Level Structure

[Darth Sithari]

A few questions about the hub structure and level layout I have after reading one of the previews.

 

Will hubs be open-world? That is, will we be able to walk out of our safehouses and explore the cities somewhat, for performing side quests or main missions?

 

If not, will all missions feature a "warp" function, that is we accept a task and then transport to the location, then transport back to our safe house when we are finished?

[Llyranor]

Don't think there'll be free-roaming. You'll probably warp around between locations/missions.

[Matthew Rorie]

A few questions about the hub structure and level layout I have after reading one of the previews.

 

Will hubs be open-world? That is, will we be able to walk out of our safehouses and explore the cities somewhat, for performing side quests or main missions?

 

If not, will all missions feature a "warp" function, that is we accept a task and then transport to the location, then transport back to our safe house when we are finished?

 

It's the latter; we have a menu of missions that you select from in the safehouse. Mike warps to mission, beats up/stealthily passes by a bunch of bad guys, and then you return to the safehouse to check your news, emails, etc., and repeat the process.

[mkreku]

If it works as well as it did in Deus Ex, I can live with that.

 

Just note that I truly prefer open worlds as much as possible.

[Pidesco]

A few questions about the hub structure and level layout I have after reading one of the previews.

 

Will hubs be open-world? That is, will we be able to walk out of our safehouses and explore the cities somewhat, for performing side quests or main missions?

 

If not, will all missions feature a "warp" function, that is we accept a task and then transport to the location, then transport back to our safe house when we are finished?

 

It's the latter; we have a menu of missions that you select from in the safehouse. Mike warps to mission, beats up/stealthily passes by a bunch of bad guys, and then you return to the safehouse to check your news, emails, etc., and repeat the process.

 

How much will in mission decisions affect other missions? Will there be stuff like, for example, having a new entry point for a level because you finagled some explosives during a previous mission, or finding helpful info on a mission building's security system, while accomplishing some other task?

[Darth Sithari]

It's the latter; we have a menu of missions that you select from in the safehouse. Mike warps to mission, beats up/stealthily passes by a bunch of bad guys, and then you return to the safehouse to check your news, emails, etc., and repeat the process.

 

ZOMG, teh dude from all the trailers has responded to me twice!

 

Little dissapointed with this structure, but, if the missions allow enough exploration and mixture of talking in addition to combat, I'll be happy.

 

Seeing as we're buddies now, how about you give me a quick tour round the Obsidian offices, lemme take a peek at what you're working on, offer some advice, eh eh?!

Edited June 16, 2009 by Darth Sithari

[Humodour]

A few questions about the hub structure and level layout I have after reading one of the previews.

 

Will hubs be open-world? That is, will we be able to walk out of our safehouses and explore the cities somewhat, for performing side quests or main missions?

 

If not, will all missions feature a "warp" function, that is we accept a task and then transport to the location, then transport back to our safe house when we are finished?

 

It's the latter; we have a menu of missions that you select from in the safehouse. Mike warps to mission, beats up/stealthily passes by a bunch of bad guys, and then you return to the safehouse to check your news, emails, etc., and repeat the process.

 

Damn that sounds lame. Couldn't have at least integrated it seamlessly like Deus Ex?

[Silvernite]

A few questions about the hub structure and level layout I have after reading one of the previews.

 

Will hubs be open-world? That is, will we be able to walk out of our safehouses and explore the cities somewhat, for performing side quests or main missions?

 

If not, will all missions feature a "warp" function, that is we accept a task and then transport to the location, then transport back to our safe house when we are finished?

 

It's the latter; we have a menu of missions that you select from in the safehouse. Mike warps to mission, beats up/stealthily passes by a bunch of bad guys, and then you return to the safehouse to check your news, emails, etc., and repeat the process.

Wow that's disappointing. I was hoping for some exploration in some of the major cities and such

[mike kills you]

A few questions about the hub structure and level layout I have after reading one of the previews.

 

Will hubs be open-world? That is, will we be able to walk out of our safehouses and explore the cities somewhat, for performing side quests or main missions?

 

If not, will all missions feature a "warp" function, that is we accept a task and then transport to the location, then transport back to our safe house when we are finished?

 

It's the latter; we have a menu of missions that you select from in the safehouse. Mike warps to mission, beats up/stealthily passes by a bunch of bad guys, and then you return to the safehouse to check your news, emails, etc., and repeat the process.

