Is anyone else afraid that Open World Games, specifically RPGs will become the COD/FPS of next gen?

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Windcaler

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Nov 7, 2010
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I doubt it. The thing about CoD and most FPS games in general is you can make them pretty cheaply and easily reuse assets from game to game. Open world RPGs like The elder scrolls and recent fallout games have a much higher cost to make. They are quite expensive because of all the detail that needs to put into the game.

Constantly making these games and making a profit is possible because theyre usually really really good but I dont think it'll become something all RPG makers do just because of the cost associated
 

michael87cn

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Jan 12, 2011
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Chris Tian said:
Not all open world games are the same. Skyrim for example is very very large but also very bland, on the other hand games like Gothic and its spiritual successor Risen have much smaller worlds but are far more atmospheric. I for one expect The Witcher 3 to go down the later route.

So I don't think all RPG's are going to mimic Skyrim (extreamly large and bland) even if they take a more open-world-y approach to level design.
Skyrim is not bland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s3T2YGSqGM

It's not up-to-tech with what PCs can do currently, but that doesn't mean its bland. If you stop COD sprinting for a minute while playing you might just catch some beautiful stuff.
 

Chris Tian

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May 5, 2012
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michael87cn said:
Chris Tian said:
Not all open world games are the same. Skyrim for example is very very large but also very bland, on the other hand games like Gothic and its spiritual successor Risen have much smaller worlds but are far more atmospheric. I for one expect The Witcher 3 to go down the later route.

So I don't think all RPG's are going to mimic Skyrim (extreamly large and bland) even if they take a more open-world-y approach to level design.
Skyrim is not bland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s3T2YGSqGM

It's not up-to-tech with what PCs can do currently, but that doesn't mean its bland. If you stop COD sprinting for a minute while playing you might just catch some beautiful stuff.
I did not mean the landscapes, they are obviously one of the strong points. I mean what its filled with, the characters and quests. It has very few interesting characters and even about the few you meet you can learn even less since there is no such thing as conversations in Skyrim. And almost every quest is a variation of "go there, clear dungeon".
 

ninjaRiv

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Watching E3, I was a bit concerned. "Open World" was said A LOT. I think it'll work for Witcher 3 and maybe Dragon Age, but not for everything. MGSV just looks like "what if Hideo Kojima made Assassin's Creed."

What's been depressing is seeing the amount of comments like "This is gonna suck because it's not open world" on Murdered: Soul Suspect videos. I've had to explain to non gaming friends that open world doesn't work for everything. Linear can be good!
 

Spectrum_Prez

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Okay, first of all, "Open World Games" is not a genre. It's not even a "mechanic" or a "setting".
Rather, it's an element of level design. It's a base part of gameplay building that isn't inherently good or bad - that all depends on how it's used in the greater context of the game.

The two big open-world franchises, TES/Fallout and GTA, use open-world design for drastically different reasons.

In GTA games, the core gameplay that pulls people back in again and again is the run-and-gun, frenetic, dynamic, highly randomized chase/shoot out sequences you can trigger by accidentally backing over a cop as you pull out of the mall. These episodes are fun because you never know what's going to happen next. It's immersive because you react (to a certain extent) like a real fugitive would. You can go left, right, ahead, back, make a stand, highjack a helicopter, or scram for cover (paint job). The decisions are realistic, and that's where the game generates the bulk of its entertainment value. The open world is necessary to facilitate this sort of gameplay because you can't have all of this in a corridor.

In the TES/Fallout games, the open world exists because the core gameplay in those titles revolves around exploration. The strength of these series is in allowing the player to ask and answer, "What's on the other side of the hill?" It's about going on long hikes, getting lost in the wilderness, seeing the sun crest over a distant mountain. For all of these purposes, you need an open world. You can't coax that sort of exploration-hunger out of a linear path. A linear Bioware game can't tell me I'm "exploring" a new alien/fantastical world when they're railroading me from one set battle sequence to another.

The point I'm getting at is that GTA and TES have very, very dissimilar core gameplay, but at the same time they both use the open world feature well.

So, if nextgen games want to succeed in using open world games, they have to start from the ground up and ask "What is the core gameplay going to be and do we need an open world to make it work?" Simply because your setting is cool and you want to show the player more of it doesn't cut it.

For the Witcher 3, I can see it working... although tbh I think the first-person camera is the other half of the formula in TES/Fallout games and as CDProjektRed doesn't have that, they're going for something else that isn't exploration. What exactly, I'm not sure.

For Mirror's Edge 2, it makes no bloody sense at all. The game is at heart a racing game. You run the same course over and over again until you nail it down to perfection. Open world doesn't add anything to that experience. Sure, Faith's world is really interesting and I'd love to see more of it, but that should be in a different series with totally different core gameplay mechanics.

Two side notes:

1.) Far Cry 3 is an example of where the open-world level design and the gameplay fell apart a bit. It tried to do the frenetic randomized run-and-gun of GTA, but wasn't as good (for a variety of reasons). At the same time, the core CTF gameplay didn't rely on the open world. And because you move linearly from one end of the map to the other, there's no real added benefit. Integration fail. But, yeah, it was hella pretty.

2.) I tend to think of Paradox Development Studio games as open world (Europa Universalis, Victoria, Crusader Kings). You start off in a world with its own rules and 'engine' running the AI. The game can 'play' itself without you. You're dropped in as a character (country or ruler), and can muck about to your heart's content. I guess the same could be said for Civ games, but those have a number of predetermined "win" conditions...
 

Anthony Corrigan

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Why would anyone be WORRIED about dragon age being an open world game? thats what a good RPG SHOULD be, it should be about the story and about the exploring and the world. It shouldn't be a game grabing you by the nose and draging you through a mediocre AT BEST (at worst completely nonsensical clusterfuck of ideas that make no sense and contradict each other as well as being so convoluted and complex that no one could follow them) story, yes I'm referring to final fantasy 13
 

TehCookie

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I'd like it. I loved the sidescrollers and platformers when those were big, I loved the JRPGs the PS1 and PS2 era, and I dislike FPSes so this gen was bad. If it goes back to a genre I like then woohoo. You'll still have good games in other genres and I don't expect any of the copycats to be great, but I can play a B open world RPG. I can't play a B shooter.
 

Evonisia

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Jun 24, 2013
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I think more open world is required in the gaming market. I believe somebody's already brought it up but I'll say it too... games like Mirror's Edge suffer from the lack of world to move about in. MGS' return to stealth can perhaps be improved by being able to choose what you do and where you go.

However I think that Open World could perhaps be the next FPS for normal developers to make millions with each release, and because Open World is much harder to pull off than FPS' many games will be incredibly boring and probably either have too little or too much writing/dialogue/descriptions and the characters will be on Dishonoured's level of awfully bland. This worries me but hopefully it won't reach this level.