Why do so many games punish exploration?

[TZer0]

Red Faction: Guerilla does not punish

Gotta love tearing down buildings. Yeah, I prefer games where exploration is awarded.

 

[Slash Dementia]

Games that gave me that satisfaction:
Morrowind
Mass Effect
Golden Sun (both)
Knights of the Old Republic (both)
Assassin's Creed

Games that made me want to explore them:
Legacy of Kain (all)
Thief (all)
Fable 2
Viking: Battle for Asgard
Prince of Persia (first series)

 

[sarahvait]

Well, that Path game let you explore. It fact, it pretty much demanded that you get your butt off the path and into the woods to find randomly placed objects that are not usually found in a forest, some different locales like a campsite and a graveyard, and about 200+ yellow flowers (And I collected them ALL. Yes, I am obsessive).

Don't get me wrong, The Path was an interesting experience that I liked for the most part, but sometimes I just wished I could get down to the nitty-gritty of things without having to walk around for two hours. (and you usually needed to walk, because if you started running the camera would go high above your head and you wouldn't be able to tell easily if you had run past something you needed to get.)

 

[sarahvait]

Why do some games show you wonderful panoramic scenes and then punish you for wanting to explore the areas? Which games do you wish would allow you more freedom to explore the world they created for you? Alternatively, which games gave you the most satisfaction from being able to explore your environment?

My Favorites: Silent Hill Series

I'm not sure about that. I don't think I've ever played a Silent Hill where I hadn't wished at some point that they had opened more of the area I was, or had let me go into more buildings in the town itself instead of resorting to that old, "The lock is broken" meme. But I get what you're saying, and I do so love exploring every nook and cranny of what I refer as "my playgrounds" in the Silent Hill games. Oh, creepy hospital, I love you!

 

[xxnightlawxx]

What do you mean by "punish" ?

Diminish

 

[Gyrefalcon]

What do you mean by "punish" ?

I mean you can look at a huge city or world but you really can't explore it.

 

[Gyrefalcon]

My Favorites: Final Fantasy Series

Wait, really? i found this series so unbelievably linear it annoyed me. Where exactly did the exploration come about?

Agreed there is no exploration in final fantasy, Great games but they are considerably linear.

On topic though, exploration means programmers need to program the place your exploring

Programmers dont like making more work for themselves ---> no exploration for the sake of exploration in some games.

FF3 here...6(?) in Japan. It was linear but didn't "feel" like it. You could go anywhere on the map...but then the map got bigger and the world opened up.

And I will agree, Fallout and Oblivion are somewhat linear when you got into a mission, but they had lots of little things you could just discover on your own.

I don't know if an exploration game that didn't try to herd you into an over-arching storyline would really hold people well. But then we have The Sims, Animal Crossing, and Flow. Would we enjoy an RPG without an obvious major quest? Can anyone name one similar to that?

 

[blaze96]

I actually wished Bioshock had been less linear, I personally think it would have been better with a little more freedom for how you survive in rapture and ultimately escape.

 

[Nutcase]

Wait, which games punish you for exploration? Besides anything and everything made by Sierra *coughkingsquestcough*?

As for my favorite exploratory game...World of Warcraft, hands down. Really, exploration is a gigantic plus in my taste, so RPGs of any type tend to do it for me. Final Fantasy VI was fantastic in that regard, as are the Zelda games.

Funny, because World of Warcraft deliberately punishes you for exploration by such silly and artificial methods as exponential mob scaling based on level difference, and level limits on quests. You almost never gain from pushing ahead into an area quest givers haven't directed you to enter yet.

 

[mad benji89]

if u mean what i think you mean about punishing you for exploring is where the levels are just ment to be played on a train track where you have to follow the game tottally and if not doing so u will get some radioactive good "bionic comando" but instead of building walls that block you away from the area because visiualy this gives the game a look of depth rather than looking like a shallow puddle that the game actually is -.-

the game that i like walking around and find new areas is

oblivion
boishock "just to look at the lovelness of the graphics"
fallout 3 "when i first start running away from the gaint fire ants most of the time"
assisans creed "graphics that looked amazing and for the achivements"

 

[NeutralDrow]

Wait, which games punish you for exploration? Besides anything and everything made by Sierra *coughkingsquestcough*?

