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This thread has been linked to the game 'The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind'.
Part of the appeal of games like Morrowind and Fable, to me at least, is that they provide a huge environmen to explore and many hours' worth of experimentation, aimless wandering or exploration. In rough terms, the bigger the environment is, the better for me. But I'll always carry on exploring the environment till I find an invisible wall built to stop me progressing outside the game boundaries, or an impassable mountain, cliff edge or river. I'm sure many people know what I'm talking about here - surely everybody will carry on exploring until they reach the edge of the world, and then be dissapointed, even if the game is the largest yet to be produced.
The solution isn't to make the games bigger. It only encourages people to explore for longer, eventually find the edge and still be dissapointed that they can't explore any further. So what can be done? An infinitely large world, or one large enough to at least be impossible to totally explore without spending every day of your life doing so is not a reality in today's climate of console technology. So is there a solution?
Perhaps making the environment bigger provides half of the solution at least, and as the years go by, bigger and bigger games hit the shelves. But there are things that can be done to stop gamers reaching the impassable cliff or poisinous sea or whatever. They are the 'push' and 'pull' factors in the environment.
Push factors push gamers back from the edge. In a way, the cliffs/mountains/oceans are push factors, but very basic and infuriating ones. The advanced push factor would be something like this: Stray into the forest too far, and bad things will happen. But not just things like losing health, more like losing saved games Eternal Darkness style. But the push factors are extremely dangerous things, and if too strong, will only frustrate the gamer and ruin the game. They should discourage exploration beyond a point, but still allow it as much as possible. The advanced RPG will put emphasis on the 'pull' factors.
The 'pull' factor is the element of the game that attracts people to want to stay where they are. People underestimate how much of this is aesthetic - if the town looks beautiful, why stray into the repetative and dull desert? Obviously by putting lots to do into the town the gamer will want to stay put for longer, but not forever. This is just the same as making the environment bigger. So the second device that can be used to keep people in one place is to keep it changing. But in a very unique way. The traditional trigger for change in an RPG is the completion of a task, like killing the evil sorcerer rids the town of that nasty fog that turns people into zombies. But the task will wait, and the gamer will stray awa from the town knowing that it will be exactly the same as he/she left it.
But if this reassurance is removed, and the environment changes over time without the player interacting with it, he/she will not want to leave and miss out on what is going on - if you go into the woods for an hour you might come back and talk to the townspeople only to find out you've missed the annual party or whatever. You wouldn't want to leave for too long again in case you missed something else. This way, you wouldn't reach the edges of the game, and you'd be able to suspend your disbelief to an unprecedented extent. You would beleive a world existed outside the town beyong the forest, but you would be happy staying put for a while longer. It would be thousands of times more realistic.
The problem with this concept is this: The gamer won't be able to do everything in the game, use up all of the potential playing time. But this is the problem with all non-linear RPGs, and they are still preferred to linear games by far amongst hardcore gamers. So maybe the invention of advanced push+pull factors in an RPG to stop gamers reaching the edge of the world will add huge amounts to the gameplay.
thanks for reading.
The solution isn't to make the games bigger. It only encourages people to explore for longer, eventually find the edge and still be dissapointed that they can't explore any further. So what can be done? An infinitely large world, or one large enough to at least be impossible to totally explore without spending every day of your life doing so is not a reality in today's climate of console technology. So is there a solution?
Perhaps making the environment bigger provides half of the solution at least, and as the years go by, bigger and bigger games hit the shelves. But there are things that can be done to stop gamers reaching the impassable cliff or poisinous sea or whatever. They are the 'push' and 'pull' factors in the environment.
Push factors push gamers back from the edge. In a way, the cliffs/mountains/oceans are push factors, but very basic and infuriating ones. The advanced push factor would be something like this: Stray into the forest too far, and bad things will happen. But not just things like losing health, more like losing saved games Eternal Darkness style. But the push factors are extremely dangerous things, and if too strong, will only frustrate the gamer and ruin the game. They should discourage exploration beyond a point, but still allow it as much as possible. The advanced RPG will put emphasis on the 'pull' factors.
