Should events happen in open-world RPGs without player participation?

[DracoSuave]

I've seen it in a few games, and it depends on how it is done.

In Star Control 2, you become aware of it, because the star map constantly updates whenever events happen. You can see the other races' zone of influence move, shrink, or grow depending on events in game. As a result, it becomes a part of the narrative and therefore adds tension and value to the player.

In Wizardry 7? 8?... you were wondering around looking for macguffins for reasons I can't remember, but other parties where wandering around looking for the same macguffins. Whether they got them or not was entirely up to chance and time... the problem being that the game would not inform you of who took it, or why. So you'd get to the end of a quest... and bam. Nothing. You'd then have to cast spells, hoping to find the macguffin, only to find out that the hippoman and some cat dude are fighting over it.

Ugh.

 

[Joccaren]

Its something that I'd love to see, but am constantly disappointed by not being able to.

Random encounters are in the game. Things like Thieves jumping you from behind rocks or finding a group of Thalmer leading a prisoner are random encounters.

As is finding a dragon and such, but it never really changes much. Yeah, you'll find your odd random spawn that will enact some sort of scene for you to interfere with or not, but how can two military bases sit 1 km or less from each other - a simple 3 minute walk (I'm guessing 1km here as otherwise Skyrim is tiny...) - and not have any plans to call in reinforcements to attack each other. Why do no towns seem to get invaded by one side or the other, even though there is a war going on. Whilst playing, I almost forget the Stormcloaks and the Imperials aren't best friends due to the lack of interaction with them. Now, I'm not following the main story at all, I'm just wandering around finding stuff to explore, but I shouldn't have to follow the main story for them to have fights over towns, attack each other's camps, fight it out on large plains. It would be amazing to join in on, walking into a town and deciding to stay the night, then getting woken up in the middle of the night as one faction attacks the town, and the other defends it. I get not all towns are aligned to one race or another, but look at our wars. That sort of thing only lasts so long. Eventually, they would be forced to pick a side, or a faction would attack them simply to control that land and take control of the area around it from their enemies. So far, the only sign of hostilities I have seen outside of the main quest line is one prisoner being escorted by 3 guards outside Whiterun.
I want a mod that will make it feel like a war is actually going on, or better yet, future games to be developed with this in mind.
Think DA:O, where the Darkspawn would slowly take over the land leading up to Denerim in a linear fashion. It was based off how many main story quests you'd done, but what if it was based off time, but the Ferelden forces would occasionally hold some ground for a bit, and retake Lothering, then abandon it as the next wave of Darkspawn came. That sort of thing, but in an open world RPG like Skyrim would be epic.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I'd like to see this, but implemented in such a way that the player can actively choose to be involved in events without feeling rushed or losing out. Basically, major "main quest" related events should give you a long enough lead time to prepare and choose to involve yourself; consequently, opting out of major plot points should be detrimental to the overall story arc. The meta game would be: can I level myself enough to miss significant chunks of the main quest only to show up at the zero hour and be the hero?

It always strikes me as strange in RPGs when someone comes running up and needs my help "quickly," but I can put off assisting for HOURS and DAYS; when I finally grace the peasants with my presence, it seems like both sides of the conflict had been waiting on ME to show up! I'd like to show up just a minute too late and see the last of the innocent fall; let me deal with the consequences.

 

[GrandmaFunk]

I'm playing Mount and Blade at the moment and this game does this completely. The game doesn't give a damn what you do, those kingdoms are going to keep warring and trucing all day long.

it's funny, every day there's a new thread along the lines of "I wish RPGs had more X" and the answer always seems to be: "have you tried Mount&Blade?" =)

It's my current obsession as well and I love that it has all these systems operating independently without any player interaction...giving players the choice to get involved with any of them as much or as little as they want.

 

[Wintio]

It's my current obsession as well and I love that it has all these systems operating independently without any player interaction...giving players the choice to get involved with any of them as much or as little as they want.

