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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2018 20:23:10 GMT
That's a much too restrictive definition, designed to exclude DAI. Horizon Zero Dawn has a hub, in fact it sequentially puts you in one hub then another, just like DAI. But you aren't restricted to travel to/from the hub, that is a very specific DAI design choice that Mike explained in the article. They wanted to insure that people didn't get too disconnected from the flow of the main quest in their random wandering, so they forced a return to the hub to allow "events" to occur to remind the player that main quest shit has to get done. He even mentions that Skyrim did not have such a forcing function and you could play the game for hours without ever getting "the shouts" (the way it was quoted made me giggle, because it sounds like "the shits"). Personally, I thought that was a great thing about Skyrim and I played many characters that never got the shouts, but I digress .... It's also a continuum. Even games that are considered linear, like Hellblade, have areas where you can roam freely and choose the order in which you do branching linear paths. It's silly to say DAI is not open world, given that the dev team was put under pressure to make DAI be a damn open world game, though Mike didn't say what the stated rationale was. We can guess it was to stay competitive with Skyrim and the like. Personally, I'm moving away from the whole open/closed world terminology. It's not a useful descriptor any more, in the same way RPG is useless. It's more useful to talk about how much choice players have in exploration and in the sequence of decisions/quests. The more choice the player has, the more open world it is. DAI has way more choice than Hellblade does, but less than Skyrim and HZD. So an eagle can be called a chipmunk and a steak a piece of pizza? I understand definition creep, I understand that words and their meanings can evolve over time, but when you do that you risk loosing a word's useful, disntinctive meaning. Because I have played both Skyrim and Dragon Age Inquisition and the games have very little in common (aside from an over abundance of fetch quests I suppose). How is a zone like the Fallow Mire or the Storm Coast'open world'? How can a game be called open world if you cannot literally walk to one zone of the map to the next? Again, what is your definition? (you did not provide one). And while I haven't played HZD yet I suspect calling it an open world game is a bit of a misnomer too, at least based on your comments on the game. You are right about it being a continiuum and you are also right that this whole conversation might be 'meaningless' in the grand scheme of things, (I mean heck if anything under the sun can be an Open World Game then maybe all we can do is discuss the degree something is open). As has been noted too BioWare itself might have called Inquisition an Open World Game. I have heard conflicting reports about it so I prefer to er on the side of words having sensical meanings. But, even if that is the case it does not change much (I guess as mmoblitz pointed out). It would just make it a bad open world game. An amazing game, but a bad open world game (though tbh most of the games I do consider open world aren't that great) Just like how the Witcher 3, everyone from the devs and most of the gaming community says its an RPG, it is to me a horrible one. Great game, Horribe RPG. No.
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Post by inquisitor007 on Jun 16, 2018 1:28:15 GMT
I don't why DAI is the only game that seems to get criticized so severely for its 'fetch quests'. ALL rpgs have them. I'm playing God of War. Even that game has them. How many did Skyrim have that had absolutely nothing to do with anything in the main quest?
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Post by colfoley on Jun 16, 2018 1:39:47 GMT
I don't why DAI is the only game that seems to get criticized so severely for its 'fetch quests'. ALL rpgs have them. I'm playing God of War. Even that game has them. How many did Skyrim have that had absolutely nothing to do with anything in the main quest? Actually I think ALL games have fetching quests of some sort, or at least the vast majority of them. Just in some games, like RPGs, they are quests and you can gain xp for them while in others they are purely collectibles. In the Modern Warfare games you had to collect computers which represented intelligence which unlocked bonuses and in Detroit: Become Human you have newspaper clippings.
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Post by inquisitor007 on Jun 16, 2018 1:46:20 GMT
I don't why DAI is the only game that seems to get criticized so severely for its 'fetch quests'. ALL rpgs have them. I'm playing God of War. Even that game has them. How many did Skyrim have that had absolutely nothing to do with anything in the main quest? Actually I think ALL games have fetching quests of some sort, or at least the vast majority of them. Just in some games, like RPGs, they are quests and you can gain xp for them while in others they are purely collectibles. In the Modern Warfare games you had to collect computers which represented intelligence which unlocked bonuses and in Detroit: Become Human you have newspaper clippings. That's what they're for, mostly to explore the richness of the world and gain XP to help with your main quest. But most games, including DAI, allow you to get through the main quest without worrying too much about them. People are complaining about something they don't even have to do.
