Low content density vs. greater density of content

[Grotesque]

"feeling of actually traveling in BG1"

 

well said

[Metabot]

It would be interesting to have a more focused game. Like for instance you can have only five quests at a time(seeing as thats roughly as much we can remember). Only once you've done one does a new one become potentially available. It would make managing large areas more manageable. Because in some games you want to explore a new area, but every few meters you end up dumped with a new quest, and so end up with about fifty quests.

 

Ummm no.

 

In response to other people's comments, I don't see anything with having some open areas with nothing in them. Not every single area has to be littered with items and monsters. That would get obnoxious. It would be too handy as well.

[MattH]

Let's say the content, whatever its dispersion, has to have high density. I wouldn't call the Baldur's Gate 1 way really an approach, as it doesn't make a very competent impression to me. It is similar to the random content creation of some modders, where every tiny event is supposed to be a highlight during adventurous roaming through the wilderness, while it's just a lot of pointless, unconnected emptiness. At least the roaming part doesn't work so well in the Infinity Engine in my opinion.

Edited October 25, 2012 by MattH

[Metabot]

 

Ummm no.

 

In response to other people's comments, I don't see anything with having some open areas with nothing in them. Not every single area has to be littered with items and monsters. That would get obnoxious. It would be too handy as well.

 

anything wrong**

 

too gamey** stupid autocorrect

Edited October 25, 2012 by Metabot

[stkaye]

I liked that feeling of actually traveling in BG1. The perilous journey from Candlekeep > Friendly Arm Inn > Beregost > Nashkel with my freshmen adventurers sticks out as particularly memorable.

 

I can do without BG1's filler areas, but I do want to feel like it actually took my party some time and effort to discover a new location, rather than insta-traveling there as in BG2.

 

Reaching Big City #2 should not only feel like an accomplishment, it should also feel like it's really on the other side of the map (assuming and hoping that's where it is).

 

This. A thousand times this.

 

I loved how the Friendly Arm Inn and Beregost felt like ports in a storm - limping in, your spells used up, only a few hitpoints left, and hearing the sounds of the inn and seeing the glowing windows in the dark...

 

One of the best things about BG1 is revisiting the paths you barely scraped through as a level 1 character and just owning the local wildlife and bandits. Breezing back through in your magical plate mail, all grown up, and knowing that this stuff was here all along, waiting for you to advance enough to discover it.

[eselle28]

I'm going to vote for the middle path. Like lots of others, I really enjoyed the feeling of traveling in BG1. There was lots of tense tiptoeing around, hoping I wouldn't bump into anything nasty until I found a safe place for my party to rest, which made it feel like a real adventure rather than a game. On the other hand, there were also some times in the game when I was listlessly wandering around searching for anything more entertaining than a routine fight with mundane enemies who dropped mostly useless items. I'd ideally like something with the adventuring feel, but that had quest-rich areas spaced throughout the game rather than concentrated at the end. It seems like PE, which has two big cities, a megadungeon, and presumably some villages and small dungeons and ruins, should be able to do this while still having some of the wild areas be quite wild and unpopulated.

 

Oh, and I'm firmly opposed to the idea of limiting the quest log to five quests. An MMO that I otherwise enjoy does this, and I don't care for it at all. What it means in practice is that the player needs to do a lot of dull backtracking to pick up quests they didn't have room for the first time around. I don't see the point of that in a single player game. Additionally, in a game that doesn't have huge question marks over people's heads, I suspect what would happen is that players would start keeping notes now and then to remember which quests they'd skipped until someone finally made a mod to remove the quest restriction.

[Radwulf]

Initially in BG the wilderness areas gave a good impression with exploration, beautiful art and supporting sound. The problem arises when in each area you criss cross to get rid of all the black and fighting assorted enemies only to find there's only literally one or two non-combat related interactions on the map. This is extremely tedious and repetitive and leads to either the use of walkthroughs to cut out the crap or simply to skip entire areas altogether. I'm all for rewarding exploration, and I usually like to explore all the areas except where I'm supposed to go first, but it must be fun. A good half of BG simply wasn't, it was just padding. In addition they need to implement a better quick movement system. I've found that the cheat teleport function is crucial in enjoying repeated playthroughs of the Baldur's Gate trilogy. I would appreciate it if in-game functionality removed the need for it.

[curryinahurry]

I haven't read all the posts on this thread, so I don't know if anyone else mentioned SOZ, but I would much prefer overland travel along those lines. I'm not particularly enamored of either BG1 or BG2 map styles. BG1, for the issues stated by others, and BG2 because map areas, with one or two exceptions) were all related to quests (as far as I remember) and had too much of a "set piece" quality to feel like I was doing any real exploration.

