I truly hope that this won't be the case...
Also diversity has nothing to do with open world. You could have basically the same diversity (or even more!!!) with multiple small hubs...
Also diversity has nothing to do with open world. You could have basically the same diversity (or even more!!!) with multiple small hubs...
Out of curiosity..... why don't you hope that will be the case?
@caruga
Here's a question for you, considering that "Open World" is a form of level design in video games.
When do we start measuring that a game is actually "Open World"?
Perhaps a game doesn't start as an "Open World" game for the first few hours, but later as you unlock areas it actually becomes so?
All "Open World" games should have limiting factors otherwise short-cuts can be taken. For example in Fallout 3 you can travel nearly 100% freely everywhere and because of that you can skip huge portions of the plot if you know where to go--I don't mean to put words in the developers mouths here--but I don't think they want you skipping over hand-made content they've spent an incredible amount of effort creating. But just because there might be or are some restrictions, doesn't make it not "Open World".
I think The Witcher 3 is an "Open World" game, despite some regions or very specific areas that we might not be able to reach initially due to story progression reasons. From the looks of the gameplay that we've seen so far we're able to approach our objectives in different ways and get to areas in different ways which makes the experience "Open". Another, but more technical, reason a video-game might be "Open World", is just as you've said, there are no loading screens when moving from indoors to outdoors, the world is large and seamless, and loads the environment around us as we travel. (However loading-screens for fast travel make logical sense, they're used as a cover as the game literally teleports you from one place to another and loads all of the objects around you.)
My opinion is that "Multi-Region Open World" pretty much nails what The Witcher 3 is.
We have multiple huge regions available to us, with many points of interests and things we can do or see, and how we approach our objectives whether they're part of the main story or a side quest in terms of time, pathing, people we talk to, people we ignore, previous quests completed, and previous choices made, all while knowing we have different options available to us, are entirely up to the individual. That in my opinion defines an "Open World", and it's exactly what The Witcher 3 is.
TLDR; The Witcher 3 is a true open world game, as true as it gets for a game that's not procedurally generated all the way through. We are able to travel how we want, where we want, and have an array of choices on what to do, not to do, and say, or not to say. Small area limitations do not make a game not "Open World", they're there for specific reasons and are designed to not subtract from our experience.
Whew.
Here's a question for you, considering that "Open World" is a form of level design in video games.
When do we start measuring that a game is actually "Open World"?
Perhaps a game doesn't start as an "Open World" game for the first few hours, but later as you unlock areas it actually becomes so?
All "Open World" games should have limiting factors otherwise short-cuts can be taken. For example in Fallout 3 you can travel nearly 100% freely everywhere and because of that you can skip huge portions of the plot if you know where to go--I don't mean to put words in the developers mouths here--but I don't think they want you skipping over hand-made content they've spent an incredible amount of effort creating. But just because there might be or are some restrictions, doesn't make it not "Open World".
I think The Witcher 3 is an "Open World" game, despite some regions or very specific areas that we might not be able to reach initially due to story progression reasons. From the looks of the gameplay that we've seen so far we're able to approach our objectives in different ways and get to areas in different ways which makes the experience "Open". Another, but more technical, reason a video-game might be "Open World", is just as you've said, there are no loading screens when moving from indoors to outdoors, the world is large and seamless, and loads the environment around us as we travel. (However loading-screens for fast travel make logical sense, they're used as a cover as the game literally teleports you from one place to another and loads all of the objects around you.)
My opinion is that "Multi-Region Open World" pretty much nails what The Witcher 3 is.
We have multiple huge regions available to us, with many points of interests and things we can do or see, and how we approach our objectives whether they're part of the main story or a side quest in terms of time, pathing, people we talk to, people we ignore, previous quests completed, and previous choices made, all while knowing we have different options available to us, are entirely up to the individual. That in my opinion defines an "Open World", and it's exactly what The Witcher 3 is.
TLDR; The Witcher 3 is a true open world game, as true as it gets for a game that's not procedurally generated all the way through. We are able to travel how we want, where we want, and have an array of choices on what to do, not to do, and say, or not to say. Small area limitations do not make a game not "Open World", they're there for specific reasons and are designed to not subtract from our experience.
Whew.
Because I think Skyrim is an overhyped mediocre game full of lazyness and bad design decisions...
And in specific, because I think that an open world game like Skyrim (and the very core of "sandbox gameplay) is pure poison for good story-telling, especially for pacing, staging/direction and proper, realistic choices and consequences (based on the principles of complexity and connectivity). The Gothic/Piranha Bytes way of doing open world (by severly limiting freeroaming by severe difficulty levels of various enemies in various regions and combat balancing) offer at least more possibilities to "direct" a story in a focused and well paced way imo.
Isn't that what CDPR is trying to do with TW3 though? Integrate good story-teling (including good pacing, staging/direction and proper, realistic choices and consequences) with an open world? It's theoretically impossible, which is why they held a conference a while back detailing some ways they would tackle it.
Either way they definitely took a page from Gothic's book by having no level scaling, so there's that at least.
No RPGs had level scaling until at some point it became a thing because designers were too lazy to balance their games manually.
They TRY to to do so, yes. But it's up to be seen how much they could achieve.
But the Griffon quest from the very beginning already showed the weaknesses of open world design for focused, paced quests... :/
As a lot of people have already said an rpg with lack of direction isn't much of an rpg, it becomes kind of pointless. I concur on "fallout 3" in this respect; i ended up walking around aimlessly.
On the other hand. For me, the 'tales' series is the complete opposite extreeme it is nigh on impossible to do anything without being bombarded with text.
My personal preference is a game more like knights of the old republic.
