The reason why open world gaming sucks.

[Biosophilogical]

tl;dr Why don't more open world games have more time limits?

Because it's an utterly terrible idea. People who play open-world games usually do so specifically because of the more relaxed, 'take your time and do what you want, when you want' feel.

Suspension of disbelief is all that is required here. Screw realism and screw time limits.

This, just smear this everywhere and call this thread a done deal. Though to be a pain, and to actually contribute, I'll actually not end it there (sorry).

I think if you don't have a time limit, so much as, like someone suggested with the Skyrim civil war, a relative equilibrium for the main plots, that still allow for dynamic events to occur, but the plots can exist without you there to watch their every move. I mean, the random thieves (with terrible luck) don't start in my experience until you start the thieves guild .... why not? What if Alduin revived dragons, but the longer you left it the more motivated the general population was to deal with them, so you can be all "I don't want to be the dragonborn", so without a dragonborn, the population of Skyrim must muster their forces to stem the dragon onslaught. Or perhaps the mages college has brief forays into dungeons filled with draugr that you can stumble across. None of these things need to finish (or come close) without you, you would simply be what breaks the equilibrium.

E.g. The more revived dragons, the more the local militias fight against them, killing them (but they could still be revived, because you don't consume their souls), until a balance is struck where they kill them roughly as fast as they are revived (purely by numbers, Alduin wouldn't be hovering above to permanently resurrect one dragon). Then in comes the dragonborn, and you slowly whittle down Alduin's forces, essentially breaking the stalemate.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

Ever played Dead Rising? That was annoying as hell. It was fun to run around and it was a bloody amazing game (I played 2) but you end up unable to do shit because of timers. You know I was unable to get the best ending because I was, and I am not kidding, about 10 seconds off the timer, and all my saves didn't let me get back their in time. I was at the FUCKING door, and it just said GAME OVER! LOLOLOLOLOL.

I never finished that game.

 

[Daverson]

I think it could be done right, there needs to be a good visual representation that time's running out for the player though - it's not an open world game, but Earth 2150 does this well.

 

[Rawne1980]

Because games like Fallout 3/NV and Elder Scrolls aren't designed to be rushed through. The plot on Elder Scrolls games is paper thin as it is.

They are designed to be "dicked around in".

They are exploration games not "rush through the story quick guys" games. Of course they aren't aimed at people that want an urgent rush through the game.

It's been pretty well documented since Daggerfall (i'll start there because not everyone will remember Arena) that Elder Scrolls are open world games aimed at being explored and not rushed through.

To be fair, if you are the kind that wants urgency in your games, then it's pretty obvious that Elder Scrolls games aren't for you or even aimed at you.

That's like me buying Hello Kitty and asking why there is no immensely gory combat. It's obviously not aimed at me so I don't play it.

Problem solved.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Having a time limit in games that specifically encourage exploration and level grinding would be annoying. However, I get what you're saying to a certain extent. If the plot is trying to convey some sense of urgency, it's spoils the immersion somewhat if the main character decides to shun his world-saving destiny for over a month to go and hunt rabbits.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I don't understand why people want to be pressured into rushing through a corridor game. I personally can't stand it and the Fallout 1 thing people have mentioned annoyed the hell out of me. You may as well just be herded from one place to another because that it what is happening anyway in a timed environment.

Open world games should NEVER have timers especially not hidden ones. It just totally ruins any exploration based part of the game. If you are not allowed to explore what is the point in having a open world? I laugh when people say 'A year has passed before you finish the main quest!' Well have you ever read The Hobbit or Lord of The Rings do you know how long it takes in actual in world time? The quest itself (from Frodo setting out to the Ring's destruction) took six months. Another seven months passed until the hobbits again came home to the Shire.

Spoiler: Dates:

Frodo sets out from Hobbiton on 23rd September 3018 of the Third Age. Frodo leaves the Fellowship on 26th February 3019. The One Ring is destroyed on 25th March 3019. The hobbits reach Bag End on the 3rd November 3019.

For someone like the Dovahkiin with a lot more than just a single quest to destroy a ring I think a year is pretty tame and if you don't like it just do the main quest and go straight there I don't care if you miss 250 hours of gameplay. It's why it's a ROLEPLAYING game you get to choose, but don't force time limits and 20 hour games on the rest of us.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

They should have time limits but people are pussies and complain. Things like time limits greatly enhance the feeling of engagement with worlds like this. The problem is that many people don't want to engage with the game and just want to fart around and have a laugh and it would take real effort to design for both. So we have cut scenes and quick time events to force people with low attention spans to engage. I blame the use of marijuana for this.

