Making open-world exploration feel more meaningful?

[Jusey1]

I think The Elder Scrolls series does the best in world exploration from Daggerfall to Skyrim. Heck, with Skyrim I love exploring the world, trying to find my destination, etc... (I prefer to play without map markers and such) and it is simply amazingly fun to me... Heck with Skyrim specifically, the whole world is unique and I always have fun checking out everything and heck even finding things I've never found before... (And I had the game since 11/11/11).

 

[thetoddo]

Make the world smaller.

No, seriously.

Giant, big open worlds have to spread their content wafer thin in order to be giant and big. So you end up exploring and all you find is that same modular set piece that is the same or very similar to the three you've already seen, inhabited by a bunch of dead-eyed, poorly animated NPCs who look and behave indistinguishable from every other NPC and bark cookie-cutter dialogue at you. Or just try to kill you.

Make the world smaller and you can put a ton more effort and detail to everything that is in the world. That way the player finds something and it actually feels unique. It feels like That Thing I Found, rather than Thing Type #09 Number 15.

I'm in total agreement. You could have an open world (for example) Fallout game that takes place in one block of NYC and with 5-6 8-20 story buildings and the seweres and subway lines underneath you could build one heck of a game in a small area with each floor of a high-rise having it's own 200 year history and an evolving theme for each building as you go up and down the floors.

 

[m0ng00se]

to make exploration meaningful, look at SotC.

exploring in that game is more rewarding than most games because there's pretty much zero point to it, there's no boring NPC to talk to going "We never thought somebody would show up here!" or some pointless piece of crappy loot.

finding a cool area should be cool in its own right, you get there you look around and it's like, your spot. or it's not and you forget about it but you still saw it and that's sick too.

 

[Areloch]

I think it'd be most appropriate to say that you need to make the exploration *engaging*.

Engagement can come from a challenge, ambiance and tension, or discovery.

With challenge, that would be like when traversing the map, you'll encounter enemy forces, or maybe tricky platforming in order to progress to your destination. Think Dark Souls or Assassin's Creed. Moving throughout this big world was interesting because in order to progress you had to overcome an obstacle, be in enemies you had to fight, or figuring out how to properly climb up that building or cliffside.

Ambiance and/or Tension would about the world itself. Examples I can think of would be like DayZ or a Silent Hill game.
Traversal of the world is made interesting because while you move through it, you're completely pulled into the experience of moving through it. DayZ accomplishes this by the player having knowledge that while they can't SEE any threats, it doesn't mean none are there. And a single moment of carelessness could end up with you being dead and your stuff gone.
Silent Hill is interesting because of the constant feel of 'something could be 20 feet in front of me and I won't see it until it's too late'. Which combined with the general ambiance creates a feeling of unease and dread that makes moving through an otherwise honestly sparse map interesting.

Lastly, you have discovery.
This is where the recent Fallout games or Elder Scrolls shines. It's that constant rewarding of people taking their time to move through the map and explore it. See a tree in the middle of a grassy field? Checking that out instead of moving to your objective could reveal a small treasure stash in the trunk. Find an old farmstead and discover that there's a quest to find out what happened. A regular sense of discovery keeps moving through the world engaging.

Zhukov's idea of making the world smaller is good if you plan on heavily banking on the sense of discovery. It's impractical to take a 500km² map and litter it with interesting things to find at a density high enough to keep moving through the map worthwhile. So, a smaller, but much more dense map is much better for games like Skyrim. Where you trade size for a constant sense of discovery. That makes it meaningful in that case.

So yeah, I agree with Zhukov in some cases, but 'making it smaller' isn't a one-size-fits-all fix. It's very dependent on the kind of experience moving through your open world is supposed to have.

 

[SnakeDoctor]

Quite surprisingly, Arma is one milsim which seems makes open-world exploration quite fun. A pity they scrapped most of the civilian modules from the mission editor.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Adventure and Exploration are two different things. Fallout 3 (not really new vegas or the original 3, sorry :S ) and Skyrim (again I didn't feel it in Oblivion) are the big guns for me, they have amazing worlds that feel like real worlds, and the views and secrets you find are the reward in themselves.
Regarding adventure I agree there are not enough games where you have to plan in advance all the aspects of the adventure, not just shooting folks or jumping from ledges. We need more- and not just small-scale indie games on Steam. I want big AAA games like DayZ but for consoles!

