Why did this game have to be open world?

[Irishrampage]

Why did this game have to be open world?

I still don't quite understand why every damn game nowadays HAS to be open world, regardless of the genre. In my opinion, you're literally shooting your dev team in the foot. It just needlessly pads out playtime with empty travel, to reach quests where you move absolutely NOWHERE in terms of distance.

Travel halfway across the map to meet this person, there you will talk about shit, then walk 50 feet to this location. Something will happen, then you'll have to travel back across the map to talk to someone else. This game would have been fine by having many many White Orchard sized areas. It would give the developers more room to experiment with more varied gameplay. I don't care what you say, batman vision was by far the worst part of TW3. What a lazy padding mechanic. Maybe with a little less stress to design 10 square miles of open world, CDProjekt RED could have done something better.

---------- Updated at 11:24 PM ----------

You guys also seemed really hyped that every meaningless building in Novigrad would be available to explore.

Honestly, was it really that important? All the houses in this game use the same handfull of assets. There was never a moment where I said to myself, "Wow, I'm so glad I can explore this random peasants house!", I was just thinking to myself how much of a waste of time it was.

 

[minicrom]

To me because The Witcher story is good for an open world. Books are all about traveling. If a game deserved to be open world it was The Witcher 3. And I see they did it quite well. What a better way to role play Geralt that exploring the world freely and do contracts. Seriously a mode Witcher contract only is even needed the way I see it and mode for story and important secondary place. Always found odd to take time to do Witcher contract while searching for Ciri.

 

[Big_Machine]

I still don't quite understand why every damn game nowadays HAS to be open world, regardless of the genre. In my opinion, you're literally shooting your dev team in the foot. It just needlessly pads out playtime with empty travel, to reach quests where you move absolutely NOWHERE in terms of distance.

Travel halfway across the map to meet this person, there you will talk about shit, then walk 50 feet to this location. Something will happen, then you'll have to travel back across the map to talk to someone else. This game would have been fine by having many many White Orchard sized areas. It would give the developers more room to experiment with more varied gameplay. I don't care what you say, batman vision was by far the worst part of TW3. What a lazy padding mechanic. Maybe with a little less stress to design 10 square miles of open world, CDProjekt RED could have done something better.

---------- Updated at 11:24 PM ----------

You guys also seemed really hyped that every meaningless building in Novigrad would be available to explore.

Honestly, was it really that important? All the houses in this game use the same handfull of assets. There was never a moment where I said to myself, "Wow, I'm so glad I can explore this random peasants house!", I was just thinking to myself how much of a waste of time it was.

Amen, brother. Add monster dens/smuggler's caches/scavenger hunts to the list of unnecessary padding material and you have yourself a game where 50% of play time you're grinding like in some MMORPG game.

Also in terms of landmarks I can name probably about 5 locations at most off the top of my head that felt unique and not just copy-pasted locales.

 

[cyberpunkforever]

because it's bigger, better, a lot more to explore, more content, better landscapes, everything is better in open world

 

[Garrison72]

I'd argue the world could indeed be smaller and with less filler, but not that it's the wrong format for CDPR's vision. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. As far as map design goes, TW3 is far less generic than most. I was personally amazed at the detail and variety in each environment.

 

[SilverFox07]

To be honest, I'm still deciding if this is a serious thread or not. If you don't like exploring, then don't. I am excited about a peasant house I can now go into. Just as I'm excited about exploring the whole world, because it's all so superbly done.
Don't know anyone who buys W3 then complains about exploring. That's what the game's about... go find stuff out there. If you don't want to, then don't.
And what's wrong with witcher sense?
Eh, I"m just a bit confused by this thread.

 

[Sunsibar]

I don't see no problem here. I love this open world and it's details. I enjoy so much just traveling there and hear the birds singing. I think it's nicely done also, and good design. At least for me, who wants to do every quest possible, game walks me nicely past numerous little quests, that you'll have to find "randomly". While traveling to your current quest, something unexpected always happens on the road. Quests also takes you to different parts of the map, so you can see that whole beautiful world even if you are not literally exploring it. Why to make such an beautiful world, and then leave it on it's own? And the way quests are made, makes you try every different possibility in this game. Boats, oils, bombs, signs... It's up to you which ones you choose to use, but those are all shown to you at least once.

If you don't mind the world, use fast travel. If you don't wan to loot, don't loot. If you don't wan to do all side quests, don't do those. One thing I like in this game, is that leveling system. You don't have to do everything, but you can still reach high levels. If you want to do everything, you don't get over leveled.

I like to explore those "meaningless" huts and places. You never know what you can find there. Maybe some new quests you never seen before? I still get those after 2 completed games. I also like crafting, so looting fits nicely with that. Now I started my third game with harder difficulty. I need to loot everything to get money and alchemy ingredients. I don't want to spend my hard earned money for those. I need it elsewhere. I know that some point I don't need that money anymore during base game so badly, but then I can start HoS and here we go again!

Open worlds are so popular nowadays, 'cause people like those. And this open world is very nicely done. I like it much more than Skyrim's open world. If you don't like open worlds, don't play that kinda games. I still don't understand what is the problem with open world? If you don't want to "waste time" with "too long" games, why do you even play? Buy the book and read just that last page. Or play something with meaningless story and lots of action, not RPGs where story and looting is kind of that "thing". I don't play FPS games, 'cause I don't like that mindless shooting without any kind of interesting story. If I pay 70 euros for a game, I really don't want it to be over under 100 hours. Or another Dragon Age 2 where the the whole game happens in just a few places. I still get allergic reactions every time I think about that "graphical design hooray". It was just something terrible.