I'm also more in favour of hub designs. It allows more creative freedom kind of like hitman where you end up all over the world.
On the other hand. For me, the 'tales' series is the complete opposite extreeme it is nigh on impossible to do anything without being bombarded with text.
My personal preference is a game more like knights of the old republic.
I'm also more in favour of hub designs. It allows more creative freedom kind of like hitman where you end up all over the world.
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Let me tell you my point of view. While I think the previous Witcher games are masterpieces as their own I allways missed some aspect of the books. The short stories showed me how Geralt lives normally when he is not an let's say "epic quest" like in the novels. He is just moves to town to town searching for contract and so on. I wanted to experience this, and I think in TW3 I will be able to do this. Sure thing, I am interested in the main plot as well, but I want to rolelplay as a witcher and explore the world. They will allow me to pretty much make my own story when I am not doing the main plot.
I think a RPG game is not all about well made skill tree or just on the story and characters, all of this requires a good amount of immersion and ofcourse the player is needed as well. If you cannot roleplay in your mind the story and the characters won't make it so.
I think a RPG game is not all about well made skill tree or just on the story and characters, all of this requires a good amount of immersion and ofcourse the player is needed as well. If you cannot roleplay in your mind the story and the characters won't make it so.
True enough. I think the Griffon quest was just part of the tutorial/prologue; it gave you a taste of what hunting, preparing for and finally facing down a monster would be like. That would be why they restricted you to White Orchard for the prologue.
Anyways I don't really think an open world would definitely cripple what otherwise would be a good story. It just has to be done right. The easiest-to-think-of but likely hardest-to-implement solution is have the world react to your action and inaction. For example if you ignore the main quest, you would slowly see more and more villages razed by the Wild Hunt as well as the invasion of the North proceeding without a hitch. Intervening in the the main quest earlier or later would influence the story, thus making the open world not just a feature by itself but a character in the story.
Remains to be seen if that's even in the game though. I won't be disappointed if it wasn't, because it's tough as hell to implement and there are already so many other features. But we'll see
I think restoring some order to definitions that lack the proper nuance is a worthy but futile goal, as people will dismiss it as niggling and not adopt any new, more precise definition.
The definition I was working with was that open world implies a continuous, unified one. I'm not super-protective of the definition though, that's just what it immediately brings to my mind.
If you took a trilogy of games that were each open-world (per my definition), and then someone crammed the three games into one and you end up with three land-masses separated with load screens, does it cease to be open world? In a manner of speaking. By a technicality. What would I call them then? Quasi-open-world? Multi-open-world? Multi-sandbox? Not sure it matters, unless you can persuade people to adopt those terms.
Yes, multi-region isn't too bad of a term, although as I said before, when I first read it I merely thought it another way of saying that the game is huge, i.e. it contains multiple large provinces, not that it contains multiple maps separated with loading screens.
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As far as the prologue goes, people would end up saying they don't understand the game if they didn't walk every one through the basic steps. While the more core gamers would understand game logic, a lot of game logic and design philosophy has been phased out over the years in the bid for a more streamlined experience.
For instance. A lot of younger people prefer touch controls over physical controls, tablets and phones over pc's. The same applies to games that have cut out most platforming, concept of puzzles, lives, continues, players can't fall off ledges, combat has been reduced to counter based systems with no depth with one button insta kills. Health bars arn't that common anymore either.
While the witcher 3 may not include a lot of the above, what it does have is a lot of things people may not understand.
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Agreed, and it's also worth remembering that CDPR added the tutorial section on TW2 because the steep learning curve in the initial game was a problem for a lot of players. I think that the concept of an introductory section before the game starts, to explain background and to act as a tutorial, is something that gamers are familiar with.
However, I also hope that it can be skipped on TW3 for subsequent playthroughs, if it is just tutorial/prologue and separate from the main game.
I saw about that with the Witcher 2. I admit the prison section at the start surprised me and i had a bit of trouble at first. However, i wouldn't say that i had a hard time figuring out 'how' to play the game; despite knowing next to nothing about the lore before going in. It's important to go in with a view that you are going to have to change your mind set/ tactics, to adabt to the game rather than be stuborn with pre- defined expectations. It's a bit like trying to play tribes vengence or rainbow six the same way you would C.O.D.
I would say anytime you fast travel you gonna see a loading screen, that includes traveling between hubs. So, traveling from Skellige to Novigrad will most likely include loading screen because these areas do not border with each other. Skellige is far far away from mainland. Having said that, No Man's Land and Novigrad are next to each other. They should not have any loading screens when you travel between them. In other words, as long as travel on foot or by horse, boat you should not encounter any loading screen. Only if lands are not connected there will be some. It should not happen often as i believe there are just 2 major hubs in a game (Skellige and No Man's Land/Novigrad) and few minor ones unlocked for story purposes. At least thats how i understand it.
My understanding:
NML and Novigrad is part of the same map so there won't be loading screen between them.
Skellige's on its own map
Each of other smaller places like Kaer Morhen, Prologue area(vizima-white orchard?) and whatever else will stand on their own.
There'll be loading screens if you travel between them and obviously any time you fast travel.
NML and Novigrad is part of the same map so there won't be loading screen between them.
Skellige's on its own map
Each of other smaller places like Kaer Morhen, Prologue area(vizima-white orchard?) and whatever else will stand on their own.
There'll be loading screens if you travel between them and obviously any time you fast travel.
I think White Orchard is actually part of NML. To my knowledge, the only confirmed loading screen is Skellige to the mainland and vice versa. NML/Novigrad is seamless. There may be smaller locations that require fast travel.
More open than Dragon Age Inquisition, less open than Skyrim. About sums it up to me.