 

[Corven]

I think one thing they should do is not lead players around by the nose so much, an example of this is in skyrim, one part of a daedric artifact quest had you looking for a book that had a potion recipe in it, and instead of letting you explore the area and find the book yourself, a hud marker popped up and led you to the exact book that you needed.

No exploration, no discovery, it just made me feel as though the developers thought me to stupid or impatient to explore and find things for myself.

 

[MammothBlade]

Zhukov's idea of making the world smaller is good if you plan on heavily banking on the sense of discovery. It's impractical to take a 500km² map and litter it with interesting things to find at a density high enough to keep moving through the map worthwhile. So, a smaller, but much more dense map is much better for games like Skyrim. Where you trade size for a constant sense of discovery. That makes it meaningful in that case.

So yeah, I agree with Zhukov in some cases, but 'making it smaller' isn't a one-size-fits-all fix. It's very dependent on the kind of experience moving through your open world is supposed to have.

For me, constant positive feedback is cheap. An instant gratification, theme park feel is not what I'm looking for. What I want is a sense of uncertainty. Delayed gratification makes a greater payoff. Not knowing when you will find shelter, not knowing if you will find something, having to put in an actual effort to get somewhere. Giving the player too much good stuff at once makes rewards short-lived. I'm a firm believer that rewards are cheapened by instant gratification. Achievements are more worthwhile when they're sparse and hard-earned. That feeling when you finally climb a mountain after pain and suffering.

Okay, Skyrim is big. It has a lot to do. The distances even feel long (ignoring the map markers). But at the same time, I don't like that it has loads of things to explore in a short area. It's guaranteed you'll find something. It's guaranteed that it fits into some aspect of the game lore, that everything fits into the story in some way. It makes you feel important, like the world centres around your exploration.

I don't like that, because to me, adventuring is more than just finding things. It's the possibility of not finding things. It's the possibility of becoming totally lost or ending up disappointed. The feeling of being just an insignificant speck in a world that's far, far, bigger than you are.

 

[Areloch]

Sure, and certain styles appeal to people more than others.

Bethesda games tend to be very discovery heavy, so if that's not your thing, then the open world they provide will feel very pointless. The opposite could be said for people that like discovery, and are playing DayZ. They don't really care about the tension, they like exploring to find stuff, so DayZ would be incredibly empty and boring to traverse.

Ideally, you get a good blend of all 3 types, but doing that well is really hard.

 

[aozgolo]

I think exploration is driven by reward, basically if there's nothing out there to find, there's no reason to go looking. The best things are often off the beaten path. I mean I can chew plenty of lovely scenery in many a game, but there should be more to it than just what's out there.

I often like the way 3D platformers make you explore the world, use the environment to hide things, while in those games it's usually collectibles of some kind, or some power-up, I applaud the level design that makes it fun to actually go searching every nook and cranny and give reward for it.

Just Cause 2 has a decent implementation of this, while the world is huge beyond all reason, getting around is relatively simple, and while most of the game world is barren eye candy, the actual civilization has plenty of hidden items to collect and things to blow up.

I also think taking a lesson from Metal Gear Solid 3 could really improve some of these games, while it wasn't open world it made you actually appreciate every tree and every patch of tall grass as a possible tactical advantage. The need to survive by eating, mending wounds, and setting traps for wildlife made the whole experience much more interesting and padded the game in meaningful ways that ground you into the experience instead of feeling tacked on.

Basically you encourage exploration through freeform quests (such as hunting wildlife), hidden alcoves, interactive environments, collectibles, and survival mechanics that get you off the beaten path every now and then.

People often feel obligated by simplified quest objectives or "map markers" that make exploration less meaningful, I understand the arguement that you can "ignore" those, but unfortunately some games have taken to making you rely on these, offering no actual clues for you to "deduce your next objective" thus if you don't follow the marker, you're out of luck.

 

[MammothBlade]

Just Cause 2 has a decent implementation of this, while the world is huge beyond all reason, getting around is relatively simple, and while most of the game world is barren eye candy, the actual civilization has plenty of hidden items to collect and things to blow up.

