Invisible Walls

[ajb924]

Yea, I used the search bar, the point of this thread is different though

My friend and I were talking at school today and he brought up an interesting point. He said that someone should make a game with no boundries whatsoever. Also, unless it is made by something in the game, you could just go and get destroyed by the final boss right after the tutorial. I told him that the game would be too open, there would be too many possibilities and it just wouldn't work.
So my question is this. Do you think games are better or worse with invisible walls, and do you think it's possible to make a game without them?

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Depends. If they are unnecessary (like many in Fallout 3) then we don't need them. If they close the boundaries of the map, then they are necessary.

 

[Valkyira]

Depends. If they are unnecessary (like many in Fallout 3) then we don't need them. If they close the boundaries of the map, then they are necessary.

this. Also you don't want a game thats so open you can complete it in an hour.

 

[badgersprite]

The only way it could be possible to make a game without them is either to fence in the map physically or to have you reappear on the other side of the map Pac-Man style. The problem with having an endless world map is that it would be completely empty on the outside, with nothing there to see, and it's impossible to animate a limitless globe. You can have a really big world, sure, but it has to end eventually. We all hit the sea at some point, right?

Honestly, the only thing that annoys me more than invisible walls are visible walls that block off areas from you for no reason, until a set point, like in Assassin's Creed or Operation Anchorage. I get that it's meant to simulate being in a computer, but it really detracts from the immersion to see a blue screen of death stopping you from going where you want. I'd rather have an invisible wall at the end of a map that looks like it goes on forever, telling me to turn back.

 

[azncutthroat]

Isn't it impossible to have a game with no area limit?

 

[Rhatar Khurin]

Most MMOs you are in free roaming world (to a certain extent)

 

[A Raging Emo]

It depends. If it was an RPG (Take Oblivion, for example), then it could be done by a simple 'You can't do Y untill you've done X' sort of thing.

 

[Disaster Button]

They kinda bug me if not disguised as like a rock or something.
Otherwise it's just like LOL HAI YOU CAN'T GO THRU THUS REALLEH THIK AIR LOLZ, makes me kinda twitchy.

 

[FalloutJack]

It's possible, sure. Make it wrap-around, to confuse the hell out of the player.

 

[Vigormortis]

Isn't it impossible to have a game with no area limit?

Yeah, pretty much. Since any given game engine (or piece of hardware) can only render so much data, the game world (a.k.a. the map/level) has to have a limit beyond which nothing is rendered. Even as computer technology advances, there will still always be a limit to how much can be rendered at one time and to what extent a player can travel into the distance.

 

[j0z]

About the only way I know how they could do it was to have the game set on an island, something like Morrowind. you can go as far as you want, but you will only see water. Until you go far enough in Morrowind you finally see that dragon M'aq was talking about, and the wereshark.

 

[irishstormtrooper]

Eh, that type of game would have no sense of progression whatsoever. If you could take on the final boss after just starting, there just wouldn't be much motivation to play through the story.

Now what could be cool would be a game where you play through it backwards, fighting the final boss first and then going back to the beginning. Like, your character is stuck moving backwards in time while everyone else is moving forwards. I just realized how amazing that idea is.

 

[CobaltBomber]

Wasn't Black supposed to be like that? Maybe not, I can't recall.

OT: It would be interesting, and the fact that you could just complete the game in two minutes wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing in my book. But I would make it so it's more difficult if you didn't go through the quest and get the Uber-Sword Of Troll Face or whatever.

 

[Lazarus Long]

If I remember correctly, Morrowind would let you go straight from the Seyda Neen docks to Dagoth Ur. Of course, if you didn't have the right artifacts, you weren't gonna get a very happy ending.

Actually, the best examples I can think of are all pre-Oblivion Bethesda. Daggerfall, Morrowind, and their sweet open-world Terminator game were all amazingly open, especially for the time.

 

[SilentStranger]

"Damn mimes and their invisible walls"

 

[LavosPrime]

You people are reading WAY too much into this. It's definitely possible to make an excellent game with no invisible walls. You use *gasp* VISIBLE walls. Just don't put them in stupid places. Problem solved.

 

[saruto]

Invisible walls aren't 100% necessary. Think of a game based on a smaller scale Earth; completely round.
It wouldn't be a huge game, but you really could cut out invisible walls completely.

 

[ajb924]

"Damn mimes and their invisible walls"

FINALLY! I was hoping that would come up!

You people are reading WAY too much into this. It's definitely possible to make an excellent game with no invisible walls. You use *gasp* VISIBLE walls. Just don't put them in stupid places. Problem solved.

I think the same thing, but for some reason, developers think the only way to do this is put an obstacle that would be easily cleared by you, but your awesome super person just can't jump over the car.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I think all invisible walls should be replaced by the boundries in ATV offroad fury. To those of you who didnt get a ps2 at the point where you had to consciously try NOT to be given that game for free, basically you hit the boundary, and you get destroyed and launched back 200 feet in the air while your rider screams like a pussy. My friend and I used to spend hours just driving into the boundaries for shits n' giggles.

 

[NBSRDan]

It is impossible to make a (stable) game without invisible walls. There has to be atleast a box around the level, or the game will crash due to memory overload.
It is easy to make a game without invisible walls you can bump into, however. Just place the boundary far away from actual terrain and objects, and surround all outdoor environments with impassable natural walls (e.g. cliffs) or death traps.
You could also have an infinitely expanding game world via procedural generation.