Hey Fextralife.. so something I've been thinking about recently is the discussion on Open World games. One of the reasons I wanted to start this thread is because I feel like it was a really big discussion in games, and something that to me didn't really seem settled, and I was kinda hoping with 2017 with the major releases like Andromeda, Breath of the Wild, and so on, and even some from as far back as 2015 like Xenoblade Chronicles X, and obviously it's a recurring theme in the Souls games whether the Open World is something that people are really enjoying or whether it depends on the implementation and so on and so forth...

For me, I've always felt it depends on the games. I could never really get into Minecraft, Terraria, or the like, based on the fact that I just didn't feel strongly about the open world concept. On the other hand, as a Zelda fan, etc, I definitely felt like it should be interesting to try and give that concept justice and so games like Xeno X, FF15, and others that really put effort into it I was thinking might make the game more interesting and stuff.

Anyway I definitely enjoyed Breath of the Wild but I guess I'm sorta biased, and FF15 as well.. which had both the open world and linear stuff at the same time.. but I'm curious if there are hardcore Minecraft fans and stuff and what they might have thought, and also as the Souls community generally how they feel those games stack up in the open world, with Dark Souls opting for more of the open format as compared to perhaps demon Souls, even though they all have elements of the Open world.

Oh crap no takers, haha oh well..

have some patience mate, January isn't exactly the busiest time in gaming.

Open world games do best when the original developer vision was to make a giant explorable world. If open worlds are forced on to a game due to popularity they'll almost certainly be barren and bland. I would also say that it takes a more experienced studio to pull off a good open world game than a good linear game. Ideally the benefit of an open world game is a massive jump in lifespan.

on a side note I wrote a 20 page design document for a perspective dragons dogma 2 that didn't get a single up doot on here or reddit.

Hm yeah I can definitely agree with that.. whenever the open world feels forced it doesn't really work out...

On the other hand, I'm not sure which examples come to mind immediately... like where it got tacked on, it definitely sounds like the thing that would suck.

Actually scratch that I can think of some.

Arkham Knight..

Like I wasn't a fan of the trilogy big time to begin with, but I daresay everything about this entry felt like just trying to do it for it's own sake and it came off bad.

Arkham Knight looked like it just represented the exact worst open world model.. where it's some gigantic map and there's quest markers just scattered in every direction randomlyly, and you just auto target each one and farm a bunch of random quests. But even worse the quest marker points aren't easy to get to, and you generally run into tall buildings and stuff trying to get there.

It's the kind of giant bowl with quest markers in every direction that seems to be the worst offender.

Also the earlier Arkham games weren't really "open world" per se but there was definitely like a strong sense of just being an action series in more linear environments.

Anyway, are you imagining a Dragon's Dogma 2 that's even more expansive? That was certainly one of the more open world Capcom games I played. Dragon's Dogma of course doesn't really follow the bowl design, it's got more of a unique geography to it..

Anyway, I also tried upvoting but it doesn't seem to work on my browser unfortunately haha so maybe that was a reason XD

Marshmellowjam wrote:Hm yeah I can definitely agree with that.. whenever the open world feels forced it doesn't really work out...

On the other hand, I'm not sure which examples come to mind immediately... like where it got tacked on, it definitely sounds like the thing that would suck.

Actually scratch that I can think of some.

Arkham Knight..

Like I wasn't a fan of the trilogy big time to begin with, but I daresay everything about this entry felt like just trying to do it for it's own sake and it came off bad.

Arkham Knight looked like it just represented the exact worst open world model.. where it's some gigantic map and there's quest markers just scattered in every direction randomlyly, and you just auto target each one and farm a bunch of random quests. But even worse the quest marker points aren't easy to get to, and you generally run into tall buildings and stuff trying to get there.

It's the kind of giant bowl with quest markers in every direction that seems to be the worst offender.

Also the earlier Arkham games weren't really "open world" per se but there was definitely like a strong sense of just being an action series in more linear environments.

Anyway, are you imagining a Dragon's Dogma 2 that's even more expansive? That was certainly one of the more open world Capcom games I played. Dragon's Dogma of course doesn't really follow the bowl design, it's got more of a unique geography to it..

Anyway, I also tried upvoting but it doesn't seem to work on my browser unfortunately haha so maybe that was a reason XD

my main concern was with class flow, diversity of combat roles, and capitalizing on the lore of the series. the map design of a dragons dogma game can be pretty free form and include any environment the developers want to include.

open world design is a good tool if you want the player to care about the setting but bad if you want individual characters to take the lions share of characterization. one potential way around this is to have a npc accompany the player but that would require an extremely advanced ai to work well as dragon dogma illustrates (pawns are as dumb as a sack of potatoes).

Yeah the AI with the pawns was pretty bad, but it was nice to have them around.