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Egann on 13 October 2014
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HoloDust said:
Egann said:
Disclaimer: I despise practically every Bethesda game. Why am I stuck in first person?* Why are these controls so obtuse? Why is the art style bland?** Why does that NPC whom I was blackmailing two seconds ago suddenly try to blackmail me if I talk to him again? It's like every design choice they make in a game is designed to piss me off and ruin my immersion.

My general impression of Elder Scrolls is that they made a fantastic lore, but they hired a sociopathic simulationist to design the gameplay and write the script. The result is a game which can't regard either the NPCs or the player as actual human characters. [/rant]

My opinion is that Open World games and Fast Travel options do not mix well ***. If you have a good fast-travel mechanic you will make your maps colossal, which in turn discourages exploration the old fashioned way because it takes to long.

* You're not stuck in 1st person, you can switch to 3rd person.

** Art style is matter of taste...anyway, have you played Morrowind?

*** I mostly agree. I would even go further and say that map on the main screen doesn't go well either and having to actually pay attention to your surroundings and landscape markers is way more satisfying (shout out to Pirhana Bytes with Gothic and Risen series).


I have seen people playing Morrowind. It strikes me as the one I would despise the least. I'm debating whether or not to put it on my backlog, as I didn't particularly like Oblivion or Skyrim and I've found Fallout 3 and Dishonored disappointing at best. And I'd forgotten you could change viewpoint. It still feels awkward, though.

I can see what you mean by a map being distracting, but at the same time it's necessary. IRL people have a 180 degree field of view (or very close to it) but a monitor can only display about 30 degrees without distorting things. A map is essentially necessary to make up for the lack of peripheral vision. And it doesn't help that most video game makers design their maps like mazes rather than real places.

That said, Witcher 3 looks to do everything I want in open world. The demo showed Geralt using senses and stumbling across content while on another quest, which both circumvents the need for a map and means there's more than enough content to keep me interested and away from wanting a fast-travel option.

Really, the only reason I'm interested in open world games is because I'm tired of corridor games. People give FF XIII flak for being linear, but Tomb Raider did exactly the same thing. And it wound up with some utterly ridiculous things, like Lara storming a machine gun nest WWI style. Anyone with any sense of self-preservation would go around, but NOPE, that's not allowed because of the level design. I can't be the only one who finds being forced to be stupid immersion-breaking.