The only problem is that this sort of independence really highlights the limitations of choice in gaming in my opinion. For example, the beauty of this system is that I should be able to play for a while, capture a few castles and then sit back and make peace with people. Sure there will be attempts to retake them (you have to imagine the lords who lost them will be angry) but still, I should be able to sit back and focus on other things.

But it's Mount and Blade, the game is built on warring and capturing. It's unrealistic to expect the makers to also include the ability to grow a garden in my city, or try and foster a culture, or host tournaments.... at this point it's great if games can manage to build a good world where there's one or two really fun things to do. And what's the point in having unlimited freedom if there's only two things to choose between anyway?

Mods are a nice answer, but they're a hassle to try and find (and you'd need a lot to have choice within the game, not just adding a third feature to try)

 

[Mordwyl]

Yes, but only if it adheres to open gameplay.

 

[LordRoyal]

Why do no towns seem to get invaded by one side or the other, even though there is a war going on. Whilst playing, I almost forget the Stormcloaks and the Imperials aren't best friends due to the lack of interaction with them.

You do realize the game has civil war quests where you do exactly that

 

[Joccaren]

Why do no towns seem to get invaded by one side or the other, even though there is a war going on. Whilst playing, I almost forget the Stormcloaks and the Imperials aren't best friends due to the lack of interaction with them.

You do realize the game has civil war quests where you do exactly that

That is it though - Quests. I don't want quests, I want it to happen without my interaction, and I'm pretty sure that's what this thread is about. I don't want to have to be the one that leads every army into battle, it makes it feel like my personal war rather than a war between two factions I honestly couldn't care less about. The factions actually fighting their own war would be something I'd like, rather than waiting on me to fight it for them.

 

[skywolfblue]

In my opinion, no.

It can be done right if it's for small-time nonessential quests with only a soft-fail as the penalty. (I.e. the opportunity will come around again)

For major plot events, HELL NO. NO. NO. NO. If I want to take my time exploring the game, I shouldn't lose access to critical plot events simply because I stopped to smell the roses. The bad guys shouldn't take over my hometown if I decided to go sightseeing, and the good guys shouldn't defeat the last boss for me simply because I was going too slow.

Falcon 4 had a completely dynamic campaign, and while it worked in the context of a flight sim where there isn't any "story" to be told, it would be absolutely terrible for any game with story.

 

[Roselina]

It would be great for the fact that when nothing gets done without me there seems like all the Npc's suffer from "Diablo" syndrome. Certain quests wouldn't disappear but merely change how there done like say a diplomatic town elects a new leader while you were away but the old one had a certain quest you needed. Well instead of losing the quest the new guy takes it on but he has a different way of doing such as instead of clearing the dungeon by yourself you need to support his men. Time sensitive quests would give players a sense of urgency otherwise immersion goes down cause the chance meeting your contact set up will happen now or maybe a year from now cause you spent that much in-game time faffing about.

 

[Smooth Operator]

A neat idea in concept, but next to impossible on execution.
While you may get the impression the whole world could function without you and the whole thing goes on forever the real deal is there is about 20 hours of content in that game and the rest comes in with your exploration.
Let's be honest those 20 hours feel stretched thin as it is, now if you make the world turn without you they could sail right past you and you would be left to pick up the bread crumbs, that would be a very very poor game.

So the solution?
- MMO system, where everything is in an infinite loop? That feels even worse, your actions never ever matter in any part of the game
- developers put in 10x or more content? Well Skyrim took atleast 3 years to make, you want to make that 30?
- selective events, now that can work but it hasto be the player activated, he hasto be clearly informed and the deadline needs to be clearly defined

Now let's say "town X will be under attack by Y at the day of Z", that is a solid dynamic event that the player can participate in or ignore and will effect future quests.
That would be a nice bit of extra spice to it but you need to understand this is throw away content, and I would much rather they spend more time on the actual story side then random events.

 

[Korten12]

I think that would be really cool, I always wished this would happen when you aren't there. It always feels sort of fake when you get somewhere just at the right moment, every time...