Why are openworlds worse than what they used to be before they

Plz respond.

(((They))) happened.

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>>378514740
Because.

Consider yourself, for instance. And many other posters on /v/. Where do you think game developers come from? Well, not necessarily from 4chan, of course, but they, generally, have even less of a pedigree when it comes to gaming. Are you well-versed in gaming history? My interactions with /v/ anons gives a clear indication that the crowd here and everywhere is console-centric, very narrow-minded, refuses to play older games, and just goes with the flow.

So, a, what have you, 25yo white male who frequents neogaf/reddit/4chan or none of the above gets himself a designer position. Imagine yourself getting one.

Do you know about Star Trail? Ultima IV? Betrayal at Krondor? Darklands and Daggerfall as anti-examples? Hell, have you even played Gothic 1? Gothic 2? There is no basis for developers to lean onto, because they both lack knowledge and are fucked by publisher constraints.

In short: two causes. First is publishers, since investments require returns specified by investors. Related problems include: massive studios of hundreds of employees - to sustain it, you absolutely have to make a product that sells. Another related problem - the product sells because, well, people buy it. So, it is self-perpetuating: people eat shit because they do not know better. Second cause is that those people then become developers and designers and managers.

>>378515815
That's an actual good argument. But counterpoint: TES still sells more than better crafted openworlds. They are shittier yet good enough to make millions. Maybe that's the secret?

>>378514740
"Open worlds" are the new "linear games". Because deep down, it's not so much game design choice, but a management and production one, that aims at simplicity.

A long time ago, games were linear. It was easier to make a series of linear sections than to make a larger world with non-linear progression. Devs made the different levels in order and that's how it worked, they had X days to make the content, it took them Y days to make a level, so they could make X/Y levels. Easy. Well, not so much. Issues would arrise, devs were late, levels would be cut, and because it's one linear, continuous section, if you cut something out, it's visible: levels don't transition from one to the other anymore, part of the story disappears...

So they thought "Hey, let's just create a big map where we put all our levels next to each other, and the player walks in-between those to trigger linear sections! That way, if we have to modify or cut content, no one will notice! Plus the running in between icons on the map will be considered 'gameplay' in the form of free roaming!"
Open worlds help producers to manage their project, allowing to modulate the amount of content and shift deadlines without the game's quality dropping too much, unlike a linear game.

That's why modern open world games are so shitty, they're not designed to be open world games, it's just a management tool.

>>378516010
Dark Souls

Spending all this time "exploring" and not really interacting heavily with the video game is bad game design.

Having a bunch of algebraic numbers to give a false sense of "rpg complexity ", focusing on interacting with abstractions rather than the world itself, is bad game design.

Having large expanses of emptiness is bad game design.

There's literally nothing redeeming about older open world games, they are worse in every way possible.

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>>378516010
Well, the OP question, as I understood it, was about the established quality and structure of open world games, "established" meaning that it is considered to be acceptable/fun/marketable.

Again, Skyrim sells because implemented mechanics and design are enough for people to enjoy it. It lacks the insane attention to detail and alien atmosphere of Morrowind, it lacks the incredible cohesiveness and connectedness of Gothics, it lacks interesting resting and travel mechanics from Realms of Arkania, it lacks superb writing of Krondor, the list goes on and on. It doesn't matter. People watch shitty tv shows and listen to crap music, gaming has been evolving through a similar path for years, and early xbox era solidified it.

This is not a counterpoint, it reinforces the image of a gamer that not only knows nothing about gaming history, but furthermore is not interested, preferring moment-to-moment entertainment*. This directly drives the managers that require a bullet-point list of features from developers. This is fine and has absorbed all other areas of human life, look at movies, books, music, paintings, etc.

*this does not necessarily mean that he/she is an uneducated plebeian that consumes and shits 24/7. People come from work or fail to find one, they have 1001 personal, family, job, and existential issues, they use games for escapism or a way to waste time - you do not need a complex openworld design worthy of the classics to do that.

>>378516849
And this is the perfect example of a narrow-minded and arrogant gamer from my other posts itt.

You make specific claims which either show complete incompetence or lack of experience of playing older games (no, 15 minutes on youtube do not count), or employ logical fallacies to justify your claim. How am I supposed to respond to that? Should I list every game I mentioned here (such as Star Trail or Gothic or U4) and show explicitly how every (!) one of your claims is false? Well, you'll just write up an edgy one-liner with a meme image and call me a faggot.

I don't mind open worlds. What annoys me is when games have shit like picking flowers and finding collectible number 300 in obscure places. Put quests in there instead, put some fucking ambiguous scenarios in there, put some mystery towns in there, get people immersed and interested in the world.

I remember in fallout 3 there was this town, I don't think there was any quest in the town but you could talk to people. And after a while you realize they're fucking cannibals and you find out there are bodies in the basement caged up and shit. That was cool, you have to do cool stuff with the world.

