The reason why open world gaming sucks.

[Something Amyss]

In recent years, games have been turning from a linear, story based campaign towards a more open world approach with the story happening to simply wait around while the protagonist goes and screws around for about a month in-game.

lolwhat? There are plenty of games that are still linear, story driven, etc. Linear isn't going anywhere.

Now I know that a major part of most open world games are the exploration aspect, and I also Know that without that I probably wouldn't like them as much. What I'm asking is this: why can't there be some form of invisible time limit? An example of this would be you are given a quest to go save a person from being assassinated in another town. You are told that if you don't hurry, you will fail. If you decide to go screw around for a bit, the assassination takes place, but you don't know about it until you arrive at the location. Also, on the subject of urgency, why isn't there more "in 3 month's time so and so will invade. we have that long to prepare" types of quests? it would allow you to do whatever you want and depending on what/how much you do depends of how the final battle plays out.

In no small part for the reason you've already given. You yourself said you probably wouldn't like them as much with the exploration aspect gone, and this would limit the exploration aspect.

 

[The_Lost_King]

*glares* How dare you say Oblivion and Skyrim are unplayable. I will agree that Oblivion was very copy pasta with the forest but it was not unplayable. And do you mean unplayable as in you literally can't play them or you don't like them.

I feel timers are rediculously stupid. It is an open world game meant for exploring, let me fucking explore, not make an open world game into a linear game. If you don't like Oblivions freedom play something without freedom.

unplayable as in its REALLY not my kind of game, after the opening seaquence and screwing around a bit I have nothing more to do, I played skyrim for about 7 hours and never touched it again, because its all good and well to have a BIG OPEN WORLD FOR EXPLORING but when its populated with uninteresting walking task givers and my PC has the role-playing capacity of a camera on a stick then theres realy no apeal, I can go off and do what I want but whats the point really?

and I don't even belive skyrim/oblivion should be excused, Fallout NV manages to give the freedom (albeit arguably a little less) while still keeping things interesting

I see your point. I still like them though, so each to his own, I also agree that Fallout New Vegas did it better. I loved that game too. It had a good story and interesting characters while still having a cool world.

 

[Treblaine]

Why do Linear games not have timers?

Well there being only one way forward and obvious where you have just explored that certainly does push people forward somewhat but consider the likes of Time Crisis. I think all the advantages for timers in open-world games can work just as well for more linear games.

The thing is it is not immediately apparent that taking the "Magic MacGuffin" to the quest-point is the actual trigger for the "bad event", the game leaves the impression that it is an impending doom that could happen at any moment, it "just happened" to occur the moment you bring the "Magic MacGuffin" to the time and place where it being there with the "bad event" can have an NPC explain the situation to you.

But that's not an essential element of open world games, far more common is pre-existing status as your presence changes events.

Like Red Dead Redemption, the bandits will hold out in Fort Mercer perpetually till you amass a large enough party of comrades and firepower to storm the place. The progression is not "just so happens" it's a direct result of your actions.

The thing about linear games is the game never has to give you a DESIRE to move the story forward, it just rail-roads you along.

And open world HAS to have a more compelling story that you want to continue with.

 

[thesilentman]

snip

So you're saying that open world gaming is sucking is that there's no way to feel pressured about anything, am I right?

And assuming that it's the case, I'd like to direct you to some open world games which are fun and need no such time limit for anything to happen:

-GTA
-Just Cause 2
-Sleeping Dogs
-Assassins Creed (sorta)

That's the only examples coming to mind right now. I think that there a lot more out there that survive on the fun factor alone. Which is one of the reasons that open world gaming appeals to people.

Your idea could work, but only if the gameplay and story cooperate. The only example that I've seen that would work (at least in the feeling of being pressured aspect of what you're suggesting) is Majora's Mask, and I'm not even sure that counts.

 

[vun]

A lot of people play open world games because they're open world, not necessarily because they're interested in the story/main quest.
Oblivion is a prime example; a lot of people will stop doing the main quest before the oblivion gates appear after they've played through it once. Some people do the same in Skyrim; they'll stop doing the main quest before the dragons will start appearing.

 

[FoolKiller]

Ever played Dead Rising? That was annoying as hell. It was fun to run around and it was a bloody amazing game (I played 2) but you end up unable to do shit because of timers. You know I was unable to get the best ending because I was, and I am not kidding, about 10 seconds off the timer, and all my saves didn't let me get back their in time. I was at the FUCKING door, and it just said GAME OVER! LOLOLOLOLOL.

I never finished that game.

Seconded. The Dead Rising games were brutal in that respect. And to top it off they had the evil achievements/rewards for killing x amount. You literally had to grind the entire time (for hours on end) to do it.

Personally, I hate the timed open world. There is a point where gameplay has to take precedence over realism and urgency.

What I would like is for there to be an actual clock in it that you can set the speed to. If I want to play Dead Rising in real time I could or I could speed it up to have 1 hour real time as 6 hours in game (I think that is closer to the ratio that happens in them). This could be applied in every game like that.

PS

An aside.... Rockstar, add some fucking snow to all the other weather effects. You had the engine working for driving in it since Smuggler's Run. Use it.

 

[Sirron Kcuch]

Look at it the other way around: Isn't it a little bit ridiculous to, say, save The Wasteland or Skyrim in 24 hours (in the former, 24 hours from being born)

 

[Brotha Desmond]

I agree open world games can be a bit too open. Some times I get completely lost so I stop having fun and get frustrated. That's not to say I want my games to be on rails, but some direction would be nice.

 

[Treblaine]

It becomes apparent that time limits can be an interesting way to up the pace.

But then developers have to go ahead and be utter dicks with an unforgiving save and load system

Has anyone here attempted a speed-run? Now that is fun, even though the time limit is arbitrary and separate from the game (plus you can never beat the best times), what makes it enjoyable is the save system doesn't know about the time-limitation and tries to troll you.

Incentives to iterate and do things quicker and more efficiently are great way to increase the value of a game.

I got so much enjoyment out of Tomb Raider Anniversary/Legends as it had special unlock rewards for completing levels in better and better times. It was perfectly constructed with Bronze, Silver and Gold unlocks, each with a harder and harder to achieve time. Though the levels were long on first playthrough

This was before the days of micro-fisking DLC, now such content you just have to break your credit card out for. And NO IT IS NOT JUST PENNIES because it does not let you pay pennies at a time, you have to fork over a minimum of something like $5 or something like that. Which is retarded because I have bought 0.50 priced items on Amazon before.

 

[Mr.PlanetEater]

I think time limits can be used quite effectively in Open World Games as long as they aren't ridiculously short. Fallout 1 had a 150 in-game day time limit to get the Waterchip, yet 150 days was about 90 days more* than you needed--unless you really have no fucking idea what you're doing--so you weren't ever in a real rush.

Another example of time limits providing nice narrative effect while giving you more than enough time to get a considerable amount of things done was Majora's Mask. I never once felt overly pressured by the time limit in that game, and that was only three in game days. However you could always slow down time which might be why I never felt like the clock was fucking me over.

Basically, use a time limit in Open World Games if you're going to have a nice grace period. Something which Dead Rising did not have and as a result made me really despise the missions.

*And I spent a lot of time faffing about with Rad Scorpions and Raiders

EDIT: Rephrased my 150 days comment to make more sense.

Again, I don't think every game needs a time limit; I just think the notion that time limits have no place in sand box games is kind of silly and a bit too broad.