 

A modified version of the SOZ travel map (with a touch of earlier games like Darklands or Fallout) and would solve the problem of the low density, exhausting BG1 trudging while still providing for a feeling of exploration (and the potential danger of travelling). Encounters could easily be divided into a few categories; wandering monsters, plot or quest related, bandits, & exploration. Exploration would largely be skill based; different skills could yield different encounters or locations on the travel map. To keep from exploiting the system, the threshold numbers for unlocking encounters could be based on a party aggregate. To make it feel more like exploration, a fairly simple pop-up screen could be employed, e.g.

 

" Forestry: Your party notices a small path leading towards an old wooden bridge fording a stream deeper in the woods. You....

a) Explore path

b) Continue on your travels."

 

From here, a fairly small encounter tile would pop up and you would do your exploration and have your encounter; be it a mad witch, uncovering a crypt leading to another map, etc. The best thing about a system like this, is that with 15-20 fairly small base tiles describing different styles of locales, the devs can create a fairly diverse set of encounter maps and save a lot of time and resources having to populate maps, create encounter triggers and solve path-finding issues. It also makes the world more dynamic by allowing different skills to unlock different encounters (or even using skills to avoid encounters like in SOZ) along the same travel routes over the course of the game.

Edited October 26, 2012 by curryinahurry

[Grotesque]

The amount of crybabies per thread area is concerning

The problem these days is that too much publishers care for the instant gratification of gamers.

"Whaaa... It was tedious to explore that area and nothing super mega awesome happened as much as my soul needed!"

[Radwulf]

I find it strange that you deride the opinions of those who dislike the exploration system in BG vis-a-vis BG2 whilst blatantly flaunting Fallout which probably had a better system than either.

[Grotesque]

I find it strange that you deride the opinions of those who dislike the exploration system in BG vis-a-vis BG2 whilst blatantly flaunting Fallout which probably had a better system than either.

 

 

You completely missed the point right there.

But doesn't matter, in your world, Fallout has better exploration. Ahem!

[UncleBourbon]

I've been replaying Storm of Zehir and I think the system in it has grown on me. Random, combat-focused encounters pop up (if you pass a spot/listen check) near or not so near you, with a red ring underneath. The more significant, not-necessarily combat encounters, taken from a decent sized list, show up with a blue ring. Based upon the skills/abilities of the character you've chosen as leader while moving, random map events pop up (ex: appraise succeeds, you find a cache of valuable gems in a small cave). In terms of density, I like the way it is with a couple of super-high-density areas, eg. Big-big towns, like Neverwinter and the keep (though really, Neverwinter is the only really big location). I'm expecting much higher levels of content all together in P:E, and I especially want even the "small" cities/towns to be visitable and explorable, but conceptually, I like SoZ's distribution. That, and the travel system. I'd also like more peaceful/dialog/sub-plot based events/encounters.

[Radwulf]

The reason I said Fallout has better exploration is that it has high content areas which are linked by parts that you can opt into and out of at will and present random encounters (ie. content) when you travel through it. It's to the point and excludes padding which is to my tastes. There may not be the travel for five minutes without seeing anything of substance which I'm getting the impression you consider exploration but then again I may be wrong as you seem to prefer to play coy and give oblique statements than explain you positions. So please, help me get the point.

 

I've never played Storm of Zehir but from what I'm hearing here it could be a good model to follow.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Radwulf

[curryinahurry]

I've never played Storm of Zehir but from what I'm hearing here it could be a good model to follow.

 

It was probably the only really good aspect of storm of zehir. It was actually a lot of fun, and if there had been more variety and a bit nicer presentation graphically, it would have been the sort of exploration that could of stood on its own as a sandbox rpg. I think the major reason for this was that SOZ had a tiny team and budget if I remember the development correctly. Either way, a system that allows for replay-ability vs one and done is always going to be superior, regardless of what the nostalgics on this forum seem to believe.

[Dangermouth]

Middle path.

 

I do like to collect quests and do them at my leisure, however, often using the side ones to level up until I'm sufficiently 'heroic' to be considered able to partake of the heroic, main, quest.

[GhostofAnakin]

Voted for something in the middle. A nice balance between the two would be ideal, IMO.

[MattH]

Despite my relatively strong stance against filler earlier, I think I want the world to feel wide rather than filled up and close, except that I think it's very tricky in game design and that it's seldom done well. If they make one feel the length of travel and come across different sights and little secrets, and so on, that's certainly fine.

Edited October 28, 2012 by MattH