AC2 had those cryptic puzzles, those were cool and at least had story. But a lot of open worlds just feel so flat and boring, like there's nothing worthwhile outside of the main trail so why go out and venture?

Mgsv was alright because the plants served a purpose along with materials and the open world was really just a sandbox for free maneuvering in stealth ops.

>>378516629
Anyone can make a game anon, even you. I bet you are shit xD

>>378516010
>>378517086
/v/ are morons that quit Skyrim, that is the only conclusion I can make

Skyrim has a lot of bad quests, it's attention to world details is good, there are countless unquested random NPC's and locations with deep stories behind them and clever interactions, like a hidden unquested third blades member that has PTSD, lives in an inn as an undercover drunkard and attacks thalmor on sight or several secret collectibles like Paragons and reaper shards.

>>378516629

Dev spotted.

You can't get any closer to an answer than this. Openworlds are used as an industrial solution, not a gameplay feature. Deep down, they're indeed a variant of linear games, and they're very linear in their approach too.

>>378517309
>how am I supposed to respond to that?
With actual valid points instead of this butthurt triggered post you wrote instead. Please, go ahead. Enlighten us all with your amazing wisdom.

>>378516629
You are a moron and you don't know fucking shit about game development.

Making an open world game of equal size to a linear game is never easier, it is always 100% harder and it is almost impossible for an indie developer to make an open world game that is not some 100% random shit like Zomboid.
All big developers use MULTIPLE outsourcing firms to complete their open world games in time and even fucking then it takes 5 years now to finish one open world game up to existing standard.

Also all of this is done by underpayed workers with shitty art directors that do fucking 12 hour crunches for years.

>>378516629
>>378517905
Also, in general anyone that underestimates how much work is done even by the shittiest developer should be hanged.
You can 100% decimate and shit on a game itself, but saying shit like
>durr it's a lazy choice cus they are lazy
Fucking laziest solutions in vidya are still more complex and harder to achieve than shit in other media fields.
Gaming industry is trash filled with duchebag outright evil heads that are mentally raping a whole horde of developer daily, only salvation are couple of "good" devs or going indie which is close to a suicide unless you luck out because unless you have additional income while making the game you will fucking end up as a bum.

That is why BotW is so good, it doesn't tell you where to go, it gives you some instructions and encourages you to explore, you can even finish some quests before encountering the NPC that gives it to you.

>>378518203
>'optional' hud
>good

>>378517905
>>378518079
You must be one of those nudevs.

Modern openworlds just put all linear sections next to each other and have you walk in between. Unless you've never played an open world game, it's obvious. That is actually the main complaint against those: linear missions and filler shit in between, because that's exactly how they are designed.

The possibility of merging levels together is just a technical one, there's zero effort required for it. As for modern studios outsourcing shit, it's because they're poorly managed. Back then, some devs would design entire levels on their own, the graphics, the music, the story, and then they would work on the engine and the sound pipeline on the side. Nustudios have entire teams to adjust meaningless shit just to make sure it won't hurt the feelings of some people, of course they have to outsource it, because each of their devs does barely a tenth of what real devs do.

>>378518854
Just fuck off, there are a lot more assets to create for an open world game. I don't know from what standpoint you are talking about but as an environmental artist, 3d artist or just concept artist you are fucked when doing a Bethesda open world.

Are you going to argue against the objective fact that open world games OBJECTIVELY have crazy amount of assets compared to some linear fucking 2.5 platformer? Outsourcing doesn't happen because of poor management...well it does, but that's not the main reason. It mainly happens because unless you have a ginormous studio there is no way that one team can create that many assets in a sensible amount of time.

>>378515815
too accurate, modern dev's only know about games as movie-like experiences, while older games were adventure-like experiences.

>>378514740
>DW1
What

>>378519396
Except for that is also wrong, all fucking devs even at the most hispter up your ass shitty Game dev uni are taught the same
>ooh it has to be an immersive experience that conveys shit through gameplay itself vs just narrative
The issue aren't the fucking devs, that is what the market wants. How old are you? Ever since NES era I remember people saying shit along the lines of
>Oh boy, can't wait till games get just like real life!
Most people don't want good vidya experiences with interesting mechanics, people want a VR escapism that will allow them to fuck all the hot aliens and be a person they can't be in real life, have a narrative about them.
Casuals...well not casuals, all of humanity in general are so stuck up their own ass and are collectively so miserable that they can't wait for a chance to plunge into an alternative more pleasing reality.

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>>378519473
>>378514740

>>378519626
>Game dev uni

Name an openworld made by a game-dev-uni-fag.

>>378519362
Open World games reuse stuff a lot. It's a different approach, but the amount of work is the same.

You don't really believe the shit devs claim to justify the price of their games now do you?

>>378521250
But there are a lot of technical challenges an openworld must face that linear games don't:

- More bugs related with terrain.
- More space and seamless transitions
- Harder AI pathfinding (more open space but also more localizations, which means more transition nodes)
- Let's not talk about design choices because nowdays they are all shit (make sure everything is balanced no matter where you go.)