Starker on 18/6/2018 at 07:31
It's not just any open world, though. It's from the guys who made Witcher 3.
Sulphur on 18/6/2018 at 07:39
That's what I mean. They could make it smaller and I'd still be interested, even if it were a corridor shooter. They'd be talented enough to make it work either way. Open-world doesn't mean all that much to me in RPGs since it's a genre you where can take it for granted that the gamespace will always be 'open' to some extent.
But let's ask the really important questions: is it really open-world if it's taking place in a city? (Don't answer that.)
Thirith on 18/6/2018 at 07:48
What I'd like to see is an RPG that makes good use of the kind of systems you get in the best open worlds. One of the things that massively disappointed me about Mankind Divided was that Prague simply didn't feel alive, and that's true for the more traditional RPGs as well: people just stand around, shuffling their feet and looping the same three or four barks. I would like to see an RPG where the world looks and feels as alive, at least on a surface level, as Liberty City or Los Santos. Ultima VII did this really well back in the day, even its 'living world' systems were obviously quite primitive - but few modern RPGs have replicated even that level of a living world. Since Ultima (specifically from the fifth to the seventh game in the series) was where I learnt to love RPGs, I've always missed worlds that seem reasonably coherent and alive, and it's one of the reasons why a game like Red Dead Redemption actually scratched that particular itch more than the likes of Pillars of Eternity.
Sulphur on 18/6/2018 at 07:50
Yeah, it'd be nice to see interesting NPC routines that simulate their lives, and a more granular level of interaction in a fleshed out world, like U7 for the modern era... but I imagine the effort required would be absolutely ridiculous. Maybe possible in a more condensed space than Britannia, though.
Thirith on 18/6/2018 at 08:29
Yeah, it may be that while U7's living world systems worked for that level of graphical fidelity, creating systems that make NPCs seem truly alive in modern games require so much more detail to be believable that it's almost impossible to pull it off. Rockstar fakes living worlds extremely well, but they also have insane budgets.
However, for the relatively contained RPG locations of old-school games like Pillars of Eternity and immersive sims like the modern Deus Ex games, it should be feasible to make those look and feel more alive than they do.
Starker on 18/6/2018 at 08:36
That's why Warren Spector's idea of a one city block RPG sounds so intriguing. And you wouldn't need a GTA size budget to do it.
Thirith on 18/6/2018 at 08:50
That's kinda what Mankind Divided did, though, there were missions that took place outside the city block. I didn't think the game pulled it off all that well (the Prague hub felt very artificial to me), but I like the idea and hope that others will try their hand at it with more success.
Starker on 18/6/2018 at 09:06
Mankind Divided did very little of the in-depth simulation that Warren's idea is about. It's basically that you have this one city block and people live their lives like they would in reality -- closing up shops, etc. And they would have complex relationships and histories with each other. And everything would be simulated down to the smallest detail. The way he proposed it, it's framed as the antithesis of the open world game -- instead of miles wide and an inch deep, you aim for the opposite.
PigLick on 18/6/2018 at 09:22
That actually sounds really cool.
Thirith on 18/6/2018 at 09:33
Yeah, admittedly Mankind Divided only did the "one city block RPG", not the systems'n'simulation bit. More or less the only concession MD made to making its hub feel alive was that it changed in between the missions outside Prague to reflect how things were escalating.
