Open world or level based?

[mkreku]

What kind of world are you guys building for this game? More like Oblivion/Grand Theft Auto/Gothic or more like Neverwinter Nights 2/Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic/Vampire: Bloodlines?

 

Will you use the streaming map function of the Unreal Engine 3 (I assume that's what you're using)? Or will you settle for smaller areas with loading times in between every house entrance? A middle road where you have huge areas that only needs to load once you change country (I read about how you can fly to other destinations..)?

 

Is this even a subject you've been discussing? Do you realize that this issue is important to a lot of players? Are you afraid to be accused of being on the open world bandwagon if you make an open world RPG?

 

Will this be better than Deus Ex..?

[Pop]

It's pretty obvious that this game won't be open-world. It takes place on several continents, after all. The "biggest" we should expect would be something along the lines of Bloodlines, ie multiple sidequests within a "hub" area, and main quests taking place in these areas or in their own special locations (secret hideouts, etc.)

 

Considering the game is espionage-based, it wouldn't make sense to have open worlds, anyway. You wouldn't want to call attention to yourself by doing all the things you'd expect to do in an open world.

Edited March 15, 2008 by Pop

[Humodour]

A fairly restricted poll.

 

No, I'd like a mix between the two; Bloodlines, for example.

[Spider]

Bloodlines wasn't a mix. As soon as you went anywhere, there was a loading screen. And horrible loading times at that. Yeah, the hubs were big, but if anyone you wanted to talk to was in their own separate area.

[Pop]

The load times for Bloodlines were okay if you had capable RAM. The difference between 1 and 2 gigs was pretty staggering.

[Humodour]

Bloodlines wasn't a mix. As soon as you went anywhere, there was a loading screen. And horrible loading times at that. Yeah, the hubs were big, but if anyone you wanted to talk to was in their own separate area.

 

I wasn't even talking about RAM or load times.

 

I was talking about open-endedness of maps; what's available and when. I guess you could say KOTOR1 was sort of open-ended because it allowed you to choose what planet you visited.

 

But yeah, I like hubs. Be it Fallout 1's The Hub, Deus Ex's Hong Kong, Bloodlines's city area, or PST's wards.

 

What I HATE is being forced to do hubs/wards in a pre-determined order. A little choice here goes a long way.

Edited March 15, 2008 by Krezack

[Pidesco]

A mixture of open ended and level based would be nice, to allow for the many different locales befitting of an espionage game.

[Morgoth]

Thoughtfully crafted levels are always better than generated, large and meaningless spaces.

[Spider]

I wasn't even talking about RAM or load times.

 

But that is what mkreku was talking about. Well maybe not RAM.

 

Open world is akin to Oblivion and Gothic, where whatever you do, there won't be any loading once you start playing.

 

And the opposite would be where basically every single house has it's own level and load time, like in BG2 or Bloodlines.

[Humodour]

I wasn't even talking about RAM or load times.

 

But that is what mkreku was talking about. Well maybe not RAM.

 

Open world is akin to Oblivion and Gothic, where whatever you do, there won't be any loading once you start playing.

 

And the opposite would be where basically every single house has it's own level and load time, like in BG2 or Bloodlines.

 

Open world has nothing to do with that.

 

That's called 'streamlining'.

[Pidesco]

You mean streaming.

[Hell Kitty]

"Open world" doesn't mean no load times. Both Oblivion and the GTA games featured load times when going indoors.

 

Like Bloodlines and Deus Ex, both The Darkness and Thief 3 feature central hubs you can move between, but a game which allows you to move between its levels is still level based. It's just a non liner level based game, as opposed to linear level based games like most FPS.

[Humodour]

You mean streaming.

 

Well, no, I meant streamline. Is it called streaming in industry?

 

Anyway, my point is that, like Dan says, "open" in terms of level design is to do with linearity rather than loading times.

 

I think some people get confused by Morrowind/Oblivion's style and think that only games which streamline loading can be open-ended. That's far from true.

[Pidesco]

You mean streaming.

 

Well, no, I meant streamline. Is it called streaming in industry?

 

Anyway, my point is that, like Dan says, "open" in terms of level design is to do with linearity rather than loading times.

 

I think some people get confused by Morrowind/Oblivion's style and think that only games which streamline loading can be open-ended. That's far from true.

 

That's not streamlining, it's streaming.

 

Streamlining means to reduce something to its minimum components by taking away whatever is deemed superfluous. Streaming means to load the content into memory continuously without stopping the game (or movie, or song, or whatever).

 

Your point still stands, of course.

[Hell Kitty]

You mean streaming.

 

Well, no, I meant streamline. Is it called streaming in industry?

 

Anyway, my point is that, like Dan says, "open" in terms of level design is to do with linearity rather than loading times.

 

I think some people get confused by Morrowind/Oblivion's style and think that only games which streamline loading can be open-ended. That's far from true.

 

"Open-ended" and "open world" are two different things. What make the Elder Scrolls, the Gothics, and the GTAs (and all it's clones) open world is that they all take place in one huge "level".

[Spider]

"Open-ended" and "open world" are two different things. What make the Elder Scrolls, the Gothics, and the GTAs (and all it's clones) open world is that they all take place in one huge "level".

 

Thank you.

 

Besides, it's all semantics. Read the original post again. mkreku even talks about the streaming maps function built into the engine. Also, having read the man's rants on these message boards for some time, there really can't be any confusion as to what he's talking about. He's almost as obsessed with streaming maps as Sand is with female characters.

