What is An Open World Game?

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Morkonan wrote:

Does "Open World" only apply to games focused primarily on a single player-character?


Is a "4X" an "Open World?"

Now THIS is worth exploring. Is it something of a given that most MMOs are 'open world'? Having played my share, I'd say yes unless specified otherwise. For example, Guild Wars 1 remains cursed with an MMO image even though no one who's played it considers it such -- ArenaNet themselves call it a CORPG: competitive online RPG. It is not an MMO since its only shared instances are towns; the moment you leave town, only you and your party members are in any given instance (HMMM SOUND FAMILIAR, EXILES?). But it sure looks open world, with its huge map, over the shoulder perspective and diverse area biomes and environs.

That aside, I think a core condition of an MMO is the ability to haplessly wander into areas that will kick your arse in two seconds flat. To me that is one of the foundations of an open world set up. This could be why I actually have trouble seeing certain sandbox games as open world: Oblivion, for example, scales with you quite forgivingly.

And then there's the invisible walls, contrived or otherwise. Assassin's Creed uses 'blocked memories' to restrict its 'open world' quite strictly at times. I liked the basic conceit of the series but that really took me out of it and reminded me, oh yeah, this is a simulation...

Speaking of which, possibly one of the most open 'open world' games of recent years, No Man's Sky, flies a similar flag in terms of concept but has no such invisible walls. Instead it has seemingly repetitive content ad nauseum, and it wasn't until they had years to tweak the math that the repetition stopped being as glaringly noticeable planet to planet as those 'memory block' walls in AC. And, of course, the much-vaunted and extremely late 'multiplayer' function, which I've played a bit with friends (it's fun) but never once considered integral to the game's status as 'open world'.

NOW, as for 4x games, they're not open world for the one simple reason you brought up, a criterion which all of the abovementioned games meet but no 4X game likely ever will: an open world game is all about the individual's experience in that world. The moment you stop playing a single character, it's not open world. You're too close to the omniscient then, because you're doing something no human can actually do: control multiple individuals at once without resistance other than that which has been coded into them. Sure, games can simulate unit individuality by having them be coded to resist orders or react against them (eg fear in the face of overwhelming odds), but it's ultimately a god-like experience. You aren't experiencing the open world; you're a super-human force affecting it.

And obviously it's not about the explicitly 'human' experience either. Eve Online has always been open world and for the most part, players have been nothing more than a spaceship controlled by some far-future pod-bound 'human' who likely rarely leaves that pod.

I do not subscribe to this notion that open world games are inherently dictated by cause and effect, mainly because that level of complexity was totally beyond most if not all of the classic open world games and, I think, is a serious Pandora's box even now. Better not to flirt with the idea at all than to do it half-arsed. I always appreciate it when I see it but usually it's little more than a branching sequence of events. If it diversifies and enriches the experience, that's great. But if it merely complicates it, then I'd rather not have to deal with it at all. And, for the record, I much prefer cause and effect in non open world games. I was recently playing Vampyr, a sand boxish game set in 1918 London, at the height of the Spanish Flu. Who I killed mattered; who I saved mattered. It affected entire districts. But I was not free to roam the streets of London willy-nilly -- the zones were large, but they never gave the impression of open world. I had a play area, and exerted a very large amount of influence over it. Again, fairly god-like experience despite effort made to make the npcs seem 'human'.

So what does a game take to be called 'open world' for me? Loosely:

1. Freedom to get yourself killed if you're not paying attention to the level of areas

2. immediate individual experience rather than omniscient or collective 'command' based

3. As few invisible walls as possible

4. Some measure of cause and effect in the game itself, not just other players (if applicable)

5. At least an illusion of autonomy in the npcs, of them having something like an inner life irrelevant to your experience as the 'main character'

6. Building on that, a truly great open world game leaves me with a pervading sense that to the npcs, I might be the npc.

Or something like that.

Either way, 4X definitely isn't Open World to me.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

...NOW, as for 4x games, they're not open world for the one simple reason you brought up, a criterion which all of the abovementioned games meet but no 4X game likely ever will: an open world game is all about the individual's experience in that world....

The "individual's experience."

Yesterday, and into the night, I used Steam to search for some "open-world time-waster because I'm going stir-crazy" games.

It appears that many "4X" games are "Open World" games, according to Steam.

A ton of other crap also qualifies as "Open World." Apparently... as long as there is one degree-of-freedom in a game, no matter if it's just the developer's path to the consumer's wallet, it can qualify as an "Open World" game. (Steam isn't a good example of how to define genres as it allows users to "tag" products. Frequent recurrence of such tagging will eventually push a game into the tagged category...ie: Gamers don't know how to define games, anymore.)

If there is a definition that is essentially "everything" for a word that means "something" then one knows that definition or the actual word is...meaningless.

One can do simple websearches using popular engines to validate that... As data and more "words" get exposed and more users, particularly bots, click on sites associated with searches and other clicks and more traffic every day... I find that most routine web searches using the major engines do not return the quality of results they used to. (IMO/anecdotal)

Games do not seem to be free of the issue of "more is more betterer" either.

