24 réponses à ce sujet

[John Epler]

LOTRO (and, in fact, all of Turbine's MMOs) had one thing that helped me stave off my WoW-inspired MMO burnout in order to get at least one character to max level - the realization that, if I saw something really cool in the distance, I could go explore that really cool castle (or tower, or what have you). Most of the fondest memories I have of that game are deciding to wander off the beaten path with a couple of friends and just see what sort of trouble we could get into.

Dialing back the nostalgia for a bit - I think the biggest reason why exploration works is if the places you're exploring feel thematically real and consistent. That means visuals, audio and content need to be working with each other and not against each other - and that's something we want to make sure happens, going forward. Believable spaces in which you aren't tied to a single path are great in that they allow for a lot of player-driven motivation and content, and that's a win both for developers and for the players.

That's not to say that we're planning on dialling back story, of course. Why abandon one of our greatest strengths? But addressing an area where we've been lacking a little bit isn't going to suddenly mean that the main plot is easily ignored or of little importance. But giving more content without having it all be gold-quality, highly authored cinematics is something that helps in the long run, as it means we aren't trying to pad out areas in unnatural ways (brief conversation, go down this side tunnel and find a sword! Now run back!), but rather that the player can engage at the level that they're comfortable with.

Does that make sense? 

Modifié par John Epler, 11 avril 2012 - 04:58 .

[John Epler]

BobSmith101 wrote...

It does make sense. Nice to see another LOTRO player too. The balance is keeping the story even when you are not a part of it, which is the case when it comes to open exploration. By it's very nature, it removes you from the story and plot. Final Fantasy X is a really good example of it.It's linear game till you hit the Calmlands then you have any number of distractions that have nothing to do with the plot. Blitzball is the same, I spent 60 hours just making the perfect Bliztball team(that's twice as long as I spend in ME3 total) and thoughts of Sin and the plot never came into it.

That's definitely something to keep in mind. I think the key is to ensure that the 'extra' stuff you're doing makes narrative sense for the main plot - AC:B was good in that the reason you were running around, performing assassinations and taking down Borgia towers was because it was helping me towards my goal of taking the fight to the Templars. Thus, the main plot was never far from my mind. That's not to say there's anything wrong with the other approach, but it does create a different 'feel' to everything, and it makes it easier to get distracted from the main plot until you suddenly realize 'oh shoot, I'm supposed to be doing X'.

So you need to design exploration content appropriately - there should be goals, either explicit or implicit, and these goals should tie back into the main plot in some way. Blitzball was great (I also spent an inordinate amount of time playing that minigame), but the rewards you got were minimally important to the overarching goal of stopping Sin. Whereas something like Infamous had side goals that directly affected your power and ability to take on the main villain.

I'm rambling a bit, but I think you get my point.

[John Epler]

Maria Caliban wrote...

The Deep Roads in DA:O weren't there for exploration.

1. You could only go there after you started a quest.
2. You had to go there for that quest
3. They mostly consisted of straight tunnels you walked along, slaying critters.

More Deep Roads would be a horrible thing.

I don't know, I think that the Deep Roads envisioned a little more like the Mines of Moria in LOTRO would be neat. I think the Deep Roads in DA:O suffered from being in a sort of middle-ground - they were too big to serve as a straightforward plot area, but too small to truly feel 'epic'. Though I still did enjoy them - I love underground areas more than most, especially the 'forgotten architecture' feeling.

[John Epler]

Arthur Cousland wrote...

I love exploring and feeling like an adventurer.

DA3 doesn't need to feel like an Elder Scrolls game, but I would like to be able to visit multiple cities and not just pick them from a map, but actually travel there on foot (or horse). Perhaps have some towns in between or dungeons to raid. A good rpg doesn't have to be 100% story.

I also spent a good portion of my FFX gametime on blitzball.

I think STALKER (take a shot) does it well. It's not strictly open world, but it's a series of fairly open zones. It allows the designers to have more tightly-crafted experiences, while at the same time allowing the player to explore and discover on their own. Skyrim is brilliant - it's one of three games where I've purchased a console version after owning the PC version, simply so I could play it on the ocuch - but the problem with Thedas is that, if we want you to be able to visit more than just a single region in the world, we'd have to either compress the entire thing unrealistically (hey, why is Orlais half an hour's walk from Ferelden), or limit you to a single area.

It also allows you to create themes and a fairly wide variety in architecture, biosphere, etc. Which, if we were to go towards a greater focus on exploration, is something I think we'd want to do.

[John Epler]

Pedrak wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

The Deep Roads would have been even more boring if they'd simply been longer. More trudging through the darkness. More poking around looking for things. Less frequent encounters.

Fixed for you.

Frankly, more dungeon crawling mucking about in dark, empty locations is exactly the kind of exploration DA3 doesn't need.