The 'pull' factor is the element of the game that attracts people to want to stay where they are. People underestimate how much of this is aesthetic - if the town looks beautiful, why stray into the repetative and dull desert? Obviously by putting lots to do into the town the gamer will want to stay put for longer, but not forever. This is just the same as making the environment bigger. So the second device that can be used to keep people in one place is to keep it changing. But in a very unique way. The traditional trigger for change in an RPG is the completion of a task, like killing the evil sorcerer rids the town of that nasty fog that turns people into zombies. But the task will wait, and the gamer will stray awa from the town knowing that it will be exactly the same as he/she left it.
But if this reassurance is removed, and the environment changes over time without the player interacting with it, he/she will not want to leave and miss out on what is going on - if you go into the woods for an hour you might come back and talk to the townspeople only to find out you've missed the annual party or whatever. You wouldn't want to leave for too long again in case you missed something else. This way, you wouldn't reach the edges of the game, and you'd be able to suspend your disbelief to an unprecedented extent. You would beleive a world existed outside the town beyong the forest, but you would be happy staying put for a while longer. It would be thousands of times more realistic.
The problem with this concept is this: The gamer won't be able to do everything in the game, use up all of the potential playing time. But this is the problem with all non-linear RPGs, and they are still preferred to linear games by far amongst hardcore gamers. So maybe the invention of advanced push+pull factors in an RPG to stop gamers reaching the edge of the world will add huge amounts to the gameplay.
thanks for reading.
How about the world is set up like a globe? Keep walking in the same direction and you'll eventually get back to where you started.
Might seem absurd on RPG's of the size we get today, but if the game world were a factor of ten bigger, it would work perfectly.
Might seem absurd on RPG's of the size we get today, but if the game world were a factor of ten bigger, it would work perfectly.
I like the thing you have in Splashdown (A Jet Ski racer* YOu go out of the course and eventually, when you get really far, a large tenticle comes out of the water and smashes you back onto the course.
Good post. I think anything would be better than invisible walls. They'd at least make me feel less cheated if not dissapointed that the world had ended. Maybe something simple like a big uncrossable river. You would be able to go in it, but would drown straight away.
Part of the appeal of games like Morrowind and Fable, to me at least, is that they provide a huge environmen to explore and many hours' worth of experimentation, aimless wandering or exploration. In rough terms, the bigger the environment is, the better for me. But I'll always carry on exploring the environment till I find an invisible wall built to stop me progressing outside the game boundaries, or an impassable mountain, cliff edge or river. I'm sure many people know what I'm talking about here - surely everybody will carry on exploring until they reach the edge of the world, and then be dissapointed, even if the game is the largest yet to be produced.
The solution isn't to make the games bigger. It only encourages people to explore for longer, eventually find the edge and still be dissapointed that they can't explore any further. So what can be done? An infinitely large world, or one large enough to at least be impossible to totally explore without spending every day of your life doing so is not a reality in today's climate of console technology. So is there a solution?
Perhaps making the environment bigger provides half of the solution at least, and as the years go by, bigger and bigger games hit the shelves. But there are things that can be done to stop gamers reaching the impassable cliff or poisinous sea or whatever. They are the 'push' and 'pull' factors in the environment.
Push factors push gamers back from the edge. In a way, the cliffs/mountains/oceans are push factors, but very basic and infuriating ones. The advanced push factor would be something like this: Stray into the forest too far, and bad things will happen. But not just things like losing health, more like losing saved games Eternal Darkness style. But the push factors are extremely dangerous things, and if too strong, will only frustrate the gamer and ruin the game. They should discourage exploration beyond a point, but still allow it as much as possible. The advanced RPG will put emphasis on the 'pull' factors.
