The reason why open world gaming sucks.

[suitepee7]

I think the timer would be a good addition to open world games, it would stop my urge to explore all the games content and getting bogged down in sidequests.

was that sarcastic or were you being serious. i'm really not sure...

OT: sounds like a pretty horrible idea to me. while i enjoyed dead rising 2, and i liked how time passed, i didn't like the actual limit. certain missions being available at certain times is all well and good, but if i cannot continue the story after missing 1 quest deadline, and it gives me the option of dick around or just reload a save, i just reload. if anything my biggest gripe with DR2 was the time limit =\

personally i like the idea of missions only being able to be completed at certain times, or activated at certain times, but not an actual time limit.

 

[Rad Party God]

Fallout 1 had an actual time limit and that game is just as open as Fallout 3 & New Vegas, although until you reach certain point, that time limit extended considerably, but you'd still had a limit of a few in-game years after that point.

 

[Theminimanx]

Because it makes sure that people won't take the time to explore at their leisure. When I was playing the original Fallout, I wanted to discover this strange new world. But since I had a limited amount of time to save the vault inhabitants, I never took the time to venture off into the unknown.

 

[crazyrabbits]

There will always be a market for both time limit-essential and open world games. I happen to enjoy the latter the most because, as said earlier, I can take my time and explore the side content at my leisure.

One of my favorite games of all time is Baldur's Gate II, which opens with one of the party members from the first game being kidnapped, and the "thrust" of the plot being that you have to rescue her as soon as possible. That said, almost the entirety of the game world (along with most of the squadmate-specific missions) open up to you in the second chapter. Instead of choosing to save Imoen, I do a completionist playthrough and do all the sidequests before I complete the "assault on Bodhi's base" mission.

I don't mind time limits where the plot warrants, but I also don't mind having the leeway to explore the game world at my leisure, especially in an RPG. It gives me a feeling of being in control of my gaming experience.

 

[Bad Jim]

Why don't more open world games have more time limits?

From a story perspective, it would indeed make more sense. But from a game mechanics perspective, it makes no sense. Time limits are a railroad mechanic, suitable for linear games where there is only one thing to do. Open world games are about freedom, and a timer for some quest, particularly a main quest, just takes the players' freedom away.

It's a concept called "willing suspension of disbelief". If you want to enjoy musicals theatre, you don't think about the fact that bursting into song is highly unusual in real life. You don't question the fact that the two characters secretly plotting regicide are actually talking loudly enough for the back of the audience to hear. Similarly, if you want to enjoy freedom in a game, you don't question the cases where plotwise realism is sacrificed in favour of player freedom.

Why don't more games have plots that fit open worlds without time limits?

If you can postpone a quest indefinitely without consequence, why do you need to do it in the first place? It's hard to think of good answers, especially answers that are also good stories.

 

[Twilight_guy]

They don't have time limits because it means that rather then focusing on exploration and doing stuff, you're forced to quickly do what the game wants, thus undermining the whole concept of open world since it's not open when your only choice is do whats timed or die. Individual quests usually aren't timed because quests tend to not be failable unless they are repeatable. (failable quests frustrate people) An undisplayed time limit is a recipe for fail in any game. It frustrates players because they have no idea how long they have or how pressing something is.

Why don't they have plots that fit open world games? Try writing a plot that allows the protagonist to dick around and do nothing all day or to speed ahead with storyline stuff. Aside from a few science fiction concepts where the protagonist has all the time in the world and no specific goal (Dr. Who, immortals) it's hard to do.

 

[Vault101]

[snip.

I actually liked fallotu 3 because of the setting and story, NV was better sure but fallout 3 was playable unlike oblivion/skyrim

 

[DrunkenMonkey]

Once again another OP stating the objective value of his or her opinion. Sometimes I think a critical thinking class should be a requirement in preschool

Or you know title your threads better. whichever comes first I'll gladly accept it.

 

[Veylon]

I don't see what the issue is with timers in an open world. Kind of the point of an open world is that there's this big world with stuff going on. The timers are the stuff going on. They're not necessarily your timers that you should feel obligated to do something with.

And, in any case, I'm more a fan of "soft" timers where situations progress naturally and gradually rather than the binary "hard" timers where X happens at Y time no matter what. A city doesn't go from open and prosperous to an occupied wreck in a single moment. There'd be a lengthy siege with numerous opportunities for the player to engage in sabotage, sapping, smuggling, politicking, looting, and fighting. How long it took could depend on whether the player is spreading diseased blankets to the invaders or burning municipal granaries. Or maybe the player just wants to sneak their buddy and/or gold out and not care about the rest.