In yesterday's desperate search for entertainment, I found repeated instances of games making claims of "open world" that were just plain nonsense. Why?

As you say, it's the "user experience" that most of us would probably say is critical in defining what an "Open World" game is. Of course, since it's "language," but we do all have an expected experience those words communicate to us. They're just not all the same expectations. (Hence, the thread.)

But...

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Xandharba wrote:

Pac Man is an open world !

True? Not true? It's likely "True" in the strictest sense - We generally acknowledge that characters are naturally limited by the tools available in-game to achieve a goal and player skill. "Pac-Man" can access any "tool" it can maneuver to. Moving on to new maps is an accepted game mechanic and is the primary goal. Pac-Man is not significantly limited from the "game world" or in accessing its various "mechanics."


So, what about a "god game?"

In a 4x, we're playing as some sort of "god." But, because we're moving and using more tools like other characters and NPCs, why isn't it an "open world" experience?

Kenshi is an "Open World" experience, but one can have many more characters than the starting choice. It doesn't stop and the player doesn't "fail" with the loss of one's starting character, either.

Some "party-based combat" games might also qualify. (A lot of them seem to be story-driven adventures, though. A natural evolution of that genre?)

Basically, what I'm saying is that it goes beyond the icons on the screen and into the "user experience" in a more holistic way than what is mechanically represented on the screen. Though, those mechanics are certainly important - They are supporting the creation of that experience in the user's mind.

More intense user-experiences by the player pressing the buttons tend to be games with a player-character that promotes engagement and attachment. RPGs are great at doing that.

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...6. Building on that, a truly great open world game leaves me with a pervading sense that to the npcs, I might be the npc...

You build heavily on narrative elements in a game. :) So, for you, this narrative that plays out is consequential. We can run with that...

Plot Drive Story

Character Driven Story

The basics are pretty bsaic - In a plot driven story, the characters are primarily reacting to "what happens." In a character driven story, the characters are primarily doing the "what happens."

React vs Do

In reading your post and thinking on this to try to come up with the most simple, most direct, shortest concept of "Open World" I think hitting on this train of thought yields some fruit.

Open-World is largely a game that promotes a character-driven narrative or experience. You make the decisions, you do the doing of things.

In an open world game, you're not following rails, reacting to the unveiling of plots, or having the narrative that unfolds in your head be largely dictated by mechanics in the game focused on presenting the player with limited "choice."

You "do." You go places, do whatever you want, explore what you wish, interact with whatever NPCs you have at least some reasonable ability to interact with, and largely establish your own goals to be achieved...

IMO, all games fall within the concepts of a fairly simple definition - They're products, largely for entertainment purposes, that present their players with a limited set of tools to use to achieve a game-related goal. They reward the successful use of those tools in achieving those goals.

Drilling down further, one may be able to define an open-world game as a game that largely supports player-determined "goals."

You don't have to kill "The Big Bad" if you don't want to. You don't have follow the quest-line, and can go wherever your character(s) has the tools to be able to go and can get many of those tools through a variety of methods in the game or at least fairly easily.

Not only do you do the "doing of things," you also do the doing of setting your own goals to be achieved using the game's tools.

BUT, that runs into the problem of a confusing sort of definition that doesn't say enough about itself. Contrary to ones that say "everything," this kind of definition says so little that it can be confused with many other things, like a "sand-box game." :) Though, I'd add, a "sand-box" game generally doesn't have game-directed goals or any rigid structure other than that which is necessary to support the game's tools.

I think a 4X game can provide all of that just as well as a character-based RPG.

But, if it's a game that has a defined "victory condition" as well as penalizing the failure to achieve that, then... Just how strongly does a final "victory condition" matter in terms of presenting itself as a rigorous, omnipresent, kind of "narrative?"

Then again, I "win" games I don't win. I have yet to down Sirus in PoE, but I've had some "winning" experiences I feel good about. Did I win, anyway?

I'm having PTSD from /R/MMORPG, talking about what is, and what isn't an MMORPG.....

Please, make it stop!

Also, Minecraft is a sandbox game first and foremost (hence, the crater that sticks around when you use TNT), but it is also an open-world game. Although, using 'open world' as a descriptor for minecraft is not only redundant, but also undermining of what its focus really is.

Oh, morkonan. No. Nonono.

https://store.steampowered.com/tag/

Guess which part of that is relevant here. Why did you do that to yourself!?

Longer reply forthcoming when i am clralrh bot on my phobe.

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BearCares wrote:

What is An Open World Game?

The definition of an open world game is easy: A fairly large world/map built for exploration, where you can freely roam. Of course CP2077 is an open world game. No one in their right mind (sorry) can say otherwise.

However, CP2077 is NOT a sandbox open world game. The world doesn't change. It doesn't evolve. There's nothing you can do to influence the world. Minecraft, on the other hand, is a sandbox open world game.

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Phrazz wrote:

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BearCares wrote:

What is An Open World Game?

The definition of an open world game is easy: A fairly large world/map built for exploration, where you can freely roam. Of course CP2077 is an open world game. No one in their right mind (sorry) can say otherwise.

