Why do so few games really emphasize exploration? I just want

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>>377309634
Too much effort.
The buisness model gravitates towards lowest possible effort with highest possible sales.
It's really that simple.

Because games like that are massively laborious to create. This shouldn't surprise you.

>>377309634
I want to cuddle with Takagi-san!

Runescape

>>377309634
What do you even mean? There are plenty of games that emphasize exploration. The problem is that you spoil everything by watching let's plays and reading all there is to it on /v/ before playing it. Playing TW3 and BotW blind definitely gave me a sense of exploration.

>>377309903
>>377309887
These.
You can't have a giant world with every inch packed to the brim with content, that shit just isn't worth it from a business perspective.

>>377310162
>TW3
There's no point in exploring if the world is empty as fuck with nothing interesting to find.

>>377310184
How about a small world packed with content?

There aren't even many of those.

>>377310275
That's been attempted before. Vice City and Mankind Divided for all their flaws attempted that idea.

>>377309634
When's my boy going to tap that? She's basically asking for it with the ramen chapter.

>>377309995
I want to cum on her forehead

Shenmue remains the most in depth exploration

>>377310263
Alright, I'll bite.
What would you consider an interesting find in an open world?

>>377309634
The souls games are pretty good at doing that.

I just want something cozy in a little pixel world where everything is connected, and every area has secrets.

>>377309634
>saying something bad about botw on /v/

Oh boy be ready for the flood of triggered /v/irgins that will spread on here and want to crucify you for saying something bad about /v/'s ultimate favorite game.

by the way, I don't like botw so suck it /v/irgins

>>377309634
Exploration is hard. It involves not only making a lot of assets, but also spending the time to place them in interesting ways. It is far easier to just stick your interesting game models out in the open where people will notice them, or just make the map massive, rather than hide them in nooks.

Exploration is easy to miss. If you have a large and dynamic setpiece, then any idiot with a Youtube channel will be giving you free advertising to talk about it. Most reviewers will likely end up skipping over it.

Exploration is hard to show off to players, to convince them of its value. You can screenshot a HD render or show video of a flashy cutscene, but just taking an image of a hidden location does not tell much about how the exploration works in a particular title. It's mostly just something that an individual player experiences, which is rewarding for the player but terrible for generating hype. You could have tons and tons of exploration content so that players will spend time communicating to locate it all, but that requires a massive amount of work - far more than just a flashy screengrab.

In short, what >>377309887 said. It is far easier to make a linear HD flashy game. It generates more screenshots, it generates better videos, and it gives people more to talk about up to the game's release. Most of the game's sales are typically going to be upon release, after all. Players still enjoying the game a year later are a fairly minor concern, because that typically won't drive the same amount of sales.

>>377310914
You're the only one in this thread who even mentioned BoTW besides OP and one other anon. Nobody cares. Nice hat.

>>377310637
>pixel world
gross

>>377310995
So finding a abandoned shack in the wilderness where it looks like a murder have taken place, investigating the clues and finding the monster who did it, then later finding the victims relatives and claiming a reward isn't exploration to you? Or being forced to solve a puzzle in the enviorment based on a vague clue in order to reveal a mini dungeon?

There are tons of exemples like this between TW3 and BotW, you just want to appear jaded. I'll ask again, what would be an interesting find in the open world to you?

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>>377309634
Pic related, what a good exploration game should feel like.

FFXV scratched that itch for me a little. Quite a few of the dungeons and graves I stumbled upon myself. There were also the fishing spots, but I can see people not giving a shit about those.

>>377311318
I was actually going to use BotW as a good example of the third: putting just so many hidden bits all over the place that it provokes conversation with people about finding them all, and thus increases discussion about the game. But the problem is that most companies simply do not want to go to all the work to do that. Zelda: BotW and the Batman games were perhaps the only recent ones who even attempted such a thing.

I've not played Witcher 3 but a lot of games just have the abandoned shack as part of the storyline you are forced into, or the Ubisoft design of it being a flashing waypoint on the minimap. That said, I have heard that TW3 has a problem with requiring minimaps and colored trails, where "finding the monster" involves turning on your tracking-sense and following the red line. It's a good idea (and other games have done similar) but what I've heard would concern me if TW3 did it particularly well.

However, my post wasn't complaining about exploration aspects of games. It was pointing out why most companies do not add exploration aspects in games. Not every player is going to find the abandoned shack in the wilderness and not every player that does will track down the murderer, and for AAA developers who are concerned about resources spent, they would rather make that a mandatory story sequence rather than place dozens of different quests along the route so that a player might stumble upon one of them. That's the reason that most developers just opt for linear games: it's less money and less resources, while players are guaranteed to see all the content created.

Most developers (and, sadly, most reviewers) are not concerned about repeat playthroughs or variety of content.

>>377311961
Regarding TW3 - the shack described in my post would get marked on the map if you started the quest by talking to the relatives in the town (I'd imagine at least). However, it's not marked as a point of interest if you just stumble upon it in the wild, but upon investigating it the quest will start fine from that end as well. To me that's an exemple of good exploration - players who won't find the abandoned shack is still likely to find the notice board in the town, but players who roam might discover it right away. It should also be noted that quest markers can be disabled (although the quest text is not descriptive enough for this to be an enjoyable playstyle).

The complaint about the quests themselves do have some merit. Often they basically consist of following the red line then finding the monster at it's end. The strength in TW3 is that you can definitely stumble upon quests by reaching their end points rather than their starting points, which makes exploration rewarding, and also that you can change the outcome of quests dramatically by your dialogue choices. I don't know if that counts as exploration but it's one area where TW3 has an advantage over BotW.

There are exemples of games where the open world aspect is just tacked on do increase the playtime, but I think it's unfair to complain that there are no games that empathize exploration while there are in fact quite a few. I also want to stress how much more enjoyable these kinds of games are when you play them blind as far as possible.

Bloodborne
Dragon Quest Builders
Deus Ex Mankind Divided

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>>377309634
Why the fuck does this manga update every 5 years I just want Nishikata to confess already

>>377310160
Maybe a decade ago. Now its all 100% docummented and you teleport everywhere.

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>>377314569
At least endgame is confirmed.

>>377316221
i wish i had a cute girlfriend too haha
heh...
hm

>>377309634

Play Xenoblade X then, not BotW. The exact game you want already exists, stop being ignorant.

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>>377316475
Anon...

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>>377316221
You mean th fact she goes off with some other guy?