I disagree, Just Cause 2 is very repetitive, especially the city "takeover", which means the same thing over and over again. It has my ideal in terms of game map size, but travelling across it can be boring, because there's no challenge other than not crashing or getting shot at by police.

I also think taking a lesson from Metal Gear Solid 3 could really improve some of these games, while it wasn't open world it made you actually appreciate every tree and every patch of tall grass as a possible tactical advantage. The need to survive by eating, mending wounds, and setting traps for wildlife made the whole experience much more interesting and padded the game in meaningful ways that ground you into the experience instead of feeling tacked on.

Yes, jungles are a great setting for open-world games. It's easy to make them feel both big and mysterious. Developers don't have to worry too much about draw/rendering distance.

Basically you encourage exploration through freeform quests (such as hunting wildlife), hidden alcoves, interactive environments, collectibles, and survival mechanics that get you off the beaten path every now and then.

People often feel obligated by simplified quest objectives or "map markers" that make exploration less meaningful, I understand the argument that you can "ignore" those, but unfortunately some games have taken to making you rely on these, offering no actual clues for you to "deduce your next objective" thus if you don't follow the marker, you're out of luck.

Agreed on that point. It's really patronising and pointless. Also, I despise dumb mini-quests, they force you to interact with the world, but not in the way you want. They're little, trivial things you can do by your own initiative.

 

[aozgolo]

Just Cause 2 has a decent implementation of this, while the world is huge beyond all reason, getting around is relatively simple, and while most of the game world is barren eye candy, the actual civilization has plenty of hidden items to collect and things to blow up.

I disagree, Just Cause 2 is very repetitive, especially the city "takeover", which means the same thing over and over again. It has my ideal in terms of game map size, but travelling across it can be boring, because there's no challenge other than not crashing or getting shot at by police.

While all you said is true, I felt that the takeover objectives for each area were well spread out and hidden in ways to encourage you to fully explore that given area, while yes the space between each area was barren and uninteresting, I felt that for an urban environment it made good use of it's space, it certainly does get repetitive though, but you were also encouraged to look everywhere.

 

[CloudAtlas]

I can't help but believe that minimal directions could be an improvement over map markers; that and the ability to mark your own map.

I agree with you. Sure, you have to pay much more attention to describe directions in quest texts, dialogue etc. correctly, and you should also build your landscapes in a way so as to naturally direct the attentive player towards interesting locations, but it makes for a much more immersive experience. And, honestly, it shouldn't be so hard to do, and proper QA should be easily able to detect all the nonsense your writers came up with.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I miss exploring worlds and finding something completely unrelated to anything whatsoever. I still remember the first time I stumbled across that hidden research facility in Final Fantasy VIII, or the Knights of the Round island in FFVII. Those places weren't on the map and no one told you about them. You had to find them by just wandering around. Skyrim had a few of those, but it didn't feel the same. Whenever I came across a locked dungeon, I knew that I would come back eventually because someone would tell me to.

I guess what I'm saying is bring back that sense of mystery. Wander to the edge of the map, up a mountain that doesn't seem climbable, and find a hidden dungeon with enemies so powerful they make the final boss a joke. Or a secret quest--like that special sword in Ocarina of Time--where you are doing this huge epic quest behind the scenes of the main storyline. I want that second level of exploring that rewards the ones who really look around and don't just follow the directions given to them.

 

[The Abhorrent]

To make open-world exploration more "meaningful" is a tall order, but as a general rule I think the best thing to go for is to ensure that any discoveries provides the player with the appropriate sense of satisfaction; in other words, the proper "reward".

Of course, this doesn't mean that the "rewards" are beneficial items (equipment) or even fun gizmos; a great looking vista, or perhaps even a small ruin to wander about in (perhaps littered with a few chests with small sums of gold, depending on the game), is adequate. One common (and effective) approach is finding something which implies there's a history to the locale, even if there's no connection to the primary story; for example, a tomb of a long-forgotten king or where a last-stand (lots of bodies) had taken place. Still, one shouldn't disregard the journey to the discovery at the end either, but there almost certainly should be something at the end of it; that something just doesn't necessarily have to be of material value.

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The other bit to take into account is how something is actually discovered, and for that there are four basic methods:

The Locked Door
The simplest, and least rewarding, of the discoveries; in fact, it's not really a discovery. Something "extra", but immediately apparent and clearly optional (if you want to bother to find the key). Functional for more material rewards, but doesn't really encourage exploration; just being thorough, so that you get all the loot.

