I think we can all agree that instances are not "open world".
There are other systems in games that are more of a grey area when defining if a game is open world or not.
I'm curious to hear others opinions on what a truly open world game is.
If VR gets creative with systems that toe the line of being truly open world, I'm curious how most people would define what an "open world" game is?
How would you define it in a few sentences or less?
MauvaisOeil said:To me it means simply a world withouth zone line, it's quite "simple" and tied to the definition of it.
What else do you mean by "open world" ?
Unless they radically change something, which is always possible, Pantheon will have, albeit large, zones. Zoning will be a thing.
This thread was based on the recent interview. We don't know specifics so I kept it vague on purpose.
If players and mobs are invisible to others is that considered open world?
Is it open world if you don't have the option to interact with, or even see, what is going on in the world around you? My first reaction is no but I wanted to see others opinions.
I mean zone lines are technically a form of instancing and Pantheon has these... soo Pantheon has never been designed as a true open-world experience. A truly open world doesn't have zone boundaries, instancing, separate channels which act as server instancing (sort of like TERA).
While I'm ok with zone lines, I don't think that player phasing promotes any aspects of open-world design. This is basically just instancing based around how far a player has progressed, and it only separates the player base instead of bringing them together. I think it's a cool concept to see the world change on a players client, but to have them phased from the rest of the community in order to see this change is just damaging.
WoW did something like this during their later expansions and it had a horrible impact on grouping. It lead to grouping issues where players could group with phased players but they couldn't see these players, they were unable to share progress towards objective completions, and in all honesty, it just acted as a barrier between players.
Open world to me means if you see a mountain you are able to scale to the top of it. It may take a couple different routes to get there but you can get to the top of it. Every game is going to have chunking or zoning in a sense. With a world that big you have to. But being able to go into houses and look around, climb trees, levitate and fly around anywhere you choose with nothing stopping you is the definition of open world to me.
Well, true open world would be no instancing, no zone lines, nothing that makes you see a loading screen once you're in the game. To me, it also means being able to interact with most of the landscape, as well. Climbing mountains, swimming to the bottom of a river or lake, falling from a castle wall into a tree below or on top of a guard house - functioning like the actual world would in regards to exploration.
Open world, to me, means that for any piece of given content, there exists only one version of it. No copies, no simultaneously existing similar/exact versions.
Content separated by a zoneline, key, or flag is not instanced content but rather segmented content because there still only exists a single version of that content. In the EQ1 Planes of Power expansion, there were the Trials in the Plane of Justice. While these rooms were physically separate from the rest of the zone, each trial could only be done one trial at a time. A group wishing to run the Trial of Execution had to wait for the group currently doing that trial to finish. By contrast, in the Gates of Discord expansion any number of groups could be doing the Ikkinz trials simultaneously.
Another way to determine if content is open world is if killing a mob removes that mob for everyone until it respawns. You kill Lord Bob and nobody else can kill him until his respawn timer expires.
Semi-Instanced content is content that you can specifically spawn at a time of your choosing, provided you meet the prerequisits. So while the content appears at your demand that particular time and appears in the same world that everyone else inhabits, another person/guild can come in behind you and spawn that same content. EQ1 epics had quite a few examples of exactly this mechanic.
Open world from an industry term is more the realm of no instances and if you can see it you can reach it mentality. You also have the freedom of going with the golden story path or just goof off doing whatever you want and things will wait for you.
Honestly, I think all of the early MMO's already achieve the second point that you cand go do things at your own pace and content waits for you. Some of the later MMOs that utilize phasing, instanced quest checkpoints that change the world, or even level requirements to reach certain areas have done more to close off the worlds with their freedom allowed.
Instances have a bad connotation in the MMO scene for various reasons, but people confuse the tool with the effects it can cause. If the game is trying to tell a story that is compelling and meaningful and they want to set the stage specifically and guests or other players will inhibit this then instancing might be applicable. For example, you have decided to join a werewolf cult and traveled to a secret ritual room and 10 seconds after your ceremony begins another player arrives to do theirs and you are seeing duplications of the ceremony/story. Or in the middle of your milestone ceremony, you have another player in a silly outfit jumping around distracting you during what should have been special to you. Conversely instancing can be used improperly when you complete an epic quest and everyone wants to celebrate with you in the town square where you get the reward from the faction leader.
For me "open world" just means there is no specific linear path a player is ushered through. A player can explore the world to their hearts desire and generally if they can see a place then they can go there.
Zones have nothing to do with open world to me, that would be "seamless" open world.
Interesting question - interesting answers. Some of us define "open world" as having the same meaning as "sandbox" and some of us view it quite differently.