This post is hilarious... people who like to relax are 'pussies'.

For many people, taking it slow and enjoying the atmosphere as they explore IS engaging with the game. If you're after high speed, adrenalin filled, sweaty hands, Mountain Dew-spewing shenanigans then play a multiplayer shooter or racing game, open world games generally aren't designed for you.

 

[Kilo24]

One very large problem with time limits in massive worlds is that they don't scale with the size of the world well. It's one thing if a quest within a starting city expires within 7 days of you starting the game; it's another if a quest on the opposite side of this massive world expires within 7 days of you starting the game. Sure, you can increase the amount of time that it takes to expire, but then you'll run into another problem - the time limit stops being a source of tension *unless* you waste a lot of time (and many people who waste a lot of time are doing so because they're enjoying it). And the more freeform the world is, the more difficult it will be to pick good time limits that reflect where a player will be at that point in the game. Additionally, if you have a large number of quests on timers, then soon it becomes a scheduling issue for players who know how the game works and a mire of missed opportunities for players who don't.

There are certainly ways to design the game that these problems are mitigated, but they tend to not work well in an open world game. A very large part of the allure of these games is in being able to explore whenever and wherever the mood takes you; mental timers ticking down makes time spent exploring cost you and can ruin that enjoyment. There's also that picking good time limits is a significant design effort and should be tailored for each quest; I don't know how much you've played of Bethesda's games, but I can't really think of any particular quest that required a significant amount of design effort gameplay-wise (nor would I expect them to, what with the sheer amount of quests that they've crammed in there.) It would also be adding in new dialogue and programming for failed quests. Chances are, it would be prohibitively expensive to do so for most quests.

There are more complex models than starting timers from when you start the game, but those tend to either be arbitrary and hard to communicate to players or they run into the same problem of the world kindly waiting for the player to trigger them. Careful design can mitigate those problems, but it's rarely practical for open world games to do so.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

They should have time limits but people are pussies and complain. Things like time limits greatly enhance the feeling of engagement with worlds like this. The problem is that many people don't want to engage with the game and just want to fart around and have a laugh and it would take real effort to design for both. So we have cut scenes and quick time events to force people with low attention spans to engage. I blame the use of marijuana for this.

This post is hilarious... people who like to relax are 'pussies'.

For many people, taking it slow and enjoying the atmosphere as they explore IS engaging with the game. If you're after high speed, adrenalin filled, sweaty hands, Mountain Dew-spewing shenanigans then play a multiplayer shooter or racing game, open world games generally aren't designed for you.

What makes you think I was talking about high speed action?

If, say, in Skyrim there was an event where a dragon was going to destroy a town three in game weeks after you complete a quest then how would that be a high speed mountain dew shenanigan? You have three weeks to do something to save the town and if you spend all that time looking at rocks and killing random stuff because you can't handle the extreme pressure of remembering to do something by a certain time then the town disappears.

How could this sort of engagement with a game be done in an arcade racing game or arena shooter?

 

[sXeth]

I've only seen one game that punished you for screwing around when you should be on a mission and that was Deus Ex: Human Revolution. If you take too long in the office building at the beginning the hostages will die. I had no idea the game exhibited a mechanic like that. It's a first for me, but realistic and I kind of liked it.

Ultima 5, if you took too long Lord British starved to death in dungeon Doom. (i think the first trilogy may have had timers too, memorys a bit hazy)
Someone already mentioned the first Fallout.
Kings Bounty (Heroes of Might Magic -1 or what have you) had a time limit to do whatever it was too, despite more or less allowing you free roam.

I think the key concept is that open world games that intend for exploration should actually design their mission around exploration. Its not even hard to conjure up a half-baked story and have your objective be to complete some sort of pilgrimage, or find some Macguffin artefact/location as the ultimate goal rather then an invading big bad or imminent threat.

 

[TheDoctor455]

Erm...

ever play Red Dead Redemption? Or LA Noire?

Both are open world games (not as open as Elder Scrolls, mind you, but still), and both have excellent storytelling.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning had a pretty neat little story.

Planescape: Torment had one of the most nonlinear stories I've ever seen, and yet its also one of the best.