 

[ABeardedViking]

Agree 100 % with Sunsibar. As someone who is new to the Witcher series. The open word of the Witcher 3 is what drew me into the series when it was announced. Sure their are games out there that do have a lot of the filler stuff, IE Dragon Age Inquisition for example. But for the most part its done very well in the Witcher 3

 

[chrispowers1010]

The only problem is the excessive smugglers caches' in Skellige. They should have done more fun / useful question marks / point of interests in Skellige. Some of my favorite parts of the game are going up and down the coast by the beach in Velen and taking out all those pirates and searching the ships. Random chests in the ocean aren't really fun. Why have 100+ question marks in Skellige when literally 80+ are smugglers caches lol.

 

[arkhenon]

If you remove the unnecessary stuff (Smuggles cache's, bandit camps, abandoned sites, etc.) from your map, you'll have much, MUCH more fun. You don't have to do all those, and just stumbling upon them randomly as you explore the world is definitely much better. At least on the 2nd run or so, I strongly recommend turning places of interest (white question marks) off on the map, if those stuff really seem problematic to you. Then you'll start appreciating the world, and the open aspect of it, much better.

 

[zMorfz]

Uhm.. Huh? Why does COD have to be a FPS? Why does Halo have to be a FPS? Hmm? I can't even... Personally, I love every single aspect of this game. Not sure why would some one complain about and open world RPG being an... open world RPG.

 

[Krull32]

because it's bigger, better, a lot more to explore, more content, better landscapes, everything is better in open world

Not really, if you fill everything with smuggler caches and other useless "?"...
To be honest, Witcher 3 is a beautiful but empty world.
Not enough "Aha" or "Wow" moments during the exploration. Or interesting and hard battles.

Another good example skellige Seas.... Thousands of "?" but sooo boring..skipped nearly all.
Witcher 3 "?" are really only for stretching the playtime.

 

[Sardukhar]

Turn.Off.The. Question. Marks.

Made my game so much better.

Let us not confuse genre definition with designer intent. They wanted a game where Geralt could wander around and live his life and story. We call that Open World.

Now, the rest of Open World trappings - filler, or loose story connections or weird habitat niches - those are design decisions that I think, should be addressed. Because, yeah, they do water down the story and game.

 

[mothramdeer]

I love the open world aspect of Witcher 3! Because there are so many quests and other things of interest that could be easy to miss on a first playthrough, it always feels like the world is really huge and more real in a way - I just like that kind of immersive feel! And I like being able to explore, or even just visit places I've already been if I feel like it. The fact that so many of the houses are explorable is great too, there's just enough so that the place you're in feels inhabited (unless it's an abandoned shack of course) but enough are locked that it feels a bit more realistic that people live there and don't want strangers just walking in and stealing their money and...broken rakes and stuff.

 

[Dubya75]

OP...do you realize that this game is a huge success? Or did you miss that little fact? I assure you, no one is shot in the foot with it being an open-world game!
Personally, I LOVE open-world games! and the bigger they are, the more I love them!

 

[Eldanon]

Agreed with OP. I would've certainly preferred TW3 to NOT be another Open World game that's all the rage these days. While it's the best open world game I played, I would've much preferred it if it was more like TW2 just with more content.

---------- Updated at 03:45 PM ----------

Uhm.. Huh? Why does COD have to be a FPS? Why does Halo have to be a FPS? Hmm? I can't even... Personally, I love every single aspect of this game. Not sure why would some one complain about and open world RPG being an... open world RPG.

Was Halo 5 an FPS? Yes... so were Halo 1-4. Is TW3 an open world RPG? Yes. Were TW1 and 2 open world RPGs? NOOOO. That's why it feels out of place to plenty of people... the prior games in the series were not open world.

 

[GwentStefani]

apart from being extremely well done, it still helps the narrative a ton since you dont have to suspend your disbelief due to artificial constraints

 

[StormKorp]

I love the open world and question marks as they are an incentive for me to explore. It gives me something to do while waiting for the new expansion. I take after work my daily 40 minutes session of TW3 and go explore landmarks and treasures. Always something new to find and enjoy because I did it post-main game.

I seriously don't understand your complaint. Don't like it? then stick to the plot and forget about exploration. You can easily do that. No reason to take away a feature other people are enjoying just because you can't ignore it if you don't like it.

If there were no exploration at all I would have already put the game in the shelf and move on a different title. Exploration enhances replayablitly.

 

[BoboTheMighty]

OP is overreacting and seeing only the negatives, but there is some truth here...CDPR could have added more emergent game play, better combat encounters, more unique places with their own history to explore and handled itemization/loot/enemy scaling a HELL of a lot better.
In my opinion, there is no way that you can create a 150+ hour long title set in world of this size and still maintain high quality control.

 

[keithianw]

Totally disagree with the OP. As someone who loves to explore, I could not get into the first 2 games due to how linear they felt. There was no sense of exploration. If an MMO does the same, I won't play that either. I just started playing this game after reading 4 of the books and I can honestly say this may be my favorite game ever..and if not definitely top 3 in terms of addictiveness. I would never feel that way if it didn't have the open world feel. What made this game feel even more immersive is when I turned off last week the text when they talk. Now I feel like I'm watching Games of Thrones or something. It brought out how great the story is and how much work they put into the development of it. love this game.