Open world worries: Skyrim edition

[Spectrum_Prez]

So I was listening to [a href=http://www.gameinformer.com/b/podcasts/archive/2011/02/03/toddhowardse.aspx]the hour long Game Informer podcast interview with Todd Howard[/a] last night. There were a lot of interesting tidbits in there that got me more hyped for Skyrim, but there were also a few things that really concerned me.

The one that stood out was his comment on how Skyrim will have a lot of mountains making the game map feel larger because you have to walk farther to get places (as the crow flies vs as the wolf runs, for you fantasy fans). The mountains will basically be impassably tall and since levitation doesn't look like it's making a come back, this will mean a lot of virtual invisible barriers on the map.

For me, that is kind of a betrayal of the idea of an open world game, since it makes certain sections fairly linear. Bethesda Game Studios have been the most fervent supporters of the open-world ideal, along with a few other developers (Rockstar comes to mind), but this seems like a move away from that paradigm. After all the frustrating invisible barriers put in by Obsidian in FO:NV, I can't help but feel like this is a further step backwards.

You're thoughts?

 

[RatRace123]

It's still an open world, but I can see why they'd do it. They want to put some obstacles to have some linearity, probably so that new players can't just go wherever they want and get murdered by a level 99 killer rabbit or something.
It might also have been done to keep load times from screwing the player's processor, or to make them seamless, allowing the more linear paths to act as loading screens.

It's not how I would've handled it, but at least I think I know why it was done.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

It's still an open world, but I can see why they'd do it. They want to put some obstacles to have some linearity, probably so that new players can't just go wherever they want and get murdered by a level 99 killer rabbit or something.
It might also have been done to keep load times from screwing the player's processor, or to make them seamless, allowing the more linear paths to act as loading screens.

It's not how I would've handled it, but at least I think I know why it was done.

Yes, but isn't that going against the basic gameplay principles of the last three Bethesda games and the whole 'open-world' paradigm as a whole? The best thing about these games is that you'll wander around, get assaulted by crazy powerful forces, run away, then come back another day. The whole point of these games it that the player can go wherever they want. That's the real heart of this type of RPG experience.

 

[RatRace123]

Yes, but isn't that going against the basic gameplay principles of the last three Bethesda games and the whole 'open-world' paradigm as a whole? The best thing about these games is that you'll wander around, get assaulted by crazy powerful forces, run away, then come back another day. The whole point of these games it that the player can go wherever they want. That's the real heart of this type of RPG experience.

I agree completely, and it seems like it's breaking this sort of principle. Linearity doesn't mean it's bad though, and there are open world games that have linear progression, they just use clever tricks to disguise it. (GTA 4 and inFAMOUS come to mind)

 

[KatiCentauri]

I don't see it being a problem so long as there are -some- relatively flat areas for roaming. Impassible mountains seem like they'd be the norm for a harsh northern environment, so they do have a place.
But if the whole game is just narrow paths through mountains it may as well be set entirely in a dungeon.
Here's to hoping for the former.