Sooo... complete level (or map,) move to next level, rinse and repeat?
Doesn't sound very "open world" to me.
Doesn't sound very "open world" to me.
You had semi-open smallish hub where you did a bunch of quests, then you moved to the next one, etc. DX:HR was not an open world.
Gotta love the bluntness ^^
But no, you're wrong. Bigger does not mean better. Personally, I'd love it if Red made a hub based game rather than full open world. Open world games always degenerate into the usual "drive for 10 minutes to quest area, complete quest within 5 minutes, drive 10 minutes to next quest area". It's mindless padding, and honestly, shit game design. They're inflating the length of the game by dicking the player around and I don't know about you but my time is fucking precious. I don't take kindly to being fucked in the ass and having my time wasted.
Brevity is the soul of wit. Keep it to the point and keep it compact. No need to create an elaborate city just to tell a small personal story. It's overindulgent. Hub based level, rather large ones, is the way to go. You can have the wastelands outside Night City as one hub, downtown as another, maybe a market/mall hub as a third etc. That way, the development team saves money and time, of which they can invest in other, more important things, and we get a consistent, fun experience.
If Red really does decide, or have decided, to go full open world ala GTA or Fallout, then hey, I'm looking forward to seeing what they'll do with it. It'll be interesting to experience.
I disagree entirely... unless by hubs you mean areas separated by loading screens like GTA 3..
To you brevity is a good thing, to me it's utter shit. I want a giant playground, not a little cage, not a confined bunch of sites that exist for no other purpose than to shuffle you off to your next mission. Want to play in the world, to do my own thing, I get more enjoyment out of just driving around doing nothing in a game like Fallout NV, RDR, or San Andreas, exploring the world, seeing whats out there, and just goofing off, then I got out of the entirety of a game like Deus EX. Which is just another shooter with some RPG bits half assedly tacked on and a horrible farce of an open world element just big enough to get you excited before you get disappointed and bored with the whole thing.
If getting from place to place annoys you that much, take a bloody taxi. But to willingly ask to be caged up in small environments like that.... you might as well just ask them to make a level based shooter like Army Of two, or Killzone... because that's really all they are.
That is not what I want from Cyberpunk, it absolutely does not reflect the feel of playing the tabletop game, unless your GM is one of those guys who railroads you everywhere and leads the players by the hand so they never stray too far from the tracks. Personally i wanna jump off the rails and go over there, where that neat shiney thing is, till I get bored, then I wanna follow that car over there around, just to see where the guy driving it is going, then I wanna see if I can steal an AV and how high up I can jump out over the water and survive... then I want to drive on out to the desert and do donuts in the sand. Then maybe I will a mission. Then I will organize my cars and make sure I get the exact ones I want in my garage. Then I might go shopping, get myself all geared up, looking cool.... then I might go do another mission, or maybe not, maybe I will just wander the streets listening to people, looking at the sites, until I wonder to myself... can I get a motorcycle up on those train tracks??????
There are plenty of games like Deus Ex, near future shooters with nothing more to offer than the storyline.
There has never been a single decent near future open world game... and I want CDPR to do that, and Cyberpunk is the perfect property to do it with.
...haha. Looks like Wisdom is slightly passionate on the subject, eh? ;-)
Agreed with him, though; I don't feel the "hub" based design lends itself to the exploratory nature I expect in a sandbox title. Kind of ruins the rhythm and flow for me if I have to wait between loading screens.
Makes running from the cops FAR less exciting. =p
Agreed with him, though; I don't feel the "hub" based design lends itself to the exploratory nature I expect in a sandbox title. Kind of ruins the rhythm and flow for me if I have to wait between loading screens.
Makes running from the cops FAR less exciting. =p
Bigger is not better. I want to interact, fight, listen, engage with people, get drunk in clubs, steal and spy and connive and plot and conquer. If I want to spend half my time driving, I'll switch to a racing game. Vast expanses of static backdrop are boring.
I do like myself some scenic vistas. Otherwise I agree with you.
It has always been the part i dreaded most in gta-style games...the driving across town to talk to some guy who apparently has no idea what a phone is, evidenced by the fact that he wants me to drive him somewhere else to talk to some other guy who is clearly holding a phone and...alright you get it.
Hm. I don't mind "checkpoint / meet-up" missions, if there's context. An informant wants to meet you someplace VERY public with lots of witnesses, a face-to-face meeting with a Mob lieutenant, surrounded by his goons, a blind drop to pick up info or gear; things like that.
I had something simpler in mind which is literally just fucking with you by having you drive all over the place to pad content.
Actually, it never bothered me at all really, because criminals, by and large, don't do their deals on the phone... cops listen in on phone calls, or are otherwise under survellaince. Sure there are some times when it gets goofy, but in most open world games these days (GTA 4, SR2, Sleeping Dogs) you can just take a cab to get wherever you are going if you don't feel like driving for whatever reason.
I agree that bigger doesn't mean better. I am playing Batman:Arkham City right now and honestly, if CDPR went this way with their open-world approach - I would be all for it.
It is open-world but also has a focused story, that you never get too far away from. But at the same time, it has many side activities and quests to keep you entertained and encourage exploration. I never get bored in this game, unlike in GTA for example. I would say that Batman:AC is an example of a well balanced open-world game that CDPR should take a really close look at.
It is open-world but also has a focused story, that you never get too far away from. But at the same time, it has many side activities and quests to keep you entertained and encourage exploration. I never get bored in this game, unlike in GTA for example. I would say that Batman:AC is an example of a well balanced open-world game that CDPR should take a really close look at.
I really was not impressed with Arkham City at all.... to me it just felt devoid of anything beyond the game... I didn't feel like I was part of the world, I felt like the world revolved around me, and was always just waiting for me to get back to the story. It never felt alive, or even interesting to me... It was just.... there.... the only thing I really liked about it was Mark Hamill reprising the Joker one last time...
It was the same feeling I got with Deus Ex... its a world that revolves around the protagonist, and you feel it. In a game like GTA or Fallout, its certainly every bit as true, since that's the nature of video games... but I never felt it. Instead I always felt like the world would just go right along trucking whether I was there or not. it functioned. I was a part of it, but I wasn't the center of it. Even if I was the center of the story.
With arkham and deus ex.... the walls just felt so ever present, there really wasn't anything beyond the story. The side activities and quests just seem tacked on and ham fisted, and just felt like an excuse instead of anything actually fun...
I dunno, as I have said, our video game tastes are wildly different. Story is important to me, but as important as it is, it is secondary to freedom and gameplay.
Of course the world revolved around you...you were the goddamn Batman!
Well, I think that's the point he's getting at.
It's Night City. If you're not one of the key players, you're nobody. You're nothing. You're not even a cog.
You're just fodder to fuel the Boostergangs and underground, unless you prove yourself otherwise. The city owes you nothing, and does not revolve around you. It's up to you to make your name.
Well, TBH, Witcher 2 was a much confined and story-driven experience and still the world felt like it doesn't give a flying duck about you, your goals or actions. Geralt was just a little mechanism in the huge machine of politics.