The problem with the Deep Roads is that, if we did them the same way as we did in DA:O, making them longer wouldn't really solve anything. However, there's certainly room for unique spaces, just like out on the surface. I admit to bias, though - since I read the Ted the Caver stories a long time ago, the idea of 'what do we -really- know about what happens underground' has intrigued me. Particularly since the Deep Roads have been, in parts, lost for a lengthy period of time - if you keep it from being repetitive corridors and you make it narratively interesting (Skyrim does this very well in some of their 'non-plot' caves, as does STALKER), you can make it fun. And you can, of course, have opportunities to rest/recuperate or return to the surface, but done logically (something Fallout:NV does very well)

[John Epler]

Darth Krytie wrote...

Since DA isn't final fantasy, exploration can be tricky...there's no need for grinding and there's a smaller bestiary than in games with lots of places to kill things for the sake of killing things...So, there'd need to be a real reason for the exploration or you're just wasting time running from here to there for a sword that's likely not as good as the one you're already slaying things with...

I wouldn't mind if I chose to go to this optional location and there was a side quest...one that wouldn't penalize the game for lack of doing it, but enriches it if I did.

Well, ideally, exploration should be its own reward. In FO3/FO:NV, I still found myself exploring long after I had no more need for any kind of resources (guns, ammo, caps, etc.), because I loved the little stories that I'd find in the various buildings, bunkers and caves. If you make exploration narratively interesting (even if it's no more than a few journal/codex entries and a couple of tableaus suggesting a story), then people will want to do it even if they may not need the experience.

And, of course, if you -do- want to do more exploration, you can certainly build systems that take that into consideration and provide appropriate, non-XP rewards for doing so. Not every cave or dungeon has to be the same level of content, either - Blackreach is an excellent example, as it was significantly more massive than most other caverns. Variety is good, and it helps keep the player engaged.

[John Epler]

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Just started on the Witcher myself today. I love it .
Great graphics, all the little sounds you hear around you and little stuff like pigeons flying up when you approuch them.

But that aside in terms of exploration it doesn't have to mean "to explore 1000 square miles" but when you are in the deep roads for example; in a thaig just being able to enter all the houses there would be nice.
I missed that kind of thing in DA. In kirkwall f.e. there were only a few buildings you could enter (and I know it's been told a thousend times over but) and it was the same layout over and over again.

See, personally, I'd rather a larger space with some 'nonexplorable' houses than a smaller space where I can go into every house. I know what a house looks like - even if it's a different layout, it's still a house. Particularly when it's a house inside of a village or city, the amount of ambient narrative you can do there is going to be a bit limited.

Compared to, say, the countryside of Ferelden. Certainly, I may know where the villages and cities are - but what about those ruins that, when I solved a puzzle, opened to show me a tomb? Even if the tomb is the same size as one of those houses, and contains nothing more than a couple of codex entries and some treasure, I'd still find that more satisfying than 'oh, a house. With people.'

Now, I'm not an artist or level designer, so take this with a grain of salt, but that would be my preferred focus of resources, honestly.

[John Epler]

esper wrote...

I have come to the conclusion that I would have liked the deep road a lot better if I could have accessed the camp map from the Deep Road mini-map. As it were I felt that I would cheat if I went out in the world map and camped after all I was suppossed to go deeper and and deeper into the deep roads and such it felt like and eternally long quest that became the one where I often lost interest.

And I don't think we should be able to barge into every house in a city. After all we do not have the option to be regular thieves like we have in the sandbox games, so bargain in to every house would feel weird. With the way things are in Thedas, I would assume that most have the sense to at least attempt to lock their door.

It works well in Skyrim and similar games (for many of the reasons that AFW stated), but it always felt a little odd in JRPGs when I'd just start breaking into every house in town, stealing their items and having them tell me the very personal problems that were afflicting them at that moment. It's a genre convention, and it works for the genre - but I always wanted someone to tell me off for doing it.

I liked the way Earthbound handled it - you couldn't go into every house, but you could knock on the door and they'd have a line. Still, the overall style of the game worked for it in that regard, as it really did enjoy playing with the fact that it was a video game, and some of the characters even seemed to be aware of this fact.

[John Epler]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...

If you explore a very large underground network, and cannot exit it unless you go all the way through or turn back, one of the easiest (and I'd argue one of the best) ways to break up monotony, and encourage players to fully explore, is to set up minor plot triggers in various places. So, when you enter a certain tomb (or whatever), you cut to dialogs or cut scenes that happen only in this place.

I'd suggest that you allow the party to leave part way through.

Now, games tend to offer a big dungeon where all the minor plots get wrapped up before the big plot, and the big plot is completed by a large event at the end of the dungeon, and once you've done that you've done everything in the dungeon.

