Games

I look at the RPGs I enjoyed and the ones I didn't and I think what I want more than anything in RPGs is for them to be fleshed out and well fitting.

If the world is too big for the story it feels empty and the side quests don't feel connected. If it's too small, it feel cluttered. It's a fine balance.

A lot of quests in games have a specified start and an end, and are unimaginative. It's 2025. I'm not bringing somebody 20 orc horns for a slightly better sword. Well, I will, but I don't want to. It just feels lazy.

I'd rather stumble across a thread woven into the world and follow it both ways to it's logical conclusion, choosing any branches along the way.

Honestly, I think "big" works against developers if they're trying to make something that just fits. When you look at something like BG3, the world isn't that huge. But once you start filling out all the blanks, it takes you a long time to get through.

He's right. We don't need maps bigger than Skyrim, we just need content and good core gameplay loops. Being hugely moddable like Skyrim really helps too.

I think the issue is that most game's core gameplay loops are not endlessly replayable. Lots of single player RPGs fall into the trap of being alright to progress through for maybe 20 hours, but you can quickly become so powerful that the rest of the game falls into busywork. It's really hard to meaningfully introduce new and interesting gameplay after the 30 hour mark, but without it things become same-y.

I'd argue this is just a fault of poor game design though. There are RPGs with really well iterated gameplay loops, with a wide array of variety, that I'm happy to put 400+ hours in. Games like Baldur's Gate 3, or Elden Ring, have a lot of freedom and variety in the way you can approach a playthrough, even allowing you to dramatically change things mid-playthrough, while still feeling mechanically satisfying to play. A 10/10 game will feel good to play forever, but a 7/10 might get boring after 15.

Skyrim is huge. I played it last year, going to all locations and doing main and side quests. That takes 100 hours or so.

Now I'm playing Elden Ring with SOTE, doing the same thing. I'm around 180h in and honestly I kind of want to finish by now.

So yeah, I don't see 600 hours of playtime as a positive goal. Unless they mean expand the map but don't keep up the content ratio. In that case, why the fuck would that be good? More travelling isn't worth anything.

I quite like sandbox games so in those cases I would like it bigger, but at the same time I have no need for some main storyline to be in the game either. I want to be able to live in the world and either challenge comes just from surviving or things you find while exploring.

Only if the interesting content scales with size.
I am honestly excited to what GTA6 can bring to the content map. Considering how dense some parts of GTA 5 already are.

Skyrim size was just about right. I just want a deeper stat sytem that promotes more build diversity than stealth archer (but keeping the skill tree system intact - never want to go back to the Morrowind/Oblivion systems), enemies and items that don't level with me, more monster variety (so sick of draugr), and bring back levitation and modifiable acrobatics!

Agreed, to an extent.

I do think advancements in AI will eventually give us open world games with infinite procedurally generated engaging quests and NPC interactions. That’ll be cool. In the meantime, I don’t need a team of humans to burn themselves out to produce a large amount of bleh content.

The thing about not finishing games is very true. Simply look at achievement stats. Most games have a huge drop off in achievements earned after the first 25-50% of the game, with any achievement for completing the story of the game having a super small number of players who earned it. Even games that are easy as fuck and practically play themselves!

World size, density, and traversal have to be balanced.

I tend to play without fast travel, and skyrim meets these three pretty well, using the carts and horse for faster travel.

GTA can be bigger, with cars and planes for long distances.

Large worlds are great, if they are packed w content, open barren landscapes are terrible.

Ghost recon wildlands for me is the sweet spot for a big, interesting world with good traversal options.

I want worlds big enough that I can suspend disbelief. True scale is too much (True Crime: Streets of LA was awful to traverse, for example) but too small and it feels like being in one of those play parks for small children. It's a problem I've had with Fallout 3+, where the scale makes no sense. I don't necessarily need the additional space to be dense with content (if it's supposed to be a barren waste, why is it full of stuff?!).

I want to buy into these worlds, but I struggle when things feel ridiculous. Oh are you struggling for supplies? Even though there's supplies 50m away from your settlement? Come on!

The first Red Dead Redemption hit the spot for me, as did the native settlement in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The scale isn't actually realistic, but it's large enough that I feel like it could be. GTA IV wasn't bad either, but GTA V was too compact in many places for my tastes.

I suppose it's much like the theatre. If a scene is well written it feels fine, but if the play calls attention to the limitations of the medium too much then it starts to become a bit silly.

Honestly, I feel like games have been getting too big. The ends of RPGs always feel like a slog these days.

Maybe it’s because every game thinks it needs a 3 act denouement. Maybe it’s because there’s 100x the games coming out now compared to when I was young and the feeling of wanting to get to the next one is rushing me. Or maybe I’m just plain getting old.

In any case, I’m ok with shorter games.

I think it really depends on the game.

An MMO or a sandbox game I can sink hours and hours into. I don't know how many hours I've lost to games like Minecraft, Rimworld, etc. Even if those types of games might have "objectives", I'm more likely to just kind of do my own thing.

And I had something like 500 days logged in with my Final Fantasy XI character. It was my default game and I kept playing because I always felt I had something to do and people to meet.

Narrative focused games? Nope. While I might enjoy playing, the narrative can feel more like a chore in a game that has too much stuff to do, especially if mechanics or areas are locked behind it. I will end up ADHD because I hit a block or feel like the game is forcing me to do the main story when I don't want to.

I had that happen in Fallout 3 where I was just wondering around, having fun exploring and stumbling on things, and I end up finding someone I didn't even know I needed to look for connected to my dad and suddenly I felt I was being pulled away from what I found fun.

Might be why I really liked 76 despite the hate it got/gets.

8 times bigger than Witcher 3 filled wilth Witcher 3 quality content would be a godsend. 8 times bigger than Witcher 3 filled with procedural generation and AI slop... not so much.

If it's good it's good. I bought the witcher 3 DLC and would have bought more. I stopped playing Assassins Creed altogether. People just want good, crafted content.

What game developers should do is add more "jump back in" modes. I get busy with work so I might leave for a few months midway through a long game and forget some plot and controls.

Honestly one of the best games I've played recently is the Stanley Parable and that game is a couple of hours of poking around a quirky but literal office. Would happily buy that 60 times over one massively mediocre rpg.

The only thing that I hate from open world is emptiness, you can have big or massive world but if it's seems so empty why bother to make it. Like Fallout & Skyrim we always use mods to fill that emptiness to make it feel alive.
I rather have game with small world but filled with many NPC like old Dragon Age

I feel like how big I want the game to be is a weird quantum unstable value. When I'm interested in the game I want it to keep going. But at some point I lose interest, and I want it to wrap up. But usually I don't want to skip content that's at least okay, especially if it affects endings and other choices.

Like I enjoyed Veilguard, but there were bits near the end where I was losing focus and kind of wanted it to pick up the pace. There have been other games where I finished all the side quests but was like "that's it? I want more"

Not sure how to square this circle. I don't think procedural generated or AI content is quite up to the task yet.

I do think we'll see a game that has AI content in the critical path in the next couple years though. You'll go to camp and talk to Shadowheart, and it'll try to just make up new dialogue. I don't know if it'll be good. There will probably be at some weird ass hallucinations that'll become memes.

I would never finish a game 8 times longer than Witcher 3+exansions. I started once, got burned out and had to restart a year later to get to the end. Enjoyed it a lot but yeah. I don't need like 1600 hours of anything.