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Post by alanc9 on Apr 1, 2019 22:56:47 GMT
Of course, part of that is since the plot's about planets which were either marginally inhabitable or outright uninhabitable, many of the Andromeda worlds really weren't lived in.
ME:a managed to hit the sweet spot where its worlds were too crowded to satisfy folks who wanted the feeling of entering virgin territory while still being too empty to be really interesting.
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Post by 10k on Apr 4, 2019 14:54:20 GMT
It seems when people bring up open-worlds, exploration is one of the prime talking points. I don't care about exploration in a ME game. I want lore, atmosphere, great character interactions, and a decent overarching story. The way BW can do a open-world right, is by not doing one at all. I'm fine with sizable areas that are full of content. But I'm sick of games where there is just a huge map with relatively nothing to do within them. My favorite open-world game so far is RDR2. Odyssey is still fun and TW3 is good as well, but they both still lacked the "inhabited" feeling outside of it's quest. RDR2 has been the only open-world game, in my experience, that has captured the "inhabited" feeling outside of it's quest. There were strangers that you could run into randomly, out in the open-world, doing their own thing. But would react to you. You could come across someone who was just camping, and you could walk up to them and join them at their campfire while they would tell you a story of their own adventures. That is a open-world not many games achieve. Most open-worlds games are just the player wandering the world and stumbling across caves of baddies that they kill, then moving on to the next. Skyrim was like this, Odyssey is like this, and mostly every other open-world is like this.
I'm tired of roaming areas of nothing, just for exploration sake. Give me content, and characters. Smaller environments with just more to do and characters to interact with. More lore and atmospheric places, and less exploration for the sake of exploration.
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
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Post by dmc1001 on Apr 4, 2019 16:44:35 GMT
It seems when people bring up open-worlds, exploration is one of the prime talking points. I don't care about exploration in a ME game. I want lore, atmosphere, great character interactions, and a decent overarching story. The way BW can do a open-world right, is by not doing one at all. I'm fine with sizable areas that are full of content. But I'm sick of games where there is just a huge map with relatively nothing to do within them. This is actually something done in the ME1 on all the planets you land on. We have a few set things, like probes that litter the galaxy, or whatever facilities you find. There are also some hubs which work well. ME2 and ME3 had hubs that sometimes appeared to be open but instead were shepherding you along a very specific path, with a few extras thrown in. That's the way to go.
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Post by 10k on Apr 4, 2019 17:18:55 GMT
It seems when people bring up open-worlds, exploration is one of the prime talking points. I don't care about exploration in a ME game. I want lore, atmosphere, great character interactions, and a decent overarching story. The way BW can do a open-world right, is by not doing one at all. I'm fine with sizable areas that are full of content. But I'm sick of games where there is just a huge map with relatively nothing to do within them. This is actually something done in the ME1 on all the planets you land on. We have a few set things, like probes that litter the galaxy, or whatever facilities you find. There are also some hubs which work well. ME2 and ME3 had hubs that sometimes appeared to be open but instead were shepherding you along a very specific path, with a few extras thrown in. That's the way to go. Yes, I actually wouldn't mind if they go back to ME2 style of things. It strived on providing the player with lore and showing how the individuals of each world lived. I want more of that "lived in" feel. I never liked the Mako sections in ME1, besides trying to do backflips in the thing lol, there was nothing really interesting about going to another random planet and driving around it. This is also another reason I didn't like Andromeda, players did more of the Mako BS I disliked in ME1. Only this time you didn't have a gun so you'd have to get out every time to fight. I actually liked visiting planets more in ME2. they were smaller hubs areas, but visiting that planet meant there was reason you were there.
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Post by KaiserShep on Apr 4, 2019 17:38:44 GMT
This is actually something done in the ME1 on all the planets you land on. We have a few set things, like probes that litter the galaxy, or whatever facilities you find. There are also some hubs which work well. ME2 and ME3 had hubs that sometimes appeared to be open but instead were shepherding you along a very specific path, with a few extras thrown in. That's the way to go. Yes, I actually wouldn't mind if they go back to ME2 style of things. It strived on providing the player with lore and showing how the individuals of each world lived. I want more of that "lived in" feel. I never liked the Mako sections in ME1, besides trying to do backflips in the thing lol, there was nothing really interesting about going to another random planet and driving around it. This is also another reason I didn't like Andromeda, players did more of the Mako BS I disliked in ME1. Only this time you didn't have a gun so you'd have to get out every time to fight. I actually liked visiting planets more in ME2. they were smaller hubs areas, but visiting that planet meant there was reason you were there. Well technically there was always a reason you visited a planet in ME1; it’s just that they had you land miles away from the compound for some reason lol. I did like the introduction of shuttles dropping you off at the site itself. I didn’t like ME2’s approach to side content though. Those filler missions felt too inconsequential and were often annoying. I wish they tried something like ME1 where you could have standoffs and find derelict ships.