Wow that's disappointing. I was hoping for some exploration in some of the major cities and such

 

im guessing the reason obsidian didnt want it free roam is because they dont want u going around killing people mindlessly because that is something u save for GTA.... also they said in the dev diarys that they wanted a story based RPG because people love those and they never get old..

they arent gonna change it to free roam now because its too late in the project to change that now plus im sure they r gonna have plenty of side quests and little challenges that willl keep u busy... or u could just make a different save file and do stuff completely different then ur last one, like, if u were a good guy on ur 1st file, then on ur next u could b completely renegade and kill anyone u see.. including that arms dealer and shaleed, and the russian guy in the video when u go to the alpha[rotocol home site (alphaprotocol.com)

i actually dont mind aslong as they have a lot of side missions to keep me busy... and guns... lots and lots of guns... and grenades... and rpgs... and some othere stuff too..... *cough* tazer *cough cough*

[Silvernite]

A few questions about the hub structure and level layout I have after reading one of the previews.

 

Will hubs be open-world? That is, will we be able to walk out of our safehouses and explore the cities somewhat, for performing side quests or main missions?

 

If not, will all missions feature a "warp" function, that is we accept a task and then transport to the location, then transport back to our safe house when we are finished?

 

It's the latter; we have a menu of missions that you select from in the safehouse. Mike warps to mission, beats up/stealthily passes by a bunch of bad guys, and then you return to the safehouse to check your news, emails, etc., and repeat the process.

Wow that's disappointing. I was hoping for some exploration in some of the major cities and such

 

im guessing the reason obsidian didnt want it free roam is because they dont want u going around killing people mindlessly because that is something u save for GTA.... also they said in the dev diarys that they wanted a story based RPG because people love those and they never get old..

they arent gonna change it to free roam now because its too late in the project to change that now plus im sure they r gonna have plenty of side quests and little challenges that willl keep u busy... or u could just make a different save file and do stuff completely different then ur last one, like, if u were a good guy on ur 1st file, then on ur next u could b completely renegade and kill anyone u see.. including that arms dealer and shaleed, and the russian guy in the video when u go to the alpha[rotocol home site (alphaprotocol.com)

i actually dont mind aslong as they have a lot of side missions to keep me busy... and guns... lots and lots of guns... and grenades... and rpgs... and some othere stuff too..... *cough* tazer *cough cough*

I don't exactly mean free-roam GTA style. I meant something more along the lines of KoTOR or even VTM:B where you can explore within a certain "hub" or "planet" (if we're talking about KoTOR). What I seem to understand is that in AP you won't be able to do this. After each mission you'll just be warped back to your safehouse, select a new mission and get instantly warped to that mission again.

[Humodour]

A few questions about the hub structure and level layout I have after reading one of the previews.

 

Will hubs be open-world? That is, will we be able to walk out of our safehouses and explore the cities somewhat, for performing side quests or main missions?

 

If not, will all missions feature a "warp" function, that is we accept a task and then transport to the location, then transport back to our safe house when we are finished?

 

It's the latter; we have a menu of missions that you select from in the safehouse. Mike warps to mission, beats up/stealthily passes by a bunch of bad guys, and then you return to the safehouse to check your news, emails, etc., and repeat the process.

Wow that's disappointing. I was hoping for some exploration in some of the major cities and such

 

im guessing the reason obsidian didnt want it free roam is because they dont want u going around killing people mindlessly because that is something u save for GTA....

 

Yeah, that's exactly NOT the reason.

 

also they said in the dev diarys that they wanted a story based RPG because people love those and they never get old..

 

What the heck does that have to do with whether or not they have an open world? Fallout and Baldur's Gate had open worlds, and they were story based games.

 

The reason there's no open world is because you need to put a LOT of time into making the fully explorable world. You often lose out in other areas when you do that (see any game by Bethesda).

 

However they could of at least did a behind the scene transitioning system like VtM: Bloodlines, or Deus Ex.

[Morgoth]

Open worlds suck when they're done by Bethesda. I mostly prefer the hub/mission based design, staying focused and all.

[Oner]

However they could of at least did a behind the scene transitioning system like VtM: Bloodlines, or Deus Ex.