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Post by Iakus on Jun 16, 2018 17:28:44 GMT
I don't why DAI is the only game that seems to get criticized so severely for its 'fetch quests'. ALL rpgs have them. I'm playing God of War. Even that game has them. How many did Skyrim have that had absolutely nothing to do with anything in the main quest? Probably because getting to them can be such a slog, carving your way through bandits, wolves, bears, etc just to find a piece of jewelry or whatever.
A GOOD fetch quest has a story behind it, a reason to do it besides xp and maybe a bit of gold at the end. Or at the very least occurs next door to a quest that offers that.
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Post by warden on Jun 16, 2018 17:42:24 GMT
It's because the design of the fetch quests in DAI it's very MMORPG like, but the worst thing is, it's very bad done because MMORPG fetch quests are actually more entertaining and fun.
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Post by Sifr on Jun 17, 2018 2:31:27 GMT
I don't why DAI is the only game that seems to get criticized so severely for its 'fetch quests'. ALL rpgs have them. I'm playing God of War. Even that game has them. How many did Skyrim have that had absolutely nothing to do with anything in the main quest? Probably because getting to them can be such a slog, carving your way through bandits, wolves, bears, etc just to find a piece of jewelry or whatever.
A GOOD fetch quest has a story behind it, a reason to do it besides xp and maybe a bit of gold at the end. Or at the very least occurs next door to a quest that offers that.
I don't mind fetch quests, but I do agree that they could be made more involved.
For example, take the Agrarian Apostate quest in the Hinterlands. What if we're asked by the widow to retrieve her husband's ring like in the game, but it's part of a larger quest that forces us to deal with a notorious Templar responsible for numerous deaths across the region (such as the former healer at the crossroads).
We're given the option to converse with him, before deciding whether we take him out, convince him to give up the ring and leave, or even recruit him into the Inquisition. If the latter option is taken, he becomes an agent... but potentially can betray us to the Red Templars, depending on whether we ally with the mages or not.
And if we do nothing, we later learn he kills several more people in the Hinterlands (including the widow who gave us the quest), before being finally killed himself. This option (like recruiting) ends up decrease our influence in the region, making it slightly harder for us to recruit Vale's Irregulars as agents, since their fellow refugees died from our inaction.
(Having influence increase/decrease due to our actions, as well as influence being region-specific, could have improved that mechanic and made it feel more like we were making progress in each location)
This is how they could have tied in the quests to the overall story taking place within each location, giving us named characters and a reason why doing it would be important, along with actual consequences should we chose to do it or not.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Jun 22, 2018 17:15:38 GMT
There's no such thing as a "good" fetch quest. Developers like them because they're an easy, inexpensive way to make a game seem like it's full of content, by tricking you into wasting literal days of your life on traipsing back and forth across pointlessly large, empty environments. It's all an illusion. Style without substance.
At this point, I'm tempted to suggest that developers do away with the concept of side content altogether. Sides won't save you if the main course sucks.
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Post by smilesja on Jun 22, 2018 17:36:39 GMT
There's no such thing as a "good" fetch quest. Developers like them because they're an easy, inexpensive way to make a game seem like it's full of content, by tricking you into wasting literal days of your life on traipsing back and forth across pointlessly large, empty environments. It's all an illusion. Style without substance. At this point, I'm tempted to suggest that developers do away with the concept of side content altogether. Sides won't save you if the main course sucks. I'm not sure, I preferred the Witcher 3's side content to it's main quests.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Jun 22, 2018 17:50:33 GMT
There's no such thing as a "good" fetch quest. Developers like them because they're an easy, inexpensive way to make a game seem like it's full of content, by tricking you into wasting literal days of your life on traipsing back and forth across pointlessly large, empty environments. It's all an illusion. Style without substance. At this point, I'm tempted to suggest that developers do away with the concept of side content altogether. Sides won't save you if the main course sucks. I'm not sure, I preferred the Witcher 3's side content to it's main quests. Well, so did I, but there's a reason that no other game is like Witcher 3, and that reason, as a cursory scroll through their Glassdoor reviews reveals, is that CD Projekt overworks and underpays their staff. Even a lot of their more positive reviews mention low pay (even compared to the Polish IT sector), and excessive crunch as a result of poor planning. But as I've mentioned, earlier in this very thread, I do not want or need to play another Witcher 3. I already have Witcher 3. I want to play different things now.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Jun 22, 2018 18:43:39 GMT
The "Power" mechanic is lousy, in and of itself. It's transparently obvious that it only exists to cover up how little story there ACTUALLY is, by forcing you to engage with the bloated, uninteresting side-content. You forgot to say, "Lazy devs!" /s I realize this comment was made literally a month ago, but I suddenly feel compelled to reply that, while the devs may or may not be lazy, but the writers definitely were. When I was thirteen, I got sick of the fantasy story I was working on, and decided to have the antagonist smash through the wall of the hero's house, right then and there, to force the final conflict. BioWare might as well have copied that entire final chapter verbatim.