So yeah... I think your gripe is really against the Elder Scrolls series, and possibly Borderlands.

In both cases... what the hell were you really expecting from them?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

What makes you think I was talking about high speed action?

I think he was trying to settle on a way to make fun of you for your ludicrous employment of "pussies" over a subject like game preference.

"I like Nachos with Zesty Cheese!"
"ONLY PUSSIES LIKE NACHOS WITH ZESTY CHEESE! REAL MEN LIKE PICANTE!"

Seriously guy.

OP - Fallout 1 had a timer, and it was almost universally derided for it, both critically and popularly. People hate timers on their recreational activities. Well, pussies do, anyway. Hard bitten berserkers like More Fun To Compute up there eat up time limits like CANDY. XTREME PRESSURE.

 

[Dethenger]

I think it could be done right, there needs to be a good visual representation that time's running out for the player though - it's not an open world game, but Earth 2150 does this well.

Basically this.

I agree that some games unfortunately lack a sense of urgency, but I think that's just something you have to sacrifice when making an open-world game. If you want the player to explore, you kind of have to stand back and let them.
The only game that I think pulls this off is Majora's Mask, because they give you a solid time limit and the ability to reset it. You have to plan out what you're going to do for each 3 day cycle. If you aren't actively working your way through the dungeons, you know you have 3 days to get whatever you need done, done. There is no infinite dicking around under the assumption that the rest of the game will wait for you. Things happen when you're not there. Didn't help Romani on the first night? Sucks. Go back in time. Forgot to give your sword to the blacksmith on the first day? Shit happens. Go back in time.
There's always the tenseness of the overarching plot hanging above you; literally, the moon looms over you and gets closer all the time.

 

[Rblade]

another person confusing "this sucks" with "I don't like it". Oblivion is about exploration and finding your own fun just as much as it is about the main quest. And all you need is to not nitpick on some chronology issues. Oblivion would loose it's appeal to at least half the fan base if you had to rush through the main quest before being able to do anything else.

railroads are way worse then some funky time issues and Elder scrolls would be ruined if they implemented it. At least for me.

 

[Duck Sandwich]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Exile 3 yet. In that game, there are "plagues" of monsters that attack various regions around the world. The first you're most likely to encounter, nearest your starting location, are the slimes. If you don't finish the main slime dungeon and kill the source of the slimes, the slimes will gradually destroy towns as the days pass on. If you wait long enough, large sections of walls will be cracked/destroyed, people will be missing, and more and more slimes will be lurking around the outskirts of towns. However, you can still finish the quest and get rewarded for doing so, no matter how long you take.

There is one quest that requires you to stop a demon invasion, and if you take too long, your home will be destroyed, and you get Game Over'd. But you *do* have more than enough time to actually beat the game before this happens.

Oh, and Reckoning was a pain in the ass because it was riddled with loadscreens that you'd have to sit through in order to shop/make weapons/repair weapons/make potions/put gems together/talk to questgivers/do laundry/wash dishes/take out garbage. Also, there was way too much open space between you and each random group of enemies that you came across.

 

[ExileNZ]

Sounds like you've never played Fallout 1.

Yeah, it's not exactly a modern game, but it fits what you're describing.

You have 150 in game days to find a water chip for your vault. Although I'm pretty sure the game automatically ends if you fail. I don't know, I've never let that happen.

It does in fact end if you don't find the chip on time. Happened to me on my first playthrough.

 

[SajuukKhar]

So my question is this: why don't more open world games have some form of time limit? A good example of an open world with a time limit is the dead rising games. You are given 72 hours in-game to do whatever the hell you want. If you want to do the questline, you have to do it at appropriate times and if you are late for even one quest, you fail it all and are left to just do whatever you want for the remaining time.

Because people despise time limits.

Fallout 1, as mentioned before, had a time limit on how long you could take to find the water chip........ which was so hated and despised that they actually patched it out.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

If, say, in Skyrim there was an event where a dragon was going to destroy a town three in game weeks after you complete a quest then how would that be a high speed mountain dew shenanigan? You have three weeks to do something to save the town and if you spend all that time looking at rocks and killing random stuff because you can't handle the extreme pressure of remembering to do something by a certain time then the town disappears.

What would be the point in that? Really, all it would do would be to annoy people. The point of these games is to explore and do it your own way, when and how you like.

Dead Rising already proved that timers in sandbox/open world games are a terrible idea and detract from the fun rather than adding to it.