Whoever said they didn't?

[Wrath of Dagon]

Hard for me to see how it's going to be much of an RPG without free roaming. Seems like all your dialog will amount to who you fight against and who helps you.

[Enoch]

Hard for me to see how it's going to be much of an RPG without free roaming. Seems like all your dialog will amount to who you fight against and who helps you.

Hooray for another ridiculously arbitrary litmus test for genre-qualification! This board is a goldmine of these lately.

 

 

Anyhow, I'm a cut-to-the-chase kind of guy. As I see it, developers of story-heavy games like this have three choices:

 

1) Cut out the intermediate areas and take the player directly to where the action is,

2) Add in intermediate areas, but keep the focus on the core missions and don't transfer a whole lot of time/effort/resources to those intermediate areas, or

3) Include the intermediate areas, and allocate resources away from the core missions to make them more interesting.

 

Option 2 just wastes the player's time (remember running around Manaan in KotOR 1 and that station orbiting Telos in KotOR2?). Option 3 is acceptable, but it's risky. You end up with a longer game, but a game whose highpoints aren't quite as polished or frequent as they should be. I prefer Option 1-- when I'm playing a game, I want to be having fun. Exploring large interesting environments can be fun, but only if there is enough cool stuff out there to find to make it worthwhile, and only when said exploration is made a focus of game development from the very beginning (i.e., prioritizing exploration and character agency over carefully designed story elements).

[Mr. Fob]

In principle I agree with you, though I don't understand how Manan is an example of bad side missions.

However I think in this case, if you completely get rid of exploratory areas with NPCs who give you quests and all, you really have to present the transitions from the hub to the mission well. Deus Ex did that in a good way I think (Jock and his stealth chopper were just cool) but if you don't take care of that and just select your next area in a menu, it will fell lame ( I am thinking of Jedi Knight 3: Jedi Academy here, I know it's not an RPG but it had these mission menus). So I hope the connectivity between missions is presented well. Than I don't have a problem with the hub approach.

[Wrath of Dagon]

(i.e., prioritizing exploration and character agency over carefully designed story elements).

Yes, but prioritizing exploration and character agency is what makes a game an RPG IMO, carefully designed story elements push a game more to the adventure genre. Also Manaan was the weakest planet in KOTOR, that concept was much better done on other planets, especially Taris.

[Silvernite]

With this hub system, how are side missions going to be implemented? Will they show up during the main missions?

[Enoch]

(i.e., prioritizing exploration and character agency over carefully designed story elements).

Yes, but prioritizing exploration and character agency is what makes a game an RPG IMO, carefully designed story elements push a game more to the adventure genre. Also Manaan was the weakest planet in KOTOR, that concept was much better done on other planets, especially Taris.

The bit about Manaan was alluding to how much bloody time you spend traipsing back and forth across boring concourses. Dantooine would've fit my example pretty well, too, except that they filled the boring wildernessy areas with boring xp farming combat. In both cases, I probably would've enjoyed the game more if they had simply skipped all that walking around and combat grinding and just let us jump immediately (using Manaan examples) from the Hangar to the Republic Base to the Cantina, etc., putting the time they saved into making the gameplay experience at these locations more compelling. You lose a bit in overall atmosphere, but to me that's worth the reduction of tedium.

 

To me, exploration is irrelevant in genre definition. All games place limits on how far the player can wander. Setting those limits narrowly or broadly doesn't really affect the core nature of the gameplay. Character agency, though, is definitely an element in an RPG (well, in a Western RPG-- the JRPGs I've seen tend to keep the story on rails and limit character decisions to whether they want to kill the enemy with a ridiculously oversized sword or an ridiculously oversized gun), but I don't think it limits a game's "RPG-ness" to exclude support for a player's decision to wander off into the wilderness and pick flowers all afternoon, or to add a menu in place of an intermediate area that you walk across to transport from your safehouse to the four possible mission areas.

[Wrath of Dagon]

I really enjoyed exploring Tatooine, finding the sand crawler, being ambushed by the pigs and kicking their sorry asses, and the combat in general. Without that part, it would be a much poorer experience IMO, in fact it'd be more like Mass Effect, puke. (I wrote all that about Dantooine at first, then realized I got my planets mixed up. Nevertheless, I enjoyed exploring Dantooine also).