Questing and exploration

[mrjohnson6]

I'd like to preface this comment by saying that I have fond memories of both New Vegas and Morrowind, but I personally believe that in order to achieve maximum immersion within a world, a journal style system in which you have to find your way around is the best method.

A system of questing which has detailed descriptions of what is involved in the quest and where the player must go, paired with a detailed world map in which the player can use to traverse the environment would mean that the player would be required to pay attention to locations and landmarks, and actually have to think about where they have to go, creating a high level of immersion. Often times the description of the location may be vague or not be detailled, requiring the player to explore and find their way around the world, rather than just mindlessly following dots on the screen. Finally, once the player does reach a location: they feel a sense of accomplishment, that their navigation skill and ability is allowing them to reach the next level in the quest, and accomplishment at becoming more attune with the world.

All of the gameplay that i've seen points to it being a carbon copy of Fallout 3/Oblivion/Skyrim/fallout 4 style questing in which quests that you accept are added to a sort of shopping list in which you can activate which quests that you want to show on your UI that points you directly to the location. There has been no gameplay shown of a journal style system in which you are given detailed descriptions of a quest and it's location, so I think it's safe to assume that Obsidian is atleast for now, going to utilise a GPS style quest marker system as it's sole method of doing quests. If they were planning on implementing a journal style system, this would fundimentally alter the way the player thinks and handles questing, so they would definitely show that off, if it was an option.

My main problem is that once Obsidian goes down the road of utilising a map marker style quest system, the game will be built in such a way that because the gameplay is designed around a quest marker style system, it is impossible to play without it: which is what happened with Skyrim, Fallout 4 and yes New Vegas.

So I want to make myself clear, i'm not advocating for Outer Worlds to solely have a journal style questing system like Morrowind, but quests should have detailed descriptions, the player should have a detailled 2D world map, and the world should have recognisable landmarks to allow for this kind of questing for those of us who have fond memories of Morrowind and that sense of accomplishment that you gained from successfully navigating around the world. Those who wish to play with a quest marker system should still be able to, as it should be a toggleable feature in the options menu, and the journal and map could be completely ignored if the player wanted to.

 

 

Edited July 8, 2019 by mrjohnson6

[Wormerine]

Someone made similar post to your a long time ago. 

I do like the approach you are suggesting. Gothic1&2 utilised this design really well, and while clunky those are open worlds I really engaged with. Giving players a GPS or quest marker might improve pacing, but has an unfortunate effect of making players ignore their surroundings and focus purely on the UI. 

However, we don’t even know how open OW really is. We know it consist of multiple maps, and depending how open and sprawling they are, navigation open environment might not even be a thing.

Whatever the case is, designing game so it can be played without showing you were to go would take a lot of work - it needs to be considered in all of the design: visual, layout, conversations, quest progression. If they haven’t done that by know, I doubt the game would be fun to play with quest marker turned off. 

[Infinitron]

They've said that the planet Monarch is open-worldish, but other locations less so.

[daven]

It sounds more of a similar structure to the KOTOR games then open world stuff. I don't think those games had any kind of map markers or whatever.

[the_ragnarokkr]

On 7/8/2019 at 8:56 AM, daven said:

It sounds more of a similar structure to the KOTOR games then open world stuff. I don't think those games had any kind of map markers or whatever.

Agree completely. I think the world design of TOW will be very similar to the older BioWare games. (KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect 1,2, and 3)

Edited July 13, 2019 by the_ragnarokkr