Why?

Instead, have the big plot get wrapped up part way through the dungeon, and offer an easy exit from there, rendering the rest of the dungeon optional.  But some minor quests - even quests that started in that very dungeon - might require visits to the rest of the dungeon, the bit the player who is nly doing the main plot won't ever see.

A good example of this is the dungeon Hythloth in Ultima IX.  The main reason to be there goes away right before an available exit, but just before that there are plot hooks for the rest of the dungeon (which doesn't strictly need to be visited at all, but it's still there if you want to look around).

To be fair, Hythloth was that way because people found it to be too difficult - so they let you skip out halfway through. Originally, you would've needed to do the whole thing. Which doesn't really negate your point, of course. And, I may be misremembering - it's been a while since I read that article.

[John Epler]

kingjezza wrote...

Ted the caver!

If DA3 had a mission even half as intriguing and creepy as that story I would probably buy it for that alone.

I think I'm one of the few who likes the deep roads, it's a bit of a drag but that makes it feel all the more rewarding when you do it.

I don't think there was anything wrong with the Deep Roads, but I think we could do a better job of it.

And, honestly, Ted the Caver still disturbs me to this day. That, plus the Descent, means that caves terrify me.

[Allan Schumacher]

Pzykozis wrote...

Until... Buckets

But then thats another reason to love Skyrim.

The QA group likes to get together periodically to discuss past and current RPGs, and I found Skyrim interesting.  I haven't actually played it yet, because I didn't really enjoy Oblivion, but what I found is that it seems maybe not all bugs are evil.

A lot of people seem to enjoy posting some of the insane (and hilarious) stuff, and it almost seems like some level of errors can really help make the exploration people find entertaining, even if for not the "right reason."  Obviously I'm not going to stop doing my job any time soon, but I'm curious what others think?

[Allan Schumacher]

Try Morrowind btw; the best of the three.

I did play Morrowind and enjoyed it. Though I got pulled away from it about a month or two and when I tried to return, the journal system didn't help and I had no real clue what was going on anymore so I never finished it.

But this was probably after 40ish hours of gameplay haha.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 12 avril 2012 - 04:54 .

[Allan Schumacher]

addiction21 wrote...

I don't know if I would call it a bug but more of a exploit. Since using the the bucket obstructs the NPC's sight so you can steal willy nilly.

But that comes with the territory of those games. Finding a some strange thing that the devs and QA team just never thought about or could of fixed. These sorts of things happen in games so large and diverse like Skyrim. I still remember in Daggerfall being able to wait inside a store till night and the shopkeep would leave. So I could take everything I wanted and then sell it back to him in the morning.

I'd still technically call it a bug but that will just turn into a semantic argument and doesn't do much.  I think we can agree it probably wasn't what the system designer envisioned.

I have less of an issue for stuff like this because it's a single player, story focused campaign.  If you don't like stuff like that, then it's well within your means to not do it!  Haha.

[Allan Schumacher]

Haha it's true. A game goes out to a million people and they all play an hour, and they've collectively spent more time in the game than we're able to haha.

[Allan Schumacher]

I don't think it can be boiled down to just reactivity. People laugh when giants send guys flying 4000 feet into the horizon. Although I suppose it is technically reactivity.... haha

[Allan Schumacher]

For sure. Any bug that prevents the completion of content is a giant red flag and it sucks when that happens. There's never a situation when a bug like that is acceptable.

[Allan Schumacher]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I'm curious what you would classify as a bug.

In ME, I did the Ilos trenchrun on foot, and thus was unable to reach the conduit in time because the timer runs out.  But by the time the timer appears, the Mako was an 8 minute walk behind me.  Is that something QA would flag as a problem?

I think that that is an interesting case, because on the one hand I don't think we should hold our player's hands too much.  I think letting the players fail by making an incorrect choice is valid, and I've seen fans hate the feeling that they're ostensibly railroaded.  I feel these fans would rather that if they have to be forced down a path, it not be because of magical barriers but because of the path of least resistance.  Putting up an invisible wall or force killing the player without using the Mako is probably a bad idea.

I'd have to see the sequence on Ilos again (been over 3 years since I last played ME).  I am hesitant to flag exactly what you describe as a bug.  The only issue I have from your example is providing clarity to the player that the Mako is essential.  This leads to the idea of, if the Mako is provided is it a resonable and fair assumption to assume it's required for the upcoming sequence?  (I'm not presuming a yes or a no to this question)


As for what I consider a bug, I'm pretty liberal.  Design bugs are bugs that are inherent in the design, meaning that programmatically it cannot be accounted for but the system still behaves in a way that the designer didn't want.  This is what people would call exploits.  Iteration is the best way to resolve stuff like this, as well as thinking outside the box when playing through.  Progammatically the system behaves as expected, but the intention of the content creator was for something else to happen.

