The reason why open world gaming sucks.

[carpathic]

Because arbitrary time limits are usually annoying and defeat the point of having an open world game.

More than just annoying, the detract from my enjoyment of the game. I play games to do what I want to do. Not what some developer thinks is important. I understand the concept of the time limit, but I can only imagine wanting to punch someone if I finally got that last stat increase or somesuch and the game ended. I would be furious.

Games - especially RPGs are about the story emerging through my adventures, I simply cannot conceive of how this is helped by a time limit.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

A time limit? Are you fuckin' serious? People want to relax when they're playing free roaming games. They want to escape from reality where the time limit to do stuff exists. It's one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. If you want a time limit, then limit yourself. Time measurement is an abstract idea anyway.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I don't know. As much as it made sense in context, I thought the time limit in both Dead Rising titles was a little frustrating. Virtually the only way to level Frank West or Chuck Greene is to spend your first run-through wantonly killing zombies left and right to grind for experience, purposefully pushing yourself towards failure as many times as you'll need to eventually be able to stand up to the games' tougher challenges.

Open World games give you a clear choice in their mechanics. If an NPC tells you something is of the utmost importance, you're free to role-play that as being the case and get on with it, or to dismiss it and go about your business. You mentioned Oblivion, OP, but you failed to realize that not everyone in that situation would be unfailingly heroic. In one of my playthroughs, I went through the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood questlines long before speaking to Jauffre. Why? Because that's what mattered to my guy. Saving the empire was of secondary importance to the immediate allure of easy money.

Other characters I've played, along with my main guy in Skyrim, immediately latched onto the severity of the main quest. I ignored virtually everything else until I'd killed Alduin and then went through the business of getting all the sidequests tied up. A timer would defeat this kind of approach entirely, more or less killing any role-playing opportunities in the egg. This would be the game telling me "Screw personal motivations or your character potentially being a selfish prick, THE WORLD NEEDS SAVING NOW!".

So, no. Nix on timers. Give me choice any day of the week.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

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

Because in the majority of these games, the player is the driving force behind the plot. Take Skyrim - the civil war happens largely because your actions tip the balance, giving one side the advantage they require to actually make a concerted assault and win victory. The player's influence and decisions are what shapes the future of the world, making the player character the most important character, which is kinda the point of these games. In Mass Effect we are playing as the hero, the pivotal character in the universe, and Shepard is what keeps the plot moving forward through his choices and actions. The player has to be proactive rather than simply reactive.

We are the agents of change. If the world kept moving forward without us, we'd be sidelined to minor character status, forever playing catch-up with the world rather than being to driving influence. That might be fun in a linear game, playing the role of the sidekick, because in a linear game you're playing through someone else's story. In an open-world sandbox, you're writing your own story.

Pretty much this. Because the story generally revolves around the Player Character whose the game's main protagonist. If you, the Player, decide to take the Player Character off to do something completely unrelated to the story then the story doesn't advance. Which can lead to amusing situations where, like in Oblivion and Skyrim, where the world is teetering on the brink of destruction, but the hero decided to go off and explore some caves instead. The world is peril, but no rush.

 

[clippen05]

So much, "Stop liking what I don't like," in this thread. On both sides of the argument too. I personally like this idea, although it shouldn't necessarily be in every open-world game, it could benefit some.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

This is a conundrum, as the developers want you to, perhaps rightfully so, have your cake and eat it too. I just beat Arkham City, and I was struck by the guy on the loudspeaker calling out the hours until the doomsday plan went into effect. If I pissed around for a couple hours he wouldn't say anything, whereas if I rushed the main quest he'd be calling out 15min intervals.

I was going to do a huge list of reasons open world is or isn't good, but that's not the question at stake here, so I'll just say open world trumps confined story areas. It's why we loved games like FF7. So the problem becomes how to imply urgency in a game. And this doesn't have to be open world, because games can be linear but still rely on triggers rather than actual time limits. The thing is, just about no one enjoys time limits. It causes stress, and punishes players for exploring areas and taking note of little details.

I imagine you could write a story that only implied time limits, like Metal Gear Solid (1). Then it's revealed that there never was one, but this would get old quick.

 

[Netrigan]

As many have said, the joy of open-world games is the ability to just head out and do whatever you like when you like. Right now I'm playing Far Cry 3 and I tend to binge on various activities, so I might spend a play session just doing story missions or climbing towers or taking over enemy bases or just wandering around collecting items. It's very much a mood thing.

The only problem is too often the games try to create a false sense of urgency in the story missions, even though we're likely puttering around the world map trying to get random achievements.

The compromise would likely be having tangible rewards or penalties for ignoring an urgent game mission. If I have to go save my fat-ass cousin in GTA IV, then they should attach some sort of consequence to my not doing it in a timely fashion, sort of like how puttering around the galaxy in Mass Effect 2 dramatically affected the mortality of various NPCs. Or maybe the player has to face a better defended foe if he fucks about.