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Post by 10k on Apr 4, 2019 17:59:33 GMT
Yes, I actually wouldn't mind if they go back to ME2 style of things. It strived on providing the player with lore and showing how the individuals of each world lived. I want more of that "lived in" feel. I never liked the Mako sections in ME1, besides trying to do backflips in the thing lol, there was nothing really interesting about going to another random planet and driving around it. This is also another reason I didn't like Andromeda, players did more of the Mako BS I disliked in ME1. Only this time you didn't have a gun so you'd have to get out every time to fight. I actually liked visiting planets more in ME2. they were smaller hubs areas, but visiting that planet meant there was reason you were there. Well technically there was always a reason you visited a planet in ME1; it’s just that they had you land miles away from the compound for some reason lol. I did like the introduction of shuttles dropping you off at the site itself. I didn’t like ME2’s approach to side content though. Those filler missions felt too inconsequential and were often annoying. I wish they tried something like ME1 where you could have standoffs and find derelict ships. No some planets had no reason to be visited in ME1. There are a few planets that literally had nothing but a codex entry you could collect. I'm just not a fan of multiple deserted waste lands, where the player just ride and collect things that are meaningless to the story. As for "inconsequential" most of those planets you visited in ME1 had inconsequential content. You would find a probe with information about another probe on another deserted wasteland planet, where you would have to find a beacon of some kind to reactivate it; then receive XP for the reactivation of that meaningless beacon. I'll take ME2 inconsequential sidequest any day over that.
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
Origin: ferroboy
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Post by dmc1001 on Apr 4, 2019 20:45:40 GMT
there was nothing really interesting about going to another random planet and driving around it. There is one thing. Some of the night sky views were outstanding.
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Post by 10k on Apr 5, 2019 1:48:39 GMT
there was nothing really interesting about going to another random planet and driving around it. There is one thing. Some of the night sky views were outstanding. Oh yeah the sky boxes on a few of those planets were beautiful.
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Post by alanc9 on Apr 5, 2019 22:46:02 GMT
As long as I can skip those planets completely, I'm all for it.
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Post by sil on Apr 5, 2019 23:35:36 GMT
Open worlds can work for some games, I don't think ME should ever lead with open worlds again, however. I do think they have a place in the series though. Here's what I'd suggest:
1) The core plot and characters are most important to players. I'd suggest having a more linear story set across multiple worlds, with some planets having mini-hubs (like Tuchanka and Illium). The approach I think would work best is ME2's. On some planets you'd do several missions, but each one would be tailored to follow a specific storyline.
2) There would be "anomalies" and "UNC" missions that take place on small but open areas just as we had with Mass Effect 1. These are devoted to a single story, but might have some secret like how the ME1 missions sometimes had crashed probes or prothean spheres lying around. These would be entirely optional and no time limit on when you do them.
3) Once the final mission/core storyline is complete, several planets open up into Open World areas. Planets where you had multiple missions now have expansive areas to explore, featuring the mini-hub area as the landing zone as well as the areas that those earlier missions took place in, but also a lot more. This serves as a reward for players completing the game and gives them the ability to keep playing once the story is over.
My reasoning for this is that the core Mass Effect crowd play these games for the story, and Mass Effect 2 is widely held as the best game in the series. This makes it the best one to 'mimic' in terms of how to set up the missions. By having a bunch of small planets to explore at the same time, you're keeping the spirit of exploration that ME1 had, while telling some tales completely disconnected with the main story arc that flesh out the setting. Once the player has completed the main story, they're then free to explore planets that they might have found an interest in, get to take part in more side missions and meet new characters. These open worlds can tell additional stories that have no bearing on the main event but are still important or interesting. Ultimately, it allows players to keep playing and gives Bioware a means to add additional content for a cheaper price (as its cheaper to add side missions to an existing open world than it is to hand-craft a new mission map).
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Post by Link"Guess"ski on Apr 8, 2019 15:16:29 GMT
You don't. We don't need open world design in Mass Effect. Just hubs and experiential open areas with a handful of tangible objectives.
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