Some great replies on both sides of the debate.
I think the main thing which is getting to me about TW3 is the fact that it's so easy to drop into a formula of doing things because of how it's designed. What does each village have? A shop of somesort, a noticeboard and next to naff all people to interact with. What do I do? Do a Main/Secondary/Contract quest, go to shops & restock/repair, move on to the next.
It makes it very repetitive & boring, and the lack of general interaction with people REALLY hurts the RPG feel IMO. In TW2 and other such RPGs it felt way more natural and far less mathmatical.
Seriously, is there actually any point in exploring villages? It's as if every village is a carbon copy of the next, with nothing of note.
Joccaren said:
Ahh yes, the significant elements of 'ghost in the cliffs #300', or 'Nekker #4000', 'Drownie #30', 'Endredga #56' and the ever so memorable harpies litering the entirety of the second act.
There were a ton of just filler mobs to kill in two as well, they just didn't have a map marker above them. Some of them had a quest that'd give you a handful of coin tied to them, but that was about as impactful as most of them got.
Likewise, Witcher 3 also has the more interesting quests around. Villages that have been slaughtered and a quest to find out not what, but who did it. An abandoned manor with an old friend. Meeting a bunch of the Witches and doing their deeds and following their stories. There is, however, yes, a lot more of the random mobs sitting around, though keeping to the roads you can usually manage to avoid 90% of them. There are far more detailed quests in 3 than there were in 2, the problem is its often overwhelming in the sheer amount of stuff there is to do that as soon as you start focusing on doing things like clearing out bandit camps, content fatigue can hit pretty quickly. By and large though, its very similar to 2 in its structure; You've got a handful of main hub towns with a bunch of main quests inside them and the immediate surrounding area. The key difference is that one has loading screens and flashbacks between these sections, the other has you journeying between them yourself for the most part.
That said, I'm not going to hold it up as perfect. Honestly they should have done away with all the ? symbols and let players just find all that stuff themselves. Would provide less of a drive for players to do everything and not miss out on the 'content' around them, and instead focus them on the core parts of the game that the developer designed for them to experience. Also needed to handle its level scaling a bit better, considering how schitzophrenic it can be at times, and how that results in getting level 40 missions when you're level 5 half the time, or coming across level 30 monsters in what would otherwise seem to be a level 10 area...
DA:I does have its redeeming moments. I remember getting to the Ball at the Palace and had a great time playing that mission, because there was so much care put into everything; carefully designed puzzles to get an advantage in the ball, persuasive checks to impress the court, a mystery to solve and a lot of important actors, characters from 1 returning anew, and while there was plenty of exploring to do, it still felt focused. It wasn't a generic MMO collectathon. Its a shame much of the rest of the game wasn't similar. Its other issues, such as those involving its gameplay, also played into it not being a game I'll replay often, but it does, occasionally, have its upsides at least. It just doesn't handle its open world segments well at all.
And yeah, ATM a lot of games are focusing on the OW mechanics because they're vogue, and they're doing it somewhat intelligently in that, like DA:I, they're designing for it from the game up, but they lack the experience and manpower to make it work. DA:I as an example, was designed to be a great open world game, even though it didn't manage it. The team obviously hadn't done a ton of open world work before, and didn't really execute the level design aspect of it well [Not in aesthetics, but in the gameplay aspect], and tried to do too much small content to fill the space, rather than focusing down on a bunch of strong core content, and then putting in some mobs around the area to make the traversal areas more interesting. Don't need 30 fetch quests, 5 quests with an actual story to engage with, and a bunch of darkspawn that just happen to be in the way would be far better. They didn't just throw it in at the last minute though - honestly it might have turned out better if they did. With everyone starting to gain experience, and the market showing the ideas that work, and the ones that don't, devs should be starting to clue in on how to make good open world games, kind of like how when FPSs became the big 'thing' there were a bunch of rather mediocre ones that came out without tight controls, or that didn't understand the core appeal of the genre, but by the end of the generation we had a lot of competently executed FPS, and a tiny handful that were also creative on top of that. I think one of the biggest things they'll need to realise is that you don't create a huge world for the sake of having a huge world, but you create a world size that fits your game. You can be open world and semi-sandbox within just the territory of Crow's Perch in Witcher 3, if your game only has enough core content to really make it work in that size of world, make that size of the world. Don't make it bigger and try to stretch things across without good reason. In Witcher 3, they were trying to make a territory spanning 3 nations that the whole story takes place in, in order to allow the story to flow uninterrupted - and they've got enough core content in the game to make that work, though it does result in a huge amount of side content that they put down markers for, unfortunately. The Hinterlands in DA:I? There's no reason for it to be that big, beyond trying to make it feel bigger than the content calls for.
