Structured open world

[username_3218976]

Structured open world

So, while reading the interview at rockpapershotgun this especially caught my eye:

RPS: How do you a tailor an open world to be conducive to really good storytelling? In general, they’re best for player-driven types of things. When you’re trying to tell a player a story, how do you change open world design?


Jakub Rokosz: In our case, in The Witcher’s case, it helps in some fields. One of the biggest problems we had in The Witcher 2 is that to keep pace between the story and the game itself, we had to sometimes overload the player with information. Just so they could understand the mechanics and the world and the consequences of their choices. What the open world gives us is that, because we have this open world consisting of three different regions, we can build areas up from local communities to whole countries or peoples, and we can tailor the whole experience, the whole story arc of what Witcher 3 will be about… We can tailor it at both the macro and micro levels.

So assuming I'm getting this right, the narrative still dictate the areas we can explore. So we couldn't go from let's say the Northern region in the middle of Chapter 1, to the Southern region so we could complete some meaningless fetch quest.
This is actually the way I'd prefer it to be, as I think narrative should be above all.
Do you prefer this approach, or just aimless wandering like Skyrim or something?

 

[JackalJ]

Well at first I thought it would be like Skyrim a big world to explore. And so I thought we could visit alot of different places, from the book just like an truly open world. But then they said it would be 3 different regions. So at this point I don't know what to expect.

But from what I can tell from that article, is that if you can't stop (or if you help) Nilfgaard that region is conquered and you will run into the consequences in the other 2 regions.

But again I hope it will be just one big open world where you can go where ever you want, but I believe it is already confirmed that it will be 3 main region that you will be able to explore. And I don't think that the Northern Kingdoms can be made into one open world, it is probably way too big for it.


Let's hope they reveal alot in their summer converence. And maybe even the gameplay they showed to the press.

 

[vivaxardas2015]

If CDPG are taking Gothic 2 NOTR approach, with three separate regions (only much larger in TW3 case) initially available only as story progresses, it would be great. It is way better for a focused story then one huge landmass as in Skyrim.

 

[nocny.945]

(Google Translator)

I want a little bit like in Gothic. The world was open, because you know that eventually you can walk everywhere. But on the other hand, it was impossible to go to any place at once. The most common way to reduce the free exploration were powerful creatures.

This is completely different than the means absolute limitation of space.

I have not played Skyrim, so I do not speak.

 

[ReptilePZ]

Yes, I much prefer a more structured open world, I think it would suit the story-driven nature of the game much better.

 

[CrimzonTearz]

Uh...whst is the point of this coupled with previous statements about an open world and non scaling enemies?

 

[nocny.945]

(GT)

In Gothic is an open world, but not boring. Descriptions of Skyrim shows that the world is mostly boring. That is why I've never had a desire to Skyrim.

 

[avydia1.388]

This piece of article reminds me of a possible solution: Red Dead Redemption, it is with no doubt an open world game, but you can explore the whole map only late in game, as the access to the three main regions ( Texas, Mexico, and North) is linked to the story progress.

 

[Dprelate]

It's been already stated that the whole world is accessible at the beginning. the game may suggest some areas to explore but there's no boundary that preventd you from exploring other places. you may encounter difficult enemies ahead but there will always be a way to get around it.

About the story, it seems that it's not going to be a series of step by step deals but a pack of fully parallel narratives. so the more you explore, the more you are going to have to make a whole of.

Imagine the story as a circle, and suppose that you'd learn a piece of that circle in it's respective place. so there's no first, second, . . . order in those.

From all interviews, I'd concluded that CDPRED aims to achieve that and this is something entirely new to all of us.

 

[CrimzonTearz]

This piece of article reminds me of a possible solution: Red Dead Redemption, it is with no doubt an open world game, but you can explore the whole map only late in game, as the access to the three main regions ( Texas, Mexico, and North) is linked to the story progress.

uhg...let's just hope they do not pull a RDR on the ending of TW3 or I am going to be so let down

 

[dragonbird]

As Black Leopard said, this has already been answered in the various interviews - the map will be open throughout the game, and they'll use difficulty gates to discourage you from going somewhere too soon.

 

[AserPik]

(GT)

That is why I've never had a desire to Skyrim.

How do you 'Skyrim'?

Sorry but I do love GT sometimes...

 

[Chodak]

Yo Dawgakiin, we heard you like to Skyrim, so we put an arrow in your knee so you can Skyrim while you Skyrim.

On a more serious note, what I gathered from this interview is that there will be elements of the main plot present in all three regions and accessible at the same time, something like in Dragon Age: Origins, but obviously different due to the open world approach.

 

[JackalJ]

Can someone post a link to the interview where this is said, that the whole world is open?

Since I only heard that there would be 3 regions...

 

[Chodak]

It's three, separate, open regions.

 

[Aaden]

Imagine the story as a circle, and suppose that you'd learn a piece of that circle in it's respective place. so there's no first, second, . . . order in those.

If that's the case, I hope they come up with some new way to implement this.

Other games with remotely similar approaches, in which the story split up and you followed multiple threads in different locations and worked through them sequentially, lost a lot of momentum in their storytelling. The small chunks of new information or securing another ally are not enough to keep me interested, there should always be some sort of progress in the story.

 

[sidspyker]

I was worried how a story driven RPG would play out in open-world, how will the story remain coherent and parts wouldn't get ruined because of other quests, etc. This eases my doubts.

TES games are good open-world but that's about it, their 'story' are a bunch of random dots all over the map, stupid fetch quests that 9 out of 10 times end up in a cave/dungeon and horrible characters.

 

[Sirnaq]

No lvl scaling means you probably won't be able to explore everything immediately.

 

[avydia1.388]

No level scaling is TOP NOTCH, best design choice for a RPG. Level scaling is just DUMB.

 

[Sirnaq]

Agreed, level scaling doesn't make sense.