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[Wormerine]

56 minutes ago, Sarex said:

But that would essentially put the game on rails.

Well, maybe. If your story is "I have a ticking bomb and need to solve it ASAP", then I would say you either create a linear adventure that will support this story, or create more open adventure that still forces player to hurry and move forward. I just don't think urgency and here is massive world full of optional content mesh together. Neither is a bad choice, and I just don't those two choices go well together. And of course, various games suffer from it in various ways. 

That a problem is common, doesn't make it non-existent, and if you make narratively centric game, it sticks out if the experience of playing the game doesn't support said narrative - at least it does to me. If game builds up someone to be a powerful being they should be a difficult fight. If the game builds up something as urgent, at least it should provide narrative excuse as to why we might want to get distracted. I am not saying that such flawes make a game automatically terrible, but it might negatively impact the experience for some looking to get immersed in the story. 

[Sarex]

1 hour ago, Wormerine said:

That a problem is common, doesn't make it non-existent, and if you make narratively centric game, it sticks out if the experience of playing the game doesn't support said narrative - at least it does to me. If game builds up someone to be a powerful being they should be a difficult fight. If the game builds up something as urgent, at least it should provide narrative excuse as to why we might want to get distracted. I am not saying that such flawes make a game automatically terrible, but it might negatively impact the experience for some looking to get immersed in the story. 

It's a give and take. Both have attempted to be solved by timed quest and autoleveled enemies. Neither of which is good and makes for games I personally dislike. I will rather take a narrative hit and the chance that I may be overleveled for the main quest that the alternative.

[Hawke64]

2 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Well, maybe. If your story is "I have a ticking bomb and need to solve it ASAP", then I would say you either create a linear adventure that will support this story, or create more open adventure that still forces player to hurry and move forward. I just don't think urgency and here is massive world full of optional content mesh together. Neither is a bad choice, and I just don't those two choices go well together. And of course, various games suffer from it in various ways. 

That a problem is common, doesn't make it non-existent, and if you make narratively centric game, it sticks out if the experience of playing the game doesn't support said narrative - at least it does to me. If game builds up someone to be a powerful being they should be a difficult fight. If the game builds up something as urgent, at least it should provide narrative excuse as to why we might want to get distracted. I am not saying that such flawes make a game automatically terrible, but it might negatively impact the experience for some looking to get immersed in the story. 

I think Expeditions: Viking managed to achieve it - the time limit was generous but present and made sense for the story. I suppose, the same could be said about the tutorial in Tyranny, but the scale there was smaller. 

For Larian's D&D game, if I am not mistaken, the party discovered that the illithid transformation is delayed quite early and from there it was trying to find a cure at a more leisurely pace. Then again, even if it continued to be urgent, every other NPC was promising solutions at the start, so going along with them could be in-character. Well, also looking for a high-level cleric, a pickaxe, and the True Resurrection spell, which would be travelling straight to the nearest large city. 

[Theonlygarby]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

It's a give and take. Both have attempted to be solved by timed quest and autoleveled enemies. Neither of which is good and makes for games I personally dislike. I will rather take a narrative hit and the chance that I may be overleveled for the main quest that the alternative.

I agree.   I actually enjoy being over leveled for the main quest.  It's the reward for diligence 

[Sarex]

10 minutes ago, Theonlygarby said:

I agree.   I actually enjoy being over leveled for the main quest.  It's the reward for diligence 

If there is an uber hard optional boss, I agree. I like having something to test the max leveled build against.

[Wormerine]

47 minutes ago, Hawke64 said:

I think Expeditions: Viking managed to achieve it - the time limit was generous but present and made sense for the story.

Well, also Fallout1. 

Still, I fundamentally don’t understand why the common need for “you do this now or you DIEEEEE. Also here is a world full of sideactivities to explore.” 

I mean I do get it. Universal thread of destruction is an easy narrative hook for a custom protagonist.  It still just doesn’t make sense. Surely, your hook should be about exploration and discovery, and reason to engage with the world, not the opposite. Obsidian usually is good with this stuff, though I felt both Pillars did have this issue as well. 

[Zoraptor]

Fallout 1 even had multiple timers. Water chip one and the 'invasion' one. And of course both could be modified by other actions too.

11 hours ago, majestic said:

A problem that Baldur's Gate 2 already had with having to chase after Imoen. Or not. It makes no difference - plot wise, at least, and I am completely indifferent to the dissonance it introduces. 

There's a worse example from the same game, ie chapter 6. Your very soul has been stolen! But %charname% has all the time in the world to go do (nearly) every single side quest you could have done in Chapter 2 as well as a few C6 specific ones before doing anything about it...

You can justify not going after Imoen quickly quite easily, even for a non evil character. You're clearly not strong enough just after escaping and need more resources; which works for either a good or neutral alignment. It's probably more difficult to justify going after her at all, if you're evil or selfish neutral. "Idiot gets herself captured again immediately after escaping? Sounds like her problem, not mine". Bit harder to justify being slothful or even tardy in C6 though.

Does also have to be said, I think, that when you do have an imminently critical issue as a plot driver so make tardiness have consequences you do get a lot of people complaining- eg the Spirit Meter in Mask of the Betrayer.

[uuuhhii]

so larian are start to use ai art as inspiration

guess it is inevitable