The 'pull' factor is the element of the game that attracts people to want to stay where they are. People underestimate how much of this is aesthetic - if the town looks beautiful, why stray into the repetative and dull desert? Obviously by putting lots to do into the town the gamer will want to stay put for longer, but not forever. This is just the same as making the environment bigger. So the second device that can be used to keep people in one place is to keep it changing. But in a very unique way. The traditional trigger for change in an RPG is the completion of a task, like killing the evil sorcerer rids the town of that nasty fog that turns people into zombies. But the task will wait, and the gamer will stray awa from the town knowing that it will be exactly the same as he/she left it.
But if this reassurance is removed, and the environment changes over time without the player interacting with it, he/she will not want to leave and miss out on what is going on - if you go into the woods for an hour you might come back and talk to the townspeople only to find out you've missed the annual party or whatever. You wouldn't want to leave for too long again in case you missed something else. This way, you wouldn't reach the edges of the game, and you'd be able to suspend your disbelief to an unprecedented extent. You would beleive a world existed outside the town beyong the forest, but you would be happy staying put for a while longer. It would be thousands of times more realistic.
The problem with this concept is this: The gamer won't be able to do everything in the game, use up all of the potential playing time. But this is the problem with all non-linear RPGs, and they are still preferred to linear games by far amongst hardcore gamers. So maybe the invention of advanced push+pull factors in an RPG to stop gamers reaching the edge of the world will add huge amounts to the gameplay.
thanks for reading.
The solution isn't to make the games bigger. It only encourages people to explore for longer, eventually find the edge and still be dissapointed that they can't explore any further. So what can be done? An infinitely large world, or one large enough to at least be impossible to totally explore without spending every day of your life doing so is not a reality in today's climate of console technology. So is there a solution?
Perhaps making the environment bigger provides half of the solution at least, and as the years go by, bigger and bigger games hit the shelves. But there are things that can be done to stop gamers reaching the impassable cliff or poisinous sea or whatever. They are the 'push' and 'pull' factors in the environment.
Push factors push gamers back from the edge. In a way, the cliffs/mountains/oceans are push factors, but very basic and infuriating ones. The advanced push factor would be something like this: Stray into the forest too far, and bad things will happen. But not just things like losing health, more like losing saved games Eternal Darkness style. But the push factors are extremely dangerous things, and if too strong, will only frustrate the gamer and ruin the game. They should discourage exploration beyond a point, but still allow it as much as possible. The advanced RPG will put emphasis on the 'pull' factors.
The 'pull' factor is the element of the game that attracts people to want to stay where they are. People underestimate how much of this is aesthetic - if the town looks beautiful, why stray into the repetative and dull desert? Obviously by putting lots to do into the town the gamer will want to stay put for longer, but not forever. This is just the same as making the environment bigger. So the second device that can be used to keep people in one place is to keep it changing. But in a very unique way. The traditional trigger for change in an RPG is the completion of a task, like killing the evil sorcerer rids the town of that nasty fog that turns people into zombies. But the task will wait, and the gamer will stray awa from the town knowing that it will be exactly the same as he/she left it.
But if this reassurance is removed, and the environment changes over time without the player interacting with it, he/she will not want to leave and miss out on what is going on - if you go into the woods for an hour you might come back and talk to the townspeople only to find out you've missed the annual party or whatever. You wouldn't want to leave for too long again in case you missed something else. This way, you wouldn't reach the edges of the game, and you'd be able to suspend your disbelief to an unprecedented extent. You would beleive a world existed outside the town beyong the forest, but you would be happy staying put for a while longer. It would be thousands of times more realistic.
The problem with this concept is this: The gamer won't be able to do everything in the game, use up all of the potential playing time. But this is the problem with all non-linear RPGs, and they are still preferred to linear games by far amongst hardcore gamers. So maybe the invention of advanced push+pull factors in an RPG to stop gamers reaching the edge of the world will add huge amounts to the gameplay.
thanks for reading.