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Post by luzarius on Jun 22, 2018 18:49:49 GMT
When you discuss social justice for five hours a day, obviously your game world will end up hollow. If you game world is hollow, at least at some hot babes to spice the game up. I don't mind a slightly hollow game world if the women characters are super hot & attractive with breast & butt physics.
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Post by smilesja on Jun 23, 2018 4:26:49 GMT
When you discuss social justice for five hours a day, obviously your game world will end up hollow. If you game world is hollow, at least at some hot babes to spice the game up. I don't mind a slightly hollow game world if the women characters are super hot & attractive with breast & butt physics. Get a girlfriend.
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Post by cloud9 on Jun 23, 2018 10:23:15 GMT
When you discuss social justice for five hours a day, obviously your game world will end up hollow. If you game world is hollow, at least at some hot babes to spice the game up. I don't mind a slightly hollow game world if the women characters are super hot & attractive with breast & butt physics. 😂😂😂That's what Witcher is for, dude. And the SFM creators for NSFW. (Google Affect3D or StudioFOW if you want to see that kind of thing)
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Post by pessimistpanda on Jun 23, 2018 10:40:22 GMT
Lol at anyone who thinks "five hours a day" is a lot of time to spend doing something. Forget a girlfriend. First you need a job.
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Post by Sylvius the Mad on Jun 26, 2018 18:54:16 GMT
No its not. At least it shouldn't be. Using that definition all Elder Scrolls games (including Skyrim) and all Fallout games are simply no open world games. Every dungeon, house, building or whatever in those games has a bloody loading screen... Using that definition it is even very difficult to find any open world game whatsoever.
Daggerfall and Morrowind didn't have area transitions. They were one contiguous world, inside & out.
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Post by hivemind on Jul 12, 2018 19:31:37 GMT
When your game contains three different desert locations - you know your game is hollow.
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Post by Hanako Ikezawa on Jul 12, 2018 19:47:04 GMT
When your game contains three different desert locations - you know your game is hollow. What was the third desert? There was Eos and Elaaden but that’s just two.
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Post by hivemind on Jul 12, 2018 20:08:08 GMT
When your game contains three different desert locations - you know your game is hollow. What was the third desert? There was Eos and Elaaden but that’s just two. In DAI: Western Approach, Night Desert (forgot the name) and The Oasis, which is a better one visually of these three, but the lack of content (characters and quests) basically makes it yet another desert. In MEA: Eos, Elaaden and Voeld. Latter, being a snowy desert, doesn't make much of a difference. Still a big empty desert.
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Post by Iakus on Jul 12, 2018 21:21:42 GMT
When your game contains three different desert locations - you know your game is hollow. What was the third desert? There was Eos and Elaaden but that’s just two. Kadara
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Post by leadintea on Jul 12, 2018 22:14:42 GMT
Deserts can fuck off in any future Bioware game, as far as I'm concerned. They always come across as lazy and uninspired designs, IMO.
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Post by alanc9 on Jul 13, 2018 16:46:07 GMT
What was the third desert? There was Eos and Elaaden but that’s just two. Kadara That's stretching the definition of "desert" a bit, since Kadara has lots of vegetation and abundant free water.
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Post by Iakus on Jul 13, 2018 17:04:00 GMT
That's stretching the definition of "desert" a bit, since Kadara has lots of vegetation and abundant free water. The water is toxic, the average surface temperature is 29C (around 85 F) and much of the terrain is barren rock. But this is a Dragon Age thread.
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Post by Hrungr on Jul 13, 2018 17:56:03 GMT
Personally, I find the most effective use of desert environments are when they're used as a study in contrast with other environments. Like a lush river valley winding through a desert, or a desert city bordering on the sea, or some magical anomaly (small desert in the middle of some other environment).
These aren't the best examples, but they're... something.
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Post by Hanako Ikezawa on Jul 13, 2018 18:49:55 GMT
Personally I don't mind or see the issues with deserts because they can be a very diverse environment just like other biomes for example forests. So having two or three maps be deserts but different types like Bioware has done is fine with me.
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