And it should go without saying, this shouldn't be every freakin' mission, just a select few and only when the game makes a very big deal about time being of the essence.

 

[suitepee7]

I think the timer would be a good addition to open world games, it would stop my urge to explore all the games content and getting bogged down in sidequests.

was that sarcastic or were you being serious. i'm really not sure...

OT: sounds like a pretty horrible idea to me. while i enjoyed dead rising 2, and i liked how time passed, i didn't like the actual limit. certain missions being available at certain times is all well and good, but if i cannot continue the story after missing 1 quest deadline, and it gives me the option of dick around or just reload a save, i just reload. if anything my biggest gripe with DR2 was the time limit =\

personally i like the idea of missions only being able to be completed at certain times, or activated at certain times, but not an actual time limit.

 

[Rad Party God]

Fallout 1 had an actual time limit and that game is just as open as Fallout 3 & New Vegas, although until you reach certain point, that time limit extended considerably, but you'd still had a limit of a few in-game years after that point.

 

[Theminimanx]

Because it makes sure that people won't take the time to explore at their leisure. When I was playing the original Fallout, I wanted to discover this strange new world. But since I had a limited amount of time to save the vault inhabitants, I never took the time to venture off into the unknown.

 

[crazyrabbits]

There will always be a market for both time limit-essential and open world games. I happen to enjoy the latter the most because, as said earlier, I can take my time and explore the side content at my leisure.

One of my favorite games of all time is Baldur's Gate II, which opens with one of the party members from the first game being kidnapped, and the "thrust" of the plot being that you have to rescue her as soon as possible. That said, almost the entirety of the game world (along with most of the squadmate-specific missions) open up to you in the second chapter. Instead of choosing to save Imoen, I do a completionist playthrough and do all the sidequests before I complete the "assault on Bodhi's base" mission.

I don't mind time limits where the plot warrants, but I also don't mind having the leeway to explore the game world at my leisure, especially in an RPG. It gives me a feeling of being in control of my gaming experience.

 

[Bad Jim]

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

From a story perspective, it would indeed make more sense. But from a game mechanics perspective, it makes no sense. Time limits are a railroad mechanic, suitable for linear games where there is only one thing to do. Open world games are about freedom, and a timer for some quest, particularly a main quest, just takes the players' freedom away.

It's a concept called "willing suspension of disbelief". If you want to enjoy musicals theatre, you don't think about the fact that bursting into song is highly unusual in real life. You don't question the fact that the two characters secretly plotting regicide are actually talking loudly enough for the back of the audience to hear. Similarly, if you want to enjoy freedom in a game, you don't question the cases where plotwise realism is sacrificed in favour of player freedom.

Why don't more games have plots that fit open worlds without time limits?

If you can postpone a quest indefinitely without consequence, why do you need to do it in the first place? It's hard to think of good answers, especially answers that are also good stories.

 

[Twilight_guy]

They don't have time limits because it means that rather then focusing on exploration and doing stuff, you're forced to quickly do what the game wants, thus undermining the whole concept of open world since it's not open when your only choice is do whats timed or die. Individual quests usually aren't timed because quests tend to not be failable unless they are repeatable. (failable quests frustrate people) An undisplayed time limit is a recipe for fail in any game. It frustrates players because they have no idea how long they have or how pressing something is.

Why don't they have plots that fit open world games? Try writing a plot that allows the protagonist to dick around and do nothing all day or to speed ahead with storyline stuff. Aside from a few science fiction concepts where the protagonist has all the time in the world and no specific goal (Dr. Who, immortals) it's hard to do.

 

[Vault101]

[snip.

I actually liked fallotu 3 because of the setting and story, NV was better sure but fallout 3 was playable unlike oblivion/skyrim

 

[DrunkenMonkey]

Once again another OP stating the objective value of his or her opinion. Sometimes I think a critical thinking class should be a requirement in preschool

Or you know title your threads better. whichever comes first I'll gladly accept it.

 

[Veylon]

I don't see what the issue is with timers in an open world. Kind of the point of an open world is that there's this big world with stuff going on. The timers are the stuff going on. They're not necessarily your timers that you should feel obligated to do something with.

And, in any case, I'm more a fan of "soft" timers where situations progress naturally and gradually rather than the binary "hard" timers where X happens at Y time no matter what. A city doesn't go from open and prosperous to an occupied wreck in a single moment. There'd be a lengthy siege with numerous opportunities for the player to engage in sabotage, sapping, smuggling, politicking, looting, and fighting. How long it took could depend on whether the player is spreading diseased blankets to the invaders or burning municipal granaries. Or maybe the player just wants to sneak their buddy and/or gold out and not care about the rest.

 

[Risingblade]

Yeah that's what we want limits on how long we can play...brilliant