Hopefully the next round of open world games will be better than this one, but with how long it takes to develop them I get the feeling we'll be waiting a while to find out.
I think the map marker really makes a difference you know? It's as if you're promised something good or interesting, and you only get something which you'd stumble over in other games. I wish I had a setup that could mod them off. The quests themselves I've found very good, which is why it's so frustrating having to mess around with what I see as "filler" so much between them.
I also find the villages and areas lack character. In TW2 each area had it's own character, and those around it did too. Same as in DA:Origins etc. In TW3 everwhere I've explore so far seems exactly the same unfortunately - I can't tell one village from the next! Why can't they have a mining village, a farming village, a silk weaving village etc. - all with related quests to build more character? Again, too little spread too thinly for me I'm afraid.
Don't get me wrong, it's still enjoyable, it's just enjoyable with bouts of dullness. The main quests are actually great, and I'm playing through avoiding as much as the filler as possible, but unfortunately the game is setup so I'm still sinking hours into stuff I don't want to do.
As for DA:I I just couldn't stand it. I gave it 3 goes, all with about 8-10 hours in, and - whilst I appriciate some folk may find some enjoyment in it - it was an awful game for me lol.
These statements of yours are bang on mate.........
"Don't need 30 fetch quests, 5 quests with an actual story to engage with, and a bunch of darkspawn that just happen to be in the way would be far better"
"You can be open world and semi-sandbox within just the territory of Crow's Perch in Witcher 3, if your game only has enough core content to really make it work in that size of world, make that size of the world. Don't make it bigger and try to stretch things across without good reason."
I guess I'm not trying to slate the game, as I say, it's good and worth playing, I just don't want the 10/10, "perfect" (to paraphrase DA:2 style lol) perception of TW3 to be considered true and effect later RPGs. Here's hoping!!
infohippie said:
"Spread thin"? Are you serious? TW3 is by far the densest RPG I've played in a long time. There is a hell of a lot more in it than you'll find in TW2. I've never seen open world done as well as TW3 does it. Have you gotten very far in it yet? I mean, I adored TW2, but TW3 is a far, far better game. Try not to use fast travel at all if possible and enjoy the quests and discoveries that you encounter along the way.
More meaningless, repetitive stuff though. I'm currently halfway through the Bloody Baron quest.
Thansk for the tpis, and I am trying, I just don't find it works so far. The markers tell me there's little in between worth looking for, and when I do find something it's rarely of any note or value tbh. There have been the odd exception, but it's needle in a haystack ratio.
Pirate Of PC Master race said:
You seem to think, and have accepted that open world games do not have/cannot have so-called "tight, together structure". Something in line of "The pond must be either wide and shallow, or small and deep."
but it can have both qualities. Yes, it is true that structured RPG may tell better interactive story because they have less ground(as in, possible player's actions) to cover, and vice versa for open world games.
But we are falling in to the fallacy. We are assuming that there is set amount of effort 'X' and it must be spread across the game.
Just put more effort in to it! Open world can be more than a giant map with 100 breadcrumbs. It has potential, for god's sake. More consequences... or story that stretches across multiple places and does effect SOMETHING in the world.
Open world games... did fail in this regard. At least popular and recent ones in the last decade. But that does not make every open world games worse for all eternity. There is still hope yet.
Morrowind & Gothic 2 are probably the best OWGs I can think of. I loved Morrowind, stunning (combat obv an issue), and I really liked Gothic 2, but only played it a year or so back, so the datedness of the game stopped me playing before finish.
I've nothing against them in principle, I'm just more of an emotive player than a logical one, and I prefer games which affext emotions and feel less work-like.
As others have said, time contstraints as a working adult also mean I want to get to the thick of the action more too.
For me, I've always thought games are better when side-quests are an expansion or the story, rather than an addition if that makes any sense. This is kinda the case in TW3 tho.
