slimgrin wrote...
Two games I'd mention that would find the right balance for exploration in a Bioware game are Ego Draconis and Arkham City. Both nailed it while still being plot driven.
I am currently playing The Dragon Knight Saga (the ‘remastered’ version of Divine Divinity II: Ego Draconis) and so far, I can cautiously recommend it (that may become a wholehearted recommendation, but I’m not too far in, so…).
It’s a game that requires sticking to it for several hours, until it sort of opens up and you figure out the controls. It has large and open-feeling areas, a bit like Kingdoms of Amalur, but more ‘dense’ in terms of content. While far from perfect, it does feel like a fairly successful compromise between a relatively linear but simultaneously ‘spacious’ kind of game with a nice sense of scale and room for exploration.
It also has a nice, quirky sense of humour and an art style that sort of has a ‘Netherlandish’ flavour that Dutch and Flemings will probably recognise (I call it ‘Dark Efteling meets Oblivion meets D&D’), and makes it just that, little but noticeably, different from Anglo-American, German and Japanese cRPG’s.
Anyway, DKS is definitely closer to what a DA3 could be, if DA3 goes a little more in the direction of Skyrim, yet still retains a linear/cinematic overall structure.
Regarding the relative emptiness of zones and exploration, ‘density’ is an important element.
And by ‘density’ I mean things worth seeing or visiting: Villages, ruins, tombs, but also variation in the landscape. A small area dense with towns, villages, ruins and little woods will be far more interesting than a big piece of tundra or steppe with few points of interest (although such an area can work if the intent is to create a sense of loneliness, desolation etc. It shouldn’t be ALL of the gameworld though).
This is also where the ‘environmental storytelling’ (and thus player exploration) comes in. Without ‘points of interest’, there is nothing to pique the player’s curiosity, trigger his/her imagination and make the player experience a story or imagine one.
By way of example, in Skyrim the fortifications of the small city of Whiterun tells a visual story. The walls are crumbling, and they cover an area that’s larger than the actual settlement. It sort of suggests that once, Whiterun was larger and well-protected by strong walls, and that perhaps it was once completely destroyed and the successor settlement is a more modest affair. The presence of crumbling outlying fortifications near the roads leading to and from Whiterun tell a similar story.
Another game that does a similar thing is the PS2 classic ‘Shadow of the Colossus’. The gameworld is pretty big, but also rather empty, which creates a strong feeling of loneliness in the player (which it is supposed to do). At the same time, when you explore, you will find remote areas with points of interest. The player will stumble on secluded areas in the hills/mountains surrounding the great central plain, and I had some great fun seeking them out, ignoring the ‘Quest’ and just exploring. At one point, I stumbled upon a ruined complex (a temple? a palace?) and walked around. I fell under the spell of the ruins, wondering what it had been, who had lived there, what had happened etc. These lonely ruins fired my imagination. I could very well imagine a scene like the one at the end of ‘The Martian Chronicles’ (1980)
www.youtube.com/watch
Modifié par Das Tentakel, 17 avril 2012 - 10:02 .
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