The Secret Passage
A basic discovery, but it still allows the player to find something which isn't immediately obvious. An extension of the current location, where the entrance blends in with the rest of the architecture; finding these comes down to either random chance or looking for tell-tale signs, neither of which comes with the appropriate "build-up" to a bigger discovery. However, this could also be the start of something much larger as well...

The Path to the Unknown
This one is the start of something good, quite literally. The player finds a path, perhaps behind "the locked door" or "the secret passage", but they don't know where it leads; so they follow it, finding stuff along the way. Perhaps it starts as small, beautiful locations; but leads to something much larger in the end, such as a the hidden ruins of a city. Anyhow, the path is visible... but not the destination. Of course, the path should be nice to look at and around; but curiosity of what lies within is the real motivator at this point.

The Unreachable
An inverse of "the path to the unknown", as the location you want to reach (or more specifically, the exterior of it) is quite often in plain sight... but the road of how to get there isn't immediately apparent. Most of these tend to be viewed from a lower location initially, and the idea is get higher up. The idea is to encourage the player to poke around until they find the path which gets them to the location and subsequently allow them to explore the interior. The start of the path to the location can be quite far away as well, but once the player clue's in that it leads to something they could see before it will spur them onward

Of course, to get the best results a game should use a variety of techniques and combine them in a variety of ways; a huge draw about exploration is the idea you'll find something "new and interesting", so it shouldn't be all the same approach or the same thing at the end.

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To comment on the "making worlds smaller" (or even the inverse), I don't think that really has the desired effect. Larger worlds allow discoveries to be hidden by the sheer size of the world, but that's half-cheating; the above techniques still have to be employed, more travel time to a destination doesn't encourage exploration. However, making the world smaller doesn't automatically solve the solution; that pushes for more of the smaller discoveries (which aren't quite as fun), larger ones just become harder to fit into the game ("the unreachable" in particular). Larger game worlds are definitely an asset for any exploration-focused game, but it has to be used properly

Fast-travel is something of an issue to exploration as well, as it allows the player to bypass many of the potential secrets of the game; even if optional, the convenience tends to be a bit too alluring. Fast-travel to previously accessed locations only definitely helps, and short-cuts to major locations should be left out; another way to encourage exploration would be to place obstacles on the main path (perhaps even impassable ones), to half-force the player to find or "discover" another way around.

 

[Evonisia]

Travelling was fantastic in the vanilla World of Warcraft Azeroth. Even if you could hearthstone to a safe place every hour you really had to plan out how to get to each place. Back then the world wasn't linear so you had to guess which zone you could venture to and which zones you'd have to cross to reach them. Food and drink were mandatory. Even with the flight paths you'd still not be able to reach everywhere, and you'd have to find them before you could use them

I have an idea. You get shipwrecked on some unknown part of the universe. You will not get a world map or map markers. I have no idea what you'll do for a story or motivation, but you will be utterly alone to begin with. Exploration should always have a degree of loneliness.

Sounds a bit like BioShock, to be honest. Well, it's not open world but still.

 

[aozgolo]

The Unreachable
An inverse of "the path to the unknown", as the location you want to reach (or more specifically, the exterior of it) is quite often in plain sight... but the road of how to get there isn't immediately apparent. Most of these tend to be viewed from a lower location initially, and the idea is get higher up. The idea is to encourage the player to poke around until they find the path which gets them to the location and subsequently allow them to explore the interior. The start of the path to the location can be quite far away as well, but once the player clue's in that it leads to something they could see before it will spur them onward

I think Shadow of the Collosus pulled this method off the best, aside from the few Collosi that used it (like the third one) the main temple proved to be an "Unreachable" style challenge, where many a player such as myself struggled (and in my case STILL fail after 5 playthroughs) to ascend to the top. Of lesser note, I remember trying in vain many times to somehow find a way down to the actual river at the bottom of the gorge, alas it seems not to be a traversible location. Still I felt the sense of exploration was there in Shadow of Collosus, made lacking only by the lack of suitable reward. Chewing the scenery was often a reward in itself, but it's a very shallow one in a medium built on interactivity.