 

[Risingblade]

Yeah that's what we want limits on how long we can play...brilliant

 

[Vault101]

ah god..the capitals...assulting me..

The PC's dad is trying to build a fucking water purifier, the water in the Capital Wasteland is radioactive, therefore anyone alive has to have access to purified water, or THEY WOULDN'T BE ALIVE, MAKING THE ENTIRE PURIFIER REDUNDANT.

well obviously they have access to water, its jsut one of those hard things to get..the Idea was free water for everyone

[quote/]And then there's the Enclave, the Enclave attack and take over the purifier when you've finished fixing it, but for what?

The purifier is never said to store the water and there is no evidence that it does, and everyone else has access to clean water anyway, what could the Enclave gain by controlling it? Nothing. [/quote]

they would controll the wasteland...I think I vaugley remember the enclave were actually tricking people into aproaching them so they could do tests or somthing..and the FEV thing

[quote/]Vampires, HOW THE FUCK ARE VAMPIRES SUPPOSED TO FIT IN THE SETTING?! Yes it's explained, but the explanation is retarded, [/quote]
they arent "actual" vampires...they are the creepy counter-culture people who think they are vampires and drink blood..they are essentially a cult and given the setting cults and crazy groups are pretty much par for the coarse

[quote/]The power of Atom: Burke offers you money to blow up Megaton, RIGHT IN FRONT OF EVERYONE.

And then the reason Tenpenny gives for wanting to destroy it is "it's ugly".[/quote]
I'm not seeing the problem here, Tenpenny is a rich nutcase and your not blowing up megaton in the presance of anyone who gives a shit (even thoug people find out via word of mouth technically theres no way to put the blame on you)

[quote/]The Superhuman Gambit:
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, people have more than enough time to dress up in silly costumes and fight each other.[/quote]
Fallout isnt a setting that plays the post apocalptic thing 100% straight...hence why there are super mutants and crazy robots

most of your problems here seem subjective

 

[Soluncreed]

Maybe open world games could just do what New Vegas did; make a hardcore mode. In that mode, there will be timelimits on many quests as well as the other obvious aspects that come with a more realistic mode. And if you don't want to deal with that, don't play that mode.

 

[Easton Dark]

The PC's dad is trying to build a fucking water purifier, the water in the Capital Wasteland is radioactive, therefore anyone alive has to have access to purified water, or THEY WOULDN'T BE ALIVE, MAKING THE ENTIRE PURIFIER REDUNDANT.

I'm willing to ignore plot holes on occasion, but when I AM CONSTANTLY SEEING HOLES IN THE MAIN PLOT POINTS, AND CONSTANTLY, I AM GOING TO HAVE A PROBLEM.

They have water purifiers. Megaton has one that you helped fix. They're going to break down eventually though.

I'm betting they're getting all of the water from the river and then purifying it in Megaton, in Rivet City, in Canterbury, what have you.

When those purifiers break down, shit's going to be bad. Plus, there's not that much clean water for crops if everyone has to drink (since every other drink is radioactive or alcoholic). Growing radioactive crops isn't good. You'll need a lot more fresh water that the purifiers can't churn out.

I dunno. It makes sense to me to want the purifier clean the entire Potomac.

 

[Starik20X6]

Time limits in games stress me out waaaay too much. It's the only reason I haven't finished Majora's Mask; I just find it way too stressful. The knowledge that one small mistake can mean hours of time lost, and the subsequent pressure to do everything perfectly on the first try, drives me mental. I've no time to stop and examine the world around me because I'm pushed to do everything as quickly as possible. It's also why I much prefer Pikmin 2 over 1, the removal of the time limit made it so much less nerve-wracking.

I know some people like that, but I'm just not one of them.

 

[Sandjube]

Because it isn't, /thread.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Right, and that makes linear storytelling SO MUCH better than open-world. That lack of urgency, by itself, renders open-world gaming inferior. *****, please. That's a tad unreasonable.

I do agree, somewhat, with the need for some missions at least to have a sense of urgency to them. I would agree with not a time limit, but actually have events unfold in the game leading up to it that you can disrupt at any time. If someone's about to get assassinated, the assassin becomes an NPC and has to travel by foot or horse or whatever to the target. I think that'd be cool, but not every mission, or even most missions.

Another thing is, with my recent adoration of Dark Souls I have grown a distaste for fabled hero dragonborn prophesised saviour of humanity protagonist-driven stories. Dark Souls has no sense of urgency, and no real questline. Ring the bells, I guess. But it has such a compelling world and gameplay that it doesn't need one. Nobody gives you shit and says "Now go find the sword of Artorias so you can defeat the menace Gravelord Nito". In fact most NPCs are more like "Well, don't die, and buy more stuff when you come back."