I want a mostly open world.
To me open world means one where we can all interact with each other and with the world itself. Not instanced at all. I consider zone lines irrelevant - merely a technical limitation since you can cross a zone line and interact with a player or monster on the other side.
To me "if you can see it you can get to it" is almost meaningless, If you can see a tall mountain range in the distance you can get to the top of every single mountain? All MMOs have areas you can not get to and part of the fun for many is trying - knowing that success is not certain. I would agree that invisible barriers to keep players where the developers want them is a lazy, frustrating and just bad approach but to be able to get to anything you can see regardless of the height or depth or distance. No.
Why do I not want a completely open world? Because I want them to be able to have two or three or ten versions of the same area if just having one would turn the game into an unplayable mess. Because I want a tutorial area that is limited to one player (and that is purely optional). Because where aggressive guilds or players can block important content or prevent a story from being told I want VR to be able to instance that very limited thing. As in a player entering her own instance for two minutes to see a nice detailed beautiful story illustrating where dwarves come from. The type of thing FFXIV did so well. Or as in an encounter that is required to open up an entire zone being always available - not camped by griefers. But Terminus should be *almost* entirely open world.
Iksar said:For me "open world" just means there is no specific linear path a player is ushered through. A player can explore the world to their hearts desire and generally if they can see a place then they can go there.
Zones have nothing to do with open world to me, that would be "seamless" open world.
dorotea said:Interesting question - interesting answers. Some of us define "open world" as having the same meaning as "sandbox" and some of us view it quite differently.
I want a mostly open world.
To me open world means one where we can all interact with each other and with the world itself. Not instanced at all. I consider zone lines irrelevant - merely a technical limitation since you can cross a zone line and interact with a player or monster on the other side.
To me "if you can see it you can get to it" is almost meaningless, If you can see a tall mountain range in the distance you can get to the top of every single mountain? All MMOs have areas you can not get to and part of the fun for many is trying - knowing that success is not certain. I would agree that invisible barriers to keep players where the developers want them is a lazy, frustrating and just bad approach but to be able to get to anything you can see regardless of the height or depth or distance. No.
Why do I not want a completely open world? Because I want them to be able to have two or three or ten versions of the same area if just having one would turn the game into an unplayable mess. Because I want a tutorial area that is limited to one player (and that is purely optional). Because where aggressive guilds or players can block important content or prevent a story from being told I want VR to be able to instance that very limited thing. As in a player entering her own instance for two minutes to see a nice detailed beautiful story illustrating where dwarves come from. The type of thing FFXIV did so well. Or as in an encounter that is required to open up an entire zone being always available - not camped by griefers. But Terminus should be *almost* entirely open world.
If I glom what you both said together I think that more or less covers what "open world" means to me.
It's not about instancing or the lack thereof, although I would want to see instancing only used sparingly, in places and at times where it makes sense. It's not about zone lines or zone walls, although I certainly do want to be able to really explore everything I can see. It's more about not having a golden path, not being led around by the nose, and not being given a guided experience of every landmark or piece of content.
In Vanguard, I once spent the better part of three days exploring the mountains and forests of Western Thestra. I got lost and turned around a few times and found myself back where I started. I had to skirt Old Targonor a couple of times as well, because those undead were super mean. But I found so many cool places - a little valley with a ruined village high in the mountains (and a special event), a burnt-out cabin in the woods, a beautiful stream running through the foothills, even a housing area way out of the way of everything. There were no quests to guide me to these places. No other players telling me I should go there for phat lewts or mad expz. They were just places I could go and find if I went looking.
An open world game is a game where you are empowered and encouraged to choose your own path rather than being guided down the same one as everyone else.
Nephele said:In Vanguard, I once spent the better part of three days exploring the mountains and forests of Western Thestra. I got lost and turned around a few times and found myself back where I started. I had to skirt Old Targonor a couple of times as well, because those undead were super mean. But I found so many cool places - a little valley with a ruined village high in the mountains (and a special event), a burnt-out cabin in the woods, a beautiful stream running through the foothills, even a housing area way out of the way of everything. There were no quests to guide me to these places. No other players telling me I should go there for phat lewts or mad expz. They were just places I could go and find if I went looking.
An open world game is a game where you are empowered and encouraged to choose your own path rather than being guided down the same one as everyone else.
I did this very same thing. I just wandered for hours and hours. The world was so massive and beautiful, I got lost many times as well. Sure there was chunks, but as for just being able to run anywhere it literally was an open world. The fun part was seeing them add content to it. Places I thought were safe were no longer safe. Vanguard had a really good way of developing a nasty raid encounter and throwing him in the middle of nowhere. I would run and discover housing areas on the coasts too. And you could run a long ways out on the water as well. You thought you were at the end of the world but you really weren't. There was still a LOT of ground to cover. That's where ships came in handy.