However, CP2077 is NOT a sandbox open world game. The world doesn't change. It doesn't evolve. There's nothing you can do to influence the world. Minecraft, on the other hand, is a sandbox open world game.

Cyberpunk is a hubworld game. Like Banjo-Kazooie. It's neither sandbox or open world. It's just a big empty hub world with a bunch of zombie fashion offenders popping into and out of existence.

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BearCares wrote:

Cyberpunk is a hubworld game. Like Banjo-Kazooie. It's neither sandbox or open world. It's just a big empty hub world with a bunch of zombie fashion offenders popping into and out of existence.

CP2077 is as much an open world game as GTA, Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout, whatever. Just because you don't like the mechanics, doesn't make it less of an open world game.

Like the late TotalBiscuit said about Skyrim: "It's the size of an ocean, but has the depth of a puddle". We can probably say the same about CP2077, but it's still an "open world".

Every game saves resources by de-spawning NPC's when you're not "looking". CP2077 just makes it in a worse way than other games. Doesn't make the "open world" any less "open".

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Phrazz wrote:

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BearCares wrote:

Cyberpunk is a hubworld game. Like Banjo-Kazooie. It's neither sandbox or open world. It's just a big empty hub world with a bunch of zombie fashion offenders popping into and out of existence.

CP2077 is as much an open world game as GTA, Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout, whatever. Just because you don't like the mechanics, doesn't make it less of an open world game.

Like the late TotalBiscuit said about Skyrim: "It's the size of an ocean, but has the depth of a puddle". We can probably say the same about CP2077, but it's still an "open world".

Every game saves resources by de-spawning NPC's when you're not "looking". CP2077 just makes it in a worse way than other games. Doesn't make the "open world" any less "open".

Cyberpunk's world has NO depth at all outside of the main campeign. And sorry no... street cred is just a Level system. Like whoa you have 20 street cred aka you made it to level 20! That's not an open world mechanic. It's a hub world mechanic. You unlocked door 20. Go to door 20. That's what it is.

And let me just say - I wanted to LOVE this game. I didn't want to hate it. I get no satisfaction from saying bad things about it. But the bad things just so happen to be the truth. It's not open world or sandbox. It was an afterthought of a tech demo that was created so that CDPR could get the funding they needed in order to make Red engine more compeitive in the lincensing market. (That's my theory)

I mean just look at the HACKING system. In a game all abotu hacking. And the law enforcement system in a game all abotu criminal activity. It all looks like a rough draft. No iteration at all. Why is the hacking so fucking 1 dimensional? Why do the citizens squat down like fucking morons when they feel the slightest threat? It's 100% immersion breaking and yet they left it in there like that.

The guy/woman in charge was instructed to make a game engine, not a game. Why does all the food/drink/alcohol have the same effect on V with no variation at all? I could just go on and on how this game was just a scam.

A tad redherringy, but many companies apply very predatory m(acro)tx strategies. Cyberpunk (for PC - haven't played any console version) is just a one-time payment and for that money you are definitely getting what you pay for. So, definitely not a fo76 type of scam.

I agree that the gameworld is, outside of the main story or bigger side arcs, rather shallow (nevermind all the bugs/silly oversights for now). Biggest disappointment for me was that I couldn't roleplay in conversations.

While I won't expect New Vegas level of conversation, I'm still going to replay CP after all the bigger patches or dlcs have been released (if Mass Effect doesn't completely devour my life, that is).

As for open world - it is open world after the Heist (xD) mission. There are no invisible walls, go where you want when you want and you can easily get your ass handed to you if you're too weak for a zone. The problem here is, at least for me, that you can't really find a middle ground - you are either too weak or totally op. I remember some area with red skull enemies, hopeless for me at the time. Came back 10 levels later with 200k headshots and it was trivial.

Game difficulty is another let-down. None of the progression-related problems are fixed by difficulty. I started on Very Hard and more or less got through the game without a bigger hiccup with one exception - the god damn boxing matches. That brings up another problem - the hand to hand combat - hideous, awful, silly, but I digress..

Overall, the game may be open world, but it is disappointing to put it charitably. I wouldn't mind a No Man's Sky kind of comeback.

In my opinion there are walls EVERYWHERE. One of the primary walls is the COPS. If you do anything the game doesn't like or support (which is basically anything but bee line from one hub world portal to the next) the COPS come out of thin air essentially applying a GLOBAL DAMAGE OVER TIME to the player that never relents unless you hop in a car and continue to do what? BEE LINE TO THE NEXT SUPPORTED HUB WORLD PORTAL. This is the devs training your ass to play a certain way. Many of you took the lesson to heart rather immediately and never looked back. But I didn't. It was a cloud that hangs over the entire game for me - ironically in a game that's all about defying authority or other people's values.

Not to mention the barricades at the end of many streets that are literally invisible walls.

Then as you mention the dialogue is another brick wall where V's personality is so fucking hard coded into every single """"""choice"""""".

Yeah I gave it 6 air quotes because it fucking deserves that many.

The game is nothing but walls. But just like with Skyrim, people who want to imagine that they aren't there will be more or less satiated.