And lastly, the most salient reason: No-one likes time limits. Especially arbitrary time limits. Like Assassin's Creed 3, there was a sequence at some battle or other and they gave you a 5 minute timer instead of actually having actions play out, and it was just so forced, unnecessary and stupid. I never want to see that again.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I AM VERY ANGRY ABOUT FALLOUT 3 ROWOWOWOWOWOWOW

I can see that! I may be able to help you.

There are several ways to add stress or significance to a word without resorting to the dreaded all-caps. While capitalizing a word does indeed add emphasis, too much and it just seems like you're screaming at the top of your lungs.

1. Add bold tagging!
2. Put *asterisks* on either side of the chosen word!
3. Sometimes you can drop stuff on to it's own line to call extra attention to it. Such as, FO3 was alright, I guess.

And then the ending happened.

...like that.
4. Even italics can give the impression of extra emphasis on a given word.
5. Simple punctuation can drive home how you feel. "It sucks!" implies passion, excitement, strong feeling. But even "It sucks." can imply droll, deadpan irritation.
6. Profanity can help spice up a piece, but you don't want to overdo it!

Let's try!

AND WHEN SOMETHING THAT DOES STAND OUT, IT'S A TOWN THAT ONLY STANDS OUT BECAUSE OF WHATEVER RETARDED QUEST THERE IS, MEANING I HAVE NO MOTIVATION OTHER THAN SEEING HOW FUCKING STUPID THE STORY GETS.

Could become...

When something does stand out, like a town, it only stands out because of whatever retarded quest there is, meaning I have *no* motivation other than seeing how fucking stupid the story gets.

See? By adding emphasis to "retarded" and "no", we call attention both to how retarded you think the quests are, and how little motivation you have to see the story. As opposed to the original, where every word has emphasis, which sounds like you're shouting in a loud, monotone air-raid siren tone.

Now you can berate Fallout 3 in a dry, sophisticated fashion that will leave its fans outraged and its detractors eager to hear more!

 

[legendp]

tl;dr Why don't more open world games have more time limits?

edit: tl;dr#2 Why don't more games have plots that fit open worlds without time limits?

well some games do it cleverly, take mass effect 2 for example (spoiler alert)
if you don't immediately go through the omega 4 relay your crew dies

 

[Murrdox]

[snip.

I actually liked fallout 3 because of the setting and story, NV was better sure but fallout 3 was playable unlike oblivion/skyrim

The setting and story were actually the WORST part of Fallout 3.

Pretty much agree with everything you said. The plot/quests of Fallout 3 were absolutely terrible for the most part. Hardly any of the quests had a story that made a lick of sense. The writing and characters in your average Final Fantasy game were much better than those found in Fallout 3.

I think you hit the nail on the head by pointing out the Megaton questline. You're either the savior of the town, because why? ... or you detonate a nuclear bomb because why? There's no genuine morality in any of your choices. Your "Bad" choices are as absurdly bad as your good choices and your character never really has much motivation for choosing one or the other beyond the fact that you want your character to get "Good" or "Bad" points. In the Fallout world, if I detonated the bomb in Megaton, anybody with an IQ over 10 would simply shoot me in the head as soon as they found out.

LegendP I think you provided a good example with Mass Effect 2.

Anybody remember the original System Shock? On higher difficulty, you had time-limits for your quests. When SHODAN arms the mining laser, you only have so much time to raise the shields on the station and enable the override to destroy it.

I think the main issue with time-limits in Open-World gameplay is that you are THE PLAYER.

If you were playing Lord of the Rings it would suck pretty bad if you showed up at the Battle of Helm's Deep... AFTER the battle. Why would that be "fun" for the player? The reason you're playing the game is so you can EXPERIENCE things. The best way to do this is via choice.

So in Skyrim for example, your character can choose to participate in either Battle A or Battle B. If he chooses Battle B, then afterwards you might hear about what happened with Battle A but you don't participate in it, and you start a quest sequence due to the fact that you participated in Battle B. BUT both Battle A and Battle B are waiting to be fought until you pick one of them. If there was a time limit on the game, and eventually the game decided how both Battles turned out, and you didn't get to do either one of them... well that would suck pretty bad unless that was part of a separate plotline.

Sometimes in games like Skyrim I do think it sort of breaks the immersion however when an NPC tells you "Meet me at the docks at midnight!" and you can choose not to show up for months at a time. SOMETIMES there should be consequences for simply betraying an NPC by not being where you said you would.

 

[Gecko clown]

The reason more games don't follow Dead Risings approach is as follows.

Dead Rising's system was shit.

Sure you get more immersion and a sense of urgency but you also get a terrible terrible game-play decision.