 

(by the way, the second paragraph isn't directed to Hell Kitty, just the thank you)

 

(by the way 2, did Oblivion have loading times when entering buildings? It's been ages and I really can't recall. I know there were loading times when you teleported and I'm pretty sure there were none when entering dungeons. Other than that I can't remember.)

 

Edit: And yes, I suppose I was a bit unclear when focusing on the loading times. But that's just because I know that loading times is what mkreku hates. And Gothic 3 didn't have any. But the "open-world" vs "open-ended" point Hell Kitty made was the one I was trying to make.

 

Edit 2: Also apologies to mkreku for putting words in his mouth. Feel free to correct me if you think I've gotten your stance on the issue wrong.

Edited March 15, 2008 by Spider

[Pop]

Uh, considering this game takes place over the entire earth, it's not going to be streaming. Unless you speed up time and show the plane flying over its course, which is really just a needlessly fancy "loading..." screen.

[SteveThaiBinh]

Bloodlines-style large hubs are probably the way to go - if you can keep the load times reasonable and get the press on-side, it makes the most sense. NWN2 was criticized rather absurdly for not having these 'streaming maps' - it was different to Oblivion, therefore it was a point against NWN2. Alpha Protocol will most likely be released in the wake of Fallout 3, so the same PR problem could arise, but SEGA seems to be better at the hype thing (cover of Game Informer, after all), so it's a matter of implanting the idea that 'hubs=good' into the minds of game journalists and reviewers.

[Sand]

I like both. It all depends on the story context of the game in which is better.

[mkreku]

What I mostly look for in a game that's referred to as "open world" is the ability to do what makes sense in the world. If I see a door, I should be able to open it (one way or another). If there's a chest, it should be able to contain things. If there's a hill, I should be able to climb it. No painted on doors (a la NWN2), no chests that are as much background as the ground you walk on (a la a thousand games) and no invisible walls (a la another thousand games). Honest game worlds.

 

I'm not saying that an open world game can't have any loading times or it sucks. I think of a game such as GTA as open world, even though it sometimes loads stuff. Same with the Gothic games: they stop and load occasionally. But compared to, for example, Neverwinter Nights 2 where whenever you do ANYTHING, there's a load screen.. That's pure level based.

 

And I realize that it wouldn't make sense to make a game like this one huge continuous world (unless they modelled the entire planet and we had to sit on plane rides for 8 hours to go from Europe to Asia..), and I even mentioned this in my original post. What I do want to see though is several well-crafted, unique cities, preferably with a few surrounding areas. Like, if you land in Hong Kong, you'd actually be at the airport and you'd have to make your way to Hong Kong Island.. find your hotel room, set up base and then go out into the city to do whatever mission you have there. Implement vehicles and let us explore. Let us be able to enter skyscrapers in Mong Kok, take the tram to the overview mountain, visit Disney Land (ok, maybe not that..). Make it seem like there is more to the world than just that particular story-tied building you're supposed to enter.

 

Then of course the same thing with Paris or London or New York or wherever the game takes you. And I'm not talking about having to model entire cities either, just large enough spaces for the player to feel like there's something to explore. Think GTA: San Andreas city sizes (it contains three major cities spread out over one huge playing area, with little villages in between) and a few surrounding areas.

 

That's not too much to ask for, is it? (that and that they make it even better than Deus Ex, of course..)

[Pop]

Obsidian is not in the Shenmue business.

 

Rockstar couldn't pull that off in 5 years. Obsidian will never do it.

Edited March 16, 2008 by Pop

[Meshugger]

Hopefully it will be hub-based, like it was in The Witcher or Bloodlines. I think that is the maximum size before the quality of the content starts to suffer. Pulling of an Oblivion or Gothic isn't exactly Obsidian's "style" of game-development either.

[Humodour]

Hopefully it will be hub-based, like it was in The Witcher or Bloodlines. I think that is the maximum size before the quality of the content starts to suffer. Pulling of an Oblivion or Gothic isn't exactly Obsidian's "style" of game-development either.

 

Agreed, on both counts.

[mkreku]

Hopefully it will be hub-based, like it was in The Witcher or Bloodlines. I think that is the maximum size before the quality of the content starts to suffer. Pulling of an Oblivion or Gothic isn't exactly Obsidian's "style" of game-development either.

The Witcher was a little better (except for those ridiculous invisible walls that kept you from going anywhere) but Bloodlines was horrible in that regard. I always felt like whenever I went, I was in a room. Even if I was standing on a street in the game, the area surrounding it was so cramped that I never felt anything but boxed in. I really hope they're not taking that route.

 

And the quality of an area has nothing to do with its size. It's perfectly possible to do both large and lovingly hand-crafted game areas. It's the same flawed argument used in the eternal game length debate, "I'd rather have a good 8 hour game than a bad 40 hour game".. Sigh. No ****..

 

Last: Oblivion isn't Obsidian's style? How do you know? How does one define the style of a company that hasn't developed their own game engine yet? Kotor2: pre-made engine from Bioware. NWN2: pre-made engine from Bioware. If they had (for some reason) been subjected to other types of engines, I'm sure they'd be able to pull off an Oblivion too.

[Xard]

Why anyone would want to "pull off an Oblivion" boggles me to no end