So when we say "if you see mountains off in the distance you could reach them" that's literally what we meant. These were massive continents surrounded by water. I do recall levitating over the coast on Southern Qalia and my lev dropped when I chunked "one of Vanguards glorious bugs" and it dropped me in the ocean with man eatin sharks that made really short work of a halfling bard. I thought to myself why in the world do they have sharks that can one shot you in those waters. But later on that's where a lot of content would be released and they didn't want people getting sneak peaks.
In a nut shell the whole time I'm exploring these things I can't help but wonder if anyone else knows about it, or if anyone else has seen it. Fascinates me to explore uncharted territory.
One day we will call open world Seamless Open World with 10000 players, however we have to rely on the technoligy so we use zones. I am still ok with instancing to break the problems down for devs and the population.
I dread all the griefing in a seamless world though. Why i enjoyed some aspects of zones, and instancing.
I've always prefered zones to seamless, and Brad makes a lot of sense:
I haven't even talked about zones vs. a 'seamless world' yet, and how being able to expand an area that needs expanding by simply inserting additional zones is critical to having sufficient content, and content where you want and need it. Is it less immersive? To some, sure, and I understand the argument well (remember that one of our chief goals with VG was to make it zoneless). But the negatives outweigh the positives in such a big way. Having to work with an outdoor world whose size is determined prior to all of the metrics and information gathered even into late beta is extremely challenging and arguably dangerous -- playing with fire, so to speak. How do you re-size an area dynamically like you can do with zones if the outside world has already, probably some time ago, been stitched together into a 'seamless' grid of 'chunks'?
It is strange how this seems to have devolved into a seamless world vs zoned world discussion. Do some really not understand what is being referred to when open world is mentioned? Seamless vs zoned content is a different discussion. Games can be open or not regardless of whether there are zones. I'm confused how this is not understood? That wasn't part of the grey area that I mentioned in the OP.
philo said:It is strange how this seems to have devolved into a seamless world vs zoned world discussion. Do some really not understand what is being referred to when open world is mentioned? Seamless vs zoned content is a different discussion. Games can be open or not regardless of whether there are zones. I'm confused how this is not understood? That wasn't part of the grey area that I mentioned in the OP.
Well, if by open you mean being able to go and quest anywhere at any time, that probably wouldn't work so well. I think that would lead to overcrowded areas and leave some areas untouched. It would also be a bit contrary in a game where areas are tuned for certain level ranges.
philo said:It is strange how this seems to have devolved into a seamless world vs zoned world discussion. Do some really not understand what is being referred to when open world is mentioned? Seamless vs zoned content is a different discussion. Games can be open or not regardless of whether there are zones. I'm confused how this is not understood? That wasn't part of the grey area that I mentioned in the OP.
I've always personally considered open and seemless to be very similar. If what we seem to have now is considered an open world then it's very similar to many of the games people here aree trying to move on from. As it is now you run from Thronefast into Avendyr's Pass, and through there into Blackrose Keep, not that dissimilar from WoW, EQ2, and countless others, the only difference being a door you click. The difference of that door you dont have to click in Pantheon doesnt feel that different when you can't see mobs or groupmates on the other side. What would many consider to be a non-open world, something like Diablo where you join a lobby and zone in together and take a fixed path everywhere you go?
It's more about not having a golden path, not being led around by the nose, and not being given a guided experience of every landmark or piece of content.))
Here is where some people's definitions of open world and sandbox overlap. Fair enough - neither term really has a close to universally accepted definition.
To me a sandbox game is one where you have many areas you can go to and you aren't forced to always go to area one then area two then area three in that order. Some games have a mandatory golden path. That order of doing things is the only possible order. Some have an optional golden path. It is far more ...efficient ... to do things in that order but you don't absolutely have to. One theme of Pantheon that almost all of us agree on is that it will not be quest-driven with either type of golden path guiding us from character creation to maximum level. Thus to a large extent it will be sandbox as I define the term and open world as the comment I quoted might define the term.
Yet if we treat open world as synonymous with sandbox or "no golden path" this could include a game that is fully instanced. Hypothetically assume that all content is instanced for a solo player or for one group. So you never meet another player. Yet there are no quests and enemies are always your level whatever direction you go in. A combination of Elder Scrolls and Hellgate London in a truly miserable way. I would argue that this is the ultimate in sandbox and ultimate in having no open world whatsoever.