they've just chosen to lazily drop down phones, ECHO's that help with the world building, but non-participatory and ultimately, pretty bland.
The only thing that's shown some glimmer of entertainment recently was the Survival mode, because it had nothing to do with the core gameplay at all and actually built an atmosphere of its own.
I've come to take it most game studios literally make open world environments and decide to have RNJesus take the wheel as far as content is concerned and it's such a waste of excellent environment and concept design.
I don't mind open worlds that have a lot of nothingness so long as it gives me plenty of toys to just screw around with. I don't want an open world that is basically a few corridors around maybe a larger corridor and I don't need to be tripping over something every fifteen seconds nor every ten minutes find that everything in the area I just left is locked off forever, save for the occasional "return" levels where you come back to the same hallway but with everything that isn't level geometry changed around.
Amakir brought up the Yakuza games, and Yakuza 3 is still one of my all time favorites games, the open world being one of many reasons. It's got a lot of stuff you can just do for no real reason. I don't mind the elder scrolls games being filled with nothing, I get a fair amount of toys and opportunities to cause chaos or play around or just anything. Frankly, I don't need meaning to what I do in open-worlds, I just need stuff to play with, I'll make the fun myself.
I make a point to avoid quests in Fallout 4.
I just like walking around and checking out all the landmarks Bethesda made.
And reading the terminals. I like reading the terminals.
I played Far Cry 4 at one of my friend's a few weeks ago, and even though I only played two hours I really had no desire to play any more. Felt like I'd already done everything it had to offer, and thinking back it's kind of a red light when you can [I]replay[/I] taking out some outpost, like they couldn't even put enough generic bases in there to keep you entertained. Really I (not on purpose, mind you) mostly just did a lot of walking/driving without encountering anything really interesting.
[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;51616792]I make a point to avoid quests in Fallout 4.
I just like walking around and checking out all the landmarks Bethesda made.
And reading the terminals. I like reading the terminals.[/QUOTE]
For all of flaws Fallout 4 has in terms of it's RPG mechanics and storytelling, Fallout 4's open world is probably one of the best, there's a lot of care and love put into it. Since i'm working on my own worldspace mod for FO4 i've been closely analysing the way Bethesda built it's world and it really makes me appreciate all the hard work they put into it.
Too bad the engine runs like ass so all of the effort to make the large downtown boston is kinda wasted by it running like shit, and all of the environments looking kinda ass from distance because gamebryo's way of handling LODs is also ass.
[QUOTE=ashxu;51616484]funny he uses skyrim as an example of a good open world when the game has a lot of fucking nothing too. Pointless bandit camps and caverns with generic loot. There's a ton of villages too that aren't interesting because every NPC has one line, two at best.
Older TES had this issue too but I'd argue to a lesser extent and I remember in Oblivion most NPCs had something to say at least. Or the villages had their own little hidden secret[/QUOTE]
Someone once described skyrim to me with "lots of content without content"
It gets boring once you realize almost every mission is "go to a cave and retrieve item x"
[QUOTE=Adarrek;51615439]Just Cause 2
I'm surprised he hasn't brought it up.
Though i suppose it can still be fun and entertaining with that grappling hook but that's literally the only redeeming thing about it. That and it's MP.[/QUOTE]
I had a shit ton of fun with that game, probably a lot to do with the mods I had though.
I want more games like New Vegas and less games like Skyrim. New Vegas still felt focused and still felt "big" to me, especially with the DLC worlds.
[QUOTE=BlackMageMari;51617036]I want more games like New Vegas and less games like Skyrim. New Vegas still felt focused and still felt "big" to me, especially with the DLC worlds.[/QUOTE]
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM1yR7WYqgM[/media]
I guess on a related note, I don't know how/when 'linear gameplay' became a negative attribute for a game.
[QUOTE=angelangel;51617188]I guess on a related note, I don't know how/when 'linear gameplay' became a negative attribute for a game.[/QUOTE]
I blame CoD
MGSV's Africa map is fucking empty and terrible. 90% of the map is empty.
mgsv needed a big ass grozny grad -like fortress to infiltrate with hallways and locker rooms and traps
[QUOTE=Drury;51617210]I blame CoD[/QUOTE]
It's funny cause even Infinite Warfare has a ship as a hub that connects to missions
Hub worlds need to make a return in general, I don't know why they disappeared in favour for extremely linear where everythings shoved in your face or extremely open with nothing to do
It's so clear that a city was intended to be in the game, there are so many camos that refer to urban environments that don't match [I]anything[/I] in the game
[QUOTE=angelangel;51617188]I guess on a related note, I don't know how/when 'linear gameplay' became a negative attribute for a game.[/QUOTE]
Right around the time that a perceived co-relation was formed between "campaign gameplay time" and "justification of 60 USD price tag". Linear gameplay was seen as very little "actual gameplay" whereas people doing random shit in, say, GTA 5's sandboxes was still considered a part of "the gameplay experience".
This shift to open-world is part of a very real way AAA game companies are slowly killing off the onus of the actual "entertainment" part of their product through decent singleplayer campaigns and moving it to a multi-player, persistent "open world" where anything can happen and the onus of "having fun" is on the user.
After my experience with The Division on this front, I think that an open world is actually a huge red flag (and this is what's actually put me off the idea of ordering Ghost Recon Wildlands), because it means that the developers, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that I am to take on the responsibility of "leasing" their environment to have fun on my own, which is a fundamental misunderstanding of my expectation that [I]they[/I] be the ones crafting a gameplay experience, with content and lore, for the money I put in. Not RNJesus telling me to destroy enemy base/free hostages/secure supplies for the eleventeenth fucking time.
My list of games that do open worlds right (hell, maybe even [b]require[/b] open world design)
- GTA series
- Zelda
- Fallout
- Elder Scrolls
- Witcher3
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
What these games have in common is a narrative that works at a player designated pace, actually well developed content that fills the world with memorable and interesting things, good indications of a lived in breathing world, and/or incredible sandbox interaction.
[QUOTE=paul simon;51614893]Should be mentioned that Crysis 1 and Crysis: Warhead did this really well.[/QUOTE]
The first Crysis games were amazing, even more so today when you can finally max them out with 100+ FPS. Such a shame they completely fucked the series up with 2 and 3
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