As for my favorite exploratory game...World of Warcraft, hands down. Really, exploration is a gigantic plus in my taste, so RPGs of any type tend to do it for me. Final Fantasy VI was fantastic in that regard, as are the Zelda games.

Funny, because World of Warcraft deliberately punishes you for exploration by such silly and artificial methods as exponential mob scaling based on level difference, and level limits on quests. You almost never gain from pushing ahead into an area quest givers haven't directed you to enter yet.

You think that stops me? ^_^

I was excavating in the Arathi Highlands when I was a level 20, looking for mithril. I ran from Teldrassil to Ironforge...over Kalimdor (by accident, granted, but still). My Blood Elf Hunter got a snow leopard for a pet when he was level 10. For me, pushing ahead is the gain.

...though it does help if there's something waiting for me there, like ore or herbs. >_>

 

[WolfThomas]

Morrowind was fantastic for exploration, I had a redguard warrior, who was the Patriach of the tribunal temple.

I hunted down every unique weapon in the game (except eltonbrand, I mean wtf was the deal with that?, How is anyone meant to discover that on their own). There was nothing like running on water from tiny island to island, trying to avoid creatures and scaling over massive mountain ridges with jump spells.

 

[slarlath]

I was really unsatisfied with Mass Effect. Although there were plenty of planets to explore,
i felt that most of the uncharted worlds had huge maps with just nothing in them. It would have been nice to have a few more interesting things to find that weren't on the map.

 

[squid5580]

I dunno. Some games can be punishing if they are to open or large. So you expect me to wander for the next hour either not fighting anything or fighting the same thing over and over. Biggest beef with an open world game like Fallout 3 or Sacred 2 is you got to walk for 100 digital kms to get to the next town. You start getting close and then realize you gotta travel another 50 kms east or west 10 more north then go the opposite way for another 50 just to get back on track. All because there is a piece of rubble in the way.

Although and like 5 years later I am still bitter about this one, the Rogue Galaxy's up yours. I am in a dungeon (linear with branching paths for those who haven't played) and I am exploring the dungeon. I find the path that will take me to the end but there was a branch I didn't go down. Backtrack to it spend an hour fighting my way to the dead end and there is a treasure chest. My little heart pounding figuring it has to be a good item (since it was a tough dungeon) I open it to find something useless like a potion. ARRRGGGHHHHHHH!

Let us explore an open game but make it interesting (Shadow I am looking at you) but don't hinder us by stupid little barriers. And don't stick us on rails where if we leave the track we die. No one likes that kind of trial and error.

 

[Chaosut]

I tend to get a bit put off by linearity and always bumping into barriers. And whilst i'd love more games to be encourage exploration such as KOTOR, Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Deus Ex, Morrowind, when it comes down to it it's probably alot easier to make a linear game. I don't think that designers do it to spite players who want to explore, i think it's just more for the sake of practicality. Also, some games need the linearity to fit the style of the game. As someone mentioned earlier, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth would have trouble sustaining the same intensity if it were just one giant map to explore at your own will.

 

[Gyrefalcon]

Yes, I will agree that having a random reward or a really poor one at the end of a long, arduous trek regardless of linear or non-linear games is incredibly frustrating.

And too much space between you and a town when you are low on health can make you long for a select menu to rescue you. I guess I've just been dazzled by the feeling of immersion from being able to wander freely from place to place.

But there are a lot of good games being suggested here that I haven't tried and now I know which might be really appealing both from linear and non-linear game fans so thanks for listing your favorites and what made them really worthwhile to play!

 

[jimduckie]

What do you mean by "punish" ?

an example is gta4 if ya get across a bridge to a area you haven't opened the cops chase and kill ya and send you back to a open area

 

[jimduckie]

the grand theft auto series beginning with san andreas punished you for crossing the water to explore the map but using a cheat code the cops fucked off but in gta4 there is no code but there is the health cheat that fixes ur car , they shouldn't call it a sandbox if ya can't explore

 

[Mezzlegasm]

Because the character and environment programmers won't get good pay unless you look at what they spent months working on. It's very selfish, and I'm not being sarcastic.

Really, it's all about money nowadays, you don't actually see people working for that fact that they want to bring a quality experience.

That's my belief, anyways.

Does anyone remember how much you could explore for old SNES games? I miss it so.

I think it's pretty selfish that you complain about paying someone for putting hard work into your entertainment.