If we answer my question with a "No, it is not a reasonable assumption" then I'd consider the Ilos to be a bug.  If we answer yes, then I can consider it a choice that you made with your Shepard that was ultimately one that resulted in mission failure


Cheers.

Allan

[John Epler]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Sidney wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...

Sidney wrote...
DAO had about the right level of having an "area" to visit but not being stuck just wandering about hoping to kill something random for no good reason.

Totally disagree. The Deep Roads were the only part of the game that had any decent exploration. The rest of the game wasn't really exploring.

Deep Roades weren't exploring, they were one long dungeon crawl.

The Brecillian Woods were exploration and then the temple was the dungeon to my mind to explain my thinking on things.

Your ADD kick in? You must have loved ME3 then with it's 5x5 mission zones.

This? This is entirely unnecessary.

Others are allowed to have different opinions than you.

[Allan Schumacher]

What are people's thoughts on interactivity with the environment?

I'm not the biggest fan of the Elder Scroll games, but it seems like part of what a lot of people like is simply that everything is interactive (spoons, forks, etc.), and when they grab that orange and throw it at the guy's head and he goes "Hey" they laugh and maybe think "cool."

This might be something better suited for an open sandbox game which BioWare's games really aren't, but I was having a talk with a co-worker about Skyrim and was postulating some ideas about what subtle stuff exists that players may not explicitly notice or recognize, but might help them feel more engaged in the game setting.

It's been a loooooooooong time since I last played it, but I was wondering this because I think it is something I enjoyed about the Ultima VII games (among everything else that exists in those games...)

[Allan Schumacher]

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Sorry Allan but what? I have to say I never played Ultima (do not know what it's all about) but throwing an orange to somebody's head? Ich weiss nicht ob du deutsch bisst aber, I notice subtle stuff and it will engage me in a game if implemented right. If I find some lore in an abondoned house I will gladly take it if I can enter the house. It adds to my gaming experience.  But there has to be some thought behind it. I for one do not intentially want to hurt another person. If I recognise it as a bug; sorry to say the dark side takes over but ingame normaly  NO.

Haha the orange example was mostly just there to illustrate that the game lets you interact and then responds to your player's action in a believable way.


EDIT:  And yeah I didn't expect that this would be something that is a deal breaker for anyone that's a fan of DA style games.  Just tossing out thoughts

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 18 avril 2012 - 03:40 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Ultima 7 (both parts) remain the high-water mark for my rpg gaming experience. A large part I'm sure is nolstalgia, Ultima 7 was my first real experience with a role playing game. My PC gaming experience prior to that was largely the Sierra Adventure games (many of which I still revisit to this day.) The interactivity in the world was amazing, so where the stories and characters (again I can't look at these games objectively.)

No no, this is a completely objective, fair, and in fact correct, assessment of Ultima 7. I don't see any nostalgic lean at all >.>

[John Epler]

simfamSP wrote...

Other good examples:

Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

I greatly enjoyed Deus Ex:HR - it was one of my favourite games of the past year, and it gave me that good ol' Deus Ex feel, which was something I had reservations about.

That being said, one issue I -did- have with their level design was vents. Not that vents existed, of course, but that there were air vents that would connect two rooms together without any other apparent reason for their existence. It was a minor enough issue in an otherwise fantastic game that it didn't really bother me, but it's a good microcosm of the whole 'believable environments' thing, and particularly jarring in that it was the single example of an obviously 'gamey' level element in an otherwise believable construction.

It's something we're paying attention to going forward - making our levels feel less like linear spaces constructed solely for the purpose of being 'part of a game', and more like actual, believable spaces that just happen to work well for various game purposes. Part of this will involve more collaboration in the earlier stages of the process, but part of it is also (likely) to involve building spaces for reasons other than narrative. Why does that cave exist? Because it's a cave - that's what caves do. It can have content inside, certainly, but it doesn't need to be attached to a specific plot. Narrative is more than just conversations and cutscenes, after all - Bethesda games are excellent examples of this.

[John Epler]

Oh, I've played FFXII. And it does a lot of things well - the exploration is top-notch, and certainly worth a look.

I still like to use LOTRO as my 'go to' example of exploration being done well. Plenty of places in that game that you can visit despite them having little to no narrative importance, but if you can see it then you can go there.

[John Epler]

Well, don't take anything I said as 'hey this is exactly what they're planning on doing!' That ways lies madness. But I would say that, if we were to go to a game with more exploration, I think that Lord of the Rings Online offers some good lessons, particularly regarding non-plot critical locations of interest and the ability to see something cool and eventually get there. It's kind of a bummer to see what looks like an incredible castle on a mountain, and then never actually be able to make your way there.