I don't know about you but the world in Witcher 3 felt alive enough for me. And that game only had that horse racing, boxing and gwent for side activities.
The world felt alive due to weather changes, seeing the people go about, and the little side quests that sometimes popped up even you were just casually strolling.
Like when you are riding along the road and come upon some villagers that want to hang a man. Or coming upon a house in the woods where you find an old couple that lives there alone, only to discover that they are cannibals that eat the people that get lost in the area.
Even the bandit camps you found often had some small story behind them, if one bothered to read about it. That is what i mean, little tibits of info, going about the city and finding new sidequests in form of little events that just happen where you are going through. That is what made the W3 world feel so great. Not endlessly repetitive ativities.
It did initially, yes. At around my 3rd play through it stopped feeling quite so alive.
People casually strolling about loses a lot of it's meaning when it's all they really do in the game world. This is what I meant with filling the city to the brim with crowds of NPC's. Yes, graphically they make the area appear active. Functionally they don't if you cannot interact with them. Functionally they're a herd of sheep roaming around aimlessly, so to speak. Just think of how many individuals in the herd you will never interact with for any reason whatsoever. Best case they're a collection of pixels on the screen. Worst case they're a door jam.
A good counter-example of "empty world syndrome" would be a game like KCD, in my opinion. At every turn there was stuff to do in the game. Stuff outside of the main or side quest content. Hunting, archery contests, tournaments, dice at virtually every tavern (Farkle I believe it was called), fist fights, a horse race, random encounters on the road, being taught to fight properly by Bernard. Hell, you could talk directly to virtually every NPC in the game world. The dialogue might be somewhat generic Q and A but you could at least interact with the NPC's. They were not just there. Furthermore, the generic Q and A was at least pertinent to current events in the game world.
The underlying point is the world felt alive because there were a plethora of activities, many of which could be experienced almost everywhere, and NPC's actually responded to the player. Herds of non-interactive NPC's roaming about, bandit camps and hidden treasure sprinkled around in predictable locations, etc. doesn't create the same feeling. It only creates the illusion of it. Once you get a handle on the game and play it long enough you begin to see right through the illusion.
I'm not at all saying these type of activities need to be intricate, massive in quantity or a focal point. I'm saying it greatly improves the game play when they exist and are implemented well. For two reasons. The first is they make it feel like stuff is routinely happening in the world. Instead of a herd of zombie NPC's creating the illusion of it. The second is they provide quick, periodic distractions from whatever else may be happening at the time.
Since we're on the topic of TW3..... I think TW3 is an example of what I mentioned earlier. The narrative and characters flat out carried that game. The character progression was lackluster and unbalanced (straight up broken in some areas), combat was merely okay (with the possible exception of Quen cheese), and only if you bothered to read the bestiary and approached it properly (didn't blindly spam the attack button), the gear progression was terrible because Witcher sets trumped 99.99% of everything else, crafting was sub-par, side activities weren't much to go on about outside of horse racing, possibly Gwent and the fist fights with Smokey the Bear and the Rock Troll, the list goes on. If those writers, character designers and quest designers weren't absolutely brilliant, and they were, the game would not have been anywhere near as successful. It was an absolute carry by them.
Hopefully CDPR has learned from their past games. Hopefully they make a concerted effort to improve on some of the shortcomings in them. It's unreasonable to expect the previously mentioned parts of the team to carry the load again. If they keep going that route eventually it's not going to work, and the company is going to get burned. Side activities are no exception.
But one is ”more important”. Personal preferences aside the gameplay is the game.
I do not think you can isolate the narrative in this type of game and classify it as "non game play". The narrative is part of the game play. Experiencing it, meeting various characters along the way, reaching it's conclusion. All of these things involve game play. Strictly speaking, the narrative is separate from the game play
mechanics. Yet, presumably both the narrative and game play mechanics are built hand and hand.
If anything this is likely why the development takes so long. It's not a matter of building mechanics, textures, animations, lighting, player progression, story arcs and characters as independent objects. These areas have interplay between them. The individual aspects have to play off of and with each other to deliver the complete, overall product. The story line and arcs aren't an exception.
This, however, I cannot. Not theoretically, nor based on experience.
It just doesn’t compute to me.
Narrative in a game - in its bare basics - is about collecting bits and pieces of the story here and there in what ever way they are ordered and paced, following a linear thread or being scattered and branching in a nonlinear way.
Gameplay (and the mechanics therein), on the other hand, are your minute to minute experience throughout the entire game. The very key to the experience. From the very start to the final moments when credits start to roll.
You're welcome to this opinion. From my perspective the game play mechanics could be outstanding. If the narrative is hot garbage I am going to notice it. I'd dock the game points over it too. I might lose interest in it completely if it's so bad the entire game consists of arbitrarily engaging in the mechanics, with no real goals in mind. For this game type the narrative, quest content, whatever you want to call it, is critical. I'd look at it the same way as a movie or tv show. The acting could be outstanding. The theme could be great. If the script sucks, the camera is shaking all over the place or the director is bad at their job it's going to get noticed. Quality entertainment delivers on all fronts.