How Deus Ex was almost too complex for its own good (Warren Spector interview on Ars) - by rachel
ZylonBane on 18/12/2021 at 23:01
At this point I almost feel bad for Warren that the only thing anyone ever wants to interview him about is a game he worked on over 20 years ago.
Pyrian on 18/12/2021 at 23:11
Deus Ex is "open-world"? Huh.
rachel on 19/12/2021 at 00:06
By today's standards probably not, but for the time, yeah I'd call it that.
Pyrian on 19/12/2021 at 03:02
I wouldn't. The Ultimas were open-world. Daggerfall was open-world. Deus Ex was linear as heck with the occasional small hub.
Starker on 19/12/2021 at 09:08
Dark Souls is quite a bit more open world than Deus Ex and I wouldn't call even Dark Souls an open world RPG, because despite you being able to sequence-break and do things out of order and go back to where you started, there still is a definite sequence that you have to follow most of the time if you want to progress. And same goes for the old Bioware formula of "visit three worlds in any sequence".
ZylonBane on 19/12/2021 at 17:58
Having to follow a sequence to progress is a characteristic of lots of open world games. I consider any game where you can freely revisit any part of that world that you've previously visited to be open world. So Anachronox, VtM: Bloodlines, both System Shocks: open world. Deus Ex: Not open world.
Most western RPGs are open world by default, so Deus Ex is a weird anomaly in that regard.
Starker on 19/12/2021 at 18:55
To be clear, I don't mean sequence in that you have a set of objectives to follow in a particular order, I mean sequence in the sense that you have an otherwise very linear path that you can sometimes deviate from, a la Super Metroid.
And to me, there's a difference between games with the metroidvania style level design where you follow a much more linear and heavily gated path (Dark Souls) and an open world where you can head practically in any direction right from the start (Fallout, Morrowind, Witcher 3). Of course, it's not a black and white distinction and a lot of games fall somewhere in between.
ZylonBane on 20/12/2021 at 02:42
You're conflating two related but distinct things-- a persistent, openly navigable world, and nonlinear quest structure. You can have the former without the latter.
Even in the Fallouts, there are many locations that are inaccessible until you've reached a certain point in the plot. Yet most people wouldn't call any Fallout a Metroidvania.
Starker on 20/12/2021 at 06:34
I'm not conflating them, I'm listing them as examples of things that are characteristics of an open world game in my book.
Quote Posted by Starker
being able to sequence-break and do things out of order and go back to where you started
1. Being able to sequence break -- in context of level design, this means that instead of having to go from A to B to C to D, in that order, you can go from A to C to D or even directly from A to D.
2. Being able to do things out of order -- this includes quests, but also other things you can do in the world, such as collecting items, recruiting party members etc.
3. Being able to backtrack and revisit parts of the world.
Sure, 1 and 2 are closely related as you are generally also able to do things in the locations you visit. And 2 is not strictly necessary for open world, but it would make for a very heavily railroaded RPG otherwise and at the very least I'd consider it a waste of an open world.
1 and 3 I would count as absolutely necessary for a game to be considered open world, though. If you had a game that satisfied 3, but not 1, I don't think I'd consider it an open world, because it would be excessively linear.
Also, yet another aspect is how world travel is done. If you can't freely travel between locations and have to transport from area to area via portals or some other form of fast travel, then I'd call it a hub world game instead. A prime example of that would be Demon's Souls and I'd even put VTMB under that label, as you essentially travel from hub to hub.
Oh, and I'm not calling Dark Souls a metroidvania game either. It's just that I consider its level design to be more like that of a metroidvania game than an open world game.